Central Perk

luni, 9 ianuarie 2012

The Power of Using Lists for Link Building

Posted: 08 Jan 2012 12:48 PM PST

I used to spend a lot of my time plowing through Google to find potential link targets for client websites. I still do this a lot but I've changed my approach a lot of the last 12-18 months to try and become a bit more efficient. I've changed my approach so that the first point of call when looking for link targets is lists.

Lists are awesome for link building because someone else has already done some of the hard work for you. If you can find good quality, curated lists of websites, then you can be reasonably sure that you have found sites that are good ones to get links from. You still want to run your own analysis and due diligence, but the end output is probably going to be a higher majority of quality sites than you would have gotten from pulling lists straight from Google SERPs.

I like to put link building techniques into processes which makes them easier to follow and easier to scale if you need to automate parts of it. The process I use can be broken down into the following -

Find your lists
Scrape together your master list
Filter and prioritise

I'll go through each of these in more detail to explain the steps for each one.

1. Find your Lists

There are multiple ways of doing this and there are probably more places to find them than you think. To make things a bit clearer, let's think about these "types" of lists, they are roughly in order of personal preference -

Curated lists found on other websites
Top x type lists found on other websites
Public Twitter lists
Good quality directories

There are more, but just these ones alone with give you enough link targets to keep you busy for a long time!

Curated lists found on other websites

For me, these are the best types of lists to find. They are hand curated which means that the quality of the list should be pretty good, usually they have also been curated by a subject matter expert who knows the sites in their industry well. I always try and find these first because they tend to give me the higher quality sites - albeit in low quantities.

My main method for finding these sites actually starts off very simple, it will be something like -

It really does start off that simple.

This can give me lots to get started with, just this search alone gave me a list of seven blogs curated by The Times, a list of ten law blogs from Cision and a list of employment law blogs curated by a professional lawyer. This was only taking a few from page 1 of the search results too, there were many, many more.

You can of course vary the types of searches you do, then you can go a bit deeper with some advanced search queries. Here is a quick example -

This search gave me some great results including this list from the Inner Temple and this curated list from a law firm.

Here are a few more that you can use -

"list of * blogs" "uk law"
"list of * websites" "uk law"
list of uk law blogs inurl:resources

Garrett French also lists his method for link building with lists and some advanced queries on Citation Labs.

When I've found very high quality sites, I also tend to keep a note of them in my Chrome Bookmarks so I can easily find them again in the future -

You could use anything you want to do this really, for example you could use something like Evernote and attach the list to a project. At Distilled we also keep a record of link targets in Buzzstream which means they are easy to find again in the future for follow up or other projects.

Top x type lists found on other websites

This is a personal favourite, the quality can sometimes be a little dubious, but overall you will find pretty good quality websites. The great thing about these ones too is that they tend to be refreshed every year so lots of these lists exist.

Similar to curated lists, finding these can start off with something simple -

These returned lots of great results, one of which I'd class as a curated list from The Telegraph.

You can of course go a bit more advanced again and use some of the following -

top * food blogs
best * food blogs
best food blogs inurl:links

There are so many of these it's unreal. I'd like to think they were slow down as people get bored, but quite frankly, they still work well for things like link bait!

Public Twitter lists

You need to do a bit of extra work to pull the websites out of these ones, but it's worth the extra effort and much of this can be automated. You can actually find these a number of ways. One of my favourites is this advanced query in Google -

Once you have found a list, you want to click on the "following" tab which brings up the people on the list rather than their tweets -

This brings you to a URL such as this one which (if you wanted!) you could scrape the usernames of the list members from. You could then scrape their profiles using something like Google Docs with Xpath and pull out their websites if they have them.

To help you with this task, I knocked together a very quick and dirty scraper in Google Docs which you can get a copy of here. It's not that robust but will do the job on up to 50 usernames quickly and easily. Make sure you are logged into your Google Account then click "Make a Copy" from the File menu.

Another easy way is to use something like Listorious which has a nice clean interface and pulls back Twitter lists based on your keywords -

As I said, there are loads of ways to find these lists. I tend to find that just searching for my keywords in Twitter search and finding influential people often leads me to lists of some sort.

Good quality directories

I had to mention the D word at some point :). Being honest, I don't use this one that much but it can be useful in some very niche industries where there may not be that many lists created by individuals.

Luckily, it's super easy and quick to find a list of sites in some of the better directories. My first point of call is usually Dmoz. I try to ignore the fact that many categories these days are controlled by SEOs! You can find some really good niche sites on Dmoz, for example did you know there was an association of tea drinkers with a directory of member blogs? I found this via Dmoz!

There are a few other directories out there which are decent quality, but you'll probably find you get a lot more commercial and lower quality sites in the lists and will have to do some filtering later.

A few more directories I'd take look at -

Please don't dismiss the Yahoo! Directory without taking a look, there are some decent sites on there, for example on this list of photography blogs, which is quite extensive.

RIght, so now we have a number of places we can find lists. Next up is to collate these into our own master list so we can filter and sort to find our final list of link targets.

2. Scrape together your master list

Hopefully I don't lose too many of you now, I'm not going to ask you to build your own tools to do this. Whilst we are big believers in hacking together your own tools for various SEO jobs, there are some very simple plugins that can do this job for you. Having said that, if you can build your own scraper to pull in link targets - go for it!

Here are a couple of ways of pulling link targets from a page very quickly without building a tool.

Multi-links for Firefox

I love this plugin. It's a very handy tool for loads of stuff. In this case, we're going to use it to pull the URLs of the link targets in our lists into a spreadsheet.

Lets use one of the examples I linked to above, say you wanted to pull the URLs of the websites in this list on The Telegraph -

Using Multi-links, you simply right click just above the first link, then drag the cursor down so all the links you want are within the red lines -

Keep pressing the right click button, then press the left click, then select "Copy URLs" -

You can then just paste it into your spreadsheet. Much quicker than going to each site and copying the URL!

Extra Tip - this tool also allows you to open highlighted links in other tabs which can be very useful for link prospecting. However be careful, if you do not want this, make sure you keep hold of the right mouse button! If you release it, all tabs will open at the same time. Opening loads of tabs in Firefox at the same time can slow it down a lot - I've done it with over a hundred links before and crashed it.

If you are looking for something similar that works in Chrome, take a look at Linkclump.

Scrape similar plugin for Chrome

This nice little plugin takes away a lot of the hassle of learning things like Xpath and allows you to grab elements of a page which are similar to each other - such as links.

Lets use the same example as above and scrape the links from The Telegraph again. I simply right click on one of the links in the list and click on "Scrape Similar". I get the following list which looks accurate to me -

I can then export to Google Docs in the bottom right corner, easy!

For a more detailed look on using this plugin for link building, go and read Justin's post which gives a great step by step guide.

3. Filter and prioritise

At this point we should have a spreadsheet of link targets, which we have gathered pretty quickly using some simple search queries and a few plugins or tools. Now we need to filter, sort and prioritise. Chances are that you have ended up with a pretty big list of potential link targets, so you need someway of knowing where to start to give you a good return.

I know some of you will prefer to use Excel at this point, some will prefer Google Docs. So I'm going to cover both and show you how to quickly prioritise your link targets using some simple tools.

Filtering using Excel

This became a lot easier recently with the discovery of these SEO tools for Excel by Niels Bosma. There are loads of features you can use which are for onpage SEO analysis which you should definitely take a look at. For the purposes of this post, I've taken the following screenshot of metrics for link building which you can get -

For those of you who have never seen it before, here is a very quick snapshot of just a few of the other elements you can gather with the plugin -

Richard Baxter did a great post on the plugin and all the different features you can use, it's well worth a read over on SEOgadget.

Once you've gathered these metrics, you can start to filter and sort by whichever metrics matter to you. I tend to look for large numbers of social shares and then look at PageRank as a rough indicator. Whilst PageRank isn't perfect, it's still useful for filtering large sets of data.

Filtering using Google Docs

As much as I love SEO tools for Excel, I think I still prefer using Google Docs for gathering metrics on the fly. There are loads of posts for hacking together Google Docs to do various things (all with free downloads of the tools themselves) so I'd advise you go and take a look at those.

For this type of work, I tend to use a Google Doc which looks like this -

You can add loads more into here if you wanted, but I want to keep it simple for now. I like being able to pull Domain Authority straight into my spreadsheet which you can do with the free version of the SEOmoz API key.

Again, once you've got all your metrics, you can filter, sort and prioritise based on your key metrics. Then it's a case of starting to contact each site and giving them a good reason to link to you!

Final Important Step

Go and do something with this list! Importantly, ask yourself the following -

What reason can I give these people to link to me?

Why should these people give a sh*t about my site?

If you can answer these questions confidently, you have your hook ready to go and do your outreach.

That's about it for this post, I'd love to hear your feedback and comments below or feel free to tweet me if you have any questions or feedback.

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Office Hours: Keeping America Competitive

Your Daily Snapshot for
Monday, January 9, 2012

Office Hours: Keeping America Competitive

Last week, the Commerce Department and the White House sent to Congress the Administration’s plan on keeping America competitive. Today, we're holding a special session of "Office Hours" on Twitter with administration officials to answer your questions about the new report.

Have questions on investing in innovation for economic growth and competitiveness? Ask them now using the hashtag #WHChat. Today, Monday, January 9th at 3:30 p.m. EST, we’ll answer your questions live on Twitter.

Follow today's White House Office Hours on Twitter.

Photo of the Day

President Barack Obama is briefed by National Security Advisor Tom Donilon before a phone call with King Abdullah II of Jordan in the Oval Office, Jan. 6, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Seth's Blog : Out on a limb

Out on a limb

That's where artists do their work.

Not in the safe places, but out there, in a place where they might fail, where it might end badly, where connections might be lost, sensibilities might be offended, jokes might not be gotten.

If you work with artists, don't saw off the limb. Don't waste a lot of time explaining how dangerous it is, either. No, your job is to quietly support the limb at the same time you egg your team on, pushing them ever further out there.

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Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Dimwit Comment of the Day: Christine Lagarde, IMF Director says "Europe May Avoid a Recession This Year"
Euro Suffers Longest Losing Streak Since 2010; Record High Speculative Short Positions; Big Specs vs. Currency Movements; Not Timing Devices
Iran Starts Uranium Enrichment at Fordo; Joint Chiefs of Staff says Iran Has Ability to Block Strait of Hormuz; United Arab Emirates Bypass Oil Pipeline Delayed

Dimwit Comment of the Day: Christine Lagarde, IMF Director says "Europe May Avoid a Recession This Year"

Posted: 08 Jan 2012 11:12 PM PST

In what is likely the silliest comment of the year so far, Christine Lagarde says Europe may avoid recession this year

Europe may avoid a recession this year and there were reasons to be more upbeat about prospects for the region, the Business Day newspaper quoted International Monetary Fund's Managing Director Christine Lagarde as saying.

"The euro-zone scene has changed massively over the last 18 months or so ... there are reasons to be a little bit more upbeat about the prospects," she told the daily in an interview conducted during a two-day visit to South Africa.

For my rationale and a blast at a Bloomberg columnist for suggesting the same thing, please see German Factory Orders Drop Most in Nearly 3 Years; Icing On the European Recession Cake.

The idea Germany may avoid a recession is silly enough. The idea Europe may avoid a recession is downright idiotic.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

Euro Suffers Longest Losing Streak Since 2010; Record High Speculative Short Positions; Big Specs vs. Currency Movements; Not Timing Devices

Posted: 08 Jan 2012 02:31 PM PST

Bloomberg reports Euro Drops in Longest Losing Streak Since 2010 on Debt Turmoil

The euro fell for a fifth week versus the dollar in its longest losing streak in almost two years on concern Europe's debt crisis is worsening and as data showed the U.S. labor market is strengthening.

The 17-nation currency slid to a record low against the Australian dollar and traded at the weakest level in more than 11 years versus the yen as demand at bond auctions spurred concern European nations will struggle to sell debt. The pound rose to a 15-month high versus the euro before the European Central Bank meets on Jan. 12. Hungary's forint tumbled and Fitch Ratings downgraded the country to junk.

"One of the factors driving the market right now is a general lack of demand for European assets," said Shahab Jalinoos, a senior currency strategist in Stamford, Connecticut, at UBS AG. "There are enough sources of new bad news to keep the market adapting; all the bad news is not priced in yet."

It was the worst week for Europe's common currency in four months. The euro lost 1.3 percent against nine developed-nation peers tracked by Bloomberg Correlation-Weighted Currency Indexes, the most since it dropped 1.9 percent in the five days ended Sept. 2.

Bets Against Euro

Futures traders increased their bets (ECLRG) that the euro will decline against the dollar to a record high. The difference between wagers the shared currency would fall versus those that it would rise -- so-called net shorts -- surged to 138,909 in the week ended Jan. 3, according to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Sterling reached its strongest versus the euro yesterday since Sept. 10, 2010, touching 82.39 pence. It gained 1.1 percent on the week. The pound slipped 0.8 percent to $1.5426.

The euro dropped as France sold 4.02 billion euros ($5.11 billion) of benchmark 10-year notes Jan. 5 at an average yield of 3.29 percent, compared with 3.18 percent at a sale on Dec. 1. The bid-to-cover ratio, the number of bids received for each unit of debt sold, fell to 1.64, from 3.05. Demand at a German auction of 10-year bonds a day earlier was lower than the five- year average. France, Greece, Germany, Italy and Spain are all scheduled to sell debt next week.

Australia's dollar rallied to a record 80.51 euro cents yesterday. It gained for eight consecutive days versus the shared currency, the longest winning streak since December 2010. Against the greenback, the Aussie advanced 0.2 percent on the week to $1.0228.

Record High Euro Shorts

Zero Hedge had a nice chart and some comments in Euro Shorts Surge To New Record High - Is An EC Margin Hike Approaching?

The trend of relentless shorting of the Euro currency in the form of non-commercial spec contracts, and as reported by the Commitment of Traders, continues for one more week. As of January 3, EUR shorts rose by another 9%, hitting an unprecedented 138,909 net contracts short - a fresh all time record. What is curious that unlike previously, when an increase in EUR bearishness implicitly meant a increase in USD bullishness, this time that is no longer the case as net spec USD contracts actually declined, and are trading at relatively subdued levels. Overall, this means that FX specs are not playing relative currencies off each other, but are piling into a global European short.

The position of "large specs" (hedge funds and big traders) is 138,909 short. One needs to add another 27,160 short contracts by "small specs" (small traders), to arrive at a combined net speculative position of 166,069 contracts short.

Since in futures trading everything nets to zero, commercial traders (JP Morgan, etc) are net long a record 166,069.

Big Specs vs. Currency Movements

The above chart from ZeroHedge.

I immediately recognized the shape of the red line in the above chart. Here it is in another place.

$XEU - Euro vs US Dollar.

$XJY - Yen vs US Dollar

Not Timing Devices

Speculative futures positions are not timing devices. Note the bounce in October did not hold as short-covering in Euro contracts by the speculators did not approach the zero-line before reversing.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

Iran Starts Uranium Enrichment at Fordo; Joint Chiefs of Staff says Iran Has Ability to Block Strait of Hormuz; United Arab Emirates Bypass Oil Pipeline Delayed

Posted: 08 Jan 2012 08:12 AM PST

Roughly 17 million barrels of crude a day flow through the Strait of Hormuz and Iran has threatened to block the strait if Europe imposes economic sanctions. How credible is that threat?

Joint Chiefs of Staff says Iran Has Ability to Block Strait of Hormuz

Please consider Iran Has Ability to Block Strait of Hormuz, U.S. General Dempsey Tells CBS

Iran has the ability to block the Strait of Hormuz "for a period of time," and the U.S. would take action to reopen it, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman General Martin Dempsey said.

"They've invested in capabilities that could, in fact, for a period of time block the Strait of Hormuz," Dempsey said in an interview airing today on the CBS "Face the Nation" program. "We've invested in capabilities to ensure that if that happens, we can defeat that."

Should Iran try to close Hormuz, the U.S. "would take action and reopen" the waterway, said Dempsey, President Barack Obama's top military adviser.

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum said Jan. 1 on NBC's "Meet the Press" that he would use air strikes against Iran unless the country dismantled its nuclear program or allowed inspectors to verify that the work isn't aimed at making a weapon.

Dempsey suggested that curbing Iran's nuclear work by bombing its facilities would be difficult.

"I'd rather not discuss the degree of difficulty and in any way encourage them to read anything into that," Dempsey said. "My responsibility is to encourage the right degree of planning, to understand the risks associated with any kind of military option."

Iran Starts Uranium Enrichment at Fordo Mountain Facility

Bloomberg reports Iran Starts Uranium Enrichment at Fordo Mountain Facility

Iran has started to enrich uranium at its Fordo production facility, the official Kayhan newspaper reported without saying where it got the information.

Iran will soon have a ceremony to open the site officially, the newspaper reported, citing the head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization, Fereydoun Abbasi. The Iranian nuclear chief was cited yesterday by Mehr News as saying that the underground facility "will start operating in the near future."

The existence of the Fordo plant, built into the side of a mountain near the Muslim holy city of Qom, south of Tehran, was disclosed in September 2009, heightening concern among the U.S. and its allies who say Iran's activities may be a cover for the development of atomic weapons. The Persian Gulf country has rejected the allegation, saying it needs nuclear technology to secure energy for its growing population.

Iran has pressed ahead with its nuclear program even as international pressure increases to prevent the Islamic republic from building an atomic weapon.

The U.S. tightened economic sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program on Dec. 31, and the European Union is weighing a ban later this month on purchases of Iranian crude.

Iran threatened last month to shut the Strait of Hormuz, a transit point for a fifth of oil traded worldwide, if sanctions are imposed on its crude exports in response to its nuclear program.

Hormuz Bypass Oil Pipeline Delayed

United Arab Emirates has been working on an oil pipeline so that its oil will not have to flow through the Strait of Hormuz. Bloomberg reports the Hormuz Bypass Oil Pipeline Delayed as Iranian Tensions Mount

A pipeline that would allow oil from the United Arab Emirates to bypass the Strait of Hormuz separating it from Iran has been delayed because of construction difficulties, two people with knowledge of the matter said.

As many as 270 construction issues have pushed back the completion date, said the two people, declining to be identified because they're not allowed to speak publicly on the matter. The $3.3 billion project won't be ready until at least April, one of them said. Abu Dhabi, holder of most of the U.A.E.'s oil reserves, had planned to start exports in January 2011 through the pipeline to a port outside the strait, Dieter Blauberg, the project's former director, said in May 2009.

The 1.5 million barrel-a-day link would ensure the U.A.E. can export crude without risking a blockade at Hormuz, where fully laden tankers exit the Persian Gulf with one-fifth of the world's traded oil. The chance that Iran might try to close the waterway has intensified as Europe prepares to follow tougher U.S. sanctions on the country.

"That pipeline would carry pretty much all of Abu Dhabi's oil," Robin Mills, an analyst at Manaar Energy Consulting in Dubai, said Jan. 5. "It's a critical bit of infrastructure, and it is remarkable it hasn't been completed."

Weeks of Iran tension has added about $10 a barrel to Brent crude prices, said al-Harami, who was head of crude and products marketing at state-run Kuwait Petroleum Corp. during the 1980s "Tanker War," when Iran and Iraq attacked each other's ships.

Still, a closure of the strait by Iran, in response to opposition to the nation's nuclear program, is not a "high- likelihood event," David Fyfe, head of the International Energy Agency's oil market and industry division, said in a Jan. 4 phone interview from Paris.

War posturing by Iran and the US, as well as economic sanctions by Europe are counterproductive and have undoubtedly increased the price of oil. The simple solution to this mess would be for Iran to admit inspectors to check their facilities and for the US to go along with those inspections.

However, the US has demanded Iran stop all enrichment. The US has no fundamental right to demand that Iran stop enrichment for non-weapons usage.

Addendum: Atoms for Peace

Inquiring minds might be interested in the origins of Iran's nuclear program.

The nuclear program of Iran was launched in the 1950s with the help of the United States as part of the Atoms for Peace program. The support, encouragement and participation of the United States and Western European governments in Iran's nuclear program continued until the 1979 Iranian Revolution that toppled the Shah of Iran.

After the 1979 revolution, the Iranian government temporarily disbanded elements of the program, and then revived it with less Western assistance than during the pre-revolution era. Iran's nuclear program has included several research sites, two uranium mines, a research reactor, and uranium processing facilities that include three known uranium enrichment plants.

After delays, Iran's first nuclear power plant, Bushehr I reactor was complete with major assistance of Russian government agency RosAtom and was officially opened in a ceremony on 12 September 2011. Iran has announced that it is working on a new 360 MW nuclear power plant to be located in Darkhovin. Iran has also indicated that it will seek more medium-sized nuclear power plants and uranium mines in the future. ....

On the question of whether Iran had a hidden nuclear weapons program, the IAEA's November 2003 report states that it found "no evidence" that the previously undeclared activities were related to a nuclear weapons program, but also that it was unable to conclude that Iran's nuclear program was exclusively peaceful.

In August 2005, with the assistance of Pakistan a group of US government experts and international scientists concluded that traces of bomb-grade uranium found in Iran came from contaminated Pakistani equipment and were not evidence of a clandestine nuclear weapons program in Iran. In September 2005, IAEA Director General Mohammad ElBaradei reported that "most" highly enriched uranium traces found in Iran by agency inspectors came from imported centrifuge components, validating Iran's claim that the traces were due to contamination. Sources in Vienna and the State Department reportedly stated that, for all practical purposes, the HEU issue has been resolved.

In late February 2006, IAEA Director Mohammad El-Baradei raised the suggestion of a deal, whereby Iran would give up industrial-scale enrichment and instead limit its program to a small-scale pilot facility, and agree to import its nuclear fuel from Russia. The Iranians indicated that while they would not be willing to give up their right to enrichment in principle, they were willing to consider the compromise solution. However in March 2006, the Bush Administration made it clear that they would not accept any enrichment at all in Iran.

In Resolution 1696 July 31, 2006, the United Nations Security Council demanded that Iran suspend all enrichment and reprocessing related activities.

In February 2007, anonymous diplomats at the atomic energy agency reportedly complained that most U.S. intelligence shared with the IAEA had proved inaccurate, and none had led to significant discoveries inside Iran.

In late October 2007, according to the International Herald Tribune, the head of the IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei, stated that he had seen "no evidence" of Iran developing nuclear weapons. The IHT quoted ElBaradei as saying "We have information that there has been maybe some studies about possible weaponization. That's why we have said that we cannot give Iran a pass right now, because there is still a lot of question marks ... . But have we seen Iran having the nuclear material that can readily be used into a weapon? No. Have we seen an active weaponization program? No." The IHT report went on to say that "ElBaradei said he was worried about the growing rhetoric from the U.S., which he noted focused on Iran's alleged intentions to build a nuclear weapon rather than evidence the country was actively doing so. If there is actual evidence, ElBaradei said he would welcome seeing it."

In a February 2009 press interview, IAEA Director Mohamed ElBaradei said Iran has low enriched uranium, but "that doesn't mean that they are going tomorrow to have nuclear weapons, because as long as they are under IAEA verification, as long as they are not weaponizing, you know." ElBaradei continued that there is a confidence deficit with Iran, but that the concern should not be hyped and that "many other countries are enriching uranium without the world making any fuss about it".

In explaining why it had left its enrichment program undeclared to the IAEA, Iran said that for the past twenty-four years it has "been subject to the most severe series of sanctions and export restrictions on material and technology for peaceful nuclear technology," so that some elements of its program had to be done discreetly. Iran said the U.S. intention "is nothing but to make this deprivation" of Iran's inalienable right to enrichment technology "final and eternal," and that the United States is completely silent on Israel's nuclear enrichment and weapons program.

The Iranian government has repeatedly made compromise offers to place strict limits on its nuclear program beyond what the Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Additional Protocol legally require of Iran, in order to ensure that the program cannot be secretly diverted to the manufacture of weapons. These offers include operating Iran's nuclear program as an international consortium, with the full participation of foreign governments. This offer by the Iranians matched a proposed solution put forth by an IAEA expert committee that was investigating the risk that civilian nuclear technologies could be used to make bombs. Iran has also offered to renounce plutonium extraction technology, thus ensuring that its heavy water reactor at Arak cannot be used to make bombs either. More recently, the Iranians have reportedly also offered to operate uranium centrifuges that automatically self-destruct if they are used to enrich uranium beyond what is required for civilian purposes.

On 26 July 2009, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton explicitly ruled out the possibility that the Obama administration would allow Iran to produce its own nuclear fuel, even under intense international inspection.

If anyone is being unreasonable here, it is the US, UN, and Europe. Not Iran.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

duminică, 8 ianuarie 2012

Seth's Blog : Simple thoughts about fair use

Simple thoughts about fair use

If this is my potato chip, then it's not yours. You can't touch it, eat it or use it for any reason whatsoever, not without asking first. Copyright doesn't work that way.

There is a ying to the yang of copyright protection, and it's called Fair Use. Fair use permits scholars to do their thing, permits those that would do parody or commentary or comparison to be heard. I'm not talking about taking someone's work to make it into a poster or some sort of endorsement--I'm talking about the need for us to be able to comment on each other's work.

Without fair use, it would be impossible to write a negative book review, or compare Shakespeare to the Simpsons. Without fair use, it becomes just about impossible to have a thoughtful discussion about anything that's been published since you were born.

Most web users should know a few simple guidelines, principles so simple that you can generally assume them to be rules. (Worth noting that whether you are in the right or not, a lawyer on retainer can still hassle you--not fair but true):

You don't need to ask someone's permission to include a link to their site.
You don't need to ask permission to include a screen shot of a website in a directory, comment on that site or parody it.
You can quote hundreds of words from a book (for an article or book or on your website) without worrying about it and you certainly don't need a signed release from the original author or publisher. Poems and songs are special exceptions. Then you can worry.

There's a difference between being polite and observing the law. If you quote something (an idea, a notion, a recipe), the right thing to do is give credit.

Photos are a real issue, unless you are clearly commenting on the photo (as opposed to using the photo to make a point that a different photo could make as easily). When in doubt, be the person who took the picture. (Aside: Compfight has an easy to use setting--do a search and hit "commercial" in the left hand column and voila--CC licensed photos, ready to go.)

PS as soon as you make something and fix it in a tangible form, you own the copyright in it. No requirement that you register it with anyone. Putting a © notice is certainly a helpful way to let people know you consider it yours, but the law makes it clear that merely writing your creation down confers copyright to you. And... "all rights reserved" doesn't mean anything any more, just fyi.

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sâmbătă, 7 ianuarie 2012

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Fed to Announce Monetary Penalties for Robo-Signing and Unsafe Practices ; Another Whitewashing Move by the SEC

Posted: 07 Jan 2012 11:24 AM PST

The always behind-the-curve Fed seeks to fine mortgage servicers for unsafe practices and robo-signing with an amount dependent on allegedly independent review by consultants.

Federal Reserve Governor Sarah Bloom Raskin on Saturday said the Fed must impose monetary penalties on banks who entered into an April agreement with regulators over how to fix problems in their mortgage servicing businesses.

"The Federal Reserve and other federal regulators must impose penalties for deficiencies that resulted in unsafe and unsound practices or violations of federal law," Raskin said in remarks prepared for delivery to the Association of American Law Schools. "The Federal Reserve believes monetary sanctions in these cases are appropriate and plans to announce monetary penalties."

In April, 14 mortgage servicers, including Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase entered into a settlement with the Fed, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the now defunct Office of Thrift Supervision on steps that have to be taken to correct and improve their servicing practices, such as providing borrowers with a single point of contact for questions.

As part of the agreement, these mortgage servicers have hired consultants to review foreclosures that took place in 2009 and 2010 to see if any were improper.

Regulators have said these reviews will help determine the size of any penalties the servicers will have to pay.

Expect Trivial Penalties, Spread a Mile Wide

Don't expect this announcement to amount to much of anything. Penalties, if any will be trivial and the fines are nearly guaranteed to not benefit those harmed in any substantial way. Instead, expect fines to be spread out to include those not harmed at all.

Another Whitewashing Move by the SEC

Similarly, don't expect much of anything from this feeble announcement: SEC to demand admission of wrongdoing in some cases

Securities regulators will no longer let companies settle civil cases without admitting or denying the charges if they have already admitted wrongdoing in parallel criminal cases.

The policy change, announced by Securities and Exchange Commission Enforcement Director Robert Khuzami on Friday, applies only to instances where a defendant has already admitted to violating criminal laws.

It comes just over a month after a federal judge in New York rejected a proposed $285 million settlement between the SEC and Citigroup, in part because the bank had not admitted to wrongdoing. However, in that case, no parallel criminal charges have been filed.

It seemed "unnecessary" for the SEC to include its traditional "neither admit nor deny" approach if a defendant had already been criminally convicted of the same conduct, Khuzami said.

In one of the most egregious examples, Bernard Madoff pleaded guilty for his role in a multi-billion dollar Ponzi scheme in 2009, but neither admitted nor denied the allegations in a settlement with the SEC.

In rejecting the Citigroup accord, U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff said the SEC's failure to require Citigroup to admit or deny its charges left him with no way to know whether the settlement was fair. Rakoff also called the $285 million payout "pocket change" for the third-largest U.S. bank.

The Citigroup settlement was intended to resolve charges that the firm sold risky mortgage-linked securities in 2007 without telling investors that it was betting against the debt.

"My take on things is it is all about managing the press," said James Cox, a professor at Duke Law School. The agency "looked pretty silly before Judge Rakoff the other day," he said.

This policy "non-change" borders on the absurd. The ruling only applies to only to instances where a defendant has already admitted to violating criminal laws. Notice that the ruling does not even apply to the Citigroup case in which a Judge Blasted the the SEC.

"Doesn't the S.E.C. have an interest in what the truth is?" Judge Rakoff asked, in reference to the commission's longstanding practice of not forcing a defendant to admit any wrongdoing when settling a case.

Judge Rakoff called the contempt power — a judge's ability to punish a party for disobeying a court order — "the backbone of the judiciary." He questioned whether the S.E.C. was really serious about ever seeking an injunction against repeat offenders.

"It's just for show," Judge Rakoff said.

"We're not saying that we will never use injunctive relief," said the S.E.C. lawyer.

"Hope springs eternal," the judge replied.

The S.E.C.'s current enforcement action against Citigroup is at least the fifth time that the commission has reached a settlement with the bank related to civil fraud accusations.

SEC Fine vs. Citigroup Gain

Please consider SEC Tired of Fighting Big Banks-Calls Federal Judge Rakoff Refusal to Approve Citigroup Settlement-Shortsighted.

Estimates are that Citigroup made a $3.8 billion profit from the bogus investment portfolio. The investors lost over $700 million. The $285 million offer to settle is a joke. The Judge made clear he would not allow corporations to continue to buy their way out of fraud from "a cost of doing business" fund. The Judge demands the truth to be revealed and the public protected.

Public service is a public trust. Federal employees have a duty to protect the public interest. Apparently, the SEC forgot their duties and the fact that the Court is the final arbiter. The legal team at the SEC that crafted the Citigroup deal need to remember they are federal service not bank employees. It's refreshing to see Judge Rakoff remind government workers who employs them. show.php?db=special&id=138

Rakoff's words to the SEC and big banks has been globally hailed as public policy genius. Thank you Judge Rakoff.

The trial is scheduled for July 16, 2012.

While essentially ignoring billions of dollars in repeated fraud allegations against Citigroup, the SEC brought full weight down on Martha Stewart over (drum roll please) ... $45,673.

Martha Stewart went to prison and was fined $30,000. Since then, no one has gone to prison or even been criminally indicted in $trillions of dollars of fraud in the global financial crisis. And unless someone does admit criminal action, the SEC reserves the right to do more whitewashing without seeking admission of guilt.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
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German Factory Orders Drop Most in Nearly 3 Years; Icing On the European Recession Cake

Posted: 07 Jan 2012 12:31 AM PST

It is amusing to see how other writers portray a story vs. what I would say about the same data.

For example, Bloomberg columnist Rainer Buergin reports German Factory Orders Declined Most in Almost Three Years.

Please consider Buergin's interpretation of the story vs. mine. Both follow.

Bloomberg: German factory orders dropped the most in almost three years in November as the euro region economy edged toward a recession and global demand weakened.

Mish: German factory orders dropped the most in almost three years in November as the European recession deepened.

Bloomberg: Orders, adjusted for seasonal swings and inflation, slipped 4.8 percent from October, when they surged a revised 5 percent, the Economy Ministry in Berlin said in a statement today. That's the biggest drop since January 2009. Economists forecast a decline of 1.8 percent, according to the median of 25 estimates in a Bloomberg News survey.

Comment: That paragraph is fine.

Bloomberg: While the euro region's sovereign debt crisis has clouded the outlook and cooling global growth is hurting export orders, Europe's biggest economy may still avert a recession.

Mish: The euro region's sovereign debt crisis, coupled with austerity measures and rising taxes in Greece, Spain, Italy, France has clarified the outlook, and it's not pretty. The European recession will be extremely harsh and Germany will not escape.

Bloomberg: Unemployment at a two-decade low is helping to bolster consumer sentiment, service industries expanded in December and business confidence unexpectedly rose for a second month.

Mish: German unemployment at a two-decade low has temporarily helped boost consumer sentiment. In addition, service industries expanded in December and business confidence unexpectedly rose for a second month. However, do not expect those conditions to last. Any notion that Germany will escape a brutal European recession is complete silliness. Indeed, Germany and the entire Eurozone is already in a recession. Conditions will worsen as tax hikes and austerity measures take an enormous toll. Fundamentally, hiking taxes in the midst of a recession is the worst possible thing to do, yet various officials, including Nicolas Sarkozy, the president of France are clamoring for still more tax hikes.

Escalating trade wars between France and Spain are icing on the recession cake. For details please see ...
"Social VAT" Trade Wars Heat Up Between Spain and France

Brussels Recommends Sucking Spain Dry with Increased VAT; France to Raise Sales Tax to Protect Jobs; Is There Any Point or Reason for the Eurozone?

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

luni, 9 ianuarie 2012

The Power of Using Lists for Link Building

The Power of Using Lists for Link Building