vineri, 20 septembrie 2013

Damn Cool Pics

Damn Cool Pics


Indian Synthol Freak Suroor

Posted: 20 Sep 2013 11:12 AM PDT

Meet Suroor, another victim of Synthol. Suroor is 27 years old and comes from India.

















Gourmet Fall 2013 Snake Collection Video

Posted: 20 Sep 2013 10:13 AM PDT



Footwear label Gourmet is celebrating the Year of the Snake with their fall 2013 Snake Collection. The collection is made up of Gourmet silhouettes The 35, Cinque, Rossi and The Uno, all wrapped in Italian snake-printed leather.

Unbelievable Peugeot 406 Transformation

Posted: 20 Sep 2013 10:05 AM PDT

You would never imagine what can be made out of an old Peugeout 406.
















3 Methods Fueled by Data and Tools to Earn More (and Better) Links - Whiteboard Friday

3 Methods Fueled by Data and Tools to Earn More (and Better) Links - Whiteboard Friday


3 Methods Fueled by Data and Tools to Earn More (and Better) Links - Whiteboard Friday

Posted: 19 Sep 2013 04:11 PM PDT

Posted by randfish

Most conversations about links today involve terms like "better links," or "high-quality links." Those are the kinds we all hope to earn, but what exactly defines a "better link?" How do we know whether a link qualifies, or is only so-so?

In today's Whiteboard Friday, Rand clears up the confusion and offers a few clear attributes of better links, walking us through three great ways to find them.

PRO Tip: Learn more about reclaiming links at Moz Academy.

For reference, here's a still of this week's whiteboard!

Video Transcription

Howdy, Moz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. Today I'm going to talk a little bit about some data and tools-fueled methodologies to acquire more and better links and, in fact, some links that you may not have been able to find in other ways. So I'll start by saying what does it mean to have a better link? Well, I mean really three things.

(A) Editorially given. By that I mean not a link that you go buy. Not a link that you go, sort of, acquire or leave on someone's site unbeknownst to them or get listed in a directory. I mean an editorially given link in that the person who is giving the link runs the website or at least the page where it's being given from, and they intended to link to you and want to link to you and it's out of no other desire other than to share your site or the content that you have, the work that you are doing. They have a relationship with you, they like you, they want to recommend you. Editorially given.

(B) From a high-quality, trusted, and trafficked, well-trafficked website, something that actually might get you clicks in addition to providing link value from a search ranking perspective.

And (C) you've actually got a half-decent shot of getting that link. If I'm just showing you link methodologies that are going to show you, "Oh, yeah, it'd be real nice to get a link on that Whitehouse.gov page," it's not going to happen, man. Bad news, that's going to be a tough one.

But these three, if we aim for these three, in particular aim for a decent shot at getting it, I think we get some good ones out of this.

So method number one, follower outreach, essentially, the practice of outreach for links, reaching out to someone and saying, "Hey, we have this piece of content you might like" or "We have this potential relationship we could build" or "Hey, I notice that you do some things that are interesting and maybe we could have some overlap here. Perhaps I could contribute in some way to something that you're doing."

Cool, works a lot of the time. But it's very hit or miss. Except that the odds go way higher, way in your favor if you actually have a relationship, a pre-existing knowledge of one another and a mutual "like-and-respect" situation. That's why outreach to followers, to people who actually already know you and like you is way more effective.

So this is Followerwonk. You could use a tool of your choice. You might find people on Plus or some of the other social metrics tools.

But Followerwonk, I can go right in here, and on the Sort Followers tab, once I've logged in, I can sort my followers and say, "Show me a list of them." Then I can export to CSV. The only trick, once I export to CSV, I'm looking for people with high social authority who have websites that I might want to do outreach to, and this is such a simple thing. If you want, you can get a little fancier. You can do things like put data in here, add a column and use Richard Baxter's Mozscape plug-in, so that you can filter by domain authority of the website that's in their bio and only outreach to people who haven't already linked to you.

But, generally speaking, I've found that even if somebody's linking to you from one page, doing outreach to them, getting that second link, reaching out to folks, especially when you've targeted some of these people, this is huge value. I've seen outreach of this kind work tremendously well, especially because since they already know you, this guy and some dude in marketing are like, "They're all following me. They're following my account. That means they care about what I have to say."

So if I outreach them and they say "Oh, yeah I checked out, I know something about them too. I've got their bio. I know what site they represent. I know who they are. I can interact with them on Twitter." This works wonderfully. This is one of my favorite, favorite outreach methodologies. It starts with social.

Method two: Just-discovered competition. So many of you are probably already aware, but in Open Site Explorer, there's this new tab called Just Discovered Links, way over on the right. It's technically in beta, but it gets a lot of great links. It surfaces a lot of great links that are pointing to your website or to a competitor's website.

This is the key. What I want you to do is go plug in a competitor. Start with just one, one of your competitor's websites. Go over to the Just Discovered tab, and take a look at what people are writing about them and linking to them right now. I try and go for direct competitors, the kind of competitors where it seems like a surprise if an editorial, like a news publication or a blogger or someone in the field, an industry thought leader writes about them, but doesn't write about you. That's always like, "Oh, if you're going to mention one, you should mention several."

This is where the key comes in, because you go here and you look at stuff that was literally just published in the last few hours or couple of days, and then you do the outreach right then. You could do it through commenting and just saying something about yourself like, "Hey, I'm not going to link drop because I don't want to be spammy, but if you haven't already checked out Moz, we're a competitor to site XYZ, and we'd love to connect and follow up. Maybe you'd be interested in writing a story about some of the stuff that we're doing. I'd happy to fill you in. Reach out to me at Rand@Moz." Something like that.

Or you could go find their e-mail contact information if you don't want to make it public in the comments and reach out in that way. The trick is because these things have just been written, just been published, your outreach attempts go way higher. And you can look at domain authority. You can sort in order of domain authority. So you can sort of look at and say, "Oh, yeah, I don't want to reach out to that guy, but yes, yes, yes." Ideal.

Methodology number three: "Why you no link? Why?" I'll show you what I'm talking about.

So this is Fresh Web Explorer. You could use another service. You could use Mention.net. By the way, I don't mean to say that Open Site Explorer is the only way to do this. You could use Majestic or something like that for this same thing, if you're not a Moz subscriber. But assuming you are, all three of these are part of your subscription.

So Fresh Web Explorer, I can go in and search for, this is key. I know the Fresh Web Explorer search query, it's sort of like the Yahoo! of old, where'd you do like very sophisticated links types of searches. So make sure you're familiar with all the modifiers. But this one, in particular, I love. It's Moz, my brand name, minus RD:moz.com. There's a space in between here, but no space otherwise.

The reason this works so well is because I'm essentially saying, "Show me people who have mentioned my brand name, Moz, but are not linking to any page on my site, and show me the ones that have just done that." Because this is Fresh Web Explorer, so it's going to show me recent stuff. Then, if I want, I can click on a specific day or those kinds of things. I can export the CSV over here.

But, basically, I look at these and I go, "Huh. Interesting. So this is four days old. They mentioned Moz, but they didn't link to us. Man, that's a good, reasonable feed authority." You can get domain authority as well in the CSV. "Man, I should reach out to them. That reporter, that blogger, that writer, that person who owns that website, why did they talk about me and not link to my site?"

It tends to be the case that this is just oversight. And if you just reach out and are like, "Hey, I loved that you covered us, really appreciated it. By the way, noticed you didn't link. Was that intentional? Could we get a link back?" Boom. It's just super easy, high-quality link building right off the bat.

These three methodologies will all help you with those. And for those of you who are doing link-building on a regular basis, I love this format. Whether you use our tools or someone else's, it's a great way to go.

All right, everyone. Take care.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com


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West Wing Week, or "Every Moment of Every Day"

Here's What's Happening Here at the White House
 
 
 
 
 
 
  Watch Live

This afternoon, at 1:50 p.m. ET, the President will deliver a speech at the Ford Kansas City Stamping Plant in Liberty, Missouri, where he will continue to highlight the progress we have made since the beginning of the financial crisis five years ago and the work that lies ahead to continue strengthening our economy.

Watch President Obama's speech here.

 
 
  Featured

West Wing Week, or "Every Moment of Every Day"

This week, President Obama spoke on the shootings at the Washington, DC Navy Yard. As part of the five-year anniversary of the financial crisis, he invited small business owners to the White House, addressed  the Business Roundtable and the Export Council, and sat down for interviews with ABC & Telemundo. President Obama also welcomed the Amir of Kuwait, newly appointed Foreign Ambassadors, and Youth of the Year winners -- and the First Lady spoke on marketing healthier food to children.

Click here to watch this week's West Wing Week.

West Wing Week: Every Moment of Every Day

 
 
  Top Stories

President Obama Meets with the Export Council

Yesterday President Obama met with his Export Council, a committee of government and private-sector leaders who advise him on trade and export related issues. President Obama told the council that although there is more work to do five years after the start of the financial crisis, our economic recovery is well underway thanks to the grit and resilience of the American people, the work of our business sector and timely government response to the crisis.

READ MORE

A Clean Energy Revolution -- Now

Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz writes about the new Department of Energy report, "Revolution Now: the Future Arrives for Four Clean Energy Technologies" documents this transformation and what it means for America’s energy economy. The clean technology revolution is upon us.

READ MORE

First Lady Michelle Obama Encourages Collaborative Food Marketing Effort to Empower Parents

On Wednesday, the First Lady addressed a diverse cross section of leaders from food and media industry executives, advocates, parent leaders, government agency representatives and researchers about the power of marketing in influencing kids’ food choices and the need for leveraging this power toward healthier food options for our nation’s children.

READ MORE

 
 
  Today's Schedule

All times are Eastern Time (ET)

9:45 AM: The President departs the White House en route Joint Base Andrews

10:00 AM: The President departs Joint Base Andrews

11:00 AM: The Vice President delivers remarks highlighting the launch of the U.S.-Mexico High Level Economic Dialogue.

11:30 AM: The Vice President attends the inaugural meeting of the U.S.-Mexico High Level Economic Dialogue

12:20 PM: The President arrives Kansas City, Missouri

12:30 PM: The Vice President meets with President Enrique Peña Nieto

1:30 PM: The President tours the Ford Stamping Plant

1:30 PM: The Vice President and President Peña Nieto delivers statements to the press

1:50 PM: The President delivers remarks at the Ford Stamping Plant WATCH LIVE

2:55 PM: The President departs Kansas City, Missouri en route Washington, DC

5:05 PM: The President arrives Joint Base Andrews

5:20 PM: The President arrives at the White House

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Seth's Blog : Unreasonable clients

 

Unreasonable clients

Who gets your best work?

If you reserve your best effort for the irritable boss, the never-pleased client and the bully of a customer, then you've bought into a system that rewards the very people who are driving you nuts. It's no wonder you have clients like that--they get your best work.

On the other hand, when you make it clear (and then deliver) on the promise that your best work goes to those that are clear, respectful and patient, you become a specialist in having customers just like that.

One of the largest turning points of my career was firing the client who accounted for a third of my company's work. We were becoming really good at tolerating the stress that came from this engagement, and it became clear to me that we were about to sign up for a lifetime of clients like that.

Set free to work for those that we believed deserved our best work, we replaced the lost business in less than six months.

Years ago, I heard the story of a large retail financial services company that did the math and discovered that fewer than 5% of their customers were accounting for more than 80% of their customer service calls--and less than 1% of their profit. They sent these customers a nice note, let them know that they wouldn't be able to service them properly going forward, and offered to help them transfer their accounts to a competitor. With the time freed up, they could then have their customer service people double down on the customers that actually mattered to them... grease, but without the squeaky wheel part.

No, you can't always fire those that are imperious or bullies. But yes, you can figure out how to dig even deeper for those that aren't. That means you won't take advantage of their good nature, or settle for giving them merely what they will accept. Instead, you treat the good guys with even more effort and care and grace than you ever would have exerted for the tyrants.

The word will spread.

[The other alternative is a fine one, if you're up for it... specialize in the worst possible clients and bosses, the least gratifying assignments. You'll stand out in an uncrowded field! The mistake is thinking you're doing one and actually doing neither by doing both.]

       

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joi, 19 septembrie 2013

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis


Attack of the "Digger Bees"

Posted: 19 Sep 2013 08:02 PM PDT

This is a personal, non-economic post.

For the third time in two years I called 911. The previous two times were related to my then wife Joanne who passed away on May 16, 2012 due to Lou Gehrig's disease (see Stop and Smell the Lilacs).

I remarried June of this year to Liz (see Celebrating Life: I Got Married on Friday)

Digger Bee Attack

With that background out of the way, here is the story on "digger bees".

Tonight I was digging in the garden, just before sunset, and accidentally hit a huge nest of yellow jackets (Liz calls them digger bees because they live in the ground).

I got stung about 15 times, one right near my eye, the rest on my arms and back. They were swarming all over me. I had the presence of mind to roll on the ground to crush the bees stinging me on the back.

Liz was not home.

Fortunately I am not allergic to bee stings, but Liz is. Had this happened to her, 15 stings would have been a serious, serious problem.

Even though I have been stung before, I decide to call 911. Since my taxes go to pay such services, why shouldn't I?

I did find out something I did not know: If there is going to be a reaction, typically it is in the first 30 minutes.

From the time of my call (probably 5-10 minutes after I was stung), it took them about 10-15 minutes to arrive. After they monitored me for a while I had the option of going to a hospital or not. I chose not.

I asked the guys who arrived "how many calls do you get?" The answer was "less than one a day".

Thus, and in many ways, I would have been foolish not to call, especially if a severe reaction was coming. And had a severe reaction occurred, the time to do it would have been before, not after the reaction.

Looking ahead, given Liz is known to be allergic to bee stings, and given this is the third instance of "digger bee" attacks in my yard (two to me and one to a landscaper), we need to make sure we have on hand, anti-venom for bee stings.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

The Morning After; Price Discovery is Zero; PUT on the Bond Market? Is Inflation Really Under 2%?

Posted: 19 Sep 2013 11:08 AM PDT

Steen Jakobsen, Chief economist at Saxo Bank in Denmark, pinged me today with his thoughts on "the morning after" and "price discovery".
In my opinion these two paragraphs of the FOMC Statement are the key ones:

  1. The Committee sees the downside risks to the outlook for the economy and the labor market as having diminished, on net, since last fall, but the tightening of financial conditions observed in recent months, if sustained, could slow the pace of improvement in the economy and labor market.
  2.  
  3. The Committee recognizes that inflation persistently below its 2 percent objective could pose risks to economic performance, but it anticipates that inflation will move back toward its objective over the medium term.

#1 – Tighter monetary conditions clearly concerns them – the only reason for forward guidance as per Vice-chairman Yellen is to "direct market" to FOMC central projection – this got out of control and we now effectively have not only a put on the stock market, but also a put on the bond market. The whole financial market is now "government controlled" – Price discovery has been reduced close to ZERO – as even the term-premium (expected rate expectations) is ignored and considered invalid by Fed and its merry men.

# 2 – The wording is mild, but it's a real concern. I have no doubt inflation, or lack of, played bigger role than anything else in taking decision to not taper. An economy with weak inflation, is an economy with excess capacity – An economy with excess capacity is not an economy healing and creating jobs – hence – Fed also de facto yesterday stated: the unemployment rate is invalid to use as gauge for future monetary policy but also as statistical indicator.
Whole Financial Market Government Controlled

In regards to Steen's comments "The whole financial market is now "government controlled" – Price discovery has been reduced close to ZERO", I agree 100% (for now).

But will "control" last forever? If you think it will, then why did we have a housing and stock market crash?

Price Stability

In regards to inflation, I have to shake my head. Inflation is not a good thing, not now, not ever. And with so many boomers headed into retirement on fixed income with few assets, inflation is even more crippling.

I have a question: Does the following chart look like price stability?

Inflation Targeting at 2% a Year



The next chart will show you what happens when wages do not keep up with prices.

Real Disposable Personal Income Per Capita Detail



The above two charts from my post Huge Problem With Bernanke's 2% Inflation Target Explained in Pictures.

Click on the link for still more charts.

Is Inflation Really Under 2%?

I think not. In fact I know it isn't. You just have to know where to look.

Inflation is only under 2% if you ignore soaring money supply, the stock market bubble, bond market bubbles, a reblowing of the housing bubble, and other global bubbles.

And what is so magical about 2% anyway? Why not 1%, 3%, 5% or some other number?

Asset Bubbles

Actually any price-inflation target is ridiculous. Price targets of any kind cannot accurately be measured precisely because price targets, by definition, ignore asset bubbles (including housing, which is not directly a part of the CPI).

And didn't we go down this path before? Twice?

Yes we did: first with a dot-com stock market bubble, then with an even bigger credit-housing bubble.

Was there anything stable about that? Indeed not. The Fed has a history of blowing bubbles of increasing amplitude over time.

Ridiculous Comment of the Day Revisited

Yesterday in Ridiculous Comment of the Day, I took exception to statement made by Paul Denoon, head of emerging-market debt at AllianceBernstein Holding LP (AB), who regarding the Fed's decision not to taper said "This creates stability."

My reply ...
Really? The Fed buying $85 billion in assets a month creates stability? Denoon must live in Bizarro World along with Ben Bernanke and the rest of the Fed.

In Fed Bizarro World; One-Sided Risk Assessment; The $64 Trillion Question I asked "How in the hell is the Fed going to normalize interest rates with a recovery in full bloom, with interest rates three or four full percentages points below normal?"

Some people prefer short-term stability even when the outcome is long-term disaster.
Is the Fed doing all of this on purpose? I think not. For further discussion, please see Purposeful Class Warfare? Breathing Room for Rupee? Sheer Stupidity?

Not My Fault Says Bernanke

Whether on purpose or not (and I strongly suggest "not"), the result is the same and it looks like this comic from Merk Investments, via email from Steen.



Bernanke Wants 2% Inflation in a Deflationary World

Here's the problem in a nutshell: Bernanke Wants 2% Inflation in a Deflationary World; Who Pays the Price?

Asset bubbles and massive income inequality are the direct results of Fed policies.

For still more reading, or in case you are unconvinced about who is to blame, please see Reader Asks Me to Prove "Inflation Benefits the Wealthy" (At the Expense of Everyone Else).

Even though the problem is the Fed (central banks in general), coupled with fractional reserve lending and pseudo-money created out of thin air, many seriously misguided souls (including Keynesian high-priest Paul Krugman) think the answer is a destabilizing rise in the minimum wage and still more inflation!

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com