The FCC Wants to Kill Net Neutrality – Use Battle for the Net on Cloudflare Apps to Fight Back

TL;DR - Net neutrality is under attack. There's an app on Cloudflare Apps that empowers site owners to host a popup on their sites, encouraging users to contact their congresspeople to fight back. Everyone should be doing this right now, before the December 14th FCC vote.

Use Battle for the Net to Call your Congressperson »

Attend Cloudflare's Save the Internet! Net Neutrality Call-A-Thon »

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has scheduled a vote to kill its net neutrality rules this Thursday, December 14th. Unfortunately, the expectation is that the FCC will vote to repeal its net neutrality rules. Read about this on Business Insider, Bloomberg, or TechCrunch.

Net neutrality is the principle that networks should not discriminate against content that passes through them. The FCC’s net neutrality rules protect the Internet, users, and companies from abusive behavior by the largest Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Without net neutrality rules in place, ISPs may be able to legally create a "pay to play" system and charge websites to provide content to their customers more quickly. This will create a disadvantage for startups, bloggers, and everyone else who cannot afford to pay fees for their websites to offer faster service.

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7 Cloudflare Apps Which Increase User Engagement on Your Site

Cloudflare Apps now lists 95 apps from apps which grow email lists to apps which acquire new customers to apps which help site owners make more money. The great thing about these apps is that users don't have to have any coding or development skills. They can just sign up for the app and start using it on their sites.

Let’s take a moment to highlight some apps which increase a site’s user engagement. Check out more Cloudflare Apps which grow your email list, make money on your site, and get more customers.

I hope you enjoy them and I hope you build (or use) great apps like these too.

Check out other Cloudflare Apps »

Build an app on Cloudflare Apps »

1. Privy

Over 100,000 businesses use Privy to capture and convert website visitors. Privy offers a free suite of email capture tools, including exit-intent driven website popups & banners, email list sign-up, an online store, social media channels, mobile capability, and in-store traffic.

In the left preview pane, you can view the different packages and their features users may sign up for from free to "growth" ($199/month) options.

In the right pane, you can preview Continue reading

Cloudflare Wants to Buy Your Meetup Group Pizza

If you’re a web dev / devops / etc. meetup group that also works toward building a faster, safer Internet, I want to support your awesome group by buying you pizza. If your group’s focus falls within one of the subject categories below and you’re willing to give us a 30 second shout out and tweet a photo of your group and @Cloudflare, your meetup’s pizza expense will be reimbursed.

Get Your Pizza $ Reimbursed »

Developer Relations at Cloudflare & why we’re doing this

I’m Andrew Fitch and I work on the Developer Relations team at Cloudflare. One of the things I like most about working in DevRel is empowering community members who are already doing great things out in the world. Whether they’re starting conferences, hosting local meetups, or writing educational content, I think it’s important to support them in their efforts and reward them for doing what they do. Community organizers are the glue that holds developers together socially. Let’s support them and make their lives easier by taking care of the pizza part of the equation.

What’s in it for Cloudflare?

1. We want web developers to target the apps platform
2. We want more people to Continue reading

5 Strategies to Promote Your App

Brady Gentile from Cloudflare's product team wrote an App Developer Playbook, embedded within the developer documentation page. He decided to write it after he and his team conducted several app developer interviews, finding that many developers wanted to learn how to better promote their apps.

They wanted to help app authors out in the areas outside of developer core expertise. Social media posting, community outreach, email deployment, SEO, blog posting and syndication, etc. can be daunting.

I wanted to take a moment to highlight some of the tips from the App Developer Playbook because I think Brady did a great job of providing clear ways to approach promotional strategies.

5 Promotional Strategies

1. Share with online communities

Your app’s potential audience likely reads community-aggregated news sites such as HackerNews, Product Hunt, or reddit. Sharing your app across these websites is a great way for users to find your app.

For apps that are interesting to developers, designers, scientists, entrepreneurs, etc., be sure to share your work with the Hacker News community. Be sure to follow the official guidelines when posting and when engaging with the community. It may be tempting to ask your friends to upvote Continue reading

Spotify’s Cloudflare App is open source: fork it for your next project

Earlier this year, Cloudflare Apps was launched so app developers may leverage our global network of 6 million+ websites, applications, and APIs. I’d like to take a moment to highlight Spotify, which was a launch partner for Cloudflare Apps, especially since they have elected to open source the code to their Cloudflare App.

Spotify Github repo »

About Spotify
Spotify is the leading digital service for streaming music, serving more than 140 million listeners.

What does the Spotify app do?
Recently, Spotify launched a Cloudflare App to instantly and easily embed the Spotify player onto your website without having to copy / paste anything.

Who should install the Spotify app?
A musician who runs a site for their band - they can now play samples of new tracks on their tour calendar page and psych up their fans.

A game creator who wants to share their game's soundtrack with their fans.

An activewear company which wants to deliver popular running playlists to its customers.

Web properties that install the Spotify app have the ability to increase user engagement.

Add Spotify widgets to your web pages and let your users play tracks and follow Spotify profiles. Add a Spotify Play Button Continue reading