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Mark Twain said that Wagner wrote music that was better than it sounds.
It's an interesting way to think about marketing. Is your product better than it sounds, or does it sound better than it is?
We call the first a discovery, something worthy of word of mouth. The second? Hype.
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Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis |
Posted: 18 Mar 2011 12:53 PM PDT Here is a pair of interesting charts showing the correlation between the Canadian and Australian dollar vs. the price of West Texas Intermediate crude. Australian Dollar vs. Crude Canadian Dollar vs. Crude Both the Australian and Canadian dollars have a strong correlation with crude going all the way back to 1997. Should the correlation continue to hold, and there is no reason to believe it won't, then if the price of crude drops, the Loonie and the Australian dollar will both likely drop as well. Reflections on the PPI Earlier today someone told me via email that my "silence on the PPI and CPI was deafening". Actually I have seldom directly commented on the CPI or PPI recently even when the CPI was low. However, I have commented on commodity prices on many occasions expressing the viewpoint "those looking for inflation can find it in China and India where credit is running rampant". Commodity prices are set at the margin and China is overheating. When China cools (and it will in my opinion), commodity prices will drop. Commodity Bubble People are entitled to believe what they want, but I will side with John Hussman who thinks commodities are in a bubble. From Hussman Anatomy of a Bubble In the stock market, I believe that there is indeed a "bubble" component in current prices, but it is not nearly as large as we observed in the approach to the 2000 peak, nor as extreme as we observed on the approach to the 2007 peak. My hope is that investors have learned something. That's not entirely clear, but we'll be as flexible as we can while also being mindful of the risks.My response to the above was Anatomy of Bubbles; Negative Returns for a Decade Revisited; Is Gold in a Bubble? I agree with Hussman about the bubble in commodities not only because of the speculation angle but also because of unsustainable growth in China. When China stalls, it will likely take commodities and the commodity producing countries down with it, notably Australia and Canada.Those who insist on a direct quote regarding the recent PPI report, here it is: "Commodities are in a bubble and the PPI is reflective of that bubble." Of course bubbles can always get bigger. Oil hit $140 in 2008. Perhaps it does again in 2011, but barring a major disruption in Saudi Arabia or Iran, I rather doubt it. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific. |
Posted: 18 Mar 2011 10:44 AM PDT Senator Rand Paul (Kentucky) and Senator Mike Lee (Utah) go after both Republicans and Democrats in a segment with Kudlow. URL if above video does not play: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqBGrl-nuT0&feature=player_embedded Rand Paul on Balancing the Budget Senator Rand Paul: "I do not think we should shut down government but I do not like either the Democrat or the Republican proposal. Both of them perpetuate enormous deficits. The annual deficit will be $1.65 trillion under the Democrats and $1.55 trillion under the Republicans." "I did not come to Washington to vote for deficits, I came to balance the budget, and cut federal spending. People at home don't understand what's going on. Up here people think we could never cut $500 billion. At home, when I tell them we are going to cut $500 billion, they say that's only a third of the problem, I want you to cut more" "This isn't an either-or situation. It's not a Hobson's Choice. There is something in between. It's not either we spend what they want or we shut it down. What if we spend what we have? I'm all for spending about $2.2 trillion, that about what we bring in." Fixing Social Security "In Perpetuity" Rand Paul goes on to say that he will introduce a bill that will fix Social Security "In Perpetuity". Details did not come out in the interview. Rand Paul Accuses Obama of "Abdication in Leadership" Senator Mike Lee: "We desperately need presidential leadership. So far what we've had from the president is radio silence." Senator Rand Paul: "I call it an abdication in leadership. I do not think he wants to lead or is willing to lead. I think we can have leaders in Congress who boldly say this is how we fix Social Security, this is how we fix Medicare, and this is how we fix the budget" Rand Paul Introduces Five-Year Balanced Budget Plan URL if above video does not play: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0vDNmE_M7E Filling the Leadership Vacuum I agree with Rand Paul's charge about leadership. I said the same thing a few days ago in Global Crisis in Leadership Nearly Everywhere You Look It is good to see someone attempt to fill the leadership vacuum, and in a productive manner. Unfortunately little can happen because of the blockage in the Senate by the Democrats unless Obama is willing to lead, and lead responsibly. He won't. The sad reality is that none of the Republicans currently running for president in 2012 are willing to do what's needed either. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific. |
Posted: 18 Mar 2011 09:48 AM PDT In a 10-0 vote with 5 abstentions, the UN security council authorized a no-Fly zone over Libya. Proving that Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi was prepared for this in advance Libya Calls Cease-Fire After Britain and France Vow Action 'Soon' Hours after the United Nations Security Council voted to authorize military action and a no-fly zone, Libya executed a remarkable about-face on Friday, saying it would call an "immediate cease-fire and the stoppage of all military operations" against rebels seeking to oust Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.Military Planning Continues Bloomberg reports Qaddafi Cease-Fire Bid Fails to Deter Allies' Military Planning Western allies pressed on with plans for military action against Libya after Muammar Qaddafi's regime declared an immediate cease-fire and said it was willing to talk to rebels.What now? What good does it do to bomb runways if Qaddafi does honor the cease-fire? What if the rebels break the cease-fire? A cease-fire leaves Libya in a divided state. Invading Libya with ground troops is out of the question, at least it should be. What appeared a few weeks ago would be over quickly, certainly isn't. Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific. |
Posted: 18 Mar 2011 12:35 AM PDT There is a string of good news out of Japan this morning. Bloomberg reports Workers Prepare to Connect Power to Stricken Nuclear Plant Power may be restored to one of the crippled reactors at Japan's damaged Fukushima Dai-Ichi power plant, possibly today, improving the odds that workers can prevent a meltdown and further radiation leaks.Water Pumps Have Been Restarted Mike in Tokyo Rogers reports Success! NHK Confirms that Water Pumps Have Been Restarted There is no article. Just a news flash at the top of NHK news site. NHK has confirmed that the water pumps have been successfully restarted.Mike "Mish" Shedlock http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http://www.sitkapacific.com/account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific. |
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SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog |
7 Essential Google Intelligence Custom Alerts That Keep Me Sane Posted: 18 Mar 2011 04:07 AM PDT Posted by RebeccaLehmann 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. As a data analyst tracking more than 300 websites, the numbers are simply stacked against me. It's hard to give each and every site meaningful attention. Thankfully, the vast majority of these sites don't require active analysis, but I still needed to devise some kind of system that would let me know when something was afoot. Enter Google Intelligence. One of the fabulous things about Intelligence is that it's a lot more flexible than mere Goal Tracking. Goal tracking has three rigid options and gives you no email love, but Intelligence will send you love notes on just about any condition you can imagine. In lieu of a personal assistant, this lovely little beta is the thing that turns me from a frazzled, overwhelmed lone analyst into an analytics superhero. Well, at least as far as my account managers are concerned anyway. If you're tracking more websites than a single human brain can handle and want to go from zero to hero, the custom alerts described here are a few of the essentials. The numbers and periods should all be adjusted to meet your site's unique needs. Significant Traffic Drop If your traffic drops by 50% from the previous month, you definitely want to know about it. I run it as a monthly alert since many of our sites are small enough that traffic is inconsistent from week to week, and with more than 300 clients to track the sheer volume of alerts would be overwhelming, but weekly or daily could easily be appropriate for larger, more consistent sites. Traffic Spikes Clients don't always run their entire marketing plans by you, but they'll be impressed when you notice that referrals from their local newspaper are suddenly up. We have one client who runs regular Groupons that take their traffic from a couple hundred visitors a day into the thousands. That's good to know, right? Another simply had published a help wanted ad that generated a lot of traffic from applicants who were researching the company. It's a good opportunity to show that you are paying attention and to engage in a little positive reinforcement ("That ad brought you X extra conversions, great job, keep it up!"). It can also be a way to spot trouble. If you use the multiple subdomain code, it is possible to cross-contaminate your sites' data if you're not careful. Such cross-contamination renders as a traffic increase. Yes, we learned that the hard way - and it was a GI alert that brought it to our attention. Significant Drop in Goal Completions A traffic drop alert isn't going to detect a drop in goal conversions if lack of traffic isn't the problem. This can be a great way to help diagnose broken submission forms, shopping carts, etc. As with the traffic drop alert above, I run this one monthly due to the nature of our clients' sites and to avoid getting overwhelmed with frivolous alerts. You should adjust frequency and percentages to suit your sites. (Note that this alert is built on an advanced segment which combines phone leads with goal completions.) Analytics has flatlined If nothing else on this list matters to you, grab this one. Most sites will want to run this as a daily alert. It operates on the same principle as the traffic drop alert, but takes the percentage to the extreme. If this one is triggered, it's very likely that something has broken your analytics code. Very handy when you have a lot of cooks in the kitchen and aren't necessarily informed when someone makes change to the site. Spike in Goal Completions If my goals spike, I want to know. It's not a calamitous event like when they bottom out, but hey, I want to know how it happened! I want to investigate that, and I want whatever caused it to still be fresh in everyone's memories so we can document it accurately and add it to the play book! Significant Drop in Google Referrals I have two words for you: Farmer Update. The folks at Enrichment Depot posted a "self diagnostic kit" that uses a custom report to check your site for collateral damage, but what if you could automate something that would tell you if you were suddenly negatively impacted by Google's latest shenanigans? This custom alert is based on the premise that if you suddenly drop out of the top Google pages, your Google referrals will also plummet. It starts with an advanced segment that includes only Google referrals, then looks for a 50% drop in visits from that segment. So the next time you wind up on the wrong side of an algo update, or if, heaven forbid, you're penalized out of the blue, Google Intelligence will let you know. Direct Traffic Bounce Rate Over 70% Sounds awfully obscure, right? But let me tell you, this is a good one. It was inspired by a client who called us in a panic because he thought someone was somehow spamming his site. All of a sudden, direct traffic was sky high and the bounce rate went nuclear - not to mention that the big blue traffic line was skewed beyond all reality. A quick check of the service provider dimension quickly showed that the client himself was the source of all the trouble, and it became clear that somewhere in the setup process we had missed filtering out the client's IP address. He'd gotten the bright idea to set the company's URL as the home page of all the browsers in the office. Long story short, we figured that most people going directly to the site are doing so deliberately and aren't so likely to bounce out, so a high bounce rate could be used as a trigger for further investigation. In the first month we discovered four other clients whose IP filters also were missing, and if anyone else we may have missed gets the "official homepage" idea, we'll catch it early. What are your favorite custom alerts? Please share them in the comments! |
Top 5 SEO Questions from Customers - Whiteboard Friday Posted: 17 Mar 2011 02:05 PM PDT Posted by Aaron Wheeler Howdy mozzers! This week we have a very special guest on Whiteboard Friday - me! That's right, after filming these videos and posting them on the blog for the past six months, they're finally putting me in front of the camera for your viewing... pleasure... (Well, my mom's viewing pleasure at least. Hi mom!). I'm joined by Cyrus Shepard, another member of the Help Team here at SEOmoz. Our team of six handles all of the account and technical support questions sent in by everyone who uses the site and tools, so as you can imagine we see a lot of the same questions week after week. The Help Team cannot answer SEO questions over the tech support lines, but we do our best to help customers figure out why their site may not be working with our tools. On this week's Whiteboard Friday, Cyrus and I will walk you through some solutions to 5 of the most common SEO problems we see on the Help Team, and I'll also let you know how to change your profile picture (we get asked how to do this a lot!). A word of caution: this video will not be about advanced SEO topics and will, at times, pertain particularly to SEOmoz's site and tools. You may learn a thing or two, but if you feel like you don't need to know why only one of your pages is getting crawled or links aren't getting indexed, please feel free to skip this week! We'll get back to more advanced and general topics next week.
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