Alright, welcome to yet another webinar. We have been doing a series of leadership webinars and this one is exchange form media in association with video dot AI. And today we have a very interesting topic. Before I move further, I just want to put in a little bit of context to what the conversation is going to be today. You know, programmatic as we all know has become a dominating narrative over the last few years in in domain, not just media advertising, but across. And if you look at 2022, it is seen as the year in which publishers, if we talk about particularly should make the best use of programmatic methods. And there are many available. Today we have a very esteemed panel, people who are immersed, understand the nuances of this domain with us. And I want to start start introducing them. We have Mr. Bridges Chand, Chandela, a senior manager programmatic sales and monetization Times Internet. We have Mr. Gandhi Suresh founder and editor in chief power sports. We have Mr. Rahul Dogra, head tech, digital and new initiatives, daily Excel share. We have Mr. Suheep Hussain head programmatic sales audience and at ad operations, TNG global private limited. And we have Mr. Akash Pandey lead publisher success video dot AI. And my name is Rohail. I'm a senior editor at exchange for media. Great. But to have you all heard, you know, I just want to start with the only lady on the panel with you trying to understand, you know, how programmatic ecosystem has impacted the overall advertisement delivery over the few years. If you can give me a broad sense of that. Well, I think there's been a tremendous impact, you know, initially what the philosophy that was being used was what you call a spray and pray methodology, where you threw ads, and you just prayed that it hit the right people and got the right kind of engagement. What programmatic advertising has done is changed that entire spray and pray focus to target oriented focused approach. Right. So it's algorithm based and I'm sure a technical expert will give you more on that. But what this has done is just changed the expectations of the advertiser and change the expectations of the viewer as well. So it's a double edged sword. The focus now is on ROI, it's written on investment, because even even the advertiser knows that there's something called a programmatic advertising and the publisher can no longer rest on, you know, just throwing ads like the way it used to be done. So I think it's a change for the better, and it's putting everybody on their feet. And it's early stages, I think along the way to go. Perfect. Early stages. Rajesh, your quick thoughts. It's all about programmatic advertising. It's like getting the higher return on the strengths, basically. If you say about programmatic advertising, it also reduces overall costing to the system. Also, it will help advertisers to basically target correct audience, which basically they want to target. Also, there are some, basically, you can say relevant ads to the customers or you can say to the users. Okay. All right. So here I want to understand from you the kind of impact that we're talking about. How do you see, what kind of impact do you see has happened? Yeah. Actually, thanks for having me in this, for this discussion and thanks exchange for media. So it's from a publishers standpoint, what it has done is it has helped us to build a robust tech stack. From day one, we were very clear that our inventory will not be sold at a certain price. So what programmatic does is it helps you to kind of set certain flow prices and command the premiums for the inventory that you have. Especially in India where the programmatic rates are much lower than compared to other countries. Here, you have the option of setting flow prices and not letting cheap demand take away your inventory. That's key. That's the number one thing. The second thing is it also kind of reduces the discrepancy. When you do a programmatic deal with a direct buyer, since it's a server-to-server connection, there is no discrepancy in terms of the reporting or in terms of the interaction. So it kind of helps you to kind of cut down on the impression wastage on an ongoing basis. And finally, the biggest bottleneck for publishers is chasing for payments and all that, which kind of considerably gets reduced. And if you're working with the biggest tech partner in India, the payment cycle is just about three weeks. So it kind of helps you to solve that issue as well. So all in all, it benefits the publisher in a very big way. Absolutely. And it's not just the publisher in the bigger cities that is looking at programmatic. Even when you go deep down in the tier two, tier three regions, the impact is seen there. And we have Rahul here to share his perspective. Rahul, how do you see the impact of programmatic on the advertisement delivery overall, particularly in your case? In our case, actually, we have worked with multiple advertisers, agencies, particularly in the programmatic field. I have seen actually it is a win-win situation for both the advertisers and the publishers because we are just utilizing the space of the advertising part. For example, if we're placing a slot in our website and the programmatic chooses according to the users, for example, if I am to launch a particular car in our city, like in Jammu right now. And the programmatic chooses the ads with respect to the audience of that particular region because they want to target the audience. In our case, Jammu and Kishmir and Delhi itself is mostly covering the Jammu and Kishmir and the Ladakh part of it. In that case, we can say programmatic is solving a lot of issues and bottlenecks. Akash, coming to you, you have heard the panelists before you and having literally the skin in the game in an intense way when it comes to this conversation. How has this ecosystem evolved and got impacted, especially when you talk about advertisement delivery? So basically, when we talk about advertisement, if we talk about the traditional form of advertisement, it was only print and all the big advertisers had the access to that sort of advertisement model. And over the period of last four, five years, what we have seen is the change of user adaptation from coming from the print to digital. And this transformation overall has impacted the entire ecosystem of this advertiser or the user engagement. So I think how programmatic has impacted or created a bridge between both the advertisers, the users and the publishers, a very systemized way of targeting the users, the delivery of the advertisements. And this has definitely also impacted a lot of small scale advertisers which didn't have the budget of serving their advertisements on maybe the print scale. So on a larger perspective, when we talk about programmatic advertisement, this has enabled the publisher to take control of their inventory. As you have seen a spike in the coming years of the users coming onto the platform, plus it has also enabled the advertisers to be more interesting about what they are serving and how they are serving and whether the delivery is happening or not. So definitely from the delivery perspective, the targeted perspective and obviously at the bottom line, the revenue perspective, it has all evolved a lot in the past two, three years. Right. Of course, I think we're just at the beginning of that huge what you call disruption, if I may call it. There's also what we have seen among publishers is also that they are moving towards a clean website model with less intrusive advertisements. It's no longer the clutter. It seems like a shopping mall at times earlier. Give me a sense of how do you read this shift towards a more fluid interface for the end user? What are the dynamics that are shaping this shift? It's the need of the art. If you understand the behavioral patterns of a digital viewer, he's spoiled for choice.  He's on the internet. He gets what he wants whenever he wants at any point of time. When he's got so much in front of him, the publisher better take care to make sure he does everything possible to keep the viewer engaged and loyal to his site. Now, you keep throwing ads like we've been used to when we were growing up, sitting and watching all those ads, whether we liked it or not. It's no longer going to work on a digital platform. That's primarily one of the reasons why it's so important. What is the average retention of a digital viewer? I mean, it can range from a couple of seconds, maybe two seconds and he says, no, I've got something better to do. And then on top of that, he's going to throw all those ads and breaks and all stuff which does not keep him engaged. He's going to lose it. That's it. So I think that's the primary reason for this entire shift in the mindset. Absolutely. I know I remember when you go on a website and it opens up three more windows before you get to where you want to go. So, Rajesh, you heard what Kanti said. What are you understanding from the market? According to the publishers, they actually want to clean their website because there are lots of inclusive ads right now, basically from the many Google stacks. So this is all about the user engagement, how basically user is engaging on the page. If the user see multiple ads on the page and definitely he will bounce back. So it will increase and bounce back, bounce rate increase. Basically, there will be the latency on the page. It can affect definitely on render rates of the page. So it will definitely affect the coverage and everything the CPMs of the system, of a Google stack. So increasing CPMs to increase coverage, how basically advertisers bid on the page. That's why most of the publishers are trying to reduce inclusive ads rather than basically increasing the logical or maybe a native ads which are the same type of page you can say. Right, right. I want to bring in Suheb here. It's not just aesthetics here. It's of course strategic when you clean, have a very minimalist design on your website, of course, and making it more effective. Suheb, how far has this gone, this shift and I mean, how do you see it? How do you read this? I think it's extremely important, especially for media house to have a very clean site. Because there are also some external pressures, right? Today, Google has their web core vitals and they have laid out a set of a number of factors which help you to rank better within their search results as well as to get users to come on board. So there are some external pressures. Apart from that, we also feel that there are certain, like you said, there are certain strategies in place. It's not just a matter of showing ads to a user. Today, when a user visits your website, there are a couple of things that he needs to do.  He wants the page to load in three seconds. But if you look at the average load time of a mobile page, it's anywhere between 15 to 19 seconds, which is way too high. So once the user lands into your site, the moment you show him an ad, again, there is a delay of another five or six seconds. And then you give him a consent to fill. You ask him to accept a consent, which takes another three seconds. Then maybe he gets to see the content that he intended to come. So all in all, about 15 to 20 seconds for the user to really look at the content once he clicks on any link. So this is like a huge lead time. And that's something which we need to cut down on. And secondly, what are your priorities? Is your objective only to make or monetize only through ads, or also to build a relationship with the user? Like for instance, we have a subscription model, which we run. So we also intend the user to revisit us because the user cannot convert the first time that he comes or he can't make him to buy a particular subscription package on the first go. So you have to take small steps, kind of build relationship with these guys, make him register first, and then retarget him to notify him about certain updates that's happened on the site, new articles that have been published. So that's an ongoing relationship. And I think that's one of the key reasons that the site needs to be clean and effective for any user. Of course, I think you can't let users do so much of homework and 20 seconds like a lifetime where nobody has that attention. Rahul, your quick take on this, the importance of this clean website model. In your understanding, what is driving? Yes, this definitely is the point of concern for the users actually. For example, ads are actually somehow actually relevant to the user. For example, if a user is searching for some sports equipment and a sports related ad is shown to him, that is relevant to him. But if a user is searching for a cricket bat and we are showing him an ad of a car, that's quite irrelevant for the user. And sometimes ads are too hard to escape. The user has to wait for three, four seconds or maybe sometimes 10 seconds. So in that case, we have to think about the users first. And a minimal and a clean website interface is very much important for the user experience. Akash, a lot of publishers that I've spoken to, maybe are not also this kind of an awareness that is needed to make them understand that ads can be placed in many ways. This is not the only way. One, where do we really need our publishers actively seeking, are they getting more aware? How are you kind of pushing this, making them aware that a clean website does not mean a dip in revenue. It can in fact mean more people coming to you. So that's an interesting question, first of all. And I think Suheb almost covered the important aspect of having a clean and flawless website. So maybe I'll talk about when all of this started. So there was a digital movement in 2020 when we saw this spike in the overall viewership of the users spiking from 16 to almost 39%. That was the user adaptation of the digital properties. And that's when we realized that having the content to add ratio is really very important for an advertiser to also keep on bidding higher and plus also for the users to retain on the website. And both the things are simultaneously important from a media house perspective retaining users on their website is the first primary task. And the most important thing and that can only be happening when there is a flawless ecosystem when the user visits onto the website. So I think in the last two, three years, we have started using the consultative approach where we are more talking about how it impacts both for a media house perspective and both from an advertiser perspective. Obviously, when there are very few slots available on the website to showcase the advertisement, the focus for the advertiser becomes really targeted. The spending also increases. And over the period of time, what personally we also go through and have been seeing over the period of months is that even the publishers are now more focused upon targeted advertisement rather than just putting up a lot of slots on the website and serving a lot of advertisements. Because it definitely somehow make things intrusive for the end user. And just because now we have seen that the overall transformation is happening for the web properties across devices, I think that's a very important thing at the current scenario to have a very clean and flawless website and have an absolutely amazing UI UX. Right, right. We have also seen people talking about, say, if I talk about editorially, we've spoken about that we could do so much and more if we had a subscription model and we always blame it on the way the business dynamics works and that's why you see a certain content. Kanti, to you, how do you see the subscription model getting affected on the web properties? How do you see that? What's your take on the model and how will it affect advertisement models on the web properties according to you? See, I'm not too gung-ho about a subscription model, honestly speaking. This is now debatable. It's each one's personal experience on their website. What I think is India is a very, very price sensitive market. And if you're going to only be using a subscription model, I think your content has to be great or your marketing budget has to be splendid for you to be getting that kind of an engagement on your platform. And then maybe yes, then you could survive purely on a subscription model and needless to add that we've been reading in the news. I'm very big OTT platforms, very frankly admitting that it's been very difficult for them in the Indian market. I would go in for a freemium kind of a model, a free, until you gain that level of loyalty and engagement, which is itself a huge task on a digital platform. Loyalty on a digital platform is not the same as loyalty that used to exist on a satellite network. So I think have a free model, build a revenue stream out of your free model through great programmatic advertising, build on the viewer's shade, build on your traffic and try and monetize that. And then yes, when you have your premium content, your loyal customers would not mind paying for it. Personally, I feel India is not ready for a 100% subscription model on a web-based platform. Right, great insights here. I mean, a lot of people sometimes, you know, they bring in the other point. But of course, great to very valid points made Kanthi, British, what is your take on subscription? I agree with Kanthi regarding the Indian thinking because most of the Indians are not likely to pay for generally for content at least. So there are many, many sites where you can get same type of content on free. So there are things for like subscription model is basically you can like, you will get loyal users, definitely. But this is not for India at least, and it will take some time or maybe five to six years to gain loyal users who basically buy or content on the basis of money. So it will definitely affect revenues for web because in subscription model, publishers can't basically run their ads and many things. So it will definitely affect revenue terms. Right. So have you heard two people who totally disagree and have their valid points? And we have this fantasy model of the West, which we always look at and say that look, they have been able to do it and this is the next big thing. What is your take on it? And if it all happens in whatever percentage, how will it impact the web properties? So we have a different story here. So we started our subscription journey way back in 2019. That is our web articles were put behind the paywall in 2019, but we had our e-paper initially behind the paywall. When we started some six, seven years back, our e-paper was always behind the paywall. And that's what I think it has done exceedingly well, especially in the last two years. I think the numbers have really grown, grown, grown ahead. You see, there are two things. One is we always think that subscription is going to heat into the ad business or the ad business is going to, you know, vice versa, right? But we don't have to think that way. If you look at, like you rightly said, we want to aid the Western models. What we feel is that the ad business can coexist with the subscription business as well. In fact, the ad business becomes even more robust because once you have a loyal user base subscribing for your content and slowly you try and discover their behavior and their interest, you can probably personalize, you can also send and personalize content as well as promotional messages. So that can work hand in hand. Now, what does subscription mean? Subscription is access to a certain content. Like Antti rightly said, you could have a premium model where certain things you can put behind paywall and certain things you can make it free. So once someone subscribes to something, you are actually giving them access to something that you have blocked. So under the circumstances, currently, if you look at, if you take up the subscription for the Hindu, you will not see it's an ad free. We never promise it as an ad free experience. We always say limited ads, limited or personal ads. So we will try to maintain that philosophy from day one and saying that the ads will be there, but it will be in limited quantity. It won't be too intrusive. It will be more personalized and stuff like that. So what I feel is that it can coexist, right? Even if you take the OTT platforms, like again, one of the panelists said, the leading OTT platform globally, I'm saying Netflix, makes 30% of their revenue from brand deals and brand placements within their original content. So they also have an ad business. It doesn't mean that 100% of the revenue is coming just from subscription. So it can coexist is what might take this. It can coexist.  Yeah, actually, I've been working on it lately because we were planning of e-paper to go on the subscription model. And I've gone through a different paywall system like the one already discussed, the premium one already providing a certain, for example, we are providing a free version and the paid version. But I see some of the flaws in the subscription model. I'm not particularly sure about the others. But in our case, for example, we are limited, we'll be showing limited ads. For example, we won't be able to show the native ads and local ads particularly local players will not be publishing their ad on our model where we are charging users to view an ad. So in that case, so we will be seeing and I've been searching in the Google tool and in the internet too. I've seen that in certain cases, the user will call up to 70 to 80% of the user falls after the subscription model if there is a, for example, and that's a huge fall, I believe. Right, right.  How do you how do you see this? I think it's a fair opportunities for the readers who would strictly want to limit themselves to just content, first of all. But you know, we are the ad networks and media houses for us as business owners, it might not be the best solution, even now. I mean, I do see that the momentum is gaining over the past few years, like Suhey rightly said that, you know, like websites are moving towards that direction, but the adaptation of subscription model, it's still around eight to 9% of the overall user base that we have on the websites or the properties that are there currently live. So, you know, users are actually opting for both the mediums. I think the momentum to have more on the subscription model has now started facing up in the last one or two years where I think the advertiser threat is not too high because there are a lot of, you know, other sources to deliver and make the targeting happen. But I think it's more of a business decision now, like how the content has to be served because I think content is not exclusive, right? What we are serving on the subscription model is somehow could be found somewhere on the other websites too.  So I think we are moving towards that direction, but not on a 100% scale. Maybe at a scale of 10 to 20%. Right, right. You know, there's another talk going on in the digital ecosystem, which is about the cookie less world, you know, and era where you move and 80% of the current advertisement, you know, is around this concept. So, Gandhi, from you, I want to understand what proactive steps are you taking as a brand, you know, to address this rise of a cookie less era. See, you know, our product itself is cookie proof. There's a word for that. If you've seen our, you know, our website, our domain, we are a completely video based channel. Right. The idea of launching our channel was to give a television viewing experience on a digital platform. Right. So we are doing exactly what a satellite channel does. It's just that the satellite is there on, you know, it has its license and it's on a different platform, a distribution is different. We have a linear stream, and we are distributing on a digital platform. Last time we have a VOD. So it's a hybrid model. So cookies are more concerning for those people who have websites which are blob driven, which are article driven. Right. So they are huge issues there for a completely video based platform like ours, which is akin to any kind of a television channel. It's not a concern for us at all. Absolutely. Vijesh. So this issue is for us, basically for the news publishers like us Times of India. So it's like 80% of the inventory is used by this cookie structure. So generally we do re-targeting and everything, each of our partners like networks and even our Google stack do the same to get the user who basically want that product. So you can say if I want to do cookie less, if in the future there will be a cookie less environment, so we need to collect data. Basically we need to create our first party data through our own audience. You can say like because we have Facebook pages, our Facebook pages. Plus we need to do contextual targeting to overcome these issues. So third party data definitely moves out of the system in some time or maybe in years. But definitely we need to create our first party data to target exact audience for a segment actually. So 80% is a huge number. So give me your story on this. So if you go back to how this, I mean the entire digital advertising started, it was basically built on three originals since I would call. So one was using cookie as a proxy. Second is separating audience data from media impressions. So you never knew where you were targeting. You were just blanketing your websites with ads without any idea. And the third was using clicks as the metric. Now all these things are questionable today. Everything is trying to break out. Cookies are vanishing. So you have to replace that with something else, maybe an identifier or maybe an email ID, which is BLI compliant or maybe a consent from a user to kind of show him ads and things like that. Secondly, audience data becomes more available because like Brijesh said, publishers have to start building their stack now. They have to get serious with their first party data, try and build audiences around it, create cohorts and comply with maybe with Google. Google is coming up with their own version of targeting, which is on topics. So they're again moving from individual to more community-based or cohort-based targeting. And thirdly, of course, like I said, clicks are going to get replaced by other metrics like mobility will come into picture. There will be other metrics. So all these originals since which we created, we are trying to kind of break away from it. And over the course of time, I think publishers will gain from this because you will have an audience which is premium and you can sell these audiences to your advertisers at a higher rate because the advertisers are not going to get or the marketers are not going to get these audiences in the free market anymore. So overall, I think it's a good step and publishers who are privy to this, what should they start building their own first party data and eventually I think it'll benefit us. Rahul, your quick thoughts? Actually, on a publisher point of view, this is going to be hard for all of us because we have to come with certain other ways to target the audience to target the ads and all the things. For example, in the recent past, we've seen that they are not in India particularly, we have seen, but in the European countries, this is a legal matter right now. And they have actually introduced some European data protection laws, which is not particularly implemented in India right now. So we have to think of other targeting like that of the email collection or some other contextual ads. But this is going to be hard. It's going to be hard. Okay. Akash, to you on this panel, of course, your perspective is different on this.  What are publishers doing and what is the best way for them to address this? I think a lot of evolution is also happening on the ad network site. Like if I specifically talk about, we just started off with programmatic serving on web and mobile devices. And now we are almost serving at web, BMP, mobile, OTT, CTV, fast. And I think the serving have transformed from just programmatic to inducing PG, CMP, PMP, direct deals all together as the delivery metric for the end media houses or the users is the way out of the overall sustainability of the digital advertisements on these web properties. So I think both the parties are in the evolution mode where the media houses are also finding out ways to have the first party data and be as the ad networks are trying to become the ads of technology and so and induce the overall delivery metrics in the much efficient and a transformed way. So I think it's going to be interesting the time and definitely this, the overall delivery is going to increase. Like Suhey rightly said that when the targeting is going to be much appropriate and more aligned towards what the users are there on the website, the advertiser spend would also increase. So I think it's both going to be more interesting and great for individual opportunities as well. Right, right. What has also happened is that the consumption, if you see the interfaces has shifted to mobile first, AMP based solutions and in this kind of behavioral shift, Kanti to you, I want to understand that are you making any active efforts to increase the retention on the desktop device and what can be done to kind of balance this flow? It can be an app and a desktop. I don't see any need for doing so.  It really doesn't matter. At least it doesn't matter for a complete video based platform like us. Right, what we've seen is when a linear stream is being watched, the analytics tells us that it's more on a desktop or more on the fire TV because it is akin to couch viewing. It's similar to television viewing. For example, we are a sports channel. Let's say we are showing a match life. The tendency is maybe start off on a mobile and then they find it interesting and this so they want to have viewership in a more relaxed manner. So it's called couch viewing. Right, so you see a change in the pattern depending on the timing as well. What we see is let's say 9pm onwards. People are indulging in a more relaxed form of viewing. So when you're doing it on a mobile, you can't be watching a match on a mobile for about one and a half or two hours. Right, so you need to be on a mobile. So desktop becomes a little more relaxing.  So we just made sure that we are available on all platforms and what we see is our users keep switching from one platform to the other depending on where they are and what time of the day or the night it is. So there is no great strategy in particular to retain on one platform and not to retain on the other. We cool about it.  Rajesh, any thoughts on this? Rohil, according to news publishers, there is no actually any planning to get retention of the desktop users because right now we all are focusing on apps and AMPs because all these basically platforms are very fast in loading. But on desktop, it's very slow. That's why there is no like any plan of action for retaining the desktop users right now because there are multiple things are there because in mobile, you are like user friendly. And the internet, you can say the ads get all the content is loaded fastly on the apps and AMP pages right now. All right. Suheyb? I think I pretty much echo with the panelist. I think there is no strategy as such to retain the desktop traffic because of course, the traffic is moving towards mobile. Right. So that's it. But sometimes, you know, as a user, like Kanti said, you know, sometimes you want to lean forward or lean back depending on the time of the day on depending on your modes and where you are and stuff like that. So, but having said that, you know, our traffic is still good on desktop, you know, 30% of our traffic still comes from desktop. So we try and, you know, try to keep the site clean and neat as far as the user experience and engagement is concerned. But not there is no as such no strategy. Just the way it is right. Rahul to you and then finally to Akash. Yeah, there is a certain change in the, for example, we have earlier the website were all on the desktop and now we are switching to the mobiles and most of the traffic is from mobile. I believe 70 to 80% of the user in our website to come from mobile. And there are certain issues with the AMPs to actually, for example, EMP does increase the speed of the website and they do improve the visibility in our search engines. But there is a certain flaw that our website analytics and the traffic for example, if we use a click on the AMP pages is actually using the Google servers and he's not actually coming on to our website. So this is a certain con I will say that. And for another reason is that there are the other parts of the website are left out in the AMPs, for example, ads and other important sections of the websites are left out. So that is a certain drawbacks of the AMP. Alright, okay. Final words Akash. So I think like Suhaib said, for all the big players retaining the traffic on desktop is not something that a chaos they are facing, right? But for a, from a broader perspective, for mid-level pack, that from for them, it's a really challenging thing that we keep on hearing is because the delivery rates and the, you know, the advertisement rates over the desktop and the mobile are completely different. So people who are heavily invested on just devices like desktop and mobile who do not have, you know, the resources of having multiple, you know, delivery sources for them, it is very important and efficient to have base of retaining traffic on the desktop because they get better rates of the delivery of the advertisement that is happening on the website, which I'm sure that's not a big issue for all the top players that are there in the market. So I think definitely a lot of, you know, I think there are a lot of products in the market that are helping publishers to also, you know, re-engage the traffic within the pages of the website.  So, yeah. Right. So, Kathi, you know, AMP in your view, give me a sense of how do you see it in terms of impact on advertisement across the industry and whether to opt for it or not, and related question on the rise of OTT models, you know, how does it, how will it impact the entire digital piece in the long run?  So, we are more concerned with things like bid compression to make sure that, you know, the internet user even with a lower bandwidth is able to have a video viewing in a user-friendly manner. AMP is again more for article-based sites, right? We are only worried about how responsive it is, the look and feel design, and the bid compression technology. So, it's something, you know, making a video-based platform, a 100% video-based platform is a difficult task, is a difficult challenge to begin with. But once you are done with it, you are only then focusing on content, right? Once that's made, you're not focusing on the other aspects of what a typical website, which is like an e-paper or an article in a block site does, right? So, we don't have those worries in terms of the AMP and how it's going to really impact us. Moving to the OTT platform, yeah, I think that's something which has already happened if you're talking about moving from, let's say, print to digital. That's happened. I think COVID has been a catalyst. We are talking about e-papers now. It's maybe nothing to do with the way the print is actually published. It's to do with the viewing behavior of the people. You want to read your paper online. So, OTT is something which has already happened. But I think OTT is going to get more and more specialized. You see, what's happening now is sometimes OTT also becomes a marketplace, right? You have entertainment, you have movies, you have views, you have everything on one platform. And so then, again, targeting a viewer interest on a particular platform becomes difficult. When you specialize in your OTT content, then and if you can retain your content specialized, then I think OTT becomes a much stronger tool for both the publisher and the advertiser because you know the exact target group that's coming on the OTT platform, exact interest, and there is return for your investment. Bridget, another question, same question, very relevant to you. You have any thoughts on this? As per Kanti, because they are basically video, they have videos. But as per news publishers, we are focusing on AMP because it's like everything is moving to mobile and on a term of mobile, AMP and apps are there. So, AMP is totally about how basically the page is loading. So, this fast page loading, higher render rates, you can say higher render rates that leads to the higher CPMs. But there are some issues right now in AMP. Because there is some implementation technology driven things are there, which is not right now, which is not possible right now, you can say. There are technologies like refresh, hydrobidding, videos, is not able to basically implement it on that page properly. So, this is in testing phase, definitely it will go live in some months or maybe, but definitely AMP is next thing, basically all the news publishers definitely move. But as per CTVs and OTT, my thoughts are different. Because OTT and CTV player, basically these are for video and audio publishers, you can say. Reason behind this for news publishers like us, it's very difficult to move from apps to OTT and CTVs because there will be an issue of navigation. Screen size, higher bandwidth required. Because in normal videos, user can just click on that and because the thumbnails are there, but in case of news publisher, there are articles, which the user need to basically, there are multiple articles on the page and user need to navigate from one to second. This will be a difficult and also the screen size. Screen size moving from app to TV is difficult. That's my thought about this. Right. So, hey. So, definitely I would recommend to have an AMP version of your page, because Google kind of recommends more AMP pages on the search result page. So, and I think most of it, the British head cover, right? Your viewability is higher, your ad CPMs are much higher. So, definitely till you get your tech stack, right? Or your technology is enabled enough to kind of, you know, load your page within three or four seconds, I think you should, you should opt for an AMP page. But I think it's very short-lived. Over the course of time, I think AMP, which will get replicated maybe in two, three years time and Google will start giving, Google will start giving preferences to their own web providers. Right. So, that's something which is there on the OTT front. Again, most of this has been covered, but I am kind of excited to see, you know, how this kind of playoffs plays out in the education, healthcare and fitness space. Those are three niche verticals. I'm seeing a lot of content being put out, especially for kids, you know, for K-12, kids, you know, where, you know, they want to access content and then also kind of, you know, for entertainment and as well as to get educated. Right. So, in that space, I want to, I'm a bit keen on, you know, seeing how this will play out. Of course, sports is another category. Where, you know, it's OTT is really big. There are a lot of these big, big, big size distributions. I mean, OTT's distribution, which are taking rights of all these big, big tournaments and, you know, kind of monetizing it. So, that's going to be an interesting space. Right. Rahul, your take on this being the leading regional, you know, and the regional space. How does it resonate in your case? Well, you mean about the OTT or the AMP pages? AMP, yeah. Yeah, AMP pages. Actually, we have AMP pages like we have tested and tried in AMP pages and I've seen certain improvement like in the web page speed is increased, like we have already been covered, the web page speed is increased. It is actually content focused and it is better for the user experience. But I have seen the drawbacks or I can not particularly say the drawbacks, but there are certain issues with the AMPs like all the traffic is through the Google service. Like I've already mentioned that our website is getting the lower hits as compared to the AMP pages. In AMP pages, when we are switching to the AMPs, let's say in mobile pages, our website is getting the less traffic and there is no refresh rate, no technical scripts involved in AMPs. So, we are seeing ambiguity in analytics. For example, we are not particularly sure about how much traffic. Right, right. Akash, from this add ecosystem, digital add ecosystem perspective, give me a sense of these two aspects. So, basically, when the websites were developed, they were developed across the devices for desktop and mobile. So, in 2015, Google launched AMP saying that their ranking systems would improvise once the media houses adopt the technology of AMP and move their entire setup of mobile to having more accelerated mobile pages, where the users won't have any intrusion, the overall interface would be much fluid and it would be a much better look and feel for the end user when they come onto this setup. But the overall delivery was not that efficient however, it is still functional. And like Brigitte mentioned that there are still a lot of discrepancies that the ads are serving regarding header bidding, regarding implementation of the advertisement and the overall delivery of the kind of revenues coming onto the normal mobile pages and to AMP. So, in 2020, they launched a pilot of Core Web Vitals, where they discussed about with the publishers to different ways where they can optimize their regular mobile pages and how they can make serving a little more better, how the overall page load time can improvise. So, I think that kind of helped them to also gain the momentum of having publishers work more on their Web Vitals and improvise their ranking. And in 2021, I think they completely eradicated that policy that the ranking would be completely dependent upon the AMP. So, now publishers are free to have Core Web Vitals efficiently design and customize and optimize in certain way that their revenues can also be stable and keep on increasing while they can also make a very fluid overall architecture of the website. But definitely for CTV and OTT, it's definitely the next era of advertising because the kind of impact on the delivery it creates for the advertisers is really high. And the global OTT and CTV ad volume has also increased by almost like 330% in 2021. That's kind of really huge that we have seen in the last year. And the main reason about the entire this delivery is high viewability of the overall ads that are being delivered on these platforms. So, I think it's going to be even more further interesting in the coming years and even in 2022. Absolutely. And this brings me to my final question. I request everyone to stick to one minute. We have around eight minutes. Kandhi, to you, how do you see user adaptability? We have seen it over the years, but how does how will it pan out from here on? Also, you lot is this buzz around this metaverse. So, how do you see the user adaptability pan out as we move on from here? See, when you talk about user adaptability, you're talking about digital adaptability. I think that is the past two years has taught us that that was what life was. During the COVID pandemic, even the most non-digital user was forced to become a digital user. So, user adaptability to a digital platform is something which is you can say which has already happened in India. It's just and you have behavior formulated in 21 days where we had two years for us to get formulated. So, I don't think that's going to go easily. When you talk about metaverse, to me, I can correlate it to the virtual world and coming from a sports platform, I would think of fantasy gaming as my metaverse. Right? Now, it's a huge market globally and in India, but what is lacking terribly at the moment in this world is the legality. Game of luck, game of chance, nobody knows, right? We need strong legal laws to exactly tell us what is on the right side, what is on the wrong side. Only then your entire metaverse for the sporting platform is going to become robust. At the moment, it's blur. Absolutely. Rajesh? Adapting user adaptability is totally about in terms of problematic. It's like user definitely is moving from, it's like earlier in 2019, videos and ads are not so much in the market. So, video, you can say the video integrations and first video scene, the ability are less. But in the last two years, definitely, as for Kanti, everyone was at home and everyone is moving to digital and everyone is watching videos and you can say reading out articles. Most of the like 70 to 80 percent users are moved to digital. Like most of the guys are reading news on mobile rather than on newspapers. So, yeah, definitely users are moving to digital part. Regarding metaverse, it's a three dimensional, you can say a virtual space where user is engaging with other ones. And right, Kanti was correctly right. It's like legal terms, definitely is there. Otherwise, it will be like how, what is right, what is wrong. Nobody moves in terms of metaverse. Absolutely. I think regulations, of course, will play a huge role here. Yes. So, hey. Yeah. So, user adaptability, of course, has, I mean, has isolated by about five years, right? You've got one for five years. Now, I mean, like rest of the panelists said, the transition has become even more faster. Now, people have started consuming everything online. So, of course, that has isolated and that's going to, I mean, that's going to gain more momentum as we go, right? Today, we have about 350 million users in India just consuming content online, right? But it's through DTU, through other platforms. That's one thing. On the metaverse, extremely positive. I think, like others, other panelists said, there is a lot of opportunity there, not just within the sporting or the gaming community, but even otherwise, right? What is metaverse? It's an extension of your life, which is enhanced by some technology, right? So, virtually, we are doing meetings, virtually, we are conducting a lot of events, right? Tomorrow, there was a virtual marriage, in fact, in Chennai, which happened last month. And there are virtual holy parties also happening. Absolutely. So, that's something which is the first step towards metaverse. And I think things will get more interesting where the virtual and the physical world will kind of merge.  How will it pan out? This definitely is a big one. Yes. So, how is it going to pan out? Am I audible? Yes, yes. Am I audible? Yeah, yeah. Okay. So, how is it going to pan out? The shift? Yeah, definitely, digital shifting to digital media is a big concern for us. For example, earlier, we were just a newspaper in the print form. Next, we have to move to the website, then e-paper, then to the mobile apps. And now we have seen the social media presence. For example, you have to be present on all the social media platforms. We should be in touch with the users because not all the users are using your apps and the website, but they are continuously following you on the digital media space. While I see in the advertisement kind of where I see there, for example, the local ads, in local ads, I will say the print media is more effective. For example, a user, print ads can have a localized presence. For example, if I have to launch a particular local event, then I'll have to go with the print ads. But definitely, we are going to cost towards the digital transformation. All right. A final question to you, Akash, on your thoughts as far as this digital ecosystem is concerned on user adaptability. Of course, it has had firm roots in the last two years, especially. How does it pan out from here on? And what does metaverse, what kind of opportunities arise out of this? So I think the revolution had to come and COVID-19 just amplified the overall process of the transformation and the adaption for, I think, the masses. But as the consumption of the content has increased over time and simultaneously the delivery opportunities have also increased. And we are also working as the extension for sales for these publishers. I think it's going to be even more enriching experience both for the users and the advertisers in the coming time. For metaverse, I think it's legitimate. I think we're currently at just the start of that era. I mean, how cool is it to be a part of the organization visiting offices, virtually traveling places and whatnot. But I think it's a long way ahead. This thing has all just started. But one thing is for sure that since H&M has marketed themselves into metaverse, the scope of the entire advertisement and delivery is comparatively much higher because the entire metaverse is digital. So all the consumers who are coming onto the platform are visiting that are the targeted audience. So I think in that way, it looks really uplifting for the coming time. Thank you. Thank you everyone for joining us today. A lot of takeaways here and what a great insightful points that everyone has made. I want to thank all of you for taking our time this afternoon and joining us and we hope to continue these conversations as we move on. Thanks once again for joining us. Thanks very much. Thank you.


Question is from Taylor Dinkel. What are your thoughts on powerlifting for aesthetics? Well, this is similar to a question that I had. Someone asked me of what I thought is a better place to start either bodybuilding or powerlifting. And my response to them is I actually said I would lean towards powerlifting first. As a base. Yes, as a base, but I could also make the case for the other way. So this is not a, for sure, one way or the other. I think there's value of somebody training for aesthetics or the mind-muscle connection, bodybuilding technique of training that is extremely valuable from that perspective and what that benefits. Then there's a ton of value for somebody who's to build a really solid foundation, like from powerlifting and what you get from that. Yeah, let's say somebody is completely brand new to working out. Like would you guys prefer them to start in a powerlifting routine versus a bodybuilding routine? Now, you're not talking about competitive powerlifting, right? No, no, no. Just training like a powerlifting. Just stretching your capacity. Here's why I would lean, believe it or not, more towards powerlifting. And now this is granted the person that we're working with is free of major muscle imbalance. Exactly, because I'm gonna challenge that out because I can challenge either way very easily. But let's say somebody's free of major muscle imbalance. Because if that's the case, you have to focus on corrective exercise regardless of where we're gonna go. Which falls in the aesthetic bodybuilding. It might be, right? More connected to muscle. Bodybuilding if there was issues. But let's say everything's fine and they don't have major muscle imbalances. Here's why I'll make the argument for powerlifting because powerlifting is so movement focused, they're more likely to learn biomechanically sound, squatting, deadlifting, and bench pressing. You know, the core lifts and movements. Later on, once they've really got good at those lifts and they can do them well and they know how to maximize leverage and do it in a way to where they don't hurt themselves because that's what powerlifters do. They maximize leverage and efficiency so they can lift the most weight. Which means, believe it or not, reducing risk of injury. A powerlifter benches in the safest way possible that can lift the most amount of weight. Bodybuilders don't do this. Bodybuilders lift to feel it in the muscle. Now, powerlifters tend to hurt themselves more but it's not because of the way they lift. It has more to do with the fact that they're always maxing out and pushing their limits. But it'll teach sound technique and form and movement. Then from there, when they have that base, then I can say, okay, focus on your glutes, focus on your quads, focus on your lats and do those kinds of things. Yeah, if, like say, we're taking this out, like if nobody has like these pre-existing conditions like going into it, like otherwise, I would probably lean more towards bodybuilding because now we can isolate and get a better recruitment, like joint by joint. But I've found in my experience in coaching people that, if I were to train the movement like you're talking about, you know, like taking them from there to bodybuilding was a better transition versus the opposite where now like taking a bodybuilder and trying to teach them like overall, you know, gross motor movements, like what's challenging because like certain parts of their like joints want to kick in like individually and they're gonna like pull like a deadlift with their biceps. Well, now imagine we have somebody because we're also like, there's so many different roads. There's so many ways to skin a cat. But let's pretend we've got a listener who has got, you know, years of experience, three, five, more than two years of experience lifting so they're not brands making new. They see all the maps programs, they see there's a powerlifting program, they see there's a maps aesthetics, they so they're like, okay, where would I start? What would I do? You know, do you think that your powerlifting program is good for certain? So here's, if I had a year with you, powerlifting for sure would make its way into that training, right? So I would for sure use our maps aesthetic, our maps split program and our maps powerlifting program and probably even strong. Like those four I would use for this person. If you came to me, you said, I want to build the most aesthetic physique you've got me for one year, Adam. I'm gonna use all four of those programs because there's gonna be massive carryover for your overall goal. Totally, now the question is about aesthetics. Okay, now again, it depends who I'm talking to. If I'm talking to the person that's been powerlifting for a while, bodybuilding's gonna give them better aesthetics. If I'm talking to the person who is a relative beginner free of imbalances, they're gonna get great aesthetics from powerlifting. Focusing on the movement's gonna give them the most muscle mass gains, general muscle building. Now bodybuilding, the strength of bodybuilding is they can isolate muscles and focus and sculpt on different parts of my body. The strengths in powerlifting are I get really good at these gross motor movements that work everything anyway. So when it comes to aesthetics, it really depends who I'm talking to. It does, because here's another person, myself. Powerlifting contributed to my pro physique more than bodybuilding training did.  I always wanted aesthetics, and so I neglected powerlifting as I just never identified with, oh, I don't need a deadlift in my max. I don't need to do squatting for my max. I never drop below five reps. It wasn't until I started powerlifting did my physique grow to the next level. So I would even say somebody who is like me, who has always done all the cable exercises, measheen exercises, isolation stuff, bodybuilding type of movements for most of their life or most of their training career, absolutely would benefit extremely from powerlifting for their aesthetics. It's what grew my back. It's what grew my legs. It bulked my shoulders. Like those thing, it put on a lot more mass onto my physique. And then when I peeled down, it was very obvious that that served my body. You know what powerlifting works phenomenally for aesthetics? Typically for me, I saw it be super effective with my female clients who were very body focused. The ones who were very aesthetic focused, who'd been going to the gym for a while and it's all about, I gotta change how I look. I gotta change how I look. They watch the scale, watch the scale. I'd switch them to powerlifting because I knew that it would get them to focus on performance. I knew it would get them to focus on how strong they were. I knew it got them to move away from the small isolation movements where I gotta feel every little muscle. And I'm like, no, no, no, forget all that. We're gonna get you really strong at some of these core lifts. And they would get these phenomenal aesthetic gains.  My hamstrings look round. I have better posture. Then we would go back to the body sculpting bodybuilding routines and they would get better results. 100%, if you have somebody who is, and that's another great example.  So this is a depends question as always. But it really, who I'm talking to would be where I would push this person, but absolutely powerlifting could benefit aesthetics tremendously.


to my channel and a very special welcome. If you're new here, my name is Jen. I'm a certified weight loss and nutrition coach. I'm on Weight Watchers and I count calories and macros. Happy Saturday. Happy Christmas Eve. It is a grocery haul day even though it's Christmas and I have a really fun haul for you today.  Subscribe if you're not because we do a grocery haul every Saturday and I upload five videos per week. Check out the description box down below for more nutrition coaching. Get yourself set up for the new year with personalized macros and calories and one-on-one coaching for accountability and to chat with me directly. Links and discounts to my favorite things and don't forget, come join our Facebook group. Lots of amazing things in store in my group for 2023. So let's jump into the grocery haul, what's on my menu for dinners and what you'll be seeing in the final meal prep of 2022. So here is my grocery haul for the week. This week I went ahead and shopped at fries, which is a Kroger store. We did need a whole lot this week. Just a few things for the holidays and then of course for next week's meal prep and dinner. So let me show you what I picked up for the week. First thing are these adorable holiday chips. They are red and green. I'm going to be making the other one of those corn dips that I bought at Sam's Club. It's been at least a month ago. We had them on Halloween. We had it on Halloween and it was really, really good. So I'm going to make a few appetizer things for Troy and I, Christmas Eve day. And then my in-laws are coming over Christmas Eve night with pizza and then we're going to watch Christmas vacation. So I thought we could do some fun appetizers during the day. And these holiday chips, they are adorable. And then Troy also asked for a refill of his Fritos. I can't believe how expensive chips are, just groceries in general. These were $5, which seems like a lot for chips, but he likes to have these with his Dean's French onion dip and again another great appetizer for Christmas. I needed some chicken for my meal prep. This is the Just Bear Chicken Breast Filets. They were pretty pricey too, about $15, but they don't have any antibiotics, which is something I've been really trying to look for in meat, especially with cleaning up my diet in the new year. I also grabbed some ground beef because it was a killer deal. This is a 90-10% and this is a 93-7%. And these were really, really good deals. These are organic grass-fed, grass-finished ground beef. I picked up some macaroni salad for Troy. This was on sale for $3.29. And again, great thing to set out for Christmas Eve. And then eggs. Eggs were $7, a dozen for the really crummy eggs. And these were also $7 a dozen. This is a much better option, a much higher quality egg. And there was a big sign on the cooler that said egg shortage in the U.S., so expect eggs to even get more expensive. But we were almost out, so I grabbed the Happy Egg Organic. And then I did order a spaghetti squash in my Imperfect Foods Hall. I am going to insert my Imperfect Foods Hall here for you so you can see what I also picked up this week from Imperfect Foods. My Imperfect Foods order is here. I've been ordering every two weeks. I just haven't shared a haul on my channel for a while, so I thought that I would show you what I picked up. I grabbed a few things for Christmas. They always have some really great seasonal things, and you can't beat the price of the produce, the meat, and you're preventing food waste. So I love Imperfect Foods. Like I said, we get an order every two weeks. I'll link them down below with free groceries, at least $20 worth of free groceries for you. But this week I decided to pick up some zucchini.  I also grabbed some celery because I have been really liking nut butter and celery.  So I grabbed some more celery. For a fun seasonal thing, I picked up the Tony's Chocoloney. This is their gingerbread bar. So this is milk chocolate gingerbread. It's seasonal. This is literally some of the best chocolate, and they always have it in Imperfect Foods for less expensive than the grocery store. In fact, everything from Imperfect Foods is less expensive and it gets delivered to your doorstep. So we're never mad about that. And then I grabbed some more crackers. I've been loving these simple mills ones, and they have the cracked black pepper, which I love. These are Troy's all-time favorite pickles. He loves these sucker punch ones.  Well, hello, Lola. Hey honey, are you watching? Yeah. I also picked up the spaghetti squash because we love spaghetti squash, and I haven't even made any this season. And some apples. That's another thing I've been really into lately is apples in that butter. It's such a great dessert, and apples are a really, really good source of fiber. Everything that has to stay cool is always in an insulated bag with an ice pack. Everything comes in for steam condition, even in the dead of summer here in Arizona. Picked up some of the unreal coconut chocolates. I love these, and they have nice clean ingredients. They are just like a mounds bar. And then I also got these. I thought that these would be fun to either have as like an appetizer one night or even to have these for the holidays. They are the little pretzel bites. I thought that they'd be fun with like some queso or some cheese sauce. And then I grabbed some spinach because I have really been trying to up my leafy green game because I'm not very good at getting in my leafy green. So I picked up some spinach. Like I said, they always have really, really good deals on meat. They have their ground chicken on sale, so I picked up a pound of that. And I always order the Imperfect Foods brand of cheese just because it's really good quality and it's way cheaper than the grocery store. It's at least a dollar less per bag. And then I got some smashed avocados. So just like those little avocado cups, I've never had this brand Fresh Zilla, but I'm excited about it because I love having these pre made ready to go avocado cups. And lastly, for a special treat, I grabbed some Wagyu burgers. We can barbecue a year round here. And these are some of the best hamburgers like hands down the best. And I thought that we could have these as a special treat one night. So that is everything that I picked up from Imperfect Foods. Don't forget that I will link them down below with free groceries for you. It's a great way to save money on groceries. And everything gets delivered to your doorstep. And then I decided to get some lunch meat. This is the boar's head lunch meat. This is the ham. I think it was some fancy ham.  I just decided I wanted some lunch meat just for quick easy snacks. I like to put a string cheese in here and roll it up for a really high protein healthy snack. And then I only got one cottage cheese because it has a sell by date of the 23rd, which is in a couple days. So I didn't want to overdo the cottage cheese and then have it go bad. So I did pick one up paper plates because we were almost out and I had a coupon. So I grabbed 248 pack. I also had a coupon for free cream cheese. I'm never going to be mad about a free cream cheese. So I did the Philadelphia one third less fat. I also needed a ricotta cheese for my lasagna recipe this next week. Stay tuned after the grocery haul for what's on my menu for dinners and what you'll see in Monday's meal prep. This was the only ricotta cheese option they had. That was pretty much wiped out as well. Troy had asked for some razors. These are just the Kroger twin blade men's razors. I did grab some blueberries. I do have some apples and some raspberries but I get a lot of fruit and these were on sale for 250 which I thought was a really good deal. And then no surprise to anyone. My no sugar added bread and butter chips. I'm obsessed with these. These are so incredibly good and Troy ate most of mine last time so I needed a refill. I grabbed those pretzel bites in my Imperfect Foods haul and I'm going to make some beer cheese. So I grabbed the stadium dip. I like to add some beer to it and it gives a really good flavor and texture and we'll have that as another Christmas Eve appetizer. I needed some more no sugar added barbecue sauce and the sweet and smoky from Baby Raise is my all-time favorite. Can of pineapple chunks. This is for my lunch meal prep and I mentioned in my weigh-in that a lot of my cookies that were in the freezer are gone because my lovely husband's been eating them. So I'm going to make a peppermint kind of sugar cookie and I needed some dark corn syrup for that. That way we have enough cookies for the holidays. I didn't save a whole lot because it's just me Troy and my in-laws but I definitely want to have some cookies over the holidays. Two gallons of one percent milk for Troy. He's been going through more than a gallon a week so I grabbed two and there is also a candy cane shortage. There were literally no candy canes at fries except for these. Now these are some fancy candy canes. I want to say they were like four dollars for the box which is really pricey for candy canes but I need these for that other cookie that I'm making for the holidays plus you guys know peppermint candy canes totally my vibe. I'm actually really excited to try out these fancy ones. This time I decided to grab the chocolate rice cakes for my rice cake and peanut butter. I've really been liking to have I've really been liking this before my workout for a fast acting carbs and protein some fat and I haven't had the chocolate ones in a hot minute and that sounded really good and then lastly besides what's out in the garage which is the case of Coors Light and Diet Coke. I grabbed the private selection Duke for the Dots pretzels. I have been craving pretzels. I don't know why so I grabbed the Zesty Ranch. These I want to say were like five fifty which is a little less than dots. Hopefully they're as good as dots and again a great appetizer for Christmas Eve. So that is everything that I picked up for the week. Let's jump into dinners and what you'll be seeing in Monday's meal prep. So here's what is on my menu for the week. Obviously we have Christmas, Saturday and Sunday. Monday I'm making spaghetti squash lasagna.  Tuesday we'll do leftovers. Wednesday I'm making shepherd's pie. Thursday I'm going to make some fish and some veggies and maybe some potatoes. I have some produce I want to use up in my refrigerator and then on Friday we'll do some leftovers as well to finish up everything from earlier in the week. And here's what you'll be seeing in Monday's meal prep. I'm so excited to meal prep for the final time in 2022. I'm going to be making some sugar cookie protein overnight oats. Super excited for that. For lunch I'm doing pineapple barbecue chicken. Also sounds amazing. And then for dessert I mean pecan pie bars absolutely. So stay tuned for Monday's meal prep. Thank you for joining me for this week's grocery haul. I hope you enjoyed seeing everything I picked up for the week. What I'm doing for dinners. What you're seeing in meal prep. We have a really good final week of the year ahead of us.  Again make sure you're subscribed and your bells on so you never miss a grocery haul or any other video. Make sure you check out the description box down below for nutrition coaching. Links and discounts to my favorite things. And don't forget come join our Facebook group. We love to have you. Merry Christmas friends. Merry, Merry Christmas and I'll see you in my next video. Bye!


Because I think it was the first attempt to make a conceptual shift in poverty programs between being programs that just transfer income to households by subsidizing electricity or distributing food or having tax exemptions on certain goods into an approach focused on investing in the human capital of the households. By this I mean that households would get an income transfer, but it would be conditional upon some socially desirable behavior. It's like having the children of the poor household go to school or having all members of the household go to a health clinic. Basically you're making a conceptual shift from I just want to transfer income so that households have higher consumption to I want to transfer income as a mechanism for households to invest in their own human capital. You really have to think about the conditions of each individual country, but a first objective is to raise people's consumption levels. By now there is really no reason, at least I'm speaking about Finland America, why households should be hungry, should be malnourished or should have no access to basic health. We've learned enough for the last 20 years to ensure that through conditional cash transfer programs or similar mechanisms all households have access to some basic consumption and to some basic health and some basic satisfactions. The next challenge is to actually make sure that households get better jobs and have higher incomes. But that second challenge had to take precedent, had to be before you solve the first problem and then ask the questions about making people's income go higher. I think at the conceptual level the notion that you really don't want to transfer income to households on its own, you really want to transfer income to households and at the same time achieve something such that eventually such income transfers will be unnecessary. If you think about a poverty program as a permanent program, you're probably not focusing on the right objectives. You think that you want to do something to help households today because certainly they do need help, but you also want to do something at the same time that allows households to help themselves in the future. And so this notion of investing in human capital and creating conditions for breaking the intergenerational transmission of poverty I think is a concept that can be so to speak exported from Latin America to other regions of the world. Once households have some minimum consumption levels and some basic access to health and education, the really deep question is what needs to happen for households to have higher incomes? And I think that question is intimately associated with what needs to happen for households to have more productive jobs. In the Latin American context, this question is intimately associated with whether workers work in the formal sector or work in the informal sector because a lot of evidence says that on average, jobs in the formal sector are substantially more productive than jobs in the informal sector. So the next set of questions have to do with what creates this divide between the formal and informal sector and what policies can be put in place to facilitate workers getting jobs in the formal sector with more productivity so that they can earn a much larger share of their income through their own efforts with transfers taking little by little less importance. I think it's a mechanism in which different regions of the world can learn from each other. There are many forums in which I assume African economists talk to themselves and Asian economists talk to themselves and certainly their forums in Latin American economists talk to themselves. There's a lot of learning that can be done across various regions of the world, wider is I think almost unique in the sense of bringing together literally a wider perspective to development and being able to learn from other regions of the world, both the good and the bad, aside from being able to network and make friends, you also learn ideas and you also might share some of your own ideas.


رب الشيطان الرجيم بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم رب شرح لي صدري ويسر لي أمر وحل العقدة من لساني يفقه قولي الحمد لله رب العالمين وصلى الله على سيدنا وحبيبنا وشفيع نفوسنا أب القاسم محمد وعلى آل بيته الطيبين الطاهرين المعصومي لاسي ما بقية الله روح وأرواح العالمين لتراب مقدمه الفداء أم أبعد رسبكتد سكولرين أولادين وخبارين السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته إن شاء الله the topic for tonight will revolve around a theological argument the topic for tonight will be a topic that is very detailed that has been spoken about throughout history even prior to Islam one that occupies a large proportion of the Islamic library and is still till today discussed within schools of Islamic theology and that is the concept of free will versus predestination the concept of free will versus predestination is one that needs a lot of focus and needs a lot of time to comprehend إن شاء الله with the limited time that we have for tonight we can decipher some points in which will allow us to comprehend it in depth إن شاء الله the first and foremost the first point I'd like to look at is the two extremes one side being predestination and the other side being free will what are their meanings and what are their extents and at the final account I'd like to look at the school of Ahl al-Bait and what it has to say about such issues إن شاء الله to conclude we'd like to look at an example to let us with our limited intellect understand how Allah سبحانه وتعالى tries to test us with the idea of predestination versus free will إن شاء الله to start off tonight please help me in reciting Allah's Salawat على محمد وآل محمد predestination in its essence means that we believe in the idea that everything Allah سبحانه وتعالى has predetermined every move that we make Allah has predetermined everything that we think of and go towards Allah has already predetermined that's one side of the scale and on the flip side of the scale we have free will all together in which the concept and the thought process is that Allah سبحانه وتعالى has given us the authority to do everything in our own accord and the idea that Allah has created the earth the cycles within it and He has left it for us to do whatever that we wish in that particular earth that He has created within those cycles that He has created for us so we find these two particular extremes and then we have one school of thought that's in between the two now one school of thought known as the Ash'arites these are the people that believe in predestination then we have the Mu'tazilites believing in total free will now let's look at why is it that someone may like to think about predestination what kind of government does it help out what kind of authorities does it aid now if we think about it in the idea of predestination we said that the idea is that everything that happens Allah سبحانه وتعالى has already predestined therefore if we look at the government that happened in accordance or in the same timeline as the prophet of Islam the same timeline as the imams of Ahl al-Bayt we find such as the Umayyad Khalifas such as the Abbasid Khalifas what did we remember them saying time and time again when people would start to question them saying that is this chair that you sit on or is this throne that you sit on for the Ahl al-Bayt or isn't it their reply is the same thing that we discussed tonight the idea of predestination because they say that do not talk to me that I have taken the Khilafat don't talk to me that I have taken this particular seat it's not my fault that Allah has predestined for me to take it therefore this accounts for their actions if in actual fact we believe in an idea an theological idea of predestination therefore we see that it served the purpose of the Khilafat it served the purpose of the Umayyad of the Abbasids whenever someone would come forth and tell them you have taken a right which is not yours their reply is what is that Allah سبحانه وتعالى has given that to us Allah سبحانه وتعالى has already determined this therefore your problem is not with me your problem is with Allah that's how they try to push it away on the flip side the second point that we want to raise in the idea of predestination does Allah سبحانه وتعالى if he's already predestined everything need prophets as in if Allah is already predestined that you do right or you do wrong Allah سبحانه وتعالى has already predestined that you go towards hell or towards heaven do we actually need prophets as in a prophet has come to mankind to guide them either they listen to him and go towards heaven either they listen to him and they are in salvation or they go against him and they go towards the hellfire therefore if we believe in an idea of predestination it does not need anymore prophets and imams to carry on the message to guide people and Allah in accordance to them has already predetermined where you will go therefore the school of Ahl al-Bayt does not agree with this first one on the second level let's look at the idea of free will Allah سبحانه وتعالى as they say in the idea of free will has created the earth has created the cycles and allowed us to do whatever we want inside it now let's look at the contradictions here Allah سبحانه وتعالى doesn't he have a hell doesn't he have a heaven allow us or doesn't he account for every action doesn't he give us guidelines of Quran how to live our life therefore the second is also disproved therefore we find what does the school of Ahl al-Bayt say about this because we know what the opposition says we know what the schools of thought outside the Ahl al-Bayt say in which Abu Hanif goes to the house of Imam Al-Sadaq عليه أفضل الصلاة والسلام Imam Al-Sadaq inside موسى الكافم comes out 5 years of age he comes to Abu Hanif he says what is it that we can help you with he says is your father home is your father he says my father is busy however is there anything you'd like to ask me that I can help you with 5 years of age he says I have a jurisprudential question he says go ahead if I can answer it I'll answer it I can't answer it I'll take it towards my father so Abu Hanif is thinking to himself if he doesn't he's obviously not going to answer me at 5 years of age because me at my great and me at my old age can't answer this particular question this 5 year old won't be able to answer it he'll take this question he'll go towards his father and his father will answer you when we meet so he says what's the question of Abu Hanif he says he says to him I have a question in regard to predestination he says what's the question he says predestination I don't know is the sin when committed going to be on my shoulder only is it a joint relation between me and Allah only Allah in charge of that particular sin which I commit so in essence he's saying that who is in charge of this particular sin the 5 year old look how beautiful he replies he says well obviously it cannot have any relation with Allah Abu Hanif pauses he says why is it he says well obviously on the first instance we can't say that Allah will be punished for a sin that we commit otherwise there wouldn't be a hell and then heaven he says on the second occasion we can't be half us half Allah because it's unfair that we are punished and will be Allah is not therefore the only conclusion is what the only conclusion is that Allah has nothing to do with our sin and we are solely in charge of the sins in which we commit Abu Hanif is thinking to himself 5 years of age and he's just answered the question that I've been it's been revolving in my head for so long he goes away going back into the topic إن شاء الله predestination versus free will what does it have to say about predestination versus free will إمام صاديق asks this question he says to the man that asks him the difference between predestination and free will he says lift your leg so the man lifts one of his legs he says at the same time I want you to lift the other leg the man says it's impossible I'll fall over he says that's the balance he says Allah is in charge and does not give you any will over some aspects of your life other aspects Allah has given you the freedom of choice examples we are not given the choice of where we are born when we are born when we shall die whom our parents are we don't have a say in that do we if we go ask that to the people that believe in free will go and tell them did you have a choice in which you were raised whom you were born to when you shall die they'll obviously ask and tell you that we have no say in this if I'm on my mam صاديق response to this is saying that in essence Allah has some aspects of your life covered he gives you the free will in other parts when Abu Hanifa has three particular ideologies within his jurisprudence number one he says that Iblis will not be burnt in hellfire why because he is made of hellfire so he says it will not be hurt by hellfire number two anything that exists must be seen and you find that ideology is still within other schools of thought so number one Iblis will not burn in hellfire because he is made of hellfire number two he says that everything that exists has to be seen and number three he says everything is predestined that is his ideas that is his theology that is his conclusion therefore we find a particular person this story is attributed to many people but famously its average attributed to Bahloul in which he picks up clay and a hard clay and he throws it at Abu Hanifa Abu Hanifa is angry because he is in pain takes Bahloul towards the court he takes him in front of the judge and he says I want you to prosecute Bahloul the judge is thinking to himself he is a madman or so it seems that he is a madman how can I prosecute a madman he says you have to prosecute him because I am in pain he throws a rock at me and he deserves punishment then they go to Bahloul they say why is it that you threw this rock he says I have no guilt in the matter he says but you threw this rock he says it wasn't me that threw it he says Abu Hanifa has the idea that everything is predestined therefore it wasn't me that threw the rock الله made me throw the rock if it's in accordance with Abu Hanifa he says secondly the rock shouldn't hurt Abu Hanifa they said why Abu Hanifa says that Iblis won't burn in Hellfire because it's made of Hellfire I've taken rock or clay I've thrown it at clay we're made from clay aren't we he says I've taken clay thrown it at clay and clay got hurt Abu Hanifa says technically he shouldn't get hurt and on the third instance Abu Hanifa says what he says that everything that exists has to be seen he says he says that he feels pain can he show me pain therefore the judge is left speechless and he lets Bahloul go the idea he's trying to paint to us is that not everything is predestined the Iblis teach us this and they teach us furthermore that our actions may change something that's predestined I'll give you an example Allah has written for us a particular date in which we die let's say for example Allah has written for this person by the name of Ahmed to die in 30 years in the narrations of our prophet of our Imams it says that is one of the actions that you or not do that may increase or decrease your lifespan Allah has written that you die in a specific date however if you enjoin relations with your family the Imams tell us that Allah may expand your life as much as 30 years and on the reverse angle if you break relations with your family Allah may decrease your life by as much as 30 years therefore something that is in free will may have a direct effect with something that's already predestined that's the effect that the Imams try to teach us that everything is in your hands therefore what can we learn or what example can we give to ourselves to analyze or to make us think of it in a more simplified version an easier way to go about thinking about predestination versus free will now the example I want to give to you is a very very significant one and the more you think about it the more it applies the example I want to give you is the example of the tree the example of the tree if you want to think about it number 1 imagine the root of that tree is the foundation the foundation doesn't begin to branch out until a particular time until a particular height now imagine the life of the person in his younger years building the foundation to his future building his iman building his strength in his religion before he reaches in which he begins to be in a state where he begins to choose his path when he begins to branch out now this is the idea of predestination versus free will Allah knows it's not that Allah doesn't know Allah knows where you are capable to go imagine that tree and every leaf on that tree is an end destination that you have every branch every tweak every turn that you make in that tree maybe the parameter in which Allah SWT has gifted you has given you that space in which you can travel your end destination cannot proceed those leaves in the tree but they're the end destination but you cannot go outside that shell which is what's predestined for you but you have the freedom of choice to choose which branch to take which tweak to go to which leaf to end up at and Imam Ali SA has a beautiful narration in reference to trees he says Allah does not send the wind to the trees to make the leaves dance it's to test the root of that tree take it into this example the foundation that you build yourself in before you reach that level of puberty in which you will be your actions will be entitled to either a reward or a sin and Allah SWT says in the Quran in which we read in the غفيلة and Salat al-Gufaila there is not a leaf that falls from a tree except that Allah SWT has the knowledge of take that example into perspective take that idea into perspective to make us learn and to make us analyze the concept of predestination in a more simplified manner and Insha'Allah I end with a question for tonight and that question is as follows because we can act upon our particular rewards or sin progress however when we are gifted do we know that it's because of our sins or because of our rewards of our good actions that we are given paradise is it because of our عمال that we are given paradise is it because that I've done good is it because that I've read the Quran that I've prayed that I've given zakat is this the reason why Allah SWT gives us paradise or is it because of his mercy or Allah's mercy now the jurists have all come together unanimously and advised that it's not because of our actions it's because of Allah's mercy that he allows us to go into his heaven why because Allah SWT if it was not for Allah would we have the brain to think to do that particular act if Allah SWT didn't give us the legs or the hands or the will to go and work and earn a living would we be able to give that charity would we be able to help the people in need will we be able to enjoin relations if Allah hasn't given us the opportunity to therefore every single act that we do Allah has the grounds or has given us the pulpit to do that action that's why a sin is so severe because Allah has gifted us with everything to do that particular good however we use that same tool that Allah has given us to do evil or to do bad and that's why we have to learn especially in Ramadan when we are given this pulpit in which Allah says I have my mercy that's abundant in this month your breathing is in this month your sleeping is worship Allah gives us this let's take it on to ourselves to be the best that we can be let's take it upon ourselves to grasp these rewards let's not let Ramadan go past until we take it to its full extent utilize it to its full extent and keep that ongoing until next Ramadan and I end on this brothers and sisters Insha'Allah we had a slight image of what predestination versus free will but Insha'Allah we have that in the back of our minds and we pray to Allah on that note that He allows us to utilize the mercy or His mercy and His bounties in this holy month of Ramadan ببركة الصورة الفاتحة صبقها الصلاة على محمد وآل محمد


The Navy League kicked off the 51st annual Sea Air and Space Expo in National Harbor, Maryland. Chief of Naval Operations Emerald John Richardson spoke about the current state of the Navy, future readiness of the fleet, and innovation during a service chief's update panel. And so that maritime domain and other global systems like the information system, which has become ubiquitous and has accelerated things so much, the rate of introduction of technology, which is, again, not only entering the market faster and faster, but being adopted by society at a just as fast a rate. The rules of the game, the rules of competition are changing just as fast if not faster than the competitors themselves. To find out more about the Sea Air and Space Expo, visit navy.mil.


The second functionality that I wanted to introduce on the platform product stream is new app icons. So everybody is probably quite familiar with the icons that are on the left side of this slide. These have been around for a very long time. Some of them are older than others. Some of them are newer, but still in sort of the same style or in very different styles. So it's not very consistent. So we're very excited to introduce a new set of icons for the core DHS-2 applications that all have the same design style and look just quite a bit cleaner and better than the previous versions that have been around and evolved over time. And so excited to see these new application icons. The apps haven't necessarily changed. It's just a new fresher look and hopefully you'll see some resemblance between for example, the Maps application icon on the left side here and the Maps application icon in version 40 that is similar has a throwback to that previous icon. So hopefully you can still recognize those icons and just see the new style that's been introduced.