#additional things i didnt put to not clog up the tags

[plaguethewaters]

kinda batshit insane but. dsmp sk8 au where beeduo are matchablossom. Hear me out.

older beeduo perfectly comfortable in their marriage keeping it a secret at S because its fun. Ranboo's competitivness stirring up that "tactical flirting" theyre too socially anxious to try in their daily life and tubbo having loads of fun showing off his "lawyer with a stick up his ass" worksona while also cursing his husband off at any point in time.

Tommy is shadow, in this dynamic, a little bit different than in og sk8. Ig he's a little closer to adam inn that hes the same age as beeduo and went to school with them but also hes not a pedo with weird codependent relationships. And i love the idea of him having a little flower shop but also dressing in full punk demonic regalia at S. Let him be fucking weird and extra.

if i want to have adam be close to sk8 canon Dream is the obvious choice. Weird obsession with a singular kid and an incessant need to have power over everyone and everything, with a couple of guys who where super friends with him in his youth but ended up dropping him because of the weird controlling behaviour? perfect. I like the idea of tadashi being punz in this situation, even if george would probably fit better but idk.

It works very well actually because - reki and the babygang would be second gen dsmp kids. In particular, reki would be michael, langa would be shroud, and miya would be yogurt (little subplot- wilbur is Oka in this au, fundy is a random guy thats his son and kinda hates that his own child chose the same hobby as his father). Thus we would have dream getting super super obsessed with shroud - not inn a weirdly sexual way like adam for langa, but as a replacement. Tommy's all grown up, hes not fun to play with anymore. What better than tommy's precious son to fill up the role? Especially since it gets tommy so worked up.

This also opens the way to another secret plot, because te kids would have absolutely no idea its their parents in the masks at S. Michael probably finds out when Nuke gets decked in the face by dream's skateboard during the beef, they have to call the ambulance and - oh prime thats my goddamn dads.

[emberoops-archive]

so here in my analysis of last nights nightmare, because i am very impressed. under a readmore, trigger warnings for body horror, abuse, mentions of genocide, references to torture, and teeth. (and more! check tags)

so in the dream i was in a relationship with the dude who started the genocide against the nafar. hes tried to get me to date him irl, so i guess that isnt too surprising! (and points for pulling from irl people for this, well done.) i didnt want to be in a relationship with him, but i was going through the motions to keep him from murdering me again. for some reason in the dream dying mattered - maybe i was mortal?

anyway! so my parents and i (and the asshole, whose name is il’guin) all win this raffle for a mansion, with staff. if i marry the dude, its permanent, but if i dont, it isnt; i have a week to decide.

for some reason while i am there, he and i are like...getting along? like, i know even then that hes a horrible man who murders my people for stupid reasons, has murdered and tortured and torture-murdered me in the past, and so on, but im in love with him? somehow? (this adds points to the after-waking category because even though i know it was a dream that fucked with me a little for a bit, like, self?? really???? come on!!)

but theres all of these weird things going on with the mansion and its like. part horror script, part psychological warfare, part something shady that i didnt actually uncover before i woke up? like, they gave me orthodontic surgery for my teeth, which they first gaslit me into thinking i needed, for free, which was great until my mom was talking about how what they did was actually really really bad and they not only fucked my teeth up, but it made me almost certain to be reliant on the specific dentist who was there for my case to keep them working.

they also were like, threatening these random kids who i guess were supposed to be my siblings? which is weird because i dont even have siblings! well, not in the universe where the parents who were in the dream exist, anyway. i guess i technically have a brother in the universe il’guin is from, but hes older than me. whatever. but like, they were talking about how it would a pity if i were to leave and something happened, etc.

the night i realized that i was being manipulated and gaslit i went to find my mom to help and she had to take out the surgery stuff they did, but it was so rushed she had to just...pull it out. so she like, grabbed my teeth and was like, “look, this is going to hurt a lot, but you absolutely cannot move or i cannot put your teeth back, and if we leave it in bad things will happen.” (she gave the specific bad things but i cannot remember anymore rip).

and then she pulled on my molars and like, the entire row of teeth just slid out? they were legit that loose, and everything was threaded onto a wire. so she slid them out, fixed them, and put them back in, but they were super loose. it did let her twist this one tooth that is crooked irl to fix it, though, so...nice? i guess? but if i bit down or pressed to hard on the wrong tooth it like, disappeared into my jawbone, which was no bueno.

then she did the top, and like, for some reason i couldnt see when she did the bottom jaw, but when she did the top i could, so she was like, “dont look, its going to freak you out and then youll move and your teeth will be fucked up!” but i looked and like. my entire palate came apart into strings, like, cat’s cradled between my teeth, and started coming apart, and there was just a black hole into i guess my sinuses? and i started trying to stay still but i was also screaming and starting to panic because my entire face was unraveling, and then i woke up.

so the categories!

general applicability: 9/10. not everyone has someone terrible who tried to date them or they dated, but the idea of being stuck acting like you are is scary, and even if that falls through, watching your face unravel when an entire row of teeth come out is super terrifying.

cliche deduction: gonna go with a 2/10 deduction on this, since the teeth thing is super common. it isnt higher because usually they just, like, fall out, instead of the surgery angle, and i like the departure from the standard and creativity involved.

waking/lingering efficacy: 7/10. this definitely had me spooked and/or questioning myself for a while after i woke up, and the last image before i woke up is genuinely disturbing even to think of. however, i have had dreams that werent even nightmares while i had them that left me slightly disturbed for days after i woke up, so i know he can do better. still, this is good, and if i werent used to being tortured and/or killed i probably would be more bothered by this for longer.

use of setting/plot: honestly, 5/10. for a spooky murder mansion where i was dating my genocidal murderer, vague threats, a strangely clogged shower, and bad orthodontic surgery is a huge underutilization of the pieces there. it did however leave a good building sense of just, being unsettled or suspicious? so that was good.

overall: honestly my rating should be 4.75/10 from the math above but honestly that teeth bit was so well done, i think it needs to be a solid 8/10 at least. i know dream could do better probably but i am still very impressed. i also love the detail that the one doing this was my mother, and she was actually helping me, adding the additional fear of my fear, since my yelling and thrashing around posed danger to myself.

[violetbard]

Penny for your thoughts on Mindfang?

big finale for this stuff, yeah?

boohoo, shes a big bitch, eight eyes douche, blah blah.

thats vwhat youre expecting, right?

honestly vwhat do i say at this point. mindfang another case of someone vwho pokes the bear, vwith a knife, and then shoots it dowvn vwith angry frustration as to vwhy it lashed out to begin vwith. she got angry that i finally decided to stop taking shit and i responded back to her instead of taking her beef; vwith honestly far more passivwe responses vwersus the shit she givwes. 

most of it isnt evwen to hurt? if any at all; vwhen ivwe approached i havwent made fun of her past, her quad relationships, none. just joshing around or asking questions. or responding bitterly if she happens to say something first in the slurry of insults.

look through my tag for her. her tag for me; her mentions of my name. my mentions of her. im not a fucking bluff. 

im called the bother and yet shes came onto my posts randomly making fun of me. if i come to her for a small chat, she laughs. shes the one vwho commented on her blog about my decisions that dont relate to her. or continues to comment on my vweight or my concept of livwing or about my fake quads vwhen i smile tight and attempt to respond in a vway that keeps the peace.

someone once said i havwe good self esteem.

i really dont and im fucking dying from all the shit thats happened recently, evwen outside of her. but shes recently been a thorny factor.

yet people decided to only chip in vwhen it finally goes too far; chip in and act like i cant say anything or be upset at things people havwe harassed me for in the past to the point of hurting hard.

as if other people are also aloud to havwe emotional disrupts?

i havwe a fucking support dog nowv to help vwith that shit, for petes sake. get the hint.

nevwermind the most recent block; prior to that she unfollowved me for doing fuck all; i remember doing nothing but chipping in a casual joke due to some stuff on her other blog and then she started asking vwhy im the vway i am.

ivwe been called fat for posting selfies. ivwe been called a vwhore for sleeping vwith others. ivwe been told that i shouldnt exist and that i should go die for catching up on dash.

same old vwerse, different bloody singer.

if she vwants to change, for other people, then thats fine. i NEVWER said that vwas an issue, nor that people should stop being proud, as much as her pitch vwants to put vwords into my mouth. i get shes a bad schmuck too; that shit nevwer truly dies out as much as anyone tries to admit it. ill take full on fault and say that sometimes i still do dumb shit despite calming dowvn ovwer the svweeps.

i get it.

but people dont havwe the right to tell me howv to feel as much as they givwe her the ability to continue to talk aloud about evwery thing she hates on blog. people dont havwe the right to tell me howv to feel in privwate. they dont havwe the right to call me a bad person for getting angry ovwer harassment that i only havwe myself to defend against.

this is literally a recap of last year, but serket addition. 

maybe if i did do something id apologize, if it vwas something i actually did. but the ovwerwhelming bullshit that is nowv, especially vwith dash dragging and lack of trying to fix shit, doesnt help, so im done. if she doesnt vwanna help herself vwith this, and no one else vwants to help, then ill help myself; maybe in turn her, for her sake i guess. she doesnt vwanna vwait up on people after all.

im at a point nowv vwhere my energys shot through and then depleted, and i cant care to push out so much anger, evwen if its fucking natural. i dont vwant to.

i knowv she has me blocked, and evwen if she didnt or doesnt she vwont read the lot of this, but you nevwer knowv vwhats to change. also i just answvered this for because i vwas asked to, and this is stuff clogging my chest.

so, to make evweryone happy, im just going to pet my dog and smile so things go back to feeling peachy keen and there are absolutely no issues present.

that vway she and the dash dont havwe to feel uncomfortable.

[itsjessicaisreal]

Almost 60% of marketers haven’t implemented AMP, see why (and why it’s no excuse)

When it comes to page speed, a few seconds of slowdown can cost you. Slow load times cripple conversion rates, raise the price you pay for ad impressions, and even drive qualified traffic to your competitors.

All this being true, Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) would seem like the hail mary pass that marketers have been waiting for. Essentially, AMP is a Google-backed framework for creating web pages that deliver near-instant load times, even on mobile. I say “near-instant” here, but I like how the AMP Project itself puts it: AMP pages are “so fast they appear to load instantly.”

What does AMP mean for marketers? Faster delivery of your content, for one thing. The end of waiting altogether, maybe. Ultimately, AMP can result in a significant uptick in traffic and improved conversion rates overall.

So, naturally, every marketer is planning to adopt it in 2019, right? Right!?

*record scratch*

Marketers have been slow to adopt AMP for a variety of reasons (via Unbounce’s 2019 Page Speed Report).

Wait, wait, I can explain. As part of our 2019 Page Speed Report, we asked marketers if they planned to implement AMP in the near future. 57% of them told us they have no plans to implement it, while 23% are still considering it.

Those who haven’t adopted the framework have a range of reasons why, but they fall into three broad categories:

AMP requires a significant investment of developer resources.

AMP is poorly understood (or perhaps poorly messaged).

Google’s past behavior has made some people wary of AMP.

I’ll explore these reasons in further detail below. For now, it’s worth saying that each has some validity. But I don’t think any of them—alone or together—should be your excuse not to implement AMP for your marketing campaigns.

In the long run, businesses who overcome these objections will be better positioned than those who don’t, despite perceived drawbacks. As I wrote elsewhere, “Turbo-charged landing pages result in more traffic and higher engagement, boosting conversions and helping PPC campaigns win increased ad impressions for less.” The AMP framework helps you achieve this kind of performance, even on a smartphone.

Want more insights about page speed? You can explore all the findings in the complete 2019 Page Speed Report for Marketers here. Access is free and ungated, so take a look.

Reason 1: Limited development resources

A significant hurdle that marketers face when it comes to adding AMP to their site has to do with technical resourcing. Four of the answers to our survey question touched on this problem:

Developers are not experienced with coding for AMP (12% of respondents)

No developer capacity to implement it (32% of respondents)

Too time-consuming to implement it (12% of respondents)

Validation issues with AMP pages we did create (2% of respondents)

It’s no secret that AMP comes with a steep-ish learning curve.

By using a restricted version of HTML and a custom JavaScript library, the framework ensures an optimized (read: fast-loading!) experience. Using Google’s AMP Cache (a content delivery network that stores your page on Google’s servers) further accelerates your pages.

But it also requires your developers to dedicate time to learning and mastering AMP-HTML and the AMP JavaScript library. And since Google’s AMP Cache requires validation once you’ve built an AMP page, there’s really no “good enough” moment here. Either your page works and goes live, or it doesn’t and you need to find your error. Who feels motivated to learn under those conditions?

AMP validation in action—or should I write, “inaction”? (via The AMP Project).

By its very nature, the limitations of AMP also demand a certain, let’s say, technical dexterity. Because bloated scripts tend to be a major contributor to slowdown, AMP’s JavaScript library puts the brakes on the third-party scripting that people have gotten used to using. (And AMP HTML comes with its own quirks.) Working within these constraints can often produce innovation, but it’s also a source of frustration for many who just wanna get stuff done.

Finally, poor analytics has been significant speed bumps on the road to AMP adoption. Tracking and analyzing visitor behavior is an integral part of running an online marketing campaign, but early in its life, AMP asked us to go blind. No thank you.

Why time and dev work are no excuse…

First, let’s be real: the AMP framework is a set of restrictions. That’s the point. So wishing for an AMP without any limitations at all doesn’t make sense.

In addition, many of the difficulties that plagued developers in the early years of AMP are no longer an issue. Tracking, for instance, has improved dramatically since AMP launched in 2015. Today, by using the AMP Analytics tag, you can isolate and analyze AMP traffic in Google Analytics. Though it can’t yet do everything that standard tracking can, it will collect data about users, pages, browsing, and (most significantly) events. As Search Engine Journal points out, “for most content marketers, that’s sufficient.” Not a ringing endorsement, sure, but tracking is now good enough for most marketing purposes.

As AMP development has continued, scripting has also become more robust, and the options available have expanded. Unfortunately, many people rely on scripts from third parties for tracking and integrations, but a lot of companies have been slow to deliver AMP-compatible versions. As adoption has increased, however, so too has the pressure on these companies to deliver.

That said, some of what AMP asks us to leave behind is also inessential. Pages clogged by unoptimized script may soon be looked upon we look at the tailfins on the back of a 50’s Cadillac. (Or, hey, remember the heady days when every site seemed to require Macromedia Flash? When it comes to the web, more isn’t always better.)

Reason 2: Some marketers really don’t get this whole AMP thing

Despite having a mouth to Google’s megaphone, the AMP Project has struggled to be heard beyond web development or publishing circles. When we asked marketers in The Page Speed Report, we discovered the following:

There’s a lot of misunderstanding when it comes to AMP (via Unbounce’s 2019 Page Speed Report).

While 54% of the digital marketers said they have some understanding of AMP, the rest assuredly did not. A quarter of ’em hadn’t even heard of Accelerated Mobile Pages before taking our survey.

Why misunderstanding is no excuse…

First, AMP is hardly floundering, despite the fact that you may not have heard about it. It has the combined might of Google, Pinterest, Twitter, WordPress, and Bing backing it. And AMP already covers more than 31 million domains serving billions of AMP pages. If you browse the web on your smartphone, in other words, chances are very strong you’ve visited an AMP page.

AMP pages appear in the search results with a lightning bolt icon.

Second, if you hadn’t heard of AMP until you read this article, no worries—because now you have. That gives you an advantage over the 24% of marketers who’re still in the dark. It’s always best to think competitively about page speed. Knowing about AMP (and implementing it) can put you out in front of your competitors by dramatically improving your load times.

EDITOR’S NOTE. There’s a lot of misinformation or misunderstanding out there about AMP. You can read more about AMP and its myths in this blog post from Unbounce’s Larissa Hildebrandt.

Reason 3: Google is “evil” now

Even before they stripped the “don’t be evil” clause from their official code of conduct last year, Google earned a reputation for shady doings.

With the launch of the AMP Project in October of 2015, though, they stirred up a controversy that they didn’t seem to anticipate. Critics were quick to argue that AMP represents yet another move to lock down the web, gallingly disguised as an open-source project.

Many of these accusations point to the Google AMP Cache, which speeds up delivery of content by storing your pages on Google’s servers. AMP doesn’t actually require using Google’s cache—people can create their own—but this tends to be how it’s done. In most cases, the content lives with Google, and a searcher may never touch your actual website. As Daniel Miessler puts it, this is potentially “poisonous to the underlying concept of an open internet.”

Why it’s no excuse…

The language of dissent can get a little, uh, heated (see Barry Adam’s colorful “Google AMP Can Go To Hell”) but a free and open internet is a public good we should be all getting behind. Keeping Google from controlling the entire universe is a definite good for free speech and democracy. (And it’s better for business too.)

But so is delivering fast speeds so that more people can access the web. And AMP helps with that, big time. Remember, the loss of net neutrality means providers can potentially throttle speeds, offering “slow” and “fast” lanes depending on what customers can afford. And 70% of connections globally will remain 3G or slower through 2020 regardless. For these reasons, AMP seems downright necessary, and that’s why news organizations—like The Guardian and The New York Times—were among the first to adopt it.

For what it’s worth, Google has pled innocent in the court of public opinion. In September they took steps to distance themselves from the AMP Project by adopting a new governance model that includes other companies. What this means is that—though Googlers conceived and shepherded AMP—its future is now squarely in the hands of a group that may not always act in the tech giant’s interests. That’s a very good thing.

Why marketers should implement AMP

It’s well-known that delays can create anticipation. But make no mistake, your sluggish website in no way resembles the slow, sultry, seductive pour of Heinz ketchup onto a plate of golden french fries. In fact, the experience has more in common with waiting for your number to be called at the DMV.

By making prospects sit through delays, you’re serving up a heaping helping of frustration, annoyance, and uncertainty. All before they ever even see your content…

…or, rather, if they ever see your content. Because many of ’em won’t make it that far. In Unbounce’s 2019 Page Speed Report for Marketers, a majority of consumers told us that they’ll wait 4-6 seconds before giving up on a slow page.

A majority of consumers say they’ll wait 4-6 seconds before clicking away (via Unbounce’s 2019 Page Speed Report).

Data gathered by Google says the actual number is closer to 3 seconds. After that, many consumers told us they close their browser or even go to a competitor’s site instead. 45% of them told us that a slow loading site makes them less likely to make a purchase. If you want to get fast—like, really, really fast—AMP can get you there.

Unbounce + AMP

It’s no secret we’re bullish on AMP at Unbounce. That’s because Accelerated Mobile Pages have many tangible benefits as a quick way to create a near-instant visitor experience. Not only can they have a dramatic effect on your conversion rates, but they can also increase organic traffic overall and improve Quality Scores in Google Ads.

We were surprised to learn in the Page Speed Report how many marketers are avoiding AMP due to difficulty with developer resources. So, as part of our initiatives to improve page speeds, we’ve sought to make AMP friendlier to the non-developer, reducing or eliminating frustration. You can now drag and drop together AMP experiences, and we’re walking you through what AMP is, why you need it, and how to implement it.

So what’s the ultimate reason you no longer have an excuse for not implementing AMP?

Because we’re making it much easier.

In the coming weeks, we’ll be making AMP landing pages available to all Unbounce customers. Using them can still mean choosing efficiency over flashy scripts, but we’ve already seen our beta test community finding new ways to balance beauty and speed. We’re excited to hear how AMP landing pages impact your conversion rates when they hit. And I’m excited to start sharing some success stories (and actionable takeaways) with readers of this blog.

from Marketing https://unbounce.com/online-marketing/why-marketers-should-implement-amp/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[roypstickney]

Almost 60% of marketers haven’t implemented AMP, see why (and why it’s no excuse)

When it comes to page speed, a few seconds of slowdown can cost you. Slow load times cripple conversion rates, raise the price you pay for ad impressions, and even drive qualified traffic to your competitors.

All this being true, Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) would seem like the hail mary pass that marketers have been waiting for. Essentially, AMP is a Google-backed framework for creating web pages that deliver near-instant load times, even on mobile. I say “near-instant” here, but I like how the AMP Project itself puts it: AMP pages are “so fast they appear to load instantly.”

What does AMP mean for marketers? Faster delivery of your content, for one thing. The end of waiting altogether, maybe. Ultimately, AMP can result in a significant uptick in traffic and improved conversion rates overall.

So, naturally, every marketer is planning to adopt it in 2019, right? Right!?

*record scratch*

Marketers have been slow to adopt AMP for a variety of reasons (via Unbounce’s 2019 Page Speed Report).

Wait, wait, I can explain. As part of our 2019 Page Speed Report, we asked marketers if they planned to implement AMP in the near future. 57% of them told us they have no plans to implement it, while 23% are still considering it.

Those who haven’t adopted the framework have a range of reasons why, but they fall into three broad categories:

AMP requires a significant investment of developer resources.

AMP is poorly understood (or perhaps poorly messaged).

Google’s past behavior has made some people wary of AMP.

I’ll explore these reasons in further detail below. For now, it’s worth saying that each has some validity. But I don’t think any of them—alone or together—should be your excuse not to implement AMP for your marketing campaigns.

In the long run, businesses who overcome these objections will be better positioned than those who don’t, despite perceived drawbacks. As I wrote elsewhere, “Turbo-charged landing pages result in more traffic and higher engagement, boosting conversions and helping PPC campaigns win increased ad impressions for less.” The AMP framework helps you achieve this kind of performance, even on a smartphone.

Want more insights about page speed? You can explore all the findings in the complete 2019 Page Speed Report for Marketers here. Access is free and ungated, so take a look.

Reason 1: Limited development resources

A significant hurdle that marketers face when it comes to adding AMP to their site has to do with technical resourcing. Four of the answers to our survey question touched on this problem:

Developers are not experienced with coding for AMP (12% of respondents)

No developer capacity to implement it (32% of respondents)

Too time-consuming to implement it (12% of respondents)

Validation issues with AMP pages we did create (2% of respondents)

It’s no secret that AMP comes with a steep-ish learning curve.

By using a restricted version of HTML and a custom JavaScript library, the framework ensures an optimized (read: fast-loading!) experience. Using Google’s AMP Cache (a content delivery network that stores your page on Google’s servers) further accelerates your pages.

But it also requires your developers to dedicate time to learning and mastering AMP-HTML and the AMP JavaScript library. And since Google’s AMP Cache requires validation once you’ve built an AMP page, there’s really no “good enough” moment here. Either your page works and goes live, or it doesn’t and you need to find your error. Who feels motivated to learn under those conditions?

AMP validation in action—or should I write, “inaction”? (via The AMP Project).

By its very nature, the limitations of AMP also demand a certain, let’s say, technical dexterity. Because bloated scripts tend to be a major contributor to slowdown, AMP’s JavaScript library puts the brakes on the third-party scripting that people have gotten used to using. (And AMP HTML comes with its own quirks.) Working within these constraints can often produce innovation, but it’s also a source of frustration for many who just wanna get stuff done.

Finally, poor analytics has been significant speed bumps on the road to AMP adoption. Tracking and analyzing visitor behavior is an integral part of running an online marketing campaign, but early in its life, AMP asked us to go blind. No thank you.

Why time and dev work are no excuse…

First, let’s be real: the AMP framework is a set of restrictions. That’s the point. So wishing for an AMP without any limitations at all doesn’t make sense.

In addition, many of the difficulties that plagued developers in the early years of AMP are no longer an issue. Tracking, for instance, has improved dramatically since AMP launched in 2015. Today, by using the AMP Analytics tag, you can isolate and analyze AMP traffic in Google Analytics. Though it can’t yet do everything that standard tracking can, it will collect data about users, pages, browsing, and (most significantly) events. As Search Engine Journal points out, “for most content marketers, that’s sufficient.” Not a ringing endorsement, sure, but tracking is now good enough for most marketing purposes.

As AMP development has continued, scripting has also become more robust, and the options available have expanded. Unfortunately, many people rely on scripts from third parties for tracking and integrations, but a lot of companies have been slow to deliver AMP-compatible versions. As adoption has increased, however, so too has the pressure on these companies to deliver.

That said, some of what AMP asks us to leave behind is also inessential. Pages clogged by unoptimized script may soon be looked upon we look at the tailfins on the back of a 50’s Cadillac. (Or, hey, remember the heady days when every site seemed to require Macromedia Flash? When it comes to the web, more isn’t always better.)

Reason 2: Some marketers really don’t get this whole AMP thing

Despite having a mouth to Google’s megaphone, the AMP Project has struggled to be heard beyond web development or publishing circles. When we asked marketers in The Page Speed Report, we discovered the following:

There’s a lot of misunderstanding when it comes to AMP (via Unbounce’s 2019 Page Speed Report).

While 54% of the digital marketers said they have some understanding of AMP, the rest assuredly did not. A quarter of ’em hadn’t even heard of Accelerated Mobile Pages before taking our survey.

Why misunderstanding is no excuse…

First, AMP is hardly floundering, despite the fact that you may not have heard about it. It has the combined might of Google, Pinterest, Twitter, WordPress, and Bing backing it. And AMP already covers more than 31 million domains serving billions of AMP pages. If you browse the web on your smartphone, in other words, chances are very strong you’ve visited an AMP page.

AMP pages appear in the search results with a lightning bolt icon.

Second, if you hadn’t heard of AMP until you read this article, no worries—because now you have. That gives you an advantage over the 24% of marketers who’re still in the dark. It’s always best to think competitively about page speed. Knowing about AMP (and implementing it) can put you out in front of your competitors by dramatically improving your load times.

EDITOR’S NOTE. There’s a lot of misinformation or misunderstanding out there about AMP. You can read more about AMP and its myths in this blog post from Unbounce’s Larissa Hildebrandt.

Reason 3: Google is “evil” now

Even before they stripped the “don’t be evil” clause from their official code of conduct last year, Google earned a reputation for shady doings.

With the launch of the AMP Project in October of 2015, though, they stirred up a controversy that they didn’t seem to anticipate. Critics were quick to argue that AMP represents yet another move to lock down the web, gallingly disguised as an open-source project.

Many of these accusations point to the Google AMP Cache, which speeds up delivery of content by storing your pages on Google’s servers. AMP doesn’t actually require using Google’s cache—people can create their own—but this tends to be how it’s done. In most cases, the content lives with Google, and a searcher may never touch your actual website. As Daniel Miessler puts it, this is potentially “poisonous to the underlying concept of an open internet.”

Why it’s no excuse…

The language of dissent can get a little, uh, heated (see Barry Adam’s colorful “Google AMP Can Go To Hell”) but a free and open internet is a public good we should be all getting behind. Keeping Google from controlling the entire universe is a definite good for free speech and democracy. (And it’s better for business too.)

But so is delivering fast speeds so that more people can access the web. And AMP helps with that, big time. Remember, the loss of net neutrality means providers can potentially throttle speeds, offering “slow” and “fast” lanes depending on what customers can afford. And 70% of connections globally will remain 3G or slower through 2020 regardless. For these reasons, AMP seems downright necessary, and that’s why news organizations—like The Guardian and The New York Times—were among the first to adopt it.

For what it’s worth, Google has pled innocent in the court of public opinion. In September they took steps to distance themselves from the AMP Project by adopting a new governance model that includes other companies. What this means is that—though Googlers conceived and shepherded AMP—its future is now squarely in the hands of a group that may not always act in the tech giant’s interests. That’s a very good thing.

Why marketers should implement AMP

It’s well-known that delays can create anticipation. But make no mistake, your sluggish website in no way resembles the slow, sultry, seductive pour of Heinz ketchup onto a plate of golden french fries. In fact, the experience has more in common with waiting for your number to be called at the DMV.

By making prospects sit through delays, you’re serving up a heaping helping of frustration, annoyance, and uncertainty. All before they ever even see your content…

…or, rather, if they ever see your content. Because many of ’em won’t make it that far. In Unbounce’s 2019 Page Speed Report for Marketers, a majority of consumers told us that they’ll wait 4-6 seconds before giving up on a slow page.

A majority of consumers say they’ll wait 4-6 seconds before clicking away (via Unbounce’s 2019 Page Speed Report).

Data gathered by Google says the actual number is closer to 3 seconds. After that, many consumers told us they close their browser or even go to a competitor’s site instead. 45% of them told us that a slow loading site makes them less likely to make a purchase. If you want to get fast—like, really, really fast—AMP can get you there.

Unbounce + AMP

It’s no secret we’re bullish on AMP at Unbounce. That’s because Accelerated Mobile Pages have many tangible benefits as a quick way to create a near-instant visitor experience. Not only can they have a dramatic effect on your conversion rates, but they can also increase organic traffic overall and improve Quality Scores in Google Ads.

We were surprised to learn in the Page Speed Report how many marketers are avoiding AMP due to difficulty with developer resources. So, as part of our initiatives to improve page speeds, we’ve sought to make AMP friendlier to the non-developer, reducing or eliminating frustration. You can now drag and drop together AMP experiences, and we’re walking you through what AMP is, why you need it, and how to implement it.

So what’s the ultimate reason you no longer have an excuse for not implementing AMP?

Because we’re making it much easier.

In the coming weeks, we’ll be making AMP landing pages available to all Unbounce customers. Using them can still mean choosing efficiency over flashy scripts, but we’ve already seen our beta test community finding new ways to balance beauty and speed. We’re excited to hear how AMP landing pages impact your conversion rates when they hit. And I’m excited to start sharing some success stories (and actionable takeaways) with readers of this blog.