vineri, 1 august 2014

New Pin picks!

Pinterest Android App · iOS App
 
Hi Hari,
Your latest Pin picks
:: One Piece U shaped top with tie by HelloSunshineOS ::
Pin it
half skull tattoo
Pin it
Tapas by luisa brimble, via Flickr
Pin it
James Knotted Dress
Pin it
Black skinny jeans, black ankle boots, dark gray shirt, scarf ...
Pin it
Be real...
Pin it
New boards to follow
Work- Individual Cou...
66 pins · Kristin CatLady
Follow
Stars★Light~Love♥Mag...
938 pins · Ashley Verkamp ...
Follow
Girl Gang
37 pins · Ghostly Ferns
Follow
memories from long a...
293 pins · Carrie Filetti
Follow
Just when you think ...
175 pins · Mike Hill
Follow
Obstacle course
151 pins · Beckie Drake
Follow
Happy Pinning!
 
 

Seth's Blog : A bigger logo?

 

A bigger logo?

The original reason for brands was to let the buyer know the source of the goods. "We made this," says the organization we trust when we buy something.

Over time, though, brands have evolved into something we want other people to see, not just us. "I bought this," says the person who wears or drinks or drives something with status.

The essence of a brand with social juice, of one that matters as a label, isn't how big the logo is. No, what matters is that the buyer thinks the brand is important, and that the logo is a signifier that they're paying for.

So no one complains that the logo on the wine bottle is not in tiny 18 point type, or that the BMW convertible has 8 or 9 or 14 logos on it, or that we can tell it's a Harley just from the sound it makes driving down the street.

If you are angling to make your logo bigger but your customers don't care (or resist), if your customers aren't eager to say, "I bought this," then you're doing the wrong angling. The work that needs to be done is to create a product and a story that makes your customers want you to make the logo more prominent.

       

 

More Recent Articles

[You're getting this note because you subscribed to Seth Godin's blog.]

Don't want to get this email anymore? Click the link below to unsubscribe.




Email subscriptions powered by FeedBlitz, LLC, 365 Boston Post Rd, Suite 123, Sudbury, MA 01776, USA.

 

joi, 31 iulie 2014

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis


"Nancy's VoiceBox", Lou Gehrig's Disease, Google Glass

Posted: 31 Jul 2014 08:44 PM PDT

Occasionally I receive a touching email that also offers a practical solution to extreme challenges. This is one of those times. Please consider this email from reader "Zentangle".
Hi Mish,

I have been following your blog for years now. Time is precious and not many writers "stick" . . . but you have. Thank you for your insights and passion throughout the years.

Your stories of your wife's and your struggle with ALS had a powerful impact because during that time a dear friend and employee, Nancy, was in the same struggle.

My wife and I worked out a novel way for Nancy to communicate. We just posted a blog about it and I wanted you to be the first person I told.

With our belated sympathies, gratitude and heartfelt best wishes,

Rick Roberts & Maria Thomas
Zentangle

Let's hop over to Zentangle's most recent blog entry, simply labeled "ALS".

The article notes how Maria Thomas came up with an idea to get around the ALS communication problem.

I went through the same things.

My wife Joanne could not talk but she could write. Then she lost that ability but could manage to push a button say select phrases. Then everything went.

With that personal background, here is the idea that Maria Thomas came up with after several months of unsuccessfully trying to use a very expensive, speech-generating device (basically a computer with technology that tracked eye movements).

From Zentangle ...
She [Maria] lettered the alphabet, numbers and some key phrases on a large 3 x 4 foot piece of 1/2 inch foam board. I ordered a bunch of laser pointers. We got a pair of Nancy's sunglasses and removed the lenses. We used electrical tape to attached two small laser pointers with switches (so they would stay on without keeping them pressed in) to Nancy's eyeglass frames. We used two laser pointers so the frames were balanced, and if a battery ran out in one laser, the other could be immediately turned on.

Because the board was placed across the room from her, all Nancy had to do was move her head ever so slightly to point out the letters. The large board enabled Nancy to speak to the whole room or to one person. It worked perfectly from the very first minute she used it.

We remember fondly when we first set it up, that in spite of her circumstances, one of her first "spellings" was to tell a joke to her husband.

Suddenly, the Nancy we all knew was back . . . chatting, teasing and cracking jokes. She could "talk" again with her beloved husband, her family and her friends.

Nancy used her board to communicate with her family for months until just hours before she left.

The laser pointers were about $9 each. We had the foam board in our studio (a 40 x 60 inch half-inch thick foam board costs about $25). We used an old pair of Nancy's glasses. Total cost: about $45.

Her care givers had not seen anything like this before. As far as we know, this idea was not in use in this circumstance.

In Nancy Sampson's memory, please share this idea with anyone you know who can use it. This idea is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License.

In her memory, we call it "Nancy's VoiceBox."

We love you, Nancy!
"Nancy's VoiceBox"



Google Glass

Nancy's Voicebox is a fantastic idea. But I think we can easily improve on it.

The problem I see is that "Nancy" (anyone with ALS), might not have the ability to turn their head and point a laser at a word or phrase.

The obvious solution is Google Glass. As long as someone can move their eye just a slight bit (something they probably can do) Google Glass will work.

I believe Steve Hawking, renown theoretical physicist could greatly benefit from such a device.

I am going to pass this on to my contacts at Google, and also to the Les Turner ALS foundation.

Mish Experiences

Those interested in my experiences with Lou Gherig's disease can read about them here ...

April 2, 2012: My Wife Joanne Has ALS, Lou Gehrig's Disease
May 16, 2012: My Wife Joanne Has Passed Away; Stop and Smell the Lilacs
May 14, 2013: Wine Country Conference Speaker Presentations All Posted (Hussman, Chanos, Martenson, Pettis, Mauldin, Mish)

In honor of Joanne and Nancy, please consider making a Donation to the Les Turner ALS foundation.

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

Driverless Cars on UK Public Streets Starting January; Transforming Personal Mobility; Taxi and Truck-Drivers Targeted

Posted: 31 Jul 2014 01:04 PM PDT

The march for fully autonomous driverless cars marches on. In May, Google announced the Next Phase in Driverless Cars: No Steering Wheel or Brake Pedals.
Google's prototype for its new cars will limit them to a top speed of 25 miles per hour. The cars are intended for driving in urban and suburban settings, not on highways. The low speed will probably keep the cars out of more restrictive regulatory categories for vehicles, giving them more design flexibility.

Google is having 100 cars built by a manufacturer in the Detroit area, which it declined to name. Nor would it say how much the prototype vehicles cost. They will have a range of about 100 miles, powered by an electric motor that is roughly equivalent to the one used by Fiat's 500e, Dr. Urmson said. They should be road-ready by early next year, Google said.

Google hopes to persuade regulators that the cars can operate safely without driver, steering wheel, brake or accelerator pedal. Those cars would rely entirely on Google sensors and software to control them.
Taxis Targeted

Google's cars come equipped with elaborate sensors that can see 600 feet in every direction, are fully electric, and have a range of about 100 miles, perfect for city use, especially driverless taxi cabs. Google plans for 2017 operation.
Last year, Lawrence D. Burns, former vice president for research and development at General Motors and now a Google consultant, led a study at the Earth Institute at Columbia University on transforming personal mobility.

The researchers found that Manhattan's 13,000 taxis made 470,000 trips a day. Their average speed was 10 to 11 m.p.h., carrying an average of 1.4 passengers per trip with an average wait time of five minutes.

In comparison, the report said, it is possible for a futuristic robot fleet of 9,000 shared automated vehicles hailed by smartphone to match that capacity with a wait time of less than one minute. Assuming a 15 percent profit, the current cost of taxi service would be about $4 per trip mile, while in contrast, it was estimated, a Manhattan-based driverless vehicle fleet would cost about 50 cents per mile.

Driverless Cars on UK Public Streets Starting January

The BBC reports UK to Allow Driverless Cars on Public Roads in January.
The UK government has announced that driverless cars will be allowed on public roads from January next year. It also invited cities to compete to host one of three trials of the tech, which would start at the same time.

Business Secretary Vince Cable revealed the details of the new plan at a research facility belonging to Mira, an automotive engineering firm based in the Midlands.

"Today's announcement will see driverless cars take to our streets in less than six months, putting us at the forefront of this transformational technology and opening up new opportunities for our economy and society," he said.

The US States of California, Nevada and Florida have all approved tests of the vehicles. In California alone, Google's driverless car has done more than 300,000 miles on the open road.

In 2013, Nissan carried out Japan's first public road test of an autonomous vehicle on a highway.

And in Europe, the Swedish city of Gothenburg has given Volvo permission to test 100 driverless cars - although that trial is not scheduled to occur until 2017.

Competition cash

UK cities wanting to host one of the trials have until the start of October to declare their interest. The tests are then intended to run for between 18 to 36 months. A £10m fund has been created to cover their costs, with the sum to be divided between the three winners. Meanwhile, civil servants have been given until the end of this year to publish a review of road regulations.
Taxi, Truck Drivers First To Go

Taxi drivers, truck drivers, and mining operators will be the first to go.  I have written about this many times, and was largely dissed.

But the future advances relentlessly. My target of 2020 no longer looks optimistic; it looks pessimistic.

Further Discussion


All of the above will be in widespread usage by 2020. Personal cars will likely be the last affected. Taxis and commercial trucks will be first because eliminating the driver eliminates a huge expense.

Millions of drivers will lose their jobs. Inflationary? Hardly.

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

Sanctions Starting to Bite the Hands That Promoted Them

Posted: 31 Jul 2014 11:27 AM PDT

As I have said on numerous occasions, sanctions are a lose-lose game. So it is not surprising in the least to discover Russian Crisis Already Taking Toll on Western Businesses.

  • Shares in Adidas, the world's second-largest sportswear group, dropped 15 per cent after the company issued a profit warning and said it would accelerate the closure of stores in Russia because of increasing risks to consumer spending in the region.
  • Volkswagen, Europe's biggest carmaker by sales, reported an 8 per cent decline in sales in Russia in the first half of the year, compared to the same period a year earlier.
  • Joe Kaeser, chief executive of Siemens, warned geopolitical tensions including those in Ukraine posed "serious risks" for Europe's growth this year and next.
  • Metro, the eurozone's second-largest retailer, said events in Russia were creating risks for the group as it revealed sales had declined sharply in Ukraine.
  • Royal Dutch Shell's chief executive Ben van Beurden said that along with other western oil majors he was assessing the impact of tightening sanctions on Russia's energy sector imposed by the US and EU.
  • Erste Group, the third-largest lender in emerging Europe, warned the turmoil could impact banks in eastern Europe. "I can't exclude any nasty surprises in the region due to political decisions or developments," said Erste chief executive Andreas Treichl. "If the crisis accelerates of course we will have to revise our forecast for all over Europe in 2015 and 2016."
  • The German machinery association, VDMA, lowered its forecast for growth in the industry this year as it said the Russian situation was starting to affect bilateral trade and weigh on demand in important sales markets.
  • Last week, Visa cut its fourth-quarter sales guidance, partially because of lower than expected cross-border transactions in Russia and Ukraine.
  • Bank of America has almost halved its exposure to Russia this year to $3.9bn.
  • ExxonMobil, which is developing a large liquefied natural gas export facility at Sakhalin in Russia's far east, said it was awaiting further details to understand the effect of sanctions designed in part to prevent the transfer of new technology to Russia's oil and gas industry.
  • In the City of London, bankers warned it was not feasible for Russian companies to list on the London Stock Exchange until a de-escalation of the crisis.

Russian Response

Bloomberg reports Russia Eyes Banning U.S. Chicken And Some European Fruit.
Facing tougher sanctions over Ukraine, Russia said yesterday it may ban imports of chicken from the U.S. and fruit from Europe and is investigating McDonald's Corp. (MCD) cheese for safety.

Meanwhile, a Russian lawmaker has drafted legislation that might result in U.S. accounting firms such as Deloitte LLP and KPMG LLP being barred from doing business in his country.

While Russia and the U.S. have long sparred over agricultural trade, the actions fueled speculation they could be retaliatory. The 28-nation European Union and the U.S. plan to impose stiffer sanctions to punish Russian President Vladimir Putin's government.

"It's a troubling continuation/expansion of trade as a geopolitical tool," Gary Blumenthal, president of World Perspectives Inc., a Washington-based agricultural consulting firm, said in a phone interview.
Geopolitical Madness

Sanctions are a form of Chicken Coupled With M.A.D.

So far, the damage is minimal, but if Putin angrily cuts off natural gas flows to Europe, or raises prices in response, all hell will break lose.

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

President Obama's walk down Main Street

The White House Thursday, July 31, 2014
 

President Obama's walk down Main Street

President Obama traveled to Kansas City, Missouri this week -- where he grabbed some BBQ with Americans who had written him letters, and delivered a speech about how he's working to get things done for hardworking Americans even as Congress chooses not to act to move this country forward.

And before he left, the President took a walk down Main Street (literally), spending time with store owners, touring an antique watch shop, and chatting with customers at a local coffee shop.

We got it all on video, and we think you'll want to see it -- watch, then pass it on:

Watch President Obama take a walk down Main Street.

Stay Connected

Want more content like this delivered to your inbox every day? Click here to get the Daily Snapshot.

 

This email was sent to e0nstar1.blog@gmail.com
Sign Up for Updates from the White House
Unsubscribe | Privacy Policy
Please do not reply to this email. Contact the White House

The White House • 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW • Washington, DC 20500 • 202-456-1111

 

BBQ, Iced Tea, and the Economy

 
Here's what's going on at the White House today.
 
 
 
 
 
  Featured

BBQ, Iced Tea, and the Economy

President Obama just got back from Kansas City, Missouri, where he grabbed BBQ with some letter writers, picked up an iced tea at Parkville Coffee, and chatted with employees at Peddlers Wagon, a quilt and gift shop.

In the middle of meeting with everyday folks and chowing down on BBQ, the President spoke to a fired-up crowd about the progress our economy has made since he took office and how Republican obstructionism in Congress is hurting hard-working Americans.

He focused especially on how Republicans in Congress continue to do nothing to move this country forward -- like creating jobs or renewing the Highway Trust Fund -- and instead focus on political stunts, like suing the President for doing his job.

Watch what the President had to say, and see how he's continuing to make progress, even without the help of Congress.

President Obama greets audience members after he delivered remarks on the economy at Uptown Theatre in Kansas City.

President Barack Obama greets audience members after he delivered remarks on the economy at Uptown Theater in Kansas City, Mo., July 30, 2014. (Official White House Photo by Amanda Lucidon)


 
 
  Top Stories

Dan Pfeiffer: "House Republicans Just Voted to Sue President Obama"

Yesterday, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted sue the President for using his executive authority. Instead of voting on raising the minimum wage or reforming our broken immigration system, Republicans in Congress are wasting valuable time and taxpayer dollars.

READ MORE

Good News for the Economy:

Yesterday, the Bureau of Economic Analysis released a report showing strong economic growth last quarter, with the gross domestic product (GDP) increasing at a 4 percent rate. This is a good indicator that the economy is continuing to improve, and another sign that the President's policies are starting to pay off -- but the economy could be doing even better if Congress decided to do its part.

READ MORE

President Obama: "Russia Is Once Again Isolating Itself from the International Community"

On Tuesday, President Obama spoke on the South Lawn about the situation in Ukraine, in the wake of the shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 nearly two weeks ago.

READ MORE


 
 
  Today's Schedule

All times are Eastern Time (ET)

10:00 AM: The President and Vice President receive the Presidential Daily Briefing

10:55 AM: The President and Vice President meet with Members of Congress on foreign policy

12:00 PM: Press Briefing by Press Secretary Josh Earnest

12:30 PM: The President and Vice President meet for lunch

1:20 PM: The President delivers remarks and signs an Executive Order

3:40 PM: The President delivers remarks

7:25 PM: The President and First Lady host "A Celebration of Special Olympics and A Unified Generation"; The President delivers remarks WATCH LIVE

8:25 PM: The President and First Lady attend a concert commemorating the Special Olympics WATCH LIVE


 

Did Someone Forward This to You? Sign Up for Email Updates

This email was sent to e0nstar1.blog@gmail.com

Unsubscribe | Privacy Policy
Please do not reply to this email. Contact the White House

The White House • 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW • Washington, DC 20500 • 202-456-1111


The Month Google Shook the SERPs

The Month Google Shook the SERPs


The Month Google Shook the SERPs

Posted: 30 Jul 2014 05:18 PM PDT

Posted by Dr-Pete

As a group, we SEOs still tend to focus most of our attention on just one place – traditional, organic results. In the past two years, I've spent a lot of time studying these results and how they change over time. The more I experience the reality of SERPs in the wild, though, the more I've become interested in situations like this one (a search for "diabetes symptoms")...

See the single blue link and half-snippet on the bottom-left? That's the only thing about this above-the-fold page that most SEOs in 2014 would call "organic". Of course, it's easy to find fringe cases, but the deeper I dig into the feature landscape that surrounds and fundamentally alters SERPs, the more I find that the exceptions are inching gradually closer to the rule.

Monday, July 28th was my 44th birthday, and I think Google must have decided to celebrate by giving me extra work (hooray for job security?). In the month between June 28th and July 28th, there were four major shake-ups to the SERPs, all of them happening beyond traditional, organic results. This post is a recap of our data on each of those shake-ups.

Authorship photos disappear (June 28)

On June 25th, Google's John Mueller made a surprise announcement via Google+:

We had seen  authorship shake-ups in the past, but the largest recent drop had measured around 15%. It was clear that Google was rethinking the prevalence of author photos and their impact on perceived quality, but most of us assumed this would be a process of small tweaks. Given Google's push toward Google+ and its inherent tie-in with authorship, not a single SEO I know had predicted a complete loss of authorship photos.

Yet, over the next few days, culminating on the morning of June 28th, a  total loss of authorship photos is exactly what happened:

While some authorship photos still appeared in personalized results, the profile photos completely disappeared from general results, after previously being present on about 21% of the SERPs that MozCast tracks. It's important to note that the concept of authorship remains, and author bylines are still being shown (we track that at about 24%, as of this writing), but the overall visual impact was dramatic for many SERPs.

In-depth gets deeper (July 2nd)

Most SEOs still don't pay much attention to Google's "In-depth Articles," but they've been slowly gain SERP share. When we first started tracking them, they popped up on about 3.5% of the searches MozCast covers. This data seems to only get updated periodically, and the number had grown to roughly 6.0% by the end of June 2014. On the morning of July 2nd, I (and, seemingly, everyone else), missed a major change:

Overnight, the presence of in-depth articles jumped from 6.0% to 12.7%, more than doubling (a +112% increase, to be precise). Some examples of queries that gained in-depth articles include:

  • xbox 360
  • hotels
  • raspberry pi
  • samsung galaxy tab
  • job search
  • pilates
  • payday loans
  • apartments
  • car sales
  • web design

Here's an example set of in-depth for a term SEOs know all too well, "payday loans":

The motivation for this change is unclear, and it comes even as Google continues to test designs with pared down in-depth results (almost all of their tests seem to take up less space than the current design). Doubling this feature hardly indicates a lack of confidence, though, and many competitive terms are now showing in-depth results.

Video looks more like radio (July 16th)

Just a couple of weeks after the authorship drop, we saw a smaller but still significant shake-up in video results, with about 28% of results MozCast tracks losing video thumbnails:

As you can see, the presence of thumbnails does vary day-to-day, but the two plateaus, before and after June 16th, are clear here. At this point, the new number seems to be holding.

Since our data doesn't connect the video thumbnails to specific results, it's tough to say if this change indicates a removal of thumbnails or a drop in rankings for video results overall. Considering how smaller drops in authorship signaled a much larger change down the road, I think this shift deserves more attention. It could be that Google is generally questioning the value and prevalence of rich snippets, especially when quality concerns come into play.

I originally hypothesized that this might not be a true loss, but could be a sign that some video snippets were switching to the new "mega-video" format (or video answer box, if you prefer). This does not appear to be the case, as the larger video format is still fairly uncommon, and the numbers don't match up.

For reference, here's a mega-video format (for the query "bartender"):

Mega-videos are appearing on such seemingly generic queries as "partition", "headlights", and "california king bed". If you have the budget and really want to dominate the SERPs, try writing a pop song.

Pigeons attack local results (July 24th)

By now, many of you have heard of  Google's "Pigeon" update. The Pigeon update hit local SERPs hard and seems to have dramatically changed how Google determines and uses a searcher's location. Local search is more than an algorithmic layer, though – it's also a feature set. When Pigeon hit, we saw a sharp decline in local "pack" results (the groups of 2-7 pinned local results):

We initially reported that pack results dropped more than 60% after the Pigeon update. We now are convinced that this was a mistake (indicated by the "?" zone) – essentially, Pigeon changed localization so much that it broke the method we were using. We've found a new method that seems to match manually setting your location, and the numbers for July 29-30 are, to the best of my knowledge, accurate.

According to these new numbers, local pack results have fallen 23.4% (in our data set) after the Pigeon update. This is the exact same number  Darren Shaw of WhiteSpark found, using a completely different data set and methodology. The perfect match between those two numbers is probably a bit of luck, but they suggest that we're at least on the right track. While I over-reported the initial drop, and I apologize for any confusion that may have caused, the corrected reality still shows a substantial change in pack results.

It's important to note that this 23.4% drop is a net change – among queries, there were both losers and winners. Here are 10 searches that lost pack results (and have been manually verified):

  • jobs
  • cars for sale
  • apartments
  • cruises
  • train tickets
  • sofa
  • wheels
  • liposuction
  • social security card
  • motorcycle helmets

A couple of important notes – first, some searches that lost packs only lost packs in certain regions. Second, Pigeon is a very recent update and may still be rolling out or being tweaked. This is only the state of the data as we know it today.

Here are 10 searches that gained pack results (in our data set):

  • skechers
  • mortgage
  • apartments for rent
  • web designer
  • long john silvers
  • lamps
  • mystic
  • make a wish foundation
  • va hospital
  • internet service

The search for "mystic" is an interesting example – no matter what your location (if you're in the US), Google is showing a pack result for Mystic, CT. This pattern seems to be popping up across the Pigeon update. For example, a search for "California Pizza Kitchen" automatically targets California, regardless of your location (h/t  Tony Verre), and a search for "Buffalo Wild Wings" sends you to Buffalo, NY (h/t Andrew Mitschke).

Of course, local search is complex, and it seems like Google is trying to do a lot in one update. The simple fact that a search for "apartments" lost pack results in our data, while "apartments for rent" gained them, shows that the Pigeon update isn't based on a few simplistic rules.

Some local SEOs have commented that Pigeon seemed to increase the number of smaller packs (2-3 results). Looking at the data for pack size before and after Pigeon, this is what we're seeing:

Both before and after Pigeon, there are no 1-packs, and 4-, 5-, and 6-packs are relatively rare. After Pigeon, the distribution of 2-packs is similar, but there is a notable jump in 3-packs and a corresponding decrease in 7-packs. The total number of 3-packs actually increased after the Pigeon update. While our data set (once we restrict it to just searches with pack results) is fairly small, this data does seem to match the observations of local SEOs.

Sleep with one eye open

Ok, maybe that's a bit melodramatic. All of the changes do go to show, though, that, if you're laser-focused on ranking alone, you may be missing a lot. We as SEOs not only need to look beyond our own tunnel vision, we need to start paying more attention to post-ranking data, like CTR and search traffic. SERPs are getting richer and more dynamic, and Google can change the rules overnight.


Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!