sâmbătă, 18 octombrie 2014

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis


FBI Director Warns Google and Apple "If You Don't Decrypt Phones, We'll Do It For You"

Posted: 18 Oct 2014 10:45 AM PDT

The Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution is crystal clear in meaning.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

FBI Director, James Comey, an Obama appointment, does not give a damn what the Constitution says.

In a recent speech, Comey warns If Apple and Google Won't Decrypt Phones, We'll Force Them To
Everyone is stoked that the latest versions of iOS and Android will (finally) encrypt all the information on your smartphone by default. Except, of course, the FBI: Today, its director spent an hour attacking the companies and the very idea of encryption, even suggesting that Congress should pass a law banning the practice of default encryption.

It's of course no secret that James Comey and the FBI hate the prospect of "going dark," the idea that law enforcement simply doesn't have the technical capability to track criminals (and the average person) because of all those goddamn apps, encryption, wifi network switching, and different carriers.

"Encryption isn't just a technical feature; it's a marketing pitch … it's the equivalent of a closet that can't be opened. A safe that can't be cracked. And my question is, at what cost?" Comey said. "Both companies [Apple and Google] are run by good people, responding to what they perceive is a market demand. But the place they are leading us is one we shouldn't go to without careful thought and debate."
Safe That Cannot be Cracked

A safe that cannot be cracked and a door that cannot be opened except by the rightful owner is precisely what everyone should want. It's what the Constitution explicitly states. Instead, Comey wants the right to read your papers and search your effects.

"Perhaps it's time to suggest that the post-Snowden pendulum has swung too far in one direction—in a direction of fear and mistrust," claims Comey.

Excuse me, but what pendulum is Comey talking about?

The privacy pendulum has not budged an inch in the right direction. Not one new privacy law has been passed or even discussed.

To prove how much above the law these law-enforcement jackasses are, one Pentagon official stated "I would love to put a bullet in Snowden's head".

No one threatening to kill Snowden has been censured.

For blatant disrespect of the US Constitution, Comey ought to be fired, but there's nary a peep from Obama.

I suggest we need a cultural change from the top down starting with a president who understands and respects the Constitution.

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

Seth's Blog : Famous to the family

 

Famous to the family

There is famous and there is famous to the family. Cousin Aaron is famous to my family. Or, to be less literal, the family of people like us might understand that Satya the milliner or perhaps Sarma Melngailis or Peter Olotka are famous.

And famous to the family is precisely the goal of just about all marketing now. You don't need to be Nike or Apple or GE. You need to be famous to the small circle of people you are hoping will admire and trust you. Your shoe store needs to be famous to the 300 shoe shoppers in your town. Your retail consulting practice needs to be famous to 100 people at ten major corporations. Your Wordpress consulting practice needs to be famous to 650 veterinarians or chiropractors. Famous the way George Clooney and George Washington are famous, but to fewer people.

By famous, I means admired, trusted, given the benefit of the doubt. By famous, I mean seen as irreplaceable or best in the world.

Here's how to tell if you're famous: If I ask someone in your community to name the person who is known for X, will they name you? If I ask about which store or freelancer is the best place, hands down, to get Y, will they name you? If we played 20 questions, could I guess you?

Being famous to the family is far more efficient than being famous to everyone. It takes focus, though.

Famous to the family (of boardgame fans) is the key to making my friend Peter's Cosmic Encounter Kickstarter hit its goal. Or Ramon Ray's new magazine getting traction. Famous to the family is what this IndieGogo needs in order to change kids' lives. And failing to be famous to the family is precisely why most Kickstarters fail.

[HT to me, I wrote something about this three and a half years ago, but I forgot, and so did most people I talk about this with, so here it is again.]

       

 

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vineri, 17 octombrie 2014

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis


Free Market Response to Ebola

Posted: 17 Oct 2014 02:52 PM PDT

In response to Obama's Lame Response to Ebola; No Protocols but Lots of Fearmongering one person responded that I was "over-cooking the Ebola crisis".

Amusingly, another reader accused me of "underplaying the crisis".

A third reader asked "what is the free market response?" A similar question arose in a comment to Acting Man's post The Ebola Outbreak – A Black Swan.

Before tackling the free market issue, let's first review the government's response to date.

  • Airport restrictions but only at 5 airport, not all of them
  • Temperature taking procedures initiated
  • In spite temperature worries, a nurse self-reported to the center for disease control that she had an elevated temperature and ebola patient contact, but was told go ahead and fly

Think about the act of temperature taking. Whoever administered the test would have been in close contact with everyone on or entering the plane. Is that a good idea? Do sneezes and coughs happen?

Enough said.

Free Market Response

It's 100% certain the free market response would not have been the government's response to date.

And what about my proposal of flight bans from epidemic countries?

Government mandated is not free market by definition. But, it's entirely possible my solution is what the free market would have arrived at!

Three Questions I Asked Previously

  1. Is there a chance of spreading the disease by coughing or sneezing? Yes.
  2. Would I want to sit on a plane next to someone who was in contact with an ebola patient? No, and neither would anyone else.
  3. Would I want to sit on a plane next to someone from a country where ebola is viral? No, and neither would anyone else.

Those are common sense questions that airlines may have asked themselves. Airports may have asked similar questions. But airlines do not initiate travel bans in this over-regulated society. Neither do airports.

I read a comment that airlines are being greedy. How so? Airlines are not in position to ban flights from specific countries for medical reasons. 

And the last thing airlines need is plane decontamination efforts to fill an extremely tiny number of seats from those arriving from select African countries.

I pinged Pater Tenebrarum at Acting Man with this comment "I believe the free market response is that airlines would have banned travel from certain African countries."

He responded "Absolutely, but there are many other ways in which we could expect an unhampered market economy to respond to such a situation. In fact, I intend to take up the challenge and write a post about it."

Was I correct? We will never know.

I simply proposed what I thought the free market solution would be in absence of protocols from the center for disease control. I look forward to reading Pater's response.

In the meantime, we know with absolute certainty the government's response was pathetic. We also know McCain's Proposal for an Ebola Czar is equally, if not more pathetic.

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

Irony of the Day: Yellen Moans About Income Inequality; Seven Things That Cause Inequality

Posted: 17 Oct 2014 10:30 AM PDT

Those seeking the irony of the day will find it comes straight from the mouth of the Fed Chair. Please consider Janet Yellen Bemoans Rising US Inequality.
Janet Yellen decried rising inequality on Friday in an unusual speech that may lead to accusations of politicising the US Federal Reserve.

Speaking at a conference in Boston, the Fed chairwoman said she was "greatly concerned" by rising income and wealth inequality, and asked whether it is compatible with American values.

Her remarks will delight the Democrats who championed her as Fed chair, but risk a backlash from Republicans, who may feel she is using the platform of the central bank to promote the causes of their political rivals.

It marks a big step in defining Ms Yellen's term at the Fed. She has tried to popularise the role, meeting with unemployed people, and now speaking out on issues beyond monetary policy. Despite recent turmoil in financial markets, Ms Yellen made no reference to economic conditions or Fed policy in her speech.

"The extent of and continuing increase in inequality in the United States greatly concern me," said Ms Yellen. "The past several decades have seen the most sustained rise in inequality since the 19th century after more than 40 years of narrowing inequality following the Great Depression."
Look Inward Janet!

Instead of bemoaning income inequality as "incompatible with American values", the Chair ought to look at the cause of it.

Seven Things That Cause Inequality

  1. Fed-sponsored bank bailouts
  2. Fed interest rate suppression that punishes savers and those on fixed income
  3. Fed QE to goose financial assets (primarily held by the wealthy)
  4. Fed-sponsored inflation that benefits those with first access to money: banks, the already wealthy, and government (via property and other taxes)
  5. Government deficit spending, war-mongering, and other inflationary policies
  6. Government interference in the free markets, especially housing, health care, and education

Is Inequality Always a Bad Thing?

Notice, I said seven but only listed 6. Here's the bonus 7th: Innovation.

Those who invent better ways of doing things (or simply do things better than anyone else) often succeed wildly.

But the 7th is the way it should be. It is the essence of free-market-capitalism. Looked at properly, income inequality is actually a necessity!

It's the way income inequality is achieved that makes it good or bad.

Of seven major things that cause income inequality, four are Fed-sponsored, two are government-sponsored, and one is as it should be.

Which one does Yellen bitch about? The 7th of course.

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

Damn Cool Pics

Damn Cool Pics


20 Puppies Found In A Box In The Woods

Posted: 17 Oct 2014 11:09 AM PDT

Greg Zubiak wasn't expecting to find 20 abandoned puppies in a field, but when he did he gave them the clothes off his back to warm them, took them back to his truck and saved their lives!














via CBC News.

From Cancer Patient To Body Builder

Posted: 17 Oct 2014 09:53 AM PDT

These pictures show the stunning transformation of a teenage cancer patient into a bodybuilder, whose inspiring selfies have earned him a massive online following.

Zach Zeiler, from Ida, Michigan, was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma in 2010 at the age of 15 - which saw his weight plummet to just 100lbs.

But as his photos show, Zach went on to beat cancer and now weighs nearly 175lbs.

His impressive physique is the result of working out for two hours each and every day - which he began during treatment.

























Scaling Geo-Targeted Local Landing Pages That Really Rank and Convert - Whiteboard Friday

Scaling Geo-Targeted Local Landing Pages That Really Rank and Convert - Whiteboard Friday


Scaling Geo-Targeted Local Landing Pages That Really Rank and Convert - Whiteboard Friday

Posted: 16 Oct 2014 05:18 PM PDT

Posted by randfish

One question we see regularly come up is what to do if you're targeting particular locations/regions with your site content, and you want to rank for local searches, but you don't actually have a physical presence in those locations. The right track can depend on a few circumstances, and in today's Whiteboard Friday, Rand helps you figure out which one is best for your organization.

For reference, here's a still of this week's whiteboard!

Scaling Geo-Targeted Local Landing Pages That Really Rank and Convert - Whiteboard Friday

Video Transcription

Howdy Moz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. This week we're talking about geo-targeted or geo-specific local landing pages for companies that are trying to reach many geographic regions and need to have that scale, but don't necessarily have a local physical location in every city they're trying to target.

So if you can imagine I'm going to use the fictitious Rand's Whisky Company, and Rand's Whisky Company is going to be called Specialty Whisky. We're going to be running events all over the country in all sorts of cities. We're going to be trying to reach people with a really local approach to whisky, because I'm very passionate about whisky, and I want everyone to be able to try scotches and bourbons and American whiskies as well.

Okay, this sounds great, but there's going to be a big challenge. Rand's Whisky Company has no physical location in any city other than our main Seattle headquarters. This is a big challenge, and I've talked to many startups and many companies who have this same problem. Essentially they need to rank for a core set of terms in many different geographies.

So they might say, "Hey, we want to be in Nashville, Tennessee, and in Atlanta, Georgia, and we've identified a lot of whisky consumers in, let's say, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. But we can't open physical, local office space in every one of those geographies. In fact, we could probably only start by having a Web presence in each of those. We haven't yet necessarily achieved sort of scale and service in every single one of those geos." It's not like I'm running events in every one of these the day I start. I might start with Seattle and Portland and maybe Boise, Idaho, or Spokane or something like that, and then eventually I'll grow out.

This presents a big challenge in search results, because the way Google's results work is that they bias to show kind of two things in a lot of categories. They'll try and show you the local purveyors of whatever it is that the person is searching for in the local or maps results. Obviously, Pigeon had a big change and update to these, changing the geographic areas and changing the ordering of those results and now many map results show up, and those sorts of things. But obviously they're still very present.

We see them a lot. MozCast sees a very high percent of local intent queries even sometimes without the city modifier. If you're in a geography, you search for a whisky store, and you know what? Liquor stores and specialty liquor companies and that kind of stuff, they're going to show up in your search results here in Seattle in those Maps local boxes. So that makes it tough.

Then the other category is, of course, the organic web results. That's where folks like this, Rand's Whisky Company and other folks who are trying to scale their local presence, need to show up because you really won't have an opportunity in those local results unless and until you have true local physical space. So you're aiming for those Web results.

You're oftentimes competing with people like Yelp and Angie's List. A lot of the old Yellow Pages folks are in their directories and guides. Then sometimes, occasionally there will be a company that does a great job with this.

So there two companies that I want to call out. One is Uber, which everyone is pretty much familiar with, and Uber has done a great job of having their website contained in unique portals for each city in which they operate, unique social accounts, unique blogs. They really have put together a segmented operation that targets each city that they're in. They do have physical space, so they're cheating a little bit on this front.

Then another one is a company called Ride the Ducks, and Ride the Ducks has different websites for every city that they operate in. So there's a duck tour in Boston, a duck tour in Seattle, a duck tour in Los Angeles, all this kind of stuff. You can ride the ducks in any of these cities.

Now let's say that you're a startup or a company starting out, and you're thinking, "Okay, fine. I'm going to have my Specialty Whisky page for Seattle, and I'll just put some generic information in there, and then I'll replace Seattle with Portland, with Los Angeles, with Baton Rouge." That's my Baton Rouge page. That's my Los Angeles page. This is called the find and replace.

Even if you push this out, even if you customize some of the content on this page, try and make it a little more specific, have a few addresses or locations, you will fail. Unfortunately, Angie's List, who I mentioned, they do a really terrible job of this. They have a lot of pages that are what I call find and replace pages. You could just plug in nearly any city, and that's what the results would look like. They do rank. They are ranking because they were early and because they've got a lot of domain authority. Do not think that you can copy their content strategy and succeed.

The next one is a little bit more scaled out. This is a little bit more like what someone such as a Yelp or TripAdvisor might do for some of their landing pages. They've got some unique info in each city. It's the same for each city, but it's scaled out and it's relatively comprehensive. So, my Specialty Whisky Seattle page might show our favorite bars in Seattle. It might show some recommended stores where you can buy whisky. It might show some purveyors, some vendors, that we like. It could have some local events listed on the page. Fine, great. That could be good enough if the intent is always the same.

So if every city's intent, the people who are searching for restaurants in Portland versus restaurants in Seattle, you're basically looking for the same thing. It's the same kind of people looking for the same kind of thing, and that's how Yelp and TripAdvisor and folks like that have scaled this model out to success.

If you want to take it even one step further, my final recommendation is to go in that direction of what Uber and Ride the Ducks and those types do, which is they essentially have a customized experience created by a local team in that city, even if they don't necessarily have a physical office. Uber, before they open the physical office, will send people out. They'll go team gathering. Yelp did this, too, in their history as they were scaling out.

That kind of thing is like, "Hey, we've got some photos from some of our events. We've got a representative in the city." This is Seattle Whiskey Pete, and Whiskey Pete says, "Yar, you should buy some whiskey." It's got a list of events. So Knee High is stocking up for the holiday (presumably at the Knee High Stocking Company, which is a great little speakeasy here in Seattle), and whisky at Bumbershoot. You can follow our @WhiskySeattle account on Twitter, and that's different from our @WhiskyPortland, our @WhiskyLosAngeles or our @WhiskyNewYork accounts. Great.

There's a bunch of top Seattle picks. So this is a very customized page. This experience is completely owned and controlled by a team that's focused purely on Seattle. This is sort of the Holy Grail. It's hard to scale to this, which is why this other approach can really be okay for a lot of folks trying to scale up and rank for all of those geo terms plus their keywords.

What's the process by which you go about this? I'm glad you asked because I wrote it down. Number one, we want to try and determine the searcher's intent and how we can satisfy the query and at the same time delight visitors. We've got to create a unique, special experience for them and delight visitors in addition to satisfying their query.

So for Seattle whisky, I can show them where they can buy whisky in the city. I can recommend some bars that have a great whisky selection, and then I can delight them by showing some tips and tricks from our community. I can delight them by giving them special priority access to events. I can delight them by giving them a particular guide that they could print out and take with them or the ability to register for special things that they couldn't get elsewhere, buy whiskies that they'd never be able to get, whatever it is, something special to delight them.

Number two, I want to select the group of keywords, and I say group because usually there are a few keywords in every one of the verticals that I've talked to people about. There are usually between 3 and about 20 sets of keywords that they really, deeply care about per each geography. Do be careful. You've got to be wary of local colloquialisms. For example, if you're in the United States, whiskey is often spelled with an "e", W-H-I-S-K-E-Y, whereas in the U.K. and most of Europe, most of the rest of the English language speaking world, it's spelled W-H-I-S-K-Y with no "e".

Also you want to take those groups, and you want to actually combine them. So say I've got a bunch of keywords over here. I might want to say, "Hey, you know what? These three keywords, whisky tastings and whisky events, that's the same intent." I don't need to create two different landing pages for those. Let's take those and bunch them up and group them and make that one page. That'll be our Seattle Whisky Events page, and we'll target tastings and events and festivals and whatever other synonyms might go in there.

Third, I want to create a few of these, one of these two models of really amazing pages as a sample, as an instruction for all future ones. This is what we want to get to. Let's make the best, most perfect page for Seattle, and then we'll go make one for Portland and we'll go make one for Los Angeles. Then we'll see how do we get that into a process that will scale for us. You want that process to be repeatable. You want it to be well-defined. You want it to be so that a content team, who comes in, or contractor, an agency can take that document, can look at the examples, and replicate that on a city by city basis. That's going to require a lot of uniqueness. You need to have those high bars set up so that they can achieve them.

The fourth and last thing for these pages you're creating is you've got to be able to answer this question: Who will amplify this page and why? By amplify, I mean share socially, share via word of mouth, share via email, link to it. Who will amplify it and why? How are we going to reach them?

Then go get them. Go prove to yourself that with those two or three amazing example pages that you made that you can actually do it, and then make that part of your scaling process.

Now you've got something where you can truly say, "Yes, we can go geo by geo and have the potential to rank in market after market for the terms and phrases that we care about in the organic results."

Long term, if you have a lot of success in a city, my next suggestion would be that you move from this model to this model where you actually have a local team, just one person, even a contractor, someone who visits. It doesn't have to be a permanent resident of that city. It can be someone who goes there a month out of the year, whatever it is, every few weekends and owns that page and that experience and that section of your site for that specific geo that produces remarkable results.

They build relationships. That furthers your press, and that furthers your brand in that town. There's a lot of opportunity there. So that's eventually where you want to move to.

All right, everyone. I hope all of you out there who are building local, geo-targeted landing pages at scale have found this valuable, and I hope you're going to go build some phenomenal pages. Maybe someone will even start a whisky company for me.

All right, everyone. Take care. We'll see you again next week for another edition of Whiteboard Friday.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com


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Seth's Blog : "Let's go around the room"

 

"Let's go around the room"

If you say that in a meeting, you've failed. You've abdicated responsibility and just multiplied the time wasted by the number of people in the room.

When we go around the room, everyone in the room spends the entire time before their turn thinking about what to say, and working to say something fairly unmemorable. And of course, this endless litany of 'saying' leads to little in the way of listening or response or interaction or action of any kind.

The worst example I ever saw of this was when Barry Diller did it in a meeting with 220 attendees. More than two hours later, everyone in the room was bleeding from their ears in boredom.

Leaders of meetings can do better. Call on people. Shape the conversation. Do your homework in advance and figure out who has something to say, and work hard to create interactions. Either that or just send a memo and cancel the whole thing. It's easier and probably more effective.

       

 

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