#and then we see similar webbing all over the marketing

[machineheraldbabe]

laying in bed, trying to fall asleep, thinking about viktor’s potential to be a major player in season 2. what if. what if.

[argumate]

hirosensei said: I still don’t understand what ads are supposed to do besides let me know that something exists if I didn’t already know about it.

advertising does let you know that something exists, but obviously the way it's traditionally applied goes way beyond that: in your daily life you're already gonna see people driving BMWs and drinking Coke and wearing Nike and yet still get reminders of the existence of these products every day for the rest of your life, why?

the folk explanation of advertising is that it conveys a message, typically explicit in the text and reinforced in the subtext, that the product in question will make you happy and successful and admired and sexy and people respond to that by buying the product, but that's obviously still too simplistic as we've all seen advertising for products we have no interest in and no intention of ever buying and most markets are competitive and there's more than one option and they all advertise, so what gives?

we can get more sophisticated by considering advertising as a dynamic equilibrium like an arms race or an ecosystem where Coke and Pepsi both need to keep advertising even though it isn't helping them gain an edge over the other simply because if they stopped they would fall behind, like trees wasting energy competing to be the tallest for sunlight when in an ideal world they would all agree to keep the forest canopy as low as possible.

or you can see advertising as akin to a potlatch, where the amount spent on it is a costly signal of the power and wealth of the brand, in itself demonstrating confidence and success more than anything that might be in the actual ad itself; corporations burning wealth to convince you that they are winners and you would be wise to affiliate with them.

or we can get a little introspective and consider that advertising isn't just to convince you to buy the product, it's to convince the people who do buy the product that you're convinced that they are cool people, such that they buy it not because advertising works on them (they're too cool to be won over!) but because they believe it works on you (you're impressionable!) except of course that all happens at the subconscious level as it sounds silly when spelled out explicitly.

other explanations for advertising (besides that it works) are that it makes the people running the brand feel good about themselves and is another form of compensation for them, either by boosting their image or giving them the excuse to dabble in the creative arts or liaise with actors or musicians or athletes they normally would have no reason to contact.

and similar analysis applies to all forms of design and marketing, not just obvious stuff like TV ads but logos, color schemes, custom corporate fonts, web design, everything orthogonal to a product that costs money and shapes the way that it is perceived in the market.

[magnecalliope]

Mammon is a Caterpillar

and NOT just in the Wonderland merch. Though the merch casting him as the caterpillar is what made me finally make the connection! See, there's several aspects about Mammon's design that just do not match with the popular assumption that he's a spider.

For one thing...

he has too many limbs. After his transformation he has ten visible limbs. Plus the legs that he has in his normal form, that's a total of twelve limbs. And we have precedent for how Spindlehorse would handle a spider inspired character...

so it seems unlikely that this design principle was simply thrown out the window with Mammon.

What's particularly interesting to me is that caterpillars only have six "true" legs, like other insects. The rest of their legs are what are called prolegs, or a "small, fleshy, stub structure found on the ventral surface of the abdomen" (per wikipedia). These prolegs often look distinctly different from the caterpillars true legs, which is similar to how the eight legs in Mammon's full demonic form are unlike the rest of his limbs.

But if that's not enough evidence, consider:

He has too many eyes. The number of eyes a spider has can vary, but they never have more than eight. The number of eyes visible on Mammon depends on the shot, but the most he's ever depicted with, shown above, is ten. While it's more common for caterpillars to have twelve eyes, there are some species with ten! And once again, if we refer back to Angel Dust, we can see that he has eight.

While it could be argued that Mammon is intended to be a sort of "spidertaur" it would be, in my opinion, egregious to get the number of limbs AND the number of eyes wrong in his design.

So what's the deal with the webbing seen around the arena, specifically where Mammon sits during Fizz's performance? I have a theory about that!

1.) This element of his design is in reference to silk worms. Bombyx mori are a species of moth most known for being a primary producer of silk, a fiber used in textiles and well known for being luxurious and expensive. The silk worm's cocoon doesn't look very similar to a spider's web, of course, which brings me to my second point...

2.) Mammon is a performer who wants to associate himself with a predator known for luring its prey into a web over something most known for getting boiled to death for a byproduct of its pupation (yes, that's really how silk is obtained). It's his entire shtick, and I think he's performing at being a spider as much as he is at being a clown. Mimicry is a well known defense mechanism of caterpillars, after all. Lastly...

3.) Spiders are simply more marketable than caterpillars. After all, Spider-man has a long history in comic books and a zillion film reboots, but you've probably never even heard of a Caterpillar-man, have you? :P

There's a lot of caterpillars out there that I think Spindlehorse could have drawn inspiration for Mammon's design from. A quick google search for "green caterpillar" will return a diverse amount of results, but here's some of my favorites:

Eastern Black Swallowtail, Orange Emperor, Lace Emerald, Imperial Moth.

For fun I also looked into literary symbolism for caterpillars, to see if there was any precedent for an association with greed, and here's what I found:

The caterpillar appears in the Old Testament as a pest that devours crops; it is included with "pestilence, blasting, mildew, locust" ... and associated with the locust as one of the plagues of Egypt.

Shakespeare's Bolingbroke has it in for King Richard's friends, "Bushy, Bagot, and their complices, / The caterpillars of the commonwealth, / Which I have sworn to weed and pluck away" ... Jack Cade and his rebels are more radical: All scholars, lawyers, courtiers, gentlemen, / They call false caterpillars and intend their death"

excerpts from "A Dictionary of Literary Symbols" by Michael Ferber.

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk. c:

[goombasa]

You Should Make a Personal Website

I don't mean a site to promote a business, or for financial purposes, or anything like that. No, I mean just a basic website about something you like. Make a site talking about a series you like to read or watch. Make a shrine to a ship that you enjoy. Make a weird, experimental, scattershot archive of your favorite gifs or weird fonts that you've collected over the years.

It's honestly a lot easier than you would think, despite what every single advertisement for Squarespace would have you believe.

First, why would you want to do this, making your own personal website if you don't have a big purpose for it? Well, back when the web was fresh and new, folks would just set up a web page just for the sake of sharing an interest that they had, or talking about some little nuance that they enjoyed. It could have been as broad or as simple as a person wanted, and like-minded sites, rather than vying for space on a search engine's front page, would be connected together with each other via things called web rings, basically a group of similarly themed websites that helped to promote each other just by virtue of being part of the same group. And then, of course, there were personal link collections, a massive dump of other sites that the webmaster thought were worth sharing that might lead outside the limits of any web ring they were a part of.

Beyond just sharing an interest or a passion with the world, regardless of how small or narrow it might seem to others, a web site is an experimental canvas to express yourself, your own little slice of the internet where you can do basically whatever you want with it. It doesn't have to be perfect, in fact perfection is something that should be ignored when it comes to your own vision. We've been trained to look at websites and see them as these incredibly slick, sleek looking, perfect and polished, suit-and-tie landing pages that are more just there to entice you into whatever a business is trying to see you. There are very few web pages out there in the major space of the web that pack as much personality as a thrown together Geocities site. Even sites that are attempting to have more of a laid back, casual aesthetic tend to be so precisely designed that it loses a lot of the magic of a site being built by an inexperienced hand, or someone who isn't interested in making something sleek and appealing. Yes, you want your site to be legible, at least, but the dearth of creativity in modern websites can't really be denied. So many of them look the same or use the same sort of default layout. Not saying that older sites didn't sometimes have similar layouts as well, but the odds of seeing at least a unique spin or font or color combination is much, much higher.

Compare that to where most folks will gather to share their creations nowadays, social media sites. In general, the creative freedom that you have over, say, a twitter profile or a facebook page, is very limited and in general, your stuff is basically just put into a big feed that folks will scroll over or past as they flip along their phones.

But don't you have to know how to program or write code to make a really impressive website? After all, we have tons of services like Squarespace and Wix and the plugin market for things like Wordpress that are meant to make the arduous process of building a site as quick, easy, and painless as possible.

Speaking of someone who works on a Wix site as part of my day job, I hate things like their drag-and-drop interface. It is, at least from my experience, slow and clunky and despite the variety of options presenting to you, most of them feel very limited and samey, with little room for individual expression. Add to it, they also show you a lot of options that you can't access if you aren't paying for certain tiers of service, so there is also an element of upselling to their services that I really don't appreciate.

When it comes to building a personal site, all you really need to know is HTML, CSS, and a little bit of Java, but only if you want the site to have some cute little interactive elements, which are totally optional. HTML is honestly super easy to learn, because it's not even really a coding laguage, it's more of a language for structure. You wrap things in specific tags that tell the text how to present itself. HTML on its own is very easy to learn and there isn't a huge amount too it, but it is very ugly on its own.

That's where CSS comes in. Not going to front, CSS is, for me, the most confusing part of the process. It's important, but it's also overwhelming. CSS is is a LOT looser in terms of its setup compared to HTML and is meant to do a lot more; it is used to alter the font, the color, how pictures look, the placement of text and elements, the shape of buttons and links, everything about how a website looks beyond its very basic structure, which is built off of HTML.

Beyond that, if you do want to have some fun little widgets here and there, a little bit of Javascript can help add a bit of pizzazz to your site, but it is far from necessary, especially if you're still learning. You're allowed to be sloppy and imperfect, you are allowed to make something that isn't visually cohesive or even all that appealing at first. You are learning. You are making something for fun, or because you enjoy it, or enjoy what you're trying to communicate.  Learn HTML, take your time learning CSS, and then after you've had some fun getting to grips with the absolute basics of that, then think about spicing it up after the fact.

And again, it's not like this is tough to learn, or at least not tough to find resources on the subject. I'll be linking to a bunch of various resources for this sort of stuff. And hey, if you don't want to code an entire web page or website from scratch, there are plenty of places to grab pretty detailed templates of elements for your site, or even full pages that you then can just inject your writing or pictures or links into without having to go through the whole situation yourself. This can also be useful for a beginner because it allows you to see exactly how the HTML and CSS is used to create a specific effect, and gives you something you can experiment with and see results on without having to build it from scratch, which is a handy learning experience.

And where would you put your brand new site once you've put it together. Well, Wordpress does allow traditional HTML sites to be put up, but they're more about making those slick, eye-popping websites that we've discussed before. You could also just pay for a domain name and some hosting and then suss it out from there, but you do have a few places where, rather than putting in a substantial investment, you can throw up a site for basically nothing and still have plenty of room to experiment with your site and make something fun and interesting.

My personal recommendation is Neocities, a Geocities-inspired service that very much wants to bring back the idea of the personal website and web rings in general. They are completely free to use, and focus specifically on HTML pages. They do have a paid tier, which is only five dollars, that does give you a bunch of added features, including the ability to host multiple sites, fifty gigs of story as opposed to one (which might not seem like a lot, but a basic HTML website which is mostly text will almost never come close to that amount of storage, and the ability to give your site a custom domain (though you will have to buy that separately). I mostly recommend Neocities because their entire mission statement is what I've been talking about here; bringing back the creative freedom of having your own playground to toy with however you wish, and experiment with making something that just looks funky, in the best way possible. Plus, it gives an excuse to brows through all the other stuff that people have been putting up as well.

So do it. Even if it's just as a little hobby or a side project, give it a go. You have nothing to lose and might even pick up a skill you really enjoy flexing. Who knows, it might even lead you down a new path, or at the very least give you a creative outlet that you weren't aware of beforehand. It's well worth the effort.

Now, let's round this out with a quick list of some various sources that can help you in your quest to design that which lies in your heart, yeah?

W3 Schools: This is more a straight up reference site, and you can find tutorials here on a ton of different programming languages, but their HTML and CSS section is very robust, and will show you examples of various commands and tags and how they work. I find it's layout a little bit confusing at times, but it's a good place to go back to when you're looking for examples on how specific tags or commands work.

Sadgirl Online: This is basically a one-stop shop for tons of references and resources for making a website. It not only has a bunch of free assets like fonts and backgrounds that you can use in your own projects, but it also has a section for learning HTML and CSS that gives some very detailed explanations on how everything works, and even has a website generator that will generate a web page template for you to use in your own projects. Sadly, the site itself is no longer actively updated, but everything on it is still in working order, and most of the information on it is very timeless. The link section is also invaulable in finding more tools and resources as well. At the very least, I'd say it's an excellent starting point for any aspiring website builder.

Word to HTML: If you really don't feel comfortable writing out your own HTML, you can use this tool to quickly paste in things that you wrote in Word, or other formatting programs, and turn it into HTML that will keep the formatting, such as text position and style. Useful for if you're writing stories or long-form blog posts and you don't want to manually put in line breaks or paragraph tags yourself.

Web Guide: A basic and straightforward text tutorial on how to begin building a website based on HTML and CSS. It's even a site that was made and hosted on Neocities! It's another really good starting point if you need to figure out the very basics of HTML and CSS.

Color Hex: Once you start getting into the depths of CSS, you'll want to familiarize yourself with the hexadecimal codes for colors, since the pre-baked colors you can access otherwise are pretty basic and limited. Color Hex will show you popular colors with hexadecimal numbers, and can also general color palettes for you that will either contrast sharply, or look very nice together, which might help inspire the look and feel of your website.

[gacha-incels]

Do you think they'll get mad over this in Hoyo's new game or am I making a stretch

the one that just came out right? my friend sent me this one earlier today to post here lol I think it’s from some in universe social media

I’m not totally sure but based on the circumstances regarding what they got angry at earlier I don’t think so. in regards to why it happened before, for Genshin Impact, there is a significant amount of these male gacha players (we’ve seen this in china & SK but also to a lesser extent worldwide) who do not like that it’s an extremely successful mixed sex gacha where the male characters are designed to pander to female players. there’s been a lot posted and written on this blog and across the web about how men do not want women playing games and coming into their “playground”- we saw this most explosively in the west during the “gamergate” fiasco. You typically don’t see this happening in all-male gachas like ensemble stars because the game is marketed as “for women” to begin with, male gamers don’t see this as “their territory” that you have intruded on. I’ve seen posts by these men bemoaning the “unsexy” newer female Genshin character designs and saying “what are they doing to our game?” so you see they have this type of attitude. Genshin had a very long stretch of time where only limited male characters were released back to back which I believe ended with the character Lyney being released- this was one of the first Genshin-related Korean incel freakouts that made waves in the west because of how ridiculous it was. they didn’t like that he was sexualized in the same way female characters were sexualized, they didn’t like all the male banners, they thought he looked gay etc.

this is a similar problem they have with a lot of the Honkai Star Rail male character outfits that have boob windows which female characters will typically have, this is a huge point of contention for them, I remember seeing them absolutely seething that the free 5-star from that game was a male with more than the usual amount of skin showing, I think the screenshots might be on this blog somewhere. they have had huge meltdowns about these cleave windows it’s absolutely ridiculous to read. you can scroll earlier in this blog to the post about the “if there’s male characters in the game don’t play” movement to see more about this. The second freak out over Furina’s designer happened only when they found out a Korean woman designed her. The company was further targeted during this time because they did not take down the animations Studio Ppuri had made for them like the little pissant coward company Nexon did.

The new game doesn’t really have the same “baggage” as these other 2 and doesn’t seem to market towards a female audience as much so I don’t expect something like that to blow up, but who knows. these guys are getting bolder, people are getting extremely like idk sports-fan or kpop-fan tier heated over Wuthering Waves/Kuro Games VS Mihoyo for whatever reason, I’ve read some crazy rumors about Tencent…. lol. but that’s my best guess on how to read the situation and the recent history behind some of this

[deathwords334]

(Disclaimer: This is not my work. I am in no way affiliated with the artist. I just want to show off artists that I think need more attention. I also don't have anyone I can talk to about the rabbit hole I've gone down that is Good Omens doujins. I will supply links to their social media and where you can find the publications (If available))

Chipping away at the pile of books I need to take photos of~!

I am super happy I have this one... As I'll get into, I think this artist and I share a braincell when it comes of graphic design. Helps also they deal with more abstract concepts that come with an angel and a demon living amongst humans but not entirely getting human stuff. I guess also that's why I'm semi bitter I wasn't able to get their collab book with two other artists I adore. And they're not doing a reprint~~~ 😭 Add that to the list of books I'm frantically trying to find second hand...

Anyway!

This is Cheers to Your Death by Yamuwoeee

So riddle me this! What does it feel like for an angel and a demon to... go into the light so to speak? Aziraphale has been wondering this for a while. Sure he had been discorporated before, and both Aziraphale and Crowley have been hurt in the past. But neither have actually died the way humans do. So, he proposes... He and Crowley should give it a shot! Shenanigans ensue! After all, they are immortal beings...

Yep we have a dark comedy on our hands! If you have seen the episode of Paranoia Agent where three online friends make a pact, you'll have an idea of what this book is like. Except our angel and demon end up in a very... compromising position. And that's where the R-18 rating comes in. Aziraphale's on top and you do see things (Although it's censored), but the scene gets introspective. The two finally have a moment to talk about the Final Fifteen. It's super cute! Really all the humor in the book hits; they're classic jokes when it comes to the topic at hand...

Then there's the ending...

I'm not gonna spoil it. It surprised me and I got a good belly laugh out of it too. Again, though, you need to be ok with the idea of death generally being used for comedy. Fair warning and all.

Their art is as pretty as always. Plus you get to see them handle comedy beats as well as more... intimate facial expressions. It's not that they haven't shown nsfw stuff before, but not to this degree of detail. It's not really used to tantalize. It serves the over all plot. So a lot of the typical expressions aren't here (It IS in the collab book though...). I dunno... Their art style's fascinating to me. They've also been playing with panel layouts. There's a page where Aziraphale starts crying and his tears are like panels!

The book is about the same size as Make Good Memories and the cover is textured! I noticed several books this time around with a similar webbed like texture. It's a nice contrast to the matte covers I have~

The book is still available on their Booth! You can buy it through a proxy shipping service. It is also available on Otaku Market, but I think they buy it through Booth too. As I said before, they did a R-18 collab book with two other artists, but that's sold out... They also mentioned they're working on another book, but haven't given many details otherwise.

[cindylouwho-2]

RECENT SEO & MARKETING NEWS FOR ECOMMERCE, MAY 2024

As promised, here are the important news stories from marketing recently: SEO, social media, advertising, and more.

If you want to get this news twice-weekly instead of just once a month, become a paying member of my Patreon: patreon.com/CindyLouWho2

TOP NEWS & ARTICLES 

In the biggest SEO news perhaps ever, a massive list of Google ranking elements was leaked this week. Here’s an overview, including links to the two main leak announcements and their analysis. It would seem that Google wasn’t always honest when they told us some algorithm elements did or did not exist. Google took nearly 2 days to speak publicly about it, but didn’t say much. Expect a lot more analysis in the coming weeks. 

Instagram is updating its algorithm to favour original creators and smaller accounts, and remove reposted content from recommendations. “This won’t affect “a set of publishers” identified by Instagram with licensing agreements or resharing permissions from content creators, according to the blog post.”

Google is adding AI Overviews to US search immediately, with other countries to follow in the future. "AI Overviews gives answers to queries using generative AI technology powered by Google Gemini. It provides a few snippets of an answer based on its understanding of queries and the content it found on the topic across the web.” Right now, it is only affecting a small number of queries, however. While these will sometimes cover similar topics to featured snippets, the latter still exist. Early testing indicates that it does not currently show up when a search appears to be about buying something. Which is good, because you can’t turn it off, other than filtering your search to “Web” after doing it.  Oh, and Google did not waste time figuring out how to include advertising in the AI overviews - it took just one week. As with most much-heralded AI launches, AI Overviews are fumbling badly; here’s a summary of the many news articles mocking Google, including for recommending people glue cheese onto their pizza so it stays in place. 

Chrome has yet again announced that it will not end the use of tracking cookies on schedule; the new target date for starting to wind down their use is early 2025.

Reminder that your old Google Analytics files (aka Universal Analytics) will no longer be available after July 1, so download them now! “...consider archiving back to 2018 or so to ensure you have pre-pandemic data since the pandemic really presented data anomalies for many companies.” There is a spreadsheet add-on to make this easier. 

SEO: GOOGLE & OTHER SEARCH ENGINES 

Google’s March 2024 Core Update finished rolling out April 19. “A Google spokesperson said, “The updates led to larger quality improvements than we originally thought – you’ll now see 45% less low quality, unoriginal content in search results, versus the 40% improvement we expected across this work.” Experts are struggling to analyze it, in part due to how long it lasted. Not surprisingly, Reddit was a big winner, and sites with a lot of ads and affiliate links continue to lose. 

An update on how long your titles should be for Google. “So whether your titles get cut off or rewritten in SERPs, Google still uses the HTML title tag for ranking considerations, not the titles shown in SERPs.” The author’s research is too limited to draw reliable conclusions from, and most other research in this area over the last decade shows that shorter titles tend to rank better. However, she has pulled together many recent statements on title length and how it works, which is useful reading. 

A reminder that “keyword difficulty” is a subjective score that different tools may not agree on, and that also depends on your overall site/shop and its history. This applies to all sorts of keyword tools, including those used for marketplace sites. 

It looks like Google adding its AI to search results will have a strong impact on traffic, as it will answer questions without the need to click, and “only 47% of the top 10 traditional search results are sources for SGE.” [SGE is now called AI Overviews.] That means if a page is outside the top 10 now, it may still be used to generate the answers, and could even get clicks from being displayed in SGE. 

Still with AI, Google was fined €250 million by France for using news media to train its AI, Gemini. 

Google admits to deindexing many, many pages in February, due to quality issues. 

A recent article dissects why Google search is so bad these days, and largely blames one man. While you can read the original here, you may want to start with a decent summary and the reaction from Google and the SEO community. 

Here’s a full list of Google changes and announcements from April.

Not Google

Both Microsoft and Google had excellent first quarters, with ad revenue up 12% and 13% respectively. “Bing reached over 140 million daily active users.”

OpenAI is apparently not starting their own search engine, contrary to rumours.

SOCIAL MEDIA - All Aspects, By Site

General

Here’s another of the periodic posts that tries to figure out the best times to post on different social media sites. It covers Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, Twitter and Pinterest. 

Direct Messages are now available on Bluesky. 

Facebook (includes relevant general news from Meta)

In another recent AI fumble, Meta has introduced an AI assistant to its various products in several countries - but you can’t turn it off in the search bar. It may also show up in group chats, including discussions about parenting. “The Associated Press reported that an official Meta AI chatbot inserted itself into a conversation in a private Facebook group for Manhattan moms. It claimed it too had a child in school in New York City, but when confronted by the group members, it later apologized before its comments disappeared.”

Here’s more on Meta’s automated ad issue that is ramping up costs but decreasing sales for many, including small businesses. 

Meta is now offering its Verification for Business subscription package to more countries, and has added new tiers as well. 

While Meta had a strong 1st quarter financially, it projects weaker results through 2025 as it spends a ton on money trying to guide its AI offerings to profitability. 

Instagram

Instagram added some new features, including “Reveal”, which blurs Stories, and only releases the content once you DM the creator. 

Reels under 90 seconds perform better on Instagram than longer ones. 

To help avoid scammers on Instagram, learn how to identify and block fake accounts. 

Instagram’s Creator Marketplace - where businesses can search for influencers to promote their product - is now available in 10 more counties, including Germany, France and Indonesia. 

LinkedIn

You should be optimizing LinkedIn posts for the platform itself and outside search engines. The article includes tips for both personal and business pages.

LinkedIn is adding games you can play once a day, which sounds weird for a professional network. 

Pinterest

Pinterest’s summer trend report has arrived; apparently maximalism is in yet again.  

Reddit

Reddit is one of those sites that is getting worse lately as people try to get Google ranking through it (which is a whole other SEO story I have covered in these updates before).

ChatGPT will now be training on Reddit comments. The agreement meant a huge stock boost for Reddit. 

Reddit is trying to attract more French-speaking users by auto-translating the site in real-time using AI. 

After plenty of user complaints, Reddit is starting a new awards scheme. 

Snapchat

You can now edit your Snapchat messages within 5 minutes of sending, if you subscribe to Snapchat Plus. 

Threads

Meta wants more content on Threads, and is willing to pay well-known creators to create it. Invite only, of course.  

You can now filter out unwanted words on Threads. 

TikTok

While the US government has voted to ban TikTok if the company isn’t sold, there is a lot of time left before that could happen, and a legal battle to be fought. TikTok has already filed a lawsuit, as have some major creators. Meanwhile, small business owners and creators are understandably worried. From an article by the BBC: “According to March 2024 data from TikTok, more than seven million small US businesses use TikTok, and the company reported it drove $15bn (£12.04bn) in revenue for these enterprises in 2023.”

How to rank on TikTok: the Ultimate Guide. Some of the tips include hashtags, keywords, and choosing the right thumbnail. 

There are several ways to remove (or avoid) the TikTok watermark if you want to use your TikTok content on other platforms. 

Twitter

Twitter’s domain has finally switched over to X in some locations [but I will still call it Twitter].

(CONTENT) MARKETING (includes blogging, emails, and strategies) 

Time to gear up your content marketing plans for June. 

ONLINE ADVERTISING (EXCEPT INDIVIDUAL SOCIAL MEDIA AND ECOMMERCE SITES) 

Search ads are converting less while costing more, something that has been going on for a few years now. “Advertisers are paying more for leads and clicks, while Alphabet, Google’s parent company, keeps reporting record profits.” This is one of the reasons the US Department of Justice argues that Google is a monopoly. 

Not enough AI in your ads? Google is solving that through video ads and more virtual try-ons. 

Google Shopping is going to start showing how many people have bought from each site recently, although businesses can opt out. 

Google is removing keywords from Google Ads accounts if they have received zero impressions in the past 13 months. While you can reactivate them, Google discourages that. 

You may be able to run Google’s Performance Max ads through particular marketplaces now or in the near future, if your marketplace signs up. For some businesses, selling through a marketplace might be cheaper than setting up a site. 

Social media advertising is now bigger than search ads, according to a recent report. Almost ⅔ of these ads are on various Meta properties. 

BUSINESS & CONSUMER TRENDS, STATS & REPORTS; SOCIOLOGY & PSYCHOLOGY, CUSTOMER SERVICE 

Slow economic growth in the United States in the first quarter of 2024 sparked worries that the rest of 2024 will be as bad or even worse. Even McDonalds is stressing that consumers can only take so much inflation. 

US ecommerce sales were up in the first quarter, more than overall retail. 

Some consumers are finding that ecommerce is tiring, offering too many options and no easy way to shop quickly. “Despite an increased emphasis on personalized experiences in recent years, 7 in 10 customers feel either no improvement or an increase in the time and effort required to make a purchase decision.” 

MISCELLANEOUS (including humour) 

Before returning orders to Amazon, make sure your cat isn’t in the box. (It’s fine, fortunately!)

[weaselandfriends]

The Puritanical Eye

An absolutely amazing article that discusses many observations I've had on the direction of mainstream media, and the reaction of audiences to mainstream media, over the past few decades. A choice quote:

The current state of cultural and material decline plays an important role in the shift toward Puritanism in media and art, in consumer appetite, and in the political posture of the State. That is to say, with the compounding crises we are bombarded with (everything from climate disaster to rampant racialized police violence to genocide) as a part of our daily lives under late capitalism, the need for escape, and indeed, the need for that escape to be completely unchallenging and non-confrontational, has become imperative. Moreover, as control over our own material realities becomes less and less feasible, the last lone place we believe we can exercise agency is within the landscape of that which we consume. This has resulted in the consuming public approaching all media and art with a moral imperative — that which we consume must be perfectly virtuous, sanitized of all problematic or complicated ideas and depictions, because it has become the stand-in for our very realities, our very political action as citizens; consuming has become our praxis.

I also love this takedown:

In 2022, The New Yorker organized a roundtable of critics tasked with examining the absence of sex scenes in mainstream Hollywood cinema. Paradoxically, despite The New Yorker’s critics expressing a longing for sex scenes in films, their stance is not too dissimilar from that of those audiences who reject such scenes today. For example, on the sex in Verhoeven’s Benedetta, Alexandra Schwartz says, “It felt superimposed, like a point was being made rather than it being anything integral to the movie”. Words that seem to confirm what Verhoeven has asserted about the drift towards Puritanism in American cinema today, and its indifference or impatience toward the kind of stories and images that have always interested him throughout his career. [...] The issue is that the presence of sex that is not easily digestible and sanitized for these viewers, sex that can not be swallowed whole or viewed as morally correct in some way, is therefore automatically seen as “anti-art”, as without having meaning, as alienating.

The article ultimately states that this Puritanical backlash against "morally impure" art is the final solidification of capitalist commodification, rendering the body consumable once any challenging or uncomfortable elements are sanded off. What concerns me most is how so many of the voices crying out against "degenerate art" today are from young people.

I expect old, conservative fuddy-duddies to espouse such reactionary stances. What are the youth up to today? The chief virtue of young people is their collective anti-establishment bent, capable of challenging the entrenched status quo. Yet I now see many young people, self-professed left-wing radicals, who joyfully and with earnest energy attempt to enforce the mainstream capitalist conception of art via policing morality. It's like Squid Game or Hunger Games (a lot of Game titles): Works that ostensibly challenge the injustices of the capitalist/entertainment system, but which are themselves mass-produced, mass-appeal, mass-marketed works of media.

The independent nature of the internet wrested a significant chunk of creative control from big studios, and much of the most original and avant garde artistic endeavors being made today are made by a single person or small group of people in some niche online corner: the videos of Jon Bois, Andrew Hussie's Homestuck, and web fiction similar to those I highlighted in my previous post, to name only a few.

Yet if the people, not even those in power but random online people gathering with enough numbers, are going to start inflicting moral artistic imperatives on each other even outside of government or big studio influence, what is the point?

This issue extends even past the moral. Simply look at the financial state of many artists and authors online who require Patreon donations for financial security, or the YouTube video creators subjected to the whims of the almighty algorithm. These creatives are forced to generate content of certain popularly-appealing specifications at a certain (usually accelerated) rate in order to remain afloat. Though YouTubers at least have the excuse of being under Google's big business yoke, those relying on Patreon are being forced to dance like grinder monkeys simply at the behest of their readership.

Researching RoyalRoad prior to posting Cleveland Quixotic, I often saw reviews of popular works that described the work being a "Patreon Trap"; i.e., the author constantly outputs content but the story only ever moves at the most glacial of paces, allowing for a constant stream of monthly donations as readers are strung along expecting something to finally happen. The term "Patreon Trap" denotes it's as much misery for the reader as it is for the writer. Yet, the practice continues. And so many of these webfics turn into million-word monstrosities. For all the hand-wringing about capitalism, the systems it inflicts upon people, and its propensity to push cheap and valueless consumption, when free from big business control, why do we only inflict systems potentially even more insidious practices that are even more conducive to valueless content on ourselves?

Another great quote from the article:

Indeed, the market asserts that what we’ve loved before we’ll love again, and that not only will this recursive posture lead to certain profit, but the halo of nostalgia that comes along with it will generate an extra boost in capital to boot. ​​The drive to capitalize on the childhood favorites of those who now have spendable income and drive a large portion of the market means that most of our media is based on children’s artifacts from 30 years ago, and franchises originally made for children.

The phenomenon of nostalgia described here is possibly also a byproduct of the eradication of the avant garde. If there are no artists who are capable of pushing contemporary tastes in new directions, even if imperfectly at first only to be refined later, then contemporary tastes will simply continue in a state of inertia, recycling "what made me happy in the past" (nostalgia) and emphasizing the conservative and reactionary nature of most media.

Anyway, read the full article, there are many more insights I didn't touch on in this post.

[dawnfelagund]

Do you have any advice for someone wanting to create a small archive like you did with the Silmarillion Writers' Guild? I think there's a good chance that the way AI is in the news right now leads to more energy being directed towards smaller community-specific archives and I'd love to know more about how you came to start the SWG. (I'm the fans4writers person who misrepresented your post—a correction has been added!)

Thank you for the correction and also (most importantly!) for your work in solidarity with the WGA writers and keeping this issue at the forefront of fandom consciousness!

This is an amazing question, and I am trying not to be too giddy in answering it! :D

I’d say first and foremost is to think about what you have in mind. A single-author archive, for example, is going to involve different considerations than an archive for a small community or a group of friends/collaborators, and both of those will have different considerations than an archive that is more open to the public. My experience, over the years, is that the more potential users you have, the more careful you have to be in all of your decisions. If you pick an annoying platform for a single-author archive, the only person you annoy is you. If you made the same choice for a larger project, you might find yourself losing creators and visitors due to inconvenience. (I say this as I am redoing my annoying single-author archive/website to be less annoying! :D)

(It sounds like you want something for a small community, so this is more just a general fyi for others who might be thinking through the same process.)

Right now, unfortunately, there are not a lot of great options for creating archives that function well as archives, and that’s a discussion to have with your community. Can you make a Dreamwidth community or a Wordpress blog work, even if it lacks a lot of the bells and whistles we have come to associate with fanworks archives? The answer could well be yes! I’m a Tolkien fandom historian, and early-mid 2000s Tolkien fanfic archives were often subsidiaries of the community itself: a more permanent place to ... well, archive ... the works the community was making. The real action was happening in the community itself, whether that was an email list or a forum or something else entirely, so no one really needed a sophisticated archive. When I look back at these early archives, I am sometimes blown away at how simple they were compared to what we have come to expect of an “archive,” again largely because the dominance of AO3 has led people to see it as “default��� rather than “one possible option.”

If simple is an option, then there are tons of free and not-free options for blogs and websites. Wordpress, of course, is an obvious choice. Dreamwidth and BobaBoard are options that specifically market as fandom-friendly. Neocities is a reboot of Geocities and just one of many free site builders. In short, for a simple archive/site, there are lots of options.

Now if you want an archive with more sophisticated features, then the answer is less satisfying because this area of fandom has atrophied in the shadow of AO3.

The AO3 code itself is open-source, which means it can be used to build sites that behave exactly like AO3. However, I’ve never used it but have heard that it is not a beginner-level project to do this.

Back in the mid- to late 2000s, eFiction was the go-to for building archives. Open-source software specific for fanfiction archives, it could be installed on a web server and configured and up and running in less than an hour. It is still around. I do not recommend using it as it is now and mention it only because it does have a new developer at the helm who has been (unsuccessfully) trying to fundraise to not only update the codebase but also, ideally, roll out the option of hosted eFiction sites: where you would not have to purchase web hosting but could build an eFiction archive on the eFiction servers, similar to hosted Wordpress sites. Given the interest in small archives and the recently successful fundraising campaign for the Fujoshi Guide to Web Development, I hope to reach out to Tyler (the new eFiction developer) sometime this week to see if he might be open to more strenuously fundraising to at least get an updated codebase available to use. So I’m hoping eFiction becomes viable again in the future.

The Silmarillion Writers’ Guild currently uses Drupal, an open-source content management system similar to Wordpress, but it has been a journey to get there.

You asked specifically about how I came to start the SWG, so I’ll digress a bit on that there, which will bring me back around to Drupal. :D The SWG started in 2005 as a community on Yahoo! Groups and LiveJournal. I was 23 years old and knew nothing about websites. I have a vivid (and mildly embarrassing!) memory of setting up the SWG on LJ and emailing my sister to ask her how to “make italics in HTML,” since LJ didn’t have a reliable rich-text editor at the time and I guess I needed to ... make italics?

The SWG was intended to be a writers’ workshop for Silmarillion-based fanfiction, but I said the word “archive” in my very first post to the group, and people loved the idea, and that was where our efforts ended up going, so I spent the next two years learning what I needed to know to build and run a website. The SWG archive opened in 2007. It was a hand-coded website with an eFiction archive as part of it. This served us very well for many years, until we started noticing that the eFiction part of the site was returning errors every time our webhost upgraded our PHP. eFiction, by this point, hadn’t been updated in several years, and web standards were outstripping the codebase. My comod Russandol knows enough PHP that she could patch up the eFiction code to fix the errors we were seeing, but we knew it was a matter of time before that was no longer a viable option. In August 2019, after a particularly painful update that threw all kinds of errors into the site, we began investigating other archive software options.

We eventually settled on Drupal, and I began to the whole learning process again and built a few test archives. A year later, Russa and I began rebuilding the site in Drupal. We beta’ed the site, migrated the data, and opened the rebuilt site in April 2021.

I love Drupal. I love working with it, and when my job as a teacher is on my last nerve, I fantasize about becoming a Drupal developer. It is very powerful and can do amazing things. I really think you can build almost anything in it. However, with that being said, it is also a huge pain in the ass, and the more complicated the site, the more of a pain it becomes, and like many open-source projects, while there is a support community behind it, documentation is not always the best, nor geared at beginners. I don’t say this to dissuade you or anyone else from choosing Drupal. I would not un-choose it. But I do think it’s important to go into that choice with eyes open to the advantages and disadvantages it has to offer.

For anyone who is interested in building an archive in Drupal, one of my projects this summer break is to produce a tutorial series for building a start-to-finish Drupal-based fanworks archive. The tutorial series is completely outlined; I just need to record it. I will of course announce it here; it will be posted on my website (dawnfelagund.com, currently under construction) and the SWG once it is ready.

Of course, any other content management system could, in theory, be leveraged to build an archive. In my perfect world, eFiction would come back and someone would figure out how to use Wordpress to make archives. (Russa and I tried recently, but neither of us know Wordpress well enough to get the right combination of plugins.) An SWG member (whom I will not name so as to not create any pressure on her to follow through!) who knows Wordpress really well did float the idea of playing around in it to solve this problem.

So ... that’s a lot of “watch this space” for more sophisticated archive options. And this is not where I want us, as Fandom, to be. I remain hopeful, however, that there does seem to be interest in small archives at last and several projects that could turn into something viable.

[makuojinanwa]

How To Create A Content Marketing Strategy For Your SaaS Business

Whether you're starting conversations that engage your target audience, sharing information that positions your SaaS business as an industry leader, or simply drumming up business for your SaaS product, you need an effective SaaS content marketing strategy.

Why you may ask?

Because 63% of customers cite web pages during their evaluation process. And on the average, companies that blog receive 434% more indexed pages. If, on an industry-wide scale, you have nearly 10 times more leads from long form blog posts than short ones, then content marketing is a priority if you want to grow your SaaS business long term.

In this guide, we'll discuss SaaS content marketing strategy. And by the end, you'll know what content strategy is, why you need one and when to apply it. Then you'll get a step-by-step process of creating a content strategy unique to your SaaS business.

Defining SaaS Content Strategy

If you don't understand content strategy, we'll explain what it is before we get to the why and when.

So what is content strategy?

Content strategy is simply all the content processes a business employs to get prospects to buy their product or service. There's

#Audience Research

#Business Model

#Content Ideation

#Media Platforms

#Content Creation

#Distribution &

#Evaluation

And as a SaaS business owner, SaaS content strategy is simply a content strategy that accounts for your SaaS business model.

SaaS companies like Canva, Buffer and HubSpot have executed robust content marketing strategies that have scaled their lead generation and subscription efforts.

Specifically, Grammarly has a blog that educates their readers on writing styles and technique. Their blog has over 100,000 subscribers and their content has over 5 million views.

These readers get freemium access to their editing tool. They number 30 million users. And a good number of these readers end up paying for their editing software.

As a SaaS business owner, you can aim for similar success, cheap and exponential business growth, with an effective SaaS content strategy.

Benefit Of SaaS Content Strategy

Focus stands out amongst content strategy benefits like exponential growth and cheap lead generation. Joe Pulizzi stressed the importance of content strategy and expanded on focus as a SaaS content strategy benefit when he said this…

"We need to create a business strategy for our content. That means saying no to many channels and content types, and focus on where we can build an asset, an audience, overtime."

- Joe Pulizzi

A good SaaS content strategy saves time and energy that would otherwise be spent talking to the void. Strategy quickly gets you closer to what works. By studying your target market, you discover not just what to say, but where and when to say it.

Let's take HubSpot for instance here.

HubSpot's blog posts are comprehensive guides to unlock business growth via sales and marketing. Their blog content has a strong bias towards explaining theories and practices. But on their Instagram page, we observe something different. Content is more conversational and personable. Learning takes a back seat to experience and entertainment.

Their blog readers and Instagram followers are different. And even when these audiences overlap, we see different attitudes for different platforms. And in this case, the same lead is in a different mindset depending on which platform they consume HubSpot's content.

We can see that HubSpot's approach to content creation and distribution considers platform culture when talking about the same topics. These content strategy insights come from studying market behavior on search engines and different social media platforms.

So now they don't have to work mindlessly. They have knowledge and a plan on how to use relevant content to generate leads and sales.

This is the process of creating a content strategy and you can do the same for your SaaS business.

When To Use SaaS Content Strategy

From time to time, I find founders and aspiring entrepreneurs asking when to use content strategy in their business.

My answer?

Start as soon as you can. In fact, you should have started yesterday even if you don't have a product or market. Surprised? Let me explain.

Early Stage SaaS Companies

You see, a content strategy is valuable because of what it makes you do. You can't have a strategy to engage a market if you first don't know your core service or product, and who would need your offer.

Say you're a digital marketer helping e-commerce stores increase website traffic. And you hope to sell software services to e-commerce store owners in the future. You could use a content strategy where you document your process of helping e-commerce websites grow their traffic.

Now you're engaging your market while figuring out other problems they may have that would be worth a SaaS tool. Before UberSuggest, Neil Patel ran his digital marketing blog for many years. He offered educational content to digital marketers and online entrepreneurs on how to grow their businesses. Now his SaaS tool, UberSuggest, helps entrepreneurs with keywords for their content marketing efforts.

Established SaaS Companies

On the other hand, established SaaS businesses can improve the value of their business by having another option to generate leads and sales. Outbound processes like cold calling and emailing can be effective and sustainable. But adding inbound processes like content marketing to the mix increase lead gen options and strengthens outbound processes too.

Regardless of where you are in your SaaS journey, creating a good SaaS content strategy keeps you in touch with your product and market.

Now having understood what a SaaS content strategy is and can do, let's get into the weeds of creating one.

Defining Your Market

All effective SaaS content strategy starts out with a defined market. As a SaaS business owner, ask yourself these questions…

Who needs what you sell?

Why do they have this need?

What would they feel like when said need is satisfied?

What else do they do outside finding said satisfaction?

These questions give you an opportunity to understand your market. Say you sell business software to freelance writers and content creators. Freelance writers and content creators need high paying clients and commercial success with their audience respectively.

But is that all?

It isn't. Dig deeper.

For a freelance writer, higher paying clients mean

Reduced Anxiety

Meaningful Work &

Time Freedom

And for the content creator, a profitable product they own means

Income Stability

Creative Freedom &

Work Satisfaction

As an owner of your business software, you now know what your editing or invoice software actually means to your market. You know their needs and what they'll feel like when satisfied.

So it's time to find them.

SaaS Content Strategy Platforms

We've answered the above questions for your hypothetical software business except for what content creators and freelance writers do outside their core jobs.

Answering the last question brings up more questions…

Do they consume business content from online gurus?

Do they take courses from fellow writers and bloggers?

What about search and social groups where they interact with fellow content creators and freelancers?

Remember, we're trying to find out their hangout spots online. So wherever they spend their time online is a potential content strategy platform. Content strategy platforms are places that shape your tone and approach to creating engaging content that converts prospects.

You can speak with your customers to get an idea of how they spend their online hours when they're not working. Of course you can't go around asking awkward questions like

'Where do you spend your time online?'.

Instead, you can say something like

'What's your most inspiring piece of educational content in the last 2 months?'

'Who's making content that gets you excited?'

'What obstacles do you face that often hinder your productivity?' (By the way, whoever is offering courses or creating content to solve that problem is a potential content strategy platform.)

Get a list of these content strategy platforms and go to work studying your market. You'll find yourself in reddit channels, comment sections of Instagram accounts and YouTube channels. You'll pick up Twitter trends and read blog comments.

Before long, the picture of your market becomes clear. You'll be full of content and distribution ideas for your content marketing campaign. Your SEO keyword search would be much more robust instead of staring at keyword software charts with frustration.

Back to our hypothetical software business. Your market research would take you to content strategy platforms like Ali Abdaal, Dan Koe, Zulie Rane, Gary Vee and Roberto Blake. These creators serve the typical content creator and freelance writer. Observe how they talk and what they talk about in the comment sections of these influencer accounts.

Now you know exactly what your market wants and you know how to create content for them.

It's time to engage and convert.

Engaging And Converting Your Audience

Many SaaS companies get it right up to this point but skid off track at this crucial bend. They lose because they want to engage their prospects on the company's terms. Don't make that mistake.

Remember our earlier conversation about HubSpot's approach to their blog and Instagram accounts?

Good.

They observed that business owners on search engines such as Google, have search intent to learn about new information and products to solve business problems. So HubSpot's blog attracts them with big prominent blog titles and small author bylines.

Blog Titles

Picture of HubSpot's SERP

Blog Titles and Author Bylines

Picture of HubSpot's Blog Post

You get the sense that it's ideas first before people. On the other hand, business owners and professionals who want to unwind while being social on Instagram, dictate HubSpot's Instagram approach to content creation. Here, social interaction and entertainment are priority over ideas and education.

Personality Over Theory

Picture of HubSpot's Instagram account

It's not enough to create content, you have to do so native to each platform. This is where strategy bleeds into tactics. Let's talk team building.

Building A Content Team

Having understood what it takes to create a practical SaaS content strategy, it's time to roll up your sleeves and get to tactics. You could start solo but at some point, you'd need to build a team.

We'll examine 4 factors that determine the success of your team. They're

Vision

Roles

Collaboration &

Accountability

We'll begin with vision.

Vision

Your vision is volume and creativity. You have a SaaS content strategy and ideas to engage your prospects. But to get results, you need to create and distribute as much content as possible.

We're talking 20-30 social media posts daily with at least 3-10 social engagements per post. Write blog posts, record podcasts and YouTube videos on a daily basis. Repurpose your long form posts for social. You want to find what sticks.

This is hard work but that's the real secret to content marketing success.

Especially at the beginning, you have to find out what actually works. So volume and creativity is the vision when hiring a content marketing team. At such volume, in 3-5 years, you'll evaluate content activity and do more of what engages your market. And consistent sales roll in.

There are no shortcuts to this game. It's not a sprint or a marathon, it's both. The long hard road is the easiest and shortest one. Get to work. As entrepreneurs, we instinctively understand that outbound processes like cold calling are a numbers game but we don't apply it to content marketing.

There are so many intangible content marketing skills that can only be mastered via the fire hose approach. So when building your content marketing team, your overarching vision is that big is better.

Roles

You want big and better, so it's time to get you a content marketing team who can achieve your goals. I'd say that there are 3 major content marketing roles.

Director

Manager &

Creative

When you were creating your content marketing strategy for your hypothetical SaaS company, you played the director role. In addition to setting the vision for content strategy, a director of content analyses and adjusts content efforts to achieve customer and company goals.

The manager is in charge of content production and adjacent processes. They hire creatives, supervise them and build systems that guarantee the right flow of content creation and distribution.

Creatives create content assets, engage with professionals within your business and prospects via content strategy platforms. They also collaborate with both manager and director to improve their creative processes.

Collaboration

Team collaboration with each other and the larger organization decides success. On the director level, they have to find a balance between customer satisfaction and company goals.

When creating a content strategy, these 2 criteria guide the content strategy process. Many times, the director is the link between C-suite and the content marketing branch of the company.

The manager, in many ways, is the middleman. They make strategy, from the director, and tactics from creatives, align. Giving strategy legs, and tactics direction, leads to a successful conveyor belt of content assets and development of customer-company relationships.

Creatives who collaborate effectively with their managers, get to do meaningful and result-driven work.

Accountability

Accountability is probably the only way to see through projects. We'll look at 3 ways to hold both you and the team accountable for your roles.

I. Set Realistic Goals

At the beginning you want the team to start with small achievable goals. A social media content creator who hasn't done more than 5 posts a day shouldn't start their first day on the job creating 30 social media posts daily.

II. Set General Guidelines And Standards

Something as simple as adequate communication during work hours should be basic. Team chats and emails shouldn't be left unattended for 3 days without prior notification of a new development. Team members should attend meetings.

III. Assign Specific Tasks To Individual

A good example here would be creatives being in charge of content creation and distribution. They're not responsible for engagement results. That's the responsibility of the manager and director.

Conclusion

As we draw this guide to a close, it's important to note that content marketing strategy will always be worth its business results. And since ever-changing markets affect business results, you'll always have to evaluate your tactics and strategy.

At the beginning of your content marketing efforts, a strategy, content schedule and distribution map, should be the goal. It isn't about the number of views as it's about the number of content pieces you create. And that's why volume is important.

A year or 2 into this flurry of activity, all content strategy platforms would show noticeable patterns of engagement. Some content pieces would have more engagement than others. This is where evaluation comes in.

Ditch what doesn't work and do more of what does. Scaling what works at this point would grow views and traffic. Just as we discussed, content marketing strategy is the first in a series of steps to generate leads and sales for your business.

If you have further questions about SaaS content strategy or content marketing in general, leave a comment below and it'll be addressed.

[zenala-art]

Reblogs sure are important as hell for everyone and we should encourage them more, but people that are overly petty over people who only like and don't reblog/comment/whatever are a little silly imo. As someone with a little marketing knowledge, in ANY form of work or interaction or anything in your life you're gonna see views and simple likes as WAY more common than reblogs or similar tools. Everywhere ever. Not all people seeing that billboard are gonna get your number to talk about your service, but if one or two of them do, it was already pretty good.

Most people enjoy showing simple, not very deep support as they scroll through. You do that consistently in your day to day life - do you go leave a personal comment on every piece of media you've ever consumed and mildly enjoyed? Do you leave a comment about every good web design? Have you shared every youtube video you've ever liked? A quite good fanfic like/comment ratio is 1/10. If your reblog ratio is similar you're doing fine. It's totally fine and natural to want more recognition, and the only way to get more here on Tumblr is with reblogs; but damn some of yall get TOO pressed over this that it's damaging to your mental health AND your own work.

No amount of "don't like if you're not going to reblog!" is gonna change that ratio significantly, if anything, you're just gonna make people avoid liking your art lol

It's like a restaurant that's like "only eat here if you're leaving a review!!!", it simply feels forced and awkward to have this expectation put on you. Maybe I liked the food but I didn't want to necessarily give them a review, they kinda just forced me to? So I'd rather just go eat somewhere else to avoid the issue, and go review it with a clean conscience if I decide to do it. Is it good to create the habit to review the places you go? Absolutely!! Can you remind them somewhere that they can review? Absolutely, that's only natural!! But forcing or guilt-tripping them into feeling bad for not reviewing won't do it chief. Forcing people to interact with your content artificially will never give you the recognition you're thinking it will

[onlineecommercestore]

Build your own eCommerce store with the Right Solution

It is impossible to comprehend how time-consuming and detailed the procedure is if you have never started an e-commerce store from scratch. When you look at any e-commerce website, you never give much thought to the fact that someone had to write the content and load each product individually. In addition, before the actual listing process even begins, you must negotiate with each manufacturer to be able to list their products online.

In addition to the amount of work required to construct the website, my experience working in a marketing agency made me aware of how discouraging it can be to have a functioning website and business model that you have put so much effort into, but not to generate organic traffic. As a result, while simultaneously building our website, we began our SEO strategy early, one year prior to the launch of our website. Since we already required this amount of time for growth, why not make the most of it and slay two birds with one stone?

1. Invest in a domain name

Before you decide to create your website to sell electronics online, you need to look for a domain name. This is pretty easy to understand. A domain name that perfectly identifies your brand is required. Avoid overthinking the procedure. You can get a domain name for less than $10.00 by purchasing it from a website like GoDaddy.

2. Look for a web developer

When you launch your website using an eCommerce solution, this is a very important part. When it comes to hiring a developer, be sure to conduct your due diligence if you want to launch your website quickly and professionally. Get recommendations from the developer's previous e-commerce websites. Request a timetable detailing the anticipated duration of the site's launch. They will be able to crop images in a way that matches your website if they have a background in graphic design. Make sure to inquire about the developer's previous work with the e-commerce platform you select (see step 4).

3. Obtain all necessary paperwork for a legitimate business

Get a vendor's license, register your business, and start researching legal business issues before you decide to sell electronics products. To get assistance setting up your business, you should get in touch with a local attorney. Despite the upfront cost, it will probably save you a lot of time and money in the long run.

4. Choose a platform for hosting websites and e-commerce

Choose a well-known e-commerce platform to save time and money. Because most developers are familiar with these, integrating plugins, payment processing, and other features is simple. Make sure the platform comes with a pre-made custom catalog software.

5. Choose a theme that complements your e-commerce strategy

You can save even more time by purchasing a theme from ThemeForest to find a layout that resembles your desired ecommerce look and feel. Over 28,000 website templates and themes start at $2 on ThemeForest. They are the best place to buy templates for websites.

Don't try something new. Download a template from ThemeForest or a site that is similar to it instead of starting from scratch to build eCommerce store.. We discovered through experience that the customization procedure can be extremely time-consuming and discouraging. Therefore, picking a theme that appeals to you will probably save you a lot of time and effort.

[kitty-pelosi]

leftists have gotta be a bit more diligent about understanding the economic system we are criticizing. because while yes, irrational greed and lust for growth permeate capitalism wholly, there are structural material explanations for this behavior as well that illuminate more contradictions within the system as a whole which will give you a more grounded foundation to participate in conversation

businesses do not seek constant growth because of surface level ideological notions that are irrational - they seek constant growth because the international financial system of capital punishes entities that do not behave this way.

take for example the entire tech industry in America. it emerges at a time where banks are granting loans with extremely low interest rates. this allowed companies like Uber, Doordash, Facebook, etc to emerge as market disrupters operating at a loss. essentially, banks and venture capitalists gave money to tech industrialists for free (well on loan, but you can’t collect if the venture fails), speculating that these industrialists could use that money during an economic boom cycle to establish infrastructure that may or may not have value in the future. it’s like a bet. all of these companies failed to be profitable at the beginning. but, when a billion people then use Facebook, advertisers see a market and a relationship between two industrial sectors began, now data collection, AdSense, and similar services are a multi billion dollar industry. or Uber - they took loans to operate at a loss in their formative years, charging incredibly low prices for private transport that undercut the existing taxi industry. they were not profitable nor did they have a path toward being profitable UNTIL they were able to secure a significant enough share of the taxi ride market that they were a competitor (using loan-backed funding to subsidize low prices to secure that position) . and then, once they have enough recognition and market capture, they change the pricing structure toward one that actually produces a profit. this is done after taxi companies go bankrupt and consumers have no other choice, securing Uber’s future profits.

back to constant growth. the reason a business is in need of exponential profit is because they require investment. they need revenue to operate, but also an initial amount of cash to establish their existence. it costs money upfront to make a company. a loan from a bank, selling shares to investors, etc.

NOW. inflation is a constant financial force with time, and this is the motivator - every year, the exchange value of $1 is worth less and less. using money as Power, quite literally $1,000,000 in 2015 is More Powerful than $1,000,000 in 2024. inflation, interest rates, and banking regulations are determined by the government. Loans are determined by banks, and investors buy stock depending on how liquid they are (cash flow). these are the tools of government and capital in their control of the proletarian and petty bourgeois classes. this entire scheme serves to clamp down on entities that try to find a niche in the market and serve it in a static way, for example - publicly funded services. see where I am going?

so, when periods of economic depression occur such as the one we are all in presently, the government increases interest rates and banks become more withholding about loans. this is why tech laid everyone off last fall, they no longer have the milk coming in to support the fat. they are encouraged to focus solely on profitability. the time to collect has come and we are seeing if investor speculation works in their favor or not. this explains layoffs, enshittification of web services, etc. banks and the government have signaled that the time for experimentation and speculation is over, and that raw value must be realized.

in America, coupled with 501(c) laws, this serves to terminate entities that serve a market while paying their employees fairly and not really making a profit. taxes, inflation, and loans are the sword the powerful use to cut down co-ops and worker owned enterprises. In this way, the government has monopolized the concept of a service that does not generate a profit. they have structurally eliminated the ability for entities that are not the government to do this. or at least, rendered it almost impossible.

it’s not just mouth breathing upper middle class folks being greedy, or an evil cabal of venture capitalists looking for profit. it IS those things, but there is an actual system at play enforcing this structure and it’s extremely important to be aware of it, otherwise you aren’t going to be able to effectively critique and combat it. otherwise, you’re just shouting at a cloud about greedy men. and that’s not going to produce a just revolution, just a force that seeks retribution.

Growth capitalism is a deranged fantasy for lunatics.

Year 1, your business makes a million dollars in profit. Great start!

Year 2, you make another million. Oh no! Your business is failing because you didn't make more than last year!

Okay, say year 2 you make $2 mil. Now you're profitable!

Then year 3 you make $3 mil. Oh no! Your business is failing! But wait, you made more money than last year right? Sure, but you didn't make ENOUGH more than last year so actually your business is actively tanking! Time to sell off shares and dismantle it for parts! You should have made $4 mil in profit to be profitable, you fool!

If you're not making more money every year by an ever-increasing exponent, the business is failing!

Absolute degenerate LUNACY

[dzinesoniya]

Will ChatGPT Replace Search Engines? What’s next for SEO?

We’ve all experienced the magic of search engines. Just type in a question or topic, and voila, you get a list of answers in less than a second. But now, with AI models like ChatGPT stepping into the spotlight, some are wondering if traditional search engines will still be relevant. How will this change the landscape of search optimization? 

Let’s explore this topic together and see what it means for you, your business, and SEO.

The Rise of Conversational AI

When ChatGPT and similar technologies became popular, they opened up a new way to interact with information. Rather than clicking through links, you can now engage with a chatbot that can answer your questions directly. This seems like a dream come true, right? However, while these AI models can provide immediate responses, they don't always have the depth and breadth of information that search engines gather from many different sources.

Consumers will still need various perspectives, and that’s where search engines shine. They compile data from all over the web, offering everyone a richer experience. Sure, ChatGPT can provide quick answers, but how often do you double-check facts or look at similar articles for more clarity? People might start leaning on chatbots for simple queries, but when it comes to important decisions or deeper dives into topics, traditional search engines will still hold their ground.

ChatGPT vs. Traditional Search Engines

To understand this, let’s first look at how both ChatGPT and search engines work. When you type a query into a search engine like Google, it scans the web for pages that match your question. It shows a list of results, and users click on the most relevant one to find the information they need. The process is quite straightforward: search engines prioritize keywords, backlinks, and a range of factors to give users the best results.

On the other hand, ChatGPT doesn’t provide links or a list of web pages. Instead, it responds directly to your question with a detailed answer, often summarizing multiple sources of information. It’s more like having a conversation with a knowledgeable person than sifting through different web pages.

While it’s true that ChatGPT offers a more direct and personalized way to find information, it’s not likely to make search engines obsolete anytime soon. The reason is simple: search engines index the entire web, making it easier to access millions of pieces of information. ChatGPT, however, only works with the data it has been trained on, and it can’t access real-time information or updates.

So, Will Search Engines Become Obsolete?

In short, not really. While the way we search for information may change, the need for reliable and diverse sources isn’t going anywhere. Search engines are built to connect users to a wide array of information, which AI currently cannot fully replicate. It’s less about replacing old methods and more about integrating new technologies to make the search process better.

What does this mean for SEO? Marketers will need to adapt to these changes. However, the core principles of SEO—like creating quality content and building backlinks—will remain as crucial as ever.

The Future of SEO: Adapting to Change

As we move forward, SEO strategies will likely be influenced by how tools like ChatGPT evolve. Here are a few key trends to keep in mind:

User Intent Will Be Key: Understanding what users are looking for will be more important than ever. Rather than simply focusing on keywords, brands must think about what users want to achieve with their search. This shift means creating content that answers real questions and meets users' needs convincingly.

Quality Over Quantity: In a world awash with information, high-quality content will stand out. Brands should aim to create resources that are not just keyword stuffed but genuinely useful. This focus on quality is exactly what Dzinepixel- the best SEO company in Bhubaneswar emphasizes.

Voice Search Optimization: As AI models gain popularity, voice search will likely grow. People are becoming comfortable asking questions out loud instead of typing them. Optimizing for voice search means targeting conversational phrases and answering questions directly.

Embracing AI Tools: SEO professionals can use AI technology for insights into user behavior and content performance. While ChatGPT might provide quick answers, leveraging AI’s predictive capabilities can help brands stay ahead of the game.

Local SEO Matters More: As more people rely on their devices for immediate needs, local SEO will be crucial. Ensuring your business appears in local searches can be a significant advantage. 

Final Thoughts

The landscape of our digital world is changing, but it’s doing so gradually. ChatGPT and similar AI tools can enhance how we interact with information but don’t replace traditional search engines. As businesses and marketers, staying informed and adapting to these changes is essential.

Embrace new technologies while keeping your SEO strategies sound. In the end, providing value to your audience will always be the best way to stay ahead—be it through a chatbot or a search engine. The world of SEO will continue to evolve, but its essence will remain unchanged, driven by the ever-pressing need for quality information. Happy optimizing!

[technonews-biz]

Demystifying generative AI - 4 major misconceptions

AI is replacing the lawyer, AI writes essays so well that it fools professors, AI is putting artists out of work because anyone can design a magazine cover or write music for a movie. These examples have hit the headlines in recent months, especially statements about the impending obsolescence of intelligent professions and managers. However, AI is not an innovation in the sense that it has been around for a very long time. Since the mid-1950s, there have been successive waves of anxiety and fantasy, each time with the same prophecy: humans will be replaced forever by machines. And each time, those predictions have failed to come true. But this time, as we see the use of new AI multiplying, can we reasonably believe that things will be different?

Technology Revolution?

Talking about artificial intelligence conjures up a picture of the coming “future” in many people's imaginations. The news and media talk about a technological breakthrough happening right before our eyes. But is this really the case?

The algorithms used by ChatGPT or DALL-E are similar to those that have been known and used for years. If the innovation is not in the algorithms, then perhaps a major technological breakthrough will allow us to process large amounts of data in a more “intelligent” way? Not at all! The advances we are seeing are the result of relatively continuous and predictable progress. Even the much-discussed generative AI, i.e. the use of algorithms trained to generate many possible answers, is not new either - although improving results are making it increasingly usable.

What has happened over the past year is not a technological revolution at all, but a breakthrough in usage. Until now, AI giants have kept these technologies to themselves or released only limited versions, thus limiting their use to the general public. The newcomers (OpenAI, Stable.AI, and Midjourney), on the other hand, have decided to allow people to freely dispose of their algorithms. The real breakthrough lies precisely in making AI publicly available.

Big tech companies are technologically obsolete

As mentioned above, big companies like Google, Apple, and Meta are as good at owning these technologies as anyone else, but keep them in highly restricted access. They maintain very tight control over their AI for two reasons.

First, it's their image: if ChatGPT or DALL-E create racist, discriminatory or offensive content, the mistake will be justified because they are startups that are still in the learning process. This “right to make a mistake” does not extend to Google, whose reputation would be severely damaged (not to mention potential legal problems).

The second reason is strategic. Training and exercising AI algorithms is incredibly expensive (we're talking millions of dollars). These staggering costs benefit GAFAMs, which are already well established. Opening up access to their AI means giving up this competitive advantage. However, this situation will seem paradoxical when you consider that these same companies grew by liberating the use of technology (search engines, web platforms) while other established players of the time jealously guarded them under tight control. Beyond the scientific demonstration, one of the reasons Facebook made its Llama model available was precisely to put pressure on the biggest players. Now that this market is being explored by new players, the digital giants are rushing to offer their “ChatGPT” to the market (hence the new version of Microsoft Bing with Copilot and Google Gemini).

OpenAI is open source AI

Another myth that is important to dispel is the openness of new companies' AI. Indeed, the use of their technology is pretty wide open to promise. For example, ChatGPT's “GPT API” allows anyone (for a fee) to incorporate queries into algorithms. Others make the models themselves available, allowing them to be modified at will. However, despite this accessibility, AI remains closed: open or collaborative learning is out of the question here. Updates and new training are done exclusively by OpenAI and the companies that created them. Most of these updates and protocols are kept secret by the startups.

If neural network learning were open and collaborative, we would see battles (e.g., using “bots”) to influence the learning of the algorithm, which would negatively impact the performance of the system. Similarly, on Wikipedia, the collaborative encyclopedia, there have been attempts to influence what is presented as “collective truth” for many years. There is also the issue of the right to use data.

Shutting down AI seems very logical. But it actually raises a fundamental question about the credibility of content. The quality of information is uncertain. AI can be biased or partial, and poor training can lead to dangerous “behavior.” Since the general public is unable to assess these parameters, the success of AI depends on trust in companies - as is already the case with search engines and other “big tech” algorithms. Such “open” AI completely redefines ethics, responsibility and regulation. These pre-trained modules are easy to share and, unlike centralized AI platforms such as OpenAI's GPT, are virtually impossible to regulate. Typically, in the event of an error, we will be able to determine exactly which part of the training caused it? Was it the initial training or one of hundreds of subsequent training sessions? Could it be that the machine was trained by different people?

Many people will lose their jobs

Another myth associated with new AI concerns the issue of the impact on employment. Despite fears that generative AI will replace humans in a range of occupations, it is currently too early to think about such a prospect. No matter how effective AI may seem for solving everyday tasks and automating processes, it is not capable of replacing an expert or a specialist. ChatGPT or DALL-E can produce very good “drafts”, but they still need to be tested, selected and finalized by a human.

Also, we should not forget that the “creativity” of AI and its deep analysis abilities are a kind of illusion. Generative AI is not “Intelligence” in the literal sense of the word, but an algorithm that selects the most relevant answers. In reality, the intrinsic quality of the results is questionable. The explosion of information, content and activities that will result from the widespread and open use of AI will make human experience more necessary than ever. This is the rule of digital revolutions: the more we digitize, the more human experience is required.

Summary

There are many myths and tall tales surrounding AI, especially since the emergence of generative AI such as DALL-E.

In reality, these AIs do not represent a technological revolution in the sense of innovation, as their existence predates the emergence of ChatGPT.

First of all, we are witnessing a hiatus in usage, thanks to startups that have “opened” access to AI to the general public.

In reality, the training protocols of these AIs are kept secret by the companies, but the programming interfaces give users the illusion of owning the algorithm.

Despite concerns, this widespread and open use of AI will make human expertise more necessary than ever.

The emergence of generative AI has sparked much discussion and created many myths about the future of the technology and the impact on human endeavor. However, the reality is that AI is not a technological revolution, but the result of incremental progress and changes in the way we use already known algorithms. The secrecy of learning protocols, limited access to these technologies, and the illusion of openness all emphasize that humans remain a key element in the management and control of AI. Rather than replacing human expertise, the development of AI only reinforces its importance, making us important participants in this new digital age.