marți, 22 mai 2012

Damn Cool Pics

The Internet In 2015 Is The Down Of The Zettabyte Era [Infographic]

Posted: 22 May 2012 11:09 AM PDT

Today we live in a world of petabytes and exabytes but according to the latest findings from the Cisco Visual Networking Index (VNI), we'll need to add the term "zettabyte" to our vocabulary by 2015.

So, how much exactly is a zettabyte?

A zettabyte is roughly 1000 exabytes. To place that amount of volume in more practical terms, an exabyte alone has the capacity to hold over 36,000 years worth of HD quality video…or stream the entire Netflix catalog more than 3,000 times. A zettabyte is equivalent to about 250 billion DVDs.

The infographic below is an excellent representation of how much internet will grow in 2015?

The credit goes to Cisco who compiled these excellent stats into an amazing infographic.

Click image to see a larger version.

Via Cisco

Russian Teens Film Their Insane Bridge Climb Above Russky Island Bridge

Posted: 21 May 2012 08:55 PM PDT

19-year-old photographer Vitaly Raskalov and two friends climbed the Zolotoy Rog Bridge in Vladivostok, Russia. The next day, they climbed the even higher Russky Island Bridge. Not surprisingly, these kids were arrested and fined after posting the evidence of their escapade atop the Russky Island Bridge. The fine was the equivalent of ten U.S. dollars, but perhaps the fine dished out by Mom and Dad was more appropriate.

Via The Moscow Times

GM's Doing it Wrong: Facebook Marketing Lessons

Posted: 21 May 2012 02:44 PM PDT

Posted by wrttnwrd

This post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of SEOmoz, Inc.

By dumping Facebook, GM’s doing it wrong

GM made a huge stink last week when they pulled their $10 million Facebook advertising budget.

They’re doing it wrong. And you can learn some valuable lessons from their mistake:

Facebook is the best display advertising deal on the internet

The Register pointed out that Facebook ads average a .05% click-through rate. Click-through rate is the total number of clicks on an ad, divided by the number of ad views, or impressions. That’s very low, compared to .4% on Google’s Display Network.

But you can purchase ads on both networks on a cost-per-click basis: You only pay if someone actually clicks on the ad. If a GM ad shows up on my Facebook page, and I glance at it but move on, GM doesn’t pay a thing. But I still saw GM’s ad. It’s free display advertising!

There’s no way to pin a value on that glance, but there is a value. If nothing else, GM just occupied attention otherwise available for Toyota.

Managed correctly, Facebook advertising is an unbeatable display ad bargain. GM’s losing a huge branding opportunity.

Understand earned media

Social media is earned media. Selling in earned media is a two-step process:

Attract and build an audience over time.
Then you sell to that audience.

Facebook ads boost step 1.

GM claims Facebook ads aren’t delivering results. But they’re measuring the wrong results, I’ll bet: They’re looking at clicks, sales and web site traffic. They should be looking at new followers, share of voice, and the quality of the following they build.

You can grow your brand without paid Facebook ads, by posting to your Facebook page. In our tests, 2-4 great posts per day is the minimum effective pace for a major brand. Post less often and your brand shrinks. General Motors posts every 1-2 days, at best. With that pace, and without ads, they can’t grow their brand.

Don’t repeat their mistake: Understand earned media. Your Facebook following is a long-term asset. It’s a community that’s primed for your marketing message. Neglect it and you’ll fail. GM has to either maintain their ad spend (clearly they won’t) or step up their other efforts (hopefully they will). As it stands now, when GM stops their ad campaign, their Facebook page will stagnate.

Learn to measure earned media

You can measure the return from earned media on Facebook. Run Facebook-specific offers. GM could run a regional campaign with participating dealers and offer cash back, or free oil changes for 3 years, or similar. See how many people participate. Use the performance of those campaigns over time to track the value of your average Facebook follower.

That’s only part of the value generated, but it’s a start. It lets you sketch out a comparison of ‘good’ versus ‘bad’ ads, content and offers.

Learn to measure earned media performance.

Don’t amputate for a hangnail

$10 million is a huge Facebook spend. Chances are, GM can optimize it and improve performance, or reduce waste by removing non-performing ads and segments. Instead, they’re chucking the entire budget baby out with the bathwater. If GM applied the budgeting technique to print and television, they’d shut down those campaigns, too.

If you manage a Facebook campaign, you’ll hit a point where you want to turn it off. Don’t. Instead, test, refine and improve. Use Facebook’s amazing segmenting tools to create precisely-targeted ads.

Don’t hack off a limb because of a hangnail. That’s what GM is doing.

Keep perspective

Facebook ads represent .5% of GM’s total marketing budget. To be worthwhile, Facebook ads would need to generate 45,000 cars sold. Staggering numbers for you and I, but for a company that sold 9 million cars last year, that’s a totally achievable goal.

My last advice: Don’t shut down an ad spend that’s less than 1% of your budget unless you’re 100% certain it’s a failure. When the stakes are low and the potential high, keep perspective. Bottom line, that’s what GM forgot to do, and it’s going to hurt them a lot more than Facebook in the long run.

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Getting Started with the Mozscape API

Posted: 21 May 2012 03:30 AM PDT

Posted by Lisa - MozStaff

I’m pretty new here at SEOmoz, and one of the projects I’m working on is improving the Mozscape API wiki content so it’s easier for you to learn how to access all of the cool data available through the Mozscape API.

I decided to jump in and try to figure it out. My initial plan was not to cheat... that is, not use the help I have as an employee that’s not available to most API users. But I got stuck, so I had to change the rules... You’ve heard of Calvinball, right? I made a new rule that I get to cheat, as long as I share.

Joining the Game

I’d already signed up, since I work here, but this part isn’t hard. If you’re not already a member, go to http://www.seomoz.org/api/keys, and either sign up for a free PRO trial, or register for the SEOmoz community. Both of these give you access to the free version of the Mozscape API. If you like what you see and want more requests and full access to the API, details on what’s available are on our API Pricing page.

Getting My Secret SEOmoz API Key

This part would fit right into Calvin Ball... I get a secret key! Once I’m signed in, the Getting Started page shows the Generate API Credentials section. I wasn’t sure what to put in the Your Access ID section, so I just clicked the button. Then had to agree to the terms of service, and clicked it again, and voila, I have my Access ID and my Secret Key.

Tip #1: You don’t enter Your Access ID, we generate it. Just read our terms of service, click the box agreeing to them, and then push the big Generate Secret Key button (or Regenerate, if you’ve already done it once).

Secret Keys, Signatures, and Signed Authentication, Oh My!

As I looked at creating my first API request, I came to a complete standstill figuring out how to authenticate my request. My problems were completely self-inflicted, but I had to resort to cheating to overcome them.

Cheat #1 - Asking for internal guru help

I’d started reading the forums, and the number one issue on the forums at the moment is failed authentication. Before I started this exercise, I’d read a forum post that said the authentication example on the Getting Started page was old and no longer the recommended way to do things.

This led me to ignoring what it actually said on this page, and trying all sorts of things to create a Unix Timestamp and Valid Signature on my own, when it was sitting in front of me the whole time. It took talking to folks here to get me back on track.

Tip #2: Remember that the forums represent a moment in time. We’ve been changing things, and fixing things, and what you read in the forums *could* be outdated. We noticed the sample was bad, wrote about it in the forums, and then fixed it, meaning the forum post is now out-of-date.

The Sample Valid API Signature really is a Valid API Signature

After the above flailing about, and my first cheat, I realized the Sample Valid API Signature is actually a genuine, A#1, valid API signature, and allows me to do a query right away.

So, I was able to use the Sample Request on the Getting Started page to get the correct member ID, timestamp, and signature in the correct format.

Tip #3 & 4:

If you've been flailing about after getting your secret key (as I did), you'll need to refresh the page to update the timestamp. The timestamp on the sample is only valid for about 5 minutes.
Your signature has to be base64 and then URL encoded. This is why the Signature line on the Getting Started page is slightly different from the Signature in the Sample Request, which has been encoded for you. Make sure you use the Sample Request string.

URL Metrics for the Win

Once I realized the signed authentication was provided for me in the sample request, it came down to just using the wiki documentation to modify the request for the URL and metrics that I wanted. The URL was easy; I just changed the website in the sample request from “www.seomoz.org&2fblog” to the website of my local food coop.

Then, since the sample request uses the url-metrics API call, I looked up how to add the URL metrics I wanted on the URL-Metrics API wiki page. I picked these metrics:

Metric	Bit Flag	Returns
Title	1	ut
URL	4	uu
Subdomain	8	ufq
Links	2048	uid

Adding all of the bit flags for these up gives me 2061. So I put 2061 in the Cols parameter.

Cheat #2 - Knowledge Aforethought

Since I’ve been here a little over a month, I had already looked at the URL-metrics API page, and been working on improving the content there. So I already knew how to use the Cols parameter and how to add up the bit flags to get the metrics I wanted.

Hobbes gets the Link Data

All of the above modifications to the Sample Request gave me my first working query:

http://lsapi.seomoz.com/linkscape/url-metrics/www.snoislefoods.coop?Cols=2061&AccessID=<my_member_ID>&Expires=<My_sample_timestamp>&Signature=<My_sample_signature>

I put it in a new browser window, hit enter, and got my first response:

{"ufq":"www.snoislefoods.coop/","uid":864,"ut":"Organic Produce Co op, Natural Food Cooperative | Sno-Isle Natural Foods Co-op Everett WA","uu":"www.snoislefoods.coop/"}

Success! I used the table on the URL-metrics API page (excerpted above) to interpret my link data.

Changing the Rules

So, this is what I learned that might be helpful to you if you’re just starting out. Now, most of the time, you’re not going to access your link data by typing a request like I did in the browser window, but I hope this helps you in understanding what all of the moving pieces are when generating your queries programmatically.

After my experience with this, I’ll be working on improving the Getting Started page, forum pages, and the wiki docs to help you avoid the parts that confused me on my first go around.

If you have any suggestions, success stories, or really good cheats, I’d love to hear from you. Email api@seomoz.org.

Lisa - Mozstaff

Joplin: Remember, Rejoice, Rebuild

Your Daily Snapshot for
Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Joplin: Remember, Rejoice, Rebuild

On year ago today, a deadly tornado ripped through Joplin, Missouri, killing 161 and displacing thousands. Last night, President Obama returned to Joplin to deliver the commencement address to Joplin High School.

To mark the anniversary, we've put together a piece featuring interviews with those involved with the city's remarkable recovery, photos from the effort to rebuild, and video from President Obama's visit to Joplin. It's an inspiring story -- we hope you'll check it out.

Read the Joplin story.

Seth's Blog : Ranking for signal to noise ratio

Ranking for signal to noise ratio

A whisper in a quiet room is all you need. There's so little noise, so few distractions, that the energy of the whisper is enough to make a dent.

On the other hand, it's basically impossible to have a conversation (at any volume) in a nightclub.

Signal to noise ratio is a measurement of the relationship between the stuff you want to hear and the stuff you don't. And here's the thing: Twitter and email and Facebook all have a bad ratio, and it's getting worse.

The clickthrough rates on tweets is getting closer and closer to zero. Not because there aren't links worth clicking on, but because there's so much junk you don't have the attention or time to sort it all out.

Spam (and worse, spamlike messages from organizations and people that ought to treasure your attention and permission) are turning a medium (email) that used to be incredibly rich into one that's becoming very noisy as well.

And you really can't do much to fix these media and still use them the way you're used to using them.

The alternative, which is well worth it, is to find new channels you can trust. An RSS feed with only bloggers who respect your time. Relentless editing of who you follow and who you listen to and what gets on the top of the pile.

Until you remove the noise, you're going to miss a lot of signal.

• Email to a friend •

luni, 21 mai 2012

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Comments from Italy on "Financial Terrorism", Taxes, General Economic Condition, and Mario Monti

Posted: 21 May 2012 11:02 AM PDT

Financial Terrorism

Reader Andrea from Italy (who now lives in France) has some interesting comments regarding my post on Saturday Italy Deploys 20,000 Law Enforcement Officers to Protect Individuals and Sensitive Sites; Anecdotes From Italy via Canada: Taxed Out of House and Home.

Andrea writes ...

Hi Mish,

I would like to give your readers a better understanding of terrorism in Italy. Italy went through the seventies with a very hard season of terrorist acts.

In the worst period you could count one terrorist act per day: killing or bombing of politicians, managers, journalists and trade unions representatives. The main terrorist organization during those years were the "Brigate Rosse" (Red Brigades).

The climax happened when they managed to kidnap, jail and eventually kill the Italian PM Aldo Moro. Their "five point star" logo is still today symbol of fear and terror in the country.

Along with the "Brigate Rosse", other minor far-left armed organizations have been spreading terror in the country and also many far-right organizations. An involvement of Italian and US intelligence has sometimes been guessed for some these acts. Those years passed to history as the "years of lead", by the metal bullets are made of.

The period of terrorism roughly ended in 1982 with the liberation of US Army Gen. Dozier, kidnapped by Red Brigades. Most of their masterminds and killers have been caught and put in jail or spontaneously surrendered by that time.

Since then, from time to time, some acts are still claimed by Red Brigades.

So the matter of terrorist acts is very, very sensitive in Italy. Unfortunately, the difficult economic environment creates the conditions for a comeback of terrorism.

Best regards,
Andrea

General Economic Conditions, Taxes, and Mario Monti

In a followup on general economic conditions Andrea writes ...

Hi Mish,

I was in Italy a couple of weeks ago and so I have some fresh updates.

The article you mention is mostly correct, but it is worth to add some things and some facts to describe the full picture.

For starters, Italy has a very long and strong "habit" of tax evasion and tax fraud compounded by an extremely high level of criminal activities and presence of criminal organizations in the economy.

This "habit" goes far beyond the economically difficult circumstances, and includes professionals (dentists, doctors, lawyers), retailers and small business.

The phenomenon is so widespread and dramatic that a few figures should help explaining it. Statistics show that owners of luxury cars, yachts or private planes declare in average very few tens of thousands Euros income per year, much less of the value of the objects they own. Clearly, this is simply mathematically impossible!

So far, no government has been able to tackle this issue, for a lack of will and a lack of capacity at the same time. But increasing debt, pressure from financial markets and increasing spending has increased so much the fiscal pressure on those that cannot evade that the problem now could no longer be avoided.

The recent governments have put in place a more and more efficient organization to fight this phenomenon and Prime Minister Mario Monti has now empowered this organization with powers that are really at the limit of democracy, a kind of Orwellian powers including some of the things you see described in the article but also much more. For example, the state now has the power to look into your bank account at any moment without any intervention from your bank.

In principle I do not like these enforcements, as it sounds quite tyrannical but at the same time nothing else seemed to work so far.

Coming back to the point: restoring fiscal loyalty is absolutely necessary for Italy and those measures seem to have effect to this respect.

The problem is that this "fiscal machine" is not making any difference between a fiscal fraud or robbery and simple problems of people that cannot pay because they have no money and they have troubles with their firms.

The latter group should be helped to keep their companies alive during these troubled times. Instead, stories of people that commit suicide after getting a tough payment request from "Agenzia delle Entrate" can be heard almost every day in Italy along with weapon aggression to "Agenzia delle Entrate" employees.

While a fair tax system is needed, this way is going to kill Italian companies.

As I said, nearly every day you can hear and read about entrepreneur suicide stories in the mainstream media. Even Monti had to comment in a press conference.

A mix of things is responsible for this desperation.

Public Administration delayed payments. PA in Italy is currently years behind in payment.

Private customers payment delays or non-payments

Bank unwilling or unable to make loans

Taxes and tough demands from the new "fiscal machine"

Lack of demand in the wake of austerity measures, tax hikes, and general European slowdown

Note the injustice: Central and local governments are agonizingly slow (as in years late) in paying bills but now demand citizens to pay immediately.

Monti approval is now rapidly declining because of tax increases and because of waste of public money.

Best regards,
Andrea

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

Full-Fledged European Bank Run; ECB Deposit Insurance is Not the Answer; How FDIC Played a Part in the US Real Estate Bust; Monetarist Fools are Everywhere; Believe in Gold

Posted: 20 May 2012 11:58 PM PDT

One chart is all it takes to prove a full-fledged European bank run on the banks is well underway in the Club-Med countries and Ireland.

click on chart for sharper image

The above chart is from the Financial Times article The anatomy of the eurozone bank run by Gavyn Davies.

A bank run is now happening within the eurozone. So far it has been relatively slow and prolonged, but it is a run nonetheless. And last week, it showed signs of accelerating sharply, in a way which demands an urgent response from policy-makers.

The fear of bank runs is deeply ingrained in all economists who know anything about the genesis of the Great Depression in the United States in the early 1930s. Then, the failure of the Bank of United States in December 1930 led to multiple bank runs across the country. Bank failures in the following two years wiped out personal savings and greatly exacerbated the collapse of demand in the economy.

The classic account of the crisis, by Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz, concluded that the collapse was largely the fault of the Federal Reserve, which failed to provide enough liquidity to keep the banks functioning and thus end the panic.

Classical Nonsense

We need to stop right there for a bit because the "classic account" Davies believes in is complete nonsense. The crisis then and now is a crisis of solvency.

The culprit is fractional reserve lending coupled with fraudulent lending practices that allow banks to secure deposits for 2 years or less but lend money out for 30 years.

The way to stop runs on the bank is easy enough: stop fractional reserve lending and other fraudulent lending practices.

Davies continues with still more nonsense.

After the crash, the establishment of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation was intended to ensure that deposit holders never again had to live in fear that their savings would be in jeopardy. What are the lessons for the eurozone?

How FDIC Played a Part in the US Real Estate Bust

Clearly there was fear depositors would lose money and the run on Lehman and Bear Stearns is proof enough.

The irony is there was no fear for the longest time because of FDIC when fear should be a rational worry. That lack of fear led to depositors chasing the highest yields simply because they were government guaranteed.

For example, Corus bank (among numerous others) offered attractive rates and invested deposits in condo construction schemes in Florida, California, and Las Vegas. Were it not for FDIC, no one in their right mind would have put deposits at Corus and other such banks that went bust in the real estate crash.

The fools who did place deposits at such banks seeking higher yields deserved to lose those deposits.

End Fractional Reserve Lending

Under a full-reserve 100% gold-backed banking system, inflation would be nonexistent and bank failures would be few and scattered. Instead, we have seen boom-bust cycles of increasing magnitude with faith placed on FDIC, and that faith contributed to the magnitude of the bust and an enormous failure of hundreds of banks in a short period of time.

In short FDIC should be phased out along with the end of fractional reserve lending.

The rest of Davies' article is a hodge-podge of still more fallacies concluding with ...

Mario Monti apparently took a plan to the G8 summit to offer jointly-funded guarantees on bank deposits to apply across the entire eurozone. This would certainly help, but whether it would be sufficient to eliminate fears of exchange rate losses if the euro were to disintegrate is another matter. To fix that problem, belief in the integrity of the euro as a single currency needs to be restored. The bank run could bring matters to a head.

Belief in the Euro? Why?

Pray tell why should there be a belief in the Euro, especially when the "solution" proposed by Keynsian and Monetarist clowns is simply to print more money to cover fraudulent lending practices by banks, every time banks get into trouble?

Belief in Gold

Note that the US dollar index is right where it was over seven years ago.

The US$ index is at a spot first touched in late 2004. Gold was well under $500 an ounce at that time, so please do not tell me gold is a function of the US dollar.

One of the reasons gold is at $1600 with the US dollar index above 81 is precisely because central banks in general (notably the Fed, the ECB, the Bank of England, and China) have printed nonstop and the Fed and the ECB have initiated all sorts of liquidity and QE measures. In addition, the ECB's balance sheet is more bloated than the balance sheet of the Fed thanks to the LTRO program.

Integrity of Gold

The proper conclusion is that gold is a function of mistrust in fiat currencies in general, not just the US dollar. However, nothing moves in a straight line including faith (or lack thereof) in central banks' ability to handle this crisis.

By now it should be perfectly obvious the LTRO is a complete failure. Banks in Spain took the money and bought more of their own bonds and are now underwater on them.

Only monetarist fools want the ECB to do more of the same. Sadly, monetarist fools are nearly everywhere, and the chart of the price of gold says just that.

In conclusion, if the ECB was to take the action suggested by Davies (and they might), it certainly will do nothing for the "integrity of the euro", but it is highly likely to further the integrity of gold.

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

marți, 22 mai 2012

Damn Cool Pics

Damn Cool Pics

GM's Doing it Wrong: Facebook Marketing Lessons

GM's Doing it Wrong: Facebook Marketing Lessons

By dumping Facebook, GM’s doing it wrong

Facebook is the best display advertising deal on the internet

Understand earned media

Learn to measure earned media

Don’t amputate for a hangnail

Keep perspective

Joining the Game

Getting My Secret SEOmoz API Key