| Plus: Walmart self-checkout thief, foldable iPhone, Google's Super Bowl ad fumble ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏  In partnership with NordPass | | Hi, hi, hello on a fantastic Friday, friend! After a brutal 2024 revenue-wise, Starbucks is brewing up a bold new strategy under its freshly appointed CEO, formerly the head honcho at Chipotle. His latest moneymaking move? No more freeloaders. Grab a snack and refill your drink or you get the boot. Enforcing that will be a pain, so they're installing panic buttons baristas can press for help. Sip happens! ✅ Only $1.24 a month: That's all it costs to upgrade to my tested and recommended password app for PC, Mac, Android, iPhone and web browsers. More on that below. On to the tech smarts! — Kim 📣 Don't keep me a secret: Share the email with friends (or copy URL here) | TODAY'S TOP STORY Incoming: Small-biz smarts  I've run a broadcast business for over 25 years. I joke I'm an overnight success, but the truth is it took a long time to get here. In the beginning, it was like any new small biz, shoved into a small, crappy workspace with bills piling up. Whether you already run a small business or you're thinking about starting one, I can help. By popular demand, I'm launching a small-business edition of this newsletter, packed with tech tips, smart strategies and insider tricks to help you grow and make money. ✅ Hit this link to get on the list so you don't miss issue No. 1 when it drops. Now, let's dive into some must-know tips for every business owner. How to get your business and website listed in AI answers This one is all over my inbox. The funny thing is your website and online search reputation are the big drivers to getting your company and your content to display in AI results. Yep, AI is fed by the thing it is killing. A few pro tips: ✅ Keep your website fresh. AI is looking for clear, helpful content about your products, services or whatever. The algorithms value reliable sources, so make sure your "About" page boasts all about your qualifications and your FAQ page answers common questions. ✅ Use natural language. Chatbots are trained to prioritize real-world phrasing. Write how you'd talk to a customer. ✅ Ask your loyal customers to pitch in. AI looks for signs people are talking about you. Reviews get the most weight, then social media comments and mentions, too. Write better CTAs: That's a call to action, and no matter what you do or sell, yours should be clear, compelling and action-oriented. Skip "Click here" and try something that speaks directly to your audience's needs. Instead of "Sign up," try "Get your free guide." Instead of "Learn more," play with something like "See how it works." Struggling? Paste your CTAs into a chatbot and ask it for help making them more clickable. "Where am I leaving money on the table?" Ask ChatGPT. Never feed in your finances or exact reporting, but you can tell it about your company, what you do and how you make your money, and see if it has any bright ideas to get revenues up. 📈 Cheaper, more effective Facebook ads: Use engagement custom audiences to target people who've already interacted with your content, like someone who's liked one of your posts or watched a video. This cuts the cost of getting a qualified lead. Love that! To get started, go to Ads Manager > Audiences > Create a custom audience. Turn one piece of content into five: Say you spent time writing a great blog post. Be smart and repurpose it the easy way. Use ChatGPT (or your chatbot of choice) to transform your words into a LinkedIn post, X thread, email newsletter or even video script. Pro tip: Use this line with the bot: "I want you to read this sample and use it to guide your tone and word choice." You know I have more to share. Hit my site for three more smart small-biz tips! 🤔 If Wonder Woman and Spider-Man went into business together, would they call it Amazon Web Services? Dang, it's taken. All right, you know the drill. Share this one with your business partners, entrepreneurial friends and anyone else you think it'll help. | | IN PARTNERSHIP WITH |  | Fight your digital anxiety This number surprised me: 77% of Americans experience digital anxiety. It's that stressed, overloaded feeling from too many logins, forgetting passwords and the fear of being hacked. Sound familiar? NordPass can help! It's a secure, encrypted vault where you store all your passwords, credit cards, personal info, secure notes and attachments. It keeps everything safe in one spot, and you'll always know exactly where to find it. And when you're dreading coming up with yet another strong password, NordPass can generate logins for you based on top security recommendations. The best part? You can have NordPass search all the passwords stored in your vault and see how likely they are to get hacked. I negotiated a deal just for you, 58% off when you sign up now! → Please support our sponsors! | KIM KOMANDO TODAY Meet the TikTok PI exposing cheaters for millions to see Is your partner acting sketchy? Suddenly, they have a new "friend?" Steph A., aka "Your Fave Investigator," finds out the truth and posts the receipts for millions to see. Listen on Komando.com → | DEALS OF THE DAY Love at first sight 😊 I'm blushing at all the cash you're about to save. ▶️ More gadgets? Say no more. I've got a bunch of handpicked favorites for you. | WEB WATERCOOLER ⚡ Pulling the plug, literally: Wow, this is a wild one. Thailand just cut electricity to parts of Myanmar that house billion-dollar scam operations. There are shady compounds where people are forced to run schemes like romance and pig-butchering scams for little or no money. It won't do much to lower the number of scammers, sadly. Crime bosses are already switching to diesel generators for power and Elon Musk's Starlink for the internet. Ingenious till it wasn't: A guy in Idaho got caught using a homemade barcode ring to scam Walmart's self-checkout. He ripped off the store a few times without getting caught, then made a total bonehead move: He tried to ring up a $300 grill for the price of a 70-cent can of tomato soup. I wonder how the tomato soup is in jail. 🍏 I called this months ago: A foldable iPhone is coming, finally. Rumor has it it'll be ultra-thin, at just 4.6mm unfolded, and will use a Samsung foldable OLED panel since they've already figured out the tech. It could be a massive 12 inches, with two 6.1-inch displays connected by a hinge. The price is TBA, but I bet it'll cost a fortune. We'll find out in 2026. 🧀 Gouda grief, not again: Google had to edit one of its Super Bowl ads after its AI butchered a fact about Gouda. In the original video, Gemini said Gouda made up 50% to 60% of the world's cheese consumption. Spoiler: It doesn't. The fixed version calls it "one of the most popular cheeses in the world." Another reminder AI loves to make crap up or, as the AI companies say, "hallucinate." 🤖 Alexa's glow-up: Save the date for Feb. 26. That's when Amazon will show off a new Alexa with generative AI. Yep, it's finally happening after many delays. Alexa will be able to chat back and forth with you and help you get things done. Expect the smarter Alexa to cost you a few bucks a month. Shop local: Bet you never thought about it while browsing cheap stuff on Temu, but after President Trump did away with a tax break for e-commerce companies, the site's algorithm changed. Now you'll see more products from the Chinese retailer's U.S. warehouse marked with a green "local" badge. Yeah, I still won't use Temu. 🌋 Kick some ash: Scientists found a burnt scroll from Herculaneum, another Roman town Mount Vesuvius wiped out in 79 A.D. They're using X-rays and AI to read without touching it. Early hints say it might be a work of philosophy. When I visited Pompeii, I was amazed at how forward-thinking they were. There were food courts, sanitation, lovely homes, and even a brothel with the names of prostitutes on the walls with prices and ratings. Really! If you go, ask your tour guide the question I do wherever we go: "What's something you normally don't show tourists?" I will save my story about cannibals on the Amazon River for another day. | DIGITAL LIFE HACK Lost your phone on silent? Make it ring anyway You've checked your pockets, torn apart the couch and even dug through the laundry. Nothing. Now, try this. Listen on Komando.com → | TECH LIFE UPGRADES 😵💫 Overwhelmed? AI can help when you have no idea where to start on a big project. Here's a prompt to get you thinking: "I have a 50th birthday party to organize, and it's happening in two months. I need to find a venue for 75 people and cater the event. What tasks do I need to do, and how should I organize my time?" It's not just apps on your phone: Websites ask for permissions, too, and you may have granted access to your webcam and microphone. To check in Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge or Mozilla Firefox, click the icon to the left of the address bar, near the refresh button. For Safari on a Mac, click the Safari menu > Settings for … Voila. "Kim, how is EndpointLock different from a VPN?" A VPN encrypts your internet connection and hides your web activity. EndpointLock encrypts your keystrokes so no one can copy what you type. It's a must for me. Hit this link for 10% off.* ⌨️ Shortcut bonanza because I know you love 'em: On Windows, hit Windows key + L to lock your screen, Windows key + E to open File Explorer and Windows key + M to minimize all apps. The Mac equivalents: Cmd + Control + Q to lock your screen, Cmd + spacebar to open Spotlight Search and Cmd + Option + M to minimize your windows. So much swiping: You're deep down a webpage on your iPhone. Tap the clock in the top left or the battery at the top right to zoom all the way up. On most Android models, tap the very top of the screen. Gamers in the house? Too many devices on the same network can slow things to a crawl, especially if some of those devices (looking at you, Nintendo Switch) use a lot of bandwidth. Try this: Put the kids on a guest network. Here's how to set that up. 🏈 Go, team! Get in on the playoff action with DraftKings Sportsbook. Use code KIM to get $200 in bonus bets when you bet just five bucks. Play online or download the DraftKings Sportsbook app for iPhone or Android.** Let me know if you win! | BY THE NUMBERS $0 Kendrick Lamar's fee for performing at the Super Bowl. He will get a tiny performers' union payout. Last year's headliner, Usher, got a check for $671. The real payment? His Spotify plays shot up 550% after the show. $100 million Reported sales price for Brookhaven, a virtual city in Roblox. Some 60 billion people have played the life-sim game. Think building fancy houses, driving around in nice cars and exploring the city. Around 120 million players log on a month. That's almost the population of Japan! 3,000 Fewer words spoken each day. In 2005, we said an average of 16,000 words a day. Today, that's down to 13,000 because of texting and social media messages. Women tend to chat more than men, averaging 13,349 words a day versus 11,950. (Now, did you expect a joke here, really?) | WHAT THE TECH?  Hundreds of guys have proposed to influencer Aika Kittie. It has a nice ring to it, but she's not real. Yup, Aika is AI-generated. | UNTIL NEXT TIME ... Free weekend watches: Warner Bros. just dropped a bunch of full movies on YouTube. Winners: "Mr. Nice Guy" with Jackie Chan, "SubUrbia" and "Waiting for Guffman." 🎶 Speaking of … Sylvester Stallone, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Arnold Schwarzenegger got together to make a movie about famous composers. Stallone said, "I'll be Vivaldi." Van Damme said, "I'll be Mozart." And Schwarzenegger said, "I'll be Bach." 😂 Do you save passwords to your browser? What happens if someone steals your computer? Get your security buttoned up with NordPass. It's easy to use, replaces weak passwords with strong ones and autofills everything for you. Hit my link for 58% off while you're thinking about it. Phew, that was a jam-packed issue today. I'll see you back here tomorrow at the same place, same time, with the best newsletter in the USA! Now, go forth knowing you are tech-ahead and not falling behind. — Kim | How'd we do? What did you think of today's issue? | | |
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Keep a civil tongue.