#at this point im just going to be funneling all my fluff needs into the fuzzy family while I torture Tequilla over here

[which-qsmp-egg-would]

Which one spoils Buttercup more: Ms. Lion or Mr. Wolf?

They both think the other spoils her too much. They're both right.

(If you want a real answer, its Ms. Lion, hands down. She was the fun focused caregiver, so Buttercup has a LOT of toys.)

[aries-writingblog]

Atlas (1)

Summary: After years of being imprisoned on the Raft, Tony negotiates freedom for his sister Tessa. When she’s free- so is her past, and it will never stop hunting her.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x OC(Stark)

Chapter Word count: 1,666

Warnings: PTSD (subtle ish), trauma, torture (in later parts), suicidal behaviors and thoughts, mentions of death, character death, injury, violence, angst, and a lil bit of fluff in there

Disclaimer: Atlas is my own, original work with characters belonging to Marvel (except Tessa and Dr. Clifton). Plagiarism is not cool kids.

A/N: this is my first work Im posting to this platform and I’m really excited and nervous about it. Hope you enjoy- constructive criticism is always helpful as well!!

The Avengers Tower. Former Stark Tower. 93 floors of office space, labs- people carrying out their business. People going about their day. At the top of all of them is Tony Stark. Waiting. Waiting in silence. Typically, he isn’t one to wait on anything or anyone but today... today is different. Today is special. Finally, the silence is broken by a shrill ring of his phone. Tony snaps it up, immediately accepting the call.

“Mr. Stark? Reid Kerrings.” The man’s voice carried through the phone, introducing himself. “Listen, I hear you’re trying to to negotiate a prisoners freedom?”

“She shouldn’t even be a prisoner,” Tony grumbled before plastering on a thick business tone. “Yes, that’s what I’m trying to do here. Thing is, I have a plan that I ran by Fury and Coulson and they seem to think it’s a great idea. Only thing is- that prisoner of yours is apparently ‘dangerous’ and she’d need stipulations on if she were to be released into my care.”

Tony hated this- speaking about her as if she were a terrorist. He hated that she’d been in maximum security prisons for six years. He hated that she was on the raft now. But, if he wanted to play ball, he had to agree to the terms. And unfortunately, that was one of the terms. He’d tried it his way two years ago and it got shut down. Several times.

“Well... you’re a damn maniac- prisoner 067112 is a psycho-“

“Her name is Tessa and that’s my sister you’re talking about so if you’d like to see your job another day I’d keep quiet.” Tony snapped, clenching his jaw. The phone fell silent before Kerrings cleared his throat.

“She would have to meet with an appointed therapist three days a week. She would also have to have a check in twice a week with a parole officer. If there is any flare up of her enhancement that is not accounted for by a member of your team, she comes back here and is no longer allowed parole. She is to be on a tight leash.” Kerrings read through the conditions of the agreement that Tony and Fury had worked out. “She must agree to these terms before her release. If she does, she will be escorted to your property tomorrow at 10:00 AM. Do you agree to these statements made today?”

“Yes.” Tony felt an excited, nervous bubble form in his stomach. He was doing it. His sister was almost free.

“Excellent. The escort team will run a security check on the building and perimeter.”

“Oh, well, not to brag or anything but- it’s the Avengers Tower. I ’m pretty sure this is the best it gets in terms of security.” Tony scoffed, turning when he heard the door opening. Steve Rogers stepped into the room, intending on speaking with Tony about another comm unit. He broke his. Again. He stopped short, hearing the man on the phone.

“This woman shouldn’t even be out of her cell here- she’s dangerous, I don’t care if shes your sister or not. The power of this woman is something that should be contained. not roaming around New York on a Thursday afternoon.”

“She’s a human being. No telling what you freaks have put her through in the raft- that’s probably why she’s going insane. You don’t even allow sunlight in that dingy of a prison. You treat someone like an animal, that’s what they become. Now, if you’ll excuse me, i’m going to run my own safety diagnostics on my own tower.” Tony quickly ended the call and lifted his eyes to meet Steve’s. “Can I help you, o wise elder of the yonder village?”

“Just... a new comm piece.” Steve stepped forward and tossed the broken pieces to the desk before meeting Tony’s eyes again. “What was that all about?”

“That is a surprise for the team I’m arranging.” Tony sat down at his desk, pulling up an image of a new weapon system, one that they’d encountered a few weeks ago on a mission. “These thugs were dealing with now... they’re sophisticated. They’re playing on a new ball field. So... I’m leveling it.”

“You can’t just do that without consulting the team first.” Steve scolded, his arms crossing over his chest. “What are you doing?”

“You’ll see- tomorrow morning at ten, have the team all meet in the conference room. I’ll bring my surprise to you.” Tony grinned, feeling strangely optimistic for once. Steve only sighed, knowing he wasn’t going to get anywhere with Tony.

“Fine- I’ll call a meeting.” Steve spun on his heel and marched out of the office. Tony sank further into his chair, spinning it to look out of the window.

“Friday, make sure floor ninety two is fireproof.” Tony called out, a twinge of doubt forming in his mind. He was quick to shake the thought from his mind, funneling all his belief into his sister. It had to work. For her sake.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sitting at the oval conference table, Bucky felt an impatience he hadn’t felt in months. Steve had let it slip- more like Bucky could tell there was something and kept prying- that Tony was on the phone with someone, talking about a prisoner. A woman prisoner. Bucky wasn’t sure what to expect and that caused a great deal of anxiety to pit in his chest. He didn’t like being kept in the dark.

Beside him, Steve sighed heavily, leaning his head on his fist, resting on the table. Being roommates with the guy, he knew Steve hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep last night, like most nights. He knew this because he himself was also up, roaming the apartment, watching tv and staring off the balcony.

“Anyone know what this surprise it stark mentioned?” Natasha pressed, becoming quite impatient herself. They’d all been sitting at the table for fifteen minutes. Waiting.

“No clue- I hope it’s better than the last surprise- the one that exploded while in use on the field.” Sam commented, scrolling absentmindedly on his phone.

Finally, the door to the room burst open, revealing Tony Stark marching in with purpose. Behind him, a woman in heavy chains, with metal cylinders encasing her hands, was being escorted in by two men in fire retardant kevlar uniforms. Her head was bowed, dark brown hair shifting to cover her face. Bucky sat up, seeing the woman marched in, heavily restrained. Tony clapped his hands, rubbing them together afterward. He gave the crowd a large smile and nodded once.

“Surprise, Avengers! This is my favorite sister, Tessa Stark, Tess, this is everyone. I’m sure you were given the brochure.” He turned to the two men. “You fulfilled your duties, you can go now.”

The men unclipped the chains and then pressed their thumbprints to the pads on the cylinders. They released with a hiss of steam, Tessa rubbing her wrists once they were free.

“I know you.” Sam’s voice broke into the conversation. Tessa’s jaw clenched and her eyes stared into the floor. She swallowed harshly, keeping her back ramrod straight and her hands in front of her. “Stark... oh, shit- where have I seen you...”

“Anyways folks, she is here to help out on our new group of rogues... she has a, ah... particular set of skills. Mostly explosives and fire. And since that’s what we’re dealing with, I’ve brought in the big guns.” Tony explained, settling in his chair and gesturing for Tessa to take a seat as well. She seemed wary of sitting beside Wanda but did it anyways, sitting barely on the edge of the chair. “Now, we’re gonna need a new plan of attack with-“

“Atlas!” Sam snapped his fingers, pointing at her. Tessa stiffened, caught off guard by the level of his voice. “That’s it! Code Name Atlas, Operation Dry Sands! You served in the army- I’m Sam Wilson, I flew with-“

“Riley...” her voice was raspy and low, rusted with disuse. “I remember you.” Bucky watched as she seemingly tried to melt into the chair, trying to hide herself.

“You were baller, man! She cleared missions like it was nothing!” Sam praised her, excited to finally meet her. “There was talk of her all over camps- everywhere!”

“Atlas?” Natasha asked, a brow raising. “That’s a peculiar code name- sounds... specific.” Tessa didn’t respond, keeping her head low. When the room fell silent, Steve took control.

“Right, well, Tony you mentioned a new plan of attack?” He expertly guided the topic over to a new path. Bucky couldn’t help but let his attention drift back to the new mystery in the room. He allowed his eyes to scan over her, stopping on her forearm where there was black ink. A tattoo of the army symbol, numbers below it. Maybe her squad number? Her arm shifted and Bucky looked up, meeting her eyes. He knew he’d fucked up.

Her dark brown eyes smoldered- a red tint glowing under her irises. Her lips were pulled into a scowl. He quickly lowered his gaze, catching a glance of her veins in her arms. glowing lightly orange. Bucky clenched his jaw and leaned back into his chair, a fierce scowl building on his lips. He didn’t like this woman, She seemed... violent. closed off. Hell- maybe she was just too much like him. And maybe he shouldn’t make a snap assumption but for some reason...

“Alright well, that’s all for now, Tessa- welcome to the team, please make yourself comfortable and if there’s anything we can do to help out- let us know.” Steve nodded as he stood up.

Tessa only nodded, stood up and spun on her heel- leaving the room without a word. Everyone glanced to Tony. He only shrugged and stood up.

“I’m gonna go make her feel at home- just got out of prison and all, see you around.” Tony gave a small wave over his shoulder and walked out, trailing out after his explosive sister.

[starlightinhumanform]

Friday Night Lights

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Ships: Romantic Prinxiety, Platonic Sleepxiety 

Summary: Roman and Virgil play opposite positions on their rival high school football teams. It’s the Homecoming game and tensions are high. Neither are willing to lose but one must rise above the other…

Warnings (in order of strength): Some language throughout, Just Gays Being Dudes (That is to say, some mildly mildly risqué content)

Genre: Human (High School) AU, Rivals to Lovers, Eventual Fluff 

A/N: I impulsively wrote a bullet point fic (*btw the bullet fic does contain some spoilers so beware of that before you read it*) several months ago and meant to flush it out a lot sooner but I only got a thousand words in before life hit and I wasn’t able to continue. I’m hoping to get the second part done soon, but in the mean time I thought I might as well post this! :D Love you all 🖤✨ 

Chapter 2    Ao3 Link   Fic Masterpost    Fic Request Info

The locker room light was sterilely bright, fluorescent lightbulbs glaring loudly above Virgil’s head. Bodies rushed back and forth in front of him, occasionally bumping into his knees or ruffling his hair. A hand clapped his shoulder but between the padding on his shoulders and the distance of his mind, he hardly felt it.

He sat on the wooden bench, neck bent, eyes closed, and breathing deeply through his nose. He did this before every game. While his other teammates hyped each other up- yelling and pounding each other on the back- he would go somewhere far, far away. It was how he got centered before all the chaos, how he rose above the adrenaline pounding in his heart, how he won. But today was different. Today he had to win.

“Hey, sleeping beauty, you ready to smash this game?”

Virgil grinned as he opened his eyes and turned to look at his fullback, Remy, “Yeah, dude. We’re going to wipe that smug grin off Prince’s face once and for all.”

———————————————

Roman Prince sat in a tight huddle with the rest of his team, wearing a smug grin. This was the homecoming game, basically the most exciting three hours of Roman’s year. Besides, this was his senior year and his last chance to show the rival school where they belonged. (That is to say, in the dirt).

With one last shout, the team started jogging out of the locker room, jumping as than ran and yelling at each other occasionally like they couldn’t even remember how to talk. The energy was electric. Roman lived for moments like this. The only thing he loved more than the pre-game hype was the post-victory euphoria.

He grinned and ran out into the field. It was dusk, a dark blue sky fenced off by the bright flood lights ringing the stands. He was hit by the strange combination of smells that was only found on high school football fields- funnel cake and sweat and turf and axe body spray and face paint. He waved at the cheering stands and blew a kiss at the opposing bleachers who booed at his arrival. This was his world and that ridiculous West Shore High didn’t have shit on him.

———————————————-

Virgil glared across the field at the pompous tackler from Monarch Knights. He was currently blowing kisses over towards his team and it made Virgil want to punch him. The boy was just so full of himself. Unfortunately, he had some right to be. On defensive, he was like a wall- one that simply refused to be knocked down. When he played offense, he moved like a tractor through the other team, mowing them down like they were cards and he was a quickly approaching tornado.

Remy laughed next to him, “I don’t think staring at him is going to do anything.”

“Well, if you do your job, I won’t have to do anything to him,” Virgil shoved him lightly in the chest.

Remy pushed back and it sent Virgil stumbling back a few feet. Virgil was by far the smallest on the team but he didn’t really mind; his job was to be light and fast. Being the halfback meant he got the ball and ran like his life depended on it. All the brutes around him were supposed to keep the field clear enough for him to sprint all the way to the end zone.

Usually it worked out well. Remy would run ahead of Virgil, knocking any threats out of the way and Virgil would carry them all the way to victory. Usually. Sometimes they would come across teams with some on-steroids sort of defense. Sometimes Remy would get pushed to the side play after play and Virgil would spend every down trying to weave his way through an oncoming river. Sometimes Virgil would get trapped in front of an oncoming wall and could hardly run an inch the entire night. More specifically, sometimes they played against Roman Prince.

Monarch Knights was the only school they had lost to the entire season. But not tonight. Virgil refused to be made a fool of.

———————————————-

Roman could feel that stare from across the field. Hundreds of eyes were on him at the moment, but none were so venomous.

It was the little creep who played offense for West Shore. He was one of the strangest people Roman had ever had the displeasure of playing against. Virgil Tempeste was like a chihuahua- tiny, aggressive, and buzzing with energy. Standing next to him felt just as idiotically risky as standing three inches from a lightning rod in the middle of a thunderstorm. When Roman had been forced to shake his hand earlier in the season, he had been half convinced that Tempeste was going to bite him.

As difficult as it was to admit though, he was Roman’s biggest concern this game. The halfback was fast and he knew how to weave through even the best defense lineups. He moved across the field like an ice skater across a rink.

Roman tried to give the little weasel a wave, but he was too busy bickering with the boy next to him to see Roman. Is was oddly disappointing; Roman would have loved to see how mad he could make Tempeste before the game even began.

——————————————————- The pre-game niceties passed by Virgil in a blur. Someone sang the national anthem, a coin got tossed, and the Student Body Leaders said something over the speaker system but it just sounded like overly enthusiastic static.

All that mattered was that they had possession of the ball. That meant Virgil could start his sprint from the very start of the game. Virgil liked his position. He was important, he had purpose, it gave him an opportunity to use all of the anxious energy he had bouncing around inside. Most importantly, his position was the very back of the formation which meant he got to see everyone else’s asses.

He looked out across the field and over his team. Past Remy, their quarterback, and the long line of guards and receivers, the red uniforms of the Knights blazed an angry red. It was such an arrogant colour, bright and brash and filling all of Virgil’s senses. Every time they played against the Knights, those stupid uniforms bothered him a ridiculous amount. Maybe that’s why they wear them- like that thing the matadors do with the red capes.

Virgil shook his head. He needed to stay focused; the game was going to start in seconds at most and he was idiotically thinking about the opposing team’s colours. But if he craned his back he could just see Prince…

—————————————-

Roman glared at the brute in front of him. His mouth guard sat heavily against his teeth. The bitter taste of plastic couldn’t mask the coppery adrenaline that coated his tongue and flooded his brain.

This was his game. His to win, his to conquer, his to dominate. And none of those Concord-grape-looking fools were going to get in his way.

The beast in front of him growled and Roman rolled his eyes. He really thought he could intimidate Roman? Bitch, please. He looked like the type of guy who would hurl slurs at Roman for wearing eyeliner just because he was insecure in his own sexuality (and probably thought that Roman was just a little bit hot). That type stopped scaring him a long time ago. Besides, he could brush that guy off like a fly.

The real threat was several feet behind him. Roman had come to refer to Remy Ristretto and Virgil Tempeste as Team Rocket because they were just as annoying and undermining- except they were often more successful than the cartoon characters.

Roman stopped trying to see Virgil and made eye contact with the wall just a few feet ahead, giving him a wink. He might as well have fun with this. Anyways, he’d have plenty of time to bother Tempeste later in the game.

If you want to be added to my Sanders Sides fic taglist or my Friday Night Lights taglist, please just send me an ask or reply to this post :p (please specify which one you would like to be added to!) 

General Taglist: @phan-fander @abi-beehive @fandomfan315 @cas-is-a-hunter @reggieleigh07 @endless-rain-of-words @vicdehart @im-actually-ok @softnic  Friday Night Lights Taglist: @lcrnbw @itsvirgilelliot @amazing-creepyfloof

[hqxreader]

hi hello can i please have a kei tsukishima ,yaku morisuke,and Yuu nishinoya first dateheadcannos, like what they would do on their first dates. Hope that helps thanks.

Hi lovely Anon :) I just kinda went crazy with this. They’re probably both ooc (Noya feels like it at least) 

I wasn’t able to write Yaku and I’m really sorry, I don’t have a good grasp of his character and I tried writing his but it just wasn’t flowing. I put what I had planned for him though and I hope that’ll make you somewhat happy.

First Dates

Warnings: This is chaos, crack, and fluff 

Tsukishima Kei

*y/f/d - your favorite dessert

- For Tsukki I see the first date being at a cafe of the sorts? This man loves his sweets yes? 

- You two know each other from let's say.. you’re in the same class together yeah? You two are always teasing each other until one day you teasingly ask him if he’s ever been on a date before

- “Well Tsukishima, if you’re so smart, shouldn’t you know how to treat a someone properly on the first date?”  

- And thus, the first date was set, and you were able to get Tsukki to go on a date with you (little did you know he was just as happy)

- Even if this is a date, this man will forever be a salty french fry, it’s in his blood 

- He teases you about what you’re getting, if you can see the menu or not 

- “Are you sure that’s a good choice Taylor? I heard that it makes your breath smell bad, not very first date worthy.” 

- “You know Tsukishima, they say when strawberries are out of season they can really mess up your body, I’m sure we don’t need that for volleyball.” 

*please note i am completely making that up (i hope)

- Customers and employees are just watching you two tease each other while waiting in line and they wonder, ‘Are they really on a date...?’ 

- Back to our main focus - You guys order, Tsukki of course getting a slice of strawberry shortcake and you getting y/f/d. Tsukki is still a gentleman through and through and pays for the food

- So you guys sit down and start to eat and you’re actually talking like real human beings

- There was no full out teasing like normal, just light conversation about school and simply how everything was in life, learning more about each other

- You would get a smile out of Tsukki sometimes and you’d point it out, but he’d just frown again, look out the window and say that the food was so good it made him smile 

- you guys finished eating like 10 minutes ago. Okay tsukki sureee

- You wrapped it up and left, and now Tsukki’s walking you home, your regular teasing conversations have started again but you’re still making little talk (does that make sense??)

- “You really mixed up baking soda and sugar when baking cookies? I don’t think I'm ever going to eat something made by you.” ''Okay listen I was like 12 years old, give me a break okay? I bet I can bake you a delicious batch of cookies now.” “Thanks, but no thanks.” “Okay! I’ll bring you some tomorrow Tsukki!” “Wha.. What?! Don’t call me that!” 

-cue blushing tsukki-

- ah yes young love. Well after that little conversation it’s quiet and you kept brushing your hand against his as you’re walking, a little ‘yoo hoo hold my hand’ signal but this man just smirks and waits to see what you’ll do 

- You take matters into your own hands (haha get it, hands? Oh man im horrible) and slowly slide your hand into his and interlock your fingers, nervous to see what his response would be

- he gives your hand a little squeeze and you guys just keep on going to your house, a comfortable silence in the air, a smile on your face and tsukki is internally celebrating 

- After that you’re officially dating and you’re making non-poisonous cookies for him and the team from now on. He’s very hesitant to eat them though. 

Nishinoya Yuu

- Okay let’s run through my train of thought with this bundle of energy, at first i thought ooh amusement park! But then I was like mm on the first date? No not yet, but i still wanted all the fun rides and such that an amusement park has, so I thought how about a fair/fairground? But then I thought, do they have those in Japan? For the sake of this story, yes, yes they do. 

- Alright lovies, you’re a friend of Yachi’s and she forgot something in her last class of the day, so you come to the volleyball practice to give it to her

- You’ve visited the team on various occasions, so you know them all pretty well and you’ve noticed the glances Noya gives you from time to time (ya know those looks? Ok let's go with it)

- That weekend there’s a fair in town, so you thought ‘ooh fair + Noya = awesome time’ which I mean, you’re not wrong

- You stick around the whole volleyball practice and wait for the boys to finish up, and once they’re done in the locker room you start walking with Noya and Tanaka 

- “So um Noya I was wondering-” “Taylor I thinking about maybe-” 

- You two just laughed at how you interrupted each other, Tanaka even chuckling as he watched this go down (he’s no dummy, he knows what’s going on between you two) 

- Noya speaks up again, “I was thinking about going to the fair this weekend, it sounds so cool! Would you like to come with me? It’ll be a blast!” “So like a date..?” 

- Noya’s cheeks go red and he just nods, scared at what your response could be, and Tanaka is still watching this (gotta support the bro right?)

- Of course you say yes to the date, and you two decide to go that Saturday afternoon

- Once they drop you off at home, Tanaka and Noya start jumping around like crazy in celebration

- mini time skip to Saturday thanks to chocolate milk -

- You guys are at the fairgrounds and Noya just wants to do everything

- Fair games? Let me win you something! You win a huge stuffed crow

- Mini barn set up with cute barn animals you can pet? Let’s go pet every single one of them Taylor!! Noya tried to impersonate a rooster, right in front of it.. it didn’t end too well… 

- Cotton Candy and funnel cakes? Taylor are you hungry? Let’s eat! Now you’re on sugar highs and even crazier

- Do you see all the crazy rides and the spooky fun house? Taylor that was crazy!! Let's do it again!! You went on it about 5 more times (he might've gotten sick, no one else needs to know though)

- Now it’s getting dark out, beautiful sunset, and it's time for the ferris wheel ride finally (oooh)

- You guys get on the ferris wheel and slowly start making your way up to the top, chatting about your favorite parts of the day as you see the whole fairgrounds in a different view, the purples, reds, and yellows in the sky mixing together like a bob ross painting (jk jk jk okay let me rewrite that)

- The sunset looked gorgeous as you guys reached the peak of the ferris wheel, and you grabbed your phone out of your pocket for a quick photo

- “Hey Noya do you want to take a picture with me?” “Oh yeah for sure! First date memories!” 

- Little does he know of your secret plan, a great secret plan 

- You extend your arm out and get close to Noya, grinning from ear to ear and take a cute photo with the sunset in the background

- You pull away real quick, “Hey can we take another one real quick?” “You can’t get enough of me Taylor?” 

- So you extend your arm again, get close, but this time right before you take the picture you close your eyes and lightly press your lips against Noya’s cheek 

- Noya’s just sitting there in shock of what’s happened, eyes wide and mouth open, and you’re giggling at his reaction

- You guys eventually make it to the bottom of the ferris wheel, and get out, by then Noya’s out of shock and is grinning ear to ear, begging you to send the pictures to him

- The picture is now both of your phones lock screens and you couldn’t have had a better first date

Bonus: “Yu how was your date?!” “Ryu they kissed me on the cheek!” “WHAT?!”

Yaku Morisuke

- My plan with Yaku was to have him and his s/o go star gazing out in Sendai. In Tokyo you can’t see stars all too well so I figured why not take a train out to Sendai and go stargazing. Reader has a summer house they spend the night at and it goes from there. (NOTHING DIRTY YA NASTIES) 

- I just couldn’t get his character as I was writing it, it felt.. wrong? you could say. So I hope the plan i had is okay :)

[alanajacksontx]

Transformation of Search Summit roundup

This past Friday we held our inaugural Transformation of Search Summit here in NY. Let’s just say, we’re already looking to book our venue for next year! On a scale of one to success, it was smashing.

Firstly, thank you (yet again) to all who came out to sponsor, speak at, and attend the event — couldn’t have done it without you.

As frequenters of many events ourselves, we did our best to ensure this one was full of high quality, fluff-free content. None of those talks where you get the end and think, “okay, but take out the buzzwords, and what did they say?” We asked for the moon, and our wonderful speakers delivered.

Some particularly rich (dare we say featured) snippets from the day:

Where search is heading

Siddharth Taparia, SVP and Head of Marketing Transformation, SAP, kicked off our morning speaking on the future of where search is heading. Social is the new storefront. The top 500 retailers earned 6.5 billion from social shopping in 2017, up 24%.

With the rise of voice search, position 0 is the ultimate prize. Over half of search queries will be voice based by 2020. A quarter of US homes have smart speakers. 92% of 18-29 year olds have smartphones. 90% increase in capabilities for voice search with only 8% error rate

Protecting privacy is a big deal. Alexa is coming to the office, the hotel, healthcare, the car, even learning. When you put a chip in everything, the whole world becomes a security threat. Even Google and Amazon are not immune to these.

New research: The Era of Ecommerce

Kerry Curran, Managing Partner, Marketing Integration, Catalyst & Clark Boyd, Research Lead, ClickZ, presented our headlining research report for the day: The Era of Ecommerce. Among many things, this research found a notable gap between how consumers browse, purchase, and behave online, and where advertisers put spend to reel those consumers in. Hint: not the same places.

There’s a lot more we could (and surely will) write about this report — not to mention that it was already 50+ pages long. For now I’ll direct you here for more information and here for the free download — enjoy!

How blockchain will affect search

Jeremy Epstein, CEO, Never Stop Marketing. For those who have never heard Jeremy speak, he is the best kind of fireball on stage. Spirited and smart, with the perfect sprinkle of self-deprecating humor. Jeremy speaks often on blockchain and the decentralized economy, and at this summit he focused on what those will mean for search. There’s a new sector — still in its infancy — of decentralized content that poses unique challenges in the search world: hard for search engines to index, curated by the audience, and where revenue generated goes directly to the creators of that content.

Panel: ClickZ, Adobe, Microsoft, Google

Panel discussion: Clark Boyd, Research Lead, ClickZ. Pete Kluge, Group Manager, Product Marketing, Adobe, Christi Olson, Head of Evangelism, Microsoft. Juan Felipe Rincón, Global Lead, Trust & Safety Search Outreach, Google

This was an interesting panel discussion on what awaits us in the future of search — things like connecting content and searches over several days, and more gender equality for women who search in emerging markets. They of course touched on types of search, and how Amazon is affecting the industry.

Visual search, which starts to answer the long-held question of “how do you search for something if you don’t know what it is?” and which particularly rings true for retail: this person has a nice scarf, where did it come from, where can I get one?

They also discussed how the input:output exchange of search is changing. It used to be only text:text. Now it can be image:voice, voice:voice, or any number of expanding options.

We need a bit of a mindset shift. We do a lot of our planning in terms of old paradigms, but more and more searches are being done by default, through lots of entry points.

They voiced how the future of search is no search, because search implies uncertainty. Instead, it will be about how you populate something before someone knows what they don’t know. In the future we won’t be searching, AI will do it for us. The experience of a user going through search is not here’s a keyword, here’s what I need. Sometimes we actively search, sometimes we want to be kept informed about things interesting to us.

And finally, bringing us a bit back to our feet — they reminded us that while we talk a lot about the future and transformation of search, a lot can be done now. Particularly around visual search, there’s still a lot of basic groundwork that people aren’t doing, such as using alt tags on images and making sure our visual content is properly described. As Rincon put it, “Look at the web as if you didn’t have eyes.”

Mobile search

Jason White, Director, SEO, Hertz. Fun fact about Jason: he started off doing SEO in 2003 because he competed in cycling races and worked at a bike shop to get discounts on parts, and the bike shop wanted to sell excess inventory in the winter. Fifteen years later, he’s Director of SEO at Hertz. Yet another quintessential example of great, self-taught SEOs who stumbled into the field and were pleasantly surprised to find it stuck.

Best quote from Jason? “You’re going to have a smart toilet bowl at sometime in your life. What will it say about you?” He talked about the future of IoT and security. We learned our data is worth $250 per year, and it’s going up every year. And finally, that billions of queries are made every day, 15% of which are completely new — ones Google says people had never searched for before.

Amazon and Amazon Marketing Services

John Denny, VP Ecommerce & Digital Marketing, Cavu Venture Partners (formerly Bai Brands). Luis Navarrete Gomez, Head of Global Search Marketing, LEGO

This was a particularly hands-on session with 7 excellent tips for leveraging Amazon and Amazon Marketing Services, i.e. both paid and organic search. And it was certainly from a trustworthy source — John Denny helped lead Bai beverages to be named 2015 Vendor of the Year by Amazon.

They related how running search campaigns on Amazon has been a struggle, one which many compare to what it was like running Google search campaigns in 2005. Happily, there’s been some rapid development of ad tech platforms changing the game of late.

They also talked about the tangible nature of Amazon campaigns versus elsewhere on the web — marketers selling physical products. As John put it, “A lot of execs hear about Amazon ads and think great, let’s rock and roll! But the reality on Amazon is that you can’t rock and roll anywhere if your product is out of stock. Build your foundation first.”

The full-funnel search approach

Claudia Virgilio, GVP of Strategic Partnerships, Kenshoo spoke to us about the importance of taking a full-funnel search approach. Amazon advertising has 197 million monthly unique visitors, and $4.6 billion spend.

How to optimize for voice search

Melissa Walner, Director, Global SEO, Hilton led another particularly practical session, coming from a brand that certainly gets asked a lot of questions — everything from “what’s the address of my hotel” to “what are fun things to do in Maui with kids?” Melissa had great insight into how to optimize specifically for voice search, and viewing SEO these days as not just search engine optimization so much as search everywhere optimization and search everything optimization.

She pointed out that 1 billion voice searches are made each month already, and that by 2020, 30% of all searches will be done without a screen.

In a voice search world, position 0 is queen: 80% of google home responses stem from a featured snippet. She then gave great tips for securing those featured snippets, on both high-level strategic and in-the-weeds technical levels.

Visual search and ecommerce

Clark hopped back up to cover visual search and how it affects ecommerce. One key quote from this session was pulled from our research report, from Amy Vener of Pinterest: “Shopping has always been visual. We’ve just been taught to do the opposite online.”

93% of consumers consider images to be be key deciding factor in a purchasing decision.

61% of consumers aged 18-34 discover new products through social media. If consumers start purchasing directly through these social platforms, that could pose a big problem for someone like Amazon.

We also learned about structured data to help search engines understand content, and the importance of always marking up price, availability, image, and product name. For the curious, the Pinterest engineering blog is quite open on how their visual search works.

Panel: UPS, Codecademy, Heineken, Condé Nast

Panel: Andrew Spikes, Head of Global Paid Search, UPS. Kunal Arya, Performance Marketing Manager, Codecademy. Nikolai Zeinikov, Ecommerce Director, Heineken. John Shehata, VP, Audience Development Strategy, Condé Nast

To close out the day, we had a final panel discussion on strategies for search transformation. Panelists from UPS, Codecademy, Heineken, and Conde Nast carried us through with light-hearted, quippy, down to earth thoughts on how they strategize search at their organizations.

They reminded us that almost 80% of successful add to baskets happen through search, and that people use search because they can’t easily find the products.

They also exemplified how SEO teams are still very much “lean beasts.” One of them mentioned that even at such a large company, their “search” team was a mere four people — and two of them were UX/UI. “When I first started, it was a huge mess,” he said. Further proof that a lot can be done with few hands on deck, and that strategy has a lot to do with choosing what not to do.

All in all, it was an excellent, enlightening day. We’ll have some more in-depth video content to come on specific sessions. Until then, another s/o to those who joined us!

from IM Tips And Tricks https://searchenginewatch.com/transformation-search-summit-roundup from Rising Phoenix SEO https://risingphxseo.tumblr.com/post/179326859220