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The Top 5 Greatest Mistakes in App Marketing

Without exception, an app’s marketing will dictate the extent of its success. Whether it’s a mobile or a web app, there exists more than just one angle of approach to marketing; for whichever plan you devise, remember to avoid these common mistakes. 1. Inadequate focus on your app’s USP Your chief objective while marketing should be to prevent your app from blending in with the rest on the app store. This is why successful marketing is contingent on the promotion of a product’s unique attribute – that is, its Unique Selling Proposition. If you feel as though you’ve lost a grasp on what makes your app unique, stop and ask yourself: The majority of your marketing efforts should be centered around how you will provide the answers to these above questions. If you plan on delegating all marketing responsibilities to a team, avoid the mistake of assuming that each individual is already on-board with the app’s selling point. The success of an app depends on its popularity, which is largely contingent on how it’s being marketed: the marketing team’s collective understanding of your app’s selling point is as vital to your app’s success as the selling point itself. 2. Unfamiliarity with the market’s evolving stratagem The common denominator between the most successful apps today concerns App store Search Optimization. ASO refers to the technique of choosing and incorporating specific keywords into an app description/name to generate the most visits from App Store search queries. The central ASO trend seems to be gravitating towards the incorporation of simplified phrasing and keywords within the app’s description and title. The image below contains the top apps from Google Play Store’s Health & Fitness app category. Each of their names briefly yet concisely reflects their function: Notice how the two pedometer apps are simply named “Pedometer.” Before you publish your app, ask yourself: which keywords would a typical user search with to find an app like mine? 3. Neglecting feedback Neglecting feedback is one of the most irresponsible things an appreneur can do. While marketing, your goal should be to improve communication between you, the developer, and the user. How big of an impact on an app’s reviews does opening channels of communication have? Note the contrasting levels of effort invested in bolstering user-developer communication between the app SoundCloud and Yik Yak: Unlike SoundCloud, notice how Yik Yak’s developers implemented a review and feedback feature directly into their UI. The results were on par with what we expected:    Although more users installed SoundCloud, approximately 3 times as many users left a review for Yik Yak (relative to each of the app’s installations).Fulfilling the demands of your current user base improves your application’s chances for success: your app is more likely to gain traction after it meets the interests of its user base. Better products equals better reviews, and having better reviews leaves an overall better impression on your app for potential users to see. 4. Launching apps with poor timing Setting and promoting a release date is a great way to build anticipation; however, be sure to leave adequate time for beta testing before the app’s launch. If you release the app too soon, there’s a good chance that it’ll contain either unattractive glitches or experience-breaking errors – overlooked glitches and bugs will put a strain on any app’s reputation. Even if the errors are addressed and fixed, the disproportionate ratio of negative to positive reviews will likely bottleneck the potential of your app’s success, making it unattractive and that much more difficult to market. Also, try not to overlap your app’s release date with that of another highly anticipated app or tech. There’s no risk in planning your app’s release for a later date; there is, however, a risk in endangering the success of your app by sharing its launch date with that of another anticipated product. 5. Creating false expectations Market your app in a way that neither sails over nor falls short of its intended functionality. When marketing and developing, stay focused on your app’s selling point. Don’t try to impress yourself and others with unnecessary implementations that are irrelevant to your app’s chief function – aim to mitigate clutter. In other words, market what you develop, and develop what you market.

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How to Research your Competitors

You’ve come up with the most brilliant, original idea for an app, and you’ve decided on your target market – now it’s time to start designing, right? Wrong. Before moving on, you need to do a little more research. This time, it’s research into your competition. In order to create a successful app, you need to observe the enemy to see what they do well – and what they don’t do so well. We’ve created a spreadsheet you can download to help you keep track of all this data. There are reminder notes attached to the column headings to remind you how to fill all the information in. Find your competitors First, in the spreadsheet, you’ll see a column where you can list all of your competitors. While there aren’t any real rules about how many competitors you look into, we usually focus on at least the strongest five and the weakest five, giving you a total of ten apps to study. To find these competitors, make a list of several of the most relevant keywords for your app, and search these on the app store. Make a note of which apps rank highly, and which rank poorly. Once you’ve collected this information, see if there are any trends – do certain apps consistently rank highly for more than one of your keywords (a positive competitor)? Do any consistently rank lower down (a negative competitor)? These are the apps you want to be looking at. Double-check that these apps are in fact competitors. They should be somewhat similar to your app in some way if they consistently rank well for your keywords, but confirm that they indeed are competitors and fill in why in the spreadsheet. Once you establish your ten competitors, fill in the spreadsheet with the keywords you searched, the ranking of your chosen apps, and if they are a positive or negative competitor. We have ten keyword spots open on the spreadsheet, but you can take away or fill in keywords as needed. Check each app Next, you’ll have to examine each app closely. You should download each app and use it yourself, taking note of what you like and don’t like about the app as you use it. Is it easy to navigate? Confusing? Do all of the buttons work correctly? You must also read many of each app’s user reviews, taking note of what users do and do not like. Fill in what you have noticed in the appropriate spots in the spreadsheet, under “What they do well” and “What they do poorly.” Use their weaknesses In the end, you will be incorporating these pros and cons into how you go about building your own app. Take the weaknesses of other apps and make those strong points for your own. Use the features that consistently work well for your competitors. Consider upgrading these features, but don’t forget the saying, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” It’s a popular saying for a reason! If you’re reading this post and sitting back the whole time thinking, “I can skip all of this, my idea is completely new and I have no competitors,” think about why you don’t have anyone competing in your field. Maybe it is because your idea has been tested in the past but has never been sustainable. Perhaps there was no demand for the idea. But hey, maybe you have discovered the new big thing!Now that you’ve researched your competition, it’s time to get to the fun part and create your first mockup!

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Top Most Popular APIs for Building An SEO Software

Competition is increasing day by day. No matter if you belong to the marketing or SEO software development field. And to get one step ahead of your competitors, you need to focus on providing services that solve your customers’ problems. Now, let’s assume you are building an SEO software; what problems might your customers face? Some problems could be: There are plenty of such issues faced by SEO software users. Hence to solve them, the best way is to integrate APIs while building an SEO software that fulfills or solves the issues effortlessly. In this post we will discuss what APIs are, their uses, and the top most popular APIs for building SEO software. What Is An API? The full form of API is “Application Programming Interface”. In simple language, the use of an API is to play the role of intermediary between two applications to talk to each other. We can also use an API to fulfill the communication channel with other software and hardware. Let’s take an example of an application that consists of a front end and a back end, and both of these sections can be developed using different languages. Hence, to let the back end and front end communicate, web & software developers use APIs. How Does An API Work? Let’s assume you are working on SEO software to integrate keyword research and website analysis features. To not write the whole code from scratch and save a lot of your time as a software developer, you would re-use the pre-existing external software components, which you can either get from a friend or software websites online. But, here’s an issue. If your friend does not want to share their code with you or the software website has its code written in another language, what will you do? The solution is to ask your friend or the software company to make an API and give the endpoints to you. You can connect these endpoints to your SEO software and carry forward the communication process. (An endpoint is a regular URL with the help of which you can use an API.) Popular APIs For Building An SEO Software Finding the right APIs to integrate into your SEO software can be a bit challenging, so here we are to help you out with our most popular API selections that you can use for building SEO software. DataForSEO Google trends help you know how often a keyword is searched on Google within a specific time. While using this tool, we can carry forward a search based on global trends, or if you want to go very specific with a location, you can do that too. All the responses are returned in the JSON format by default, but this Google trends API also supports responses in the XML and HTML formats. The API sends requests to google servers, and the requested parameters are sent back as an answer. The most common requested parameters are region, time interest, trending searches, related topics, top charts, and keyword suggestions. With the help of DataForSEO Google trends API, you would be able to save a lot of time for your SEO software users, as without Google trends, it will take a lot of time to do the research. DeepCrawl is the second API from the list that helps carry forward entire website crawls, collect the data, and send it to the client. Not just that, we can also get a lot of technical SEO data for the website. There are several such capabilities of DeepCrawl API. You would not integrate this API by using any 3rd-party provider to help you fetch data without writing code. You would have to connect your scripts to integrate with this API. With this API, you can easily run a live crawl on your or your customer’s websites, and the best part is they offer you accurate data for better outcomes. Google Search Console API collects click and impression data, query rankings, search volumes and more. Integrating this API with your website or SEO software is available via almost any method. Not just that, you can quickly develop custom script routes for this API. One of the most significant advantages of integrating this API is you get Search console data availability for the last 16 months. SEMrush API offers several uses: keyword data and search volume collection, domain overview, organic search keyword data, and more. Users can easily access the data using any easy to complex method. Hence they would be able to collect the data in a CSV file. If you want to integrate backlink data collection features into your SEO software, then Majestic SEO API is the best option for you. With the help of this API, you can get a list of backlinks for a domain or a specific page too. You can integrate this API with your SEO software without any precise authentication, which means you can directly pass a URL request for the integration. This is not a free API; you would have to pick up a plan based on your requirements. Here’s another option for collecting backlinks data which is Ahrefs API. They have recently introduced their API to the users, and it is filled with several latest integrations to help you out. You can integrate it quickly, and it will return the requested data in JSON format. This was all about some of the most popular APIS for building SEO software. Summary Still, thinking that you can’t get ahead of your competitors with your SEO software? You shouldn’t. With the help of these most popular APIs integrated into your SEO software, you can make the life of your customers easy, and they’re going to fall in love with your software.

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Free vs Paid Apps

One of the most frequent questions we get is regarding one of the most important decisions an app owner must make – how to make money with your app. In this first post of our “App Monetization” series we will discuss the first decision you will have to make: Should I make my app free or paid? Let’s start with the obvious: if you have a paid app, you are guaranteed to earn money on every single user; if you have a free app, you will certainly get more downloads (sometimes 1,000 times more), but you will live with the hope of earning money on only some of the users. Is living with this hope of income worse than having guaranteed income? Turns out not at all! According to a report by Distimo, the total App Store profit revenue from paid apps accounts for only 24%. The revenue from in-app purchases, made inside of paid apps, account for another 5%, and the revenue from in-app purchases from free apps account for 71% of profit revenue. Besides immediate revenue, you should also consider several other things, including app reviews, user commitment and competition. App reviews If your app is free, users won’t lose anything by downloading it and users generally will have lower expectations. Hence, there is a greater chance of getting a good review for the quality of the app and a lesser chance of getting a bad review, simply because users didn’t lose any money on the app. The simple logic you need to remember is that the higher the price of the app, the more users will expect from the app. If the app doesn’t deliver, be prepared to receive harsh reviews. User commitment With the free app you will certainly get more downloads, however many of the users will download the app simply out of curiosity. These users may have no real interest in the app at all. Hence, if your goal is to retain users or get users that are actually interested in your app, then a paid app might be a better option. Competition Before you decide on the price of your app, make sure you research your competition. How do similar apps earn money? Besides your competition, you also need to understand user needs. For example, with one of the first apps we ever built, LSAT Triangle (helped students get into law school), we were able to set the price at $10. This is because ten bucks is considered nothing for a chance of getting into a better law school. Seems like free app is the way to go So you want great reviews, you want to get as many users as possible, and you see that all your competitors have free apps – does that mean you should make the app free? No. First, make sure you have a strategy for how to make money on ads or in-app purchases. If you don’t think users would be willing to buy anything inside the app or you don’t expect to have enough users to earn money on ads – don’t expect to earn money with a free app. Additionally, remember that higher priced apps allude to higher quality.

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How to Keep Your App Relevant

An average iOS phone is said to have 48 apps downloaded in the United States. This means marketing for your app doesn’t end at the download. Keep your users coming back by keeping your app relevant and up to date with trending themes, features and other attractive app elements. Understand your consumer audience and look into other apps they may be using and what they are doing. It’s important to know what you are up against but also vital to keep an eye on how other apps are updating their service. Netflix is a great example of a service that stays relevant for their users. They offer movies appropriate to holiday seasons and feature movies which star celebrities that are trending in the news. Netflix also achieves to make their service relevant to even the individual through their movie rating feature and ‘Top Picks’ selection. Below are some basic methods of keeping your app up-to-date: Experts in the field discuss the importance of immediate gratification and results which translates to relevance. They believe relevance is the key to influencing user behavior. For most apps the most important dimensions to understand relevance through is location, user profile and date/time. To keep your app moving to the top, make a deliberate effort to keep your app relevant to users.

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App Store Optimization: Categories and Subcategories

There are several tactics of App Store Optimization. One strategy to optimize your app on the App Store is to use your app category listing effectively to lift your app to the top of the search. With the new iPhone, the iOS 8 App Store has introduced subcategories to every one of their current 24 categories. This indicates a swelling increase in the app store optimizing opportunities. The increase in categories will result in the more likely possibility for your app to appear within the first few apps under their respective category or subcategory search. Within these categories, Apple can feature related apps, which has a strong success (download) rate. Moreover, sub-categories also display second-tier subcategories. For example, as seen in the screenshots, when the user selects the explore tab they are taken to the standard 24 categories. In this scenario, the user selects ‘Food and Drink’. Under ‘Food and Drink’ appears several subcategories including ‘Beverages’. Then, by selecting ‘Beverages’ the user is brought to another selection of options: ‘Coffees’, ‘Juices’, ‘Recipes’, and ‘Tea’. This helps the user further specify their search and find an app that satisfies their need whilst also helping apps that are better suited to perform the specific service at hand rise to the top of the search list. This new organization of the app store makes searches highly specific and more likely to bring potential users who seek your app’s service to your app. Apple advertises their update on their website with the slogan “Huge for developers. Massive for everyone else.” and explain that “[They] simply set out to create the most natural, most useful experience…”. Overall, it will be interesting to see how this new search model refines the way we find apps and how apps can now have an opportunity to shine in their special category.

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4 Strategies to Increase App User Retention

You got their attention, you got them to download your app, how do you keep them coming back? App user retention is vital for the health of your app business. You want users to be satisfied with their experience enough to keep using the app so your app can prove to be effective in its category and create organic marketing when loyal users tell their friends about your mobile application. This post outlines some strategies, also discussed more in depth by Alon Even at Appsee, you can put in place to help your app increase user retention. Design it First things first: the design of your app is its first impression on a user so make it bold and simple. Users who feel overwhelmed with options in menu screens or option tabs often do not return to those apps. Your app should have fluidity of manageable amount of options and easy functionality. Mobile applications which adopt a minimalist design achieve this very well. Reward users Another strategy with an emphasis on increasing a user’s LifeTime Value (LTV) is incentivized engagement. Many game apps already have this model in place. You can reward your user with extra content, more features or a limited time premium experience if they achieve a specific goal in the app that can only be achieved through a high return rate. This has been known to effectively increase the user’s LTV. Coupons Monetary incentives are also a strong pull for app users to return. Coupons allow you to reward your user for returning and using your app in addition to creating loyal users who feel appreciated. It also creates an opportunity for your mobile application business to build relationships with other businesses and create more opportunities for the future. Notifications Alon Even identifies and explains an important pattern regarding app retention: “In the first month after downloading, when users typically drop out of using an app, users who opt-in to receive push notifications have just over a 25% higher probability to continue using the app than those who do not. Beyond the first month, users who have opted-in are retained at twice the rate of those do not get notifications. Additionally, users who opt-in in also open those apps at twice the rate for those who did not opt-in during their first month. This app engagement percentage increases over time.” Thus it is important to consider how you want to notify your users of activity on your app. Any notifications that are overwhelming will cause the user to uninstall the app, however, a notification system that reminds the user of the app is vital for a frequent return rate. Besides the tactics discussed it is also extremely important to monitor your users and see how they use the app. Observations collected through monitoring your returning user’s habits will help you update your app to become more user friendly and operate more effectively for your user. It may even inspire new features for future upgrades.

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How to Research your Competitors

You’ve come up with the most brilliant, original idea for an app, and you’ve decided on your target market – now it’s time to start designing, right? Wrong. Before moving on, you need to do a little more research. This time, it’s research into your competition. In order to create a successful app, you need to observe the enemy to see what they do well – and what they don’t do so well. We’ve created a spreadsheet you can download to help you keep track of all this data. There are reminder notes attached to the column headings to remind you how to fill all the information in. Find your competitors First, in the spreadsheet, you’ll see a column where you can list all of your competitors. While there aren’t any real rules about how many competitors you look into, we usually focus on at least the strongest five and the weakest five, giving you a total of ten apps to study. To find these competitors, make a list of several of the most relevant keywords for your app, and search these on the app store. Make a note of which apps rank highly, and which rank poorly. Once you’ve collected this information, see if there are any trends – do certain apps consistently rank highly for more than one of your keywords (a positive competitor)? Do any consistently rank lower down (a negative competitor)? These are the apps you want to be looking at. Double-check that these apps are in fact competitors. They should be somewhat similar to your app in some way if they consistently rank well for your keywords, but confirm that they indeed are competitors and fill in why in the spreadsheet. Once you establish your ten competitors, fill in the spreadsheet with the keywords you searched, the ranking of your chosen apps, and if they are a positive or negative competitor. We have ten keyword spots open on the spreadsheet, but you can take away or fill in keywords as needed. Check each app Next, you’ll have to examine each app closely. You should download each app and use it yourself, taking note of what you like and don’t like about the app as you use it. Is it easy to navigate? Confusing? Do all of the buttons work correctly? You must also read many of each app’s user reviews, taking note of what users do and do not like. Fill in what you have noticed in the appropriate spots in the spreadsheet, under “What they do well” and “What they do poorly.” Use their weaknesses In the end, you will be incorporating these pros and cons into how you go about building your own app. Take the weaknesses of other apps and make those strong points for your own. Use the features that consistently work well for your competitors. Consider upgrading these features, but don’t forget the saying, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” It’s a popular saying for a reason! If you’re reading this post and sitting back the whole time thinking, “I can skip all of this, my idea is completely new and I have no competitors,” think about why you don’t have anyone competing in your field. Maybe it is because your idea has been tested in the past but has never been sustainable. Perhaps there was no demand for the idea. But hey, maybe you have discovered the new big thing!Now that you’ve researched your competition, it’s time to get to the fun part and create your first mockup!

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Getting Opinions About Your App Idea

When it comes to new ideas, apps are no different: you need advice from others. This step is immensely important in ensuring you have a good idea. Once you have a firm grasp on your concept, it’s time to get opinions from others. It’s important to do this for several reasons. First, you need to make sure that your idea makes sense to other people, and not just you. You must discuss your ideas with others before you even create a mockup. Second, it is good to have others explore your concept idea and point out any obvious logic gaps in your idea. Even though what you are telling them about is just an idea, it is still likely that someone will notice if you make any assumptions that are too great to be feasible. Filling in the missing pieces early on will save you time and money because you can figure out how to connect your ideas before the jumps are designed and coded into the actual app. Target market When choosing who to asses your idea, it is important to get people who are a part of your target audience to make sure that the idea is still applicable to that audience. If there is a trend with people in your target market not being interested in the idea, then you need to reconsider your idea or your target market. Professionals Also include professionals, such as other appreneurs (app entrepreneurs!), people in the tech, mobile, or IT industries, or computer science professors. They can use their expertise to provide helpful, detailed feedback about your idea and the practicality of turning this idea into an app. Forums and social media You can consider asking for advice and feedback online, such as on forums or social media. However, before doing this, you must consider the lack of security that comes with being so public. You’ll ask friends and family you trust about your idea, but once you post it to the general public, anyone could potentially take the idea and carry it out as their own. OthersHowever, don’t limit yourself to the target audience or professionals during this review. Anyone can analyze your idea regardless of who they are. Users of your app won’t be limited to technology professionals either (unless they’re exclusively your target market!). In fact someone to whom you are not planning on targeting your app can think outside the box and view at it from a different angle, possibly suggesting some useful improvements. Getting opinions from others can be intimidating, but take this as a time to be open to feedback and constructive criticism – especially because at this point you have the least amount of time and money invested and can easily make changes in order to improve. Your goal with this step is to be able to move on to design and develop the most beautiful, bug-free, user friendly app it can be.

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Using Social Media For Your App

Social media is running unrestrained through the streets of the 21st century, and as a creator of an app, you need to harness it and take control. With seemingly everyone you meet a part of some form of social media, it is an important marketing strategy for your app to be a part of social media as well. With social media, you can attract new users and maintain a presence for current ones, thereby driving overall demand for – and subsequent revenue from – your app. There are several benefits to using social media, and app creators are becoming more and more aware of this, using social media in new and effective ways to encourage current and prospective users. Tinder, for instance, uses social media outlets such as Facebook and YouTube to spread awareness of important issues such as sex trafficking and forced marriage. While not explicitly a promotion for their app, these posts generate positive attitudes towards Tinder from current or potential users. Another example of successful social media marketing is Angry Birds. The app has Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ accounts, and posts about two to four times a day to each site, making sure to always remind their followers about their app. This leads us to the first most important aspect to successful social media use: Some of the most popular social media sites include Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, YouTube, and Google+. Which sites you join depends on your app and the amount of time you are able to put into social media. Based on the importance of having a social media presence, making time should be a priority, though if you genuinely cannot find the time to maintain many accounts, then stick to just a few – there is nothing worse than following a social media account only to find that it is blank and unresponsive. Whether you have just a Facebook account, or if you have six other social media accounts, you need to maintain a consistent presence on each. You can post twice a day to each account, once a day, or once a week – just be consistent. Additionally, make sure to maintain a uniform voice across accounts and your app. Trustworthiness and credibility dissolves once the voice waivers. Once you have established your presence, you can move on to using social media to your advantage. Continue reading to learn the key factors to successfully using social media to promote your app. With users constantly demanding more from your app, you will have app updates fairly regularly. When this time comes, it will be helpful to have social media accounts to inform your users about any new features your app has and generate increased interest, instead of relying on them stumbling into it themselves. New updates are a way to incorporate not only your new ideas into the app, but also user feedback. Negative feedback can be combatted – as long as you are actually working to improve a critiqued feature – by ensuring users via social media that their ideas are being heard, and updates are being made. By knowing that app creators aren’t simply focused on their own ideas and what they want, user satisfaction goes up, and therefore commitment to the app as well. Social media can be used in two ways to create a dialogue: user-to-user, and you-to-user. The former is a great way to connect people using your apps if the app itself does not have a community or forum option within. By starting conversations between users, they generate a deeper connection to the app and are more likely to continue returning to it. The Crowdfire app is a great example of effective community building; it has a strong presence on Google+ where users can come to share ideas and inspiration. The latter type of dialogue is helpful for increasing credibility and reliability. Consistently responding to feedback from users reminds users that there are humans behind the app, and give users something with which they more naturally connect. Responses to positive feedback show that you care about the user and are doing this for them, while responses to negative feedback show that you are listening, as mentioned above. Social media is a fantastic way to begin building up your user base before you even launch the app. If you’re a pre-established offline company with any sort of following, you can use social media to announce your new app and make sure your already devoted customers know about it when it comes out. For new companies, generating a social media following focusing on hype for your app is a quicker way to get your app seen and downloaded than without this extra social media marketing. If your app makes use of in-app credits, for instance coins or points, that can be used to access other features of the app, then consider offering a certain number of credits as a reward for the user linking in with you on social media. Doing this is a win-win situation, with emphasis on your win. Because the user has received a reward, they now have more reason to use your app (to redeem whatever it is that the reward will provide), and therefore a greater likelihood of continuing to come back to it. You will also now have a greater presence in their daily life, even if there are days where they do not use the app, because they have chosen to follow your social media accounts. This will also lead to more committed users. While you will use social media for general promotion and relevant information, it is also beneficial to remind users of the extra content they can access with in-app purchases, if your app has them. The combination of seeing this option in both the app and on social media will create a lasting impression with your users and make it more likely that they will make a purchase. Don’t think that you have to stick to sharing content that

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