miercuri, 6 iunie 2012

A Manifesto of Content Marketing

Posted: 05 Jun 2012 04:22 PM PDT

Last month in Philadelphia, I gave a 10-minute presentation on content marketing to an audience at SEER Interactive's SearchChurch. Since the setting was so unique, I tried a different format and style that I haven't done previously. It was a bit fun and silly, and also a little heavy-handed (but meant tongue-in-cheek). The fundamentals of what I tried to present, though, are things I solidly believe in:

That success is driven by learning from experimentation and failure
That content's goal is not simply links nor SEO, but to earn the awareness, affection and trust of potential customers
That committing to a vision that requires sacrifice, sweat equity and tolerance of failure is the best way to earn inbound marketing success in the long term

Below is the slideshow from that presentation:

The Content Marketing Manifesto

View more presentations from Rand Fishkin

And I've also got a video from the event (which SEER kindly recorded and posted) for those interested.

Looking forward to all of your thoughts around this presentation and the concepts therein. This certainly isn't the only way to approach content marketing, but it's one that I've seen have tremendous effect and value.

And for anyone interested, SEER also posted the other talks from the meetup, including:

p.s. Nearly every photo in the slide deck (with a few exceptions like the Walter Cronkite slide) were taken by my wife for her travel blog. It was really fun to put together a slideshow using them and it's something I might do more of in the future.

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How to Evaluate Guest Post Opportunities

Posted: 05 Jun 2012 03:19 AM PDT

Posted by jamesagate

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.

With all the recent turbulence in the SERPs, many agencies and businesses are recognising the need to move budgets from the lower-end link building tactics to techniques like guest posting.

Guest posting is very easy to get wrong though, as a technique it may well be considered high-quality but just like any other link building tactic, it's the execution which determines whether the links earned are high-quality (the devil is in the detail!). My main concern with all the hub-bub going on around guest blogging is that in say 18 months time when Google launches say, the Badger update, folks will have been buzzing along thinking they're building links that are Google-proof and then SMACK! they get hit by the update which filters out much of the low-quality guest posting that by then will probably be widespread.

Even if you aren't doing guest blogging specifically to build links (and why would you when you consider all the other benefits to be reaped from this practice), the following factors are still worth considering.

In the last post I published here on SEOmoz, I put some guest post outreach theories to the test and since then we've noticed a massive movement in the market with a number of the publishers we work with reporting more guest post submissions than ever before. As smart content marketers, we all need to make sure we're standing out with our outreach and keeping a keen eye on our quality radars when we are out placing guest posts on the web.

Many of us will have seen Google's quality rater handbook which Google published to helps its army of human search quality raters improve the accuracy and relevance of their search results. This is well, the unofficial quality rater handbook for guest posting campaigns...

Guest Post Quality Rater Handbook

- Your field guide for evaluating guest post opportunities -

Introduction

Spammy links from poorly executed guest blogging campaigns have the potential to be your problem child links of the future. If you are doing any kind of link un-building for your clients or own websites right now then you will undoubtedly appreciate the need to be considered with your link building campaigns from here on out.

The relevance and quality of the site

Look for signs of integrity

You need to be confident of the integrity of publishers you guest post to because you want to know they aren't going to compromise your link profile later down the road by deciding to overtly sell links perhaps (making it seem like you paid for your link as well) or open the floodgates to guest post submissions from anybody (dramatically decreasing the potential value of your post and lumping your site in with the rest who came to the party late!).

Obviously you'll never be able to guarantee a link won't turn bad in future but you want to minimise the chance of this happening and observing some of the site criteria laid out here will help to do that.

Signs of integrity:

Established website
Cited as an authoritative resource
Operated by a thought-leader
Clear editorial and business objectives
A 'real' organisation behind the website e.g. physical address

Look for social media activity (& other signs of life)

An active presence on social media platforms and other general signs of life such as email newsletters give you a good indication that the site owner or publisher is at least attempting to be active within their community which would tend to suggest they are running a genuine website and will hopefully continue to publish for many years to come.

Obviously this isn't a hard and fast rule since an active Facebook page now doesn't necessarily mean the blogger won't disappear in six months time but you will likely get a gut feeling about these kinds of things. Don't equate more social network profiles (and links to those profiles in the sidebar) as necessarily better, but rather look for the quality of interactions on those platforms.

Additionally as we move towards a link landscape that looks set to include factors like AgentRank/AuthorRank, guest posting on a website that is operated by an individual or organisation with a high level of trust, expertise and perceived authority is going to put you way ahead of the curve - get into the mindset of 'who' you get links from rather than 'where'.

Look for signs of a blogger or editorial staff

A community blog is one thing (a good thing) but it is quite another to have a site which is little more than a relentless flow of junk guest post after junk guest post. A site without signs of regular editorial staff or in most cases one consistent blogger tends to raise alarm bells for me.

Browse the about page to see what the deal is. A site without a driving editorial force behind it can often descend into little more than a blog "for SEO".

Naturally there will be instances where a site is operated by a "curator" who doesn't necessarily do a great deal of day-to-day writing but you'll get the sense that they still drive the site behind the scenes and will still from time to time pen some of their thoughts.

Look at their linking protocols

A website which understands what guest posting is really about is one that trusts their contributors in the sense that they don't mind how many links you include in your article just so long as you are sensible with self-promotion.

If post after post has nothing more than two bio links (and the site's guidelines on links prevent you from ANY links in the article) then we're heading once again towards the realms of a page that could potentially be perceived as being for SEO purposes. Where applicable, an authentic article is likely to have additional links and not just to the obvious choice (Wikipedia).

Look at site structure

The architecture of the website will be one of the crucial factors when it comes to the lifetime value that you get from the link. The further away (in terms of clicks) a page is from the homepage arguably the less valuable it becomes.

If the website you are targeting has a poor structure then you face the prospect of a link that you are working hard to earn now, diminishing in value over time as it slowly falls almost entirely off the link graph.

Would a link from this website make sense from a user's perspective?

Relevance when it comes to guest posting doesn't necessarily mean "a website in the same industry", it should simply fulfill the above criteria and make sense from the user's point of view for example a link to an invoicing app would make sense on an SEO blog if for example the content brought the two topics together.

In many industries, securing directly relevant links isn't necessarily a possibility because the other blogs in the space may well be competitors (not all industries are as friendly as us SEO folk remember!)

Does the site publish guest posts from just about anyone?

There is no real need to check the quality of every single site the link opportunity links out to themselves but a quick audit of the kinds of websites they've allowed to guest post in the past might be a good idea (a simple linkfromdomain: search in Bing will speed this up). One or two off-topic sites being linked out to is often completely natural and entirely forgivable but stuff like this doesn't sit right with me:

(Name blurred to try my best to protect the individual and companies concerned.)

This is a bio found by my team on a graphic design blog which had basically turned over its editorial calendar to anyone just about anyone interested in contributing. The task management link I can see the relevance for the user but "nursing tops"?? I'm not so sure. Interestingly, the page this bio was found on was recently de-indexed by Google which potentially indicates how Google feels about this kind of thing. Although that being said I have found other instances of this bio used by the guest blogger on other websites so I can't categorically say these bios are a bad idea - although common sense would suggest it is :-)

Widespread irrelevant linking makes you wonder whether the publisher or blogger is prepared to whore out their blog literally to anyone willing to provide a morsel of content. These kinds of editorial practices make the website appear to be "made for SEO" so links may have a short-term value but long-term stability is somewhat more debatable.

Lack of recent updates

A fairly obvious factor to consider but the lack of updates (or even inconsistency of updates) can make a website unattractive from a guest posting perspective.

Not only does it greatly diminish the chance of the publisher agreeing to your pitch because chances are their attention is elsewhere than their evidently unloved site, but it is also potentially an indication of the publishers lack of commitment to the project which may result in the site going offline next time the domain needs renewing, obviously rendering any link you earned redundant.

In some situations this could actually be an opportunity though for example if a blogger has gone on a temporary hiatus or a planned break and it says so on the website, now's your chance to swoop in with a pitch to providing content for the site's triumphant return!

More ads than content

When a website owner chooses to disregard user experience in favour of a quick buck, it says a fair amount about their mindset and their ultimate aim.

A smart publisher recognises that audience satisfaction and considerable, sustainable profits go hand in hand so when I see a site with advertising that quite frankly gets in the way of enjoying the content, it definitely concerns me.

Far be it from me to determine how you monetise your website but when it comes to identifying good guest post opportunities, factors like this are definitely a key consideration.

If you put your SEO hat on; excessive ads are a quality consideration of Google as since Panda they have "the mechanism to evaluate the balance of ads versus original content on web pages" see here and here. Whether you care to believe that a link can harm your rankings or not, a site which has been hit by Panda is probably unlikely to send much referral traffic either.

Either which way you cut it, the opportunity looks less appealing when there is an excessive amount of advertising. See Google's best practices for ad placements for additional guidance:

Irrelevant and (likely paid links) in the sidebar

I've no interest in getting into a debate about the ethics surrounding paid links, it isn't the paid part that bothers me, it is the relevance that I am concerned with.

Based on what we have seen so far from the Penguin update, one factor that links the pages that we've seen de-indexed (of the URLs we've analysed) are the ones that have considerable numbers of irrelevant and often spammy outbound links. Relevance is a key factor for "future-proof" link building.

This I would think is on the basis that Google is assuming a lengthy list of irrelevant links is likely to be manipulative link building tactic given that if you removed SEO from the equation nobody would place a link on a page like that since few users would actually visit or use the page.

Google can determine the location on the page of a link so yours (within your guest post) would be marginally more valuable but from a trust point of view, a website which overtly sells links to pass PageRank may not be the best place to publish your content.

There's no hard and fast rule here because things like blogrolls can be perfectly legitimate (watch out though!). In reality, it goes back to the whole mindset and integrity thing which is that if a publisher is happy to sell links to just about anyone, load a page up with ads and so on, are they likely to be here in the future? Is all your hard work going to be for nothing when they burn their domain and move on to the next project?

Be wary of the article submission form

A website having an article submission form doesn't in itself categorise the quality of the site, however there are various 'blogs' out there which masquerade as a blog but are in reality little more than a thematic article directory.

It can seem like an easy way to place guest posts just submitting your content via a submission form and whilst there are various really worthwhile blogs out there that you can submit to via a form, the mantra of an easy link being a less valuable link is definitely something you should be at least considering at this point. Bear in mind that if it is easy to submit then there may be hundreds or even thousands of posts in the queue before yours making the exercise a somewhat pointless one.

We see the submission form as a flag, and I recommend you double check that you are otherwise satisfied with the quality, integrity and overall metrics of the website before you submit.

Another point worth remembering is that if the blog has a submission form but no contact details it can be impossible to follow up on your submission to confirm the publication which means it was a complete waste of time in the first place.

No contact details

You do have to question why a website would not have contact details or at least a contact form. Not having a way to get hold of the individual or organisation behind the website is a real deal breaker because not only can you not pitch them (obviously) if you can submit via some kind of form (see above) then you can't follow up with them in the future.

A lack of contact details in some instances broadcasts a fairly strong signal as to the site's intentions and overall operating policies because perhaps they don't want to be contacted because they don't wish to be associated with the content (probably not good) or because they are running so many other mediocre blogs and websites that they don't want the hassle of emails to deal with (probably not a good thing either).

By and large, legitimate websites have contact details, and you want to guest post to legitimate websites.

Thin, low quality content

Another category of site that we have observed coming under heavy fire following Penguin was the article directory with many pages being de-indexed.

A common characteristic of these pages (apart from the fact that none are currently indexed by Google) is that they have poorly written content, that is very brief and then contains between 1 and 3 keyword rich links to the same site.

Was it the link pattern that got these pages flagged? The poorly written content? The lack of detail in the content? It is difficult to say with complete confidence but to ensure the longevity of the guest posts you are publishing, be sure to take a wide berth of any websites that appear to have practically no editorial standards.

If you think logically and look historically, Google combats chinks in their armour one by one and given that it has hit article directories, one could assume that somewhere down the line, low-quality guest posts could be the next in line to be devalued.

Richard Baxter's High-Quality Web Sites post is recommended reading at this point.

The link metrics

It can be very easy to approach guest posting purely from a link building for ranking perspective but it is advisable to examine the criteria outlined above in addition to the following metrics.

In other words, take off your "metric blinkers" and without a doubt employ some flexibility because if you are focusing solely on getting links "with a higher PageRank than your own website" then you are probably approaching this link acquisition thing all wrong.

There is no hard and fast rule when it comes to metrics as to what makes a good guest post opportunity, you will just want to ensure that each aligns with your current online marketing strategy and goals.

Look at a range of metrics

There are plenty of good reasons to get links from a site which doesn't necessarily fit perfectly within your box of criteria. Evaluating the strength of a link entirely based on one metric is a flawed strategy.

Some metrics you might like to consider

PageRank
MozRank
MozTrust
Domain Authority
ACRank
Link count

The key is to understand and identify a broad range of metrics that align with your strategy and current goals. If you are unsure try this infographic to see how the SEO community as a whole evaluates links.

Link profile diversity

If you have one of the mainstream SEO toolbars installed then you can see at a glance a website with a suspicious looking link profile e.g. 48,000 links but only three root domains linking.

As part of our link evaluation process we always have a quick poke around the website's link profile to see where their authority is coming from. It is always a red flag for us when a site has a fairly ropey link profile because our aim is to score high-quality links that have longevity for our clients, with all the resources that are necessary to successfully link un-build, we don't want to be developing associations with sites that could do more harm than good long term.

Generally speaking if you follow many of the guidelines outlined above, link profile diversity is unlikely to be an issue.

Look at their advertising stats

Many reputable online publishers produce resource packs and detailed pages specific to their prospective advertisers, this is often a gold-mine of data for link prospectors. See information such as traffic levels, subscribers, demographics and much more besides.

Take what they say with a pinch of salt but by and large the data is usually quite accurate so the information provided can act as a good reference point.

On a similar vein, advertising networks such as BuySellAds.com can also be useful way to evaluate the value of an opportunity and see various metrics at a glance.

Does the link have revenue potential?

If it aligns with the goals of your online marketing then it can be worthwhile evaluating guest post opportunities based on how likely the referral traffic is to convert. A tactic we have used successfully in a few industries is identifying guest post opportunities that have conversion potential by utilising the following methodology:

Find 5-10 websites of clients you would like to work with
One-by-one enter them into Open Site Explorer
Since most comments are no-follow, select the option to filter by ‘only no followed’
You get a list of blogs that your prospects are engaged enough with to comment
Identify common blogs (where a number of your target customers spend their time)
Pitch them with your guest post – you get a strong industry link AND the traffic and conversion potential of a spot on a blog that is well-known to your target customer base.

This technique isn't applicable in every industry and certainly isn't completely foolproof but it can help to identify the right websites to target in your industry. You get a list of blogs that potential customers read, know and respect – perfect for pitching to since you can say with some degree of certainty that time invested in creating content for this site will be worthwhile.

Don't discount the newbie

The point remains that you shouldn't don your metric blinkers and forget all about opportunities on slightly newer websites which are perhaps up and coming.

These kinds of link opportunities will appreciate over time and when mixed with other more current link opportunities make for a potent guest posting campaign.

Let's Take This Meeting Outside

Your Daily Snapshot for
Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Let's Take This Meeting Outside

President Barack Obama talks with staff along the Colonnade of the White House, June 5, 2012. Pictured, clockwise from the President, are: Jennifer Palmieri, Deputy Director of Communications; Chief of Staff Jack Lew; Dan Pfeiffer, Director of Communications; Senior Advisor David Plouffe; and Press Secretary Jay Carney. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Seth's Blog : Forbidden to care

Forbidden to care

The rigid, measured, top down structure of big company customer service makes it almost impossible for the rep to care about you when you call.

One new trend is that if you have a complicated problem or a bit of attitude in your voice, the call center rep will 'accidentally' disconnect you. You're going to hurt his numbers. His yield will go down and it's just not worth it. Let someone else take the call...

When organizations take away all flexibility and power from their frontline employees, they're depriving the people with the highest leverage from doing the most important thing: caring.

• Email to a friend •

marți, 5 iunie 2012

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

France, Italy, Spain Services PMI Show Continued Sharp Decreases; Eurozone Composite PMI Near 3-Year Low; Germany Services PMI at 6-Month Low
Gaming the Odds of a Greek Euro Exit With and Without Contagion
Oil Tanker Rates Lowest Since 1997 as Demand in Europe Plunges to 1996 Level, Production in US at 13-Year High; IMF Smoking Happy Dope

France, Italy, Spain Services PMI Show Continued Sharp Decreases; Eurozone Composite PMI Near 3-Year Low; Germany Services PMI at 6-Month Low

Posted: 05 Jun 2012 06:57 PM PDT

The Markit PMI data from Europe shows still more deterioration led by France, Italy, and Spain. Let's take a look at a few countries.

France: Business Activity Continues Contraction at Marked Pace

Key points:

Final Markit France Services Activity Index at 45.1 (45.2 in April), 7-month low.

Final Markit France Composite Output Index at 44.6 (45.9 in April), 37-month low.

Summary: French service providers registered another sharp decrease in business activity during May. Underlying the weak performance was a second successive fall in incoming new business, while backlogs of work fell further. Companies responded by cutting employment. Input price inflation eased to the slowest for over two years, allowing companies to reduce their charges further.

Italy: Services Activity Continues Contraction at Sharp Rate in May

Key Points:

Business activity and new work both decrease markedly

Employment falls at slowest rate for seven months

Cost inflation weakest since last November

Summary:

The health of the Italian service sector deteriorated during May, with steep falls in both output and new business recorded. Confidence with regards to activity in the forthcoming year dipped further, though employment levels fell at a slower rate. Cost inflation meanwhile eased to the weakest in six months, but still contrasted with a sustained drop in output prices.

Spain: Activity and new business both decline at faster rates

Key points:

Activity and new business both decline at faster rates

Job shedding intensifies

Sharp cuts in output prices as cost inflation eases

Summary:

The Spanish service sector fell further into contractionary territory during May as the economic crisis showed no signs of easing. Rates of decline in activity, new orders and employment all accelerated during the month. Meanwhile, input prices rose only slightly as companies attempted to reduce costs, and output prices were cut sharply again in response to strong competition and weak demand.

Germany: German Composite Output Index in Contraction

Key points:

Final Germany Services Business Activity Index(1) at 51.8 in May, down from 52.2 in April.

Final Germany Composite Output Index(2) at 49.3 in May, down from 50.5 in April.

Summary:

May data pointed to a renewed slowdown in German service sector growth, as falling levels of incoming new work continued to weigh on business activity levels. At 51.8, down from 52.2 in April, the final seasonally adjusted Germany Services Business Activity Index pointed to the slowest pace of expansion since November 2011. Higher levels of output have now been recorded for eight months running, but the pace of expansion in May was below the average seen since the survey began 15 years ago (53.0).

Eurozone: Composite PMI near-three year low in May

Key Points:

Final Eurozone Composite Output Index: 46.0 (Flash 45.9, April 46.7)

Final Eurozone Services Business Activity Index: 46.7 (Flash 46.5, April 46.9)

Widespread weakness across the currency union, with output falling across the big-four nations

Summary:

At 46.0 in May, down from 46.7 in April, the Markit Eurozone PMI® Composite Output Index signalled the steepest rate of decline in manufacturing and services output in the single currency area since June 2009. The headline index came in slightly above its flash estimate of 45.9, but remained below the neutral 50.0 mark for the fourth month running.

Comment:

Chris Williamson, Chief Economist at Markit said: "The final Eurozone PMI edged up on the flash reading in May, but nevertheless indicates that the economy is contracting at the fastest pace for around three years. Companies report business activity to have been hit by heightened political and economic uncertainty, which has exacerbated already weak demand both in the euro area and further afield. Based on these numbers, it would not be surprising to see GDP for the region contract by 0.5% in the second quarter, though an even steeper decline could be seen if the June data disappoint."

If the ECB is looking for an excuse to cut rates, it sure has one.

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

Gaming the Odds of a Greek Euro Exit With and Without Contagion

Posted: 05 Jun 2012 01:54 PM PDT

A key question on trader's minds is who will win the June 17th Greece election and whether it results in a Greek exit of the eurozone.

Deutsche Bank gives it assessment in a report called Probability weighting EUR views on Greece

Under a variety of assumptions, the market pricing looks consistent with: a) significant odds in favor of Greece remaining part of the EUR zone and EUR/USD trading between 1.25 and 1.30; and, b) a worst case Greek exit global contagion scenario taking EUR/USD to 1.10, but not to levels as low as parity.

After the Greek elections, there are 6 main scenarios that are worth considering:

A EUR friendly coalition probably led by New Democracy (ND) that does enough to keep Greece in the EUR.

A EUR friendly coalition probably led by ND that still leads to a Greek exit, but not a major global contagion event.

A EUR friendly coalition probably led by ND that still leads to a Greek exit (probably with a delay) because Greece fails to comply with the Troika program and this ends up in a major global contagion event

An anti-austerity led government, probably led by Syriza, that nonetheless compromises sufficiently, that Greece remains in the EUR at least through 2012.

An anti-austerity led government, that ends with Greece leaving the EUR but where contagion is relatively well contained.

An anti-austerity led government, that ends with Greece leaving the EUR which becomes a major global contagion event.

Deutsche Bank Probability Chart

click on chart for sharper image

Odds Not 50-50

Deutsche Bank thinks the probability that New Democracy or Syriza wins is equal, 50% each.

I think the odds Syriza wins is about a 2-1 favorite as explained in Greek Polling Ban In Effect Until Election; Latest Results Show SYRIZA Support at 31.5 percent, Well in the Lead Over New Democracy; Why I expect Syriza to Win

For an update, please see "Terror-Mongering" in Greece About to Backfire? Will Greeks Vote for "Complete Idiots"? Four Possibilities

Note that Deutsche Bank thinks that even if Syriza does win, Greece is as likely to remain in the eurozone as not. That strikes me as being far too optimistic. Even if Syriza stays in for a while, it will eventually run out of money.

Contagion Scenarios

Finally, please note that the Deutsche Bank contagion scenarios total a mere 28%.

What does "contagion" even mean? As I have explained before, Spain has problems of its own making not related to Greece at all.

Spain is not going to exit the eurozone solely or even significantly because of Greece.

True Contagion

The true contagion scenario is not what people think but rather the reverse. Greece exits the eurozone, recovers, and other countries decide to do the same.

In the context of the Deutsche Bank article, I fully expect Spain to exit the eurozone. Is that contagion? It depends on why and how you define the word.

Finally, even if New Democracy wins, the odds of a Greek exit do not drop to a mere 5% as the above table shows. I would say they are still 50% minimum and depending on your timeframe as high as 85%.

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

Oil Tanker Rates Lowest Since 1997 as Demand in Europe Plunges to 1996 Level, Production in US at 13-Year High; IMF Smoking Happy Dope

Posted: 05 Jun 2012 09:26 AM PDT

Bloomberg reports Oil Tankers Squeezed as Rates Drop to Lowest Since '97.

Aframaxes, already this year's worst- performing oil tankers, are poised for the lowest annual rates in at least 15 years as Europe's economic stagnation curbs demand, the region's most-accurate shipping analysts said.

The 800-foot vessels will make about $12,000 a day in 2012, the least since 1997, said Anders Karlsen, an analyst at Nordea Markets in Oslo. His recommendations on the industry returned 25 percent in the past year, more than any shipping analyst in Europe tracked by Bloomberg.

The vessels are struggling to win cargoes on all sides of the Atlantic, with European oil demand contracting for a sixth year at a time when the U.S. push for energy independence is driving down crude imports to the lowest since 1999. That's drawing more South American and West African supply to Asia on routes favoring very large crude carriers, displacing smaller Suezmaxes which in turn are competing with Aframaxes.

"With the situation in Europe, the picture for Aframaxes is just abysmal," said Erik Nikolai Stavseth, an Oslo-based analyst at Arctic Securities ASA who anticipates an annual average of $10,000. "VLCCs are taking out Suezmaxes, and Suezmaxes are taking out Aframaxes," said Stavseth, whose recommendations returned 24 percent in the past year, the second-best performance in the region.

European oil demand will decline 2 percent to 14.7 million barrels a day this year, the lowest since at least 1996, the Paris-based International Energy Agency estimates. The region's refineries are shutting at the fastest pace in three decades as economies stagnate or contract and competition from U.S. rivals using cheaper grades of crude intensifies. Aframaxes get 48 percent of their cargoes from Europe, Clarkson estimates.

The U.S. is producing the most crude in 13 years after prices rose almost fourfold in a decade, Energy Department data show. Companies were drilling 2,329 wells last month, the most in a quarter century, the data show. Aframaxes rely on North America for about 14 percent of their cargoes, the same order of magnitude by which imports carried on the vessels will fall this year, according to Clarkson.

The slump in European demand may reverse as its economies strengthen, with the International Monetary Fund predicting 2013 growth of 0.9 percent in the 17-nation euro zone, from a 0.3 percent drop in 2012.

Comments From Tim Wallace

Reader Tim Wallace says ...

Hello Mish

EU demand is dropping along the same lines as USA, six consecutive years of decline, now equal to 1996 levels. USA oil consumption is at 1998 levels.

How can anyone not see the global economy never recovered from 2008? Only government debt spending has kept the economy from the abyss. As you know that is nothing but a misguided can-kicking exercise.

IMF Smoking Happy Dope

To that I would add the IMF is smoking "happy dope" to believe the eurozone will contract a mere .3% in 2012 and expand at .9% in 2013.

Moreover, the US economy is clearly slowing rapidly and is likely in recession right now.

I will have the latest US 3-month oil usage charts from Tim Wallace shortly.

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

Damn Cool Pics

I take pictures with my hands

I made this myself. What do you think? :)

miercuri, 6 iunie 2012

A Manifesto of Content Marketing

A Manifesto of Content Marketing