#not to mention all the different media(news articles videos compilations etc)

[skitskatdacat63]

I just saw a tiktok that was like "can somebody explain to me the 'absolute batshit' formula one lore there must be to incite 21k fanfictions of the sport" uhhhhhhhhhh yeah lemme pull out my powerpoint with 1k+ slides

[nancydrew428]

Game 34

As of yet, there’s no proof that there’s going to be a 34th game. Her Interactive has answered a few fans and said that they were working on a game, but who knows what that really means? To get a semblance of an idea, let’s do a deep dive.

Starting with the past couple of weeks, HeR is selling all of the physical copies of their games, as well as some other products (like their physical puzzles). I watched a YouTube video that said that while this may seem like a bad sign, it might not be. For starters, many of the physical games have been sold out for literal years because they only make a set amount of physical copies. When they run out, that’s it. So this isn’t a completely new thing. However, they are doing a mass sale. On the one hand, it could be a last ditch effort to get whatever money they can before calling it quits. But on the other, it could mean that they are trying to make the best financial decision that they can think of. Story Retold (LJ), on YouTube, works for Her Interactive and commented on that video in early April.

The most accurate explanation is that we at HeR Interactive wanted to celebrate the month of April as Nancy Drew’s anniversary. 💜 We made it themed as collectibles but yes, once the physical units sell out, we don’t make anymore. :(

I personally don’t believe that that is the only reason. It makes sense that they want to honor Nancy Drew’s anniversary (the first book came out in April 1930), so maybe that’s why they chose this month? But I feel like that can’t be the only reason.

I agree with Nancy Drew Walkthroughs on YouTube that Her Interactive probably has to pay for storage to keep physical items, so by selling the games, they won’t have to pay for the storage. They’ll also be making money off the games that they otherwise would not be making money from. As we have learned with the pandemic, and as marketers have known for decades, having people panic is a really effective way to sell something out. It’s why so many websites will have flash sales, the biggest words will be “for a limited time only,” and sometimes they’ll tell you how many copies of the product there are left, how many people have it in their carts, or they’ll say “hurry now, less than 50 left!” Even if you realistically had a long time to buy that product or the company actually has a lot of the product left, they create artificial scarcity and manufacture panic so that you’ll make impulse purchases. While it feels kind of slimy, it is effective when done right. And, correct me if I’m wrong but, I don’t think that Her Interactive has really done this before. So it seems like they might be stepping up their marketing which could be a good sign for the company.

I think this could be the company taking a step in the right direction to make everything digital. Although I absolutely love having physical copies of the games and other memorabilia, I also think that we are living in an increasingly digital world, and it only makes sense for them to get with the times. Go digital, spend less money on making physical games, etc. So many laptops these days don’t have CD/DVD drive, so many of their older games (and their newest game) have issues which can be especially hard with a disc, and so many stores don’t sell the physical games anymore. With a smaller, probably not very wealthy, company, it makes no sense for them to waste money on this. Like I said, I love collecting the physical copies, but I don’t really use them, and younger people coming across the games will probably go for the digital version, probably even buying it directly from Steam. (Which kind of a side note, kind of related, this article on Her Interactive is really interesting. It mentions that HeR kind of fought putting their games on Steam, because Steam took too big of a cut of their money. But I do think that that’s better than not having any of your games sell. And if they’re going completely digital, and almost all of their games are on Steam now, it seems like maybe they’re modernizing and progressing.)

While this could be a bad sign and I don’t want to get my hopes up too high, I do have some hope that it might actually be a good sign that they are finally getting smart.

Another thing that could either be worrisome or a good sign is that they changed offices. In another video from that same YouTuber, he talks about how Her Interactive still has the address that they’ve had for years on their contact page, but on their privacy policy page, they changed their address to a PO box. Plus, there’s a listing for their old office.

Obviously, this could be a bad thing, because they no longer have an office, and that just doesn’t sound good? But this also means that they’ll be saving money by doing so. During the pandemic, they’ve probably had to work at home anyway, so why pay for an office that no one is going to be in? It also makes sense, because at this point, they probably are not the ones making the games. They’re a marketing team who gives the Nancy Drew name to other companies to make the games. All of this can be done from home. LJ also commented on this video in early April, saying:

As far as I know, we are NOT going out of business. 😋 We are all remote working now, since our team (including a male) is all over the U.S. Our work is digital, so it’s an easy change.

Something else that he talks about in that video is that they changed the layout of their website. He points out that it costs money to pay someone to change a website, especially where it seems like multiple details have changed. Hate it or love it, you have to admit that the website is more sleek, modern, and just a different vibe to what it was before. Why would they put in the money for a website and company that’s going to be dead soon?

Lastly, he discusses the company’s change in advertising. I hadn’t even noticed the change (mostly because I don’t look at what they post; I only come across it if it’s posted by someone on here), but when he pointed it out, I did see the difference. The picture advertisements that they post are better quality (not necessarily in content, but in size and resolution). They’ve also changed the font that they use, they’ve ditched the logo, and they use random pictures as well. Regardless of whether it’s good or effective or not, it is a change. Here are two examples (one, two) from the past two years, and here are two examples from the past two weeks (one, two).

This change in marketing is also in line with their Facebook posts. Facebook is the social media that they are most active on when it comes to engaging with fans, at least from what I have seen in the past. But at least since January, they didn’t respond to any comments until they announced that they were selling out all of their physical copies. They didn’t respond to too many questions, but they responded to a few, for the first time in literal months. If they were shutting down, why would they start caring about answering fans’ questions now?

I also found information about some of the stuff that HeR has been doing in the past 2 weeks. I don’t have an account on the website so I can’t see all the information, so I don’t know what was blurred out. I also can’t see any other “scoops” about them, so I don’t know what they’ve done in the past, and I don’t know if this amount of activity is normal or more or less than they usually have. But the company has been doing a few things here and there, so as I keep saying, maybe this is a good sign.

With all of this being said, it seems like Her Interactive might not actually be going under. We can’t be sure, but we can have a little bit of hope. But even if that is true, just because they’ll still be a company, does that mean that they are going to make any more games?

I honestly don’t know. There isn’t much information out there about game 34,  but I will still compile the information that I’ve found here. Unfortunately, it gives us nothing other than them maintaining that there will eventually be another game.

(Timeline) TL;DR: I think that the key points are that they started saying that they were working on the game in December 2019 (as far as I can tell), but since then they’ve also said that they were planning the game. To this day, they are saying that they can’t give out any information regarding the new game yet and can’t make guarantees as to when they can release any information, let alone the game itself. The only thing LJ has seemed to say with certainty is that the next game will be made on Unity. They also have confirmed that there will be some improvements from MID, but it will be similar.

Some other tidbits from this that sound promising but probably don’t mean much: they have said that it shouldn’t take as long for future games as it did for them to make MID, they’ve mentioned that there are plans for multiple more games, that we should subscribe to their newsletter to stay up to date with any new information regarding anything (game 34 or otherwise), and LJ hopes to share news in the near future.

And other things that they’ve said that I’m 99.99% sure don’t mean anything at all: Nancy might potentially someday go on a boat in the future, LJ likes jump scares too “😉,” and Bess and George might appear in future games. (The first two are probably just jokes and fun, but the last one seems like it could be true, just because they’re in most of the games in some way or another.)

Lastly, some speculations: the next game might take place in Austria, and they might address the drama between Nancy and Ned.

Now here is the timeline.

On May 8, 2017, someone from Her Interactive said: "Yes we plan on making a 34th ND game. No is hasn’t been designed yet. Yes there will be a teaser at the end of MID, but no, we haven’t decided on what that teaser will look like yet." Obviously, it’s been years and plans can change (proven by the fact that there was no trailer at the end of MID, lol).

In December 2017, Her Interactive posted a letter about why MID was taking so long to come out. Here was the most important part:

As you may recall, we are moving to a new engine to be able to develop a game not only for PC/Mac but also for tablets, consoles, and now for the increasing popularity of augmented or virtual reality. Very exciting!  Part of us going down this path was to ensure that we have multiple platform options for future Nancy Drew titles so that all Nancy Drew game fans and those new to our games could play these amazing games no matter what their preferred device or platform.

This versatility means that the design and development of our games are even more complex than in the past. Our PC/Mac game design will work for players on the go with tablets and possibly for players that may want to immerse themselves in the mixed reality world. We are also constantly evaluating new technologies and trends in the game industry. Consequently, this is why it is taking much longer to develop this title than previous ones. This thoroughness will put HeR Interactive in a better position for the future while providing us with the tools necessary to continue to deliver amazing experiences for our fans.

On January 2, 2018, LJ responded to a comment on the blog saying, “Hello Carmen! South America is always a possibility for future game locations. However, we haven’t planned that yet. MID will be available for PC as well.”

On July 21, 2019, a Reddit fan posted a response they got from Her Interactive. They explained that they lost trust in the company and would not be preordering the game. They responded with their reasoning for the game taking so long and how it won’t happen in the future.

We are moving to a new engine to be able to develop a game not only for PC/Mac but also for tablets, consoles, and now for the increasing popularity of augmented or virtual reality. Very exciting! Part of us going down this path was to ensure that we have multiple platform options for future Nancy Drew titles so that all Nancy Drew game fans and those new to our games could play these amazing games no matter what their preferred device or platform. This versatility means that the design and development of our games are even more complex than in the past. Our PC/Mac game design will work for players on the go with tablets and possibly for players that may want to immerse themselves in the mixed reality world. We are also constantly evaluating new technologies and trends in the game industry. Consequently, this is why it is taking much longer to develop this title than previous ones. This thoroughness will put HeR Interactive in a better position for the future while providing us with the tools necessary to continue to deliver amazing experiences for our fans.

On October 1, 2019, they responded to a fan on Twitter saying, “Hello Grace, the consistent schedule back then was on a system that never changed or upgraded with the times. Once we get the structure of this upgraded game done, the future games will not take 4 years to make.”

On October 2, 2019, they responded to a fan on Twitter saying, “The frustration is understood. We hope to be more accurate in the future, and to regain our players' faith in the next game release.”

On October 4, 2019, they responded to a fan on Twitter saying, “Hello Lisa, we understand the frustration and loss of trust in us. Since this game was designed from the ground up, we have certainly learned a lot and will be applying our lessons to the future games.”

On October 4, 2019, they responded to another fan on Twitter saying, “Hi highly doubt the next game will take this long - since we had re-designed from the ground up in a new system this time. We apologize for lengthy delay. :(”

On November 6, 2019, two users on Gameboomers made comments:

One said that LJ said there wouldn’t be a trailer for the next game after MID, but “she did say that there were some ‘early ideas’ floating around for the next game.”

The other got an email from Her Interactive that said, “We will absolutely be releasing more games after Midnight in Salem. We cannot commit to a release schedule as of right now since all of our focus is on MID. It will definitely not take us as long for the next title to release. Four years is not the new normal.”

On December 3, 2019, Midnight in Salem was released. The end of the game didn’t have a trailer for the next as is the tradition for Nancy Drew games, but there seemed to be some drama between Nancy and Ned, and she mentioned wanting to go to Austria. A user on the Her Interactive message boards pointed out that the game was outsourced to an Austrian company so that might be the reasoning. But maybe it could be the plan for the next game.

On December 3, 2019, an article came out about the company that said, “Her Interactive has already developed a Nancy Drew VR proposal based on one of the books with a Spanish director, but it's more likely an AR project would come to market first.”

On December 17, 2019, a user on the Her Interactive message boards said that they emailed Nancy’s new voice actress who confirmed that there will be more games where she will play Nancy.

On December 29, 2019, they responded to a fan’s DM on Instagram asking if they were going to make another game to which they said. “Absolutely!  We’ve already begun!”

On January 7, 2020, LJ responded to a comment on the blog saying, “Hello Oona! Yes, we are planning on more Nancy Drew games. Can’t say when the next one will be released, yet. 🙂”

On January 8, 2020, LJ responded to a comment on the blog saying, “Hi again Jillian! I’m not sure on the release month or year just yet, but I do know it will not take 4 years to make. 😉”

On January 10, 2020, LJ responded to a comment on the blog saying, “Hello SWhite5052! I’m not sure what the intent from our designers is for poor Ned. I’m a big fan of Nancy’s boyfriend, and I do hope we get to have him in-game someday, be Nancy’s hero and also take her out on a romantic date. 😉” I don’t think this really means anything, but I hope it means that she has hope that there will be future games.

On January 28, 2020, they responded to a fan on Twitter saying, “Yes, there are plans for more Nancy Drew games. :)” Plural?

On February 3, 2020, LJ responded to a comment on the blog saying, “Hi Jam5022! We do not have any news to share yet, but we are working on the game. 🙂”

On February 11, 2020, LJ responded to two comments on the blog:

“Hello felicity18! Glad to hear you enjoyed Midnight in Salem! The leads didn’t add a teaser to the end of the game per tradition since we are secretly working on the next one, and haven’t put together footage to share or tease on it yet. Stay tuned for future updates!”

“Hi Madi! Ship of Shadows was shelved, meaning we stopped working on it. At this time, we are only focusing on the main mystery adventure line.”

On February 20, 2020, LJ responded to two comments on the blog:

“Hi Sarah! Yes, the next game will be made on Unity. 🙂”

“I hope so, Nicole! I always like having Nancy’s best friends on the case with her! No promises just yet, but it’s likely for a future game. 🙂”

On February 25, 2020, they responded to a fan’s DM on Instagram saying, “New game info coming shortly. Stay tuned!” This didn’t happen.

On April 13, 2020, they responded to a fan on Twitter saying, “Hi Anna! When we have news on the next Nancy Drew game, we will be sure to share it! #NancyDrew”

On May 22, 2020, they responded to a fan on Twitter saying, “No news to share yet, but we are working on it!”

On September 13, 2020, someone on Reddit said that there was an untitled 34th game on Wikipedia. As they pointed out, anyone can edit entries on Wikipedia. But almost 7 months later, it hasn’t been taken down.

On November 29, 2020, someone on Reddit posted LJ’s response to a YouTube comment. “Game 34 is in the works. That’s all I can say for now. :)”

On December 1, 2020, LJ responded to some comments from October 2020 on a blog post:

“Hello! Game 34 is in the works. Stay tuned for future updates and be sure to subscribe to the newsletter for when we announce news. Glad you liked the graphic!”

“Hello! No news yet to share at this time, but that we are working on it. Keep an eye out in future newsletters for future bits of information. 😀”

“Sadly, I do not have anything to share about the next game. 🙁 I hope to be able to tease out clues in the future, though!”

On December 4, 2020, LJ responded to some comments from October/November 2020 on a blog post:

“Hello, beka! Sadly, I do not have any new info to share about the future game at this time. 🙁 I hope to share news with you in the future!”

“Hi Stephanie! It has been a while, hasn’t it? Sadly, I do not have any news to share at this time. As soon as I have some that I can share, I will!”

“Hi Natalina! It has been a while since we have had a Twitch stream. Sadly, we do not have any news to share yet about the next Nancy Drew game. Stay tuned!”

“Hello Foundation2430, things have certainly changed since Sea of Darkness. I am limited to what we can share behind the scenes, but once I have things I can share with you about the current and future games, I will. I don’t think the next game will take 4 years. 🙂”

On December 11, 2020, LJ responded to a comment from a blog post saying, “Hi ali! We are working on the next game, but we do not have a release date for it just yet.”

On January 6, 2021, LJ responded to a comment from a blog post saying, “Hello Natalina! Sorry, I do not have any news to share about new Nancy Drew games or projects. 🙁”

On January 8, 2021, LJ responded to two comments on the blog:

“Hi Aly! The next game is indeed in the works. Sadly, I cannot share anything about it at this time. 🙁 But I do hope you have a great new year as well! I hope to share more secrets with you in the future!”

“Hello Sanjeet! Happy New Year! We do have game 34 in the works, but I cannot share anything with you at this time. 🙁”

On January 28, 2021, LJ responded to a comment on a blog post saying, “Hi Cleanna! I think Nancy spending time on a ship is a great idea, too. Hopefully, she will get to do that in the future!” I doubt that this will happen, but she didn’t have to answer it this way. I guess it was probably to create some hope.

On February 2, 2021, LJ responded to two comments on the blog:

The first response was to a fan who talked about VR where she said, “Hello Madi! Thanks for sharing your concern. We have seen others comment their worry about the graphics since they get easily sick from motion as well. We are keeping this in mind for our future games. 🙂” I don’t think that they ever really planned to do VR, but she didn’t have to add that last part. Again, I’m guessing it was to create some hope.

The second response was to a fan who asked a question on January 15th where she said, “Hi Jessica! I do not know when the next game will be released, but once I have info, I will be sure to share it!” She answered this a few days after she answered the first question, when this was the first comment on the post. I wonder if she didn’t skip it, but rather waited until she could say the right thing.

On February 15, 2021, LJ responded to a few comments on a blog post:

The first comment asked if they’ll share any information on the game this year to which she responded, “Hi Rach! I do not know when news will become available to share. Sorry!” I understand this because MID was a hot mess where they kept giving dates and time frames that they couldn’t keep. But if they’ve been supposedly working on this since November, a year should be plenty of time for them to give some information, right? That they’ll keep the same voice actress for Nancy, part of the plot, who a phone character will be, the state or country it will be set in, or something super simple. Yet she couldn’t even say that she’d give any information this year.

She also responded to someone saying, “Hi Sarah! I cannot say exactly, since the behind-the-scenes work is top secret. I hope to share news in the near future when I’m able to!” One minute she couldn’t say whether they’d give out any information this year at all, the (literal) next minute she said she hopes to share news soon.

On March 3, 2021, LJ responded to a few comments on a blog post:

“Hi Lindsay! There are plans for the future. Stay tuned for news when I am allowed to share it!”

“Aw thanks for sharing! We are indeed working hard behind the scenes here. 😉”

On March 10, 2021, LJ responded to a comment on a blog post saying, “Hello Rishi! I would love to share information about our next game, but sadly, I cannot at this time. All I can say is that we are indeed planning another game. 🙂” So they’re still in the planning stage for the next game?

On March 30, 2021, LJ responded to a few comments on a blog post:

“Hi Becca! Jump scares are my favorites, too. 😉 Sadly, I do not have any news or even a date when we will share news about the next game. 🙁” (I kept the first part, because she didn’t need to put a winky face. I’m sure this is just wishful thinking, but maybe there will be a jump scare in the new game? Lol. But she doesn’t even have a date for when she can even share news about the game.)

“Hi Grace! We are indeed working on another game. I do not have any idea when we will be sharing news about it, though.” Pretty much the same, generic response.

On April 5, 2021, Her Interactive responded to a Reddit fan on Instagram about the future game saying: “Hello lorichelter! The next game will have some improvements but will be similar to MID. We’re glad to hear you enjoyed the game! Also, future games will be Mac compatible, but unfortunately we do not have plans to remaster the old games at this time. :( If we ever find a workaround for the Apple restriction of 32-bit games, we will quick to share that trick.”

[bluerosesonata]

The Legacy of Aika Village

[This will be the first of a few mini-articles I plan to post here, just about different things I’m passionate about. Please indulge me.]

This article originally was written back in early April- since then, Nintendo announced that the “Dream Suites” would be coming to the latest update of ACNH, as “Dream Islands.” As such, I thought it would be timely to finally post this.

Update: On July 2nd, the original creator of Aika Village made a tweet announcing their plans to remake Aika for Dream Islands in New Horizons! The legend lives on!

Image Credit: thumbnail from chuggaconroy’s playthrough of Aika Village on Youtube.

Animal Crossing And Horror: The Legacy of Aika Village

With a lot of the world in lockdown, Animal Crossing New Horizons has become a creative and social outlet for many, leading to a lot of people who never played Animal Crossing to engage with it for the first time. I’m sure most of you have encountered the various types of people present in the Animal Crossing community by now, but there’s a type of Animal Crossing players that a lot of people didn’t realize exist, and have existed, for a while now: The Horror Town Creators.

These players were the subject of a brief write up on Polygon by Patricia Hernandez [Hernandez, Patricia. “Animal Crossing: New Horizons is now a horror game, thanks to fans.” Polygon, 24 Mar. 2020. https://www.polygon.com/2020/3/24/21190826/animal-crossing-new-horizons-horror-game-decorations-scary-nintendo-switch-blood-spatter-pattern.], who posted an article featuring quotes and pictures of people creating horror themed towns and rooms in New Horizons, but only made a brief mention of the legacy of horror that many of these players are striving to recreate: The Nightmare Suites of Animal Crossing: New Leaf.

(These next few paragraphs are a bit of a self-indulgent aside, so feel feel to skip ahead.)

Horror gets a bad rap. Horror artists get comments like “lmao what SCP is this,”  “that’s fucked up,” or get flippant remarks about it all “looking the same.” Horror writers get made fun of for only writing “three types of stories.” Even the term “creepypasta,” which has evolved into shorthand for “horror stories independently published online,” still carries the stink of derision from the typo-filled, often poorly-written shock stories the term originated from. Despite this derision, horror, as a genre, is MASSIVELY popular (and profitable as well!). There’s an undeniable appeal to it.

More importantly, horror always finds a way to adapt itself to different mediums. As one can easily see by the success of horror podcasts like the NoSleep Podcast and The Magnus Archives, it isn’t even limited to a visual format! Like fear and dread itself, the horror genre crawls on, inexhaustible, undying, and ever-present, always returning to us in ways both novel and familiar.

Horror lovers are a tight knit, but welcoming, community, and that’s one of its biggest strengths and weaknesses.The biggest drawback is that a lot of really cool stuff produced will never be experienced, let alone documented, by people outside the community. And that’s what prompted this post. I was trying to explain the Dream Suite horror movement to my cousin, and despite my best efforts, didn’t find a lot of coverage about them, beyond the fact they existed. Worse, most of those were articles written five years ago. Even so, I’ll link to a few of them at the end of this post, as they’re definitely worth reading.

For me, I wanted to share my experience of the horror town phenomena with people outside the community. The Nightmare Suites movement was really something magical, and I know that I, personally, am still trying to recreate that magic in New Horizons. And hey, maybe once you’re finished reading this, you will too.

The Dream Suite

Before we can talk about Aika Village, we need to explain the feature that made this whole movement possible. In the 2012/2013 3DS game, Animal Crossing: New Leaf, there were two areas in every town: The village, and Main Street, which laid beyond the train tracks that ran across to the north of every town. Main Street was home several important structures, including the town shop, the Happy Home Academy, and the Post Office. Later on, more structures could be unlocked and built as public works projects, one of which was the Dream Suite.[“Dream Suite.” Nookipedia, 25 Apr. 2013, nookipedia.com/wiki/Dream_Suite.] 

As for how it worked, Nookipedia explains it best:

To begin a dream, the player must lie down on the bed and pay Luna 500 Bells. They may then choose to visit a random town, input the Dream Address of a specific town to visit, or search for a town. They may then choose to visit a previously visited town or a random town, or to input the dream address of a new town to visit. While dreaming, the player may walk around the town and perform actions just as they would in the real world, but their actions will have no effect on the town.

While dreaming, the bed will be on the dream town's plaza. Luna and Lloid stand near it until the player decides to wake up. Players can borrow tools like a shovel and axe from Lloid to use within the dream. If the player lies on the bed a second time, they will leave the dream and anything they have in their pockets will be lost.

The player cannot go to Main Street or enter any buildings with doors besides homes. Additionally, messages left on the bulletin board cannot be read; instead, the board displays the town's name and Dream Address…custom designs on display in the town, such as on the ground and in houses, will be visible. The player who uploaded the town can also be found walking about. When spoken to, they will say their recorded greeting.

In essence, the Dream Suite takes a snapshot of your town at the moment you ask Luna, the NPC running the Dream Suite, to share a dream- this includes your outfit, the way  you decorated your home, the items laying around town, etc.

The most important aspect of this feature, and the one that I feel had the most impact on the Nightmare Suite creation movement, was the method of discovery. If you didn’t know someone’s code, you would be sent to a random dream of a random town, from anywhere in the world- and this is where I feel my personal experience of being in the community departs from the articles that have already been written about the Nightmare Suites.

The Urban Legend of Aika

In the years leading to 2013, I was going through some rough shit. I won’t go into details here, but video games had become my entire life. Coming into the summer of 2013, I didn’t have any friends I kept in touch with, and I was “starting over” in a city where I knew nobody- things were looking up, but outside of tumblr, I didn’t have anything even resembling a social life. Animal Crossing: New Leaf was a stabilizing force of my life during this time, and really helped me. I had the Shampoodle haircut guide saved to the camera roll on my phone, for pete’s sake.

It was in the beginnings of my friendship with a group of girls (whom I sadly no longer even have contact with), where a lot of our initial bonding happened because of anime and RPGmaker horror games. We were sitting together in the campus dining area, me playing on my 3DS, when I first learned about the Nightmare Suites.

“Have you heard about Aika Village?”

I hadn’t.

“It’s this really creepy town in dream suites, I heard about it from a friend online.” Later that day, she linked me to a tumblr post compiling a series of codes leading to different “creepy dream towns,” the first one being simply labeled as “Aika Village.”

That dream village became a phenomenon: people would write up their interpretations and theories about it, and even lead to a few articles and videos on gaming sites like IGN and Killscreen, which is why I’m not gonna even bother going into the content of the village itself.

And So, The Dream Begins…

This, in my opinion, was the draw of the Nightmare Suites. Without a way to directly share codes from your 3DS to your social media, the discovery and sharing of Dream Towns was like that of urban legends- like virtually passing notes in class, or sharing scary stories that “totally happened to a friend of my cousin’s sister” at a campfire. It felt like a cool discovery- something exclusive and scary and weirdly intimate. They had a mystique to them, a mystery of who their creators were and what they “really meant.” But above all that? They were cool as hell.

The Nightmare Suites used the limitations of the game to try and create an unnerving atmosphere in ways that were reminiscent to me of the RPGmaker horror game subgenre, and for me, created a lot of memories of excitedly typing in my once a day dream suite visit late at night in my dorm. I never lacked variety- there were so many people either influenced or inspired by Aika to make a horror town that there are entire lists and tumblrs dedicated to collecting those codes. (I even played around with the idea of making my own horror town, but never found the right inspiration, instead dedicating my time to making themed homes and custom outfits based on different anime characters.)

The sad fact that so many of these towns have been altered or overwritten, if they’re available or accessible at all, is in itself, a part of their urban legend-like appeal. While many of us may never get to experience these towns, the stories about them endure, in lists on long-abandoned blogs and youtube videos from people’s playthroughs.

And that mystique is the real legacy of Aika; While the Nightmare Suites may be gone, the wonder and dreamlike memories many of us hold from our chance encounter with it will never fade. You could even say we’re a bit…haunted by it.

[florence839]

Many small business owners will here hear the term'search engine optimisation' (or SEO) from friends in the business community or even competitions and may consider it as a path to increasing sales, but what's SEO? Alternatively, a business owner may have attempted'SEO solutions' previously and found it didn't work as well as expected or was working, but not as effective - this article explains what SEO is, and why'brand new' SEO is working better than ever. I've been working in search engine optimisation and ranking website marketplace, before it was even called SEO. Here are the modifications in SEO because the start of the new century and exactly what you ought to be searching for in the search engine optimization services your SEO Agency offers or supplies. We take a look back in SEO through the years and clarify what SEO is now and how best to utilise it for our website. SEO in 2000 Back at the beginning of the Millennium that the'large' search engines that many folks were using were Lycos and Excite. Websites were just one or 2 pages with basic information to permit them to load quickly (within 20 minutes ). Search engine optimization practices back then were to'hide' as many keywords on a page as you can, so the site was found for those searches without making the page look to spammy to people. Back in 2002 Google launched something called'AdWords' and it had been predicted to be the passing of SEO, as individuals could pay for prominence, on the now the number 1 website for beginning internet searches. Back in 2003, Yahoo purchased Inktomi, AltaVista and FAST, that was basically the end of all of the'smaller' search engines. Google began to stamp down on'spam' practices and websites. At precisely the exact same time Google realised that'AdWords' weren't going to kill SEO and that in fact the'natural listings' encouraged visitors back to their own search engine platform. Google started to recognise'specialist SEO' pros and encouraged good SEO instead of spamming SEO. 2004 saw the very first website'banned' from the internet as Google took actions against websites which were spamming them. In addition they took legal actions from the"SEO Company" responsible. To rank a website in 2006 you simply desired links back to your site and so purchasing links / link building has been the rage and many sites had a web page where they would list businesses and links to their own website (I'm still amazed how many sites continue this practice). Between 2004 and 2008 Google, was the only real"player" in the search engine world, started taking action against inferior linking practices and businesses and began tightening up on junk and purchasing links. The'Noughties" ended with all"gloomy" SEO practices being practically stamped out, as Google concentrated on rank sites based on their articles and it's significance to the research being carried out. SEO in 2010 Between 2010 and 2015 we started to find the search engines take notice of'Social Media' websites and soon the outcomes were full of Twitter'tweets' from the results. (I can still see the surface of one of my clients when searching Google for his business, and the first page of their search results were compiled of tweets of a Twitter conversation that two members of staff were having about how terrible the firm was!) Videos and images were also brought in to the research results with the Google'Caffeine' upgrade. Google introduced"search results" using all the sites shown in the search results based on your previous searches and sites you had seen previously. This caused a'bit of a stir' from the search engine optimization world as customers claimed their websites had been"high in Google" for any search they did related to their industry, simply because they had visited their own site many times previously, therefore Google naturally fed them back the website for all relevant searches. This may still be a bit of an issue until you show them the brand new'Google Incognito hunt'. The focus on rank websites was found for BIG key words. A'Plumber' in Bristol would want to rank for this search, so that has been the focus. Google'Panda' and'Penguin' updates killed off'link exchanges' with enormous penalties for websites who'd insignificant links pointing towards them. At precisely the same time Google introduced"no follow links" to allow websites to provide pertinent links to other sites and data without penalising both party. It was the beginning of"protected linking". Quality and appropriate content was now the key to rank in search engines. SEO 2020 and Onwards In ensuring that consumers got the ideal experience Google started rank mobile responsive or friendly sites (where the website automatically changes its size and format to fit the display ) higher in the rankings. The UK people were using their cellular phones for local searches, and local companies could gain an advantage over the big corporates or even'national' companies on the internet. The debut of'semantic search', where Google brings websites at the outcomes not based on the key words, but the articles onto a webpage, again altered the manner SEO agencies looked in working on websites. Position for its'Big' key words, for example'Plumber Bristol' became important, as net users became more informed with their searches. 'long-tail keywords', and as numerous as possible, started to grow website traffic and what's more, conversions. What is The SEO Process Now? It is probably correct to state that the procedures or practices associated with search engine optimisation have now out grown the word'SEO' In years gone by working the content and construction of a website was enough. Now, there is a whole lot more to do to not only rank a website in search engines, but to find customer involvement. An improved description of the service would be'digital marketing'. Old practices, as mentioned previously, supposed'big' key words were crucial to rank. A focus on a single keyword per page or perhaps for a whole website would rank the company and back then it was about'rankings'. Old way of doing SEO Today there are a number of elements to think about in regards to SEO. 'Semantic search' is the main driver and conversion the main goal, not rankings. A good instance of this is to choose the'Plumber Bristol' instance. A few years ago you'd have focused on rank the business for"Plumber Bristol","Plumber in Bristol" and perhaps"Emergency Plumber Bristol" - although this still holds true for companies offering a solution for'distress purchases' (where time plus an alternative outweigh the need for information and advice) better practice during a web site is to include content that offers advice and guidance and contains'long tail key words' (3 or 4 word searches) such as"Emergency plumber with free callout at Bristol" or"Reviews for an Emergency Plumber close me". Google needs the user to have the best experience and find the relevant information immediately, and semantic search achieves this. This is also sensible to get a company owner. Can you rather your website had been found by a searcher searching for"Plumber Bristol" where they might be after advice, looking to get a job, looking for a plumbing service which you might not provide, or for a particular and targeted search such as"best emergency Plumber near BS7″? Concerning keywords this is the greatest change Google have made and it is here to remain. SEO or digital marketing is no more about where you rank, but the number of different search phrases you can be found for their conversion in to paying customers. Website Content A couple of years back (and only 2 or 3 years back ) Google indicated to specialist SEO Agencies which 300 words on a webpage was adequate content. Every day I am asked to examine a web site by a prospective customer - and most of them have between 150 to 250 words onto a webpage. There are two ways to look at this. Either Google needs to change it's expectations as most sites don't satisfy their grade or a different way to look at that is as a simple way to jump the contest by simply adding content to your site. Can you think Google will reduce it's expectations or expect sites to improve to their own standard? Google published the'mobile friendly' update knowing that somewhere around 80 percent of websites would need to be upgraded - and they did it anyhow as it gained over 50 percent of there users. Quality articles impacts 100% of their customers. I recommend to our customer roughly 800 words each page. This is sufficient articles to be'semantic search' friendly, provide relevant content and not be too word heavy. Great practice would be to have: Page Title - state what the page is all about ('Big' Keyword if you must)Headline - asking a questionFirst paragraph describes briefly explains the articles / solutionPicture / or videoLonger description of the solutionTake our Emergency Plumber in Bristol, as an example: Page Title: Emergency Plumber Bristol Headline: Are you looking for the best emergency plumber near you in Bristol? First Paragraph: Smith Plumbing provide a 24 hour emergency plumbing service in Bristol. We don't charge a call out fee and may be with you in 20 minutes. That's why our customer reviews and feedback say we're the best emergency plumbing service in your region. Call now on... Image of the van or the Plumber looking skilled Longer description: What they could fix, common problems they solve, a few of the quotations from their clients etc.. This has a number of advantages. Firstly, those men and women who just need a Plumber will read the first paragraph, see the image of this van (build authority and professionalism) and telephone the Plumber. Other people would want to have more information that they may find further down the page. Is this cheating at SEO? Absolutely NOT. You are providing relevant information to the consumer and Google will love you for this. How content is organised and composed on a webpage is your"new" SEO. In the event that you have been a Plumber would you rather be seen for one enormous keyword or several relevant customer converting keywords? Old practices were to make site content to the search engines. Now you need to create content to give value for customers. This is a simpler process than you may think. What were the last 5 client enquiries to your small business? What was the problem they had been trying to resolve? Write about the problem and your solution. Link Building This year we've a very large company contact us about their SEO and they were horrified when we suggested they had to eliminate their 1.4 MILLION hyperlinks back to their own site as they had spent a fortune over the years purchasing the hyperlinks. Inbound links, and the more you have the more damaging it's, highlights to Google the irrelevance of your website - regardless of how important it might be. Nowadays, a couple of, relevant links is much superior than a Million hyperlinks back to your website. Nowadays, links have to be built through participating relationships. Taking our Plumber once more, a link back from the'Gas Safe enroll', a local pipes centre or toilet showroom, and a few local websites that enjoy his advice would be enough. Social Media Though we still get a some companies like this today, a few years back when we suggested businesses ought to be on Facebook I was normally told"Facebook - which is for teens is not it? That isn't our market". If done well, Facebook can induce more traffic and paying customers to your door compared to your site. Facebook's biggest user group is 25 to 34 year olds, second biggest is the 35 to 44 years old age category. Facebook Users UK era - courtesy of statista Facebook enables a company to build a brand, engage customers, get customer reviews and instant customer feedback. Unlike reviews on your site which potential customer may see should they visit your website, a review on Facebook is seen instantly by all the users friends and when their buddy'likes' the comment - all of their pals, buddies. Increasingly more of our customers are getting leads from Facebook. People are asking their friends for tips on businesses to use and getting heaps of ideas back - if you're on Facebook you are more likely to get a direct link to your contact info. What's next for'Social Media'? Live streaming! Twitter has purchased a company called'Periscope' which permits you to live stream video in the mobile phone. "What exactly?" I hear our 'emergency plumber' asking. If I had been a Plumber I would be live streaming my work since I fix a problem, together with the video going out live to all my followers and their buddies - my own television channel that is free-to-air across the entire world. Video Marketing There aren't any'old' SEO methods for video since it just didn't exist and when YouTube started out it had been for showing funny videos of cats and the like. Now that has changed. YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine in the world and is owned by Google. YouTube has over 1 BILLION users globally and every minute, 300 hours of videos are uploaded. It might take you about two years to watch all the videos which will be uploaded within the next hour. It might take you the rest of your life to see all the movies uploaded today. Google's own statistics state that by 2018 73% of searches put to an internet search engine is going to bring about the individual watching a movie. Consider it a different way, in a couple of years after 10 people hunt the internet to your product or service - 7 of these will watch a movie, two will go to a website. That is why I create videos to our clients as part of our'digital marketing service'.

[mysterious-prophetess]

Top Five Academic and Publishing Scandals of the last Decade

So, I’ve seen people do stuff like this, a round up of sorts and the 2010′s were an insane decade to be alive.

So, I thought I’d compile my personal favorite publishing and academic scandals

Note: This will concern only things that were actually published or a scandal to do with Academia. The Rose Christo incident with the infamous fanfic didn’t have the biography make it to print so it’s right here as a Dishonorable Mention. No sources, because this was a home-grown tumblr disaster (much like Dashcon). 

So, 

#5 That Book that Used Scammy Tactics to Become a Best Seller Before Anyone Ever Even Read It.

Remember that time when Handbook for Mortals used shady tactics to make it look like it was selling better in pre-sales than it actually was? I barely remembered it, but then as I was adding in our Dishonorable Mention, I suddenly had the thought of “remember that...” so here it is at #5 since this book was actually published, and it was allegedly terrible. It has 3 stars on Amazon, but with its past, I can’t even trust that.

I didn’t read it. I had, and still have, better things to do than to read subpar fantasy that tried to be the next Hunger Games/Harry Potter/Divergent. 

It turns out, if you have wealthy enough collaborators, or people who know how to game the system by which the NYT Bestsellers’ List operates, you too can buy and cheat your way onto that list with a terribly written book like these guys.

What’s even more ridiculous was there were already talks of a movie version and this unknown writer turned out to be, surprise, an actress too! And guess who’d be playing her own main character in the movie? The author! So, once this was unraveled as being a bulk-book-buying-cheat-tactic-to-get-on-the-NY Times-Bestseller-List, they lost their rank and were completely off the list. The movie is also toast, I think, since it would have come out in 2018. We’re now in 2020.

(x) (xx) (xxx) (xxxx)

#4: That time Bethesda Plagiarized Dungeons and Dragons.

That’s right folks. Bethesda, who cannot catch a break after their hilariously disastrous launch of their ongoing garbage fire, Fallout 76, were in trouble whenever they released a TTRPG module for an Elder Scrolls game that was suspiciously like a previously released Dungeons and Dragons adventure...because it was very much ripped off from the D&D book.  

There were articles highlighting just how they did this and how blatant it was. 

Some articles would do a side-by-side of huge chunks of the text and, yikes, that’s some obvious copy-pasting.

Suffice to say, they yanked this e-book down ASAP. (x) (xx) (xxx) (xxxx)

#3 That Time a Youtuber Turned Professional Games Media Editor Plagiarized for Most of His Career and Only Got Caught After He Plagiarized the Wrong Person on a Very Public Platform

So, yeah. There was a review last year for a game called Dead Cells (published by Motion Twin). On July 24, 2018 a smaller Youtube channel called Boomstick gaming would upload their review to the game. Then August 6th, IGN’s Nintendo editor would post “his” review up and Deadite from Boomstick Gaming, who was actually a fan of IGN, noticed a lot of eerie similarities between the reviews. He did a side-by-side video comparison (here) and it looks like a case of barely even changing the words around after copying someone else’s homework. As an English major, this is a clear-cut case of plagiarism. IGN agreed too, as did most of the internet. This reviewer had fans who still believe in him even after he’s been proven a plagiarist but, no accounting for taste am I right? And this would have been the end of it....had he just accepted his fate and just slunk off into the dark recesses of the internet. 

But, then he had to provoke both Jason Schrier of Kotaku AND the Internet in a now deleted non-apology video to “looking as hard as you’re able, you won’t find anything.”

Yeah. That didn’t end well for him. So, people went digging and found a shitton of evidence he was a serial plagiarist. No shock to me, because plagiarism is never something a plagiarist ever does just “once.” He’d ripped off his fellow IGN reviewers as well as forum posts and articles from other publications. He also plagiarized a resume template. Now, when you use one of those, you’re SUPPOSED to mimic the style, put place your own information, right? Well, he didn’t even do that.

Link to YongYea, a youtuber who covered the topic in depth. He has his videos on the topic in a playlist. (x)

#2 The Professor Who P-Hacked His Results to Pieces

Now if you don’t know or remember who Professor Brian Wansink is, he’s a former faculty member at Cornell who rose to fame with his papers on nutrition and people’s eating habits. I’m still not entirely sure how a guy whose degrees were not in nutrition OR psychology ended up being the face of this field that seemed to have a lot more to do with nutrition and psychology, but here we are. His degrees were, in fact, a B.S. in business administration from Wayne State College, an M.A. in  journalism and mass communication from Drake University, and a PhD in Marketing-Consumer behavior- from Stanford. In a move that one might call pure hubris or just complete and total social ignorance, he made a blog post that started to bring eyes on his work. Thanks to the efforts of other scientists (Like the Skeptical Scientist) and Heathers and Brown as well as the computer programs GRIM and GRIMMER, it was found the man who was cited over 200,000 times was a fraud. As of now 17 papers have been retracted and 15 have been corrected. He is no longer employed at all by Cornell, resigning a disgrace to his field and his former place of work.

The only reason he managed to get so big was he was able to make his so-called science digestible for the masses and able to give his works palatable titles. Ok, I’m done with the food puns. He was a superstar (even worked with the previous first lady on her health initiatives), which is why his fall is also meteoric. This is why you don’t torture your data into false positives, folks. Also, he’d target science journals that weren’t as prestigious and therefore wouldn’t have as rigorous a peer-editing process, allegedly. 

His actions have brought thousands of papers into jeopardy and destabilized his whole entire field because nothing he did was reproducible and that’s already a huge problem in science. 

(x) (xx) (xxx) (xxxx) (X) (XX)

And.... now for the worst Academic Scandal of the 2010′s....

#1 The College Admission’s Scandal

Because despite Wasink’s damage to his field (because now there are literally thousands of papers who cited him in jeopardy), and two separate cases of Plagiarists on this list, I really can’t help but feel this has to be one of the biggest College/Academia scandals of ALL TIME. Sure, it’s old news now but I’m recapping it because that’s what this list is for. So, A bunch of wealthy people who wanted their children to go to prestigious universities wanted a guarantee that just buying a new wing for the library/science buildings/etc wouldn’t get them. You know, the normal way the super rich buy their children’s ways into schools. Instead, they went to this guy Singer whose group masqueraded as a charity (and that’s what got their asses nailed) and facilitated bribery, cheating, and deception. They caught one of these parents who’d gotten their children in with Singer’s plans for a different crime, and he offered to squeal on Singer and his plot for leniency with his other charges.

Singer’s plan usually involved bribing coaches to get these undeserving students recruited for sports teams (and therefore displacing an actual athlete who should have gotten their spot) as well as having people alter SAT scores and other deceptive actions. 

It’s unknown if, at this time, any of these children of the 34 charged parents, actually managed to graduate with degrees from any of these institutions. However, those that had any of these students have to now decide what to do with them since these admissions are now verifiably fraudulent. Some are going to whole-sale kick them out or “cancel their admission” and others aren’t speaking up, and one has already decided the student gets to stay. Because they might not have known what their parents did, and its possible for the ones whose parents DIDN’T have them fake athleticism to not know what their mom and dad did. Hell, even most of the fake athletes might not have known thanks to reports of photo shopping their faces onto uniformed bodies. I do not know if any of these children were in on what their parents did, thought I suspect some might have been, but that’s merely speculation on my part. At the end of the day, it’s up to each affected university to carry out what they wish to do next.

The fact they made donations to a fake charity (and therefore skirted the tax man) are the reason they’re REALLY in deep shit. You don’t deny the IRS its money or the IRS will come for your blood. Just ask the ghost of Al Capone. 

(x) (xx) (xxx)

So those are my top 5 Publishing and Academic Scandals of the past Decade. 

[greywindys]

It’s that time of year again! I, and possibly a good number of you reading this, just spent the whole of 2018 in the Gorillaz fandom. Congratulations! You made it! Because this year...kinda sucked. Not just for the Gorillaz fandom but, if this Washington Post article is any indication, for the rest of the world too. Maybe on an individual level there were moments of light. Maybe Gorillaz was your moment of light. If it was I’m genuinely happy because that means you probably found a way to avoid or ignore all the chaos that went down this year. But overall? Fandom was rife with disappointments, confusion and conflict with some good parts (for me, at least) sprinkled in here and there. Below is a personal reflection on the top 10 significant events in fandom of 2018.

1. Murdoc Goes to Prison

2018 started out peacefully for fandom. We were just finishing up sharing our scans of G-Magazine and theorizing over the next album when we’re treated with this - a nineteen second mocap of a frantic Murdoc accepting a Brit Award with an “oh by the way I’m going to prison.” We didn’t know why or for how long, and, though fans were confused and Murdoc going to prison is a tired, overplayed storyline at this point, it was cherished as any new Gorillaz content, especially animation, is cherished. Memes were made, most notably the #FreeMurdoc hashtag complete with a petition which was acknowledged by creators and caused the first big outburst in fandom for its messy tag. I did what I always do with Murdoc videos and went through the entire thing frame by frame to collect screenshots. Little did I know that this would be the only time I would get to indulge in this beloved past time. Little did I know that I would be wearing the same expression as Murdoc is in this screencap this entire phase.

2. Murdoc hate

Murdoc hate has always existed. It’s also generally accepted. However, when it was confirmed that Murdoc was going to be in prison for an undetermined amount of time and that he may not even speak this phase (thanks a lot, phase 5 plot!) it reached unprecedented levels of viciousness. Some fans took every opportunity to drag him in the main tag, start debates with anyone who might mention one positive thing about him and expressed how they genuinely wanted him to die and/or never come back. It kinda reminded me of this season of MTV’s The Challenge when everyone ganged up on Johnny Bananas. Like, yes he’s an asshole and yes this was probably long overdue but also omg when is there and end point? Is there an end point? It was like some people hated Murdoc more than they liked Gorillaz. For some additional context - this tense environment was born out of an astoundingly severe conflict that happened in spring where three separate fandom storms that had been brewing since late 2017 collided into one huge mess. Discords were raided, friendships were lost, the police were called (I’m not even exaggerating). I won’t go into it more but if you were there, you know what i’m talking about. Murdoc wasn’t the cause of this, but his character was at the center of one of those storms and the canon sending him to prison only reignited the ire towards him. For awhile Murdoc fans weren’t sure were exactly they stood with the greater fandom, and new fans were confused as to why this one green character was the source of so much grief for haters and fans alike. This continued for most of the year (and still continues today), hence why it’s getting a mention now.

3. Ace

Believe it or not Murdoc and Ace are confirmed #friends. You wouldn’t know that from all the Murdoc vs Ace content that sprung out of this year but Ace was the one who joined Murdoc for hot chocolate after he got out of prison, “they go way back” etc etc. Ace was a big deal because it was probably the only time the fandom guessed something correctly this entire year. Jamie began posting cryptic pictures of Noodle with this unidentified man, then another with only the Ace card visible. “It a Powerpuff Girls crossover!” Some people claimed. But that seemed so random? Really? A B-list cartoon villain from a cartoon targeting an entirely different demographic? More likely than you think! Ace never spoke a word and he wasn’t allowed to smoke or have sex. People obsessed over him anyways. To this day I still have no idea who he is or what kind of personality he has or really anything. But he wasn’t a bad guy (more on that later) and he was Murdoc’s friend so he’s alright with me.

4. Messaging Denholm

By now the fandom was fraught with distress on so many levels. We were lost. We needed someone to guide us, to show us the way, to show us the #truth. I don’t know exactly who started this trend but it soon spread around Reddit and other social media sites that Jamie’s son Denholm was replying to dm’s on Instagram and soon, he was graced with a deluge of of inquiries from casual fans and Murdoc stans alike. The thing is though - he actually *did* answer them. Many of us had spoilers re: Murdoc and Ace’s friendship, Murdoc getting out of prison, etc. MONTHS before they happened. I believe he even told us that 2D was fine back in like, June or something. Denholm knew! Eventually we pissed him off but it didn’t stop him from answering. He just answered angrier. It also caused fans to argue more because people started accusing others of photoshopping his responses and nothing can ever be done peacefully here. I haven’t followed up on this story singe the end of summer but I think fans have finally scaled back on the messaging. But I hear he’s working on a Gorillaz documentary for 2019 so...I’m sure we’ll be talking again soon.

5. Noodle

I want to take a moment here to also acknowledge the struggle AMA Gorillaz hosted on, of all places, Youtube. Thankfully, diligent redditors compiled a google doc of all the answers otherwise they would lost thanks to Youtube’s confusing interface. ANYHOW. The answer that stirred up the biggest milieu of debate and confusion came from Noodle. This isn’t exactly my lane - I don’t wade into Noodle issues and I don’t id as part of the LGBT community - so I’m not going to say much here other than, at the very least, this was the second or third time she has officially denied any interest in dating her bandmates.

6. 2D’s journal/2Doc

Okay first of all: 2DOC...jk, jk...jk? But no, honestly, this actually did become a big story this year, much bigger than expected. The release of 2D’s journal was the catalyst here, revealing a number of drawings and images of Murdoc. “Souk Eye,” a song that came with visuals featuring close ups of Murdoc’s face and vaguely romantic lyrics was depicted in 2D’s journal next to yet another drawing of Murdoc. We were confused! 2D didn’t care that Murdoc was gone, right? 2Doc shippers were intrigued. I was hesitant. We were all called delusional. However, “Souk Eye” was later confirmed to be a love song by Damon Albarn, and Murdoc and 2D have both claimed their relationship is “better” since the end of phase 5 (hhMmMmM). Obvi, take this with a grain of salt because it’s Gorillaz but the journal was instrumental in confirming how closely The Now Now (and the entire plot of phase 5, really) was tied to Murdoc and 2D’s relationship, particularly what 2D thinks of Murdoc. Think of it as platonic if you want but they share a closeness on SOME level and the content of 2018, from interviews to the Murdoc chats to the album itself, supports this. I rest my case.

7. Lost theories

Pour one out for all the lost theories. If you were a new fan this year you probably came up with a theory, or you got really invested in a theory. Some examples: HIM from PPG orchestrating the destruction of Gorillaz by possessing 2D and getting Murdoc framed with Ace as a double agent, or Murdoc’s imprisonment being tied to his trouble with EMI from phase 4, or phase 5 being about time travel, or Murdoc crashing Demon Dayz fest and fighting El Mierda on stage, or 2D being the one to frame Murdoc or Murdoc’s inmate number (24602) being a Les Mis reference implying that he’d get a character arc similar to Jean Valjean...you get the idea. But there are dreams that cannot beeee, and there are storms we cannot weather. You can argue about the budget or G-Shock or whatever but the truth is Gorillaz is just disorganized. This is their Brand™.

8. The Murdoc Chatbot

Gorillaz did an interesting thing this year - it let us talk to Murdoc! Sometime around June, he writers decided that the plot of phase 5 would be best spent, not on exploring the band’s dynamic with Murdoc gone or developing Ace’s personality, but on Murdoc! Fandom spent most of the summer following Murdoc’s experience in prison and helping to “free” him via a chatbot you could access through Kik, Instagram or Facebook. Basically, Murdoc was Paddington from Paddington 2, and we the fans were supposed to be the Browns trying to break him out and prove his innocence. Other fans begrudgingly used the chatbot to make fun of him or tell him to die and follow along with the story (it was the only place you could get plot updates). It was a neat idea as well as a funny experience to pretend to be talking to him, and the plot was very engaging at times. It was the chatbot that revealed the very dissatisfying (albeit happy) conclusion that Murdoc is no Paddington and had lied about everything - being framed, El Mierda etc. - but felt really bad about it. His apology was basically this. I’m going to also tag the #FreeMurdoc merchandise debacle, how overpriced it was and how it ended up being pointless anyways because Murdoc wasn’t framed and didn’t need to be “freed” onto this, because it all falls under the same event. Oh, and you got to talk to Noodle sometimes, too. 

9. G-shock ends phase 5

I put “ends phase 5″ in strikethrough because G-Shock on its own is actually pretty cool, and made up for the lack of videos (2 in total) that were released this year. The now Murdoc inclusive band goes to space and starts an alien war! That’s fun! Completely removed from whatever phase 5 was, but fun! (And I say that genuinely) What was messy about G-shock was that it came out of nowhere. The final Murdoc chat, that was SUPPOSED to reveal the ending to the prison arc, hadn’t even happened but suddenly, Murdoc was back to sell watches to aliens with the rest of the band and Ace was gone. But the final chat was delayed by a month and G-Shock came out anyways. Out of this came memes about how phase 5 ended so Gorillaz could try to sell us watches.

10. Cass Browne Tells us the True Plastic Beach Ending

We ended 2018 with not one but two major interviews from the fancast, Hallelujah Monkeyz but I’m choosing to cover their latest interview with Cass Browne, writer of Rise of the Ogre. If you were new this year you probably heard older fans mention ad nauseam how much they missed this guy name Cass. Well, Cass came back and dropped actual bombs about the true ending of phase 3, Murdoc’s lost backstory and the Plastic Beach book he found AND that a sequel to ROTO was planned and dropped. Understandably, this sparked a lot of discussion and also revealed just how important Cass was to the continuity of the Gorillaz storyline. Back then, we had ROTO and Plastic Beach. Today, we have “Murdoc drowns in poop and reunites with the band offscreen”

And that’s the year! And look I’m not saying this because I’m a stan but this was a Murdoc year. He was at the center of like, at least 80% of the angst and joy of fandom and I could make separate “top 10 Murdoc moments” or  “top 10 2Doc moments.” I guess for me, on an individual level, it was an alright year. For one, I actually talked to more people this year and met some really great friends (something I don’t typically do in fandom). I also get to check “write a fanfic” off my bucket list (it’s still a WIP but it’s the first WIP I’ve ever had so I’m counting it). And personally, my life has changed and without getting into too many details I’ve overcome a lot, grown professionally and...I think I can be kinda proud of myself for that. I expect 2019 to be a slower year than this one, and, I think the fandom needs that. Hopefully I’ll still see some of you around because I’m going to be here for at least the next few months while I finish up you know what. 

Honorable mentions: 2D “Dies” of Ligma and other 2D memes, 2D writes The Now Now, Benjamin Clementine says he regrets working with Gorillaz, Noodles old VA confirms Jamie ghosted her and recast Noodle without telling her, Gorillaz delay the final Murdoc chat by a month, Demon Dayz doesn’t get streamed, Music video releases - “Humilty” and “Tranz”, Cyborg Noodle returns with boobs and causes debate, the “Let Ace Speak” petition,

[thespacebetweenworlds]

idk if you’ll care about this but your thing about the whole “fiction is just fiction” and “fiction doesn’t affect reality” argument is actually not true at all because let’s just say for example: having lgbt, poc, disability rep in books or media isn’t all that important because it doesn’t affect reality.... when it does? it makes a HUGE impact on people. but yes I see where you’re coming from and as a person who hates incest with a passion, I don’t think u guys deserve these threats AT ALL.

Thank you for not thinking I should die a violent death. And thank you for this ask! I love being asked things. And to respond to your point, that fiction does affect reality, with the example of how representation is pretty awesome: that’s a freaking good point you have there, that I agree with - partially.

This Essay is titled: Fiction and Reality and How the everloving Fuck do they interact and what by nathan wesninski’s underpants does that have to do with fandom discourse?

So, beyond the read more you’ll have a compilation of my thoughts on it (that didn’t take several hours to write and edit). I’ll talk about:

1. Definition Of Fiction, Definition Of Reality

2. (How) Does Fiction Affect Reality?

3. Representation In Fiction

4. Who Judges Fanfic?

5. ”this content is problematic,” says you. ”please don’t mention power dynamics,” replies I

6. Censorship

7. A Brief History Of Why Fanfic Is Awesome

8. Links to stuff that might interest you

I’m just gonna. Quickly do that part in radioactive with the deep breath.

To start this, I want to clarify that in the response I made to transneiljosten’s post, I never explicitly said “fiction doesn’t affect reality” or “fiction is just fiction.”

What I did say is this: “Incest in fiction is just that: incest in fiction. It’s. not. real.” And: “I believe everyone should be allowed to write/create what they want - as long as it doesn’t hurt people in real life.”

But yes, the phrases “fiction is just fiction” and “fiction is not reality” have been used often when discussing freedom to write fanfic and when defending content another might call immoral. Not many people have elaborated beyond that, and to be fair - it’s a super big fucking field of study with so many subjective ways to look at it that it’s difficult to put into words.

But I’m gonna go and explain what people mean with those two phrases anyway.

Disclaimer: Remember how I called this a super big fucking field of study? I am no linguist and I have not studied literature. All my knowledge comes from years in fandom and internet research of the topics I personally found interesting. I may be wrong about things I say here, and I am always learning, so feel free to message me. I try my best to discuss controversial topics thoughtfully, respectfully, considerately and carefully, but I am only human and do not know everything. You are welcome to join the discussion.

1. Definition Of Fiction, Definition Of Reality

Going to https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/ to properly look this up:

Reality: The state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them.

Fiction: Literature in the form of prose, especially novels, that describes imaginary events and people.

So I say I don’t study literature (I really don’t) but just a few weeks ago I was in a lecture on the absolute basics of literature science, where I learned this dope sentence:

Die Wirklichkeit in der Kunst ist nur eine auf die außerkünstlerische Wirklichkeit verweisende Wirklichkeit.

Which is German, yes I know. Basically we have the starting point that literature is art, so it’s: "the reality in art is only a reality that refers to the reality outside of art" or, in other words, fiction is only ever fiction and not reality, no matter how close they may seem to be.

In summary, what we can say for sure: Fiction does not equal Reality. They are not the same. Fiction exists because Reality exists.

2. (How) Does Fiction Affect Reality?

Reality affects fiction. But does Fiction affect Reality?

Allow me to quote tumblr user shinelikethunder, who put it very nicely:

“Fiction affects people. And people affect reality.”

Tumblr user muchymozzarella made an important addition (and the blog is really pretty) so to read the post, klick on this link: https://muchymozzarella.tumblr.com/post/167137950299/fiction-is-not-responsible-for-reality

If you read the above post, further reading that might interest you are texts by Immanuel Kant and Arthur Schopenhauer on Free Will. But that wouldn’t be fandom anymore, so like, find philosophy books in your local library and talk to you friends about it.

3. Representation In Fiction

But let’s come back to your question, dear anon: “... the whole “fiction is just fiction” and “fiction doesn’t affect reality” argument is actually not true at all because let’s just say for example: having lgbt, poc, disability rep in books or media isn’t all that important because it doesn’t affect reality.... when it does? it makes a HUGE impact on people.”

You have a great point. Representation in books matters. (If you rec me some nice wlw books I’ll love you forever, there are not enough.)

I am, however, gonna quote my friend of mine, who says it better than I ever could:

“There is a difference between media affecting behaviour and representation in media. Like, violent video games don't actually make you violent. Watching gay cinema isn't going to turn you to the lgbt side unless there was already a disposition there.

People read and write immorality constantly, and even when it's shone in a good light it's usually expected that we as human beings know right from wrong, know fiction from reality. Humanity has explored the happy shiny purity of the universe and the horrific grittiness since... Well probably forever, for a variety of reasons. And in recent years the way we consume media has intensified drastically. Our consumption is interactive, our interaction is globally influenced and sometimes that is good, but we've also given ourselves the right to witch-hunt without a lot of information, or because things don't go as you planned. Real people are always more important than fictional people.

Stand up for representation. Stand up for good representation. But if you're smart enough to understand morality in reality, that isn't going to suddenly go away if you read some incest fics... And hey if you do suddenly want to kiss your brother, that's something for you to deal with and it isn't fan fiction's fault.”

Representation in books matters. Why does it matter? Because the real world is so much more diverse than popular media might make you think. Fight against the patriarchy, not against random people on the internet.

4. Who Judges Fanfic?

Fanfic is written by fans. It’s also written for fans, but more than that, it’s written by fans. I’m not gonna say only teenage girls write fanfiction, because that’s not true. Fans write fanfiction. And everyone can be a fan.

Ozhawkauthor said:

“You are not paying for fanworks content, and you have no rights to it other than to choose to consume it, or not consume it. If you do choose to consume it, do not then attack the creator if it wasn’t to your taste. That’s the height of bad manners.

Be courteous in fandom. It makes the whole experience better for all of us.”

So why are “antis” suddenly here, declaring this ship and those characters off limits and to be hated on?

Specifically, what the fuck are fans that attack or judge other fans on?

To quote shinelikethunder (again): “Fiction needn’t be educational and fiction doesn’t always have clear-cut endorsements of who’s in the right. But the discussion that happens around fiction can include both.”

But to answer the question above: Who Judges Fanfic? Not. You.

5. ”this content is problematic,” says you. ”please don’t mention power dynamics,” replies I

Hypothetical situation:

I write a fanfic. My protagonist is Riko Moriyama, who is, in canon, a sadistic asshole that is so morally black that his own brother, Ichirou, who is also morally black, kills him in the end. It doesn’t matter what I write, or who I ship him with, in this hypothetical situation.

You appear, you read the fic or you don’t read the fic. You say: “This content is problematic.”

I quiver. I know you don’t like Riko Moriyama. I know you don’t approve of my shipping choice. “Please don’t mention power dynamics,” I reply.

“This relationship is toxic,” you say. “There are unhealthy power dynamics at play.”

And like, fuck, I know? I wrote it.

Obviously. Obviously I could reply with that ancient, age old phrase “Don’t Like Don’t Read.”

But I already made a similar post about that.

6. Censorship

I’m writing this post to fight against censorship in fandom. (The day I am typing this up on was the day I went to a demonstration against articles 11 and 17, earlier 13, in the copyright reform in the EU, and to protest for a free internet.)

Censorship.

What does that even mean? The Oxford English Dictionary says:

Censorship: The suppression or prohibition of any parts of books, films, news, etc. that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security.

Here’s the wikipedia article.

In my opinion, every person, regardless of whether or not they call themselves “anti” who tells someone else that their fanfic is disgusting and wrong and should be deleted, based on subjective ideas of moral, is trying to enforce censorship. So don’t. Don’t do that.

“But,” you might say. “Riko is not a good person.”

And you know what? You’re absolutely right. He’s not. Neither is any of the Foxes.

And this is why none of the antis make sense. In one post, they condemn Roland - a perfectly normal minor character, and in the next post they call Andrew Minyard their soft angel child. Y’all. Not to hate on Andrew Minyard, but he literally drugged Neil? Even though he’s so big on consent, he drugged Neil?

So by saying this and that are problematic and should not be written and the people who do write it should be blocked, you’re kinda hypocritical. Because the All For The Game trilogy is one fucked up piece of media by itself.

And have you ever read a book?

Most books have characters that aren’t completely morally white or morally black, events that aren’t always sunshine, butterflies and rainbows.

And you know what else? That’s a good thing. Because the world isn’t like that either. And more often than not literature addresses topics critically.

Remember The Hunger Games? Exactly.

7. A Brief History Of Why Fanfic Is Awesome

In the beginnings of fanfic and fandom as we know it, slash was illegal in the USA. Fanfiction.net was made in like 1998, and during the first few years when fanfic got more attention with the rise of the internet, restrictions were made.

Much like tumblr in december 2018, except worse, fanfiction.net purged explicit content. Livejournal, the journaling platform where lots of fandom stuff happened before tumblr, is known for strikethrough, a big, unannounced deletion of fannish content. Because of those purges and restrictions, ao3 was originally made. I’m not trying to paint ao3 as the heroes that saved fandom, well I kinda am, and they are doing great things so that fanfiction can exist and remain accessible.

I think fiction is not just fiction. But fiction is just fiction in the sense that it doesn’t have any direct influence on the real world. We are all allowed to write whatever we want.

Disclaimer: We are all allowed to write whatever we want, except when we call for violence towards others in real life. Further disclaimer: Calling for violence towards others is illegal. Hate speech is illegal. Violent threats are illegal. Promotion of self-harm is illegal. Death threats are illegal.

To come back to fandom: Shipping or not shipping something has nothing to do with morals. Hating on people who ship “unhealthy power dynamics/problematic ships” does not give you the moral high ground. It makes you an asshole. For the love of Riko’s stinky socks, use the blocking feature.

My friend iknowwhoyouaredamianos said: “Hating people irl, lashing out against them, that's the real cruelty. That's so much worse than writing about something fictional.”

If you hate on real people, there is no trigger warning. You can’t don’t-like-don’t-read hate. It will affect that person’s life negatively, whether you intend to do so or not. Don’t be assholes, dears.

Thank you to my friend, and to iknowwhoyouaredamianos for letting me quote you and joining the discussion; and to foxsoulcourt for so many reasons.

Who knew that writing over 2000 words on fandom would be fun?

Dear anon, I hope I answered your question.

I’m gonna conclude this post with the Three Laws of Fandom:

I. Don’t Like; Don’t Read.

II. Your Kink Is Not My Kink.

III. Ship And Let Ship.

8. Links To Stuff That Might Be Of Interest

If you read all of the above and still feel like you don’t understand, have this awesome post by destinationtoast: How to not like fictional things (and not be a dick about it)

Podcasts on fandom culture by fansplaining:

Episode 84: Purity Culture

Episode 85: Age and Fandom

Episode 86: The Money Question

Episode 87: What we discourse about when we discourse about the discourse

Fandom positivity posts I reblogged (because y’all need it):

short post on staying positive in fandom

when discourse gets too stressful

important advice especially for those of you younger than 15 (but also older)

Tumblr user freedom-of-fanfic is writing lots of essays on lots of fandom things, here are some those more or less directly relate to this:

On criticising: Free to write whatever, free to criticise whatever?

A post on Fiction & Reality that answers a question very similar to the one I answered,

and Why fanworks are such a convenient social scrapegoat (kinda a socioeconomical discussion of USA-centric fandom)

There is also a very extensive FAQ by freedom-of-fanfic, with lots of very important writings on fandom culture on tumblr.

Unrelated, but if you’re interested in more of fandom, fanfic, and statistics of both:

http://destinationtoast.tumblr.com/stats

Interesting stuff on Fanlore: Purity Culture in Fandom, AO3 & Censorship, The Advantages of Fan Fiction as an Art Form.

An article on the free speech debate in fandom

Dreamwidth’s Diversity Statement, and Ao3’s Diversity Statement

A cool (and unrelated) thing: Femslash can save the world if we let it

Happy reading, and I hope you learned something.

[deenachambless2-blog]

Free MP3 To M4R Converter On-line

Freemake Audio Converter converts music recordsdata between 50+ audio formats. The general number of audio tracks permissable in a merged clip is sixteen, together with any combination of mono, stereo or encompass 5.1 clips. As a web-based video joiner, it could actually aid you simply merge movies with numerous methods. It's quick and means that you would be able to convert your Spotify music to many audio codecs like MP3, OGG, FLAC and others of top of the range. Easily edit audio files with cut, copy, paste, delete, insert and a number of other others. Designed for COMPUTER, Easy MP3 Cutter Joiner Editor is the easy resolution for easy audio editing.

A while again, we mentioned the top 5 free video cutter on-line that can assist you to to chop any video file into small segments on PC. But what if you are music lovers who need to chop MP3 audio information as an alternative? Mp3DirectCut is a sort of audio editor that lets you cut, add, and edit audio information with out encoding and decoding audio files. Audacity gives many more options, but actually if all you need is to make a piece of audio shorter - perhaps for a hoop tone - then Free MP3 Cutter will get the job achieved.

VLC media participant can't solely convert between totally different video codecs but it surely additionally does the identical with changing audio formats. Customers like this server as they'll instantly choose the needed perform on the menu bar, like audio cutter, audio joiner, audio converter, etc. MP3 Cutter Joiner Free, is one of the best music service for audio chopping. This audio converter cell app is just accessible for Android units , but it's free and has a formidable toolbox to convert and manipulate audio files. MP3 Splitter & Joiner Pro is able to be a part of and cut up excessive huge audio recordsdata over 4GB. This system accommodates every part you should create great sounding recordings and audio CDs, together with skilled tools for recording, editing, enhancing and sharing. A pleasant MP3 Cutter Online device from Toolster. This article will contact on a couple of packages that you might put up for consideration to merge video and audio with ease. So all Weeny Free Audio Cutter has is nice features that may assist you chop or merge a music of your choice.Select the video recordsdata you need to merge. Within this set, one can find some capabilities that can permit you be part of two or extra OGG audio information into a single one. To hitch two or additional MP3s with Hokusai Audio Editor, acquire and launch the app in your gadget and start creating a new undertaking by urgent the + button positioned on the prime proper. Download Audio Converter for Android to merge audio information on your phone offline. Be aware that an audio file format is often used for the storage of digital audio data in a computer system or different gadgets. Our leading YouTube to MP3 Converter can be compatible with many different on-line video sites such as Vimeo, Dailymotion and Liveleak. That is actually a program that can take audio file merging to a brand new degree. Audio recordsdata are sometimes cut for purposes like ring-tone making and the like. Fairly often, you end up desirous to merge two audio clips, two MP3 recordsdata, or two favorite songs. As an audio splitter freeware, Any Video Converter may also help you narrow the audio information into segments as you want. This is a straightforward utility to cut audio information (i.e., MP3, WAV), and as you'll be able to see in the screenshot shown beneath, you can apply fade to your clip very easily. With Accord CD Ripper Xtreme you may rip audio CD to MP3, FLAC, M4A, WMA, WAV and many various digital audio codecs like OGG. Apart from compiling playlists of music into single information, it may be a useful technique to create podcasts or other audio content as you possibly can record shorter clips then compile them later. With our MP3 Merger you'll be a part of your chapters within the one large audiobook or combine non-stop audio CD from many separate music tracks. MP3 Merger can merge & combine your a variety of FLAC, MP3, OGG and WAV audio data to a whole single audio joiner download for android file. Zamzar is on-line audio converter software program which helps conversion of all the common music and audio codecs. Moreover, you'll be able to ask Helium Audio Joiner to mechanically create a CUE file for audio joiner download for android the resulting file utilizing the Create CUE checkbox. You should use this on-line audio merger program to merge MP3 recordsdata, merge WAV recordsdata, merge OGG recordsdata, merge AAC data or merge M4A recordsdata and so forth.

Freemore MP3 Joiner is a great free audio file changing into a member of software designed for merging multiple audio data. Click the Convert or Convert All button to begin converting your audio recordsdata to a different audio format. View the waveform of the audio file and add bookmarks or label parts of it. Probably the most obvious inefficiency of free audio converter software is the time it takes to transform a file. You can now download YouTube movies as MP3 recordsdata with HD audio quality. Don't fret, it helps about a hundred and fifty audio codecs, so if you happen to're not using an MP3, you'll be able to still add it and reduce it. It is free and very simple to use. Attempt Audacity , which is a cross-platform straightforward-to-use piece of software program for multitrack audio editing, which is able to permit you to do what Straightforward Audio Cutter does and a number of extra tasks. Usually shopper must entry various WAVE recordsdata one after the other on account of their work requirement, on this state of affairs WAVE joiner software program program is time saving and quick resolution to course of a number of WAVE information by merging them collectively and generate one large WAV file.

[virtual-assistant]

How Virtual Assistant can help you Promote Online Business?

Virtual Assistants come from different background and expertise. They streamline your online business and get things done at the perfect time. But, before outsourcing your online business to a VA, you must first consider the ways in which a Virtual Assistant can be of your help.

Below we have listed all those key points for your information:

1.      Handle Social Media Activities

VA is an expert in managing any kind of social media activities. They interact with people in the industry and reach them out through catchy content. They are professional enough to access social media on various niches.

2.      Web Assistance

Majority of the websites require day-to-day management to run smoothly. In such a case, hiring a VA will handle this process efficiently. They can manage plugins, optimize web presence, maintain the site and conduct much more activities.

3.      Editing

VA’s are experts in taking your raw multi-media content to the next level. They conduct the professional presentation of audio and video files, that too within a limited time.

4.      Email Management

VA manage your inbox on a daily basis. They respond to the messages according to your instructions. Moreover, they filter the emails according to their importance and place them appropriately. The end result will surely be going to be critical for your business.

5.      Track Statistics

Website tracking is an integral part of online business. A professional VA easily reports everything starting from stats, earnings, view, etc. They identify the key areas of the business and monitor it appropriately.

6.      Links of Sites

Virtual Assistant help create a document and compile all the hyperlinks of the articles within it. They then turn it into PDF and take advantage of the greatest tool to quickly digest the entire content of the site. This process will surely save you heaps of time.

7.      Filter Information

The Internet is flooded with way too much information. Hence, systems must be created for easy monitoring of this info. A Virtual Assistant is the perfect solution for this task. They learn about favorite sites and blogs and provide assistance by sending necessary information on your niche topics.

8.      Manage Backlinks

Getting backlinks is a tedious process. It involves lots of steps to be performed like RSS Feeds, Web 2.0 sites, etc. Instead, this method can be outsourced to a VA who performs it with keen observation

9.      Content Marketing

Content amplifies business promotions. A Virtual Assistant will follow the step-by-step process to promote this content on various platforms. They follow an automation technique to make this step interesting.

Conclusion…

A Virtual Assistant can grow your online business using the methodologies mentioned above. Not only that, they are well competent in bringing new techniques and achieving the highest potential of the audience to your business. Hire a VA to find the right online marketing services for your business.

[e-mailmarketing]

Eight Expert Tips to Build Innovation a Winning SEO (Search engine optimization) Strategy in 2021

Most of you will have heard the term SEO thrown around in relation to digital marketing, online businesses, or internet circles in general. Regardless, you’d be surprised how many people simply remember those three letters but never really understand what they mean.

If that’s you, we've got you covered, and if this is your first time coming across the phrase, then you’re in luck. In this post, you're going to learn everything you need to know in order to carry out an effective SEO (search engine optimization) strategy. We're going to cover:

What SEO is and why it's more important than ever.

The basics of an SEO strategy (keywords, meta data, and link-building, technical components).

Eight specific tactics that will set you up for SEO success based on 2021 SEO trends.

The importance of SEO in 2021

According to Safari Digital, approximately 61% of marketers believe that SEO is the key to online success, which is why modern businesses allocate an average of 41% of their marketing budget to it. In short, taking the time to outline a proper SEO strategy can revolutionize not just your online traffic but your business as a whole.

Given the way the world is right now, internet use is as high as it’s ever been. COVID-19 has us doing more online shopping, streaming even more movies and television than usual, and attending enough Zoom meetings for a lifetime. SEO has been crucial for so many organizations throughout 2020 and we expect 2021 to be much of the same. So, as we approach the New Year, how can you create an SEO strategy that moves with the times? Well, let’s start with the basics.

The basics of an effective SEO strategy

SEO is essentially the practice of using certain qualitative content principles and technical improvements to improve your online traffic and rankings on SERPs (search engine results pages).

Quantity plays a big part too. Writing more content, using more links and using a wider variety of keywords is a great way to rank higher over time—this is called ‘scaling’ and it’s pretty much what it sounds like.

So, there are a few things we’ve chucked in there. Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, let’s rattle off the main tools you’ll be using to start building your 2021 SEO strategy:

1. Keywords

Keywords are phrases that are commonly searched for on Google, Bing, etc. and they are a crucial part of determining your website’s rankings. Use the right amount of keywords in the right places and in time you’ll see your pages climb up the leaderboards.

Keyword strategy has changed a lot over the years, it used to just be stuff as many in there as possible, but lots of content then became spammy and sites were ultimately penalized by Google’s algorithms. These days, you need to do your research, user a wider variety of keywords, and fit them in naturally. Google gets smarter by the day, so they’ll make you work for it.

2. Metadata

Building on the foundation laid through keyword research, metadata is not only just as important but is arguably the most direct way you can coax someone onto your website, as it is one of the first things both Google and potential visitors will see. Google uses what are known as ‘crawlers’ (imagine tiny robot spiders), to scan through websites and collect information that matches search queries, hence rankings: most relevant at the top.

When crawling sites, after first indexing the URL, metadata is one of the next things on their checklist. This includes meta titles and meta descriptions – i.e. the page title and short preview line you see when you search for something on Google—as well as alt-tags for things like images (almost like a secondary name should Google have trouble reading the first one). You can think of metadata almost as your shop window.

3. Link-building

As we move into the more technical side of things, another crucial factor in SEO performance is acquiring backlinks. This is when another website links to yours in an article or blog post. Not only does this help you gain what is known as domain authority, but it also directly improves the chances of people clicking through to your website if it appears on other reliable domains.

You can earn organic links by simply writing engaging content: the better your work and the more closely you match with a person’s search intent, the more likely others in your industry are to reference your site. This overarching process is known as link-building and while you can simply reach out to other sites to trade links—quid pro quo—there a plenty of other activities that can help speed up this process:

Guest blogging. Testimonials. Answering questions on sites like Quora. Creating shareable content such as videos and infographics. Using industry contacts and sharing on social (e.g. LinkedIn).

4. Wider technical SEO

Carrying on from that, there are various other technical issues in the back end of your site that once addressed, can make a huge difference in your overall SEO results. At the end of the day, if your website’s UX isn’t smooth and accessible, it’s going to be hard for any visitor to do anything significant on your website. For context, over 50% of all online traffic is mobile, so when it comes to things like UX, the technical stuff matters.

Whether it’s ensuring site speeds are quick, removing ‘toxic’ backlinks (links to websites that are deemed irrelevant or untrustworthy etc.), or creating a clear XML sitemap with a clean URL structure, all of these technical SEO tips can be huge when it comes to securing those higher rankings. You don’t want anything to get in the way of SEO doing its job, which is allowing for people to find your website organically.

Why are SEO & organic search important?

If you’re looking for longevity and cost-effectiveness when it comes to your digital marketing, organic search strategies driven by SEO can’t be beaten. Not only is SEO cheaper than paid advertising but its effects are longer lasting. While PPC campaigns need to be renewed and bidding costs fluctuate, SEO tracking tools use organic data to compile lists of keywords and continue to throw up more content ideas the deeper you dig.

8 tips to apply to your 2021 SEO strategy

It isn’t always about trying to go for the most popular search terms and expecting to be able to compete with the big fish right out of the gate. It’s about knowing your audience and trying to provide the content, information, and overall service they want/need. With that in mind, here are eight SEO tips that are just as effective now in 2021 as they have always been.

1. Write for humans first and search engines second

As mentioned already, the Google algorithm gets smarter by the day and using constant human input, continues to better align with our thinking. That being said, there is no clever loophole or magic formula to outwit a search engine, so don’t bother trying. Write for humans first and search engines second.

Ultimately, your priority should always be to provide your audience with what they are looking for, and that only comes through writing engaging and fundamentally naturalistic content. Anyone can spot a keyword that’s been shoehorned in and stuffing is even more blatant, so fit them in where it makes sense and allow driving keywords to elevate your already informative and valuable content.

2. Use targeted keywords in all the right places

Whilst the motivation should always be humans first, search engines second, the bedrock of this whole process is keywords. Not only do they get to the heart of what visitors and Google are looking for by isolating common search terms, but SEO also drives 1000%+ more traffic than organic social media, which itself dominates over half of all online traffic. So, if keywords are at the heart of SEO, they should be at the heart of everything you do, too.

However, once again, it isn’t about just chucking them in left, right, and center. It all starts with keyword research. Use SEO tools like Google Ads, Ahrefs and even simple on-site search bars to identify broad search intent and your "seed" keywords. Then dig deeper to find more long-tail variants, study competitors to find keyword gaps, and don’t forget to include them in your metadata as well as the anchor text for your links. Lastly, remember not to keyword stuff. Fit them in naturally so as not to disrupt the readability of your copy.

3. Focus on user experience (UX)

There is nothing worse than having to navigate a site that you can barely use. In fact, after more than a few seconds of frustration, most people don’t bother and Google will struggle to make the best out of it too. Things like dead links, error pages, and messy site structures will all impact what people take away from your website.

Not only do users value a good experience and easy navigation, but this seamlessness also helps Google’s crawlers scan your content and determine your SERP rankings. Use headings and short, easy to read paragraphs, tidy up your sub-folders, and optimize for mobile. All of these things will help to reduce your bounce rate, improve other SEO metrics, improve your rankings, and generate better conversion overall.

4. Focus on building relevant links

As mentioned, another key aspect in building domain reputation/site authority is link-building. We’ve already touched upon why outbound/external links are important: you not only enhance the information you are providing but you can receive reciprocal backlinks through outreach, etc.

Furthermore, links are a key ranking factor. Bots/crawlers discover content by following links through to subsequent pages and judging how relevant they are to a search query. This goes for internal linking as well, so don’t be afraid to link to other useful pages on your site where necessary and where it feels natural. 51% of marketers notice an impact after one to three months of implementing a link-building strategy.

5. Format content for Featured Snippets

Featured snippets pretty much rule SERPs these days. It's likely that you’re familiar with them even if you haven’t heard the term before. They are the highlighted answer boxes that appear at the top of the pages for most search queries. If you manage to earn a featured snippet, you’re doing something right.

There are certain formatting and stylistic choices you can make to up your chances of landing a featured snippet: bullet points, numbered lists, infographics and answering question-based searches directly, to name a few. Whilst there is data that shows snippets don’t always result in direct clicks, as the search query is answered in the Google preview itself, over 19% of SERPs have featured snippets and counting. They are great for raising brand awareness and getting your name out there. Therefore, the clicks will still come.

6. Remove anything that slows down your site

Once again, it can’t be overstated how simple it is to get the technical stuff right in order for your website and specific content to speak for itself. Whether you’re writing informative blogs, selling a product/service, or simply pointing someone in the right direction, your site needs to be quick, accessible, and easy to use. These days, people expect instant information and instant results. If your site takes an age to load, they’ll simply move on.

There are a number of ways you can improve site speed and the overall smoothness of your UX: delete old/defunct plugins, clean up your code, optimize and compress your images, make sure your sub-folders flow and make sense, and use tools like Google Page Speed Insights or GTmetrix to continue monitoring in the future.

7. Pay attention to Google algorithm updates

We’ve briefly touched on this already but Google gets smarter and more intuitive by the day. The core updates and tweaks to the algorithm are constant and often unexpected, with sites either benefitting or being penalised for how closely they adhere to the most recent update.

Rankings and penalties are determined by a variety of factors: accessibility, speed, excessive advertising or spammy content, etc. Whilst it can’t always be avoided, there are a few easy steps you can take to stay in touching distance. Firstly, subscribe to industry websites and forums to keep track of recent/impending updates. Google’s Search Console Community is a good start – and make sure to closely track your traffic using services like Google Analytics and SEMrush to see where updates may have occurred, so you can then adjust accordingly.

8. Improve existing content & add missing subtopics Lastly, you need to remember that there is no real finish line when it comes to your SEO strategy. Constant updates and battling with your competitors means that there’s always work to be done, not to mention that you can still improve on what you’ve done already. If you haven’t been using SEO properly already, going back and updating content with keywords, backlinks, and better readability is a great way to get started. You can even ensure that pages that have been performing better maintain traffic growth or build upon that standard by regularly updating them.

Circling back to your keyword research, this is a great opportunity to use these phrases and competitor analysis as the basis for a long-term content plan. Each keyword should branch off into a plethora of others and with that comes more ideas for content. Rather than writing, say, one piece of a specific topic, make it a ‘cornerstone’ article from which a number of other more specific ones spawn. A proper content audit can be done using tools like SEMrush and Yoast; adding and updating old content can double your traffic —just try to make it as evergreen as possible and be sure to use that internal and external linking we talked about.

[brownada311]

App Like Snagit For Mac

Computer apps (or applications) are something we are used to having. When there’s something we want to do, we think of “Let me check if there’s an app for that”. Let’s face it–it makes our lives easier but not necessarily better. To-do lists? There are thousands of apps for that. Do you want to start to journal? Don’t worry–there are several to choose from.

However, not all apps are of the same quality. So, what is the best productivity app on the Mac?

What is the name of the web app that can snag a web page and allow you to edit it for testing (Not Snagit)? What is the best free screen capture tool to make a presentation? Is there an option on Snagit for Mac to output all screenshots to an image format rather than defaulting to the Snagit project format? Snagit 2018.2.3 - Screen capture utility. Download the latest versions of the best Mac apps at safe and trusted MacUpdate Download, install, or update Snagit for Mac from MacUpdate.

We all have our opinions, and declaring the “best” app is almost impossible. What might be the best app for me may not be right for you, and an app you love may not be quite what I need.

One advantage that Asian Efficiency has is we have a team that lives and breathes productivity and we’ve been evaluating tools and productivity methods for years. We debate apps internally every day, and we all come at it from different angles, backgrounds, and age ranges. This same team has helped over 13 thousand of our customers and readers with their productivity journey and has helped thousands reach their goals.

In addition, we have a highly intelligent productivity community called The Dojo where tools and techniques are shared.

When I started to compile our annual list of the best Mac apps this year, I polled the growing AE team and members of the Dojo to see what the favorites are. Our guarantee is that we have personally tried, tested, and used all the apps that we included in this list.

Here’s our list of the top 10 productivity apps of 2018, and some more tools that didn’t quite make the top 10, but are still great.

(Just remember – you want to avoid Shiny Object Syndrome. Only start digging into a tool if it is something that you actually need! If you don’t need it, set it aside for now. It’ll still be available when you’re ready to put it to use.)

Top 10

Whenever we set up a new Mac, these are the first apps we install. While we can use a Mac without them, we’re not nearly as productive. A good productivity app should reduce friction and amplify good habits, and all of these meet those criteria.

#1: Dropbox – Dropbox is essential for how we work at Asian Efficiency. All of our shared files, blog posts, media, etc. are stored in Dropbox which makes it very easy to collaborate on projects as a team even though we are located all over the world. This is the very first thing I install when setting up a new Mac as it provides the sync and storage foundation for my workflow. iCloud Drive is getting better and better so maybe someday Dropbox won’t be necessary, but for our needs it is hard to beat.

#2: 1Password – The absolute best password manager for Mac. Essentially it works by having you creating one master password, which then grants access to all your other passwords. These passwords can be randomly generated inside of 1Password, which means that all your individual passwords are incredibly strong and near-impossible to hack. You don’t have to remember all of these passwords though as your single master password gives you (and only you) easy access to all your other passwords and can even be triggered when unlocked via a keyboard shortcut that autofills the information in your browser for you. 1Password also gives you the ability to store credit card information, secure notes, software serial numbers, and other important (but sensitive) information like passport numbers, your SSN and bank account details securely. See an example of how Thanh uses it in his life.

If you need to securely share some passwords with others, there is 1Password Families and 1Password Teams. These let you have Personal Vaults and Shared Vaults so you can keep some passwords just for yourself and some passwords available to family members or co-workers. With 1Password Teams, you can make it so that some staff can launch and log in to websites without being able to see the password. My wife and I use the Family plan at home, and it is great to be able to share passwords for important sites.

#3: TextExpander – TextExpander does exactly what it says on the tin – expands text. It sounds really simple, but once you develop the mindset of watching for things you type repeatedly you’ll start to see hundreds of things that you can automate with TextExpander. You can even use the more advanced features like fill-in snippets, date/time math, and optional selections to create some very powerful and personal email templates. We have a video guide to using TextExpander if you need some help to get started with it. Some members of the Dojo prefer Typinator which is not subscription-based, but members of the AE team like TextExpander.

#4: Alfred/Launchbar – Alfred and Launchbar are both classified as application launchers, but that’s just scratching the service of what these apps can do. They allow you to find and open files quickly, perform quick calculations, search your clipboard history, control iTunes media playback, create custom searches, and so much more. There are even custom workflows you can create or install to expand their functionality and control your Mac with the keyboard. Think of them as Spotlight on steroids. Both of these applications are excellent, and which one you decide to use will be determined by personal taste (Mike and I use Alfred, Thanh uses Launchbar). Just make sure you pick one!

#5: OmniFocus – The absolute best task manager for Mac and my digital brain. OmniFocus is a powerful task manager with a very nice user interface which makes it a joy to use on Mac, iOS, and Apple Watch. OmniFocus has a lot of features and is very powerful so it can be a bit intimidating to get up and running with it, but if you invest the time to learn how to use it, it will be time well spent. We have a whole library of free OmniFocus tutorials here or if you want our step-by-step system you can join our course here. We’re really excited about OmniFocus 3 that is coming out in 2018 – among other features there’ll be tags, more flexible scheduling, and a limited web interface.

#6: Keyboard Maestro – Keyboard Maestro is an application to launch macros on your Mac, which can be used to automate just about any repetitive task. Basically, Keyboard Maestro automatically performs certain actions whenever a particular trigger is activated, which could be something like a hotkey combination, connecting to a wireless network, or even connecting a specific USB device to your Mac. Once you start applying these macros, it will change how you use your computer. Mike wrote an article about Keyboard Maestro awhile back that includes some video examples to help you get started. A recent Keyboard Maestro use case for me: when I start up my Twitter app on my Mac, it will automatically kill it after 5 minutes. This stops me from getting lost into reading about whatever the outrage of the day is.

#7: Hazel – Hazel is an automated file organization utility that can watch whatever folders you tell it to and organize your files according to whatever rules you create. For example, I have a Hazel rule that watches my Download folder and if anything is over 1 week old it labels it “Red” and moves it to my “Action Items” folder on my desktop, which I clean up at the end of the day. Hazel is also an essential part of pretty much any paperless workflow, and we have an article that takes you through a simple setup. For more Hazel tips, check out this article. Inside the Dojo we have even more workflows that are shared by our members.

#8: nvALT – nvALT is in desperate need of an update, but it’s still an essential part of our capture workflow. Forked by Brett Terpstra, nvALT is a quick way to take notes using just your keyboard. Just hit a keyboard combination and nvALT opens, ready to capture whatever you throw at it. As you type, it will search your existing notes and if you want to create a new note just hit “Enter”. It’s a very simple, lightweight program and best of all it’s free so there’s no reason not to try it. Rumor has it that Brett is working on a commercial replacement, but we’ve used it so much over the years that we will gladly pay whatever he decides to charge for it.

#9: PopClip – PopClip is a menu bar application that opens up an iOS-style interface whenever you highlight text on your Mac. It includes the standard commands like cut, copy and paste, but also has extensions that let you do a lot of different things (like formatting text or sending to OmniFocus). You can send emails, post tweets, apply Markdown rules, etc.

#10: Bartender – One of the great things about the Mac is that there are a ton of awesome Menu bar applications (like the aforementioned PopClip & nvALT), but if you have a lot of them your Menu bar will quickly become cluttered. Bartender keeps you menu bar clean by controlling which application appear in the main menu bar, which ones appear only in the Bartender menu bar (a sub-menu for your menu bar), and which ones are hidden completely.

Best of the Rest

There are a lot of other applications that we use on a daily/weekly basis that play a very important part in our workflows.

“Netflix for Apps”

There are a lot of great apps in this list. Before you pull out your credit card, we want to point you to a service that many AE community members love: SetApp. With SetApp, you pay a monthly subscription and get access to a large list of Mac apps, including many in this article. The subscription includes upgrades too.

As we mentioned last year, expect more productivity apps go the subscription route. SetApp is a great way to get some of the best apps for one price.

Communications & Calendar

Airmail, Postbox, MailPlane, MailMate – There are a lot of great email clients available for Mac, but Apple Mail (or Mail.app) isn’t one of them. Apple Mail seems to always have Gmail-related bugs, and it doesn’t support Gmail keyboard shortcuts which can save you a lot of time processing email. Fortunately, there are several great alternatives. Airmail is an absolutely beautiful email client that integrates with just about every productivity app out there. Postbox is a powerful email client with some unique features (like domain fencing, which prevents you from sending email from the wrong account accidentally). MailPlane is great if you like the Gmail web interface but prefer a native app, and MailMate is an incredibly powerful keyboard-centric email client if you like writing in Markdown. Inside our Escape Your Email course we go in more detail how to setup an email workflow with these apps for maximum efficiency.

BusyCal – BusyCal is an incredibly powerful calendaring application that has a lot of advanced features (like Mike’s personal favorite, the ability to set a custom week length view). It supports pretty much every calendar type available and is rock solid.

Zoom – ”That’s it, we need a replacement for Skype!” said Thanh when our Daily Huddle went off the rails due to connectivity issues one time too many. We settled on Zoom, and it has been rock-solid every since. All of our team meetings, both voice and video, are done with Zoom and we’re happy with it.

Slack/Hipchat – We have virtually no internal email here at Asian Efficiency, and much of that is due to Hipchat which we use as an internal communication tool. If you need an answer to something right away or need to have a discussion about a certain topic, a tool like Hipchat or Slack will allow you to reach a resolution much faster than an email thread. Atlassian, the maker of Hipchat, is releasing Stride, which we plan to test out this year. Tile app for mac desktop.

Tweetbot – There aren’t many great third-party Twitter clients, but Tweetbot is one of them. It’s a beautiful and full-featured Twitter client that has fantastic support for multiple accounts and lists, and also has powerful mute filters to block out the noise and show you only what you want to see. Now that Twitter has announced the end of their Mac app, it is even more useful.

Safety & Security

Backblaze – If you don’t have an online backup of your hard drive, sign up for Backblaze right now. There are several online backup solutions available, but the AE team likes Backblaze because the Mac client is much more polished and easy to use than some of the other alternatives.

Encrypt.me – Most people don’t think twice about using public wi-fi (but they should). Encrypt.me (formerly known as Cloak) is the easiest way to automatically secure your connection on public networks and keep your sensitive data safe from prying eyes.

Little Snitch – A firewall program for the Mac. It’s a little annoying in the beginning when every program starts calling home to check for updates, but once it’s up and running it runs just fine and will tell you when someone is trying to access your computer (or when an app is trying to connect out without your knowledge).

Graphics & Information Sharing

Graphic – If you are a designer or someone who works heavily with vector drawing and illustrations, you are probably subscribed to Creative Cloud and using Illustrator and Photoshop. If you don’t need that much power (or don’t want to pay for that subscription), Graphic is a well-designed and surprisingly feature-rich vector application that is inexpensive.

Snagit App Free

PDFpen – PDFpen is the swiss army knife of PDF editors. Developed by Smile Software (makers of TextExpander), PDFpen allows you to do things to PDFs you didn’t think were possible like edit text & images, and includes OCR to make your PDF documents searchable (which makes it an essential part of any paperless workflow). Asana for mac.

Snagit For Mac Free Download

Snagit – There are many apps for capturing and marking up screenshots (including Tapes mentioned below), but if you want an app that does it all, Snagit is one of the most powerful. You can quickly capture images and video with a few keypresses, do all sorts of annotations, and quickly share them to the clipboard or the cloud. If you share it to the cloud, it will automatically put the link in your clipboard. You can even do scrolling and panoramic capture to capture more than what you see on the screen at any one time.

App for iphone on mac. The MacBook Air features a Retina display with slimmer bezels, two Thunderbolt 3/USB-C ports, 8th-generation Intel chips with Intel UHD graphics, up to 16GB RAM, and up to 1.5TB of SSD storage space. It is equipped with a T2 chip for security and it includes Touch ID along with an upgraded third-gen butterfly keyboard, louder speakers, and a Force Touch trackpad. Buy Now Just Updated • Apple in October 2018 introduced a new design for the MacBook Air, its most affordable notebook starting at $1,199.

Tapes/Loom – We are big on documentation here at Asian Efficiency, and we use Tapes often to record quick screencasts that are automatically uploaded to show others how to do certain tasks. This is also great for customer support as it allows us to demonstrate via video how to solve customer problems. Tapes hasn’t been updated in quite some time, but Loom is a more modern replacement.

Writing & Ideas

Byword – I tend to do most of my writing in Ulysses (see below), but Byword is a beautiful Markdown editor that is great for writing plain text that is not part of a larger project.

Day One – We’re big fans of daily journaling, and Day One is far and away the best app for this. The Mac app syncs with the iOS version, which is where this app really shines.

DEVONthink Pro Office – If you have a huge amount of information to keep track of, DEVONthink is hard to beat. You can capture research, documents, email, and web clipping to one place, and DEVONthink’s artificial intelligence can help you file and find the information you need. It’s a complex application, but many power users embrace it. Here is a quick guide we have written.

Evernote/OneNote – Evernote is a great tool for storing reference material. It’s free with a paid upgrade for additional features and more storage space, and allows you to quickly store information using the web clipper and access your information when you need it on any device. OneNote is free and has a huge fanbase, especially among Windows users. Its tight integration with MS Office makes it a compelling choice for people in that ecosystem, though the Mac app is more limited than the Windows version.

MindNode –MindNode is a great option for mind mapping software and has a beautiful user interface. There is iCloud sync between Mac and iOS, and it has a fantastic OmniFocus export feature. You can brainstorm project ideas and then have the project/tasks set up in OmniFocus with two clicks. Anytime I need to plan things out (including this article), I start in MindNode.

OmniGraffle – OmniGraffle is what we use to create most of our AE diagrams. It’s essentially the Mac equivalent of Microsoft’s Visio, except that it is much easier to use, and you can create some really powerful diagrams without having an extensive knowledge of modeling software. It also has an extensive built-in stencil function where you can search for extension stencils that other people have uploaded online to share.

Pages/Numbers/Keynote – Formerly known as the iWork suite, these three applications will meet the business/professional needs of almost anyone. And if you bought a new Mac recently, you probably got them for free. The real standout here is Keynote, which is both very powerful and easy to use. The animated transitions that are included with Keynote are top notch and allow you to make very professional looking presentations quickly and easily.

Reeder – If you still rely on RSS to keep up with your favorite websites (like this one) then Reeder is the best option available. Nothing else comes close in terms of design, and Reeder supports many different RSS aggregators like Feedbin, Feedly, Feed Wrangler, and many more.

Screenflow – Screenflow is an essential tool that we use when creating video course content (like the Dojo training videos). It allows you to record your screen easily and edit your screencasts with callouts, transitions, annotations, and much more.

Ulysses – Ulysses is an excellent pro writing app with a beautiful user interface that is designed to support your writing. It works well for writing blog posts, articles, and even longer-form content. You can export to HTML, Markdown, ePub, PDF, Word, or even straight to Medium or WordPress. These very words are being typed in Ulysses.

System Utilities

Amphetamine – Amphetamine is an updated version of the beloved Caffeine menu bar app. It has one main purpose: it keeps your computer (and more importantly your screen) from going to sleep. Very handy when on long Skype or webinar viewing sessions.

Chrome / Safari – macOS has a built-in web browser (Safari) that’s very good and very fast. I tend to use Chrome more as it is well-integrated with Google web apps and I like the way tabs work, but others on the Asian Efficiency team use Safari. One downside of Chrome is it tends to eat up your laptop battery a lot quicker than Safari. Which browser you use is personal preference.

Copied – This app allows you to copy and paste back and forth between your Mac and iOS devices. Think of it as Handoff for copy/paste commands. It isn’t as seamless as Universal Clipboard in iOS 10/macOS Sierra, but it gives you more control and flexibility.

CleanMyMac – Disk space can be scarce (especially on laptops), and CleanMyMac is a utility that shows you exactly what is eating up all your precious hard drive capacity and you can free up a lot of space with it. You can also keep an eye on your Mac’s health to make sure it is running at top performance.

Default Folder X – This could probably be in the Top 10 section, because when I use a Mac without it I miss it terribly. It adds a wrapper to the Finder’s Save window which gives you quick access to open, recent, or favorite files and folders. A real time saver.

Dropzone 3 – Dropzone is a menu bar application that does two things: 1) It allows you to execute common actions on a file by dragging over the appropriate “hotspot” (like uploading to FTP), and 2) it gives you a “Drop Bar” where you can collect files before doing something with them. Mike uses this all the time to collect a file from the Finder location before he drags and drops it into another application like a Keynote presentation.

Flux – Flux is useful for anyone who works at night and cares about their quality of sleep. The blue light from your computer actually messes with your body’s natural circadian rhythm and tricks it into thinking that it’s not as late as it really is so that your body stops producing melatonin (the chemical that helps you fall asleep naturally). Flux adjusts the color temperature of your screen to a “warmer” orangish shade that is easier on your eyes and doesn’t keep you up all night even if you have to work late. macOS now (thankfully!) has Night Shift built in, but many people find that Flux does a better job.

Moom – Apple has very basic version split-screen functionality, but Moom remains a very powerful window management app. Moom allows you to quickly move and/or resize windows by either hovering your mouse over the green “Maximize” icon or by setting your own keyboard commands. It allows you to resize windows according to pre-determined grid sizes, and has a ton of customization options.

Shush – Mike works from home a lot and has 5 kids, so his house can be a little noisy sometimes. This can be problematic for team meetings, but Shush allows him to mute his microphone except when he presses a hotkey to activate it. This way people on the other end of my Skype conversations aren’t distracted by the background noise. You can also set it as “push-to-silence” making this application an effective “cough button” for podcast recording.

Transmit – There are a lot of FTP clients out there that will get the job done, but Transmit is the best. It has a ton of features, a great user interface, and is the fastest FTP client out there. If you transfer files often, Transmit is great.

Webcam Settings – More and more of our time is spent on camera doing video conferencing, webinars, and recording video. Many times we don’t have professional lighting and camera gear to do this, so sometimes the video quality doesn’t look as good as it could. Webcam Settings is a little menu bar app that lets you adjust exposure time, contrast, saturation, and white balance for your built-in or external webcam. If you have an external USB camera that supports it, you can also adjust auto-exposure and focus, zoom, pan, tilt, and many other hardware-level controls. It’s not vain to want to look your best on camera!

VirtualBox – Are you a Mac user that needs to run Windows? One option is to buy a separate Windows computer, but I like to use virtualization software to run Windows on my Mac. There are paid utilities for this, but for my needs the free open-source VirtualBox works perfectly.

Everything Else

Deliveries – If you order a lot of things online, you’ll definitely want an easy way to keep track of your packages. Deliveries does this, and will even detect a tracking number on your clipboard and add it to the application for you. You can even get notifications when your packages are delivered if you’re so inclined.

Paprika – If you cook, you should check out Paprika as a recipe storage solution. Paprika syncs with your iOS devices for use in the kitchen, allows you keep your recipes organized, and can even tell you what ingredients you need to pick up at the store.

Soulver – This is one of those I-didn’t-know-I-needed-it-but-once-I-tried-it-I-love-having-it apps. The best way to describe it is a natural language calculator. It lets you work things out and do calculations, formulas, currency, unit conversions, and much more. These can all be done with calculators and spreadsheets of course, but there is something helpful about being able to work things out the way I think them. It’s one of those apps I leave running in the background and flip to to do a back-of-the-envelope calculation.

Be Focused Pro/Vitamin-R – We are big fans of the Pomodoro Technique for making progress on your most important task of the day. Be Focused Pro is a simple but nice pomodoro timer for the Mac, and if you need something with more power and flexibility, check out Vitamin-R.

Tooth Fairy – Do you use AirPods, and do you use them on multiple devices? Tooth Fairy is a small menu bar app that lets you quickly switch your AirPods to your Mac with the mouse or keyboard. No messing around in sound or Bluetooth settings required.

Timing – It’s difficult to know what changes you need to make unless you know how you are spending your time. Timing is a great Mac app that logs what you are working on (or are not working on, as the case may be) so that you can see how productive you really are. If you’re a Dojo member, there’s a discount code available for you inside the customer area (one of many perks being a Dojo member).

How can the answer be improved? Like Siri on your iOS devices, Siri on your Mac is your intelligent personal assistant that helps you multitask and get things done just by asking. For example, while you work on a document, you can ask Siri to send a message to your coworker saying that the document is on the way—without having to stop what you’re doing. Siri app for mac. May 27, 2016  Siri on iOS can launch an app, but that’s about the extent of its ability to control apps. With Siri for Mac though, I would want to be able to not only open apps, but also minimize them, close them, quit them, switch them, etc. “Hey Siri” is supported on iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch with iOS 8 or later while plugged in. Not supported on first-generation iPad, iPad 2, and first-generation iPad mini. Siri Suggestions for Shortcuts are supported on iPhone 6s or later, iPad Pro, iPad (5th generation or later), iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 4. Apple Music subscription required.

See anything we missed?

Did your favorite Mac app not make our list? Let us know what Mac apps are an essential part of your workflow in the comments.

[marcomguys-blog]

11 Tried and Tested Link Building Strategies

MarCom Guys have compiled a guide of successful link building strategies that help you make the most of your campaign. It is important that you diversify your tactics to utilize the power of link building completely.

Google still considers links as the key ranking factor, but it is not as simple to build quality links today as it was in the past. It is essential to make certain that high-quality links are coming from different sources. Having a plan in place will help you build quality and worthy links.

In this article, we consider an imaginary new website and plan a link building campaign using different strategies because the approach is different for new and aged sites.

Anatomy of a Good Backlink

There are many factors that determine a good backlink for your website. For example, a ‘Swiss property broker’ is going to need different backlinks when compared to a ‘laptop affiliate website.’ The effects of each link will also differ, like creating local citations at the swiss website will improve maps listing but would not do any good to the affiliate website.

A good backlink is the one that sends out a positive signal to the page it is linking. Keep these factors in mind:

A good backlink has lower outbound links on a page

A good backlink will be within the content. A footer or sidebar backlinks do not send strong signals

A good backlink will be either from a high relevant page or high authority page or even both

Foundation Links

The link building campaign starts off by getting simple links that are essential before jumping to the core ranking strategies. It is crucial to diversify your link profile to keep getting backlinks to your website.

Let’s delve deep into the simple strategies to undertake before the core ones.

1. Citations

The most overstated link in the game is a citation. They are a strong signal for all local websites and works well for national e-commerce trust signals as well.

Manual citations do the trick and also limiting the number to a few is important. This does not mean that one cannot do 50 or 100 quality citations but now days numbers don’t matter, so ticking off these numbers over a course of a few months is suggested.

2. Q&A Websites

One of the most popular platforms that still work for acquiring niche links is Q&A websites. Also, you can get highly targeted traffic from such sites like Quora

3. Social Media

Though this is not a link signal but a trust signal and we recommend getting active traffic from Facebook and Twitter ads. You may reap the benefits of running the ads in the long term by giving organic signals that Google picks up.

Other Recommended Link Building Strategies

1. Guest Posts

Guest posts are one of the most popular and frequently used methods of getting a link from an authoritative domain with your preferred anchor text. No doubt it is amongst the popular methods but also a ‘pure’ way to build links because you are giving a quality piece of content for the link. This means:

The domain will have syndication and attract its own links

You can get you content on an authoritative domain, and,

You can create a link with your preferred anchor text

Remember, not each blog that we come across allows us to use the anchor text we prefer. Every site has its own terms and conditions, so follow every point of it to get approved for the guest post.

2. Blog Commenting

Another way of building a backlink to your website is blog commenting, and we definitely implement this as a part of our link building campaigns. Blog commenting on niche blogs manually is not time-consuming, also free, and provides you immense value.

Blog comment links are Nofollow but essential to maintain the Nofollow/Dofollow balance and trust signals that have an impact on web rankings.

Ensure to put a comment on the blogs that have previous comments (of course not spam) so that you know it is an active blog. Creating a genuine comment is very important and try to get the response of the author. This way, you have a better chance of approving the comment.

3. Broken Link Building

Broken link building is an essential authority to your web page when carried out in the right way. It involves searching for relevant pages to your website and finding those potential broken links that you can use to send traffic to your website.

This method of linking benefits to both parties. It saves work for that website as they do not have to create a new content piece for that page and you get a link plus the traffic. The link can be very effective to your website if it comes from an authoritative page.

Use tools like Ahrefs and mass export all competitor pages with good authority score and look through for any 404 pages that you may utilize.

4. Web 2.0

This is another link building strategy that plays a huge role in our campaign. It is basically a website allowing you to build another website under its name like Tumblr etc.

These can create significant link profiles that will pass on the valuable authority to your website when you get a link from it.

5. Images

Image Link Building is another effective way to encourage webmasters to link to your web page. You can post the graphical content to several websites that are valued, and it will interest the webmasters to pass the link juice as well as traffic to your website.

Infographic is the most popular way to attract interest in your content and can lead you to another link building strategy if you offer a free guide useful to the readers.

When done often, this method can promote your brand well. It is a method that takes a wide and worthy steep turn in our link building efforts.

Also, you can build links from those websites who have used your images but not linked back to you. We found this helpful video that would help you learn more about image link building.

6. Blogger Outreach

With blogger outreach, we reach out to the influencers and make them write about your product or service. This means we give them free access to the product or service you want them to review.

These influencers have a huge audience and this is why they have a high-traffic website as well. Your link on the blog can help you get an authoritative link plus high traffic, increasing your conversions as well.

7. Unlinked Brand Mentions

There is a chance that bloggers or other informative articles have already mentioned about you but forgot to link back to your website. It is a huge opportunity to grab.

We use Ahrefs to find unlink brand mentions for our client websites and request them to give the mention a valid link. Most of them will approve your request.

8. Internal Links

This is one of the most overlooked methods of link building but not at MarCom Guys. It is a powerful technique to get your website more traffic and increase sales.

Have a look at the video by ahrefs on creating quick backlinks:

Types of Pages You Want to Rank

Different pages require different links. We always do a page by page analysis and ensure that the cheaper links are pointing to the support content while the expensive and stronger links are pointing towards the money pages.

Let’s see how you can build links via both these pages and its difference.

1. Supporting Content

It is the relevant content on your site that has internal links with particular anchor texts linking back to the money page. Such pages often add valuable and converting traffic to your website, but when created after complete research.

What makes us different is that we do not create supporting content just to support the money pages but also to rank themselves. The team carries out extensive keyword research and builds content supporting the main pages. This helps us get the best results and also makes the most of the funds utilized.

When it comes to linking via supporting pages, the low keyword density keywords get links from sites having DA 10 and above. The medium to high competition keywords get links from the website having more than 25 domain authority.

2. Money Pages

The main page and competitor analysis are the pillars of building links directly to your money pages.

This does not require you to have backlinks from 90+ domain authority websites or quality citations. What matters is the link profile of your competitor and the campaign you need to outdo them.

Building Dofollow links from sites having a DA of 30+ and organic traffic of 1000 visitors a month can be valuable. Also, considering any steep drops or increases on your website traffic can be positive or negative signals to consider.

Types of Links We Use

It is very important to build high-quality links on your money pages because a single toxic link can throw your valuable campaign into the trash. There is no particular technique that we consider but a variety of many like guest posts, broken link building, niche edits, etc.

The two things that we focus on is that the website we link on is good, and the page has quality and relevant content. Let us explain what makes a good website and relevant page according to us:

1. Anatomy of a Good Website

To be clear, metrics don’t matter a lot, we consider them only as a base. MarCom Guys team specializes in manually reviewing the website, its traffic, link profile, domain age, etc.

We check if the website has not been hit by any google algorithmic change or a penalty in the last one year. We recommend:

Checking the organic traffic on SEMRush and Ahrefs.

Checking the link profile via the same tools above and also an overview to ensure the page is not spam.

Running a Google site operator to ensure the pages are indexed properly. Also, if you spot an AC repair page on a sports blog, do not post anything on it.

Checking the domain age with the help of whois.com to ensure it is not rebuilt just for stuffing guest posts.

If you want to go further deep into the steps, you can check out this video on ‘How to find hidden PBN links?’

2. Anatomy of a Relevant Page

You are wrong if you think you need an exact topic to rank on the search engines. Google takes up a group of keywords and very well understands that these are related to each other.

For instance, if your page is about ‘camera review’ you don’t necessarily require a link from a page about cameras, but anything related to photography is also relevant.

Explaining Tier 1 Strategy

Let’s take an imaginary new affiliate web page of ‘best headphones’. You have no links pointing to that web page, and the position was #81. To support the money page, you build two supporting content pages of 1000 words each.

The average domain rating in the SERP is in the 70s, but there are websites having DR 30 ranking in the top 3 positions. Consider your website DR to be 40 at that time. What would we do in this case?

Firstly, we would create a link building campaign for the client, which would run for 3 months and assign $5000 to get the page to the top position. Along with off-page SEO, we would also do on-page SEO by updating the article and creating more support content.

We would then choose to build 20 guest posts on relevant sites having DR50+ that links directly to the main page and around 35 pillow links from social media, Q&A sites, etc.

We would not just build links to the main page but also support content. We would also do 3 guest posts on relevant websites with DR30+ pointing each at the supporting content. All these links will be created over 90 days of the campaign which numbers to about 1 diverse link a day.

Link Velocity

Link velocity is the number and the rate of referring domains towards a website over a period of time. We consider the link velocity as the number of links we build at a site every week or month. The tenure can be anything.

It is important to set up a link velocity number to ensure not to mess up while undertaking the link building strategies. ‘Less is More’ also applies in this case.

One of the positive things about our site’s link profile is that we have a quite high link velocity since the time we launched the website.

Building links for an aged site can be done with a high velocity when compared to a brand new website. Also, if you are starting out a campaign on aged sites, you need to get a thorough bad link analysis before the campaign.

We suggest building around 50 Nofollow links and 10 Dofollow links every month at new websites that naturally index. On the other hand, for sites more than 2 years old (aged sites), we suggest building around 60 Nofollow links and 25 Dofollow referring links.

Also, you can build multiple links point at one page. Many websites have several links pointing at one page, which has worked in their favor.

Please note that this is the guidance from our side depending on our testing and research we do on the different project.

How Much Time Does It Take for Backlinks to Show Up?

You may expect a change in your website ranking and traffic from day 1 of the link building campaign. It takes some time to see the effect of the campaign on the website, but no one can determine the exact time.

We have noticed results within 90 days of the campaign for most of our clients after securing quality back link.

We believe there are some factors that affect the rankings on search engine like:

1. What Page Are You Trying to Rank?

The page you are trying to rank affects the search engine ranking to a large extent. It depends on how many competitors the page has. We have seen local search terms ranking faster than global queries.

2. Is Your Website New?

Your website needs to age before you see the traction. This is because google finds fresh sites less reputable than established ones so it could take months to see the change.

3. How Much Content is on the Website?

Google loves content but not any content. Quality content on your website will take you faster to the top position. It is all about user experience and thus, product as informative content as possible.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Is link building still relevant to SEO 2019?

Yes, link building is still alive in 2019. The fact is, it is impossible to rank your website without links because they are Google’s most important ranking factor.

No one can ignore its importance in SEO because they are also Google’s Reputation Management Tool.

2. What is outreach link building?

Outreach is one of the successful methods of link building. It involves reaching out to the other relevant websites for a link back to your website with your preferred anchor text.

3. What are the three types of links?

There are three types of links built on a web page, and those are:

A relative link which points to the related location in the current page

An absolute link which includes the entire path to the file

A site root-relative link which points to the related location in the root directory

4. Why are backlinks important for SEO?

Backlinks are crucial for SEO because Google gives credit to the sites that have a sufficient number of quality backlinks. It also considers them more relevant than other website results for a search query.

These link building strategies can help you get an edge over your competitors, and we are ready to help you. If you have any questions, shoot them in the comments below or email us.

[t-baba]

An interview with the author of 'JavaScript: The Definitive Guide'

#490 — May 29, 2020

Unsubscribe  :  Read on the Web

👀 This week we have a fun bit of bonus content at the end of the issue — an interview with David Flanagan, someone who's written more JavaScript books than I've had hot dinners. 😆

JavaScript Weekly

Snowpack 2.0: A Build System for the Modern Web — Say bye-bye to your bundler and let modern browsers’ ES module support do the heavy lifting with Snowpack. Or if you need to target more than just modern browsers, you can always just use it to speed things up in development. This talk by Ryan Lanciaux introduces the idea of escaping using bundlers, if you’re new to this area.

Fred K. Schott

The Process of Making Vue 3 — We know a lot of you are excited about the next major version of Vue.js – the final release is due soon (betas available here) and here Evan talks about the process and how it differs from Vue 2 at a high level.

Evan You / Increment

New Course: Design Systems with Storybook & React — Learn to create a design system from scratch using React, and document the design system to share with your team using Storybook.

Frontend Masters sponsor

A First Look at Records and Tuples — An introductory look at two new compound primitive value types in the ECMAScript spec: Records and Tuples.

Axel Rauschmayer

▶  What's New in TypeScript — You might know Daniel better from all his TypeScript release posts, but here he is in video form with a brief TypeScript introduction followed by essentially a code and example-heavy ‘state of the union’ about where TypeScript is at and where it’s headed.

Daniel Rosenwasser (Microsoft)

htmx: Build Dynamic Pages Using HTML Attributes — Billed as the ‘successor to intercooler.js’, htmx lets you add dynamic Ajax-y elements, Server Sent Events (SSE), WebSockets and more to a site using just HTML attributes.

Big Sky Software

⚡️ Quick bytes:

🎉 Node.js is 11 years old this week.

💰 The company behind the React-based Gatsby framework has raised $28m in series B funding.

🎧 The TC39er podcast has continued to interview TC39 delegates and is at episode 4. Worth listening to if you want more 'inside baseball' of the JavaScript world.

💛 In the latest Stack Overflow survey results, JavaScript remains the most popular language. However, TypeScript is higher on the 'most loved' list.

💻 Jobs

JavaScript Developer at X-Team (Remote) — Join X-Team and work on projects for companies like Riot Games, FOX, Coinbase, and more. Work from anywhere.

X-Team

Find a Job Through Vettery — Vettery specializes in tech roles and is completely free for job seekers. Create a profile to get started.

Vettery

📚 Tutorials and Opinions

Analyzing the Performance of Notion's Electron App — I was going to save this for our React newsletter but it’s too good! A real deep dive into analyzing the performance of a desktop JavaScript app for a popular note taking service and some basic optimizations that can be done.

Ivan Akulov

ECMAScript 4: The Missing Version — If you were around the JavaScript world in the early 2000s, you might recall how long discussion around ES4 rumbled on before it ultimately fizzled out. Some of the ideas were picked up by ActionScript, as used by Flash, but it felt like we lost a lot of potential progress in that decade.

Evert Pot

3 Hacks to Level Up Your Dashboards — Watch this webinar to learn about three elements that will help you build better dashboards for your application.

Logi Analytics sponsor

Some Causes of Memory Leaks in JavaScript and How to Avoid Them — A primer on the basic ideas.

Ekaterina Vujasinović

How To Create Better Angular Templates with Pug — Pug is a template engine that allows you to write cleaner templates with less repetition.

Zara Cooper

A (Mostly) Complete Guide to React Rendering Behavior — Details on how React rendering behaves, and how use of Context and React-Redux affect rendering. There are a lot of concepts compressed into this article.

Mark Erikson

▶  A 50 Minute Deno Crash Course — A lot of people are cranking out Deno videos right now, but Traversy Media has a solid reputation for getting these things right. In 50 minutes we get a nice, balanced approach to Deno’s plus points, tooling, building an API, etc.

Traversy Media

Today’s JavaScript, From An Outsider’s Perspective — Lea is a JavaScript expert, of course, but she was trying to help a computer scientist friend work with JS and commented on the frustrations along the way.

Lea Verou

10 JavaScript Quiz Questions and Answers to Sharpen Your Skills — Lots of tidbits here to sharpen your skills and understanding, but keep in mind that not all JavaScript interviews will be like this(!)

Nick Scialli

🔧 Code & Tools

RoughNotation: A Small Library to Create and Animate Rough Annotations — Uses Rough.js for the handdrawn look. Lots of nice interactive examples on the page showing the diversity of annotation types.

Preet Shihn

AudioMass: A Full-Featured Web Audio Editing Tool in JavaScript — Runs entirely in the browser with no backend or plugins required. Impressive. Source here.

Pantelis Kalogiros

See Runtime Values Right in Your Editor as You Type — Quokka.js is a rapid prototyping playground for JavaScript & TypeScript. Code runs immediately as you type and results display in your editor. Discounted by 40% for the next few days.

Wallaby.js sponsor

Fluor.js: A High Level Way to Add Interactions and Effects to Pages — Think a modern jQuery-lite. Pretty short and sweet for what it is.

François Vaux

Angelfire: Add Custom Context Menus to Any Page Element — Hands up if the name of this project takes you on a nostalgia trip to the 90s.. 🙋‍♀️

Rishabh Anand

number-precision: Tiny Library for Basic but Precise Arithemetic — For when you don’t want 0.1 + 0.2 to equal 0.30000000000000004 😏

NEFE

Perspective: Streaming Pivot Visualization Via WebAssembly — An interesting use for WebAssembly here. Originally built for J P Morgan, Perspective is for building real-time high performance interactive visualizations, powered by a C++ engine compiled to WASM under the hood.

The Fintech Open Source Foundation

AppSignal Adds Next.js Integration - Automatically Adds Web Vitals Monitoring

AppSignal sponsor

Autopilot: A Cross-Platform Desktop Automation Library for Deno — Another example of where using Rust for dependencies opens up some fun options to Deno. If you’re using Deno, don’t forget our Deno Weekly newsletter where we’ll be focusing on things like this :-)

Divy Srivastava

vue-list-scroller: A Vue Component for Efficiently Rendering Large Lists — Uses the ResizeObserver API to help with creating a Twitter-like feed that has thousands of items, and supports infinite scroll.

Ivan Safonov

Notable Improvements to the Profiler in React DevTools 4.7.0 — This tweet thread from Facebook developer Brian Vaughn distills out the highlights from the changelog.

Facebook

💬 A Q&A with… David Flanagan Author of JavaScript: The Definitive Guide

David has been programming since 1981 and getting paid for it since 1985. In 2011, he started working at Mozilla. Since then he's worked as a full-stack engineer on MDN and at Khan Academy. He currently works on cloud software at VMware and is in the process of releasing the seventh edition of JavaScript: The Definitive Guide, a hugely popular JavaScript book published by O'Reilly.

Why a seventh edition now?

I allowed the sixth edition to become badly out of date (sorry!). So the seventh edition is a major, and long-overdue, update. Importantly, it covers ES2020 and even mentions some features expected to be formalized in ES2021. Also new in this edition is a detailed chapter on Node, reflecting the reality that JavaScript isn't just for web browsers anymore.

(Ed: David has written more on what's new in the seventh edition here.)

What was the story behind writing the first edition?

I started on it shortly after I wrote Java in a Nutshell. In those days the buzz around Java was that Java "applets" could add dynamic content to web browsers. JavaScript seemed like a promising alternative and I remember talking to an engineer from Sun Microsystems (the company that created Java) about what I was going to work on next. When I told him I thought JavaScript might become more important in the browser than Java, he scoffed. But seven editions of my book later, I'm starting to think I was right(!)

What's your favorite chapter?

Most interesting JavaScript code is asynchronous, and now that Promises are a core part of the JavaScript language, I dedicate chapter 13 to asynchronous programming with callbacks, events, Promises and async/await.

Promises are a revolutionary addition to JavaScript, but once you move beyond the simplest examples, it becomes very easy to misuse them and you need to understand them deeply in order to use them correctly and with confidence. So I devote more than 20 pages to explaining them in depth. These are some of the most complicated pages in the book, but if they increase the understanding of Promises, I'll feel I've provided an important service to the community.

You've spent so much time writing books about JavaScript, but what other technologies interest you?

I'm intrigued by both Go and Rust and would enjoy documenting those languages. I've thought about writing short books about React and Angular. And I've wondered whether it is possible to write an interesting book about coding for a non-technical audience.

What's the secret to being able to write so many programming books?

No secret, really: from about 1991 to 2011 I was self-employed and for most of that time, writing books was my primary job. This 7th edition of JavaScript: The Definitive Guide is the first book I've written while also working a regular software engineering job.

You can find David on Twitter @__DavidFlanagan or more about JavaScript: The Definitive Guide at O'Reilly Media.

by via JavaScript Weekly https://ift.tt/2BilxR3

[cindylouwho-2]

RECENT NEWS, RESOURCES & STUDIES, late April 2020

I hope everyone is well, and staying safe. The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown most of us off track in many areas, and for me, this blog was one of them. After a tumultuous few months, I have finally found the energy to edit this down - it is both way behind in some areas and overwhelmingly dense in others. 

The good news is that I plan on posting every week for the next little while, to provide more timely updates. That will sometimes mean more news and fewer “how-to” pieces, and some sections may be omitted some weeks. If there are topics you would find helpful during these uncertain times, please let me know. 

Hang in there, and remember to take care of yourself! We can get through this. 

TOP NEWS & ARTICLES 

COVID-19 Pandemic: For information on how various ecommerce entities are dealing with it, see below:

Etsy has a basic seller Help article (which they do update with new developments), and a larger collection of articles that includes data on current buying trends as well as info on how to sell masks on Etsy. 

eBay has an overview page linking to seller info including price gouging rules and shipping updates, as well as buyer info on purchases. They have also opened the “Up and Running” program to help small businesses moving online for the first time. Finally, they have offered free listings to different types of sellers, and just extended that program until the end of July. 

Amazon’s daily update page on COVID-19 developments, including charitable behaviour by the company, doesn’t even include third party sellers as a party they are concerned about. They’ve taken heavy criticism for firing a union activist, improper handling of virus outbreaks at its facilities, while not doing much for merchants since the site is over capacity. They were so overwhelmed that they limited Fulfilled by Amazon orders to essential goods only in March, leaving many merchants with no income.

Etsy CEO Josh Silverman is also lobbying for government support for self employed people such as ecommerce sellers, freelancers, contract workers etc. (unlike in some countries such as Canada, most self-employed Americans aren’t eligible to pay into employment insurance plans, something Silverman is asking for.) Here’s a video clip of Silverman being interviewed on the topic on Fox. He followed up with a letter to the EU. Etsy also started the “Stand With Small” Campaign to support small businesses, but their forum thread went so poorly they had to delete most of the replies & lock it. They’ve also launched new commercials for the pandemic era

Many small businesses are still in dire straights right now. Here are lists of artist/self-employed/small business supports, including funding and services, for Canadians and Americans. Etsy has also compiled the basic government benefit info for the US, the UK, France, Germany, and Canada. If you know of any other similar or more comprehensive resource lists, please let me know! 

ETSY NEWS 

By now you have heard that the Etsy Offsite Ads that many of us were supposed to start paying for April 14 have been delayed until May 1, but I have covered the basics in the first post and the highlighted posts here. (No, they are not investing $5 million in offsite ads this month; the $5 million is the money we would have paid in fees from April 14-30!) Now that Google Shopping will have free listings in the US as of April 27, everything may be up in the air. [I will update this post and my thread with any new information as it becomes available.]

In the aftermath of the outcry over the Offsite Ad fees, Shopify is taking a page out of Zibbet’s old playbook, by emailing Etsy sellers with information on how to migrate your listings from Etsy to a Shopify website. They’ve also posted info in their forum. 

In the most recent bad publicity for the platform, Etsy dropped the ball on the mask shortage, then picked up cause (getting some very good publicity) and now many the new mask sellers who oversold are having their money held & are frustrating thousands of buyers with with either poorly-made products or no product at all - well see how much more bad publicity that will bring.. First, the public was looking for masks to protect against COVID-19 on Etsy, and found some that claimed to work. “[M]ore than 200 postings for face masks have sprung up in the past two days [on Feb. 26]...Even as sites like Facebook and Amazon have added links and resources for learning more about COVID-19, Etsy has stayed quiet on any precautionary or educational measures.” An Etsy rep said “While face masks are allowed on Etsy, we prohibit any items that make medical claims. Our team is prioritizing taking down any listings that claim to protect against coronavirus." Etsy eventually realized that this was an opportunity to make money, so they are now encouraging sellers to post masks for sale.That’s getting a lot of positive media attention. “The website is becoming a go-to destination for homemade cloth masks. Etsy says there was an average of one mask-related search on the site every two seconds in March. Last week, more than 10,000 sellers sold at least one mask apiece.” Here’s a piece on Fox news [video and text] and another video, and one on CNBC [video and text].

They are also removing or at least de-indexing (removing from search) listings that mention the virus directly, and even use words such as “medical”, including in sentences such as “this is not a medical-grade mask.” Some sleep masks have been hit as well. Many of the shops were originally back up & running within a day of getting Etsy’s attention, but Trust & Safety is reportedly now backed up two weeks or more on this issue, leaving many sellers out of search and unable to sell. 

Some of the shops that have oversold or who received multiple bad feedbacks are now posting their stories in the forum as they look for ways to get their money released. The buyers who never received their purchases are finding these threads & asking what to do.This has the potential to turn out very badly for Etsy, although for the moment, the good coverage continues. 

(Mind you, other marketplaces also have to worry about price gouging on things like hand sanitizer, so the bad media isn’t all Etsy’s - but they get mentioned in that article as well. eBay has now gone as far as banning the sale of all hand sanitizer & disinfecting wipes. Meanwhile, Mercari also encouraged sellers to make masks, but is donating 50% of the fees they collect on these sales to a first responders charity until May 31. In short, there are ways to do this without looking greedy.)

Etsy had a decent 4th quarter in 2019; here is my thread, & here is Etsy’s dumbed down take. 

They then did an early April update: while March 2020 has been difficult, it was not as bad as many of us might have thought. “...in those moments when people's mindshare is elsewhere, we tend to see a significant drop in traffic to Etsy. We experienced that suddenly and strongly beginning on March 8th. And that hit a low point in the month of March, in the third week of March, when our Consolidated GMS for the week was negative 2%. So to dimensionalize that, we were averaging 41% Consolidated GMS growth in January and February, and it went down to negative 2% in the third week of March. …  So GMS Consolidated in the fourth week of March was up 27% year-over-year, but even in that fourth week, on the Etsy standalone site, we had one day that was a negative 4% day and another day, just a few days later, that was a positive 23% day.”

Note that if you use the auto-renew feature, your items will still renew when in vacation mode. 

I now know that  “birth flower jewelry” is a thing, and Etsy is getting 69% more searches for it than last year. Here are some other Etsy jewellery trends, with some suggested search terms.  A few of the tips there, including suggested keyword phrases, are also mentioned in the Mother’s Day Guide. 

Etsy also just released an article on what people are shopping for during the pandemic. “Wedding postponements have generated increased traffic for change-the-date cards in paper and digital formats. With many celebrations, including bridal showers, now taking place online, shoppers are looking for items like festive backdrops to embellish their virtual gatherings. 7,311% YoY increase in searches on Etsy containing “date change”

Reverb will now be offsetting the carbon emissions from its shipping, just like Etsy. 

If you want to drive traffic to your Etsy listings from Pinterest (through your own account or by being pinned by others), Etsy has some suggestions. 

SEO: GOOGLE & OTHER SEARCH ENGINES 

The pandemic is changing Google search ranking & visibility; not all of the changes are the predictable ones. For example, “fashion and apparel” went up, even though people weren’t going outside or to work as much. 

Temporarily sold out items on your website (not your Etsy shop) need to be handled properly to maintain their SEO value. Some basic tips here. 

There are things you can do to improve your chances of having sitelinks show up for your website on Google search result pages. 

We talk a lot about backlinks coming into your site, but each page (at least the non-product pages) should probably have outbound links as well. Especially if you are blogging on a topic, remember that “[i]n all forms of publishing, it’s standard practice to cite authoritative, third-party sources to reinforce the points you make.” 

Speaking of backlinks, here is how to get them & even how not to get them. 

The changes to how Google treats no-follow links started last month, and if you were using no-follow to stop Google from crawling, you need to fix that. Apparently it won’t change ranking much.

There are new guides to keyword research almost every week, but this one from Backlinko is good for both newbies & more experienced folks. (He does make the very common error of stating that long tail keywords are longer phrases, but otherwise it is great.) Good suggestions on judging difficulty: “First, search for your keyword in Google.  Then, look at the sites ranking on the first page. (Not individual pages) If the first page is made up of uber authority sites (like Wikipedia), then you might want to cross that keyword off from your list ...But if you see a handful of smaller blogs on page 1, that’s a sign that you have a shot to hit the first page too.” Seriously, you need to read this one. 

And if you still haven't conquered the Google Keyword Planner for keyword research, here are some good tips and basic set-up instructions. Bonus: it also shows you how to use the tool for Google ads. 

I’m a big fan of using keyword research/tools for marketing & product ideas, and here is a similar thought: use SEO data to inform your marketing. 

When people say Google “crawls” your site, we mean with spiders. Seriously. Ok, they are actually bots, but still, they really are called spiders.

Google’s index will be entirely based on the mobile version of a website by this September. Right now, they are at 70%. If your site doesn’t work well on mobile, you have a few more months to correct that. 

Another reminder that generally, you don’t want Google to index your website’s internal search pages. 

You probably know that there are ways to optimize images on your website, called alt text, and here is a really good overview of how & why. (Note this doesn’t work for Etsy shops)

Another short video from the Google Webmaster team, this one on 301 redirects. 

The usual Google search change rumours are just odd right now.

If you feel you just don’t understand SEO, you can take one of these free online courses to learn more. 

(CONTENT) MARKETING & SOCIAL MEDIA (includes blogging & emails) 

The most popular hashtags are not always the best to use; read that & more tips on using hashtags on social media here. 

You don’t actually have to come up with blog post ideas yourself; there are multiple tools that can do it for you [infographic and text links]

An annual report on social media [text with a pdf download to your email account] finds that engagement is down on Instagram, contests & giveaways are the most popular brand posts, and “Carousels” get good attention on Instagram.

Email marketing is still one of the best ways to reach your customers; here’s what you need to think about as you design your campaigns, and how to get started. Every target market is different, so you should consider using A/B testing in your emails to figure out what yours responds to. 

Some interesting ideas for using Instagram Stories for market research.

Did you know you can edit your photos right within Instagram? (it starts with filters but moves to other editing)

Pinterest has a bunch of new features for retailers, including verified merchants, catalogues and ad retargeting. 60% of US women look at Pinterest at least occasionally, including 80% of mothers. But you might be surprised at what some of them are looking for: e.g., “Searches for how to ask for a raise at work are up 254%.” If you don’t know how to get more followers on Pinterest, check out this article. 

WhatsApp got caught with bad coding, allowing private groups to be indexed by Google. Don’t forget they are owned by Facebook. 

LinkedIn is testing their own version of Stories. So is Twitter. 

ONLINE ADVERTISING (SEARCH ENGINES, SOCIAL MEDIA, & OTHERS) 

Yes, there are reasons you might want to buy online ads for your business/brand name. 

If you do your own Google Ads, you will want to learn more about the new “optimization Score”.It gives you tips on parts of your Ads account you should work on to get better results. 

Also, you can find out more about how buyers behave after finding your ads through the Google Ads Attribution Report. 

If you are looking to spend money on ads, this comparison of Google Ads to Facebook/Instagram ads gives you a lot to think about. 

If Google won’t run your ads because it says they are for low-volume keywords, there are ways to fix the problem. 

While Facebook’s overall traffic is way up lately due to COVID-19, their ads are not, partially because they don’t run on some of its most popular features such as Messenger. 

STATS, DATA, OTHER TRACKING 

If you buy your own Google Ads, make sure to link them to your Google Analytics account to get the most data. Download the pdf of instructions written by Google. 

If you have fairly advanced knowledge of Google Analytics and coded it into your own website, here are 13 mistakes you might have made. [Don’t even read that unless you have some knowledge of coding websites. I’m not joking.]

Here’s an easier Google Analytics article for websites, much of which even applies to Etsy shops. 

Here’s an easy way to use Google Analytics to track your promotions, sales and ad campaigns. Some promotional tools do this for you, but not all. 

The Google Search Console now lets you download more data. 

There is a new stats program out called Plausible, which is simpler than Google Analytics & should not slow down your site as much. For those of you who don’t want tons of data & don’t like the cookie issues with GA, Plausible makes a compelling argument for you here. 

ECOMMERCE NEWS, IDEAS, TRENDS 

The pandemic has helped consolidate Amazon’s position as the top ecommerce marketplace in many jurisdictions, and it is the only one that is trending upward in Google searches. As of March 24, searches for “Etsy” dropped 30%. (but I don’t think that is an indication that traffic dropped that amount - it may be less or more, depending on what percentage of buyers usually Google “Etsy”.)

Shopify launches were up 75% in the second week of April compared to the first week of March, in part due to many brick and mortar stores moving online. [While they are replacing in-person shopping, those new shops also increase our ecommerce competition - and some might stay online even once their physical locations reopen.] 

USPS is in financial trouble, and the pandemic is not helping. That affects everyone who ships to the US, not just US sellers. 

Walmart is working on a membership program similar to Amazon Prime. It may open soon, and “[p]erks could include unlimited same-day delivery on groceries and text-based shopping, the latter of which Walmart has tested through its now-defunct Jet Black shopping service. Later, prescription drug and gas discounts, and scan and go services, could be part of the program, according to Recode...Walmart has also unveiled a new third-party fulfillment service for its marketplace sellers — again a key feature of Amazon's model.”

Amazon & eBay told the US government they are working really hard to remove fakes from their platforms.  

eBay will be expanding its in-house payment system to Canada & Australia this year, making 5 countries in total, after the US, Germany and the UK. 

Shiptheory, a newer shipping integration, now includes Etsy & Squarepsace, in addition to eBay, Shopify and many others. The platform is free for users shipping only 200 orders a month, and has over a dozen carriers (not currently USPS or Canada Post, however).

If you are looking for something to do while sheltering in place, consider editing some of your product descriptions to drive more sales. If you are stuck for new ideas, it does include a template. 

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

While some economic indicators dropped substantially in March, things are beginning to pick up in the US in the last half of April. Shopify reported “Black Friday level” numbers for the third week of April, for example. One likely reason is the US stimulus money being spent on non-essentials. 

A decent if short overview of what makes people decide to buy things: “Shopping activates the brain’s reward centers, causing a rush of the feel-good neurotransmitter dopamine” and “68 percent of millennial shoppers will make a reactive purchase as a result of FOMO” (fear of missing out). 

People are more likely to buy if you offer easy (or even free) returns. Yes, I realize most of us aren’t able to offer free returns, but the thinking behind this is worth reading about, because it is one of the advantages larger companies have over businesses like ours. We all need to be aware of our disadvantages, so we can counter them. “A December 2018 survey shares how a whopping 88 percent of shoppers want the ability to return their purchases, if desired, either by taking them to a physical store or using a shipping method that’s prepaid.” Also, “...the more liberal you are with your return policy, the more confident you will likely appear about the products you sell.”

There are now around 2 billion websites in the world, & 20 million ecommerce sites (although that was pre-pandemic). Make sure you know how to get customers and how to keep them coming back. (With some links to studies.) One of their 7 points is also return policy. It’s important, folks!

When developing your marketing and advertising plans, make sure you think about your buyers’ location. For example, some things are just going to be more popular in certain areas. 

More and more shoppers are ok with buying on social media instead of marketplaces & other websites. [study by Poshmark] Another interesting takeaway: “Gen Z closets are made up of 16.5% secondhand items, the most of any generation measured, followed by Gen X (14%), millennials (12.5%) and baby boomers (9.5%).”

Meanwhile, if you want to know more about millennials, here are 34 stats and facts you may be interested in. 

MISCELLANEOUS (including humour) 

With many workplaces asking employees to stay home due to the coronavirus, we’ve been seeing a lot more pieces on how to work from home effectively. This one is pretty good. 

LinkedIn has made several of their remote working courses available for free, including time management and various electronic tools. 

Doing more video chats lately? Here’s how to look good on a webcam. 

Understandably, Google cancelled its usual collection of April Fools jokes this year. Which leads me to this article on how to market during a pandemic, and this one. 

And here’s how to keep your customers afterwards. “Temporarily shift from the “fewer sales, higher profit” mentality to helping as many consumers as you can. That means focusing on orders more than revenue. Consumers are presumably putting off big-ticket purchases during Covid-19, anyway. Thus it makes sense to embrace smaller orders from first-time buyers to enable a long-term relationship.”

[gamehallblog-blog]

The 7 Best Mobile Game Creator Software and Tools in 2019

Mobile Game Creator software is required in other to create a successful working video game, especially now that game business is booming through Mobile Game Development. Since people use their smartphone the most, it is the perfect choice for a game developer to pick the right Mobile Game Creator software that will help them to develop more interactive and interesting games. Games that are created for the Android platform are the best way to earn more profits for this industry. Before diving into this booming business, you need to execute the process of making the app properly and use the best android game Mobile Game Creator platforms.

list of best Mobile Game Creator software

But no need to worry here is a list of 7 Mobile Game Creator Tools tools or platforms that will help you develop interactive mobile game apps with ease.

Unreal Engine - 1st best Mobile Game Creator software

Unreal Engine - Mobile Game Creator editing surface Unreal Engine allows building game that would be supported by the majority of platforms and operating systems. It offers the developers 2 main tools: traditional C++ and visual scripting Blueprints that help deal with the game logic quickly. It is developed to meet all the needs of both enterprise and small games projects. It’s suitable for creating games of any genre from shooters to quests. To make things clear, forums contain many helpful documents and YouTube-channels stream many tutorials and guides for beginners. Unreal Engine has a powerful toolset that includes: C++ code view, full source code access and scripting. Film-quality visual effects creation tool. Advanced, flexible and customized artificial intelligence. Real-time rendering tool. Complete audio system. Instant game preview. Hot reload function. This tool is completely free to start with. While the project hits $3000 profit you should give just 5% royalty on your game. It appears to be a profitable supply for getting into video game development market. Prices: completely free for small projects. for commercial products with more than $3,000 per calendar quarter, it takes 5% from revenue.

Unity - 2nd best Mobile Game Creator software

Unity - Mobile Game Creator editing surface This is the globe leading tool in the game development business. Unity provides multi-platform solutions for making a super 2D and 3D games. Developers use it to make a lot of easy and AAA-class games. And is very, important for beginners developers – Unity has already a strong community with an immersive number of guides and tutorials. Tons of features, preset models, textures and documentation would help new developers peruse with Unity advantages. Moreover, the extension of Unity isn’t a problem with flexible free and paid addiction services in the Unity Asset Store. But even standard ones would help anyone develop a great project. Play Mode integrated into the Unity engine would help developers debug projects fast by running and pausing project any time.

AppGameKit - 3rd best Mobile Game Creator software

AppGameKit - Mobile Game Creator software AppGameKit is a solution for multiplatform game projects. The platform was mentioned in top 15 game frameworks of 2014. It is suitable for both new and experienced game developers. Key advantages of AppGameKit are: Simplicity: its own programming language is similar to C++ is AGK BASIC. So it enables developers to start developing games without much time of learning it. Sell your apps anywhere using the engine’s guides. AppGameKit IDE includes: colour schemes. full debugger. code folding. compiler. editor. The main feature is cross-platform support and capability to own one project for all platforms. Platforms: Windows Phone, iOS, Android SDK costs $39 – $99. Average bundle cost $50.

MonoGame - 4th best Mobile Game Creator software

MonoGame - Mobile Game Creator Tools MonoGame toolkit enables to build multi-platform games. It's class architecture is similar to the XNA 4 API. The project runs on any C# or .Net languages. If you already know those the mobile game development with MonoGame shouldn’t become difficult for you. Besides, there is a bunch of tutorials and guides to help you start your first project. Platforms use shaders written in different languages. That’s why MonoGame developed its own language for making shaders – MGFX. Finally, the program has the same structure such as; Microsoft FX files,text format for easy editing, compiled binary format Platforms: Windows Phone, iOS, Android. Price: free.

Construct 2 - 5th best Mobile Game Creator software

Editing a mobile game using Construct 2 Mobile Game Creator software This mobile game creator game development tool is hypertext markup language platform that makes high-quality online games. It requires no coding and has many features that aid in building a visually appealing game. Construct 2 creates the game in less time and is multiplatform. Supported platforms are other than Android or iOS, Windows Phone and Web platforms like Google Chrome, etc. Price: 159.99 euro.

Marmalade SDK - 6th best Mobile Game Creator software

Marmalade SDK - Mobile Game Creator dashboard Marmalade is a multiplatform game making tool that uses C++ code for game building. As a result, its main concept is “write once, run anywhere”. Marmalade includes a set of libraries, code examples, and tools to simplify programming, testing and deploying applications on different platforms. Finally, it supports both 2D and 3D games development., the main features are; Graphics renders by OpenGL directly Usage of Android optimizations within the original codebase. Open source of major components. High performance. Open architecture. Quick conversion. Marmalade provides developers with even more features, like: support for specific capabilities of iOS and Android, code-checker for ARM-platform. the set of open APIs. unique support. test simulator. Platforms: iOS, Android, Windows Phone8, Tizen, Blackberry, Connected TV Platforms. Price: $600.

Game Marker Studio 2 - 7th best Mobile Game Creator software

Game Marker Studio 2 - one of the Best Mobile Game Creator software GameMarker Studio 2 was launched by YOYO games to create 2D games. It lets you design the gaming app quickly with their drag and drop feature and language which is easy to use. Platforms that can use other than Android or iOS, Windows Phone, Amazon Fire, PS Vita, and Tizen. Price: a free version with no features and for purchasing features the price ranges from $150-$800.

My Final Thought on Game development software

There are tons of different mobile game development tools. These are the best android app development platforms and tools that will help you in amazing android gaming app development. While choosing a platform, keep in mind the basic game idea, budget, markets, and expectations. What is your favourite Mobile Game Creator software or tools? your contribution to this topic via the comment section below will be highly appreciated, also don't forget to share this post with your friends on social media. Thanks for hanging out with me!😉 Read the full article

[kimberlyoliveir]

follow up to paying off my kiva loan months - super rough draft disprganizrd babble babble that i never finalized to submit to kiva - see date in photo

2nd draft KIVA THANK YOU + theme/thesis

••••••••••••••••••••••

"customer service for and compilation of party discounts and guest lists, including after hours events centralized in Brooklyn, New York prioritizing Connections, Communication, Community [no pretense, keeping it real]"

📲search GOOGLE for KIMMELIST • follow!

• would love your feedback on functionality so I can make it work for YOU

<https://g.co/kgs/P9f8N2>

•main website is https://www.kimmelist.club

•email is me@kimmelist.club

•text[me]@631-879-8903

always try discount code KIMMELIST

#CCC [Connections, Communication, Community]

#kimmelist

#thisiswhykimme

•CCCLTD [Connections, Communication, Community] supporting, aligning, and showcasing the emerging local culture

•PDC [party discount compilation©️™️]

•Transparency [no pretense; keeping it real]

•CC [Critical Consciousness] be present because the present is a present

•BRANDED ECLECTIC©™

(logo©™)

kimme

KIMMELIST

kim[me]list

www.kimmelist.club

••••••••••••••••••••••

Dear All who loaned to me...THANK YOU...

because of your financial support, as well as spiritual, social, and physical support by coming to the events and parties, my business is - dare I say - established. It ended up not being one huge regularly scheduled event, but branched out into DBAs, one primarily promotions, another wine and foodie consulting. Many other projects are following different trajectories, having had various birthpoints, but the baseline remains the music. I’ll add a bunch of links for y’all to check out, but here’s the Google Business page for now.

Just launched my google business pg would love your functionality feedback !

<https://g.co/kgs/P9f8N2>

kim[me]list

kimmelist.club

Brooklyn, NY

(631) 879-8903

https://g.co/kgs/P9f8N2

I had to get all this out before I could be better organized about that which easily succumbs to Murphy’s Law. I didn’t want y’all to wait any longer for me to reach out since this loan was fully repaid, so here we go...

My initial loan request referred to then undefined nonprofits to partner with and raise funds for, which developed into me getting all cerebral about the why this country shames criminals so when ____\ () Since receiving the loan, the development of my philanthropic advocacy focus is on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (https://sdgcompass.org). Coming from where I’ve been, on tops of six figure mountains and underground, the later is real and honest. It is the underground that society fears because the normal people perceive it to be slums, poor, classless, drugs, disease, etc. It is here where the stigmatized-isms are outcasted, where chaos is constant and confrontation is the norm. It is here in perceived primordial sludge that real change is birthed in grassroots. It is here that Credible Messengers, Change Agents and Life Mentors are the medium for awareness, inspiration and education. It is here where Social Media is the medium to sustain global critical consciousness via real time connections and communication of information. It is here that I felt compelled to do social work.

As many are aware, this calling to partner with the formerly incarcerated could not be disregarded. Thus, I have been in an intensive, online Masters of Social Work program at Fordham University, plus 25 hours per week internship at a successful anti-recidivism and alternatives to incarceration organization. It has been verified that this is who I need to work with, but the work I need to do is not the institutionalized type.

Next is Outreach, Advocacy, and Fundraising, supporting awareness in the emerging EDM community. Our activities can get loud about weighty issues that are a constant ringing in the ear drums; we will take the noise of everyday discrimination and make music. Music that protests with honesty and refuses to be ostracized for voicing the challenges of stigmas such as mental health, drugs, sexual harassment and exploitation. Many of the hard knocks we’ve been through internally are based in social determinants, deep conflicts and unanswered questions we may not gave cognizantly asked but that we struggle with everyday. This cloud confuses the path to our true selves, self actualization. People restrict saying what they think or suspect because they fear the receivers reaction, thus avoiding the possibility of being discriminated against. Ultimately, this self-sabotaging handicap, cutting us off from the oneness we seek. Now we must ask, because music is the answer, and fear is not real.

This is what’s in the AV line to be realized in the in the upcoming months, birthing a plethora of projects, webs of partnerships, genuine connections, unabashed communication, and transparent communities.

Ultimately, each of us as artists in life should be exactly where we should be; content in every moment. The dance music community is rampant with great energies. We all need to empower each other individually and whole so we may realize and harness potentials towards actualization.

Future events will provide spaces and resources where we can collectively learn how to address limitations, resistance, and barriers to synthesizing One Love. Plans are to vibrate out negativity, before this digital age has any stagnant opportunity to accumulate and manifest as self-harm. Workstations perform with more engagement than vibrations in isolation.

I have a YouTube playlist called “#thisiswhy” that runs the videos that have most impacted me and justify why I am where I’m at in my quantum compilation. In this YouTube profile, are statements that summarize the original motivators that took me to the place I’m at now. Their phrasing has waved at various frequencies during transmission, but the root axis are the same. You will see these living formulas representing principles and beliefs everywhere I am, from Resident Advisor to Action Network, Facebook to my website, as #taglines and slogans:

CCCLTD [Connections, Communication, Community] supporting, aligning, and showcasing the emerging local culture

PDC [party discount compilation©️™️]

Transparency [no pretense; keeping it real]

CC [Critical Consciousness] be present because the present is a present

BRANDED ECLECTIC©™

I am trying to wrap this up with two more brake homes:

1. the philosophy behind my eever-evolving brand-identity

and

2. the basis for my logo©™



This is the same exact logo that I drew back when I incorporated and got an EIN back in October 2012. The image represents the balances of earth, inherent concentric animalism of humans, and the unfortunate breaks that just exist (Murphy’s Law). Hopefully, how I arranged the circles suggests cyclical movement, symbolic of our constant changing and rearranging, movement to embrace. Music, the constant, is organized disaster and the medium for change. The design intention was to imitate when you are looking down into a glass of wine, reminiscent of simple, normal experiences of a made-made natural product bound with anthropology. Everyday conditions build stories that become cultures; as wine is to cuisine is to music; like notes build stories that become songs. The image might instigate subconscious memories, perhaps a source of pleasure and philosophical discourse, but also to warn that the “hole” is basically and factually that. I am alluding to the dangers of pleasure that can become pain when unmonitored, which correlate and contribute to negative social determinants because the abusers cannot remain in the “maintain” part of the cycle of change. These “holes” are the black holes that tell us to remain self-aware in objective self-preservation. Individual self-determination and critical consciousness must vibrate high because potential for positivity to get sucked into the abusive hole is high. Thus, the logo’s “hole” is a symbol of the potential for self-sabotage that leads to the universe forcing social departure, casing isolation, discrimination, ostracizing, judging, etc. However, where the logo is perceived broken, it is ultimately open. Simply spin the wheel of life, take the risk of being rejected and speak with integrity; ask the question about the elephant in the room, so the circus will get out of town, and the only rings will be that of functioning communities. As writes the author of the article I mentioned above - the full text of which is below - the model of change represented in my logo is the same of Outreach models is the same as the Japanese art “kintsugi, where broken items are repaired and displayed with pride, our connections and reconnections are often strongest where we had to forge them ourselves.” Do not fear outcomes. Live transparently. Words are a symbol to convey that which is unobservable with the human eye. Do not hide under a veil of privacy. If you do, the isolation of your frequency from the framework sends you to where there is no light.

The birth of the above principles and beliefs, namely CCC [Connections, Communication, Community] is Chocolate Covered Cheese, LTD, a judgement free business, that can flex services offered to cater to situations. The business name itself demands the question be asked, no silent stigmas. Talking is forced by need to define. As the definition is clarified, the best collaborative work is channeled. To assume and not speak stifles the solution in integrity, condoning ignorance born from false fear, perpetuating isolation and raising disequilibrium and discrimination. (Altruism GAME THEORY. Wavelengths. Music

Music is the answer )

For others needing capital, especially those who are unbanked, off-grid, and hailing from unfavorable social determinants, please follow my link to Kiva fundraising @ <https://www.kiva.org/borrow/6NTM8B4AC59JP59YS9WG9YCF> I vibe with Kiva’s tagline and slogan: “We envision a financially inclusive world where all people hold the power to improve their lives.” Kiva is a San Fran based nonprofit, whose global mission is “to expand financial access to help underserved communities thrive.”

In an esoteric goodbye cuz I am not good with simplifying fractions:

Even though the general norm is non-compliance, maintaining status quo is a normative lie. However, popularity doesn’t matter during chaotic conditions. In order to intentionally remove privilege and realign, confrontation is the honest directive action. During distress or duress, the fear is real rather than a perceived or imagined negative reaction. Furthermore, as in the basis of psychotherapy, all talking is a request for something...and that something could just be togetherness.

So speak now or for ever with old your peace.

✌️