Arturo Calvo - Blog

I developed a memory game called Kobadoo as a Single-Page Application (SPA) using ReactJS. Since the very beginning I tried to monetize the game by displaying ads, but it was not that easy.  Despite the good traffic Kobadoo had, all my applications to Adsense were consistently rejected by Google with the cryptic argument " Valuable Inventory: No content ".  My first guess was that the landing page needed even more text . I had at that time two or three paragraphs describing the game, and I ended up adding two more with the hope that it would help Adsense find better contextual ads. However, this change made no effect and the application was rejected again. Then, after reading some articles stating the poor SEO performance of ReactJS applications, I decided to implement Server-Side Rendering (SSR) with NextJS , which is a proven technique to rank better on search engines. Sadly, Google rejected once again my application with the same explanation. Disappointed, I decided t...

When I started using Adsense I was shocked that, after a few days with decent revenue, it suddenly dropped to 0. I had previously followed the steps to upload the right ads.txt file to my root domain, and I could see it by opening https:// kobadoo.com/ads.txt . After waiting for a week with the annoying message " Earnings at risk " being displayed and zero earnings, I figured out what the problem actually was. I was able to access ads.txt , but Google bots weren't. My robots.txt file had this content:     User-agent: *     Allow: /index.html     Disallow: / I changed it to the one below, and after a few hours the error message disappeared and the earnings came back to normal.     User-agent: *     Allow: /

In early 2021 I developed a memory game called Kobadoo  as a PWA (Progressive Web App) using ReactJS. It works pretty well as a browser game and gets decent traffic, but I wanted to reach more potential users by making it available on the official mobile app marketplaces. Since I didn't want to spend any time coding a native app, the easiest solution I found was to convert the PWA into a TWA (Trusted Web Activities) app. It barely takes 5 minutes to do it. TWA essentially allows you to easily create an Android app ( .apk file) that displays a full-screen browser view of your PWA. The user experience is almost identical to a web app and the views from the TWA will count as traffic on your web app. This means that if you have ads on your PWA, they will still work (and generate revenue) from the TWA. Another advantage is that every update you make on the PWA will be immediately reflected on the TWA without the need to submit a new version on Google Play. Here's how I convert...

How do you feel when you receive a work email on a Sunday at 01:48? After having my first child I enjoyed the flexibility of choosing when and where to work from. I adapted my routines and started catching up with email at very unusual hours : late at night and on weekends. Every time I sent an email outside normal working hours I had a bad conscience. Despite my good intentions, these emails had some negative consequences : Disturbing the recipient during her free time if she has push notifications on. Create a false sense of urgency  and despair. Give the wrong impression that I am always available and that I expect the recipient to be reachable too. Very  low response rate . Affect the reputation of the business I represent as a "great place to work". Fortunately, most email service providers have now implemented the option to schedule emails to be delivered at a later date and time. [ Learn how it is done on Gmail and Outlook ] Scheduling feature on Gmail Since I s...

In September 2021 I chose to sell my crypto AI art business after two enriching (and often painful) years as a part-time sole founder. Today  AImade.art  is one of the best-selling AI art collections on Opensea . I want to share with you some of the key lessons I learned during this period: Work hard and get lucky.  And I got really lucky. On February 24th 2021 I had planned to shut down AImade.art , back then a business selling AI Art printed on canvas. I was discouraged after several months with no sales and my Shopify billing cycle was ending that day. Then something incredible happened: I missed the Shopify deadline and I sold an artwork one hour later. The buyer asked me: " Can I get it in as an NFT? ". I had absolutely no idea what an NFT was, but after a bit of research I found the concept so interesting that, two days later, I had pivoted the entire business to  NFT art made by AI . Sales started to pick up: I had finally found produc...

NFTs are disrupting the creative industry by providing artists with a   new medium to sell their work   and even make a profit with subsequent resales. Although this technique has been around for some years already, it is in 2021 when it has started flourishing driven by the new golden era for cryptocurrencies. However, NFTs are being criticized for the carbon emissions they produce. Each transaction is  estimated  to produce  20 kg of CO2   [1]  and there are often multiple transactions connected to a single artwork. Carbon emissions associated to NFTs An individual NFT transaction  does not  directly  increase emissions . As SuperRare points out  [2] , Ethereum's blockchain has a fixed energy consumption at a given point in time regardless on how many transactions are processed. While this statement is technically true, there are at least two ways NFTs are ...

  On January 23rd 1812, a group of artisans stormed in a textile workshop in Nottingham (UK). Armed with hammers, they smashed the knitting machines that could produce goods 100 times faster than by hand. Most of them were arrested, sentenced to death and hanged at York Castle. They were   Luddites , a movement of highly skilled textile artisans that in early XIX century were protesting against the increasing use of machines operated by unskilled workers. The fear of machines taking our jobs is nothing new; and we can see the exact same thing happening now amplified by Hollywood movies, which generate a rather negative aura around robots. However, Artificial Intelligence is already bringing huge growth from the new types of goods, services and innovations that this technology enables. Indeed, Gartner  [1]  estimates that AI will generate  $2.9 trillion  in business value in 2021. Does it mean that our jobs will be safe? No...