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Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis
Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis |
- Eurozone Composite Signals Slowdown; French Private Sector Output Decline 5th Month; German Manufacturing Approaches Stagnation
- Battle for Perpetual War is Won; US Admits Attacks on ISIS Could Last Years; Expect an Accident
- Miracle Not Enough to Save Italy; Disruptive Eurozone Breakup Awaits
| Posted: 23 Sep 2014 09:53 PM PDT French Private Sector Output Decline 5th Month The demise in France continues. Markit reports French Private Sector Output Falls Further in September. Key points:Eurozone Composite Signals Slowdown Markit reports Flash Eurozone PMI Signals Further Waning of Growth. Key points:German Manufacturing Approaches Stagnation The Markit Germany Flash PMI shows Private sector growth maintained in September, but manufacturing edges closer to stagnation. Key points:Soft Spot or Something Else? I have been calling for a downturn in Germany for some time but it has not happened yet. However, the reports pretty much speak for themselves. The near stagnation of German manufacturing coupled with contraction in France and a slowdown in growth elsewhere tells the story. Germany cannot forever disconnect from the rest of the eurozone, especially France and Italy (Italy report not out yet but it is highly unlikely to be any good.) Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com |
| Battle for Perpetual War is Won; US Admits Attacks on ISIS Could Last Years; Expect an Accident Posted: 23 Sep 2014 12:58 PM PDT Victory Announced in Battle "for" Perpetual War The warmonger dream of perpetual war has been won: US says Attacks on Isis Could Last Years. The multiple airstrikes launched by the US and its Arab allies against Islamist militants in Syria were the "beginnings of a sustained campaign" that could last for years, the Pentagon said on Tuesday.No Permission, No Coordination, From "Natural Allies" Syrian president Assad is fighting ISIS so is the US. Please consider Syria's Deputy Foreign Minister: We're 'Fighting the Same Enemy' Syria has "no reservations" about U.S. airstrikes against ISIS and wants to team up with Washington to tackle the militants, the country's deputy foreign minister told NBC News.Obama Threatens Assad if US Planes Downed Ready to Talk? The US is not ready to talk. Why talk when the battle for perpetual war has been won? Instead Obama Threatens Assad if US Planes Downed in Syrian Airspace. US President Barack Obama has threatened to wipe out Syria's air defense system and topple the Syrian government if President Bashar al-Assad ordered his forces to shoot American planes entering Syrian airspace.Expect an Accident
Anyone smell an accident coming up? Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com |
| Miracle Not Enough to Save Italy; Disruptive Eurozone Breakup Awaits Posted: 23 Sep 2014 10:36 AM PDT Analysis of what's happening and what to do about problems are two different things. Financial Times writer Wolfgang Münchau provides an excellent example in Italy Debt Burden is a Problem For Us All. Münchau's opening gambit is "We need extreme and co-ordinated policy to make it possible for Italy to ultimately stay in the eurozone." Münchau states, "I think it is high time to address the consequences of failure with more clarity than is usually done. Put bluntly, Italy's economic position is unsustainable and will result in eventual debt default unless there is a sudden and durable change in economic growth. At that point, Italy's future in the eurozone would also be in doubt – and indeed the future of the euro itself." High Time For Honest Assessment Actually, it is indeed "high time" for something. What we need is an honest assessment from political leaders and euro puppets that the euro is doomed. The flaws of the euro are well understood. I am 100% certain that Münchau could write a playbook on them with ease. Münchau even admits that it would be "naive" to believe economic reforms can save Italy. "The economic adjustment needed goes much beyond a few structural reforms. Italy needs changes in the legal system, it needs to bring taxes down to the eurozone average, and to improve the quality and efficiency of the public sector. It needs, in other words, to change the entire political system. Even that may not be enough." According to Münchau (and I wholeheartedly agree), Italy needs economic reform, a new legal system, lower taxes, less government spending, pension reform, and more productivity. And even that might not be enough! Nonetheless, to support his political beliefs, he seeks a miracle. Miracle Requested "I could see the ECB buying a wide range of debt instruments, starting with asset-backed securities and covered bonds as already announced. On top of that, it could buy other types of financial securities – bonds from the European Stability Mechanism, the eurozone's rescue umbrella, and from the European Investment Bank. The Commission could use the EIB to launch a big programme of infrastructure bonds. The best hope for Italy is that some of that trickles down into the real economy. I am optimistic that these programmes will have a noticeable positive effect on the eurozone as a whole, but much less certain of their effect on Italy." Miracle Might Not Be Enough! Münchau asks for that set of miracles from the ECB, yet is "less certain of their effect on Italy". Why? because "radical reform is not enough". Note the irony in Münchau's conclusion "Italian debt sustainability requires policies at eurozone level that have so far been ruled out. This is where the eurozone's success or failure will be decided." Eurozone Already Failed Spain's unemployment rate is close to 25%. Its growth and unemployment prospects are nil. Spain has no chance of meeting budget targets. Nor do France and Italy. Greece and Cyprus are in depressions. France is waiting on deck with problems as big as Italy's. Any thinking person with an ounce of common sense he would readily admit the eurozone has already failed and it cannot and will not be revived by wishful thinking. Miracles are not coming. However, there are choices, all of them unpalatable, to the eurozone nannycrat. Eurozone Choices 1. Voluntarily dismantle the eurozone in the least destructive manner 2. Dismantle the eurozone by populist choice with huge financial disruptions 3. Suffer through decades of stagnant growth and extremely high unemployment Option 4, pray for a miracle is not a logical choice. Unless done voluntarily, it's easy to predict what will eventually happen: After suffering long enough in option 3, a populist office-seeker will stand before the voters, hold up a copy of the EU treaty and declare all the bailouts and debt foisted on their country to be null and void. That person will be elected. What to Do About It No miracle that can keep the eurozone project intact. If Münchau was honest with himself, he would admit it. The only thing that makes any sense to do is dismantle the eurozone, by choice, before someone like Marine Le Pen in France, Beppe Grillo in Italy, or an unknown person in Spain or elsewhere does it by force. Disruptive Eurozone Breakup Awaits Instead of seeking miracles that won't work and are not coming in the first place, how about an honest dialog on the best way to break up the eurozone? Unfortunately, that will not happen because it is politically unacceptable. A disruptive breakup of the eurozone awaits. Addendum Reader Marian states "If indeed Italy's problems are it's legal system, tax rates, quality and efficiency of the public sector, then simply dissolving the EU, even in an orderly way, would not address these fundamental issues." Marian is of course correct! But why should the rest of Europe have to suffer with bailing out Italy when that approach cannot possibly fix the problem? Can-kicking exercise only make the problem worse for all involved. By dissolving the eurozone, countries would be forced to address the real issues instead of praying for miracles from the ECB. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com |
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Damn Cool Pics
Damn Cool Pics |
| Posted: 23 Sep 2014 06:03 PM PDT If you're ever in Orlando area you may see this food truck called 900 Degreez. It's 35-foot food truck that can cook an entire pizza in only 90 seconds. It gives a whole new meaning to the words fast food.           |
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A Content Strategy Template You Can Build On
A Content Strategy Template You Can Build On |
| A Content Strategy Template You Can Build On Posted: 22 Sep 2014 05:15 PM PDT Posted by Isla_McKetta Picture it. A room full of executives from a company you never thought you could land as a client. They're so engaged in what they are saying that they're leaning forward in their chairs. The CEO looks poised to ask a question but you can tell she doesn't want to interrupt your flow. This is the moment content strategists dream of. But if you're like me, it's easy to get caught up in how new the field is and wonder, "Am I even doing this right?" There are lots of posts to help you, such as How to Build a Content Marketing Strategy and Content Strategy: You're Doing it Wrong. There are also comprehensive guides to creating content strategies. There's even an epic list of content strategy resources. And there are books (my favorite is Kristina Halvorson and Melissa Rach's Content Strategy for the Web). Still, sometimes you just want to peek over someone else's shoulder at a concrete example to see if there's anything you can learn. This can be especially true if you're working in-house and don't have anyone to bounce ideas off of. So, I built a template. What a content strategy should look likeContent strategies take many forms, from a 50-page word document to an hour-long PowerPoint presentation. That means this template is not meant to be gospel. Instead, it introduces you to the many moving parts that make up a content strategy and gives you an example of how I, based on the years I spent consulting on content strategies for everything from stock photography to software as a service, would write it up. Peek over my shoulder to get your next strategy started, or just to get a glimpse of how someone else approaches a strategy. Build on this template and make it your own. You'll find that the template is written from an agency perspective (with lots of references to "the client") but it works equally well if you are in-house and are writing for that one, all-important client—your boss. What goes into a content strategyThe content strategy template walks you through researching and writing up the three key elements of a content strategy: what content looks like now, what it should look like, and the ecosystem in which content is created. Content todayA strategy should provide an assessment of the client's current content, as well as insight into their competitors' content. That assessment may include any or all of the following:
Content in the futureThen you want to show your client where the content should take them and how they can use various channels to get there. Some of many places content resides are: Onsite content
Offsite content
Governance (aka the content ecosystem)Finally, you want to think about the environment in which the content gets created—the governance of content. This includes:
See the template for more in-depth descriptions of all of these elements as well as some of my favorite tools to get them done. Again, take these pieces and use them to create your own template. Each strategy you do will require its own tweaks, but this will give you the leg up to put your own stamp on this emerging field. The storytelling of content strategyMy brand of content strategy, and you'll see this reflected a little in the template, is that a content strategy is a story. For a deeper understanding of this, check out the Mozinar I gave a few weeks ago, The Storytelling of Content Strategy. Basically, I advocate for taking the elements of fiction and using them to get a fresh perspective on a brand's journey toward a goal. Here's how the five elements of a story are also the basis of a content strategy: 1. Brands and customers are heroesA content strategy can either be about a brand's journey to land a customer (useful when a brand is new or has lost its way), or a content strategy can be about a customer's journey and how the brand can help. See the webinar for an example of each. 2. Your current landscape is your ground situationYou can't start a strategy until you know where your hero is coming from. Most of the initial research you do—from stakeholder interviews to content inventories and audits—is to understand the starting point of your strategy. This is where the journey begins. You will be measuring all future success against the understanding you build of this landscape. 3. Goals articulate your central desireYou can't plot a strategy if you don't know what direction the brand wants to grow. Goals should come from the brand itself, but you might find that the brand needs a little coaching. It's helpful if you distinguish overall business goals from content goals. They are related, but there are some goals (e.g. reducing employee turnover) that content plays a much smaller role in achieving. Setting specific goals for your content strategy also lets you get more granular about some goals in which content is the star player (e.g. increasing email open rate). 4. Competitors are antagonistsEven if you're going to write the most TAGFEE content strategy ever, you still need to figure out where your competitors are and how you can learn from their example. And it's important to remember that because of the way search engines work, your business competitors might be different than your SERP competitors. Ideally a content strategy will address both. 5. Plot is strategyAt this point in the story, you know who the players are, what's working and what's not, and have some ideas about how to move forward to achieve those goals. When I write up a strategy, I think about them as though I were plotting a novel. Each tactic or channel is a way to move the brand closer to those goals. What obstacles might they encounter? Who are they competing with in the space? How can they master this tactic or channel? And how can content help them achieve their goals and ride happily off into the sunset? Making a content strategy your ownNow it's time to download that template and see what story your content strategy is trying to tell. Once you're confident in the strategy you're presenting, you'll have the complete attention of every executive in that conference room. And, with any luck, they'll refer you to their friends. I want to learn from you, too. Is there anything you'd include in the template that I haven't covered? Do you have any strategies for success in presenting content strategies or any lessons learned? Please share your ideas and stories in the comments. Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read! |
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BrightonSEO 2014 Roundup
BrightonSEO 2014 Roundup |  |
| Posted: 21 Sep 2014 01:20 PM PDT BrightonSEO seemed to come back around particularly quickly this month, once again giving the SEOs at White.net a good excuse to get together and go down to Brighton in force. I was lucky enough to attend the speakers'/sponsors' meal at Smokeys with a group of well known faces, from the likes of Moz's Matthew Brown, to International SEO guru Aleyda Solis, and not forgetting BrightonSEO's organiser Kelvin Newman, to name just a few.
Arriving at the dome the following morning to check on the White.net stand, we did a quick scour to seek out the top conference swag – this year I'll have to give credit to Calltracks for the remote controlled helicopters – Well done Alex for the lucky win, this has already provided hours of office flying time!
After previous experience, I decided to stick to the main concert hall this time to avoid fighting for a seat in the smaller conference rooms. First up was Ian Miller, search director of Crafted Media, to talk to us about predicting the future of Google and why it's 'no longer a search company', but rather a data platform. According to data published on comScore Google now has a 68% share of the search market. Many rely on Google as a gateway to the internet, but Google is no longer just a search engine, something that is very apparent when looking at how it has branched out into many other areas by acquiring new companies at a rate of knots (see the list here). Most recently it bought Polar, a start-up business that specialises in social polling, to bolt onto Google+.
It is clear that most of the acquisitions in recent years were with a single goal in mind; to gather people's data in order to further understand what humans want. Ian predicts that we will see Google evolve a lot over the next few years, moving away from simply ranking web pages based on their content and other signals that can be easily influenced, and more towards context, while anticipating your next move to serve you results that are relevant to you and your routines. This is nothing new – I'm sure you've noticed car insurance ads “conventiently” appearing just as you're beginning to think about renewing your policy, or bicycle related ads following you around via Google’s display network after doing a bit of searching around for a new bike. Well, expect to see more of this! But Ian doesn't think Google is evil, rather a helpful side-kick that will provide you with useful tips just as you need them.
All of this means that SEO is no longer just about keyword research and link building. Gone are the days when Google was only interested in finding and indexing pages – Google now wants to understand them. As a result, businesses are going to have to smarten up their online strategies if they want to keep up with this fast-moving search monster. Matt Roberts – Why we all need to study Momentology
Next up was Linkdex's Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer Matt Roberts, here to tell us why we all need to study 'momentology'. But "what is momentology?" I hear you ask… It seems that Matt wants us all to move away from thinking of our online marketing efforts as 'SEO', and start referring to it as 'momentology'. I bet he does – Linkdex own the domain momentology.com! But it seems that Matt has also identified the need for contextual thinking in order to influence consumers at the right time, so maybe he's onto something. Matt discussed why we should start optimising the entire search funnel, from discovery, to making a purchase, and not forgetting the after-sale feedback, while putting consumers in the centre of our strategy. He also highlighted that we need to look at the bigger picture and think about all of the pages that our visitors are viewing at each stage in the buying cycle. Content curation is a great way to create content quickly and effectively – sharing, organising and grouping. The 5 types of content curation are:
Aleyda talked about using RSS feeds and alerts to identify the most shared content that is relevant to your industry. Laura's talk was based around a simple yet effective idea – encouraging internal teams to work together in harmony and share resources – particularly PR and marketing teams. Laura highlighted that there’s generally a lot of cross-over between the work carried out in each team, and often a lot of missed opportunities. Integrating your teams will allow members to understand how they can work together and help each other, building good relationships along the way. But first your SEO team will need to gain the trust of the other teams. It's possible that the reputation of your SEO team has been tarnished by bad experiences from a previous agency, so you will need to get them on-board by talking them through how your work can complement theirs, and vis-versa. Better still, put a case study together and show them. The next step is to make them feel included. Next time you're planning a campaign, ask them what their goals and KPIs are and look at ways you can help them to achieve these. Invite them to your meetings and value their input, while helping them to see the value that you can add. If you're still having trouble getting them on board then think about putting a campaign together that you know will get their attention by hitting their KPIs and "dazzle them with success". Share the results and they will soon be ready to jump on the SEO band wagon!
Building links using spammy tactics is still working for some, but this is by no means a future-proofed strategy. Earning links through content may also come with a risk, but not the traditional penalty-inducing risk that would be more familiar to an old school link builder. Rather, it comes with the risk that your efforts could lead to nothing. However, the key to avoiding this is understanding your audience. Using Demographic and Interest Reports in Google Analytics will help you to find out what demographics are actually important (i.e. which ones convert). It's important to speak the same language as your audience as this will help you to engage better with them. There are also some useful (free) tools that can provide you with demographic information. Google's display planner is a good place to start, but other tools such as Similarweb allow you to pull out all sorts of useful data that can help you learn about your audience and their interests. SocialMention can also be useful when looking at which social channels you're being mentioned in, although it can be hard to sort through the irrelevant results to find what you're looking for. A great tool for segmenting your Facebook data is Givememydata.com. This allows you to export the data from your account and reuse it to spot trends and tell a story. Gisele Navarro – 72% of Internet users do not speak English: International outreach
Gisele spoke about another simple but effective concept that shows how many businesses are missing a trick by failing to reach out their existing content to their international audiences.
Gisele spoke about how important it is to provide more than just a translation, but ensure the content is interpreted properly and localised to the correct audience. As with ealier talks, understanding your audience was a key takeaway. If you don't have the resources to have your content translated, try outreaching your English content to foreign media. Be confident – there's not likely to be much competition so you should be ahead of the game. Moz's Matthew Brown flew in from Portland to share his thoughts on rich snippets and what's to come. You've probably started to see some rich snippets disappearing from Google's search results but, as with most updates of this fashion, observing results on Google.com will show the rest of us what we can expect to see in the near future. In this case we are likely to see fewer rich snippets and more semantic mark-up. One of the most utilised rich snippets – review starts, also appears to have been dropped. However, Google is now able to build its own snippets without requiring schema. The Pigeon update gives us another example of the difference between Google US and Google UK. Matthew mentioned how this recent algorithm update has had a huge impact on local results in Google.com, and hinted that the Pigeon would soon be paying a visit to the UK. His advice was for businesses that have multiple brick-and-mortar shops to think carefully about the potential upsets Pigeon could cause.
Matthew also addressed Google's move towards providing us with answers to search queries without even leaving the SERPs. For example, you may have recently used Google to calculate a sum, or the distance between two cities:
These types of results are becoming more and more common, and with the arrival of the 'Google knowledge vault' – an algorithmic upgrade of the knowledge graph, Google is collecting an unfathomable amount of data, with the ability to sort it and understand it, without human editorial involvement. Jan-Willem Bobbink’s talk followed on nicely from Matthew, with further insight into Semantic search. Jan-Willem kicked off with a personal demonstration of how Google uses freebase (acquired by the search engine in 2010) to understand entities, based on their relationships and attributes. In his example, Jan-Willem showed us that how creating his own personal page in Freebase and populating various attributes, he was able to influence details that appear in the knowledge graph when searching for his name.
The ‘Feedback’ button under the knowledge graph box allows users to highlight incorrect details by selecting any of the attributes and submitting details of the error. For example, this entry states that Jan-Willem is 108 years old, so is a good example of some data that needs correcting! However, as Freebase relies on humans to enter the details and get them right, Google has taken things a step further, by creating an algorithm that is capable of ‘automated entity retrieval’. This means that Google can make the connections between entities itself. There are a huge number of databases containing resources that can be used to enrich your own content, so whether your website would benefit from information on geographical locations using ‘Geonames’ – a database containing over 10 million geographical names and 9 million unique features; or your website specialises in types of fish and would like to automatically generate pages pulling in data from Fishbase – a database with information on thousands of species of fish, the content is there for the taking. These databases are free to use (including Google’s FreeBase) and accessible via APIs, so with a bit of coding wizardry, you can soon be pulling in relevant content automatically. You can also add build links by adding your own data, so some good reasons to have a look! Final thoughtsI haven’t managed to cover all points or indeed all of the talks from the concert hall, so please free add anything that really stood out for you using the comments below. The post BrightonSEO 2014 Roundup appeared first on White.net. |
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Seth's Blog : Smaller and smaller
Smaller and smaller
For a long time, Australians thought of themselves as living on the edge of the Earth, a long haul from markets, from industries and from colleagues.
Today, of course, Australia is precisely in the middle.
That's because the world keeps getting smaller and ideas and connection are the currencies that matter, not atoms or molecules.
Consider this new campaign for really comfortable handmade shoes from Lahore. Lahore as in Pakistan. Handmade leather shoes are a click away, regardless of where they were made, but you might choose these.
There will always be two ends of the market. There's the race to the bottom, based on efficiency at all costs, that says, "we have what they have, but cheaper." The problem with the race to the bottom is that you might win.
The other end is for items that we want, regardless of how far away they come from, because the ideas they embody are worth seeking out.
If you're in the idea business, it doesn't matter where you're from. It matters if we care about the change you're making.
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