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joyofcrime-elinorhigh · 6 years ago

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Frosty Returns REVIEW:

Hello there, everybody. My name is JoyofCrimeArt and welcome to the second review in my month long "Deviant-cember" special event. Christmas time is right around the corner and I don't know about you, but I'm loving it. Christmas is awesome! (No offence to any non Christian or non practicing readers out there. I'm sure your holidays are awesome to, I guess have no personal experience in that department.) The music, the decorations, the food, and the festive feeling of kindness towards your fellow man are all things that make this time of year so wonderful! But one of my favorite parts of the Christmas season is all of the Christmas specials. I love Christmas specials. Every year I make it my personal mission to watch as many as I can, from classics like "Rudolph" and "Charlie Brown", to the more contemporary specials like "Olive the Other Reindeer" and "Yes, Virginia." And that's not even counting the really frickin' out there Christmas specials, like "T.I and Tiny's Holiday Hustle." an animated special about hip hop artist T.I. and his family having to team up with an elf in order to save Christmas. Yes, this exist! But that's a review for another day...

(THIS EXISTS!) Today, I want to talk about a different holiday special. A holiday special that features significantly less hip hop and also significantly less holiday. That special would be the 1992 animated tv special "Frosty Returns."

"Frosty Returns" is the a um....sequel?.....Reboot?.....Cash grab? -Of the original Rankin-Bass Frosty special from 1969. This special, however, was not created by Rankin-Bass, but rather Broadway Video's and directed by Bill Melendez. Bill Melendez is most well known for his work on the four theatrical Charlie Brown movies, and this special shares a similar art style to those old Peanuts cartoons. I'm going to be honest here, while I do like the original Frosty the Snowman special, it was always one of the lesser Rankin-Bass holiday specials in my opinion. Like it's not bad or anything, and I use to like it a lot more when I was younger, but it just seems kinda bland compared to some of the other specials. In the original special Frosty was never a super interesting character, and Karen had even less personality then Frosty. The overall story, at least in my opinion, was never super enticing. I guess I've just always been more of a "Santa Claus is comin' to Town." type of guy. Now I don't hate the special by any means, I watch it ever year, and there are stuff in it worth watching. Professor Hinkle is a fun villain, the scene with Frosty melting is genuinely sad, and it's really fun seeing the original crew just go completely bonkers with the sound effects. (Though that part I don't think was intentional.) Sorry if I piss off any die hard Frosty fans out there, (I'm looking at you, little brother!) but I just felt like I needed to show my background with the original Frosty the Snowman special before I start talking about this special. Does this special hold up to the original, or is it just a pale imitation of a true holiday classic? Let's find out together, shall we. The special begins with our weird uncanny valley narrator. A weird uncanny valley narrator is a Frosty the Snowman tradition at this point, and is usually some kind of celebrity who was popular at the time of the specials release. The original Frosty has Jimmy Durante, "Frosty's Winter Wonderland" had Andy Griffith, and this special has Johnathan Winters. Just like director of the Amazing Spider-man films Marc Webb, I'm pretty sure he was only chosen because of his name. Now while all of the Frosty narrator's (with exception of the one from "Legends of Frosty the Snowman.") have fallen into the uncanny valley, the narrator in this special takes the fricking cake! While the other narrators looks a least a little human, Johnathan Winter's in this special looks like an actual gremlin! He's only a few inches tall, and floats around on snowflakes like some kinda sprite. And there's no explanation at all for his existence. He just happens to be like this and where suppose to just nod our heads and go along with it! Also he likes hot coco. This is very important.

Anyway he introduces us to the town of Beansboro, a small town that has just gotten covered with seven inches of snow. We get a brief musical number where all the kids sing about how much the love the snow, and all the adults sing about how much they hate it. The kids love the snow because of all of the fun they get to have in it, while the adults don't like the snow because they have to shovel it, it raises heating bills, makes it harder to drive around, ect. The song is rather good, and but we'll get into this specials music a bit later. After the song is finished we meet our main character Holly DeCarlo and her best friend, Charles. Holly is a shy girl who dreams of becoming a magician, while Charles is a the stereotypical nerd archetype, and kinda looks like a genderbent Marcy from the Peanuts specials. Holly is sad because she was not "invited" to go play in the snow. Now living in the south, I'm far from an expert on snow, but is snow the type of thing you need to get "invited" to? If all the tv specials I've seen has taught me anything I think you just kinda...go out there. All kidding aside though, I get it. She's sad because she has nobody asked to go play with her. I'm just saying, they phrasing is kinda strange. Then Charles asks Holly if she wants to go outside and build a...fertility goddess? Um...as I just stated, I'm far from an expert on snow, but is that something kids do on snow days that I was just blissfully unaware of? Also Is Charles a Pagan? Not the belief system I would expect from somebody who, as the special is going to continually bring up, is a man of logic and does not believe in anything that he cannot solve with logic. Well I for one appreciate the religious diversity this special presents. Bout' time we get a Pagan character in children's media without society making a big deal about it! That's what I say!

pictured Demeter, our Holy Jolly Fertility Goddess.) Anyway, Holly decides that instead of doing...that, she'd rather practice her magic for the magic act because Holly is going to be preforming her magic act during the annual winter carnival in front of the entire town. Holly tells Charles to get into a box and then she gets out the saw. Oh geez, I think this specials about to get a bit dark. Holly doesn't even have another box attached to the box that Charles is in. And the box isn't even closed! Holly clearly has no idea what she's doing and Charles is going to pay the ultimate price for it. This is about to become a very red Christmas. But luckily before Charles goes off to meet Persephone, he asks Holly to open a window because it's hot inside the box. Then a giant gust of wind blows in the room and Holly loses her magic hat. And by giant gust I mean, I pretty sure there's a class five hurricane going on outside and those kids really need to get inside. I mean the wind is strong enough to spin Charles' box around at ridiculous speeds. So then Holly decides to chase after her hat and-HEY WAIT HOLLY, WHAT ABOUT CHARLES?! You're just going to leave him spinning in that box until he vomits, just to go get your stupid hat? It's called priorities Holly, Jesus Christ!

(Bye Charles, thanks for letting me nearly saw you in half!) Holly chases after the hat, and for one brief close up shot we see that Johnathan Winter's is riding the hat. I do not get this. What is the point? Is he guiding the hat to Frosty, or is he just riding it just cause? Holly trails behind the hat, (as it seems this wind managed to blow the hat not only out of Holly's room, but out of Holly's house somehow and down the block. Can the hat open doors?) She bumps into her school teacher, and the teacher talks about how much she hates the snow. There's not much to this scene other then driving the point home that the adults hate snow. After that scene Holly finds the hat it's on the head of a snowman, who just happens to be alive. This is Frosty, this time played by John Goodman, who honestly I really like in this role. He has a very kind and welcoming voice, and it's a lot less "bumbling" sounding then the other Frosty voice actors. Not that I'm trying to knock those voice actors or anything, I'm just saying. Holly tries to introduce herself to Frosty, but Frosty already knows who she is because in Frosty's own words she's a "famous" magician. While yes, this doesn't actually make any sense as an answer I actually really like this scene. Frosty in this special is a lot wiser then he was in the previous Frosty specials, and that's something I really like. Like for example, Holly mentions that she doesn't have any friends other then Charles, and Frosty tells her "Having one friend is a lot more than having no friends." It's a really nice sentiment and a good message for the kids, and to anybody really. Holly's mom walks in and Frosty goes all Toy Story and stops talking or moving because...Well look, if "Toy Story didn't have to explain it then why should this special have to? Oh, there's also a funny joke where Holly's mom calls Holly out for abandoning Charles, saying that he's going to end up "needing to join a support group." Holly's mom talks about how she just bought this brand new product called "Summer Wheeze." the least marketable name for the product ever devised. This product is like a can of aerosol spray that can make snow disappear in seconds! Holly's mom's friend shows up and they start talking like there in an infomercial for the spray. Holly's mom's friend ends up spraying Frosty a bit, causing him to yell. And conveniently nobody seems to hear or acknowledge the snowman's screams of pain. We then transition to the board room of the company that makes Summer Wheeze, and here we meet our villain, Mr. Twitchell and his pet cat, Bones. Mr. Twitchell is a crotchety old curmudgeon played by Brian Doyle-Murray. He's best known for playing Captain K'nuckles in "The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack" and The Flying Dutchman in "Spongebob." He's also the older brother of actor Bill Murray! I know, it's crazy! He gives a great performance in this special. Now let me lay out Mr. Twitchell's evil plan in this special. It's a pretty complex plan, so try to follow along. Step 1) Make the town love him by getting rid of all of the snow. Step 2) Get rid of all the snow. Step 3) Have the town make him their King out of gratitude. Um......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgxYUxqcg1Q

I swear to high heaven, Mr. Twitchell makes this special. He's so over the top and ridiculous that it's near impossible not to love it. Then, when one of his employees points out the environmental concerns he has his James Bond style cat press a button that activates a trap door under that employees' desk! This villain, man, this villain! He then has his cat, Bones, release an army of trucks to spray the entire town with Summer Wheeze! Let the snowman genocide begin!

By the way, this Summer Wheeze thing must really be a labor of love from Mr. Twitchell. I mean as far as I can tell he's releasing these cars for free. All that Wheeze there using is coming out of his bottom line, unless the town is paying him to use these trucks or something. Then again, I don't think this guy has really thinks through most of the stuff he does. I mean why would anybody buy Summer Wheeze if the company is spraying peoples yard's for free. The next day, Holly decides to keep Frosty in her Freezer until after she comes home from school. What I want to know is what would happen if Holly's mom needed to open the freezer at any point during the day and just saw a talking snowman in there, but that's a question this special doesn't want to answer for us! Also there's a bit where she has to take some turkey out of her freezer to make room for Frosty, then she put's the turkey into her backpack in her rush to get to school on time. Then during class the teachers ask why she has turkey in her desk and she says its for lunch. The teacher tells her to put it away unless she wants to present it as a science project. Holly then, really sincerely sounding, says that she does intend to use the turkey as a science project. It's hard to explain in post form but it's a really confusing bit. Did she intend to bring the turkey or not? Was she intending to use the turkey for her science project or was that just a lie for the teacher? She didn't sound like she was lying. I don't get it. This is another question the special doesn't want to answer for us! Charles is giving a science report about snow, and the environmental importance snow has on the world. Well, it was the nineties, so it was really a matter of time before we got some kind of environmental message. One of the kids interrupts Charles, saying that snow isn't important and his dad says that it gives you heart attacks. (Charles remarks that the kids dad may be confusing snow with chili dogs, another funny joke.) And all the kids start talking about how happy they are that all the snow is melting, so they can do more summer time stuff, like having picnics and volleyball games all year round. Charles points out how snow is important to the environment but none of the kids listen. There are a lot of logical problems with this scene. One, why do all the kids suddenly hate the snow. I know kids can be fickle but earlier in the special the kids love the snow, and that scene took place, like, the day before this scene takes place. Second, I don't get why Charles is so concerned about the environmental aspect of the Wheeze. I mean yeah, it's an aerosol spray so in that regard it's bad for the environment, but if it's just melting the ice it shouldn't be that big a deal right? Again, I'm no snow expert, but snow melts naturally anyway, and this spray is just speeding up the process. One of the environmental benefits of snow that Charles brings up is a source of fresh water, but if the spray is melting the snow it's still making the fresh water, unless the spray itself is contaminating the water. Or unless the snow isn't melting and it's just disappearing, in which case Mr. Twitchell found a way to destroy matter itself, which I think is the much bigger deal here. This special makes a big deal about how important snow is, and while I know different parts of the world are different and have different environmental needs, there are tonnes of places all over the world where it doesn't snow and those places are fine. As long as the snow is still melting things should be fine. And again, maybe there's something in the spray that is bad for the environment, but the special really treats it like it's the absence of snow that's the problem, not the contaminated water supply. Also third, just because the snow is melting doesn't mean that it'll suddenly be a year long summer! The spray isn't actually increasing the temperature of the air! (Well, I mean it is slowly, because of the aerosol, but you'd need to spray a lot of that stuff to make a hole in the ozone layer big enough to create an endless summer.) I mean I've only seen snow twice in my life, but I've still experienced winters! (Though last year it was over eighty degrees on Christmas. That sucked.) Anyway, Holly goes to talk to Frosty, who has left the freezer and is now staying at the winter carnival's ice castle. She tells him about how everybody wants to get rid of all the snow, and how she was to scared to speak out against them. Frosty tells her that it's okay, and gives her some advice on how to be less shy and timid....in the form of a song! The song is actually really good, and one of the most memorable part of the special. I mean, yeah, it does continue to shoe horn in the whole "snow is the most important thing, snow is love snow is life" theme the special has been doing this whole time, and the moral of "when your to scared to talk to someone just sing" is a pretty weird lesson, but dang it the song is really darn catchy! I really feel this is underappreciated Christmas/winter song that really deserves more appreciation! At least until we get to the part where Mr. Twitchell get's his dark reprise verse, and it's basically a weird....rap....I think? That's amazing for completely different reasons!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6PnTmyYT6w

(Also this is unrelated but why does Frosty have a human nose? He says early in the special that once some kid stole his nose to play hacky sack so is it suppose to be a hacky sack? Why does it look so human-ish?) Anyway after the song Charles meets up with Holly and Frosty. At first Charles believes that Frosty is some kind of robot, but Frosty (rather quickly I may add) convinces him that he is a real talking snowman. But then Mr. Twitchell shows up in him limousine and see's Frosty. Naturally, Mr. Twitchell is not at all phased by the talking and walking snowman, and is more concerned with Frosty spreading snow onto his sidewalks. So he does the "logical" thing and sends his pet CAT out to destroy Frosty with a can of Summer Wheeze. SURPRISINGLY this does not end up working. This is what happens when your cat is your elite henchman. Though the cat is able to spray frosty enough to make a massive hole in his chest. Holly is concerned, because there's barely enough snow on the ground to fix Frosty....except for the fact that that isn't true, at all! There is still plenty of snow, just look around you!

But despite the fact that there is still snow all over the place Charles decides to go get some snow that he was saying and pack it all into Frosty. Then they decide to finally do something about mean old Mr. Twitchell. Mr. Twitchell decides to attend the Winter Carnival, and melt all of the snow, cementing himself as the towns hero and future king. Sure, why not. Mr. Twitchell goes on stage so he can be crowned king of the Winter Carnival, when Holly goes on stage to call him out. She talks about how important snow is but Mr. Twitchell is unfazed and unrepentant. So Holly decides to unveil Frosty in front of the whole town and, Hey wait a minute!

Frosty is alive without the hat! That's not allowed! Unless this takes place after "Frosty's Winter Wonderland." Is this a reboot or a sequel?! HAX! I call HAX! So anyway, Frosty decides to sing a reprise of his song to the towns people and everybody in the town immediately decides that they love snow again. No wonder Mr. Twitchell thought he could become this towns king, this is the most easily swayed town in the world! Everybody in town rejoices at the magical talking snowman that nobody questions the existence of. Mr. Twitchell decides to get into one of his weird Summer Wheeze spraying vans and, because he's Mr. Twitchell, decides to let the cat drive. This goes about as well as you'd expect.

FRICKIN' REK'D SON!

I kid of course, Mr. Twitchell survives the crash Holly and Frosty shows him some kindness by giving him the Winter Carnival crown and taking him on a sled ride. Frosty then tells Holly that it's time for him to leave, as he wants to go to another town to help another kid. Holly hugs Frosty and wishes him goodbye and the special ends with weird Johnathan Winters/Mr. Mxyzptlk hybrid telling us that Mr. Twitchell decided to change his ways and go into the sled making business. This change of heart lasted a total of four days until, at the age of one hundred and ten, Mr. Twitchell died in his home and his body was eaten by his cat, Bones. The End. So in conclusion, is the special good? Well that depends on your perspective. On a technical aspect the special is not very well made. The animation isn't very good, with the exception of one scene early on in the special where Johnathan Winter's is actually animated very fluidly. But other then that you can see that this special doesn't have much of a budget. There are a lot of plot points in the special that either don't make sense or only make sense because the characters are so stupid. Also, while the environmental/"snow is totes awesome" moral isn't as heavy handed as I remembered them being, there still pretty heavy handed. Also, this isn't flaw or anything, the background music has a real "Rugrats" vibe to it. I'm not knocking it, but I really wonder if that show and this special had the same music director or something. All that being said the special isn't awful either. There's a lot of stuff to like. It has an excellent voice cast, not just in John Goodman and Brian Doyle-Murray, but also Holly's voice actress, Elisabeth Moss. She was only ten at the time this special was made, but her voice really adds a good level of sincerity to the role. Also while Holly is still a fairly generic character she's still more interesting then Karen. I don't know if the Frosty purist will agree with me on this, but that's really how I feel. Holly has an arc, she starts of timid and shy, but in the end ends up standing up to the villain head on. Also I like how Frosty is characterized. He's a lot wiser, and much more comforting. This probably has a lot to do with John Goodman's performance, but I think the writing had a bit to do with it to. This special has a really catchy song and a really hammy villain in the form of Mr. Twitchell. The other Frosty specials don't have Mr. Frickin' Twichell. So that's a plus in this specials favor. Overall, while I'm not sure if this is an objectively better special than the original, I know I definitely enjoy it more. Sure, it's was most likely made as a cash in on the Frosty brand, but it's an enjoyable cash in! While this special probably has higher highs and lower lows that the original special, at least it's not boring. If your looking for a more well made holiday special with good animation, interesting characters, and a good holiday lesson this special is probably not for you. But if you want a weird, so bad it's good type of special that does have some legitimately good parts in it, even if the special as a whole isn't the greatest, then I highly recommend it! Check it out if you haven't seen it, and come to your own conclusion. So that's my review of "Frosty Returns." But if you think where done with Frosty the Snowman, oh how wrong you are. Join me next Friday, as I tackle the other Frosty sequel that wasn't make by Rankin-Bass, "Legend of Frosty the Snowman." Because, to quote Notorious rapper Biggie Smalls "Mo' Frosty, Mo Problems." Have you seen Frosty Returns, and what do you think of it? I'd love to hear your opinion, even if it's completely different from mine. I'd love to start a conversation. What's your favorite Frosty special, or just holiday special in general. If you have any suggestions for stuff for me to review in the future leave it in a comment down bellow, and I might look into it. Please fav, follow, and comment if you liked the review, and have a great day. (I do not own any of the images or videos in this review all credit goes to there original owners.)

https://www.deviantart.com/joyofcrimeart/journal/Frosty-Returns-REVIEW-651578677 DA Link

#Frosty the Snowman #Christmas #Christmas Special #review #Frosty Returns

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rogerdscotts · 5 years ago

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How to Start Collecting Vintage Watches with Eric Wind

from He Spoke Style - Men's Style, Fashion, Grooming, Tips and Advice

Starting Your Vintage Watch Collection

For those of you who don’t know him, Eric Wind is a rockstar in every sense of the word. Not only can he shred a drum set, but to some he’s considered one of the foremost experts on vintage watches in the world. His passion for vintage watches has transformed the forgotten hobby into a profitable and flourishing business.

Now solely focused on his own online shop, Wind Vintage, Eric spends his days scouring the world for the finest examples of dead stock watches. His customers know that Eric’s acute eye for the smallest details and search for a watch with character, ensures them a piece that’s both beautiful and mechanically sound. I was extremely lucky to meet Eric and talk about life and what his advice is to starting a vintage watch collection.

First off thank you for meeting with me. For the sake of our readers, could you briefly tell them the story about how you got started in vintage watches?

I was always interested in watches. It started first with my grandfather’s watch, which was a vintage Hamilton I inherited after he passed. He received it from my grandmother for their wedding in 1947. It was the first mechanical watch I have ever seen, which was mind blowing that a watch didn’t run on a battery. Once I started to learn more about watches, I stumbled upon Hodinkee and eventually started writing for them. After that, I started buying more vintage watches and selling them on the website and it just grew from there.

Starting from your early years of watch collecting, could you give our readers a few tips to get started collecting?

The most common mistake new collectors make (myself included), is buying for a particular reference or a rare example. I always tell people to buy a watch for the condition first. Regardless of what’s popular, your tastes will change over time. Imagine buying or receiving a really high-end piece of art and not knowing anything about it or the artist. Educate yourself, study the nuances of that piece and make an informed and educated purchase.

What should you look for or avoid before buying a vintage watch?

Evaluate the whole watch. The dial is certainly the most important. Inspect closely if it’s original and in good condition. Next, the case. My personal preference is for an untouched or unpolished case. I feel like it makes the watch more honest, original and tells a story. I die a little inside when I see a vintage watch that’s been over polished. Crystals can oftentimes be replaced or polished (if acrylic). This is to the discretion of the buyer. Lastly, check if the watch has any type of waterproofing. I make sure the watches I sell have some sort of water resistance, if possible. I’ve had clients who have lost money because they flew somewhere and during the flight their watches developed condensation inside the crystal. It’s fairly easy to put rubber gaskets and it’s worth the extra money to protect your watches.

For the casual observer, it seems like vintage watch collecting is an expensive hobby. Watches like the Paul Newman Daytona, that sold for $17.75M, can cause a little hesitation to get started. Do you need to have money to get into vintage watches?

Not necessarily. I love less expensive watches just as much as the expensive ones. I’ve actually helped curate a bunch of watches under $1000 dollars recently, at Rowing Blazers here in NYC. The one thing I do caution new collectors about buying watches under $1000 dollars is the expectations of maintenance. You should expect that yearly maintenance on a watch will be somewhere in the $300-450 dollar range depending on your watch repairman. This is on the low end so if you’re thinking about a saving up for a vintage Rolex or Omega, expect that number to jump to almost $1000 dollars for service.

Could you give our readers 3 watches ($500-$2000) that beginners can look to buy when starting their collection?

Yea, I think the Vulcain Cricket is a great watch under $1000 dollars. I own a few of them. Great construction, solid case, some presidential history and a cool complication. Omega, which is a great prestige brand, has the Seamasters from the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s. They come in both hand-wound or automatic, easy to maintain, classic sizing and found for under $2000 dollars. Lastly, Enicar is a brand I’ve been a fan of recently. Really well-made and have a bunch of variations from divers, chronographs and even dress watches. They sell anywhere from $250 to $2000 dollars.

What’s the current state of your personal collection? Are you searching for something particular or are you only looking for your clients?

My collection is always evolving. I have a pretty wide-ranging collection of watches. I obviously love brands like Rolex and Omega, but I’ve collected the best examples of a lot of different brands. The metric for me has always been, if this was my one watch, would I still be happy? Secondly, Will I ever see something like it in the market or better? There’s a charisma to a watch, it either speaks to you or it doesn’t. That’s how I typically go about buying and selling watches.

What is your most treasured watch, regardless of its price? Do you still wear it today?

I like watches with different stories. I visited the Fortis factory a couple years ago and while I was there, bought a vintage model. It always reminds me of visiting the factory before they went through bankruptcy. Most recently I purchased a Seiko 6139 Pogue from a gentleman who wore it during his time in the Vietnam War. He was a pilot and all of his fellow pilots had purchased the same blue Seiko Pogue. We spoke over the phone and he told me some incredible stories of his time in service. When he shipped it to me it came with his ration card, the original bracelet and box. Its moments like those that I treasure the most.

You’re a student of vintage watches. Do you have any great books or references that could help young collectors learn more about watches?

There definitely are some great books. The Watch by Gene Stone which was revised recently by Stephen Pulvirent. There’s a new book from my friend at Hodinkee called, Watches: A Guide by Hodinkee. If you prefer reading from a tablet, I recommend John Goldberger’s, Patek Steel or Vintage Rolex Book. Books can get expensive so you can download those versions for about half the price of the physical book.

What’s your opinion on high-end watch collecting? Is it more about purchasing watches as investments or a display of wealth? Are the people you are selling to enjoying the watch for their beauty or locking them away for financial gain?

The biggest trend of the last 10 years has been the information being readily available. 2011 was the first time a Rolex hit one million dollars at auction and as you’ve seen over the last few years that number has jumped with the sale of the Paul Newman at $17.8 million. That side of the market has caused the value of some of the older GMTs and Submariners to climb in price. On the flip side, the positive is that buyers have a better understanding of the importance of condition. Some of my buyers only buy 1 vintage piece and they’re happy. Others buy 20 or more watches over the course of a 5-10 year period. I generally work with clients who love vintage watches, have studied them and are looking for something specific.

You are undoubtedly one the premier suppliers of one-of-a-kind vintage watches. Has the rise in popularity and profitability of selling watches left you feeling jaded or concerned about the future of the business?

There’s a new dealer popping up every week, just about. I’m actually close with a lot of the dealers here in New York City. We’re all pretty close and I frequently buy watches from them and resell them. I also make sure to send people to them who are looking for watches between $500 – $2000 dollars. Once I even brought Fred Savage to a local meet-up and a bunch of them freaked out. To answer your question, no. I think we all have the same understanding and the same passion for watches and if we can help each other out, we’re glad to do so.

Lastly, what kind of effect do you think the media (movies, pop culture and now social media) have on the availability of watch models like the Rolex Submariner, Explorer (1016), Daytonas, Patek Philip Nautilus and the AP Royal Oak?

Personally, I worry about the overhyping of any vintage watch because eventually the market corrects itself. Particularly with Heuer a few years back, which at one point went up almost 500%. Working at Christy’s, there are only so many people that can spend $200k on a watch and when the market readjust, they’re fine with losing the money. I’ve seen dealers buy up a particular model in hopes to hype the market up and sell it at higher prices, but that’s not something I condone. The media certainly can move the market, but it usually always corrects itself once the supply outweighs the demand.

Eric, thank you so much for taking time to speak to our readers. It’s been a pleasure to meet with you and talking about how you started collecting watches. I hope our readers will have a better idea of just how fantastic collecting watches can be.

Anytime. If your readers have any other questions, be sure to reach out to me at Wind Vintage.

Thanks for reading.

Stylishly Yours,

Steven D. Elliott He Spoke Style

The post How to Start Collecting Vintage Watches with Eric Wind first appeared on the men's style blog He Spoke Style - Men's Style, Fashion, Grooming, Tips and Advice

from Wellness http://hespokestyle.com/vintage-watch-collection-budget-affordable/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

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itsmyrayeraye-blog · 6 years ago

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10 Common Myths About SEO 2019

A wide range of SEO techniques exist regarding improving the search engine search positions of web sites and their particular individual pages. By merging a whole new way to work along with SEO and prioritized lists associated with recommendations—not to mention competitor evaluation and keyword monitoring—Siteimprove SEO is usually your all-in-one tool to develop traffic, prove ROI, and easily create content. All the SEO tendencies listed here may have started in late 2017 or earlier 2018, but their true advantage could be reaped in 2019. Google's Ruben Mueller said on Twitter, along with the disclaimer of him placing his user hat on (ofcourse not Google hat), that relabeling outdated content as new, with simply no additional changes is a poor SEO hack. All of us associated with creatives, designers & developers function alongside our SEO & content material teams to ideate, research, style & create remarkable infographics and interactive content for brands that will get shared across the internet. Contemporary SEO strategy may be the process associated with organizing a website's content simply by topic, which helps engines like google realize a user's intent when looking. Page loading time is dependent upon Page Load speed, Web page loading time is one associated with the important factors in Mobile phone SEO 2017. Public Media as a platform are not able to be ignored in any SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION plan. Seo stands regarding search engine optimization, when a person are searching for an SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION or Search Engine Optimization Organization then you needs to appear for various factors which may have a favorable and negative affect on your business. Upon the subject of speed, with the beginning of 2017 generally there was still much resistance in order to AMP in the SEO local community overall, but as we mind toward 2018 that feels in order to be dissipating now somewhat along with a reluctant acceptance that AMPLIFIER looks as though it's not really going away sooner. The biggest way that individuals misuse SEO is assuming that will it's a game or that will it's about outsmarting or deceiving the search engines. Both are crucial to the particular success of an SEO strategy, but they're on completely different edges of the fence when this comes to improving your search motor rankings. Over 50% of mobile phone customers started using voice search correct from 2015, and so we all can expect that in 2019 and after that not much less than 50% of searches may be in the form associated with voice search. Within the past, getting a great SEO was only about making use of keywords. Just remember that , SEO is definitely about targeting real people, not really only search engines. In case you do these on-page plus off-page elements of SEO in least along with your competition, you can achieve higher lookup engine ranking positions in the particular organic section of search motor results pages and have the quality website capable of sustaining your revenue goals. In my opinion that 2018 is going to be the particular year where voice search changes how users search and SEOs need to optimize. SEO or Search engine optimisation is a term coined collectively to describe the techniques that will the website should use in order to boost its rankings on the search engine. It helps your SEO initiatives to ensure that your keywords and phrases are added to the coto description and it will offer you a ranking boost in the event that your specific terms are obvious in this area. Moreover, a Google Penguin update drastically changed the function of backlinks on SEO, doing it more difficult to acquire link juice to a internet site. Gone are the times of traditional SEO techniques, on the internet content is changing. The cognitiveSEO Rank System offers accurate country, language plus city precision for all your own tracked keywords. Even if your URLs normally are not pretty, ” if you may feel as though they're adversely impacting users and your company in general, don't change all of them to be more keyword concentrated for better SEO. ” When you do need to alter your URL structure, make certain to make use of the proper (301 permanent) type of redirect. In this particular post, we've broken down the particular very best SEO techniques to assist you skyrocket your rankings plus boost your number of regular visitors. An accessible URL is usually an important SEO ranking aspect. Heidi Cohen: To increase 2018 SEO results, marketers will proceed moving away from disposable, after and done content. They concentrate on SEO Internet marketing objectives and provide top search motor rank like Google and Askjeeve. Collectively, these developments are plus can continue to have the dramatic impact on the method in which we search optimize our websites in 2019 plus form the core of the newest SEO 2019 update briefing.

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The search engine optimisation (SEO) solutions are designed to increase presence inside the algorithmic (natural”, organic”, or free”) search results in order to deliver high quality, targeted visitors to your site. We might suggest them as an agency for the range of digital marketing providers from content marketing and on-page SEO. In short, we think that SEO in 2019 will certainly have to shift focus actually more towards answering people's queries and solving people's problems. With this SEO article creating guidelines formula it pleases the particular search engines and the visitors reading the content. Search Engine Marketing Starter Guide — This guideline was written by Google and has many SEO best practices with regard to webmasters.

Erase all duplicated content material; it will increase your SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION ranking. Long-term: as discussed over, you'll ultimately get more research traffic from better usability, actually though you don't squeeze every single last drop from the SEO-trick lemon. However, to accomplish all this particular, web-developers use SEO custom providers, that have long-lasting SEO Search engines rank. That being said, companies usually have little or simply no time for you to maintain up with the latest advancements in SEO techniques. Social search motor optimization is largely built on user-generated content. Keywords are at the coronary heart of SEO, but they're really not your first step in order to an organic growth play any longer. Obviously, reviews are a powerful kind of customer content that has massive implications for SEO and enhancing organic traffic. 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writtengiru · 7 years ago

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How I Learned to Storyboard in 2 Weeks

Disclaimer: I'm in no way a professional. This is based on my own personal experiences. Storyboarding is used in the context of animation, not live action, even though both may overlap.Step 1: Find Motivation

To learn anything in life, you must have motivation. Simple right?

Nope. It seems so obvious, yet I've seen many people in my life, including myself, fail to do this. Professionals, hobbyists, students, my own teachers, parents...no one is excluded from failing to find real motivation. Why? It's hard. It requires deep self-reflection and brutal honesty. Depending on what you're finding motivation for, may it be a hobby or the purpose of your life, it may take several hours to several years to find meaning behind what you do.

[caption id="attachment_45" align="aligncenter" width="282"]

finding your life purpose is hard[/caption]

There's a reason why people don't stick with diets, get that good grade in Calculus, or achieve any (lofty) goals really. People set goals that they think they want to achieve, but in reality, they don't really want to. They don't actually want to become skinnier--they just want more confidence. They don't want that good grade--they just want to succeed in life. Thus, people eat comfort food and do other things that they deem would help them in life, like spending too much time on a blog.

So how does anyone achieve anything if their goals were never really their goals in the first place? I believe that the most successful people frame their motivations around their goal to begin with (or is it the other way around? Either way, the end results are the same). To continue the analogy, that would mean dieting for your health, something that would last you for life, not something superficial and temporal. That would mean learning Calculus to understand and enjoy the reasoning process of mathematics, not the end result of grades. Finding deeper meaning behind what you do will always make you feel fulfilled in whatever you do and go beyond the protocol.

So the question is, do I really want to learn to storyboard?

I believe in the power of storytelling. Throughout my life, I've been touched by the cinematics at a deep level. Truth be told, I cried during My Little Pony: The Movie that came out this year, and I feel chills whenever I see beautiful art. My parents were always at work, I'm the middle child, and films--especially the animated ones--made my childhood less bleak and more vibrant. Long story short, I've been making comics of my own to copy the magic in my childhood for the past two years. Now, I create to make memes for money have my own voice be heard since I'm not a very vocal person outside the internet. I've worked obsessively to create a style and aesthetic for my comics (I'm a sucker for pretty art), but I feel that they're empty husks if my storytelling isn't very hot.

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A Pixar storyboard for Brave, the movie[/caption]

After these two weeks, I want to be able to make animatics. My dream job is to be an independent webcomist or a storyboard artist of a TV series or feature film. I like having the power to control a story and how it's told rather than simply executing it, and hence why I want to be in preproduction. Right now, I'm in the process of applying to art schools for 2D animation. This took me some years to reconcile with myself that I love art and that I have a passion for cartoons. Through being honest with myself and clearing away other's opinions about my future, I came to this conclusion. I will never give up on art.

Even if I won't make it into an art school or even make it into the industry, I still plan on creating throughout my life no matter what. Storyboarding is unquestionably something I want to learn.

[caption id="attachment_49" align="aligncenter" width="249"]

A comic strip from my webcomic, Toothpaste and People[/caption]

Now, if I weren't this motivated, can I still learn to storyboard? Yes, but it will be a struggle. Can I learn how to make delicious barbeque? Yes, but it will be a struggle because I'm pescatarian.

As Ulrich Boser once said in Learn Better," Meaning is learning."

Step 2: Know What You Know

Alright, I'm ready to become a storyboarding master! Where do I start?

First, I wrote everything that I think I know for storyboarding:

Conversely, I wrote everything that I think I didn't know:

The first approach was inspired by a piece of advice given by Ulrich Boser. In Learn Better, Boser states: "according to experts like Robert Marzano, the benefits of this approach is that it helps people focus on linkages rather than isolated facts. By writing down what we know, we're preparing our minds to make more connections within the body of expertise, creating a more systematized form of thinking--and understanding."

In hindsight, this list was pretty ineffective because I listed things too broadly like "I don't know how to storyboard." It still provided a good starting point for learning how to storyboard, however.

From there, I was able to conclude that my drawing skills are decent enough for me or anyone to know what's happening in shots. I can stop searching up tutorials on anatomy, perspective, backgrounds, and basically all the mechanics of drawing. I can now start on searching up on tutorials about gesturing, expressions, composition, and most importantly, how to storyboard. By doing this, I cut time learning things I already know (sort of) and start learning at a level where I need to be to reach my goal in these two short weeks.

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Some life drawings I did. I think I can draw people well enough that others can identify that they are human, their limbs, and their heads.[/caption]

Here are some of the tutorials I used to learn art when I first started out (there are much more but I don't remember them all right now...):

Color Schemes

Andrew Loomis Books

a lot of deviantART tutorials

Here are the tutorials I used for these two weeks for storyboarding:

Storyboard Secrets

How to Draw for Storyboarding

How to Storyboard an Animation by Howard Wimhurst

The 7 Hidden Patterns of Successful Storyboards

Notice the difference between the two. The former focuses on the fundamentals while the latter focuses on using those fundamentals. Once again, as Ulrich Boser said, writing down what we know would "make more connections within the body of expertise, creating a more systematized form of thinking--and understanding." In my case, it would be using my preexisting knowledge on form and light to apply it and specify it for a shot in storyboarding.

The same would apply to starting artists as well. Do you know how to draw a square? Great, now turn it into a box! Do you know how to draw a box? Great, now turn it into a head! And so on...

Step 3: Eliminate Obstacles

To make this blunt: this is the step where you know you screwed up step 1 (finding motivation).

Don't get me wrong: it's okay to make mistakes. Finding obstacles as you learn is natural and means that you're truly pushing yourself, but to get past them and continue to move forward requires motivation.

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art by my sort-of-art buddy, who's super skilled, The Kao[/caption]

Here are some things that I found I needed to conquer (and how I conquered them...somewhat) before putting my pencil on paper, in no particular order:

Self-doubt

Am I good enough? Will I ever be good enough? Will anyone ever listen to my stories? What if my stories suck? What if people don't like it?

Well, I'll never know if I never try. Besides, creating should be something to be self-fulfilling, not to satisfy others.

[caption id="attachment_53" align="aligncenter" width="500"]

Impostor syndrome is common among artists. Don't let it get to you and just fake it till you make it.[/caption]

Time Management

I'm taking 5 AP classes and only get 6 hours of sleep. From the time I get home from school (4:30) to the time I go to sleep (12:00), how much time do I actually spend on homework/ other club activities? The better question would be: how much time do I spend on Twitter and Discord?

Mmmmm yeah, I thought so. Sayanora, internet. I found the best way to not lollygag around is to set timers. Spend one hour on work, another 10 minutes on leisure (or whatever amount you feel is just enough to satisfy you). I usually opt out for the do-all-your-work-in-one-sitting then spend-the-whole-night-on-leisure, which is surprisingly fine for me. That is until I find tiring work, then I switch to the former schedule. It really depends on my mood and what I'm dealing with.

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Studying and doing art at the same time is hard and cuts my sleep (not if I managed my time well though).[/caption]

I wish I figured this out earlier because sometimes I would spend hours on leisure first before really diving into my (usually last minute) homework. At the end of the day, I have no time to learn more about storyboarding (or do my comics...), and I feel like a failure as an artist. I'm getting better though through tagging my emotions.

According to Boser, "people have far more resilience if they identify their feelings...After people tag a certain feeling, they can begin to think that feeling through."

For example, when I'm on social media, I'm usually tired and need to start on homework.

Great, so I'm tired. I should probably get ready for bed or do some homework to wake me up (yes, that is a thing for me).

Then I proceed to do either of those options. For the former, I wake up super early to do my homework, so all is good. I also use "if-then" plans, another idea by Boser.

I love his example. He states "so instead of thinking, Maybe I'll study later, people should think, If I study now, then I can go out later...clear rules make it simpler for people to manage their emotions because there' less emotion to manage. Instead of feeling or even thinking, people are relying on a type of habit, and that takes less emotional energy...the goal is 'taking the effort out of effortful control.'"

When I first read this, I thought this was so obvious--who wouldn't think this way? Turns out, a lot of people don't...and so do I. This advice was a game changer for me. Call me silly or stupid, but this method snaps me out of my trance, as in my procrastination mode when I don't want to do anything but lay down and do nothing. Time managing is significantly easier to do with this technique.

Pushing Limits

Remember how I said that I'm a sucker for pretty art? In storyboarding, there's less emphasis on art but rather on clarity. I know that I don't need to learn how to anatomically accurately draw EVERYTHING and how clothing flows. I just need to know enough to get my point across; however, I made"Twitter studies" (looking at other people's art on Twitter and trying to copy and incorporate their pretty aspects into my own art)

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I wasted my time on "Twitter Studies."[/caption]

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...from my insecurity from my own style--or is it because I find comfort in doing things I already know?

I've been too comfortable with creating cute anime girls. The only thing I'm doing is repeating my past actions, things that I'm already decent at, and not contributing to my future pursuit of storyboarding.

To overcome this obstacle, I look at other artists who I think are amazing storytellers like Z-Toon and Leonology to remind myself why I'm learning to storyboard.

I've never had a "Twitter study" since except to brush up my skills of course (I also highly recommend this "Twitter study" method to aspiring beginner artists-- that's basically how I got my art to where it is today. Tracing is good as long as you don't try to pass it off as your own or sell it...more on that perhaps in a future post).

Please keep in mind that it is normal to run into obstacles every so often. Trust me, once you're done with them, they will always come back. In a sense, this is not a step to be done once it's done; learning is a continuous cycle. This step will never be finished, but it is crucial to continue on anyways. Those who continue on will develop their skills more, and that's how you can tell who are the most motivated and who are not.

Step 4: Learn Smarter, not Harder

Now with the motivation, the materials on hand, and the distractions (somewhat) minimized, we can finally start learning!

To ensure that I got the most learning from the short time I had, I always tried to learn something new each time I watched or read a tutorial. Once I felt comfortable with an idea, I would move onto the next. Like I said previously, staying on one topic for too long is not only stagnating but detrimental as well because then you cut off other things you need to learn. Especially if you're stuck on one topic because you have a problem with it, staying with it is just plain stupid.

I can't tell you how many times I've seen artists draw the same thing every day: three-quarters view of the same face each day. And they expect to magically be able to draw bodies? Either that or they whine about how they can't draw some body part.

As a proverb from unknown source states,"insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

[caption id="attachment_46" align="aligncenter" width="500"]

Work hard and learn from life, but don't keep drawing the same things![/caption]

My plan was to go through each tutorial from beginning to finish. As a self-taught artist, I do not have the luxury of having a mentor pointing me to the right places, and sadly I found tutorials that were for the more advanced to the more artistically challenged, ones not quite in my skill range. I eventually found one that I understood and had a grasp on but only after an hour of Googling.

Don't get me wrong: tutorials online are great (and they're free)! It's just the matter of finding a good one. Even though they are good and show examples of good storyboarding, I realized that what I was doing, simply reading the text and looking at the pictures, was passive learning. I believe that in order to learn a skill deeply, one should learn it actively. As you can see, I tried to recreate storyboarding sequences from this tutorial but with my own story in mind. In this way, I wasn't simply copying the source but using the information from the source to create my own scenes.

Most importantly, it's good to cut up study sessions because, yes, I did get tired after 3 hours of drawing. By cutting it up into pieces too, the material becomes less overwhelming and your brain retains the information better. Also, it's short and sweet--you'll actually have fun learning. If you think about it, would you rather have a 5 hour study session with 3 hours of you being tired and not retaining that much information? Or would you have 5 different study sessions 1 hour each and get a kick and a lot of information out of each session?

Step 5: Reflect, Rinse, and Repeat

If you noticed from the drawings above, they're not very clear are they? Yeah, it turned out that I know how to draw people...in 5 minutes, not the quick 30 seconds that storyboards demand. I went back to finally establish a quick figure to do more work for the rest of my storyboards.

Then I would go back to storyboarding, find more faults in my art, and then go back to storyboarding. It's a cycle and one where I am still trying to work a style to storyboard quickly and with more expression.

So yeah, don't be afraid to call yourself out on missing out the essentials you thought you had. According to Boser,"to develop a skill, people need to be fluent in the essentials." Not admitting your mistakes or not touching up on the fundamentals will really impede your learning and development as an artist.

Yes, I know that making and recognizing mistakes is painful, but it's all a part of growth. "Mistakes make us rethink who we are, they're a threat to our being" as Boser once said; however, "metacognition [is] just as important as raw intelligence." Even if you don't have "talent" (which I believe is nonexistent by the way), you can still learn to be amazing as "talented" artists if you target your mistakes and learn from them.

I've seen instances where artists critique each other and one party would get totally defensive. There are such things as unconstructive criticism, but sometimes there are constructive ones and people should listen to them without being so offended by it (once again, might make another post about this separately in the future). Through allowing oneself to maker errors and recognize them, then one can learn to fix them and become a better artist and person.

Sadly, I did not reach my original goal of creating animatics. I guess you could say that I was learning the fundamentals of storyboarding before I would storyboard. As previously stated, it's essential to be fluent in fundamentals before diving into anything anyways.

Luckily, learning how to storyboard is like how I learned how to draw in the first place (and basically everything I've learned in life thus far). I imagine that once I get to making animatics, this step would include people critiquing my work (as per usual in art and life) and see problem areas where I need to fix. From there, I would continue to make works and get feedback. It's a continual loop of learning. I'm still expanding on my drawing abilities today as well. Hopefully, I can update you guys on my progress during this winter break.

Till next time!

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symbianosgames · 8 years ago

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The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

[Video Game Deep Cuts is a weekly newsletter from curator/video game industry veteran Simon Carless, rounding up the best longread & standout articles & videos about games, every weekend. This week's highlights include videos on the making of Raw Data & the surprise debut of Scanner Sombre, plus the history of seminal NES emulator NESticle.

A quick and early newsletter this week, since we're in Texas for a few days visiting friends game-centric & non game-centric - among them Venus Patrol/ex-IGF supremo Brandon Boyer (& world's cutest megadog Scout), as well as Gamasutra publisher/EIC Kris Graft.

One thing I did find interesting from the links I still managed to excavate, though - the recent GDC video linked below about the making of VR standout Raw Data has a fairly high dislike-to-like ratio compared to other GDC videos (more dislikes than normal).

Why? Well, partly because the game dared to hit Early Access at $40 USD with a fairly linear story, by the look of it. If the hope was that VR would ensnare the 'core gamer', I'm starting to wonder whether VR experiences are even core gamer-compatible in terms of narrative, linearity & replayability. Which would be a pretty big stumbling block, if true... Anyhow, until next time?

- Simon, curator.]

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The future of dialogue in games (Alex Wiltshire / PC Gamer) "Getting to discover the politics and personalities of a new location should feel like a reward, but the same formulaic text dump from city to city can make you feel awfully weary. Being NPCsplained at with screeds of exposition and feeling you’re taking little meaningful part in it all, game dialogue can make you want to run back into the hills."

[Game] Story - What Is It Good For? (Thomas Grip / Gamasutra Blogs) "This "go write a book instead" attitude isn't new. One of my favorite articles on the subject is Jesper Juul's "Games Telling Stories?". Interestingly, I pretty much agree with all of the points that Juul raises, but reject most of his conclusions. I think that video games are very well suited for telling stories and that there is no inherent conflict. [SIMON'S NOTE: another response to that Bogost article, of course!]"

Early Access Lessons From Raw Data (Chris Hewish & Mike McTyre / GDC / YouTube) "In this 2017 VRDC at GDC session, Survios' Chris Hewish and Mike McTyre break down the technological and artistic challenges, insights, and decisions that continue to influence and evolve the development of Raw Data and helped it climb the Steam charts while still in Early Access. "

When Fans Take Their Love For Twitch Streamers Too Far (Cecilia D'Anastasio / Kotaku) "It was one in the morning when the Twitch streamer Ellohime heard a knock at his front door. He had been grinding away at a PC game that night in December 2015 while his infant daughter and fiancée slept. His 22-year-old brother was crashing in the central Florida home, too, and it wasn’t unheard of for him to invite friends over at odd hours. Ellohime left his desk and went downstairs to the door."

Analysis: 'Scanner Sombre' (Errant Signal / YouTube) "Scanner Sombre is the latest game by Introversion Software, the team that brought you Uplink, Darwinia, DEFCON, and Prison Architect. It's definitely pretty, but what if anything is going on beneath the surface?"

Inside Marvel vs Capcom Infinite: an in-depth interview about accessibility, combos, ditching cross-platform play and sweat equity (Alex Donaldson / VG247) "I sat down with producer Mike Evans and associate producer Peter ‘combofiend’ Rosas to talk about these challenges and chat about Infinite’s gameplay systems in-depth. Rosas in particular is a voice that carries some weight with the fans – he’s a community hire of Capcom’s, and is famous in the fighting game tournament world for performing one of the greatest fighting game comebacks of all time with a lone, vulnerable Spencer in MVC3. He knows his Marvel. Here’s our chat."

Epic, near-EVE-worthy troll sabotages Elite: Dangerous community event (Lee Hutchinson / Ars Technica) "In the vast simulated galaxy of Elite: Dangerous, a years-old mystery concerning an unknown region of space called the Formidine Rift was poised to take a dramatic leap forward on Saturday. An NPC going by the name of Salomé was preparing for a frantic, fast return to the main inhabited core worlds with information that would advance the mystery’s plot. Eliteplayers could choose to try to escort Salomé to safety, or could try to gun her down."

Gamasutra Plays Playerunknown's Battlegrounds with Brendan Greene (Gamasutra Team / Twitch / YouTube) "The Gamasutra crew sits down with Playerunknown, aka Brendan Greene, to talk about the success of Bluehole's latest game Playerunknown's Battlegrounds. [SIMON'S NOTE: the Gamasutra crew are doing more and more live Twitch chats with devs, & here's a particularly notable recent one - more archived on YouTube here.]"

Tumbleseed and the obscure mechanical arcade machine that inspired it (Andrew Webster / Verge) "It never went on to become a huge hit, but for game designer Greg Wohlwend, Ice Cold Beer proved inspirational. So much so that he, along with a small team, set about taking the core mechanic and expanding on it for the new video game Tumbleseed. “We’ve got to be true to the source material,” says Wohlwend of the development process, “out of love and respect for this awesome game that not a lot of people know about.”"

Boom, Headshot! (Martin Annander / Gamasutra Blogs) "However, let’s not rail against violence. That’s not what this is about. Violence can be thrilling, its narrative exciting, and the skills required to master the gameplay can be quite rewarding to attain. We’ve played first-person shooters for decades for reasons other than murder. [SIMON'S NOTE: from a couple of weeks back, but only just spotted it - a powerful partner to Ste Curran's 'Double Tap' GDC 2017 talk?]"

How the Mixed Reality Game 'Bad News' Brings Towns Like 'Twin Peaks' to Life (Steven T. Wright / Glixel) "We were inside a sprawling exhibition hall at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art,where a trio of PhD students from the University of California, Santa Cruz are showing off their project, Bad News – an interactive experience that, much like a play, incorporates aspects of real-world performance."

The Story of NESticle, the Ambitious Emulator That Redefined Retro Gaming (Ernie Smith / Motherboard) "The product of a talented programmer who designed a hit shareware game while he was still in high school, NESticle was so good that everyone looked past the fact its name was basically a dick joke."

In Gacha We Trust: The Appeal of Japanese Free to Play Games (Allen Kwan / Medium) "Richard Garfield recently penned a manifesto on free to play (F2P) games that encourage spending, or what he calls “skinnerware”. While there is perhaps a little bit of irony in the fact that the person responsible for creating one of the bigger “skinnerware” games, Magic the Gathering, writing a manifesto decrying the exploitative nature of these types of games, reading his post made me reflect on the F2P games that I play. [SIMON'S NOTE: this editorial is a little old, but popped up on social media recently & is well worth revisiting!]"

Faithfully updating the art of a classic in Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap (Joel Couture / Gamasutra) "Ben Fiquet spent a great deal of time playing the 1989 Wonder Boy III: The Dragon’s Trap as a child, wandering around its wondrous worlds. The game made a strong impression on him. These feelings would well up again, years later, when Fiquet found himself working on the recently-released remake, Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap."

Rock and Roll Days of StarCraft: a Development Retrospective (StarCraft: Remastered / Blizzard Entertainment) "The year was 1997, and Blizzard art director Samwise Didier’s ’65 Mustang was producing an alarming amount of smoke. The ancient vehicle was held together by little more than duct tape and prayer, and by the time Didier pulled into his garage one sunny Southern California afternoon, it was clear that neither countermeasure would suffice for long."

Interview: The creator of the Conquests adventures on what made them special (GOG.com) "During the steady stream of Quest and Larry games that established [Sierra's] legacy, a couple of less-known but no less-loved titles came along: Conquests of Camelot and Conquests of the Longbow. To celebrate their long-awaited arrival on GOG.com we've approached their creator, Christy Marx, for a chat on what made them so special to her and to so many adventure game fans."

'Hearthstone' Director Ben Brode Talks Surprise Success and Tough Choices (Joshua Calixto / Glixel) "As Hearthstone’s director, Ben Brode has a firm understanding of how much is riding on the game’s complex design. If he and his team tune things to be too random, the competitive scene suffers. Nerf a card too much, and players start to feel like their monetary investments are losing value."

Tom Hall: 5 key design lessons I learned directing Wolfenstein 3D (Jon Irwin / Gamasutra) "Wolfenstein 3D came out exactly 25 years ago, on May 5th, 1992. Nothing was the same after that day. “We knew it was new and special, but we were pretty blown away by the reception,” says Tom Hall, the director and co-designer of the game."

A three-year-old Elite Dangerous mystery is finally unravelling (Wesley Yin-Poole / Eurogamer) "Elite Dangerous players have taken a significant step in solving a mystery that has befuddled its most rabid secret-hunters ever since the game came out. The Formidine Rift mystery, as it's known, kicked off back in 2014 with the release of Drew Wagar's novel Elite Reclamation. Since then players have searched for clues in an attempt to solve this mystery. This week, a major discovery was made that suggests a solution is near."

Lessons from Escape Rooms: Designing for the Real World and VR (Laura E. Hall / GDC / YouTube) "In this 2017 GDC session, escape room designer Laura E. Hall discusses the design fundamentals and structures necessary for creating real-world experiences that offer not only entertainment, but create immersion and transportation for players in order to understand how "physical play" can be a foundation for virtual reality design and beyond. "

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[REMINDER: you can sign up to receive this newsletter every weekend at http://ift.tt/2dUXrva we crosspost to Gamasutra later on Sunday, but get it first via newsletter! Story tips and comments can be emailed to [email protected]. MINI-DISCLOSURE: Simon is one of the organizers of GDC and Gamasutra, so you may sometimes see links from those entities in his picks. Or not!]

#IFTTT #Blogger

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type2diabetestreatments-blog · 8 years ago

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Ask D'Mine: Battling Snark + Surviving Starbucks

New Post has been published on http://type2diabetestreatment.net/diabetes-mellitus/ask-dmine-battling-snark-surviving-starbucks/

Ask D'Mine: Battling Snark + Surviving Starbucks

It's a Holiday weekend, but the surviving-diabetes-train never stops. Our Ask D'Mine weekly advice column host Wil Dubois is workin' overtime to answer your every query.

This week, he's taking on online commenters who bite, and coffee drinks that hopefully don't.

Need help navigating life with diabetes? [email protected]

Chad from Illinois, type 1, writes: When I put up positive messages on some diabetic chat sites I've gotten replies to my posts stating that I must be in denial, or that my "eyes are closed." I'm starting to think that maybe there are people out there who feel it's impossible for someone to be so at peace with a disease like diabetes, and not be full of anger. I'm focused on my family, community and faith. In no way do I feel that I am better or worse than anyone else. I am just different, and I am A-OK with that. What upsets me is when people complain anonymously. I don't want to cause a ruckus with anyone. What would you do to let people know that this is just my own philosophy?

Wil@Ask D'Mine answers: Oh boy, where to start... Well, I don't think you're in denial. I don't think your eyes are closed. And don't worry, you're not the only one at peace with having diabetes. I feel the same way. So at least there's the two of us! But yes, there're a lot of people who cannot conceive of any feeling towards diabetes other than anger. So why the anger?

Well...

People are tired. People are broke. People are scared about the future. And that's just garden-variety people. Add a pesky chronic illness to the mix and ya' gotta great recipe for anger.

But that's only half the story.

Because it gets more complicated.

Because there are no diabetes facts. None of our experts can even agree on something as simple as what the hell we should eat. Hey, medicine is an art not a science, and your mileage will vary. No one wants to admit it, but really all we have is theories. Ideas. Beliefs. Diabetes is more like a religion than a science. And people are pretty sensitive when it comes to their religion.

Now, add all that up and then remember that people are territorial creatures. So we've got an environment with an abundance of anger, a dearth of facts, and very deep personal feelings. Trust me on this: I'm speaking from experience, you can't say anything about diabetes without stepping on someone's toes.

So it's really easy to set people off. Even when you didn't intend too. And to make matters worse, written communication on the web suffers from a lack of visual and auditory cues that help smooth over miscommunication in the face-to-face world. Oh, and on top of that, most people don't read carefully and thoughtfully anymore because they are tired, broke, and scared. And most people don't re-read what they wrote online before they post it. Most people don't even realize how they "sound" online. Some are being rude. Others just sound that way.

But as to ruckus avoidance (and personally, I like causing a good ruckus) I have some advice for you. Bear in mind that except for the absolutely most crazy amongst us... and members of Congress... most people respect your right to have an opinion—even if it's different from their own. Where folks get upset is if they misinterpret you giving your opinion as arguing about their "facts" with them. Or worse yet, trashing their beliefs.

To avoid a ruckus, you just need to make it clear you're speaking for yourself, not proselytizing to them. And you can best do that by just prefacing every comment you leave with the letters "IMO" or "IMHO." That's internet slang for "In My (Humble) Opinion." It's simply a way of flagging to folks when you know you're editorializing. It can go a long way towards avoiding miscommunication with tired, broke and scared people; while also not setting off those the-world-is-carved-in-stone freaks out there who believe that anyone who believes anything differently from them is stupid and wrong. A few simple letters stake out some safe ground for you.

Oh, and about those anonymous folks: They're just a bunch of lily-livered chicken-shit spineless cowards who don't have the frickin' guts to stand up and say what they think in the light of day. I say screw 'em. If they won't say who they are, we shouldn't pay any attention to what they say.

But that's just my opinion... Let the ruckus begin!

Kayla, from Alabama, type 2, writes: I love coffee drinks and Starbucks, but I have stayed away since I was diagnosed. The other day I finally did the big No-No and had a Latte ...I will NEVER do that again. My sugar spiked way up! That really scared me. But who likes black coffee? Is there a certain coffee choice that won't cause such a high glucose rise?

Wil@Ask D'Mine answers: IMO, Starbucks rocks! Oh, and just speaking for myself, I not only like black coffee, I love it. So the answer to your first question is: Me. That's who likes black coffee. (See, Chad, it is possible to have a civilized disagreement in the diabetes social media space!) As to your second question, not all Starbucks Lattes are created equal.

The low-down on Lattes can be found at the Starbucks homepage's most excellent nutrition guide here. Did you know that Starbucks has 14 different species of Lattes on the menu? And the blood sugar impact of each one couldn't be more different.

You know what a carb is, right? Technically, carbs are organic compounds made up of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms, but we can use the carb content of foods and drinks as a proxy measure for how much a given food or drink will impact our blood sugar. We T1s use carb counts to determine how much insulin we need to take to keep each meal from killing us. Although it rarely works out this way, in theory, we T1s could eat anything we wanted so long as we take enough insulin for it. As a type 2, your meds most likely don't give you as much flexibility, but you can count on the fact that the higher the carb count of a food item, the more impact it's likely to have on your blood sugar; the lower the carb count, the less the impact it's likely to have on your blood sugar.

So, at the low end of the carb scale is Starbuck's Tall Skinny Flavored Latte, tipping the carb scale at only 8 grams of carbs. For perspective, that's about the same carb count as a snack-sized bag of baby carrots. I very much doubt that this drink would spike you "way up." At the other end of the spectrum is the Venti Caramel BrulÃ©e Latte at a whopping 88 carbs, almost twice the recommended carb count of an entire meal for a woman with diabetes. That's like chugging your breakfast and lunch in one sitting. I'd place money on that drink being "spiky" for you.

Now some folks are saying that the Tall Skinnies taste pretty much like purÃ©ed baby carrots, and aren't worth drinking; while others find them pretty yummy. I haven't tried one, so I can't say. 'Cause... you know... I drink black coffee. But that's not the point. The point is, there's a whole lot of variation in the carb count of Starbucks Lattes.

So what's going on here? Well, Lattes are basically espresso coffee (carb-free) and milk (not carb-free) and flavorings (maybe carb free and maybe not). Sometimes the milk is whipped up, like in a hot Latte, and other times it's just poured in, like in an iced Latte. Whipped milk is effectively lower in carb 'cause it's foamy and a given amount of 'milk space' is taken up by air. I also cheated. The "Tall" is Starbucks smallest size and the "Venti" is their largest. So I'm comparing apples to oranges. But, hey, you can cheat too. What size was the Latte that screwed up your blood sugar? Wouldn't it be better to have a smaller one than none at all?

I've been doing a lot of experimenting with smaller portions lately and have found that for me at least, I'm happier with less than none.

So, is there a coffee choice that won't cause such a high glucose rise? Yeah. I bet there is. Look up the Latte that punched you in the blood sugar. Find out its carb count. Then scan the menu for something else that sounds yummy with a lower carb count. Maybe a different kind of Latte. Maybe a different size. Try it and see what happens. It may take some trial and error, but it's worth it.

Kayla, your Latte is waiting for you. Go find it. Life is too short to live without Starbucks, IMHO.

This is not a medical advice column. We are PWDs freely and openly sharing the wisdom of our collected experiences — our been-there-done-that knowledge from the trenches. But we are not MDs, RNs, NPs, PAs, CDEs, or partridges in pear trees. Bottom line: we are only a small part of your total prescription. You still need the professional advice, treatment, and care of a licensed medical professional.

Disclaimer: Content created by the Diabetes Mine team. For more details click here.

Disclaimer

This content is created for Diabetes Mine, a consumer health blog focused on the diabetes community. The content is not medically reviewed and doesn't adhere to Healthline's editorial guidelines. For more information about Healthline's partnership with Diabetes Mine, please click here.

Type 2 Diabetes Treatment Type 2 Diabetes Diet Diabetes Destroyer Reviews Original Article

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minnievirizarry · 8 years ago

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Expert Roundup: 55 Experts Give Us Their Take On SEO Trends for 2017

2016 has been rife with activity in the SEO sphere.

Webmasters had to upgrade their strategies to include Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages or AMP, featured snippets, and, perhaps, the biggest shakedown of them all: Penguin 4.0 and its real time updates

But now, 2017 has begun, and, as would be customary, it is time to move on from the past, and to look forward to what this next year will bring to the volatile world of SEO.

Again, we reached into our deep well of influencer contacts—using our NinjaOutreach tool, of course, and we received a stellar response: 55 in total.

Today, before January ends, let us share with you our first expert roundup for this year, featuring more than 50 SEO experts and their take on SEO trends for 2017.

Survival of the Fittest SEOs “Either change or die.”Candid words from Moosa Hemani, our first featured SEO expert and the founder of Inbound Marketing agency, SEtalks.com.

Moosa Hemani

Founder of Inbound Marketing agency SEtalks.com

According to Hemani, a lot of businesses’ and brands’ futures rely largely on what strategy they are currently implementing; specifically, if these strategies are in line with where SEO is heading in 2017.

There is the oft-expressed warning—which we have also advised, to remove or disavow links from: PBNs or private blog networks, bad directories, forums, and blog comments. If you still have a list of this to clean up yet, please make it your New Year’s SEO resolutions.

A Strategy Built on Head Terms Will Start to Cost You More

If your SEO strategy is to focus on head terms so you can keep moving up the ranks bit by painstaking bit to get your coveted chunk of leads, then in theory, you’re right, says Hemani.

But practically speaking, relying on this as a singular strategy is “a recipe for drowning your business and money,” he warns.

Avoid the Gray and Black Hat Areas Altogether

We believe that dabbling in the dark arts—and let’s say the “gray” arts as well, for inclusion’s sake—will eventually do more harm than good when it comes to SEO. Hemani says so too.

The State of Search in 2017: Intent Based Searching

"The most critical change in Google has been the shift in ‘intent’ based searching,” begins Gerry White of UsableContent.co.uk.

Gerry White

SEO specialist and online marketer, UsableContent

Gerry, wh currently works with Just Eat on international SEO, adds: “Google increasingly has been looking at why they [users] have entered that query and what they want from it, rather than the keywords. With the gentle introduction of AI and increased personalization, this will alter how users search over time.”

He also believes that, as voice and mobile become far more effective, search in 2017 will start to shift towards these technologies, particularly in the wake of the last few brands and blogs already making this shift to being truly mobile friendly.

“SEO will increasingly be about relevance and user intent and less about keywords; however, anyone who neglects keyword research and doesn't use the audiences’ natural language will be at a disadvantage."

The State of Search in 2017: Personalized Search Results

For long-time web marketer and nationally acclaimed speaker and teacher

Stoney deGeyter, Google will be giving more importance to personalized search results going forward.

DeGeyter is President of the inbound marketing agency Pole Position Marketing.

Stoney deGeyter

President, Pole Position Marketing

“As more personal data is collected and correlated together between devices, Google and other search engines will use that data to deliver results that are specific to the searcher. This will make branding and brand searches more important than ever in order for companies to become a part of the ‘confirmation bias’ that the search results will inevitably produce,” says deGeyter, who authored “The Best Damn Web Marketing Checklist, Period!”

Search Is Maturing and Will Become More Competitive

"Search is maturing and as such, becoming more competitive,” says Marcus Miller, SEO and Digital Marketing Strategist at the UK Agency Bowler Hat.

Marcus Miller

SEO and Digital Marketing Strategist at UK Agency Bowler Hat

“Paid search results are dominating the page for commercial search queries. We have already seen the move from three to four ads and those ads have recently increased in size. Organic results are diminishing and we often see below the ten blue links of old. We are seeing the testing and initial roll out of ad products in the local space as well, meaning that businesses of all shapes and sizes need to look at paid options to guarantee visibility for commercial search terms,” Miller observes.

Would this mean organic search would become useless in 2017?

Miller doesn’t think so.

“Organic is still critically important though and it may just be that businesses have to look at content marketing and acquiring customers further up the marketing funnel as paid becomes the dominant force for bottom of the funnel search queries,” he says.

As for technical SEO, Miller believes it will grow to become more important, saying: “As we move to a mobile- first index, ensuring your site is fast, user-friendly on all devices, and free of niggling technical issues, will be critical. Companies should consider looking at regular SEO audits to ensure best practices are maintained.”

Miller concludes: “We are moving out of the wild west times of search and SEO. Big brands are ruling the roost. SEO is not enough and businesses need to ensure they have their marketing dialed in to continue to compete in search in 2017 and beyond.”

Link Building “Will Become More of A Challenge” This 2017

Patrick Langridge, who is Head of SEO at digital marketing agency Screaming Frog, had this to say about the state of link building for 2017: “I think that following the recent Penguin update, it's clear that valuable link building—which actually makes a difference for websites—will become more of a challenge into 2017.”

Patrick Langridge

Head of SEO, Screaming Frog

As for the common link building practices of the past, Langridge says: “There are still lots of quick and dirty ways to build links, but Google is certainly becoming smarter at understanding which links to value and which to ignore. Brands and agencies will need to work harder to build the kinds of links that will generate organic growth, rather than spend lots of hours on low quality and low results linking work.”

He adds: “I believe it will be increasingly important to consider relevancy in linking work—this has always been important, but I think it's an area where Google will place more weight moving forward.

Langridge concludes his opinion with this advice: “Brands need to engage with websites and communities where their audience and potential customers actually spend their time, even if these sites don't hold especially high domain trust or authority.”

SEO Will Change Continuously, As Before And As It Will After 2017

"There are always going to be changes year on year and 2017 will be no different,” begins Craig Campbell.

A Glasgow-based SEO Consultant with over 15 years experience, Campbell adds:

Craig Campbell, SEO Consultant

“The key things over the past couple of years that help a website rank is the content and links and that, in my opinion, isn't likely to change too much. There are updates rolled out but these do target spammy links and spammy content and these are required to weed out the rubbish.”

As for other algorithm updates, Campbell calls these “minor changes” that you need to keep on top of to ensure you stay ahead of the competition. He doesn’t believe there will be a case where an update will cause you to come up with a completely new strategy.

“SEO for me has been about decent content and decent links and that hasn't changed much over the years. Of course, videos and infographics keeping people on the site all go a long way to helping the SEO, [but] the main things are doing the basics right first and foremost,” he says.

“People are often taken off track by all the scaremongering or things they read online and in my opinion much of that is complete nonsense,” Campbell , adding, “If you want to rank well for a specific keyword, have some good content, some good on page SEO and some good backlinks and you will get some decent rankings.”

What about social signals, you say, along with all the other new bells and whistles of SEO?

“Others will argue social signals and many other things assist with SEO, In my experience and testing, you don't really need all of the other stuff to rank well. But having social signals and shares on social media will increase traffic so they do go hand in hand,” Campbell says.

He concludes: “But I’d always advise stick to the basics first and foremost and you should be fine for 2017.”

The State of SEO Is A Continuously Shifting Situation

Joseph Gojo Cruz, author of SEO and online marketing blog, Ranking Elite, says the state of SEO is a continuously shifting situation, too.

Joseph Gojo Cruz

Author and founder of Ranking Elite

"SEO is constantly changing and every now and then we keep seeing updates from search engines. I think everyone is pretty much aware of the situation.”

Cruz has been featured on high authority sites such as Flippa.com, SearchEngineJournal, and Ahrefs, to name a few.

SEO: An Ever Moving Target

"SEO is an ever moving target, of course,” agrees Rob Watts, who runs Kent based online marketing company Yack Yack SEO.

Rob Watts

Director at Yack Yack SEO

“I'd expect some SEO opportunities to shrink as the above the fold opportunities in Google and Bing contract for the traditional blue type links,” continues Watts, who has been helping companies with their SEO and marketing for 20 yeas.

“Companies will have to adapt (yet again) to the desires of Google and ramp up their content to make the most of newer opportunities presented. There'll be a greater emphasis on HTTPS, and AMP will become increasingly important."

SEO Has Already Changed—And It is Not Slowing Down

“With Penguin now running as part of the core algorithm, mobile exceeding desktop earnings for Google for the first time, and more and more SERP UI tests rolling out each day... SEO has already changed, and it's not slowing down,” Nick Eubanks comments.

Nick Eubanks

Digital strategist for TrafficSafetyStore.com and Founder of I'm From The Future

Nick is a digital strategist who runs TrafficSafetyStore.com and is the Founder of I'm From The Future, a Philly-based digital agency.

“Now more than ever, brands and bloggers need to be hyper aware of their crawl budget, proper use of content and their sites and pages bounce rates. Dwell time in addition to other qualitative signaling is having huge impacts on rankings and SERP stabilization, and I project this is only going to continue,” Eubanks advises.

SEO Movement 2017: Less Tactical; More Strategic

Philadelphia-based blogger and professor Bill Sebald, who owns the digital agency Greenlane, says he sees more tweaks to AI and improvements to existing models and products.

Bill Sebald

Owner of digital agency Greenlane

“The movement away from tactics in the last few years will continue to be a reality, as SEOs start focusing on more strategic campaigns,” says Sebald.

“Makin your website standout in a more buzzy way, and improving brand exposure and mindshare, will help Google's improving comprehension. That's what I'm putting my chips on for 2017, anyway,” he quips.

Upcoming SEO Changes Will Have ‘A Bit’ Of A Bad Effect

Philip Verghese, otherwise known as Ariel, is a multilingual content marketer who manages different sites in English as well as in Malayalam.

For Verghese, the fact that there will be lots of changes in the state of SEO for 2017 is something he considers predictable.

Philip Verghese

Multilingual content marketer

"Since every now and then changes are taking place in SEO strategies itself, the strategy of today may not work after some time and it becomes an outdated one. Google, too, will look down on it as an outdated [strategy] and we need to look out for a new one. Coping with it is a bit difficult task,” he says, citing Google’s “Mobilegeddon” movement, which forced many web masters to develop Accelerated Mobile Pages or AMP—that is, mobile friendly websites.

“Ultimately, opening/loading speed is the key here. In this fast-moving world, everyone wants to move in a fast-paced manner, and in such situation, AMP works wonders. Google utilized this opportunity well since AMP are specifically designed to load fast and it provides a better, user-friendly option,” he adds.

Verghese cautions, however, that these upcoming changes will have somewhat of a bad effect on already existing strategies imposed by brands and bloggers.

Disappearance of Organic Reach; Introduction of Site-less Web Search; Post-Truth State of Publishing

Tadeusz Szewczyk, also known as Tad Chef, is an online marketing consultant who authored the SEO 2.0 ebook and manages a blog of the same name.

When asked for his opinion about the state of SEO for 2017, Szewczyk, had much to say.

Tadeusz Szewczyk

Online marketing consultant, author of the SEO 2.0 blog and ebook

“Yes, there are plenty of changes when it comes to search that will matter in 2017.

Some are just gradual processes that have been taking place for years but which reach critical mass now. Other developments are happening more or less over night even though they too have been in the making for a while.

There are three major changes I'd like to focus on:

The disappearance of organic reach.

The introduction of the site-less web search.

The ‘post-truth’ state of publishing.

When it comes to #1, we need to come clean and admit that simply optimizing for organic Google results or Facebook reach is not sufficient anymore. Organic search is not only invisible on mobile phones.

Even large monitors and desktop computers struggle to display any organic results on Google. Kids and teens can't even distinguish between ads and results anymore.

#2. With hardware like Google Home or Amazon Echo, real life assistants overtake the last technology free space. People ask assistants what movies to watch, which food to order or which candidate to elect.

These ‘speakers’ do not even have a display. There is no way to see a website or even the need to determine the source of the advice. Websites get cut out as the proverbial middleman.

2016 has meant a paradigm shift in publishing, pushed by reactionary politics.

#3 is the so-called ‘post-truth’ state of the public discourse.

For publishing, it means not that the truth sells but that the most attractive lie prevails.

In a way, publishing merges with advertising and propaganda. Fake news and true lies spread faster and wider than hard facts. People don't seek the truth but only want their biased opinion affirmed.

- How can you optimize websites or content when there is almost no room left for it?

- How can websites rank when there is not even a search engine result visible anymore?

- How can you compete against fake news, blatant lies and myths spreading like wildfire?

There is only one strategy to deal with all those roadblocks. It's about holistic popularization.

It's not limited to search, engines, or other gatekeepers like Facebook. It's about popularizing your message independently of narrow channels, proprietary websites, or simple facts.

You need to make your truth more attractive than the lies, spread itself like memes, and make people search for it—not just you and your site."

The State of Search in 2017: Mobile-Focused SEO

International SEO consultant and writer Gabriella Sannino gave her own take, highlighting a more mobile-focused SEO for 2017.

Gabriella Sannino

International SEO consultant and writer

"There's no question in my mind that mobile search will increasingly become a more competitive factor than it already is. Specifically in three main areas:

Mobile Experience

It's pretty obvious, I think, that putting mobile experience first should become a top priority for brands and bloggers alike. Google's been pushing mobile first for a few years now, at least, but there are still many brands - including big name brands - who have abysmal mobile websites. Perhaps they think they can carry on with the name alone, but I think we'll start seeing even the big name brands suffering with a less than stellar mobile site.

So first and foremost, brands and bloggers should be moving mobile up into a more prominent position in their marketing strategies. Instead of mobile being a low priority, it should be in the top three - if not the top.

Voice Search

Shifting towards a mobile universe also points directly at voice search. We have Google Now, Siri, Cortana, and Alexa, to ask a myriad of questions. We have voice recognition programs such as Microsoft's native voice program and Dragon Naturally Speaking. We talk to our phones, tablets, computers, televisions, and cars - and we expect a response. The way we interact with our electronic devices is evolving into the realms of science fiction.

With voice search, brands and bloggers will need to recognize that people searching by voice won't be as patient and willing to research as someone searching through type. While the query may be the same, what's considered acceptable results could vary greatly.

Monitoring Content Performance, Ranking, and Local

Finally, but again in tune with the mobile direction, publishers will need to consider what type of content they've been publishing compared to the devices and methods of search. However, these aren't really new ideas—these are the same things they should have been doing all along.

For example:

* Compare terms and ranking with content performance.

* Make sure link outreach programs are to relevant sites.

* Makes sure your local information in the search engines is correct.

* Keep your NAP updated and uniform.

* Make sure citations are correct

At the end of the day, search is still evolving, and its direction is mobile, voice, and, I dare I say, Artificial Intelligence. Brands and bloggers have to be ready to embrace this future, or they'll be left in the past."

SEO Will Be Driven by Mobile User Behavior and Social Signaling

According to CEO of Agent-cy Online Marketing Jasmine Sandler: “SEO results will be driven more and more from mobile user behavior, particularly mobile app search and of course, online PR, with real credible backlinks from publishers and bloggers.”

Jasmine Sandler

CEO of Agent-cy Online Marketing

Sandler is a multi-awarded digital marketer and trainer with over 15 years of experience in B2B digital marketing consulting.

“Social Signaling will continue to become more important to Google as the Twitter-Google indexing matures,” says Sandler, who also authored books on online branding and social selling, titled ‘Branding & Sales: The LinkedIn Way’, and ‘How to Brand Yourself Online like a CEO’.

Increased Use of Voice Assistants Will Affect Keyword Optimization

For John Rampton, the Co-Founder and CEO of Due, an online invoice and payments company, sharing his opinion about online marketing and the state of SEO is part of the job—especially since he travels all over the world to speak in many such conferences.

John Rampton

Internet marketing speaker, Co-Founder, and CEO of invoice and payments company Due

“The increased use of voice assistants on smartphones to assist with searches, which is changing what keywords are used because users are employing more natural language than when they type in keyword for their searches,” says Rampton.

He adds: “That means brands and bloggers will have to re-examine what type of keywords are used and change their strategies to align with the use of voice command searches.”

Keywords No Longer Enough; Longer Tail, Keyword Phrases Are The Way To Go

Janice Wald, internet marketing coach and author of “An Insider’s Guide to Building A Successful Blog”, says she does see changes in line for SEO in 2017.

Janice Wald

Internet marketing coach and author

“Long tail keywords are more important than ever. It makes sense. If searches contain phrases, our keywords should contain phrases, so our articles come up in the searches.

To be considered "long tail," the keyword phrase should be at least four words long. I recommend the site Soovle.com as a place to find long-tail keywords that go with your content.

How does this affect current SEO strategies?

Clearly, keywords are not enough anymore to bring organic traffic to our websites. They need to be keyword phrases, at least four words long.”

SEOs Will Need to Focus More On Content Engagement

"In 2017 we will see the rise of machine learning,” says Scott Gombar, a digital marketer who hosts “The SEO Tear Down”, a weekly live video podcast about SEO.

Scott Gombar

Digital Marketer and Host of The SEO Tear Down

“Google’s RankBrain will continue to become a bigger part of the Google Search Algorithm. Website owners and SEOs will need to focus more attention on content engagement because Google will place more value on:

Comments on content

Sharing of content

Time spent on a post/page

Natural links back to content

This means SEO/Content Developers/Website Owners will need to develop content that is of high value and unique in nature.”

Days of Easy Google Rankings Are Over As Google’s Quality Standards Increase

Suprabhat Mondal is a digital marketer who has worked on SEO for companies such as Wondershare and CouponzGuru.

According to Mondal, Google upped its standards, and will continue to do so this 2017.

Suprabhat Mondal

SEO & digital marketer; CEO and Founder of Money Gossips

“If compared with 2008, Google got wise. They shut bad, poor quality stuff down; reciprocal linking stopped having any value. Sites were massively punished and remain punished to this day, most of them. Adwords accounts shut down for good. It was carnage! Those days of easy google rankings are gone, and they are gone for good.

Search engines have moved on. If you pay someone to create a huge amount of backlinks with just one click like GSA, SENuke, MoneyRobot etc, remember Google is watching you, surely it will punish you.

Even building one single link, by definition, is actually going against Google’s code of practice.

Today, the only strategy that should be imposed by bloggers and brands should be focusing much on Quality Content rather than link building.

SEO that works today, and will work permanently in the future is to not do SEO anymore.

The more quality and in-depth content you will write, popular sites like Mashable, TechCrunch, Entrepreneur (Popular site in your niche will link you naturally).

Instead, naturally promote your sites in the ways that Google will love & respect. In reward, Google will naturally rank them.”

There Will Be A Greater Push Towards User Activity On A Site

Jason Quey is a business consultant whose job is to connect entrepreneurs with influencers.

According to Quey, SEO in 2017 will continue to put more bearing on user activity on a site.

Jason Quey

Business consultant

“I think there will be a greater push towards user activity on a site. Just as social sites have used it with their algorithms, the more someone is engaged with a website or piece of content, the more Google wants to deliver that to the person.”

Links Still Important, But Producing Valuable Content More Important

Dev is the founder of a popular WordPress resource site, wpkube.com. For Dev, link building won’t be the sole driver of SEO for 2017.

wpkube.com

"I think in 2017, bloggers need to focus on things like HTTPS, site speed, user experience, CTR, and publishing epic content, instead of just building links.

Links will still be a part of SEO, but more focus should be on creating content provides value."

What We’ve Been Calling ‘Quality Content’ Isn’t Good Enough Anymore

Kathryn Aragon

Content strategist, consultant, and author

“Three things traditionally impact SEO: keyword research, quality content, and link building.

Going into 2017, I see brands realizing that the only way to win is to create higher value, better quality content.

What we've been calling quality content isn't good enough anymore.

We have the tools to do keyword research and outreach (ahem, NinjaOutreach, anyone?). But there are no shortcuts for creating content. As a result, brands and bloggers are having to step up their game.

In the coming year, I see a much greater focus on quality over quantity as a result.”

Emphasis On Higher Quality Content And User Experience

Ryan Amen

Marketing Director at Nifty Marketing

"I think we will continue to see increased emphasis on quality user experience & more unnamed ‘core’ updates. Having content on topics isn’t going to be enough to compete & producing content that is 2x-10x better than competing pages on the topic will continue to increase as a priority for brands.

There’s still a lot of poor quality content performing well in search results, but if you want to get ahead of the curve, focus on creating pages & content that blow the competition away as far as how useful it is to your audience.

Google wants to serve the best result for the searched term/phrase & eventually, it will only be a matter of personal preference (which also comes into the equation/result) that will be up for debate on what the best (Google served) result is.”

Google Organic Search Ranking Algorithms Favor User Engagement Signals Over CTR

Larry Kim

Founder of WordStream

"Google's organic search ranking algorithms are increasingly favoring user engagement signals like click through rates and dwell time.

While links and keywords still matter, SEOs should shift some of their attention to identifying and fixing low CTR and high bounce-rate pages that are (a) likely not realizing their full potential and (b) most likely a drag on *other* pages on your site as Google evaluates user engagement metrics not just on the basis of individual keywords and pages, but of your overall site.

Sites that are most vulnerable to this ongoing shift in ranking factors will be sites with high ‘domain authority’ that were able to rank on large portfolios of search queries by cranking out volumes of lower quality content."

Kim also developed free marketings tools for Facebook, AdWords, and SEO and he hosts columns about marketing and entrepreneurship on his blog, Inc. Magazine, and Medium.

Algorithms Keep Changing, But SEO Has Essentially Stayed The Same

Jeff Ferguson

Founder and CEO of Fang Digital Marketing

“I think the algorithms that influence most SEOs are constantly changing; however, in reality, SEO has never really changed. It has always been about providing quality content to your users on a properly built site that naturally attracts links from other sites (because of quality content).

How Google lays out its results matters, but chasing that instead of focusing on making your own product great is a losing game.”

Engagement And CTR Go Hand In Hand

Peter Attia, Modernize Director of Content and Search

“One thing that continues to become more important is engagement and click through rate metrics. We've seen a lot of correlation between these metrics and organic rankings and they seem to become stronger over time. I expect this trend to continue and possibly grow into other engagement metrics.”

SEO Is In A Constant State Of Flux

Craig Kilgore

Digital marketing and inbound sales consultant based in New York

“SEO is in a constant state of flux, which is no surprise to most.

Over the last decade, I’ve noticed SEO to be one of the most overthought components of digital marketing. People tend to get tunnel vision when it comes to SEO and they fail to see and capitalize on the obvious.

For example, if you’re not currently focusing on the level of impact (both positive and negative) user experience signals have on SEO, yet you obsess over writing the perfect meta descriptions and header tags (which are important, don’t get me wrong), you’re guilty of this tunnel vision I speak of.

Leverage free / low-cost tools like Google Analytics and Hotjar to gain a complete understanding of where, and more importantly why, visitors are or aren’t doing what you hoped they’d do when you published that new page on your site, wrote that new blog post, or created that new landing page.

Leave your assumptions at the door and give your visitors exactly what they want.

Aimlessly creating for the sake of creating has gone on for far too long and it absolutely influences your SEO outcomes.

The web is overflowing with content.

Many SEO / digital marketing practitioners look at content creation as a silver bullet. The more content we create, the better off we’ll be.

To succeed in 2017, you must get out of this mindset. More is not always better. Spend more time understanding your visitors and what’ll keep them engaged.

Learn more about what they like, what they share, what they recommend, what they forward, and what’ll make them want to come back to your site.

Train yourself to stay in this mindset versus the “create, create, create” mindset, and you’ll begin to see that your visitors are now spending more time on your site, sharing more of your content, subscribing to more of your emails, signing up for more of your webinars, etc. Isn’t this what we all want? This is what Google and other search engines want, too.

Make it a point to fully understand your visitors, create only what they need (not what you think they need), and you'll be left with a fully engaged and tuned in audience, making 2017 your best SEO year."

Mobile SEO Is The New Frontier

Glen Dimaandal

CEO of GDI Online Marketing, CEO

“I would bank on a renewed focus on technical SEO with respect to mobile devices to carry our campaigns in 2017.” This, coming from Glen Dimaandal, the CEO of GDI Online Marketing, a Philippine-based SEO agency.

Glen has already spoken in major SEO conferences such as SMX West and Confluence, and he shares digital marketing insights in his blog GlenDemands.com.

“Mobile SEO will be more vital to B2C sites than ever. There seems to be no let-up in the growth of mobile internet usage and Google will certainly want to capitalize on that.

The shift in strategy will likely lean away from looking at the customer buying cycle through the lens of just desktop devices.

A more multi-touch approach involving both desktop and mobile devices will be the way to go.”

SEO Will Become An Even Bigger Battlefield

Arnout Hellemans

SEO specialist

“Yes, more voice-activated searches and answer boxes (knowledge graph). You either build a brand or have quality content to appear in these answers [...] This will become an even bigger battlefield.”

Arnout Hellemans is an SEO specialist who optimizes pages both for NL and international SEO.

Google Will Be Laser Focused On Mobile Search

Tommy Landry is the Founder and President of Return On Now and provides the vision behind the company’s SEO and SEM methodologies.

ommy Landry

Founder and President of Return On Now

"Over the past couple of years, we've watched Google put a laser focus on mobile search. That trend will only accelerate in 2017.

You will see this occur in several areas:

Mobile first search algorithms: Google has already gone on record as saying mobile will come ahead of desktop in the new year. This makes a great deal of sense, as we are seeing well over half of searches occur on phones and tables.

AMP: Accelerated Mobile Pages was a bit slow to show adoption in the very early days, but more and more webmasters and SEOs are getting on board to close out 2016. Google Search Console even has a view where you can verify that your AMP pages are showing up properly. AMP will provide important benefits for page load time and mobile UX, and I anticipate it will hit critical mass before the end of next year.

Voice Search / Machine Learning Enhancements: Also piling on the mobile topic, voice search is poised to become a crucial piece of the search puzzle. Google and other search engines will continue to enhance the sophistication of their algorithms using machine learning, and this will in turn help improve the usefulness of voice search in tandem.

So bottom line: If you haven't already pivoted to focus on mobile, you're already too late. Work hard to catch up, because this will be more important in the coming months."

Massive Mobile SEO Movement: Don’t Get Left Behind!

Dennis Goedegebuure is the Vice President for Growth & SEO at Fanatics Inc. In this role, he oversees the creation of social content, content amplification and all SEO efforts for the Fanatics network of partner sites.

Dennis Goedegebuure

Vice President for Growth & SEO at Fanatics Inc.

"If you haven’t thought of a mobile strategy for 2017, you just have 3 weeks to sit down and get yourself one.

With the increasing growth of time spend on the mobile phones, Google introducing a mobile first approach to search, you can expect a whole lot of changes coming down.

This would include; how are you handling mobile pages or are you implementing AMP? What about a progressive webapp strategy vs your own app? And have you thought about the changing behaviors of the people you are targeting, they might adopt voice search faster than you thought."

Prior to Fanatics, Dennis has spent 10+ years in various SEO positions, recently as Head of Global SEO at Airbnb.

Before Airbnb, Dennis was with eBay for almost 10 years, last in the position of SEO Director for all eBay global marketplaces. He started his career with eBay in The Netherlands, working on the local eBay site and Marktplaats.nl, the local classified site from eBay, and the country’s e-commerce leader.

Web Page Optimization And Quality Content

Debbie Miller is the Digital Communications Manager for a digital marketing agency in Southern California. She also runs her own brand and side business, Social Hospitality, where she blogs about digital trends and provides writing, editing, and social media services.

Debbie Miller

Digital Communications Manager; owner of Social Hospitality

"If you haven’t thought of a mobile strategy for 2017, you just have 3 weeks to sit down and get yourself one.

With the increasing growth of time spend on the mobile phones, Google introducing a mobile first approach to search, you can expect a whole lot of changes coming down.

Prior to Fanatics, Dennis has spent 10+ years in various SEO positions, recently as Head of Global SEO at Airbnb.

Google Switch To Mobile-First Search Will Trigger Technical SEO Resurgence

Chris Countey

SEO Technical Manager at Publicis Health

"Google switching from a desktop-first to a mobile-first index is likely to have a major impact on search. It will be interesting to see how Google will handle PageRank with the new index since most sites link to each other via responsive or desktop site versions, not usually mobile.

For brands and bloggers that still use a mobile version (m dot), they should begin evaluating the setup of their websites now.

Mobile alternation and proper canonicalization will be key, as well as ensuring that they think mobile-first in terms of content development. Many m dot sites are developed as ‘lightweight’ versions of the desktop site, usually leading to less content and a general reduction in experience for the user.

Another consideration is how we currently track rankings. Even tools like SEMRush take a desktop-first approach to keeping track of positions. I've seen some incorrect data in tools tracking ‘mobile visibility’ so hopefully that gets worked out.

I think this change will result in a resurgence of technical SEO, especially as mobile search optimization paves the way for the optimization of the internet of things."

SEO 2017: Putting Mobile First

Jordan Kasteler is a freelance marketing consultant and entrepreneur who co-founded SteelCast, a tech incubator housing several other self-started companies, and served as Managing Partner of BlueGlass Interactive, an Internet marketing agency.

Jordan Kasteler

Marketing consultant and entrepreneur

“The major change in 2017 is putting mobile first. Google will base a site's ranking on how it appears on mobile instead of how they traditionally do it now by focusing on desktop.

Mobile site content should reflect what the desktop site reflects as well. This also means that mobile sites with interstitials that are obtrusive will be penalized as they don't create a good user experience.”

Jordan also worked as in-house SEO at Overstock.com and as marketing strategist for PETA. He is also an international conference speaker and author of “A to Z: Social Media Marketing”.

Shift From Long Form Content To Video Content

Steven Macdonald, SuperOffice online marketer

Based in Tallinn, Estonia

“I think the biggest change in SEO for 2017 will be a shift in moving all written content to video content.

Today, SEOs are under the impression that longer form content will rank highly and so many try to game this by writing 10,000+ word pieces of content.

By 2019, 80% of all content consumed online will be through video. SEOs cannot game video content as it requires a completely new skill set.

The top SEOs will be focusing more on video in 2017 and less on the written word.”

A Lot of Changes; Remain Cautious With SEO Strategy

Fervil Von Tripoli

SEO specialist and digital marketing strategist

Based in the Philippines

“Google is getting clear on its intention to go mobile. We’ve seen big data showing how rapid mobile searchers grow in numbers. Google started rolling out a lot of algorithm changes which pushed SEOs to conform with the mobile standard and making websites more useful than ever.

I’ve actually mentioned these algorithm updates in 2016. These are some of the highlights that SEO practitioners should take into consideration in the upcoming months and years.

The Google search is very volatile now. With all the algorithm updates we’ve seen in the past, SEOs should be wary of the SEO strategies they are building up for business websites.

Back then, SEOs solely focus their energy on keywords and backlinks. In 2017 onwards, every SEO practitioners will need to evolve into T-shaped web marketers.”

Social Media Site Content Will Show Up More In Search Engine Results

Seb Brantigan, also known as the Britpreneur, is an online marketer. He also provides training on lead generation strategies.

Seb Brantigan

Online marketer and trainer

"I have a few things I want to comment on; Personally, I see social media sites appearing in the search engines more, at present Facebook doesn't often take up top taking slots for keyword specific terms. However, static content is losing its value.

Any static content such as press releases and articles I believe will lose their SEO value more over time.

Also, I believe there will come a time where you can find content from other websites inside Facebook's search tool. You can always find news articles people have shared, but I feel that Facebook will start to grab more search users.

Finally, video seems to be really emerging as they keep users on the website for longer periods of time, in particular live videos. Videos will definitely keep increasing in popularity and brands or businesses should be switching over to videos when creating content, as YouTube videos are much easier to rank in the search engines than non-authority websites."

Continued And Growing Focus On Mobile SEO

James Reynolds is the founder of Veravo which consists of three search engine marketing agencies; SEO Sherpa, SEO Partner, and Click Jam. He is a contributor to several leading publications including Entrepreneur Magazine and mentors startup companies in his free time.

James Reynolds

Founder of Veravo and SEO Sherpa

"I expect there to be a continued (and growing) focus by SEOs on the mobile web.

The signs are there for all to see with Google's push on; Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP), the mobile first index, Google Now, Google Home and Progressive Web Apps. All of these things have come to the forefront in 2016 and will continue be a focus in 2017.

For maximum visibility in the years ahead, brands and bloggers should ensure their pages are fast, easy to index, and mobile-friendly.

That means more focus on structured data, AMP pages, page speed and the removal of unnecessary interstitials (popups)."

SEO Algorithm Updates And Penalties Should Come With More Transparency

Michael Cottam

SEO consultant and Moz Associate

“This past year, Google has suffered some pretty terrible teething pains in Analytics (the Keyword Planner tool) and in Search Console (various metrics broken), plus with a major upheaval in how Penguin works and big mysteries as to what algorithmic penalties still live in the system.

My hope is that Google will fix their major bugs in 2017, bring clarity to webmasters in the world of Google penalties, and—in my dream world—they'll bring accurate and un-blocked keyword search volume data back for webmasters.”

Michael is a technical SEO consultant, specializing in on-page optimization and penalty recovery. He is a Moz Associate, and a past board member of SEMpdx.

SEO Becomes More Integrated Into Cohesive Digital Marketing Strategies

Eric Hebert

Founder of Evolvor Media

“SEO will continue to become more integrated into cohesive digital marketing strategies.

No longer will companies be "looking for an SEO" but will get smarter about hiring or employing talent and teams that can develop marketing campaigns that include SEO and have a direct impact on SEO, especially the link building aspects.

Teams will have to think more about REAL marketing that has added SEO benefits instead of just purely thinking about keywords and backlinks.”

Eric is the founder of Evolvor Media, a digital marketing agency located outside of Philadelphia.

Ranking On Google Will Become Easier With Penguin Real Time Update

Shounak Gupte

Web developer & SEO specialist

"Ranking in the SERPs on Google will become easier with Penguin becoming real time.

Three trends to look out for in 2017 are:

Marketing Plan

Complete Marketing plan will replace just a simple SEO strategy. Your marketing plan should include On-page optimization, Off-page strategies, Social, Paid, Advertising etc.

Optimize for users

You should also concentrate on optimizing your website for users rather than concentrating too much on keywords and topics. Better website structure, UX and load times will get better visibility in SERPs.

Voice Search

Voice search will keep gaining popularity. Marketers and bloggers will have to think outside the box to optimize websites to get more traffic from voice."

Shounak Gupte is a Melbourne based web developer & SEO specialist.

Google Will Get Smarter, But The Power of Links Remain

Ben Wynkoop

SEO specialist

“Google's algorithm will continue to get smarter, but links will continue to be the single most important ranking factor for years to come.

Specifically, editorial links are very powerful because they are often earned when a website is referenced.

However, I am surprised that coming into 2017, so many brands are involved with philanthropic efforts, but do not prominently feature this on their website to earn links through public relations efforts.

Look at the "Responsibility" section on Starbucks.com for a perfect example. Post news about your philanthropic efforts to this section, publish a press release that references the announcement with a link, and reach out to relevant journalist and bloggers for coverage.”

Ben Wynkoop is a local SEO specialist in Orange County, California.

Google Machine Learning Will Affect Keyword Usage

Simon Penson

Founder and Managing Director of Zazzle Media

“Google is heading one way; to a future that is focused entirely on understanding the subtle nuances of how we speak, learn and converse.

That means the days of 'keywords', certainly in the way we have historically used them, are over. Focus should now be on the audience and that's a truly wonderful thing for marketers. [This] allows marketing teams to create the best products, experiences and content possible.

SEO will still have its place to ensure platforms are fit for purpose but the only game in town will be brilliant content execution.”

Simon Penson is the Founder and Managing Director of Zazzle Media, a UK based content marketing agency. Prior to digital, Penson spent 10 years as a print editor.

More Emphasis On Content Creation and Link Acquisition

Venchito Tampon

CEO and Co-Founder of SharpRocket

"Yes, a lot. Starting with mobile indexing, optimizing for voice search, so and so forth. These things if you're not aware may be taken advantage of by your competitors to improve their search visibility and to win the market share of your industry.

Content creation and link acquisition should be given more emphasis than ever.

Creative teams would have more jobs as well as those that specialize in enterprise link building, they will get more attention nowadays (as getting links and creating 10x content will be much harder in the next years to come)."

Venchito Tampon is the CEO and Co-Founder of SharpRocket, a link building company based in Asia.

A Shift Towards Technical SEO And Quick Answers

Sean Si

CEO and Founder of SEO Hacker and Qeryz

“I believe that we're already seeing the shift go to technical SEO and quick answers.

Now that it's easier to get your site from rank 5 to rank 0 (AKA 'Featured snippets') rather than rank 5 to rank 1, people and other organizations may focus on giving out quick answers that would lead people to 'read more' or 'know more' in their site.

Ranking at #0 has proved to be effective in bringing in traffic. Technical SEO has a part to play in that too in the sense that if you make it easier for Google to read and understand your site with Schema, it's easier to get to rank 0.”

Good Or Bad Ads On Your Site Will Start To Impact Your SEO

Ziv Eliraz

CEO, Infolinks

“We see that the type of ads you have on your site start to impact the SEO of your site. You still need to have great, original, relevant content, but to be mindful about an overly intrusive ad experience.”

Ziv Eliraz is the CEO of Infolinks, an advertising platform.

Business As Usual

James Norquay

Director at Prosperity Media

“Most business owners who engage in high-quality SEO will continue to do well in 2017. Brands need to ensure they make full use of schema markup and focus on long tail SEO traffic to drive more visibility. “

No Fundamental Changes

David Farkas is the Founder & CEO of The Upper Ranks, a boutique Link Building company that services clients all over the world.

David Farkas

Founder and CEO, The Upper Ranks

"I don't see any fundamental changes and believe that links along with great content will continue to remain the core component of the algorithm for 2017 and the foreseeable future.

To quote Gary Illyes from a few months back, ‘ranking without links is really really hard.’”

A Couple of Big Changes, But Nothing Totally New

Nate Shivar is a marketing educator & SEO consultant based in Atlanta, GA.

Nate Shivar

Marketing educator & SEO consultant

"I think there will be a couple big changes in SEO in 2017. Neither are new, but 2017 will be the ‘tipping point’ where brands & bloggers can no longer rely on temporary fixes.

First will be foundational website technology & processes.

Search engines will continue to place an emphasis on speed, security, mobile experience & semantic markup. None of those are new.

But in 2017, the emphasis will reach a point where bloggers & brands can no longer ‘bolt-on’ solutions.

They'll have to take a hard look at their fundamental website technology & processes. If they don't address their foundational issues—they'll simply fall impossibly far behind competitors who have a solid technical foundation and can quickly roll out changes.

Second will be keyword & persona research.

Again, neither change is new, but I think 2017 will see a tipping point where the old, best practice methods for keyword & persona research will no longer work.

Bloggers & brands will need to start paying more for information, and they'll need to get more creative in deciding where to look."

The Era of Major Changes In Google Is Over

Harris Schachter

SEO & Content Marketing Manager of Capital One; Owner of OptimizePrime, LLC

"Personally, I think the era of major changes in Google algorithms is over with. We will never again see the huge fluctuations across all industries like we have seen since the ‘90s.

Rather, now that Google is heavily invested in machine learning to drive their search algorithm, changes will be so rapid and minuscule that the signal is indistinguishable from the noise.

Furthermore, these changes will be limited to specific search intents as the technology increased its breadth of understanding and responds to searcher response.

The only change I think we'll really see is the continued focus on this channel by companies large and small. Investment here will not slow down."

Harris Schachter is SEO & Content Marketing Manager at Capital One, and owner of OptimizePrime, LLC, a digital marketing agency.

Different Tactics Come And Go, But Fundamental Strategies Remain The Same

Dominic Wells

Owner, HumanProofDesigns.com

“Different tactics come and go like always, but the fundamental strategies will be the same for the foreseeable future.

Connect with others in your niche, get backlinks, features, and referrals from them, and build a strong brand based on your networking skills. Simple.”

Dominic Wells owns HumanProofDesigns.com, a company that builds affiliate websites.

SEO Will Continue To Become More Integrated With Other Content Disciplines

John Doherty is the founder of GetCredo.com, an SEO and digital marketing agency and consultancy.

John Doherty

Founder of GetCredo.com

Based in Denver, Colorado

"I think SEO as a discipline is going to continue to become more integrated with the other disciplines of content, PR, and paid acquisition.

Gone are the days of each working in a silo. The brands that really win are going to have these integrated and work together to grow the company.

On the pure SEO side, I expect more of the same from the search engines—fighting link spam, iterating on search results, pushing organic more below the fold on the search results pages, and wanting to reward great content.

I think we'll see dwell time signals (time on site, interactions with pages they visit, bouncing back to the SERPs) become stronger and stronger as Google gathers more data."

Dennis Seymour

Digital marketer and entrepreneur

"I don't see anything really major. Sure, we're moving more and more towards mobile but the core algorithm and ‘purpose’ is still working the same. It's always like this at this time of each year when we all ‘call’ the demise of a certain something only to realize that ‘Hey, it's still practically the same!’

There's really one major thing that I'm sure publishers will focus on more and that's creating even MORE content.

Some will be wiser with their budget but the majority will just continue to churn them out like it's nothing.

Google will probably do more things about this to lessen the trash to spread more opportunities to the little guys. Maybe."

Follow The Google

Ken Lyons

Co-Founder & Managing Partner of Digital Examiner and Measured SEM, LLC

"SEO strategists need only take their cues from Google on where to focus their efforts in 2017.

Google has clearly dictated where search is headed in the near term with continued focus on the mobile experience (look at AMP, Mobilegeddon, boosting the mobile-friendly algos, mobile SEO speed signals and test tools, the pending mobile interstitials update; a continued focus on moving to a secure web (look at HTTPS as a ranking signal and the pending connection security update); and an increased focus on providing ‘precise and fast’ responses directly in the SERPs (look at Hummingbird, knowledge cards, the explosion in answer boxes).

If you focus on those three core aspects as part of your SEO efforts in 2017 (mobile experience, security, and providing better answers to questions than your competitors), you'll be ahead of the game."

Google Will Continue To Move In Pretty Much The Same Direction

Tom Demers is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Measured SEM LLC was Directmor of Marketing for search marketing software provider WordStream.

Tom Demers

Co-Founder, Managing Partner at Measured SEM LLC

"I see Google continuing to move in the same general direction that they have been on a few issues—specifically:

Featured Snippets / Quick Answers

For a lot of queries Google is moving more and more to providing answers in-line in search results - I'd expect some of these formats to mature and get more real estate, and I'd expect this to be integrated in more and more search results.

Better Understanding Queries

Google's invested a lot in trying to better understand the intent behind searcher queries and to move beyond some of the older more literal ways of answering searches with updates like Hummingbird and RankBrain—as voice search becomes more prevalent this seems likely to be a growing emphasis.

Emphasis on Engagement Metrics

I see Google continuing to incorporate signals like click-through, engagement metrics, etc. in determining the results most likely to create a positive experience for searchers.

Generally I think this means for brands and bloggers that they'll want to focus in a lot of the same core areas for SEO:

- Creating long-form, unique content that they promote effectively and aggressively

- Creating content that searchers want that effectively answers their query

- Being cognizant of the type of content Google ‘likes’ to display in featured snippets”

Demers also worked as an in-house SEO specialist and SEO Manager, and now does consulting.

2017 Not Likely To Bring Any Radical Changes to SEO

Matt Press is a copywriter who has written words for UK based brands such as Sky, Three and Vodafone. He now runs his own content marketing agency, Splash Copywriters.

Matt Press

Copywriter and manager of Splash Copywriters

“I'm not expecting any radical changes. I see 2017 being very similar to 2016. Why should Google alter something that's already working [and improving year-on-year]?

Of course, there'll be more emphasis on mobile results, since the stats show that most of us search on the move, but Google will still want to return the best search results.

As such, that'll mean a continued emphasis on content and links.”

No Major SEO Changes In 2017; Focus On User Experience

Swadhin Agrawal

Entrepreneur & blogger

Swadhin Agrawal is an entrepreneur and blogger. He writes about social media strategies on his blog DigitalGYD.com and is currently working on WPChime.com, a WordPress resource site.

"I think SEO is not going to have a major change this 2017. With Google more focusing on user experience, it will make it more focused to rank sites that give the best to visitors rather than aiming at ranking. This is where you have to optimize your site perfectly with SEO optimization techniques.

Mobile responsive will move a step further with AMP and we'll also see a lot of focus on videos.

As I told about user experience, Google will be rewarding sites that directly answer the queries people search for. This is evident from rich answers and search snippets which will be more prominent in the year ahead.

The gist, you write aiming at giving the best possible resource for visitors and Google will give you the best possible number of visitors."

The post Expert Roundup: 55 Experts Give Us Their Take On SEO Trends for 2017 appeared first on Ninja Outreach.

from SM Tips By Minnie https://ninjaoutreach.com/expert-roundup-55-experts-give-us-take-seo-trends-2017/

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