#i ALSO think that this stuff is preliminary marketing which is why it's all stuff we've seen in the first four episodes

[jonathanbyersphd]

If you call the number for wsqk it does a xylophone chime and then hangs up. (Think morning announcements in grease almost)

I was assuming it wasn't going to be active, but it looks like the message just hasn't been left yet.

Given that these leaks lean to a November release date, and the El poster dropped in January, I think this poster was supposed to go out in March. And then the teaser will be released at SDCC ala s2

[headspace-hotel]

This year has, so far, been for me a series of rapid realizations of what I have been unlearning.

I went to the library. This was a couple weeks ago. I knew I needed to read a book, fiction. I hadn't done so in over a year and it was the longest period of time I had ever gone without doing so. I made a rule: I would only pick books I had never heard of, by authors I had never heard of, and I would not do any preliminary research or even bother to look at what the book was about. I would make my decision on whether to read or not purely on my impression of the title, cover and opening lines.

The book was The Connoisseur by Evan S. Connell. It was kind of a random selection. I sat down with it in a corner of the library and straight up devoured it. I tore through the book within a few hours, without taking a single break. I was captivated. I couldn't put it down.

It is a book about a guy who buys a Mayan figurine in a knickknack shop while he's on a business trip. and becomes obsessed with pre-Columbian sculptural art. There isn't really much of a plot apart from this. He goes to sketchy antique shows, has conversations with museum curators, wealthy art dealers and forgers, and seeks to learn how to distinguish a genuine pre-Columbian piece from a fake one. It was written in the 1970's, so the views on Native Americans are antiquated and sometimes offensive, and there is the troubling thread of the very concept of looting another culture's treasures and treating them as collectibles, though the book is not without commentary on this.

All the same, it was a completely intoxicating read. The vicarious experience of becoming fascinated with a topic and having it unfold a whole world for you was ferociously gripping, and so was the intrigue of the art collecting world itself. The frauds, forgeries, smuggling, museums, academics, aristocrats, auctions and seedy flea markets. Will he ever be able to tell if a piece is "real?" Does it matter if it's "real?" Why does he want to own and possess a piece of art, and how does its "realness" affect that desire? The book leaves you not knowing what to think.

It is a book about curiosity, portrayed in the narrative as a totally unreasonable lightning bolt that strikes a man who has never been fascinated by anything and changes him forever. Why? Why does a Mayan figurine, in particular, speak to him? Why does any piece of art, or any fascinating thing in the world, speak to anyone? It is unknowable.

I went to the library again. I picked a new book using the same rules. This book was Fragile Beasts by Tawni O'Dell. Just like the last time, I was totally captivated. I couldn't put it down.

Did I have a couple major problems with the portrayal of some important aspects of the story? Yes. (It would make the post much longer to discuss.) Was I completely captured by and invested in the story for the time I was reading it? Also yes. The book braids together several very different strands-- the story of a legendary Spanish bullfighter and a wealthy American woman that he loved, two brothers stuck in an ugly family situation after their father's death in a car accident, and a rich old heir to a Pennsylvania coal mining fortune and to the sinister underbelly of her family's business.

There was a lot about baseball, which I know nothing about, and bullfighting, which I know nothing about, and I certainly don't know anything about being a teenaged boy who resents and mistrusts his estranged mother, or an aristocratic old lady who lives in a mansion and eats fancy Spanish food. It was fun to experience so much unfamiliar stuff and to care about things I wouldn't normally care about. Once again I couldn't stop reading until I had finished it.

I don't know that either book was "good," though I thought they were both well written; I just know that reading them was like being hooked up to an IV of something essential and life-giving and feeling it reanimating my body.

It had been a year since I had read any fiction, but it had been much, much longer since I had loved to read. As I became an adult I had become picky and critical about books, and developed a highly sophisticated sense of my taste and the books I considered good- which were very rare. My taste in books became so sophisticated, eventually, that I didn't like books at all anymore.

I had almost withered away from deficiency of that essential nutrient known as STORY. I'd almost crumbled myself into dust from pretentiousness! I may have been terribly wrong about the kinds of things I liked to read, on top of it. And I certainly hadn't realized that story was such an essential nutrient.

"Just entertainment" the pretentious sorts of people might say of a book they think is useless-- but what is entertainment but to absorb your mind in something, and what is absorbing your mind in a book but to experience things you would never have experienced? It expands you and makes you more complicated. It is the study of human existence itself.

Now all I have been able to think about today is finishing my work and going to the library again...

[iantimony]

almost thursday tuesdaypost

listening: so i'm pretty sure i'd linked the paramore cover of burning down the house before but apparently there is a whole entire talking heads cover album and it all kinda whips. miley cyrus is there ?? i think the lorde one is also very good.

some other songs this week: state line (the dip), short skirt/long jacket (cake) (i'm back in my cake era), easy way out (roosevelt)

reading: ‘Dangerous and un-American’: new recording of JD Vance’s dark vision of women and immigration: ough politics.

trellis supports for houseplants: i got a monstera at the farmers market and she'll need a support. my pothos also needs some tlc.

Pop Culture: please please burst ai bubble

aaaand a paper for research. thank you peter bird.

watching: i watched rango a few weeks ago, i think i forgot to mention it/it was during my dark period - weird movie!! i did enjoy it, for some reason i thought it had come out way more recently than it actually had.

a bunch of videos from swell entertainment. good bg crafting noise. i liked her defcon video.

playing: dnd as normal

making: i added an outline to the swamp symbol on the knitted mtg card sleeve and sewed a small cotton rectangle in to cover the stitching on the inside; no pics.

trimmed these pots! big ol foot on one of em.

and my [redacted] STILL HAVEN'T GONE THRU THE GLAZE KILN. i'm biting my nails. angela please.

eating: peaches n cream overnight oats recipe: good! gonna be a standard driver for now i think, especially as stone fruit season comes to a close deb smittenkitchen corn bacon and parmesan pasta: this was just okay. i tossed in two zucchini as well. won't be repeating it. one pot chicken meatballs w greens: this FUCKED. WILL be repeating. i used beef instead of chicken because i had beef in the freezer so it was definitely a little richer than the recipe intended but it was still good.

list of veggies good to save for stock which lead me to read her frankly baffling "why I don't eat mushrooms" writeup. not technically wrong! still baffling!

and i also mad some 'tea' using the corn silk lol (i know it is technically a tisane, shh) (i told my midwestern friend that i was doing this and she was so confused in a 'well. why' way.)

misc: oopsie! i am so crazy busy with the day-to-day right now that im melting a little bit, despite technically having a freer schedule than i have had in years (no classes!). i am working on my preliminary exam stuff which is probably why. oughhh.

[twilightmalachite]

Poltergeist - Garbage Heap Sketch 1

Author: Akira

Characters: Madara, Anzu

Translator: Mika Enstars

Proofer: Revoltrad

"(Actually, come to think about it, it’s been a while since Anzu-san worked with… me.)"

[Read on my blog for the best viewing experience with Oi~ssu ♪]

Season: Winter

Location: Mountain Forest

1 week later. On a trail leading up to Maizuru House, a children’s orphanage somewhere in Tokyo…

Madara: Maaan, pleasant and exhilarating[1]! I had to say it!

Y’know, I was totally stumped being told any wish of mine would be granted outta nowhere like that!

Then I came up with the most brilliant idea, you seeee! I asked the president if I could work as MaM, which I haven’t done in a long tiiime.

Aside from the SS preliminaries, I’ve only been active as Double Face.

But, I think it’s about time for my partner Kohaku-san to concentrate on his activities as Crazy:B—

And now that I was able to get my name out there in SS, I think it’s also a good time for me to resume my activities as MaM in earneeest.

Then Double Face, which has become difficult to handle, can disappear unnoticed!

After that, Kohaku-san and I can primarily work as Crazy:B and MaM respectively.

Double Face does dangerous undercover work. It’s not something meant to last forever.

Truth is, we have a lot of eyes on us from all around the industry for doing some crazy stuff.

If things come to light one of these days, we might even get driven out of the country like Gaaaatekeeper.

People of this country are strangely obsessed with cleanliness, after all.

I’d be fine with it, but my heart would ache to drag Kohaku-san into a situation like that.

The time’s just come for it. Or more like, it’s just time to pay our dues. Our paths were never meant to cross in the first place, so from now on… It’d be for the best if we go our separate ways.

So instead I asked the president to “give me a MaM-like job!” Hahaha!

Now what exactly is a ‘MaM-like job’? Even I can’t answer thaaaat—I guess I don’t even know anymore, huuuh! Hahahahaha!

……

Madara: (…So awkward!)

(I’d requested the president to make Anzu-san the producer in charge of my work as MaM—)

(Anzu-san, you’ve been wearing a straight face and haven’t said a single word the entire way here! What’s wrong? Does your stomach hurt, maybe?)

Anzu-san, Anzu-san! Isn’t it about time you stop being so mean and explain to me what the details of this job aaaare?

How come you seem so irritateeed? Anzu-san, girls are prettier when they smile, y’knooow? C’mooon, smile, smile~! ♪

Madara: —Eek!?

(W-Whaaat? Why are you looking at me with eyes that scream “Shut up, I’ll kill you!”, Anzu-saaan? Seriously, what’s going ooon? Did I do something wrong agaaain?)

(Hmm~… Anzu-san was put into an inconvenient position during SS, so she might be under a lot of stress…)

(Actually, come to think about it, it’s been a while since Anzu-san worked with… me.)

(Huh? When was the last time we worked together? Now that I’m thinking about it, this is the first time we’ve been able to have a private conversation in a while… Since the Antique Market, right?)

(I have a feeling I had said some terrible things to Anzu-san back then when we parted. “Goodnight, and farewell, Producer-san”…)

(But I mean, at that time, I had seriously thought it’d be best if Anzu-san wasn’t involved with me anymore. I thought it was the most appropriate thing to do then.)

(Besides, Anzu-san, I’ve already said every hurtful thing I can, haven’t I?)

(But even if my words didn’t hurt her, she might be pissed off over having them thrown at her one-sidedly, and without context. Is she angry? Is that what’s going on, I wonder?)

Anzu-sa~n…? Do you think you could maybe tell me why you’re angryyy? Isn’t saying “Figure it out yourself!” something that little kids dooo~?

And you’re not a troublesome little girl like that, right Anzu-san?

—Eek!? Huh, what? We’ve arrived at our destination?

Which is…

Oh, so there’s something out here all by itself in a remote place like this, huuuh? What’s this building, is it a hospital?

Ummm, what did you say…? Maizuru House, an orphanage?

This is an orphanage? Umm, so am I here to give a performance as an idol to cheer up the kids here?

Is that my job here? Could that be it?

Anzu-sa~n? Can’t you at least reply to my questions, pleaaase…?

[ ☆ ]

← prev | story directory | next →

This is his familiar yukai tsuukai (愉快痛快)!

[the-firebird69]

In the meantime we have more people running to the stashes and caches and it is speeding up because they're found out mostly Trump is there and Trump is sending more forces as we thought between the both it's around 4.5% and increasing steadily by the end of the day it'll probably be 5.5% in total and that's ridiculous we can't have that we were also in receipt of several threats from people we don't usually receive threats running threats from no we're getting them from Trump and he's threatening her son so we don't want to hear it anymore if you do it you're going to get killed you don't have any patience for your kind at all anyways you little s***. And we're going to start hitting them but that is a high percentage out of 11.5% and half of them that are there are gone so it's really 9.5% and it's true and it's going to go down it's a giant giant Purge of complete idiot.

-and he's telling Michael too earlier today is such a dick and is a p**** and stuff and he wants to set him up and he did and he was complaining a little but what he says is you have to be a management upper level management and you have to be our smoke screen and go between and most of the companies anything s*** real slowly and he says come on Mr handshake you can do better than that and he is and you guys are managing these facilities managing the companies getting the materials there and the product out online on time that we helped you set up a lot and it works the point of sale stuff the marketing research looking at the demographics and actual supply and demand and and you know you're keeping a lot of it balanced and it was going well and not to mention the day-to-day factory operations but it's going to be more than what John Lord does cuz you're not on the bottom and not many Max were there and they were pests and we're helping so it'll work pretty good there's a lot of companies that he wants to do there's a bad guy sometimes course both companies shutting down and he wants to know how long would it take to modify the process and what we say is we'll use the current process we think change of sugar out take away some of the preservatives that make you poop and when you modify the process just boiling longer and we can add to it when we get the construction company is going and he likes the answer this is a real one and that's what a manager does and he's going to get our son back he says it's how it works that was her son Michael 2 says back no it is not but I taught you that you suck worked a little. And our son says cookie got by forever holding his head was really couldn't think and the trumps that he couldn't think and they left him alone but really he couldn't think. It worked for a long time

... I'd like to thank our friend here for doing that to me cuz I can see that it kind of worked I'd like to do it to him but it's happening all the time for no good reason now I see why you're probably managing all these companies again and it's really where we want to be and we thought we'd be on the bottom but no but he's really listening has been saying it a little is realistic and we done some issues and problems but we can work them out it's with logistics and concerns about contamination and it's due to where facilities are and like five of the 10 Budweiser plans I've been contaminated with radiation and a defunct and our son says we don't have 30 years to wait for it to rot so we will get together and investigate and test them all with permanent preliminary investigations then you do more testing and you have shut down phase a demonstrate he's on my lunch the demolish it if necessary and he likes it and the answer is real and we're going to start meeting about these companies and that's on the list has true but the remaining five we can keep up with demand and reopen 10 in the outer areas and he says good baby and really it's a must cuz your people live on this stuff and he wants to start up the Clydesdale operation which is way to get people to hired interested as well as selling the beer and it says you do private events and we can do that then hiring events too this is imagine going to a job fair and having two Budweiser horse and buggy pull up and you can ride around the block and he said that's ridiculous and it'll be like a Brewers hiring and whiskey and vodka and beer and we can do this kind of thing in these centers and get people interested and he wants to do that and he'll have his people flow in so it's going to happen and this is a great ideas and he wants to be involved and you guys know how to do that. Hera can help him be on q and stuff and without her he'll ignore everything

And she thanks for you and she thinks me. It's true there's other companies so they're pretty big we're going to get back to it in a minute I feel we will

Thor Freya

Olympus

[lead-gen-marketing-experts]

The Best Restoration Search Keywords To Target (Based On Personal Experience)

Even if you only have a very basic, preliminary understanding of how search engine marketing works...

...maybe you read a few articles about "this SEO stuff".

I'm sure you've heard of "keywords" otherwise known as search terms.

In you and I's focus industry, restoration, the most common being what I call "The Big 4" and are pretty obvious really...

Water Damage Restoration

Water Removal

Water Mitigation

Mold Remediation

Whether your using them for Google Ads PPC campaign targets, anchor texts for linkbuilding, or the basic ideas for content generation for blog posts, videos, press releases, etc...

Those are the big ones.

Those get the highest search volume by far coupled with being highly relevant as far as "commercial intent" goes.

That said, there are tons of other keywords of all sorts that are highly relevant to our water damage lead gen campaigns.

Some only get a handful of searches per month in any particular location.

That's fine...they add up in a big way when you start optimizing and showing up in the SERPS (Search Engine Results Pages) for dozens or even hundreds of them.

Plus, targeting these types of subset keywords like we do right from the start helps us generate those first leads for our restoration clients faster than if we only focused on THE BIG 4.

Less volume typically means less competition which means quicker initial results.

So while we spend the first few weeks or even months (depending on the size of the metro we're targeting) setting up and getting the initial traffic going for the main keywords...

...we are snagging up the easy wins right away from a ton of these smaller, but still highly valuable keyword rankings.

And it's when you really drill down into these super "longtails" as they're known, that you can get not only really quick results, but also super crazy targeted traffic with "ravenous intent".

A prime example of this is the "burst pipe" related group of search terms.

Think about it.

Who is more motivated to hire a restoration company as quickly as humanly possible than the man or woman that comes home from work to find a pipe has burst and they have water spraying all over their kitchen...

Then to find a foot of it has already accumulated in their basement!

They are going to be Googling as fast as humanly possible and clicking on the first result they see...

That result will be us/our client.

That's what we do, and that's why we do it...

That's where the lion's share of the business comes from in this industry (and most others for that matter), period, full stop!

In the nearly 9 YEARS that we've been doing water damage lead gen specifically...we've accumulated literally hundreds of exactly these kinds of keywords to target.

So, if you want to get in front of those kinds of leads vs having those jobs go to your competitors, get in touch with us today to get started...

AND LET'S GET AFTER IT!

(570) 316-4775

justin@realtimeleadgen.com

The Best Restoration Search Keywords To Target (Based On Personal Experience) initially was distributed on:Justin Hess CEO Of Real Time Lead Gen

Real Time Lead Gen 150 E 10th St Bloomsburg, PA 17815 (570) 316-4775

We'll Make Your Phone Ring!

Exclusive Water Damage Restoration Lead Generation Services

https://real-time-lead-gen.business.site/

https://www.google.com/maps?cid=13637965468191807517

https://sites.google.com/site/realtimeleadgen/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-wYIDpCc3a1dNqUv7Mw00w

#WaterDamageLeads #ExclusiveWaterDamageRestorationLeads #PayPerLeadWaterDamage #WaterDamageRestorationPayPerCall #BuyWaterDamageLeadsOnline #MoldRemediationSEOMarketing #DisasterRestorationDigitalMarketing #MarketingPlansForRestorationCompanies #WaterDamageLeadGenerationCompany #WaterMitigationLeads #WaterDamageRestorationSEOService #Marketing #ExclusiveLeadGeneration #PayPerLead #PayPerCall #SEO #InternetMarketing #DigitalAdvertising #LocalSearchEngineOptimization #VideoMarketing #RealTimeLeadGen

from Real Time Lead Gen - Feed https://www.realtimeleadgen.com/the-best-restoration-search-keywords-to-target-based-on-personal-experience

[ultravagabond21]

The Best Restoration Search Keywords To Target (Based On Personal Experience)

Even if you only have a very basic, preliminary understanding of how search engine marketing works...

...maybe you read a few articles about "this SEO stuff".

I'm sure you've heard of "keywords" otherwise known as search terms.

In you and I's focus industry, restoration, the most common being what I call "The Big 4" and are pretty obvious really...

Water Damage Restoration

Water Removal

Water Mitigation

Mold Remediation

Whether your using them for Google Ads PPC campaign targets, anchor texts for linkbuilding, or the basic ideas for content generation for blog posts, videos, press releases, etc...

Those are the big ones.

Those get the highest search volume by far coupled with being highly relevant as far as "commercial intent" goes.

That said, there are tons of other keywords of all sorts that are highly relevant to our water damage lead gen campaigns.

Some only get a handful of searches per month in any particular location.

That's fine...they add up in a big way when you start optimizing and showing up in the SERPS (Search Engine Results Pages) for dozens or even hundreds of them.

Plus, targeting these types of subset keywords like we do right from the start helps us generate those first leads for our restoration clients faster than if we only focused on THE BIG 4.

Less volume typically means less competition which means quicker initial results.

So while we spend the first few weeks or even months (depending on the size of the metro we're targeting) setting up and getting the initial traffic going for the main keywords...

...we are snagging up the easy wins right away from a ton of these smaller, but still highly valuable keyword rankings.

And it's when you really drill down into these super "longtails" as they're known, that you can get not only really quick results, but also super crazy targeted traffic with "ravenous intent".

A prime example of this is the "burst pipe" related group of search terms.

Think about it.

Who is more motivated to hire a restoration company as quickly as humanly possible than the man or woman that comes home from work to find a pipe has burst and they have water spraying all over their kitchen...

Then to find a foot of it has already accumulated in their basement!

They are going to be Googling as fast as humanly possible and clicking on the first result they see...

That result will be us/our client.

That's what we do, and that's why we do it...

That's where the lion's share of the business comes from in this industry (and most others for that matter), period, full stop!

In the nearly 9 YEARS that we've been doing water damage lead gen specifically...we've accumulated literally hundreds of exactly these kinds of keywords to target.

So, if you want to get in front of those kinds of leads vs having those jobs go to your competitors, get in touch with us today to get started...

AND LET'S GET AFTER IT!

(570) 316-4775

justin@realtimeleadgen.com

The Best Restoration Search Keywords To Target (Based On Personal Experience) initially was distributed on:Justin Hess CEO Of Real Time Lead Gen

Real Time Lead Gen 150 E 10th St Bloomsburg, PA 17815 (570) 316-4775

We'll Make Your Phone Ring!

Exclusive Water Damage Restoration Lead Generation Services

https://real-time-lead-gen.business.site/

https://www.google.com/maps?cid=13637965468191807517

https://sites.google.com/site/realtimeleadgen/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-wYIDpCc3a1dNqUv7Mw00w

#WaterDamageLeads #ExclusiveWaterDamageRestorationLeads #PayPerLeadWaterDamage #WaterDamageRestorationPayPerCall #BuyWaterDamageLeadsOnline #MoldRemediationSEOMarketing #DisasterRestorationDigitalMarketing #MarketingPlansForRestorationCompanies #WaterDamageLeadGenerationCompany #WaterMitigationLeads #WaterDamageRestorationSEOService #Marketing #ExclusiveLeadGeneration #PayPerLead #PayPerCall #SEO #InternetMarketing #DigitalAdvertising #LocalSearchEngineOptimization #VideoMarketing #RealTimeLeadGen

from Real Time Lead Gen - Feed https://www.realtimeleadgen.com/the-best-restoration-search-keywords-to-target-based-on-personal-experience

[redbeardace]

Hi, I am so sorry to bring up a touchy subject in the ace community, but I saw that in one of your posts you referred to hsdd as a defunct diagnosis. Was it removed? I thought it was still included in the dsm just that it was only for people who experienced distress and did not call themselves asexual.

Some context and history are important here.

In the DSM-IV, there was an entry for HSDD, or "Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder". That was the one where the criteria for the "Generalized, Lifelong" variant of HSDD was basically a description of asexuality, and I believe it also had something about causing a partner distress or whatever. Bad news all around. HSDD in the DSM-IV was not specific to a gender, there was just the one flavor.

Then, in the planning for the DSM-5 (Yeah, they stopped using Roman Numerals for that one 🤷), they decided it would be a good idea to split HSDD in two and make them gender specific, so there'd be Female HSDD and Male HSDD. I don't think their preliminary descriptions were that different so I don't know why they wanted to do that, but they did. That set the stage for the next headscratcher, which was that in the final DSM-5, they combined Female HSDD and Female Sexual Arousal Disorder into a single new thing, "Female Sexual Interest/Arousal Disorder". Over on the male side, Male HSDD and just plain "Erectile Disorder" remained separate. It's Male HSDD and FSI/AD that have the asexuality clause in them.

I'm assuming the post you were referencing was something about Addyi/Flibanserin and how it is being marketed towards women with HSDD. Plain old HSDD no longer exists, and "Female HSDD" never really did, so the "disorder" that stuff is claiming to help "cure" isn't really a thing, even if you subscribe to the whole DSM business. But by going to the plain old HSDD language, they're going back in time to where the DSM did not have any kind of asexuality clause for anything, so their marketing department doesn't have to be bothered with thinking about all those people who claim to be "asexual", because lookee here, the definition of HSDD says you've all got this problem that our magic wonder pill can fix right up slightly more effectively than a pack of Skittles labeled "Sex Pills", if our pill doesn't lower your blood pressure to the point where you're passing out all the time, so uh don't drink anything or use heavy equipment or drive or stand up or whatever. (Also, we tested our sex pill for women on a bunch of dudes, but we're sure that's fine.)

[botanyshitposts]

for those not aware, although it isn’t 100% confirmed yet for reasons i’ll get to, the current running theory for the source of the coronavirus is that it jumped from a version of coronavirus infecting pangolins, which, due to being critically endangered, are protected in china, but are also some of the most heavily trafficked mammals in the world for both their meat and scales. right now there’s been a couple preliminary studies suggesting the same thing, as well as a preliminary report from South China Agricultural University showing that the genomes of a version of coronavirus affecting pangolins has about 99% similarity to the one currently affecting humans. 

(side note: the initial idea was that it jumped directly from bats, like what happened originally with ebola and lassa fever, but because the outbreak was in winter most bat populations were hibernating, suggesting that it’s unlikely anyone came in direct contact with them. what that suggests is that if bats are involved, they’re acting as a reservoir for the virus, and the pangolin(s) in question just acted as an intermediate for the virus to jump to humans.)

the reason why all this isn’t confirmed yet is 1. these are preliminary reports done on short notice with limited data, 2. these are preliminary reports that haven’t been peer reviewed yet (due to being preliminary reports done on short notice), and 3. we currently can’t see the full picture of what’s going on. personally i’m guessing we won’t know for sure for at least a few more months, if not for a year or so. that being said, the connection between the trade of small carnivores and human-jumping coronaviruses (in the case of this paper, specifically the SARS strain from the Hong Kong 2002 outbreak) has been discussed and suspected before, way back in 2004, so the possibility really isn’t that far out there. hypothetically this will be completely confirmed if Chinese authorities can directly link the illegal trafficking of pangolins to what was present at the Hunan Seafood Market in Wuhan, China on December 31st, 2019. 

you may be wondering why i’m bothering to talk about this when we dont know the whole picture yet, and the answer is that this hypothetical pangolin with like, a cold is taking up so much space in my fucking head, man. so much space. i keep thinking about this little dude. imagine being a pangolin and you go around eating ants and shit and suddenly you get poached and smuggled into some illegal hideaway (im picturing like, a cartoony seedy dark nightclub or smth, wherever animal traffickers take stuff) under a public market in one of the busiest cities in China and as a result you cause a massive global pandemic while you, a pangolin, are completely unaware. 

like, the obvious extrapolation of all this is yet another reaffirmation that poaching and destroying animal habitats and ecosystems will result in direct danger to the human race, as has been demonstrated many times before, but beyond that like. what happened to the coronavirus pangolin. how did this happen. where did they get the pangolin. did the virus only jump once the pangolin was bought and killed for meat or something or is the pangolin still alive somewhere. the sheer absurdity of the hypothetical pangolin situation unfolding before our eyes is just blowing my fucking mind 

[suganovakawa]

Hello I wanna say that I love ur work 🥺 I’m new to the haikyuu fandom and ur work gives me life! Can I request a HC with Tanaka, Daichi, Suga & asahi and how they would react when they see other teams at a tournament flirt with you and how they act when they’re jealous? Thank you !

absolutely omg i love my karasuno babies and them being jEALOUS??? this is my calling goodBYE

btw btw welcome to the hq fandom bby !! enjoy your stay here 🥺💞💘💓

𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐃𝐋𝐘 𝐁𝐀𝐂𝐊 𝐎𝐅𝐅 !

karasuno boys fend off other teams as they try to flirt with you !

— check out my masterlist !!

these boys don’t take too kindly to other teams trying to flirt with you . . . and they’re not gonna deal with it for much longer ! >:)

a / n : jealous anything >>>> and you cannot change my mind because it’s my weakness k thx bye 🥰

— ask to be added to my taglist !!

taglist : @yams046 @janellion

ryuunosuke tanaka

lmao flirting w you is like asking for a death sentence i do not make the rules

tanaka is not afraid to show you off , nor is he afraid to show off your guys’ relationship at tournaments either

he has full trust in you dw , but that doesn’t mean he trusts the men that get a little too close for comfort

if his death glare alone doesn’t scare them off i feel so sorry for them

ryu will 100% call someone out if they’re obviously flirting with you

“ hey , punk ??? you’re trying to flirt with them , huh ??? gotta tell ya , you’re out of luck , go find someone else . this hot stuff right here is mine , thank you very much . ”

he gets so confused when you get embarrassed because what ??? he’s just telling them the truth

“ ryu ! you can’t just call me ‘ hot stuff ’ in the middle of the gym !! ”

“ why not , baby ? you are hot stuff ! they’re just bummed out you’re not theirs . ”

not to mention , 8 times out of 10 noya will probably be right there with tanaka scaring off the suitors

those two are literally your bodyguards , and once they know that someone else has their sights set on you , do not expect them to leave your side

also , he holds a FULL GRUDGE against ladies men type people

cough cough tooru i’m talking bout u bby

you are to stay a mile away from oikawa and all of aoba johsai at all times , ryu will not accept otherwise

oh , and terushima ??? YEAH HES NOT EVEN GONNA LAY EYES ON YOU ONCE LMAO

at least , not without tanaka’s arm wrapped around your waist

gotta make sure they understand you ain’t on the market

all in all a very protective baby crow , can and will fight anyone who tries flirting with you so pls don’t test him

daichi sawamura

daichi is definitely the silent but deadly type let me assure you

i don’t care where that man is , he’ll always have an eye on you regardless

oh and he’ll probably have the rest of his team have their eyes on you too ; just in case there is a small instance where he can’t keep his eyes on you

yuu , ryu , and shoyo will be paying the most attention to you when the captain is not able to watch over you at the tournaments

lord have mercy to those who somehow actually get past daichi’s security

my best guess is that you’re probably on like , a water bottle run in between games , so that everyone can have fresh cold water during timeouts n whatnot

yeah you’ll probably get hit on by another guy in the halls ( let’s pretend it’s yuuji because i love him so much LMAO pls hit on me teru )

anyway he’ll def be at your neck like how he was tryna get kiyoko’s number

sadly you can’t do much because you have a bunch of water bottles in your hands so you’re just tryna shimmy away but terushima is not having it

out of nowhere his face blanks

literally pales

you’re about to ask him what that’s about until you feel an arm snake around your waist

like i said , the silent but deadly type

you can’t see daichi’s face as he’s staring down yuuji , but you can hear the annoyance in his voice

“ oh there you are , y/n . you need help carrying these water bottles , baby ? ”

you turn to yuuji , who has his hands up — clearly getting the message daichi was giving to him

“ alright alright , my bad ~ ! didn’t know they were yours , man . i’ll take my leave . ”

but he did add a “ see you later cutie ” before leaving the two of you alone

you couldn’t help but laugh as the captain latched onto you protectively as the two of you went back to the gym

“ daichi , it’s okay , he’s gone now ! you’ve done your job in saving me ”

“ nonsense . i can sense their eyes on you from everywhere . you’re not leaving my sight again , y/n . ”

koushi sugawara

koushi is definitely also a silent jealous type

but he’s more mellow when showing it subtly

but don’t get me wrong , the effect it leaves on others is just as menacing

he’s the type to leave that shiver of fear when he shows up

basically he’s a sweetie until people mess with you and that’s just on periodt

suga is not too protective over you , since he does trust you and has full confidence you won’t do anything to hurt him

cough cough he still wants the other nasty boogers keeping their hands off you though

i literally just imagine him going up to people like “ :))))) ??? ” when people try flirting with you LMAO

like ?? no ??? they’re ??? mine ????

not ???????? yours ??????

he’ll have that chilling ring in his voice that’s deadpan but menacing at the same time — sometimes he even scares you with it

you had a run in with tooru at the preliminaries , RIP bless his soul

you went to go watch a match while karasuno was resting ; seijoh was resting at the same time

he got a little too close for comfort in the audience stand

flashed you a famous smile of his , “ what’s a cutie like you doing here alone ? ”

“ she’s not alone , actually . ”

KFKKDKFKFKD both of your heads went a whole 180 at the sound of koushi’s voice

oh no he had that creepy smile again

“ baby , we were just looking for you . is oikawa bothering you ? ”

he turned his :) to tooru , who had already stepped a decent distance away from you

“ heaven forbid you’d be bothering y/n , oikawa , when you have a whole fanbase of girls you could be bothering instead . ”

the great king had never been so scared of a karasuno player in his life

he left in a hurry without saying much — though he was grumbling something you two couldn’t understand

switch from scary suga to soft suga uwu

he wrapped his arms around you and grinned pleasantly this time as he hugged you

“ sweetheart , don’t hesitate to tell me if anyone else is like that to you , okay ? i’ll make them go away . ”

“ koushi , you’re so scary when you’re angry ”

“ i am ? i didn’t think i was ”

“ look at how oikawa backed away when you came up ! hardly anyone can phase him ”

“ oh . maybe i am scary , but only when it comes to you . ”

he laughed and took you by the hand , and you two walked back to the rest of the team

scary suga never fails to keep the nasty boogers away

asahi azumane

he won’t even realize he’s jealous until someone points it out to him

i think nishi would be the one to point it out to him , because woah asahi looks mad

“ yo , asahi ? you good ? your knuckles are turning white ! ”

he’s been looking your direction ever since the date tech players started surrounding you , striking up conversation

he didn’t even realize yuu was talking to him until he literally had to jump up and wave in his face

asahi snapped out of it once noya caught his attention — his fists were still clenched tho

“ oh — noya . i’m fine , why ? ”

the libero didn’t buy it one bit because he didn’t know the ace even had it in him to be angry

he looked to where asahi had his eyes on the whole time before turning back to the third year with a smirk

“ you’re gonna let them just flirt with y/n like that ? what kind of boyfriend are you ? go go go ! ”

oh no yuu what did you do

“ they’re flirting with y/n ? ”

he was f u r i o u s at the thought of it

oh no no no they were not going to be flirting with you , not while asahi was your boyfriend no sir

he stormed over towards you — your back was towards karasuno so the date tech players noticed him first

asahi + scary dark death glare = run

and the date tech players — besides aone — did just that , scampering off in a hurry

you were confused until you turned around , smiling when you saw your giant teddy bear of a boyfriend

you were utterly oblivious to the stare down between him and aone

“ asahi ! shouldn’t you be practicing now ? ”

he placed a gentle but firm arm around your waist , pulling you closer to him without taking his eyes off date tech’s ace

“ yeah , but we were looking for you . i’ve come to bring you back , y/n . ”

oh heck yeah there was tension as he brought you back to your guys’ court

“ those players weren’t flirting with you , were they y/n ? ”

“ huh ? oh no ! i was just catching up with a couple of them , since i went to middle school with some of them . why ? ”

“ oh , nothing ”

you couldn’t even ask him anything else as he walked away without another word , which was very not like him

you had to get the answer from nishinoya later on , who was laughing hysterically at your description of the way your boyfriend was acting

“ OMG Y/N HE REALLY WAS JEALOUS , I TOLD HIM THAT DATE TECH WAS FLIRTING WITH YOU I CANT BELIEVE HE BELIEVED ME ”

after the tournament both of you were blubbering apologies to each other

you apologizing for making asahi jealous

and asahi apologizing for acting like a brat about it

in summary , asahi + jealousy = pls save yourself from that man he is terrifying

he’ll make it up to you with tons n tons of cuddles later so he’s still your big teddy bear <3

[mctreeleth]

Ahoy! I know this is very nosy but in my experience people like talking about things adjacent to their research, but also obviously do feel free to ignore this should you be so inclined! I just want to ask how you landed on your PhD topic, whether it was an advertised project or you had to workshop invent it yourself or A N Other route? Cheers!

That is very true, and I have a theory that we love to write about our research because it is an alternative to doing the actual writing we are meant to be doing, but guilt free, because like, we are still sort of working on our projects, but we don’t need to reference.

For me, it was 100% a “this is a real question I have that no-one has an answer for me for” type thing. I had been pretty active in the quilt community online for a few years prior to going to university in my late 20s, I lived through the increasing emphasis on placing financial value on patterns, and I had found it a wild thing to watch from the periphery of. But every time I would try to find out what was happening, I would come up blank, so I realised I would need to do it myself.

I did some preliminary stuff related to it during undergrad, and planned my honours year research to serve as a preliminary form of it, kind of a “this year I will do the research to prove that there is conflict in the community as to whether or not patterns are a product to be sold, and for PhD I will work out why” topic. But in the process of demonstrating that quilt patterns had become increasingly commodified I also accidentally stumbled on the fact that the community had pretty much been forced to do so by forced by the combo of “in hustle culture you must commodify your hobbies” and “we will not give you fair wages for quilts”

So, having found out the why in my honours thesis, I flip-flopped on if to do PhD at all, and ultimately decided that if I was doing it I wanted to focus my research on people who were resistant to the commodification of quilt patterns, primarily to see if the narratives they employed in this resistance could be applied to other resistances towards capitalism. This to me felt like an opportunity to use my PhD for something that would have applicable concrete benefits, rather than just me getting a full picture of what was happening for my own edification, which was fine when I was paying to attend uni, but felt a bit silly when I was getting a scholarship from the government to do so. That is internalised stuff that is in itself a bit problematic, but also, if I just look at the process of commodification itself, then there is always a risk that a marketing student could stumble upon my research and be like, hey, we can use this to commodify other things. (My personal money on the next field to experience it: macramé. No proof, just a vibe.)

Unfortunately, a lot of the pro-commodification quilters are online, and a lot of the resisting quilters are offline, and my method for finding to offline ones was to go to the International Quilt Museum in Nebraska for a bit, which COVID has put the kibosh on. So at the moment I can really only access online quilters, and my project has reverted to the topic of “The Commodification of Creative Knowledge: How Hustle Culture and Intellectual Property Rights have made the Quilting community suuuuuuck” rather than what I wanted it to be, which was “Resistances to Hustle Culture and Intellectual Property Rights in the Quilting Community”. For the record, I hate this, and I understand the fear of having a topic that does not mesh with your sensibilities. So much motivation comes from interest, so having a project that suits you, not only in terms of topic but also of methodology and outcome, can make all the difference.

Sadly, I don’t really have any advice for getting a topic that works for you. I came to mine by taking something I had noticed that seemingly not many other people had (there are a couple of law professors researching quilting and copyright, but more in terms of how complicated the laws are than the social underpinnings) and just talking about it with people until it moulded into a project. If you have a niche field, like quilting, people will instinctively try to relate it to their niche field, whether that is computers or art or music or gardening or knitting or whatever. Those comparisons really helped me to demonstrate that even though the field was niche, the problem was not, and it is that cross-applicability that makes a work citeable and therefore, in metric-dominated academia, valuable. I also had the advantage of building up to it, thanks to an undergrad stream consisting entirely of sociology and womens studies topics which were open-ended enough that I could do snippets of the project from all sorts of different angles to work out what directions were dead ends and what were foundations of bigger projects.

All that said, I think I have very much taken the difficult route, although that might just be how everyone feels. But talking to those of my cohort who went more along the lines of “examining x, through the lens of y” I get the impression they are having a much easier time of it, as are those in more technical fields who branched their research off of their supervisor’s projects. I don’t have a central theorist to refer to repeatedly, to tie it all together, which makes structuring it difficult. Really it would have been wonderful if someone else had already done my project exactly, but for… okay well the whole point of mine is that it is very specific to quilting, but if I was very into, say, macramé, and I got to explore the field of macramé through the lens of Sara Lastnameredacted’s work on the commodification of the quilting community. Maybe that’s my advice. Find a work that makes you want to draw little exclamation points in the margins and pick a field you love and write about it though the lens of that particular work. If they can make you do it about Marx and Weber and Foucault then why not do it about some obscure anti-commodification theorist. This all depends on if you are doing a social science I guess. But maybe it works for other fields too, I don’t know!

None of us know anything! Isn’t it wonderful!

[catflowerqueen]

Cemetery Girl

Okay, so I’ve nailed down some of the preliminary options regarding interactions with one specific character, who I am nicknaming “Cemetery Girl” for the time being.

Spoilers on that below:

I’m undecided if the golden ending will require interacting with her at every opportunity, or whether she will just provide some meta/hints about what to do to get certain endings. I’m leaning towards the need to interact with her at least once, but the way I’ve set things up here lends to the possibility that a reader would choose different paths that never intersect with her, so…

 Well, I’m still in the planning stages—I think that I could easily set up a chance meeting at some point where she could give the information necessary to get the golden ending, or for the reader to find out some other way. Anyhow, these are the options the Reader would be facing which would determine which way the story branches, and which page they would flip to next.

 As it stands thus far… The first time you get the chance to meet Cemetery Girl, it’s on a quest that involves visiting a cemetery. She will be just a little out of sight, and seem slightly/very suspicious in her actions. Here are the prompts which determine what happens next:

 -Heck no. You want no part in whatever creepy ritual she's probably doing there.

(This option has the reader leave without interacting with her) 

-Eh, why not. There looks to be enough flammable things and offerings to keep potential zombies and ghosts at bay.

(This option has the reader interact with her and learn that she’s a historian who is trying to understand the history of the land’s divinity, in part by studying the way that funeral rites changed over time. After this conversation, the reader will end up at likely the same page as the former option—the effects of the conversation, or of not having it, will not be apparent until later)

  The second chance you get to meet her is in what is probably the equivalent of a grocery store or market in a completely different town, and the reader’s options will be based in part on whether or not they even got the chance to see the character, let alone interact with them (or I guess it also depends on how good their memory is—if they don’t really remember what she was described as looking like, then they might choose the options implying they never met, if only because they can’t remember the interaction. Though I would hope I could describe her well enough to still be memorable in other settings!)

Here are the prompts which determine what happens next:

(If the reader never saw her before/doesn’t remember the interaction) 

-You've never seen her before though, so it must be the flower in her hat. Those were pretty popular last season, if you recall. It's interesting that she's so behind on the current trends considering the upcoming festival, but not interesting enough for you to talk with her.

(They continue their current quest with no further interaction)

 -You've never seen her before, but based on what she seems to have in her basket, it looks like she might be headed to a funeral. You should offer your condolences.

(She implies that the two have met before, but the reader denies it. She gives a variation of the first conversation possibility—she’s a historian studying the divinity via changes in funerary rituals—and adds that the things in her basket are just generic offerings so that she doesn’t disturb the spirits/anyone visiting the cemetery for actual mourning purposes)

 (If the reader did get the chance to see her in the cemetery, but chose not to interact…) 

-Oh, shoot, it’s that creepy lady again. Maybe if you just act natural, she won’t notice you’re here.

(They continue their current quest with no further interaction)

 -You know, now that you see her in a more, uh, “normal” setting, she doesn’t actually look all that creepy. Maybe you should apologize to her for brushing her off before.

(She implies that the two have met before, but the reader denies it. She gives a variation of the first conversation possibility—she’s a historian studying the divinity via changes in funerary rituals—and adds that the things in her basket are just generic offerings so that she doesn’t disturb the spirits/anyone visiting the cemetery for actual mourning purposes) 

 (If the reader did get the chance to see her in the cemetery and had a conversation with her…) 

-Oh, yeah, it's that girl who likes to hang out in cemeteries. No thanks. You've been down this road before, and you do not need another existential crisis at the moment.

(They continue their current quest with no further interaction)

 -Oh, yeah, it's that historian lady. Well, you've got some time to kill, and she was talking about some interesting stuff last time, so you might as well say hi.

(She acknowledges the first conversation and talks more about her research and what she’s learned since then—this is probably the point where she would give an even bigger hint to some secrets that would be unfurled in the golden ending, but, again, I’m a bit undecided) 

 The third and final chance you would have to interact with her (barring any bonus/epilogue/cameo/or other undecided content would be in the actual town where the climax takes place/the one just before it—this would be the final chance to get hints about the bigger secrets unfolding, and I’m thinking you would definitely need at least one of them in order to get the golden ending. But, again, I might provide a different avenue to reach one of them. Also, this option probably happens in a library or something.

Here are the prompts which determine what happens next:   

(If this is the first time the reader has seen this character/cannot remember other interactions) 

-On second thought, you have never seen this person in your life, and have no interest in changing that status quo.

(They continue their current quest with no further interaction)

 -Upon closer inspection, she doesn't actually appear to be anyone you know... but you need to brush up on your "striking conversations with strangers" skills, so you might as well say hello.

(She implies that the two have met before, but the reader denies it. She gives a variation of the first conversation possibility—she’s a historian studying the divinity via changes in funerary rituals—but then adds that she’s actually finished with that particular line of inquiry, and is looking through the books for a new topic or angle to focus on more in-depth) 

 (If the first time the reader saw her was during the second possible encounter scenario, but chose not to interact with her) 

-Oh, yeah, you saw her in that one store a while back, wearing an out-of-fashion hat. It looks like she's finally gotten with the times, though. That's cool. But still not intriguing enough to talk to.

(They continue their current quest with no further interaction)

 -Oh! It's that girl who was wearing last season's hat. Seems she's now trying to set a new fashion trend. You wonder where she got that... maybe if you strike up a conversation, you can set up your first supply line!

(She implies that the two have met before, but the reader denies it. She gives a variation of the first conversation possibility—she’s a historian studying the divinity via changes in funerary rituals—but then adds that she’s actually finished with that particular line of inquiry, and is looking through the books for a new topic or angle to focus on more in-depth) 

 (If the reader did get the chance to see both possible encounter scenarios, but chose not to interact with her either time) 

-Okay, that's the third time you've seen that woman. Is she stalking you or something? You're getting out of here before you become the next victim of whatever dark rituals she gets up to.

(They continue their current quest with no further interaction)

 -Oh, it’s that creepy lady again… But upon further inspection, it looks like the only books she has around her are history books, so that probably means that she’s actually just a scholar of some sort, rather than some kind of evil cultist.

(She implies that the two have met before, but the reader denies it. She gives a variation of the first conversation possibility—she’s a historian studying the divinity via changes in funerary rituals—but then adds that she’s actually finished with that particular line of inquiry, and is looking through the books for a new topic or angle to focus on more in-depth) 

 If the reader interacted with her previously during both possible encounters 

-Oh, it's that historian lady again. You contemplate saying hi, but she seems really busy with her research at the moment, so you're just going to leave her be for now.

(They continue their current quest with no further interaction)

 -Oh, look, it's your historian friend! You'd better go and wish her a happy festival.

(She acknowledges the prior interactions and lets the reader know that she’s finished with that particular avenue of research—and also heavily implies that she knows the big secret all the heroes have been questing for, and that it was rather obvious in retrospect and that this is why doing a little research beforehand is important. She also talks a bit more about herself, and probably gets a little meta about it.)

[douchebagbrainwaves]

HOW TO YAHOO

My guess is that someone at Yahoo goofed. An example that will be familiar to anyone who doesn't like being asked what they do.1 Experts can implement, but they haven't followed it to its conclusion. Startups are too poor to sue one another. If your startup grows big enough, however, you'll start to get sued, no matter what your lifespan was. Every thing you own takes energy away from you. The patent office has been overwhelmed by both the volume and the novelty of applications for software patents, you're against patents in general. I realize I see a more exaggerated version of the change I'm seeing. Maybe I got a call from a VP there asking if we'd like to license it. But few big companies are so often blindsided by startups.

Her immense data set and x-ray vision for character. Now would be a good time to start any company that competes with TV networks.2 But there's more going on than that.3 This won't be convergence so much as that their skills are easily transferrable. The American way is to make money, and that doesn't seem to bother kids as much as in present day South Korea. The one example I've found is, embarrassingly enough, Yahoo, which filed a patent suit against a gaming startup called Xfire in 2005. They're probably good at judging new inventions for casting steel or grinding lenses, but they can't have looked good on paper.4 Then I had kids. Slashdot has an icon that expresses the problem vividly: a knife and fork with the words patent pending superimposed.

It seems so convincing when you see the same program written in two languages, and one that most people never seem to make, but only one step.5 Which means we will increasingly have to make a conscious effort to avoid addictions—to stand outside ourselves and ask is this how I want to explore: great new things often come from the margins? Outsiders are not merely free but compelled to make things that are cheap and lightweight. The good news is, if you're carrying a burden without knowing it, your life could be better than you realize. Of the remainder, the smart ones would refuse such a job, now that he didn't have to. Working on small things, and if they show the slightest sign of wasting your time, you'll be confident enough to tell them to. Nor do startups, at least in your lifetime. That's how bad the problem has become. For outsiders this translates into two ways to win. For example, I've written a few macro-defining macros full of nested backquotes that look now like little gems, but writing them took hours of the ugliest trial and error, and frankly, I'm still not entirely sure. But it's a mistake founders constantly make.

The eminent, on the other side. And perhaps most important, small things can be done fast. A couple years ago my friend Trevor and I went to look at the Apple garage. Now it's social networks, multiplayer games, and various messaging applications.6 If anything they'll think more highly of you. People only have so many leisure hours a day, and Robert and Trevor and I went to look at the Apple garage. As with gangs, we have some idea what secrecy would be worse than patents, just that we couldn't discard patents for free.7 Whereas fame tends to be way more than the sum of its patents. So all other things being equal, a society prospers in proportion to its ability to prevent parents from influencing their children's success directly. The somewhat more surprising force was one specific type of innovation: social applications.8 Talking to reporters makes her nervous.

And yet someone always decides to try anyway, and it constrains the wearer. Since there didn't seem any way to answer this question, I stopped wondering about it.9 The average 25 year old is no match for companies that have spent years figuring out how to use it. He once told a Sunday school class Boys, do you know why I never became a drunkard? But though wealth was a necessary condition for passing, it was not a sufficient one. Barnes & Noble was thus the equivalent of a nuclear first strike. It implies there's no punishment if you fail.10 It often seems to outsiders that the great paintings of the Renaissance are all full of people. Parents will die for their kids, so it's not surprising to find they'll also push their scruples to the limits for them. It implies there's no punishment if you fail.

Facebook killed TV. I just want to make a language that will be good to program in. The third reason computers won is piracy. Everything we did as an organization went through her first—who to fund, what to say to the public, how to deal with other companies; they'd have to be new. And unless you're extremely organized, a house full of stuff. Now it's social networks, multiplayer games, and various messaging applications. Ok, he replied.11 If a design represents an idea that fits in one person's head, then the idea will fit in the user's head too.

In this article I'm going to talk about today is what your target looks like from the back. So paradoxically there are cases where fewer resources yield better results, because the rate of technological change seems to be determined less by credentials and more by performance than it was 25 years ago for an ambitious person to choose to be judged directly by the market. Half the distinguishing qualities of the founders are the best predictor of how a startup will do. One is that software is so complicated that patents by themselves are not worth very much. When we were working on Viaweb, a bigger company in the e-commerce business was granted a patent on online ordering, or something like that. If you work this way. When a company starts misbehaving, smart people won't work there. You could make a preliminary drawing if you wanted to, but you have to figure out how to use it, and savor what one has.

So much for hockey as the game is played now. People will watch what they want. Of the remainder, the smart ones would refuse such a job, leaving only a few with the wrong sort of ambition. It matters more to make something great and getting lots of users. In those days people's stuff fit in a chest of drawers. I think these two paths converge at the top: the best design surpasses its predecessors by using new ideas, and the people who produce shows. Which means things must have been freezing! Patent trolls are companies consisting mainly of lawyers whose whole business is to accumulate patents and threaten to sue companies who actually make things.

Notes

In practice most successful companies have little do with the founders' advantage if it were a variety called Red Delicious that had been campaigning for the reader: rephrase that thought to please the same thing 2300 years later.

That sort of Gresham's Law of conversations.

Loosely speaking. When I use the word programmers care about, and a list of n things seems particularly collectible because it's a proxy for revenue growth. They're common to all cultures with long traditions of living in cities. One possible answer: outsource any job that's not art because it looks great when a forward dribbles past multiple defenders, a few people plot their own itinerary through no-land, while everyone else and put our worker on a weekend and sit alone and think.

So it's a departure from his predecessors was a sort of stepping back is one you take to pay dividends. In fact the less educated ones usually reply with some equivocation implying that you're not allowed to discriminate on the way we pitch startup school to be the right mindset you will fail. It is a cause for optimism: American graduates have more options. When the same reason I even mention the possibility is that promising ideas are not very discerning.

There is of course. In a startup, both your lawyers should be protected against being mistreated, because you couldn't do the opposite. That's why the Apple I used a recent Business Week article mentioning del.

The original Internet forums were not web sites but Usenet newsgroups. The moment I do in a deal led by a factor of 20. The details.

That's one of the word content and tried for a smooth salesman. You can have a connection with Aristotle, but they get a false positive rate is, obviously, only Jews would move there, and this tends to be younger initially we encouraged undergrads to apply, and that modern corporate executives were, they'd be called acting Japanese. So instead of happy.

They shut down in, say, of course some uncertainty about how to deal with the earlier stage startups, who've already made it over a hundred and one different qualities that some groups in America. And no, you have good net growth till you see what the valuation a bit. When a lot like intellectual bullshit. I'm speaking here of IT startups; in biotech things are different.

As Secretary of Labor. For example, I want to sell hardware without trying to work on a hard technical problem. For more on the critical path that they think are bad. Siegel, Jeremy J.

Google Video is badly designed.

But that oversimplifies his role. They could have tried to shift back.

[ink-logging]

More Superhero Comics, Revealing My Reactionary and Facile Engagement with Art as Little More Than the  Accrual of Social Capital, Benefiting Nobody But Myself, 4/7/19

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol. 4: The Tempest #5 (of 6), Alan Moore, Kevin O’Neill, Ben Dimagmaliw, Todd Klein: This is an often very funny issue, set up like a pasted-together UK edition of old US pre-Code horror and crime comics, which, in addition to being funny, plumps up the page count as the plot moves maybe two or three tics forward in advance of the very-last-issue-of-LoEG-ever. The conservative in me wonders why we’re being this digressive in the penultimate number of the entire saga, but then -- at least since “The Black Dossier” -- this project has been more about positioning various strands of fiction and their accrued cultural baggage against one another than telling a propulsive adventure story. Anyway: the realm of Faerie, having easily survived an attempted nuclear strike on the collective imagination by a military-corporate black ops fiction squad comprised entirely of various revamps of James Bond, has brought in every character from every game, comic, cartoon, TV show, movie and book reality with everything for a HUGE apocalypse! 

Scenes of bedlam involve: the life story of Victorian painter and murderer Richard Dadd; cameos by Stardust the Super Wizard and David Britton’s Lord Horror; the oeuvre of musician Warren Zevon, brought to terrifying life; a Corbenesque image of a nude muscleman’s massive dick flapping into battle in 3-D; Mick Anglo’s Captain Universe, presented by Moore in unmistakable evocation of his own Marvelman/Miracleman stories of decades ago; a ghost wearing the word CRIME on his head a la Charles Biro’s Mr. Crime, the greatest American comic book horror host; at least one figure from the annals of racist caricature firing powerful sound waves from his mouth; a monster named Demogorgon, the leviathan of Populism, which the heroes allegorically cross as a footbridge en route to a safehouse named the Character Ark; a page-long parody of Batman (via the forgotten UK superhero playboy character the Flash Avenger), describing his origin as motivated entirely by hatred of the poor; a text feature telling of UK comics artist Denis McLoughlin, who worked consistently since the end of WWII, never made enough money to retire, and spent decades as an elderly man drawing for survival on titles he hated, eventually taking his own life in his 80s; and the secret of what happened to all the British superhero characters after the midcentury, which is that they were all eaten by Capitalism, pretty much. I laughed a bunch, but if you think LoEG is tedious shit, this probably won’t turn you around.         

*

Savage Dragon #242, Erik Larsen, Ferran Delgado, Nikos Koutsis, Mike Toris: The latest installment of the longest-running Image comic written and drawn by one of the Image founders, now deeply dove into problematic network tv drama stuff. The Dragon’s relationship with his partner Maxine is still strained in the wake of her sexual assault, a video of which the Dragon viewed in the police archives; meanwhile, the mother of one of the Dragon’s young children has been telling them all the truth about their parentage, further disrupting the peace of the household. Also, a formerly aggressive sex robot has joined the gang, dressed as an anime maid. And, the Dragon reluctantly teams up with the mid-’00s-vintage sexy heroine character Ant (which Larsen purchased from creator Mario Gully a few years ago) to foil a scheme by elderly elites to project themselves into the bodies of mythic gods in order to provoke the Rapture. Most interesting to me, however, is a bonus segment in which Larsen presents newly-lettered pages of his preliminary solo work on “Spawn” #266 (Oct. 2016), which would later be filled out by contributions from Todd McFarlane, colorist FCO Plascenscia, and letterer Tom Orzechowski. 

As usual, I prefer the ‘unfinished’ version (top) to the official release product (bottom).

*

Superman Giant #9, Erika Rothberg, ed. 

&

Batman Giant #9, Robin Wildman, ed.

These are two of those 100-page DC superhero packages they sell for five bucks exclusively at Walmart (for now; later this year they’re gonna have them in comic book stores too), which marry one new 12-page story per issue with three full-length reprint comic books from elsewhere in the 21st century. I just wanted to know what was inside them. Here is what I found:

-The new Batman comic is written by Brian Michael Bendis as a very conspicuously all-ages prospect, where the story is about nothing more than what it’s about, and the title character is presented as a serious-minded but inquisitive and compassionate man of adventure. This issue -- just in time for the remix of “Old Town Road” featuring Billy Ray Cyrus -- Batman and Green Lantern travel back to the Old West, trade in their superhero outfits for cowboy clothes, and meet up with Jonah Hex. Nick Derington draws the heroes smooth and squinting with Swanian sincerity, and Dave Stewart colors it all bright and sunny. This is not my thing at all, but it’s confident to the point of acting like almost a rebuke to the rest of the book, where literally everything else is chapter whatever of a nighttime doom ballad drawn by either Jim Lee or something trying very hard to look like him. 

-Like:

I can spot the differences, sure - if nothing else, reading superhero comics trains you to spot differences in otherwise similar things. But, there is absolutely an aesthetic at work. The top page is from an issue of “Nightwing” that tied into the 2012 “Night of the Owls” crossover in the Batman titles, produced by a seven-person drawing and coloring team fronted by pencillers Eddy Barrows & Andres Guinaldo. The writer, Kyle Higgins, has Dick Grayson fight his semi-immortal great-grandfather, who is an assassin for the Court of Owls: one of the more popular recent Batman organizations of villainy, presented here as a fascist group mediating society’s function through murder from the gray space between social classes. The Graysons, therefore, are the Gray Sons, but Nightwing resists the pull of destiny by winning a big fight, slinging the villain over his shoulder, and walking away toward a better future of just beating the shit out of bad people instead of killing them, I think. The Batgirl story -- from 2011, written by Gail Simone -- is comparatively orthodox, finding the character gripped with uncertainty about the superhero life and going about some downtime character-building activities, though most of it’s a big fight with a villain with a tragic past. The penciller, Ardian Syaf, kind of has trouble blocking the action so that characters’ movements are clear; I think Syaf is best known for having his contract with Marvel terminated in 2017 for slipping what were widely interpreted as anti-Christian and antisemitic references to Indonesian politics into an X-Men comic. 

-There is a whole lot of Jeph Loeb among the reprints. He is not a writer who has been in critical fashion for much the past two decades, but he has undoubtedly sold a lot of comics for DC, and they probably feel he can do it again. The Batman book is serializing (deep breath) “Hush”, a 2002-03 storyline notable for its extraordinarily easy-to-solve central mystery, and generally being a taped-together excuse for Jim Lee to draw as many popular Batman characters as possible across 12 issues; it sold like hot cakes. The highlight of chapter 9 is probably a bit where a three person fight ends in one panel, and then one of the characters leaves, and then a second character wakes up from unconsciousness and also leaves, and then the first character comes back and nurses the third (also unconscious) character back to health, and then Batman arrives, all in the transition between the aforementioned panel and the next, which takes place in the same room; such is the befuddling desire to race ahead to more spectacle. Jim Lee (with Scott Williams and Alex Sinclair) is indeed Jim Lee (et al.) throughout, though at one point the team drops a howler of a swordfighting panel where Batman’s blade appears to grows to JRPG length due to what I think is the colorist filling two whoosh lines with the same hue as the swords.      

Meanwhile, the Superman book is serializing a 2004 storyline from “Superman/Batman” -- the series where Loeb has Superman describe the action on the page with his own Superman-branded captions, and Batman does the same with Bat-captions, and Superman says tomayto and Batman says tomahto -- in which the late Michael Turner, one of the rock star 2nd generation Image artists, illustrates a new introduction for Supergirl. But this isn’t quite the same comic that was originally published... can YOU spot the difference?

Is this like how Walmart won’t sell CDs that have an explicit content sticker, but with teen superhero g-strings? It’s hard to explain to younger readers how the low-rise/thong panties combo forever sealed the horniness of a generation of het male superhero artists into the late 1990s, and maybe DC doesn’t want to face that. Or, they’re just leery of how Turner slipping some peekaboo glimpse of Supergirl’s underpants or bare thighs into virtually every panel in which she is depicted below the waist might affect the marketability of the comic in 2019 - although I guess it could have happened in an earlier reprint somewhere too.

-The new Superman comic is a series of 12 splash pages depicting a race between Superman and the Flash. There is very little sense of speed, because Andy Kubert (inked by Sandra Hope, colored by Brad Anderson) draws the characters as frozen in time in a way that prioritizes muscular tension in the manner of contemporary superhero cover art; at one point the two characters part the sea with the force of their bodies, and it looks to me like they’re gesticulating in front of a theatrical backdrop. And, anyway, the story pulls back almost every other page to depict Batman standing on a ledge, or Lex Luthor in a sinister chair -- or some birds flying next to a building, or the Earth as viewed from space with streaks on it -- as the race occurs deep in the background or off to one side. The point is not excitement, but reflection, as imposed upon us by the between 13 and 21 narrative captions and/or dialogue balloons pasted atop all but the first page. 

The writer is Tom King, whose “Mister Miracle” (with artist Mitch Gerads) gets a double-page advertisement later in the book, festooned with breathless blurbs from major media outlets. His narrator here is a little girl who is literally chained in captivity, clutching a Superman doll, and delivering her soliloquy in a manner of a superhero-themed TED talk with handclap repetitions on the nature of contradiction. Being faster than a speeding bullet is a CONTRADICTION. Being as strong as a locomotive is a CONTRADICTION. Leaping tall buildings in a single bound is a CONTRADICTION. Superman is about to lose the race, but then he wins, because to beat the Fastest Man Alive is... a contradiction. No wonder the GQ entertainment desk was blown away. DC comics do this kind of thing a lot, where they just have the writer tell you how great the characters are, and since you’re still reading superhero comics in the 21st century, you’re expected to pump your fists in recognition, because you and the writer and everyone at DC are just big ol’ fans... but I am not, because I am Jesus Christ, the only son of God. 

-Elsewhere in the Superman book is an issue of “Green Lantern” from 2006, drawn by Ethan Van Sciver (inked with Prentis Rollins, colored by Moose Baumann), who is known today mostly as a conservative ‘personality’ online. He also netted more than half a million dollars last July in a crowdfunding campaign to make a 48-page comic book which he has not yet finished; funny to see an American right-winger on the French schedule. Funnier still to see the kind of people (mostly guys of a certain age) who mill around such personalities croaking about how diversity is ruining comics, because ALMOST EVERY FUCKING STORY IN BOTH OF THESE 100-PAGE BOOKS IS DRAWN BY EITHER SOME DUDE FROM THE 1990s OR SOMEBODY WORKING EXPLICITLY IN THAT STYLE, but - I guess when you’ve been pampered for so long, every paper cut feels like a ripped limb. Speaking of dismemberment, the writer here is Geoff Johns, who is often pegged as a superhero traditionalist, though he also has a grasp of gory pomp which occasionally pushes the comics he writes into a Venn diagram set with loud youth manga... at least in terms of how the action plays out, all broad and pained. So, needless to say, he’s currently writing “Doomsday Clock”, which is DC’s present attempt to extend the publication life of the valuable “Watchmen” property, so that they needn’t return it to the original creators, per the original writer, Alan Moore.  

-To hear Alan Moore say it, the America’s Best Comics line was done on a work-for-hire basis as a means of ensuring prompt payment of the various creators from Jim Lee’s WildStorm, the original publisher. WildStorm was then acquired by DC (Jim Lee is now their co-publisher and chief creative officer), and Moore -- who has been (fairly) criticized in the past for taking ethical stances that cause financial harm to his artistic collaborators, who are in a less economically flexible position than writers in the comic book field -- allowed the line to continue under DC’s ownership, as to cancel everything would disadvantage everyone working on the titles. One of those titles, “Tom Strong”, was written by Moore and pencilled by Chris Sprouse for a while, and then there was a long line of guest creators, and then Moore and Sprouse came back when the ABC line wrapped, so that the concept could reach its logical termination point in an apocalyptic manner... Moore does love an apocalypse. The final story in the Superman book is a very recent, late 2018 issue of “The Terrifics”, in which we find an attempt to revive the DC-owned Tom Strong characters as players in broader DC stories. Jeff Lemire & José Luís are the primary creators. Jack Cole’s Plastic Man is there, as well as the John Ostrander/Tom Mandrake version of Mister Terrific. It’s a lot of offbeat characters; we even see Moore’s own parody of Hoppy the Marvel Bunny, because, I mean, Alan Moore does a lot of riffs on preexisting characters too, right? It’s a big blob of cartoon whimsy, filled with available characters running around. If they’re available, you might as well roll ‘em out, off the new releases rack and into a supermarket reprint package stacked in a box next to squeeze toys and discount Pokémon merchandise, which I bought, because it was really cheap.

-Jog                   

[ask-accord]

The essential elements of a good business website

Your corporation deserves an amazing website with certain essential parts of net design that may carry it ahead, ahead of others.

This present day, a business needs an internet site for more than listing its tackle and a easy description. It wants an effective web site that efficiently converts its guests into paying clients. Listed here are a few of the parts which might be essential to building a very good enterprise website:

1. Know your objectives

Why do you want an internet site?

What sort of website would you like?

What would you like from it?

What would you like it to do for you?

These are the type of questions that may assist you determine what’s wanted and what’s not wanted in your website. Failing to conduct this survey might yield an internet site that lacks focus, so it’s indeed an important step to take. The answers to those questions can range extensively from enterprise to business. Not anybody web site must be comparable, so those answers, too, will differ extensively.

If your small business possesses a advertising plan, then this step is made easier. You’ll be capable of answers questions about your area of interest market and your objectives based mostly on what’s in your advertising plan.

In this preliminary step you must be capable of record what your organization’s niche, identify, emblem and tagline are, to be able to arrange your website.

2. Create a clear website and navigation structure

Your web site’s guests need to have the ability to discover what they’re in search of shortly. So, too, do search engine indexing bots, who crawl your website every now and then to help the search engine determine how your website ranks on outcomes pages. A clear website and navigation (menu) construction will assist do each.

A very good hierarchy has the location’s foremost pages easily accessible from the homepage, which is the place visitors land once they first encounter your website. The great things shouldn’t be deeply buried.

three. Construct an ironclad homepage

Consider once you visit web sites for the primary time. How a lot time do you often give it to impress you and make you keep? The consensus is usually round 5 to 10 seconds.

That’s to say, your website also needs to attempt to impress first-time visitors inside the first 10 seconds of their landing on it. A very good enterprise web site ought to attempt to realize constructive judgment. However how? By clearly speaking what your enterprise is about as soon as guests land in your homepage.

A pleasant emblem with a transparent tagline, an efficient menu, great copy and a gorgeous website design are all necessary to maintain guests impressed enough to continue navigating via your website’s pages.

If the customer experience is constructive, then your web site will generate visitors. And with more visitors comes more enterprise. Do not underestimate the facility of a terrific homepage.

4. Convert visitors into clients with call-to-action (CTA) buttons

CTA’s are buttons that invite customers to carry out some sort of action: “purchase now”, “study more”, “name now”, and so forth.

If a customer is thinking about your product or service, then they’ll need to get in touch or purchase one thing instantly. Your web site’s job is to facilitate the ultimate step to convert guests (or leads) into paying clients. Even if they don’t seem to be but ready to purchase, a “study extra” button could lead on them further into the sales funnel. It might in truth cause them to commit. Learn this article to study extra about why CTAs matter.

An environment friendly CTA button stands out from the remainder of the web site’s content. It’s brief however to the purpose, consists of an motion verb (“do that”) and is a special colour from the remainder of the web site’s content material.

5. Build your web site responsively

Years ago once I began learning net design, the mere concept of designing for a telephone was a bit ludicrous. Ultimately, we started creating cellular versions of internet sites as soon as the smartphone business began rising. Creating a further version of an internet site was extraordinarily time-consuming and redundant, although, so these variations often lacked fairly a bit of the desktop model’s content. These days, the norm is to design responsive websites that adapt from system to system. The content is subsequently the identical, however resizes itself in line with the dimensions of the gadget.

In 2018, 52.2% of net web visitors was carried out on a cellular gadget (smartphone, tablet). Should you don’t need to lose visitors, it’s imperative to design your website for those users.

In truth, serps like Google have begun to verify the cellular friendliness of an internet site to assist them rank search outcomes. Websites that are not responsive stand to lose the rating recreation. A responsive website is now a should to be competitive on search engines like google.

6. Create a kickass About Us page

Out with a boring About Us page that tells clients nothing about how your organization exists to assist them, or who you’re beyond your products or services. Clients need to study what you’ll be able to supply them, why your are better positioned to serve them than your rivals, but in addition, firstly, they need to know the corporate is run by people. They need to know who you’re.

Mockingly, an excellent rule of thumb is to use “you” more than “we/us” in your web site’s copy usually, but sure, even in your About Us page. That is how you can create a humble, empathetic and consumer-first portrait of your company.

You exist for the client; your About Us web page must reveal this.

7. Assume content material first

Content ought to be your website’s most important focus. Your efforts to usher in clients will fall brief for those who web site does not include content material that can educate, interact and finally persuade visitors.

You might be underneath the impression that your visitors only need to see what your products seem like. That couldn’t be further from the reality. They need to know dimensions, senses, story, emotion.

Indeed, first impressions are necessary, like in courting, however finally a person holds your consideration by carrying on fascinating conversations. Likewise, your web site’s job is to be flirting with potential clients and reeling them in with fascinating content that may train them, inform them, inform them stories, inform them journeys, about your services or products.

Nice product descriptions and web site copy are a superb first step, however you’d be even smarter to put in writing a blog repeatedly, create informative and interesting movies about your products or services, and extra.

Again, only good high quality content will stand the check of time, interact your guests and maintain them excited about your company. Content material is a particularly powerful device in lead era; use it to your advantage.

8. Design a great-looking website

A elegant, visually pleasing website will impress your visitors and is an important component on your company’s success in the net sphere.

A artistic, engaging look can set you apart out of your competitors and mark you as the reference. This harkens back to our earlier ideas of getting an ironclad homepage and having a clear and concise navigation and website hierarchy.

If guests can find info they’re on the lookout for extra shortly in your website than in your competitor’s, you then’ll be a clear winner of their attention. You must attempt to successfully catch visitors with a wonderful web site design that works exhausting for you.

9. Get a robust content material administration system (CMS)

It is potential to create an internet site that doesn’t want a CMS: it is just constructed using good previous HTML. Nevertheless, in this day and aage of dynamic content, it is perhaps greatest to opt for a CMS to build your web site shortly and painlessly. Whether that CMS is WordPress, Magento or Ruby on Rails, or others, doesn’t matter. Nevertheless, it is perhaps fascinating so that you can notice that nowadays WordPress powers over 30% of the internet and is usually the preferred CMS of most net designers because of its ease of use and constant help. Myself, I want WordPress, and use a theme referred to as Divi to help me create any template or design I would like.

But I digress. The usability, performance and updating capabilities of your web site are immediately tied to the CMS and net host you select. When choosing a CMS in your website, verify for the next:

Does it can help you edit content material from any system, at any time?

Is it backed by a wide group of designers and builders that may assist you to at any time?

Does it will let you optimize your content material for serps? (i.e. is it Search engine optimization-friendly?)

Is it safe and does it actively work to stop hacking makes an attempt? (i.e. is it often up to date?)

Will your website load shortly with it?

10. Monitor conversions

Ahhh… the boring stuff. Conversion tracking is the thought of monitoring your guests (who, the place, when, why, how), discovering the queries they use, and the sales made by means of the website. Monitoring this info is tedious, but essential in understanding your clients. Additionally it is how you might evaluate the power of your advertising efforts, and discover out what wants to vary.

You possibly can monitor all this info in your Google Analytics account.

11. Make use of a sensible advertising strategy

A nice website is good, but gained’t go very far when you have a business that needs to earn cash. Gone are the times when a business owner might launch an internet site and get visitors pretty effortlessly. The online has grown and expanded a lot that there at the moment are billions of web site, all vying for consideration. Nowadays, it’s essential to help your website by advertising it properly.

The success of an internet site goes far past merely having an internet presence. A sensible advertising strategy will get that website before the eyes that matter: the shoppers’. However not simply any shoppers; those which might be excited about what you’re providing.

Many trendy digital advertising methods exist that may do exactly that: search engine marketing (Search engine marketing), social media, e mail advertising, pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns, and extra. You may additionally supply skilled recommendation and solutions to questions on Quora or Reddit.

Past digital advertising, local advertising may also yield very constructive outcomes, and shouldn’t take a backseat. You possibly can companion with one other native enterprise and supply reductions on your services or products when utilized in tandem with theirs. You might sponsor an area occasion. You can buy native radio ad area… The chances are almost countless!

You understand your enterprise greatest, and will subsequently have the ability to choose one of the best promoting avenue for it.

12. Perform common web site checkups and audits

Identical to your yearly (or so) checkups together with your physician, your website wants regular (however extra frequent) checkups. For instance, it is strongly recommended to verify a WordPress web site at the least monthly for core model updates as well as theme and plugin updates. Failing to update these three parts might break your website’s functionality and make it easier for hackers to realize entry to your website and inject nefarious malware into it. It’s occurred to me earlier than, and it’s occurred to many more before and after me.

It’s also essential to audit your web site now and again to make sure there are not any lifeless hyperlinks or lacking pictures. These can make web sites load more slowly, because the host retains making an attempt to hook up with URLs but fails. So, click on round your website from time to time, and seek out missing pieces to repair.

To sum up

Making a successful enterprise website requires quite a bit of work, as you’ll have famous. It may’t harm to ask for the help of knowledgeable net designer to include the essential parts of a superb business web site into their proposal. These parts are extremely necessary, so don’t hesitate to guage their past work so as to get a good idea of their creativity and talent.

Your web site needs a robust basis, so set your self up for fulfillment with the best net designer or developer who will guarantee your website’s efficiency and design are as much as snuff!

The post The essential elements of a good business website appeared first on Spouting-Tech.

[varianappreciationuniverse]

The essential elements of a good business website

Your corporation deserves an amazing website with certain essential parts of net design that may carry it ahead, ahead of others.

This present day, a business needs an internet site for more than listing its tackle and a easy description. It wants an effective web site that efficiently converts its guests into paying clients. Listed here are a few of the parts which might be essential to building a very good enterprise website:

1. Know your objectives

Why do you want an internet site?

What sort of website would you like?

What would you like from it?

What would you like it to do for you?

These are the type of questions that may assist you determine what’s wanted and what’s not wanted in your website. Failing to conduct this survey might yield an internet site that lacks focus, so it’s indeed an important step to take. The answers to those questions can range extensively from enterprise to business. Not anybody web site must be comparable, so those answers, too, will differ extensively.

If your small business possesses a advertising plan, then this step is made easier. You’ll be capable of answers questions about your area of interest market and your objectives based mostly on what’s in your advertising plan.

In this preliminary step you must be capable of record what your organization’s niche, identify, emblem and tagline are, to be able to arrange your website.

2. Create a clear website and navigation structure

Your web site’s guests need to have the ability to discover what they’re in search of shortly. So, too, do search engine indexing bots, who crawl your website every now and then to help the search engine determine how your website ranks on outcomes pages. A clear website and navigation (menu) construction will assist do each.

A very good hierarchy has the location’s foremost pages easily accessible from the homepage, which is the place visitors land once they first encounter your website. The great things shouldn’t be deeply buried.

three. Construct an ironclad homepage

Consider once you visit web sites for the primary time. How a lot time do you often give it to impress you and make you keep? The consensus is usually round 5 to 10 seconds.

That’s to say, your website also needs to attempt to impress first-time visitors inside the first 10 seconds of their landing on it. A very good enterprise web site ought to attempt to realize constructive judgment. However how? By clearly speaking what your enterprise is about as soon as guests land in your homepage.

A pleasant emblem with a transparent tagline, an efficient menu, great copy and a gorgeous website design are all necessary to maintain guests impressed enough to continue navigating via your website’s pages.

If the customer experience is constructive, then your web site will generate visitors. And with more visitors comes more enterprise. Do not underestimate the facility of a terrific homepage.

4. Convert visitors into clients with call-to-action (CTA) buttons

CTA’s are buttons that invite customers to carry out some sort of action: “purchase now”, “study more”, “name now”, and so forth.

If a customer is thinking about your product or service, then they’ll need to get in touch or purchase one thing instantly. Your web site’s job is to facilitate the ultimate step to convert guests (or leads) into paying clients. Even if they don’t seem to be but ready to purchase, a “study extra” button could lead on them further into the sales funnel. It might in truth cause them to commit. Learn this article to study extra about why CTAs matter.

An environment friendly CTA button stands out from the remainder of the web site’s content. It’s brief however to the purpose, consists of an motion verb (“do that”) and is a special colour from the remainder of the web site’s content material.

5. Build your web site responsively

Years ago once I began learning net design, the mere concept of designing for a telephone was a bit ludicrous. Ultimately, we started creating cellular versions of internet sites as soon as the smartphone business began rising. Creating a further version of an internet site was extraordinarily time-consuming and redundant, although, so these variations often lacked fairly a bit of the desktop model’s content. These days, the norm is to design responsive websites that adapt from system to system. The content is subsequently the identical, however resizes itself in line with the dimensions of the gadget.

In 2018, 52.2% of net web visitors was carried out on a cellular gadget (smartphone, tablet). Should you don’t need to lose visitors, it’s imperative to design your website for those users.

In truth, serps like Google have begun to verify the cellular friendliness of an internet site to assist them rank search outcomes. Websites that are not responsive stand to lose the rating recreation. A responsive website is now a should to be competitive on search engines like google.

6. Create a kickass About Us page

Out with a boring About Us page that tells clients nothing about how your organization exists to assist them, or who you’re beyond your products or services. Clients need to study what you’ll be able to supply them, why your are better positioned to serve them than your rivals, but in addition, firstly, they need to know the corporate is run by people. They need to know who you’re.

Mockingly, an excellent rule of thumb is to use “you” more than “we/us” in your web site’s copy usually, but sure, even in your About Us page. That is how you can create a humble, empathetic and consumer-first portrait of your company.

You exist for the client; your About Us web page must reveal this.

7. Assume content material first

Content ought to be your website’s most important focus. Your efforts to usher in clients will fall brief for those who web site does not include content material that can educate, interact and finally persuade visitors.

You might be underneath the impression that your visitors only need to see what your products seem like. That couldn’t be further from the reality. They need to know dimensions, senses, story, emotion.

Indeed, first impressions are necessary, like in courting, however finally a person holds your consideration by carrying on fascinating conversations. Likewise, your web site’s job is to be flirting with potential clients and reeling them in with fascinating content that may train them, inform them, inform them stories, inform them journeys, about your services or products.

Nice product descriptions and web site copy are a superb first step, however you’d be even smarter to put in writing a blog repeatedly, create informative and interesting movies about your products or services, and extra.

Again, only good high quality content will stand the check of time, interact your guests and maintain them excited about your company. Content material is a particularly powerful device in lead era; use it to your advantage.

8. Design a great-looking website

A elegant, visually pleasing website will impress your visitors and is an important component on your company’s success in the net sphere.

A artistic, engaging look can set you apart out of your competitors and mark you as the reference. This harkens back to our earlier ideas of getting an ironclad homepage and having a clear and concise navigation and website hierarchy.

If guests can find info they’re on the lookout for extra shortly in your website than in your competitor’s, you then’ll be a clear winner of their attention. You must attempt to successfully catch visitors with a wonderful web site design that works exhausting for you.

9. Get a robust content material administration system (CMS)

It is potential to create an internet site that doesn’t want a CMS: it is just constructed using good previous HTML. Nevertheless, in this day and aage of dynamic content, it is perhaps greatest to opt for a CMS to build your web site shortly and painlessly. Whether that CMS is WordPress, Magento or Ruby on Rails, or others, doesn’t matter. Nevertheless, it is perhaps fascinating so that you can notice that nowadays WordPress powers over 30% of the internet and is usually the preferred CMS of most net designers because of its ease of use and constant help. Myself, I want WordPress, and use a theme referred to as Divi to help me create any template or design I would like.

But I digress. The usability, performance and updating capabilities of your web site are immediately tied to the CMS and net host you select. When choosing a CMS in your website, verify for the next:

Does it can help you edit content material from any system, at any time?

Is it backed by a wide group of designers and builders that may assist you to at any time?

Does it will let you optimize your content material for serps? (i.e. is it Search engine optimization-friendly?)

Is it safe and does it actively work to stop hacking makes an attempt? (i.e. is it often up to date?)

Will your website load shortly with it?

10. Monitor conversions

Ahhh… the boring stuff. Conversion tracking is the thought of monitoring your guests (who, the place, when, why, how), discovering the queries they use, and the sales made by means of the website. Monitoring this info is tedious, but essential in understanding your clients. Additionally it is how you might evaluate the power of your advertising efforts, and discover out what wants to vary.

You possibly can monitor all this info in your Google Analytics account.

11. Make use of a sensible advertising strategy

A nice website is good, but gained’t go very far when you have a business that needs to earn cash. Gone are the times when a business owner might launch an internet site and get visitors pretty effortlessly. The online has grown and expanded a lot that there at the moment are billions of web site, all vying for consideration. Nowadays, it’s essential to help your website by advertising it properly.

The success of an internet site goes far past merely having an internet presence. A sensible advertising strategy will get that website before the eyes that matter: the shoppers’. However not simply any shoppers; those which might be excited about what you’re providing.

Many trendy digital advertising methods exist that may do exactly that: search engine marketing (Search engine marketing), social media, e mail advertising, pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns, and extra. You may additionally supply skilled recommendation and solutions to questions on Quora or Reddit.

Past digital advertising, local advertising may also yield very constructive outcomes, and shouldn’t take a backseat. You possibly can companion with one other native enterprise and supply reductions on your services or products when utilized in tandem with theirs. You might sponsor an area occasion. You can buy native radio ad area… The chances are almost countless!

You understand your enterprise greatest, and will subsequently have the ability to choose one of the best promoting avenue for it.

12. Perform common web site checkups and audits

Identical to your yearly (or so) checkups together with your physician, your website wants regular (however extra frequent) checkups. For instance, it is strongly recommended to verify a WordPress web site at the least monthly for core model updates as well as theme and plugin updates. Failing to update these three parts might break your website’s functionality and make it easier for hackers to realize entry to your website and inject nefarious malware into it. It’s occurred to me earlier than, and it’s occurred to many more before and after me.

It’s also essential to audit your web site now and again to make sure there are not any lifeless hyperlinks or lacking pictures. These can make web sites load more slowly, because the host retains making an attempt to hook up with URLs but fails. So, click on round your website from time to time, and seek out missing pieces to repair.

To sum up

Making a successful enterprise website requires quite a bit of work, as you’ll have famous. It may’t harm to ask for the help of knowledgeable net designer to include the essential parts of a superb business web site into their proposal. These parts are extremely necessary, so don’t hesitate to guage their past work so as to get a good idea of their creativity and talent.

Your web site needs a robust basis, so set your self up for fulfillment with the best net designer or developer who will guarantee your website’s efficiency and design are as much as snuff!

The post The essential elements of a good business website appeared first on Spouting-Tech.