Last week, Bright Eyes musician Conor Oberst filed a lawsuit for libel against a reported "anonymous commenter" who posted on various websites that he raped her. But Joanie Faircloth was not anonymous.
The Story Of Conor Oberst And His Accuser
Saturday, March 1, 2014
The Story Of Conor Oberst And His Accuser
A Look Back At Just How Silly The Tech Industry Has Become
OK. Let’s take a step back from all the recent tech news, look at it with fresh eyes — and try not to burst into slightly hysterical laughter.
A Look Back At Just How Silly The Tech Industry Has Become
5 Apps You Don't Want to Miss
With all the new gadgets out of Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week, many of the newest apps may have slipped by.
Luckily, Mashable creates a roundup each weekend of our favorite new and updated apps, so you won’t miss out. From a new Tamagotchi game to an app to help you manage your relationship, our latest list includes a range of iOS and Android offerings.
Check out the gallery, above, to see which apps made our list of top picks. And if you’re looking for more, take a look at last week’s can’t-miss apps.
Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments. Read more…
More about Android, Ios, and Apps And Software
5 Apps You Don't Want to Miss
40% Of Your Beer Money Goes To Taxes
The next time you pour yourself a cold one, give yourself a pat on the back in the name of patriotism. On average, 40 percent of the price you paid for that beer is going straight to Uncle Sam and the state.
40% Of Your Beer Money Goes To Taxes
Miley Cyrus Should Have Been A Cellist
Everyone calm down, we fixed "Wrecking Ball."
Miley Cyrus Should Have Been A Cellist
The Man Who Destroyed America's Ego
How a rebel psychologist challenged one of the 20th century’s biggest—and most dangerous—ideas.
The Man Who Destroyed America's Ego
14 Movies Every Tech Geek Will Love
Technology plays a big role in the film industry, but every once in a while, it gets to be the star.
These 14 movies are all tech-themed, from the dystopian days of Gattaca, to the twitchy, neurotic drama The Social Network. Take a retro dive into kitschy '80s flicks such as Weird Science, or the critically-acclaimed '70s hard-hitter The Conversation.
You don't have to watch The Matrix or Star Wars for the millionth time (well, you probably will anyway, we can't stop you). Instead, check out these 14 enjoyable flicks that are well worth the watch. Read more...
More about Entertainment, Movies, Technology, Film, and Features14 Movies Every Tech Geek Will Love
An Emoji Guide to the 2014 Best Picture Oscar Nominees
If you haven't had a chance to see all nine of the Academy Awards Best Picture nominees this year, don't worry.
In celebration of the prestige and honor each Oscar statuette represents, we've compiled summaries of each film that's up for the big prize so you don't have to miss out on your office pool.
And with respect to the complicated, emotional and powerful stories told in all of the films, we created the summaries in the language of emoji.
Despite emojis being a universal language, narrating some of the films' plot points required a little creativity. The cute icons tend to lack in things like drug use variety, transportation and other areas of diversity Read more...
More about List, Movies, Oscars, Film, and EmojiAn Emoji Guide to the 2014 Best Picture Oscar Nominees
A Wisconsin Man Puts His Vacation Home For Sale in Dogecoins
One user of the meme-inspired, virtual currency, Dogecoin, could be a future home owner.
Matt Thomspon, 27, is selling his vacation home (not pictured) in Wisconsin for 100 million Dogecoins, or about $135,000. After not receiving any offers for his three-bedroom, two-bathroom home in the northern woods of Sawyer County, Wisc., Thompson decided to accept Dogecoins as a form of payment.
Thompson has used cryptocurrencies — digital mediums of exchange, or virtual currencies — like Bitcoin since 2011, and he started using Dogecoins two days after they were made available online. To his surprise, as a video game and electronics vendor, Dogecoins are actually useful for his business because he can use the cryptocurrency to buy and sell inventory from places like China. Read more...
More about Business, Vacation, Tech, Home, and UsA Wisconsin Man Puts His Vacation Home For Sale in Dogecoins
Freemium Is The New Shareware
Swrve has released a report looking at volume and percentages of in-app purchasing in freemium games. While the numbers and conversion rates seem low, they match up closely with the historical data for the shareware model.
Freemium Is The New Shareware
5 wearables that could transform our lives
Above: The OrCam device can interpret words on a page
Mention the term “wearables” and most people conjure up a fitness-tracking watch or some kind of futuristic fashion accessory.
But wearables are much more than this.
Disabled people are increasingly relying on these gadgets to augment how they see and experience the world. On a personal note, my aunt, Wendy Poth, lost her vision when she was 7. She is currently on the waiting list to purchase OrCam’s computer-assisted vision device. These special glasses interpret nearby visual inputs, including letters, faces, objects, products, places, bus numbers, and traffic lights.
“The blind have to carry around so much extraneous crap in order to get anything done,” said Poth, who works as a therapist in Kansas City. ”Wearables pose an exciting solution to all that. The technology that will soon be available exceeds my wildest dreams.”
Redg Snodgrass, the chief executive of media and events company Wearable World, said wearable makers are a different breed than most entrepreneurs. Snodgrass is convinced that the next generation of wearable tech will solve real needs, whether it’s smart glasses for the blind or a mind-controlled wheelchair for people with mobility disorders.
“The true promise of wearables is to mitigate the limitations that people have,” said Snodgrass. ”As corny as it sounds, the entrepreneurs I’ve been meeting recently genuinely want to make people’s lives better.”
Editors’ Note: Wearables will be a big topic of discussion at our upcoming Mobile Summit on April 14 to 15 at the Cavallo Point Resort in Sausalito, Calif. It’s an invite-only gathering of 180 top mobile executives.
People are prepared to pay significantly more for a device that addresses a real problem. Here are the five wearable devices that are already (or will soon) make a difference in our lives.
Saving lives with Google Glass
Even Google Glass, as expensive and awkward as it looks, serves a functional purpose. As we reported, doctors are considering wearing Glass during surgical procedures, and the New York Police Department recently received several pairs of the modernist specs to see how well it works for crime-fighting.
I have a tough time imagining fashion-conscious city dwellers wearing Google Glass. But Glass offers physicians and law enforcement a way to receive information in real time, while remaining hands free.
As Arun Matthews, the chief medical information officer at Texas Tech University and a fully-fledged Glass enthusiast, put it in a recent interview with VentureBeat, “I dream about technology being seamless and invisible but constantly present, anticipating my needs with point-of-care decision support — but getting out of the way so that physicians can be physicians.”
When the price drops, we expect to see more widespread adoption of Glass. For now, it will be a challenge to convince budget-strapped government agencies and public hospitals that Glass is worth the $1,500 price.
Mind-controlled wheelchairs
Imagine controlling a wheelchair with your thoughts, not a joystick.
Earlier this month, a startup called Emotiv hosted a “design-athon” and invited developers to use its neuro-technology to build new applications. Among them was a mind-controlled wheelchair for people with limited mobility.
Above: Emotiv’s EPOC product.
Image Credit: Emotiv
Emotiv has developed a headset capable of picking up electrical signals from the brain and translating them into actions. “Brain-controlled wheelchairs are low-hanging fruit — it’s 100 percent the future for wearables,” said Snodgrass.
The idea for the wheelchair came from Albert Wong, a Malaysia-based law graduate with a condition called Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. Wong’s family reached out to Emotiv to ask them to build a system so he could communicate better using a combination of mental commands, facial expressions, and head movement.
Wong passed away a few weeks ago. But Emotiv intends to continue to work closely with the disabled community and particularly with people who are paralyzed from the neck down. Read Wong’s story here.
Stress-monitoring devices for autistic children
Above: Affectiva Q Sensor
Autistic children sometimes have trouble vocalizing when they’re stressed. For this reason, teachers and parents don’t take steps to prevent a potential meltdown. Studies have also shown that about half of autistic children will wander away from home or school at some point. This is partly due to stress and also because they have a trickier time perceiving danger.
Two gadgets, Neumitra and Affectiva, are designed to measure physiological responses. These devices can be used for a variety of medical purposes, such as tracking patients with post-traumatic stress and anxiety disorders. These bands may also work for thousands of people with autism, making it easier for their caregivers and loved ones to track their stress levels.
Already, the Giant Steps School, an institute in Fairfield, Conn., for children with autism is testing the Affectiva band, known as the Q Sensor. According to the Autism Society of Ohio. Teachers at the school hand out the bands in class, which they use to discern exercises and activities that are most relaxing for the children.
Smart specs to help the blind read
Liat Negrin has had trouble with her vision since childhood. But on a recent day, a film crew recorded the Israeli walking into a grocery store and doing something that’s always been difficult for her — reading the ingredients on a cereal box.
Thanks to a very special pair of glasses.
Above: Liat Negrin can read this box thanks to the OrCam glasses.
Negrin is one of the first people to test a new computer-assisted vision device from Israeli startup OrCam Technologies. The glasses interpret nearby visual inputs, including letters, faces, objects, products, places, bus numbers, and traffic lights. A wearer simply points to an object in front of them, like a container of soy milk in the fridge or an approaching bus, and the device describes what it sees out loud.
At $2,500, the device is expensive, but the company is working with insurance providers on reimbursement options.
OrCam’s glasses aren’t the only smart specs in the works for the blind. A team at the University of Oxford is devising a pair, according to the New Scientist. These glasses translate visual information into images that blind people can see.
Addressing color blindness
A group of Berkeley, Calif.-based engineers is developing smart sunglasses that help color-blind people identify and better discriminate between colors. The startup EnChroma initially received funding for its research from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Above: EnChroma’s smart specs
EnChroma is selling its device to a huge potential market. The website We Are Colorblind claims that around 8 percent of the male population of the planet is color blind. Very few women are color-blind.
I spoke with a company spokesperson for a recent story, who said that color-blind wearers of Enchroma’s smart “Cx Explorer” glasses experience up to a 30 percent improvement in their ability to identify colors and a 70 percent improvement in color discrimination.
EnChroma faces competition from 2AI Labs in Boise, Id., which developed a pair of glasses that doctors use to better spot veins under the skin. These glasses, the New Scientist reports, can help color blind people by enhancing their ability to see reds and greens.
Got ideas for a follow-up post? Please let us know in the comments section below if you’ve spotted other “wearables for good.”
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VentureBeat and marketing technology analyst David Raab are working on a new Marketing Automation usage and ROI study. If you currently use a marketing automation system, help us out by answering the survey.
If you do, we’ll share the resulting data with you.
5 wearables that could transform our lives
How to Design a Simple Sales Funnel to Improve Web Conversion
I just completed a website assessment for a prospect who was sure he had a conversion rate issue. He wanted to jump his current conversion rate of 1.3% to 2%, a lofty goal by all accounts, but obtainable.
It seems obvious, right? If you have lower conversions than you want, you should go for a redesign… or begin conversion testing.
Maybe. But maybe not.
Before you rush to figure out how much to spend on a new website design, it’s important to ask this question:
Do you really have a conversion problem or is it something else?
The truth is, your website might not be the problem at all. In many cases, a website has a lower conversion rate because parts of the sales funnel are missing.
In this article, you’ll learn the three stages of an online sales funnel, and hopefully determine if your funnel is incomplete and how you can improve it.
The top of the funnel
The top of the funnel focuses on increasing overall awareness of your organization.
Essentially, something happens that triggers brand awareness in a new prospect.
It may be a tweet or Facebook post or even a blog post. But the best way to build awareness of your company is through search engine referrals since most users start at a search engine when looking for your product or service.
That’s why you need to spend time making sure your website and content are optimized using the most current best practices.
To easily identify if the top of your sales funnel is weak, use traffic metrics. If you’re getting less than 1,000 visitors a month or this number isn’t growing over a period of time; you’re doing a poor job of building awareness.
An example: Here’s something from the top of my own sales funnel.
Guest blogging is great opportunity to build awareness at the top of the funnel. My guest post on The Daily Egg, 7 Bad Reasons to Re-Design Your Website, resulted in a lead for my business.
The middle of the funnel
Here, prospects are aware we exist but unaware that we can help them.
The middle funnel is about helping prospects understand that you have the answer to their problem. Specific website pages do this. Your About Us and Services pages can educate prospects about your services. Useful, authoritative blog posts get them engaged with your brand.
The type of content you want to create will educate the prospect about their problem and possible solutions that your organization offers. Here is some content that performs really well:
- How-tos
- Posts that challenge popular belief
- Secrets
- Lists
- Guides
If you find that your website has a high bounce rate (above 50%), you might be dealing with a problem at the middle of the sales funnel.
An example:
This recent post by CrazyEgg is a great example of middle-of-the-funnel content. It showcases expertise and gives the prospect the opportunity to identify their problem.
The bottom of the funnel
The bottom of the funnel is all about building trust.
If the prospect knows we exist, has identified their problem and our solution but still hasn’t converted, it’s because we haven’t earned their trust yet.
Spend the time to create pages that build trust: Testimonials, case studies, emotionally driven story pages, and great website design all build trust with a prospect and help them convert into a lead or sale.
If you find your conversion rate is below 1%, the bottom of your funnel is weak.
An example:
Content that shows case studies and success stories are a great way to build trust with the prospect and get them to take action.
Mapping out your funnel
Now that you understand your funnel, it’s time to map your content. Start by answering the following questions:
- What are the prospects’ questions at each stage of the funnel?
- Who is looking at this content?
- What do prospects hope to take away?
- What kind of content should I be leading them to next?
Once you understand the buyers intent, you can interlink relevent content and use appropriate calls to action that will lead them further down the sales funnel. Content at the top of the funnel should be inter-linked with content at the middle, and content in the middle should be inter-linked with the content at the bottom of the sales funnel.
When a visitor follows your sales funnel, it will look something like this:
Visits company blog > Reads a generic blog post about your expertise > Downloads an ebook > Navigates About Us and Services page > Reads blog posts around his problem > Finds case study with a similar client > Fills out request for more information > Becomes a lead.
Using Google Analytics you should be able to determine which path your prospects are following and where they are getting hung up.
If you find that prospects are not completing the funnel, that’s OK. Answer the questions above again. Chances are, you’re leading them to the wrong type of content too quickly or, worse, you have them in the wrong funnel altogether.
In conclusion
If you review your online sales funnel, you’ll find that content is at the heart of each area. Don’t try to skip ahead and work on the bottom of the funnel if the top is still incomplete.
Create content for the top, middle, and finally the bottom of the funnel. Use tools like CrazyEgg to determine where people are getting hung up. If you’re still having trouble converting users, it might be time to consider re-designing your website.
What do you think, are there areas of the sales funnel I missed? Leave me a comment below and let me know.
Read other Crazy Egg articles by Jay Baron.
The post How to Design a Simple Sales Funnel to Improve Web Conversion appeared first on The Daily Egg.
How to Design a Simple Sales Funnel to Improve Web Conversion
20 More Reasons Your LinkedIn Headshot May Be an Epic Fail
I practically live on LinkedIn, so I regularly see examples of profile photos that make me cringe. Here are 20 of the most recent examples of what not to use as your LinkedIn photo. Read the full article at MarketingProfs
20 More Reasons Your LinkedIn Headshot May Be an Epic Fail
Twitch Beats Pokémon!
After 16 days, seven hours, 50 minutes and 19 seconds, the combined strength of hundreds of thousands of Twitch viewers defeated Pokémon Red. For more on the bizzarre subculture is spawned, read our coverage here.
Twitch Beats Pokémon!
Don’t Waste Your Time with Native Advertising
It’s a brilliant piece of native advertising.
Visually appealing and information rich, this sponsored content walks you through numerous variations of oysters, where they hail from, and interesting facts about each.
The New Orleans, we learn, was the preferred oyster of Jean Lafitte, and is the key to Oysters Rockefeller. The sweet and succulent Tangier oyster captivated Captain John Smith when introduced by Pocahontas, and the rest is history.
Next, you’re hit with the ultimate pairing sensation, as you imagine washing down these delicacies with a cold beer. Not just any beer, of course — a Guinness Extra Stout.
I don’t even like oysters, and this sounds amazing right now.
Where can you find out more about this native advertisement done right? You’ll have to read my latest column over at Say Daily:
Don’t Waste Your Time with Native Advertising (Do This Instead)
We’ll be talking about advertising strategies a lot this year here at Copyblogger and at New Rainmaker. There are tons of smart opportunities for writers, consultants and business owners — as long as you’re making smart choices with your investments of time and money. Stay tuned …
About the authorBrian Clark
Brian Clark is founder of Copyblogger and host of New Rainmaker. Get more from Brian on Google+.
The post Don’t Waste Your Time with Native Advertising appeared first on Copyblogger.
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Don’t Waste Your Time with Native Advertising
The 'Internet Of Things' Can Be Built, But Who Really Wants It?
The infrastructure needed to create the IoT is vast, confusing and ultimately might not be what consumers want.
The 'Internet Of Things' Can Be Built, But Who Really Wants It?
Why Trust Is Worth It
As usual, Ze Frank nails it: trust is the luxury of letting go.
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Guess Which Company Everyone Really Hates
If your Wifi unexpectedly died and no one's coming to fix it, you already know the answer.
Guess Which Company Everyone Really Hates
Tensions Escalate as Putin Requests Permission to Use Military In Ukraine
Tensions escalated in Crimea on Saturday as Russian President Vladimir Putin asked his upper house of parliament to approve the use of armed forces in the autonomous republic, heeding the call by its newly appointed prime minister for him to intervene and stoking fears of an Abkhazia scenario, in which Moscow would invade the territory with its troops as it did previously in Georgia.
Putin said the move is needed to protect ethnic Russians and the personnel of a Russian military base in Ukraine's strategic region of Crimea, the Associated Press reported.
Earlier, Ukraine’s defense minister said Russia had already deployed some 6,000 troops to Crimea, on top of the 15,000 permanently stationed at its Black Sea Fleet base in the port city of Sevastopol. Read more...
More about Russia, Vladimir Putin, Us World, Us, and WorldTensions Escalate as Putin Requests Permission to Use Military In Ukraine
Weekend Favs March One
Weekend Favs March One written by John Jantsch read more at Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing
My weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week.
I don’t go into depth about the finds, but encourage you check them out if they sound interesting. The photo in the post is a favorite for the week from Flickr or one that I took out there on the road.
My friend and fellow author David Meerman Scott was in Kansas City and held up a galley copy of my next book due out in May!
Good stuff I found this week:
Crowdmics – unique app that turns mobile devices into microphones for Q and A at conferences.
tchat.io – very responsive real-time chat tool for Twitter – my friend Mike Stelzner told me about this one.
Canva – online graphic design tool for simple but powerful Facebook covers, presentations and social media images
Weekend Favs March One
6 Common Formatting Issues on Your Blog
Are You Making Any of These Simple Mistakes?
Many first time bloggers are so overwhelmed with the idea of producing content on a regular basis that they forget to fine tune what they produce. It’s easy to see why, from the research that goes into finding a topic and formulating a catchy headline to figuring out a way to tie the whole thing together into an actual, readable (and hopefully interesting) blog. Some of the more technical aspects of writing, especially when your writing must be correctly formatted in a word document, simply go by the wayside.
You don’t have to stay in the habit of making these formatting issues, however; becoming familiar with the issue is the first step to correcting it. Here are a few of the more common blog formatting issues and how you can fix them.
Forgetting CTAs
The Call-to-Action is among the most important ways you make a direct connection with your audience via your blog. It gives them an opportunity to take their interaction to the next level. Unfortunately, because CTAs are often the final step in the formatting and uploading process, we often forget them. Make sure that you do a quick visual sweep of your formatted blog before uploading; this will aid you in catching the absence of that vital CTA.
Dead Links
When you’re writing a blog, it always helps to link to relevant and reputable websites and articles, and doing so in your word processing program is generally pretty easy. Unfortunately, copying and pasting links correctly, especially when you’re in a hurry, can be a challenge for even the most systematic among us.
The easiest way to ensure that the links you’ve inserted in your blog do, in fact, take your readers to the correct destination, take the time to click on the link before publishing the blog. This will help ensure that you never publish a blog with dead links in it.
Forgetting Images
Many people don’t realize how important the use of an image is in their blog; firstly, it attracts readers’ attention. Secondly, using images is especially important in the modern age, when social media platforms like Instagram create a visually-centered experience for web users. Consider your own internet experience; don’t pictures make blogs a more complete experience and entice you to stay on the page? Putting images in your blog will do the same for your potential audience.
To help yourself remember to add the image, do a careful visual run-through before you publish. If you remember that pictures are important, you’ll spot the mistake right away.
Too Much Block Text
Another formatting mistake that many new bloggers make is forgetting to break up their paragraphs and provide more digestible chunks of text for their readers. The act of reading an online blog is generally something that readers don’t want to spend a huge amount of their time on; when they see a mile of block text with no spaces for relief, they aren’t likely to keep reading. Provide strategic breaks for your readers within your blog so they can absorb your points more easily.
Not Dividing Your Paragraphs Well
It isn’t enough to simply break up your paragraphs; there should be a strategy behind how you decide which topics get their own paragraph and the transitions you use to introduce or conclude paragraphs.
When you think about the reading experience of your audience, it’s much easier for them to successfully grasp your message if you provide them with a sort of loose scaffolding in your formatting. The reading experience will be easier, and your writing will appear easier to comprehend.
Not Using Headlines, Bolds or Italics
You shouldn’t, by any means, overuse the formatting tricks, but not using them at all can create a cumbersome experience for your blog users. Headlines help outline big topics quickly and easily, bolding is invaluable in emphasizing certain points; the same goes for italics, which helps especially emphasize dialogue.
You don’t want your blog to read like a flat and mechanical production; provide them with a structured, eye-catching, and engaging format so the journey towards understanding what you’re trying to say is as straight-forward and enjoyable as possible.
hoto credit: HaoJan via photopin cc
6 Common Formatting Issues on Your Blog
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