Central Perk

joi, 11 august 2011

Damn Cool Pics

Hilarious Photoshopped London Looter Pictures
How To Eat Your First Birthday Cake
Alexandra "Kissie" Nilsson, a Swedish Star of Facebook
Improve Attractiveness with Body Language [infographic]
Real Madrid Vs 109 kids in GuangZhou China
Famous Fictional Characters Who Were Based On Real People

Hilarious Photoshopped London Looter Pictures

Posted: 11 Aug 2011 02:09 PM PDT

Looting is bad and not funny but someone has come with idea of how to make London looters look funny and less dangerous. Here is a selection of hilarious photoshopped images of UK looters.

How To Eat Your First Birthday Cake

Posted: 11 Aug 2011 02:02 PM PDT

A cute little child received his first Birthday cake on his first Birthday. He ate it with bare hands. Take a look.

Alexandra "Kissie" Nilsson, a Swedish Star of Facebook

Posted: 11 Aug 2011 01:52 PM PDT

Alexandra "Kissie" Nilsson is an Internet celebrity from Sweden. Alexandra "Kissie" Nilsson is 20 years old but she has already undergone 12 plastic surgeries, including breast, lip and butt enhancements, as well as nose and ear "corrections." She considers herself the star of Swedish Facebook.

Even in the hospital Kissie wants to look pretty!

That is how she looked like.

Improve Attractiveness with Body Language [infographic]

Posted: 11 Aug 2011 01:11 PM PDT

Actions speak louder than words… no really. According to today's infographic from 100 Best Dating Sites, this adage is especially true at the start of a romantic relationship. Small non-verbal cues—a smile, length of eye contact, and posture—communicate more to potential romantic interests than that clever line carefully mined from a Hugh Grant flick (though that never hurts).

The infographic dissects several ways the body communicates and gives some hints for both women and men. Regardless of gender, "crinkly eyed" smiles are considered more sincere, and the 0.5 second smile effectively bridges the gap between smirking and faking. The infographic also gives tips on appearing more confident.

Whether you are a master of first impressions or your pick-up routine leaves something to be desired, approximately 55% of communication is made before you say anything; effectively master the art of body language and your interpersonal interactions just might improve.

Click to Enlarge.

Source: 100bestdatingsites

Real Madrid Vs 109 kids in GuangZhou China

Posted: 10 Aug 2011 10:09 PM PDT

Real Madrid recently played in GuangZhou, China taking on 109 Chinese kids. Most of the kids chase the ball around the field hoping to get a chance to score. Real Madrid easily wins against the large team. Real Madrid has been a club for 109 year and celebrated playing against 109 kids.

Famous Fictional Characters Who Were Based On Real People

Posted: 10 Aug 2011 09:49 PM PDT

Writers of all types draw inspiration from themselves, their friends and family or famous figures in order to create memorable, nuanced characters. It happens regularly in every form of media, oftentimes without the audience's awareness. Here are ten famous characters you never knew were based on real life people.

Shrek

Shrek's appearence is based on that of pro-wrestler Maurice Tillet, a man born with a rare disease called acromegaly.

Beavis & Butthead

Mike Judge based the look of Beavis & Butthead on two professors he had at UCSD.

The Joker

Joker's signature look is derived from the 1928 film The Man Who Laughs. Of course, that movie is super creepy.

Quasimodo

Quasimodo gets his signature appearance from an actual historical figure, a sculptor working in Notre Dame in the 1800's.

Winnie The Pooh

Winnie the Pooh is based on Winnipeg the bear, a small black bear who lived in the London Zoo.

Dr. Eggman

The creators of Sonic based the appearence of Eggman on Theodore Roosevelt… and an egg.

The Dude

The Cohen Brothers' inspiration for Jeffery 'The Dude' Lebowski was producer and politcal activist Jeff Dowd. Apparently Dowd also enjoyed white russians.

Patrick Bateman

Christian Bale said he based his performance of Patrick Bateman in the film 'American Psycho' on Tom Cruise. Bret Easton Ellis, who wrote the book, also said he considered Cruise an influence. Makes sense.

Uncle Sam

Uncle Sam was inspired by Samuel Wilson, a meat-packer who sold his product to soldiers during the War Of 1812.

Norman Bates, Leatherface, & Buffalo Bill

Movie murderers Norman Bates, Leatherface, and Buffalo Bill were all based on one serial killer: Ed Gein. Gein is notorious for murdering his victims and keeping the cut-up pieces of their bodies around his farmhouse. When investigators raided his home, they found, among other things, "four noses, nine masks of human skin, a lampshade made from the skin from a human face, and a belt made from human female nipples."

SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog

Are People Loving Google+ or Hating It?

Posted: 10 Aug 2011 01:53 PM PDT

Posted by Laura Lippay

Music selection to enjoy while reading this post: Love Me Two Times by The Doors

Quick - who am I describing with these sentiments: great, awesome, interesting, cool, better than Facebook, annoying, boring, stupid...

You got it (and of course the title of the post probbbbably gave it away) - Google Plus (aka Google+ aka Google plus 1 aka the Facebook Killer aka that new Google social thing).

Those terms are just some of the emotions that people have around the product. In a nutshell, people are amped about Google+, as you can see from this sentiment chart that shows positive and negative sentiment for Google Plus over the past few weeks.

But 35% of people talking online about Google+ are doing it on Twitter, followed by 24% on blogs and 16% on social networks, so I have to wonder how many of us talking about it are talking about it because we're /*nerds*/ and #social #media #marketers who can't help but squeal like schoolgirls about good ol', sock-em-in-the-eye-with-the-next-big-thing Silicon Valley rivalry in the hottest online movement since the indoctrination of Web 2.0.

I also can't help but wonder if we GeekTechMarketerNerds are skewing the sentiment, since people I've talked to in the real world (like, not through a computer) have often said "yeah it's cool but now what do I do?"

So what's really behind all of this positive sentiment? Let's look under the hood. Of 5,332 sound bites (aka mentions) expressing positive emotions for Google+, 21% like it and 16% love it. On the negative side, 34% hate it and 19% don't like it (that's from a smaller segment of 736 sound bites).

Positive emotions around Google Plus

People who expressed positive emotions other than "love" or "awesome" seem to like it rather lackadaisically with somewhat weak emotions like "interesting", "enjoy", and "cool". The smaller group of people who expressed negative emotions seem to be a bit more ferocious with "hate", "f*ck", "annoying", "boring", "evil" and "stupid".

Negative emotions around Google+

We can also look at the intended behaviors people have expressed around Google Plus. With Google's need-to-know-someone-in-the-in-crowd invitation-only launch it's only natural that 17% of the positive behaviors were made up of "need" and "want".

Positive intended behaviors around Google Plus

People want Google Plus

Most people are talking about using it, and more people are talking about trying it than switching to it.

Negative behaviors are even more interesting: 21% don't get it, won’t get it or can’t get it, 5% think it's a waste, 8% don't want or need it, and 2% don't trust it. Ouch. But again, the negative sentiments overall were on a much smaller scale, so there are fewer of these than positives.

Negative intended behaviors for Google+

People don't get, can't get, or refuse to get Google Plus

Lastly, inquiring minds want to know… Is Google+ a Facebook killer? Well, here's what the data tells us: 13% of the positive “likes” about the product are people saying they think it’s better than Facebook, 13% think Google+ makes it easier, and 9% think Google can do more things better than other competitive products. A sign of what's in store or just the sentiment of a bunch of us over-excited geeks? Tough to say.

What people like about Google Plus

What does Google still have to work on? An easy way to get an RSS feed seems to be top-of-mind, followed by other technical limitations, their terms of service, and maybe just being a little less scary to some people. Oh, and is it too late to do something about that name...(and their use-your-real-name profile policy)?

What people don't like about Google+

Google+ dislike: no rss

Google+ dislike: terms of service

Google Plus dislike: technical limitations

Google Plus dislike: trouble figuring it out

Google+ dislike: the name

Next reports to run...Google Panda?

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How to Use Coupon Codes to Promote your business Graywolf's SEO Blog

How to Use Coupon Codes to Promote your business

Posted: 11 Aug 2011 10:20 AM PDT

If you are an run an online ecommerce program, it’s very likely that you have come up against the coupon code dilemma. You offer a deal that allows customers to use a coupon code for a free item, free shipping, or to get a discount. However, what do you do when the promotion ends? If you leave the box open, studies have shown that customers will pause in the transaction and go search for a code, sometimes leading to cart abandonment and lost sales. However, you can use this coupon code to your advantage. In this post, I’ll discuss some some of those opportunities.

Loyalty programs

Loyalty programs were all the rage when ecommerce first started but, due to complex implementations and lack of customer sophistication, they never really caught on. Having a formal loyalty program may be too complicated, but maintaining an email mailing list isn’t. If you have an email list, ideally you should be mailing out once a week. For many businesses, though, that’s just not a reality. If you do have an email list, a bi-weekly or monthly email is doable and should really be the bare minimum. When you send out your email, make sure to include a coupon code. These codes don’t need to be big $10 off shipping or 5% off orders over $150. If you have an idea of how much it costs you to acquire a new customer, give away something below that. If you want to be clever, allow customers to signup to the email list right in the cart in a pop-up window, and give them the discount coupon on the spot.

Facebook

One restaurant in Arizona used their Facebook page to give their fans access to discount coupons and has been very successful with it. This can be hugely successful tactic if you understand the concept of edgerank. In most cases, people aren’t going to see your messages by visiting your page; instead, they are going to see it in their newsfeed. Edgerank calculates one person’s interest in another person or fan page by the interaction. If they visit, click, like, read, or interact with another person or fan page, that person’s or page’s updates are more likely to appear in their news stream. So incentivize people to become fans of you on Facebook by displaying coupon codes only to your fans. Once edgerank establishes a bond, the content marketing aspect of your Facebook strategy will be much more effective.

Twitter

I’m at the point in my life where 99% of my music purchases are done through iTunes or Amazon. I honestly can’t remember the last physical CD I bought. I’m always on the lookout for specials or deals on new/interesting music, so one of the accounts I follow on Twitter is the amazonmp3 account. This account tweets out promotions on a regular basis to get customers used to buying music from Amazon and their new service. Interestingly enough, this was really big deal when Lady Gaga released her new album “Born This Way” tk for 99 cents. Lady Gaga became a huge part of Amazon’s war with iTunes for digital music customers. Why not use your Twitter account to tweet out limited time promotional codes?

So what are the takeaways from this post on how to use coupon codes to promote your business

Understand that coupon code boxes create a sense of frustration and even dissatisfaction for customers who feel they are missing out on savings.
Use the coupon code box to gain access to new or existing customer’s email addresses.
Use your email marketing to drive repeat business with coupon codes.
If possible, try to make it possible for new customers to get a coupon code immediately.
Give your Facebook fans access to coupon offers. This is a huge bonus in the edgerank algorithm and helps with your content marketing.
Use Twitter to promote limited time coupon codes.
Offering a discount and keeping an existing customer happy is almost always cheaper in the long run than acquiring a new customer.

photo credit: Photospin

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How to Use Coupon Codes to Promote your business

Advanced Batteries, Fuel Efficiency and Jobs

Your Daily Snapshot for
Thursday, August 11, 2011

Advanced Batteries, Fuel Efficiency and Jobs

Today, the President will travel to Holland, Michigan, where he will tour the Johnson Controls Inc. advanced battery manufacturing plant. The President will highlight the new fuel efficiency standards and the role these standards will play in creating high-quality jobs across America.

Learn more about about the new standards and the President's trip.

Photo of the Day

President Barack Obama talks with Mike Froman, Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economic Affairs, before a call in the Oval Office, Aug. 10, 2011. Pictured, from left, are; Caroline Atkinson, Special Assistant to the President for International Economic Affairs; NSC Deputy Executive Secretary Valerie Boyd; Liz Sherwood-Randall, Special Assistant to the President and NSC Senior Director for European Affairs; and National Security Advisor Tom Donilon. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)