nc FESTIVAL: CGI Rochester International Jazz Festival Canceled For June 19-27. Producers Working To Reschedule Festival To Fall 2020 By news.allaboutjazz.com Published On :: 2020-04-06T15:11:47+00:00 CGI Rochester International Jazz Festival Producers Marc Iacona and John Nugent announced today that the festival's 19th edition, originally scheduled for June 19-27, will be canceled on those dates due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, but that they are working hard to reschedule the festival to fall of 2020.... Full Article
nc FESTIVAL: L’Équipe Spectra cancels the 2020 International de Jazz de Montréal By news.allaboutjazz.com Published On :: 2020-04-14T17:51:44+00:00 Due to the coronavirus pandemic and following the measures imposed by government authorities, which include cancelling non-essential activities and restricting entry of non-residents to the territory, L'Équipe Spectra announces that the 2020 editions of Les Francos de Montréal (scheduled for June 12) and the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal (scheduled for June 25) will not be presented this summer.... Full Article
nc FESTIVAL: Montreux Jazz Festival 2020 Cancelled By news.allaboutjazz.com Published On :: 2020-04-18T11:44:45+00:00 "This year's Montreux Jazz Festival, which was set to take place from July 3 to 18, has been cancelled" announced Press Officer Marc Zendrini. Montreux Jazz Festival has regretfully announced that this year's event, which was due to be held between July 3—18th 2020, will not take place... Full Article
nc FESTIVAL: The Bebop Channel Issues Stock Grants To Official Selections Amid Worldwide Festival Cancellations By news.allaboutjazz.com Published On :: 2020-04-19T17:54:36+00:00 Many up-and-coming filmmakers' dreams for success have been crushed indefinitely due to the COVID- 19 pandemic. As pointed out in Shirley Li's piece in The Atlantic entitled The Pandemic Is Hitting One Part of Hollywood Especially Hard, film festivals around the world—arguably the most important life-line for new filmmakers—have been cancelled.... Full Article
nc RADIO: Radio host and All About Jazz Contributor Ed Blanco celebrates 13 years of Jazz Café on WDNA 88.9FM By news.allaboutjazz.com Published On :: 2020-04-30T16:45:38+00:00 Jazz radio host and All About Jazz contributor Ed Blanco, in May 2020 celebrates 13 years as producer and host of Jazz Café, an early Sunday morning jazz show on WDNA, 88.9FM in Miami, Florida... Full Article
nc The difference between Mailchimp fields, tags and segments By organicweb.com.au Published On :: Fri, 24 Apr 2020 01:53:54 +0000 I often get asked in my Mailchimp classes to explain the difference between fields, tags and segments. There is alot of confusion surrounding these three audience elements and in this video I explain the difference. In summary: Fields hold data that you add. A tag is a label that you assign to one or more […] This article appeared first at ❤ OrganicWeb - Mailchimp training, consulting & integration experts. Full Article Marketing mailchimp video
nc Watch the Mailchimp meetup & learn audiences By organicweb.com.au Published On :: Wed, 29 Apr 2020 02:43:00 +0000 The video below is from one of the four Mailchimp meetups that I hosted in April 2020. In this webinar I covered Mailchimp settings and audiences including tags, segments, importing contacts and much more. There are plenty of questions asked by participants as the meeting progresses. The meetups were attended by Mailchimp beginners as well […] This article appeared first at ❤ OrganicWeb - Mailchimp training, consulting & integration experts. Full Article Marketing mailchimp marketing video
nc how to explain a long-distance social distancing "bubble" By ask.metafilter.com Published On :: Fri, 08 May 2020 22:52:20 GMT Me and my partner have decided to form a shared social distancing "bubble" with another of our couple friends. I believe we are following safe protocols for this but wanted to get an honest outside opinion as to whether we could be managing this better/safer/etc.Here is the situation: I am a musician, and my main music collaborator used to live about a half hour from me. Back in January, he and his girlfriend relocated about 90 minutes away, in a major city that has had a large amount of COVID-19 cases. Where I live hasn't been as bad, but we are all still being cautious. Musician friend and I are collaborating on a music recording project to combat boredom because we are both unemployed and obviously live gigs are right out. We have been doing most of our planning remotely, via Zoom and phone calls, but every now and again we do have to meet in person as his recording studio is in his apartment and sometimes he and the girlfriend come up here to ease the stir-craziness. We believe we are being safe in our methodology but wanted to confirm. When we embarked upon this project, we made a pact with each other and our partners that the only people we would allow into our homes is each other. The way this works is, when I have to drive to his place to record, I wash my hands, mask up, and drive down to see him. He lives in a neighborhood with ample street parking near his building. When I arrive, I mask up again, buzz into his apartment, take off my outerwear and shoes immediately and keep it on a hook outside their front door, take mask off and put in my purse leave purse in one spot on a table, hand wash and hand sanitize. He and girlfriend also hand wash and hand sanitize, and have been cleaning all doorknobs and buzzer buttons and handrails of the stairs with disinfectant wipes before I arrive. When we record, we disinfect all microphones, headphones, gear we touch including instruments with wipes before and after use. When I leave, I wipe down the table where my purse was, wash hands again, mask up, drive home. All clothing I wear is promptly laundered. When he comes up to work with me his protocol is similar: wash hands, mask up, drive to my house, where I have been disinfecting doorknobs and other surfaces. When he arrives, he parks in our drive, his outerwear and shoes stays out on our patio, he washes hands again and hand sanitizes, we rehearse for a couple hours, then he washes hands again, masks up, drives home, masks up, goes into building, washes hands. All clothes he wore go immediately into the laundry. Any surface he touches in my house gets pre-and-post wiped down with disinfecting wipes. We don't record in my home there is no gear to disinfect other than his guitar. His girlfriend works from home and keeps herself separate from us when we record in their home. My boyfriend lost his job due to COVID but busies himself with projects in his home office while we rehearse in our home. The four of us have mutually agreed that we are the only other folks we will allow in our homes and we follow this safety protocol to the T every time we travel to see each other. So, question 1) are we being safe enough, or are we being dumb? None of us so far has gotten sick and we are comfortable with our routine. How could we improve our safety protocol? Neither of us stop at gas stations to and from each other; we gas up on our own time and hand sanitize after doing so. Question 2) Musician friend and I are getting ready to record a video of us performing a duet in his apartment. Our mutual friends know we no longer live near each other, and my fear is that when they see evidence that we haven't been keeping six feet apart at all times in his apartment we will get scorned by our colleagues, or near the brunt of actual anger because they are not aware of our safety routine. How can we explain that we have been talking proactive steps to keep ourselves safe and have chosen to be a somewhat long distance social isolation bubble with each other when we release this video to avoid angry responses? Is it necessary? Musician buddy is ambivalent, but I am a worrier and don't want to inadvertently bring us bad publicity. Please be gentle with me. We are doing our best and we so far have not gotten sick with this protocol. Our partners are also proactive in hand sanitizing and/or hand washing once one of us leaves the other place. Are we being stupid? Is there a way to explain this succinctly when we release our video to pre-empt any judgement? Seriously please be gentle. My anxiety is on high alert just from reading the news each day and I really hope this community will refrain from a pile on because we are doing everything we can to keep ourselves and our partners safe. Any advice would be much appreciated. Thank you. Full Article avoidingbadPR beingsafe COVID-19 socialdiatancing socialdiatancingmutualbubble socialdistancingpact stayinghealthy
nc How do I add a criteria to the aggregate function in this excel formula? By ask.metafilter.com Published On :: Sat, 09 May 2020 14:45:43 GMT I've been working with this Excel formula for a month or so. It comes from Leila Gharani's Youtube tutorial.=IF(ROWS($A$1000:$A1000)<$J$291,INDEX($B$2:$B$300,AGGREGATE(15,3,($N$2:$N$300="Japanese")/($N$2:$N$300="Japanese")*ROW($N$2:$N$300)-ROW($N$1),ROWS($A$1000:$A1000)))," ") In this iteration, it's indexing column B, which is a list of movie names, and returning a list of every Japanese language film. Film languages are listed in column N. The formula takes advantage of Aggregate's "Ignore error" option; since Excel treats yeses as 1's and nos as 0's, dividing the aggregate results by itself returns an error for all the nos, since you can't divide by zero. Pretty clever. Then the formula multiplies the 1 by the row where it's located, and finally returns the smallest number in the list to the index function (then the second smallest, then third smallest as you drag down the formula). My question is, how do I add criteria so the film not only has to be in Japanese, but also has to have a RottenTomatoes score of >75%, if Column T is RottenTomatoes scores? I'm feel I should just multiply the Japanese criteria by the RT criteria in brackets and then divide that product by itself, but I keep getting errors when I try this. Maybe my syntax is screwy? And yes, I know it would be a lot easier to do this using VBA, but I'm running the workbook on Sharepoint, which doesn't support VBA. Thanks! Full Article Excel excelFormulas excelFunctions
nc How can I get the functionality of Twitter's Legacy Version? By ask.metafilter.com Published On :: Sat, 09 May 2020 15:40:03 GMT Twitter has announced it is shutting down its "Legacy Version" on June 1, 2020. I use the legacy version to get the functionality of Legacy Twitter that allows you to have a window open with a Twitter page up, and when a new Tweet happens, a "(1)" shows in the browser tab. How can I get that functionality? The solution needs to work in Chrome & Firefox, and whether I have a twitter account or not. I want to be able to open 3 or 4 or however many tabs with twitter accounts I'm waiting for an update from, and see a notification in the tab header that there's a new tweet. Full Article Browser Chrome Firefox LegacyVersion Twitter
nc Wheat Ridge City Council Study Session 5-4-20 By archive.org Published On :: Sat, 09 May 2020 18:29:34 GMT No description available.This item belongs to: movies/cowrco.This item has files of the following types: Archive BitTorrent, MPEG4, Metadata Full Article movies/cowrco
nc City Council Meeting - May 7, 2020 By archive.org Published On :: Sat, 09 May 2020 18:29:35 GMT No description available.This item belongs to: movies/copsca.This item has files of the following types: Metadata Full Article movies/copsca
nc How to Be a Friend: An Ancient Guide to True Friendship [Download] By archive.org Published On :: Sat, 09 May 2020 18:29:45 GMT How to Be a Friend: An Ancient Guide to True Friendship by MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO [Download Audiobook] ⬇️ ⬇️ ⬇️.This item belongs to: image/opensource_image.This item has files of the following types: Metadata Full Article image/opensource_image
nc ISSTA 2019 Presentation and Performance By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Thu, 31 Oct 2019 01:36:29 +0000 Currently I’m in Cork, Ireland to present and perform at the International Sound in Science Technology and the Arts (ISSTA 2019) conference. This year on Thursday, October 31st I am scheduled to give a paper about a project I have … Continue reading → Full Article Audio News Performance Writing Bass Station II ISSTA Korg nanoKONTROL Organelle Robert Henke
nc Social Distance II with Corrector Records Live Stream By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Sun, 29 Mar 2020 20:49:56 +0000 Saturday, March 28, 2020 I had the privilege of performing a solo, electronic, live-streaming set for Social Distance II with Corrector Records. I played first followed by live coder Mike Hodnick AKA Kindohm, and Carl Fisk AKA Mount Curve. The … Continue reading → Full Article Audio News Performance Korg KP3+ Minifooger Delay Prophet Rev2 REV2 Degrader Rhodes Video
nc SampleScience Releases FREE Toy Keyboard 2 VST/AU Plugin By bedroomproducersblog.com Published On :: Fri, 08 May 2020 08:40:30 +0000 SampleScience has released Toy Keyboard 2, a freeware sample-based instrument featuring the sounds of the Yamaha PSR-78 home keyboard. Toy Keyboard 2 is a free virtual instrument in VST, VST3, and AU plugin formats for compatible digital audio workstation software on PC and Mac. It features 73 individual presets, including one drum kit. The presets [...] View post: SampleScience Releases FREE Toy Keyboard 2 VST/AU Plugin Full Article News 32-bit 64-bit Free Software Mac Windows
nc Alcaldía de Villavicencio pide implementar centro médico en la cárcel By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Mon, 04 May 2020 18:07:53 +0200 El mandatario aseguró que lo más posible es que, la cantidad de contagios sigan aumentando. Full Article
nc Conozca el banco de voces de Los Simpson y otros personajes animados By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Tue, 05 May 2020 18:46:12 +0200 Full Article
nc Nuevos detalles del contrato entregado por presidencia a Du Brands By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Wed, 06 May 2020 18:32:40 +0200 Full Article
nc La nueva emergencia económica y sanitaria sería inconstitucional By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Thu, 07 May 2020 14:50:44 +0200 Full Article
nc “El coronavirus cambió todos los conceptos de vida”: Alcalde Medellín By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Fri, 08 May 2020 18:27:11 +0200 Full Article
nc Gobierno debe dar señales a los bancos para dar créditos a largo plazo By feedproxy.google.com Published On :: Fri, 08 May 2020 20:24:02 +0200 Full Article
nc DNC to Investigate Ohio Voting Irregularities By www.washingtonpost.com Published On :: Sat, 23 Apr 2005 12:21:57 GMT The leader of the Democratic National Committee announced Monday that he will launch an investigation into voting irregularities in Ohio, where lines snaked outside some inner-city polling places on Election Day and provisional ballots were sometimes in short supply. Full Article
nc DNC Is Told Where to Move Into Bush Bloc By www.washingtonpost.com Published On :: Sun, 24 Apr 2005 12:24:27 GMT Howard Dean's Democratic National Committee has been studying the electorate, and the party's problem with voters of faith is both worse and better than he feared. Full Article
nc Remainder of Pac-12 tournament canceled due to coronavirus concerns By www.seattletimes.com Published On :: Thu, 12 Mar 2020 09:36:28 -0700 Washington State's win was the final game of the Pac-12 Men’s Basketball Tournament, after the conference decided to cancel the remainder of the 2020 event due to concerns about the coronavirus illness. Full Article College Basketball Cougar Basketball Cougars Huskies Husky Basketball NCAA Tournament Pac-12 Sports
nc Washington Huskies cancel all sports competitions through March 29 amid coronavirus concerns By www.seattletimes.com Published On :: Thu, 12 Mar 2020 13:56:25 -0700 The University of Washington will suspend athletic-related activities and events through March 29 due to concerns regarding the novel coronavirus. “The University of Washington athletic department has announced it will suspend all athletic-related activities and events, including workouts, training and practices, through the end of the winter quarter and spring break (March 29) for all […] Full Article College Sports Cougar Basketball Cougar Football Cougars Huskies Husky Basketball Husky Football Pac-12 Sports
nc In roughly 24 hours coronavirus makes sports, a longtime sanctuary in times of crisis, disappear By www.seattletimes.com Published On :: Thu, 12 Mar 2020 16:15:04 -0700 Sports has always been the escape during times of crisis and collective stress. But now the very act of conducting sports threatens to add exponentially to perpetuating the coronavirus pandemic and growing the stress. Full Article College Basketball College Sports Cougar Basketball Cougars Gonzaga Huskies Husky Basketball Mariners MLB NBA NCAA Tournament Pac-12 Seahawks Seattle University Soccer Sounders Sports XFL Dragons
nc Estimating the financial impact canceling March Madness will have on Pac-12 and NCAA By www.seattletimes.com Published On :: Fri, 13 Mar 2020 12:08:54 -0700 How will the shuttering of the NCAA Tournament impact the multi-million payouts to the schools and conferences? We don’t have a clear answer yet. Full Article College Basketball College Sports Cougar Basketball Husky Basketball NCAA Tournament Pac-12 Sports
nc Due to coronavirus, NCAA grants extra year of eligibility to spring athletes, considers same for winter athletes By www.seattletimes.com Published On :: Fri, 13 Mar 2020 13:06:55 -0700 After the cancellation of the spring and winter championships tournaments stemming from concerns over the novel coronavirus pandemic, the NCAA will grant an extra year of eligibility to athletes who participate in spring sports, the organization announced Friday. Full Article College Sports Cougar Basketball Cougars Gonzaga Huskies Husky Basketball NCAA Tournament Other Sports Pac-12 Sports
nc Poll: How long before you start attending live sporting events once the games resume? By www.seattletimes.com Published On :: Sat, 14 Mar 2020 16:46:51 -0700 Full Article College Basketball College Football College Sports Cougar Basketball Cougar Football Cougars Gonzaga Hockey Huskies Husky Basketball Husky Football Mariners MLB NBA NCAA Tournament NFL Reign Seahawks Seattle University Soccer Sounders Sports Storm WNBA XFL Dragons
nc Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott discusses conference’s financial hit and ‘concern and anxiety’ over athletes because of coronavirus By www.seattletimes.com Published On :: Tue, 31 Mar 2020 09:58:14 -0700 The Pac-12 is facing a revenue hit of at least $1 million per school from the cancellation of its men’s basketball tournament and March Madness, although the full extent of the damage won’t be known for weeks. Full Article Cougar Basketball Cougars Huskies Husky Basketball Husky Football NCAA Tournament Pac-12 Sports
nc Isaiah Stewart announces he’s leaving Washington Huskies to enter NBA draft By www.seattletimes.com Published On :: Wed, 01 Apr 2020 10:20:24 -0700 On Wednesday, Stewart announced he's leaving Washington and entering the NBA draft where he's expected to be selected in the first round. Full Article Cougar Basketball Huskies Husky Basketball NBA Sports
nc WSU’s DJ Rodman talks about watching ‘Last Dance’ show spotlighting his dad Dennis Rodman By www.seattletimes.com Published On :: Wed, 29 Apr 2020 13:42:32 -0700 With the third episode of "The Last Dance" largely centered on his father, DJ Rodman made sure his schedule was clear so he could watch unbothered and uninterrupted. What he saw even surprised him. Full Article Cougar Basketball Cougars Sports
nc Canadian provinces allow locked-down households to pair up — threatening hurt feelings all around By www.seattletimes.com Published On :: Fri, 08 May 2020 07:08:16 -0700 While jurisdictions around the world begin to relax coronavirus restrictions, a handful are pioneering a novel — and potentially fraught — approach: The double bubble. In Canada they're doing it in Newfoundland, Labrador and New Brunswick. Full Article Health Nation & World World
nc A top aide to Vice President Pence tests positive for coronavirus By www.seattletimes.com Published On :: Fri, 08 May 2020 13:30:30 -0700 WASHINGTON — A top aide to Vice President Mike Pence tested positive for coronavirus on Friday, making her the second known person working at the White House to contract the illness in the past two days, according to several sources familiar with the situation. Katie Miller, the vice president’s press secretary, was notified Friday about […] Full Article Health Nation Nation & World Nation & World Politics World
nc Militants increasing attacks on Burkina Faso mines By www.seattletimes.com Published On :: Sat, 09 May 2020 02:04:23 -0700 BOUDA, Burkina Faso (AP) — Jihadists burst into the gold mine where Moussa Tambura worked in Burkina Faso, forbidding everyone from smoking and drinking. It wasn’t long before the men returned and leveled the place to the ground. “They attacked the site, killed people and burned houses,” said Tambura, 29, clenching his fists. He was […] Full Article World
nc French Resistance hero Cecile Rol-Tanguy dies at 101 By www.seattletimes.com Published On :: Sat, 09 May 2020 05:59:51 -0700 PARIS (AP) — French Resistance member Cecile Rol-Tanguy, who risked her life during World War II by working to liberate Paris from Nazi occupation, has died. She was 101. Rol-Tanguy died on Friday at her home in Monteaux, in central France, as Europe commemorated the 75th anniversary of the surrender of Nazi Germany to Allied […] Full Article World
nc Increasing Time on Site By www.seobook.com Published On :: 2020-04-24T14:03:26+00:00 Changing User Intents Google's search quality rater document highlights how the intent of searches can change over time for a specific keyword. A generic search for [iPhone] is likely to be related to the most recent model. A search for [President Bush] likely was related to the 41st president until his son was elected & then it was most likely to be related to 43. Faster Ranking Shifts About 17 years ago when Google was young they did monthly updates where most of any ranking signal shift that would happen would get folded into the rankings. The web today is much faster in terms of the rate of change, amount of news consumption, increasing political polarization, social media channels that amplify outrage and how quickly any cultural snippet can be taken out of context. Yesterday President Trump had some interesting stuff to say about bleach. In spite of there being an anime series by the same name, news coverage of the presser has driven great interest in the topic. And that interest is already folded into the organic search results through Google News insertion, Twitter tweet insertion, and the query deserves freshness (QDF) algorithm driving insertion of news stories in other organic search ranking slots. If a lot of people are searching for something and many trusted news organizations are publishing information about a topic then there is little risk in folding fresh information into the result set. Temporary Versus Permanent Change When the intent of a keyword changes sometimes the change is transitory & sometimes it is not. One of the most common ad-driven business models online is to take something that was once paid, make it free, and then layer ads or some other premium features on top to monetize a different part of the value chain. TripAdvisor democratized hotel reviews. Zillow made foreclosure information easily accessible for free, etc. The success of remote working & communication services like Skype, Zoom, Basecamp, Slack, Trello, and the ongoing remote work experiment the world is going through will permanently change some consumer behaviors & how businesses operate. A Pew survey mentioned 43% of Americans stated someone in their house recently lost their job, had their hours reduced, and/or took pay cuts. Hundreds of thousands of people are applying to work in Amazon's grueling fulfillment centers. To many of these people a lone wolf online job would be a dream come true. If you had a two hour daily commute and were just as efficient working at home most days would you be in a rush to head back to the office? How many former fulltime employees are going to become freelancers building their own small businesses they work on directly while augmenting it with platform work on other services like Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Upwork, Fiverr, 99 Designs, or even influencer platforms like Intellifluence? If big publishers are getting disintermediated by monopoly platforms & ad networks are offering crumbs of crumbs there's no harm in selling custom ads directly or having your early publishing efforts subsidized through custom side deals as you build market awareness and invest into building other products and services to sell. Wordpress keeps adding more features. Many technology services like Shopify, Stripe & Twilio are making most parts of the tech stack outside of marketing cheaper & easier to scale. Some universities are preparing for the fall semester being entirely online. As technology improves, we spend more time online, more activities happen online, and more work becomes remote. All this leads to the distinction between online and offline losing meaning other than perhaps in terms of cost structure & likelihood of bankruptcy. Before Panda / After Panda Before the Panda update each additional page which was created was another lotto ticket and a chance to win. If users had a crappy user experience on a page or site maybe you didn't make the sale, but if the goal of the page was to have the content so crappy that ads were more appealing that could lead to fantastic monetization while it lasted. That strategy worked well for eHow, fueling the pump-n-dump Demand Media IPO. Demand Media had to analyze eHow and pay to delete over a million articles which they deemed to have a negative economic value in the post-Panda world. After the Panda update having many thin pages laying around and creating more thin pages was layering risk on top of risk. It made sense to shift to a smaller, tighter, deeper & more differentiated publishing model. Entropy & Decay The web goes through a constant state of reinvention. Old YouTube Flash embeds break. HTTP content calls in sites that were upgraded to HTTPS break. Software which is not updated has security exploits. If you have a large website and do not regularly update where you are linking to your site is almost certainly linking to porn and malware sites somewhere. As users shifted to mobile websites that ignored mobile interfaces became relatively less appealing. Changing web browser behaviors can break website logins and how data is shared across websites dependent on third party services. Competition improves. Algorithms change. Ads eat a growing share of real estate on dominant platforms while organic reach slides. Everything on the web is constantly dying as competition improves, technology changes and language gets redefined. Staying Relevant Even if a change in user intent is transitory, in some cases it can make sense to re-work a page to address a sudden surge of interest to improve time on site, user engagement metrics & make the content on your page more citation-worthy. If news writers are still chasing a trend then having an in-depth background piece of content with more depth gives them something they may want to link at. Since the Covid-19 implosion of the global economy came into effect I've seen two different clients have a sort of sudden surge in traffic which would make little to no sense unless one considered currently spreading news stories. News coverage creates interest in topics, shapes perspectives of topics, and creates demand for solutions. If you read the right people on Twitter sometimes you can be days, weeks or even months ahead of the broader news narrative. Some people are great at spotting the second, third and fourth order effects of changes. You can spot stories bubbling up and participate in the trends. An Accelerating Rate of Change When the web was slower & easier you could find an affiliate niche and succeed in it sometimes for years before solid competition would arrive. One of the things I was most floored about this year from a marketing perspective was how quickly spammers ramped up a full court press amplifying the fear the news media was pitching. I think I get something like a hundred spam emails a day pitching facemasks and other COVID-19 solutions. I probably see 50+ other daily ads from services like Outbrain & similar. The web moves so much faster that the SEC is already taking COVID-19 related actions against dozens of companies. Google banned advertising protective masks and recently announced they are rolling out advertiser ID verification to increase transparency. If Google is looking at their advertisers with a greater degree of suspicion even into an economic downturn when Expedia is pulling $4 billion from their ad budget & Amazon is cutting back on their Google ad budget and Google decides to freeze hiring then it makes far more sense to keep reinvesting into improving any page which is getting a solid stream of organic search traffic. Company Town After Amazon cut their Google ad budget in March Google decided to expand Google Shopping to include free listings. When any of the platforms is losing badly they can afford to subsidize that area and operate it at a loss to try to gain marketshare while making the dominant player in that category look more extreme. When a player is dominant in a category they can squeeze down on partners. Amazon once again cut affiliate payouts and the Wall Street Journal published an article citing 20 current and former Amazon insiders who stated Amazon uses third party merchant sales data to determine which products to clone: Amazon employees accessed documents and data about a bestselling car-trunk organizer sold by a third-party vendor. The information included total sales, how much the vendor paid Amazon for marketing and shipping, and how much Amazon made on each sale. Amazon’s private-label arm later introduced its own car-trunk organizers. ... Amazon’s private-label business encompasses more than 45 brands with some 243,000 products, from AmazonBasics batteries to Stone & Beam furniture. Amazon says those brands account for 1% of its $158 billion in annual retail sales, not counting Amazon’s devices such as its Echo speakers, Kindle e-readers and Ring doorbell cameras. Amazon does not even need to sell their private label products to shift their economics. As Amazon clones products they force the branded ad buy for a company to show up for their own branded terms, taking another bite out of the partner: "Fortem spends as much as $60,000 a month on Amazon advertisements for its items to come up at the top of searches, said Mr. Maslakou." Amazon has grown so dominant they've not only cut their affiliate & search advertising while hiring hundreds of thousands of employees, but they've also dramatically slowed down shipping times while pulling back on their on-site people also purchase promotions to get users to order less. While they are growing stronger department stores and other legacy retailers are careening toward bankruptcy. Multiple Ways to Improve If you have a page which is ranking that gets a sudden spike in traffic it makes a lot of sense to consider current news & try to consider if the intent of the searcher has changed. If it has, address it as best you can in the most relevant way possible, even if the change is temporary, then consider switching back to the old version of the page or reorganizing your content if/when/as the trend has passed. One of the pages mentioned above was a pre-Panda "me too" type page which was suddenly flooded with thousands of user visitors. A quality inbound link can easily cost $100 to multiples of that. If a page is already getting thousands of visitors, why not invest a couple hundred dollars into dramatically improving it, knowing that some of those drive by users will likely eventually share it? Make the page an in-depth guide with great graphics and some of those 10,000's of visitors will eventually link to it, as they were already interested in the topic, the page already gets a great stream of traffic, and the content quality is solid. Last week a client had a big spike from a news topic that changed the intent of a keyword. Their time on site from those visitors was under a minute. After the page was re-created to reflect changing consumer intent their time on site jumped to over 3 minutes for users entering that page. Those users had a far lower bounce rate, a far better user experience, are going to be more likely to trust the site enough to seek it out again, and this sends a signal to Google that the site is still maintained & relevant to the modern search market. There are many ways to chase the traffic stream create new content on new pages gut the old page & publish entirely new content re-arrange the old page while publishing new relevant breaking news at the top In general I think the third option is often the best approach because you are aligning the page which already sees the traffic stream with the content they are looking for, while also ensuring any users from the prior intent can still access what they are looking for. If the trend is huge, or the change in intent is permanent then you could also move the old content to a legacy URL archived page while making the high-traffic page focus on the spiking news topic. The above advice applies to pages which rank for keywords that change in intent, but it can also apply to any web page which has a strong flow of user traffic. Keep improving the things people see most because improvements there have the biggest returns. How can you make a page deeper, better, more differentiated from the rest of the web? Does Usage Data Matter? Objectively, if people visit your website and do not find what they were looking for they are going to click the back button and be done with you. Outdated content that has become irrelevant due to changing user tastes is only marginally better than outright spam. While Google suggests they largely do not use bounce rate or user data in their rankings, they have also claimed end user data was the best way they could determine if the user was satisfied with a particular search result. Five years ago Bill Slawski wrote a blog post about long clicks which quoted Steven Levy's In The Plex book: "On the most basic level, Google could see how satisfied users were. To paraphrase Tolstoy, happy users were all the same. The best sign of their happiness was the "Long Click" — This occurred when someone went to a search result, ideally the top one, and did not return. That meant Google has successfully fulfilled the query." Think of how many people use the Chrome web browser or have Android tracking devices on them all hours of the day. There is no way Google would be able to track those billions of users every single day without finding a whole lot of signal in the noise. Full Article
nc Thursday was Seattle area’s warmest day since September, and the forecast looks mostly sunny. Remember these guidelines if you go outside. By www.seattletimes.com Published On :: Thu, 09 Apr 2020 11:37:14 -0700 The high hit 67 degrees at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport as of 4 p.m. Thursday, marking the warmest day since the area reached 69 degrees on Sept. 26, 2019. If you're tempted to go outside and enjoy the sunshine, remember to stay away from other people and wear the proper gear. Full Article Local News Outdoors Puget Sound Weather Wellness
nc Technology’s had us ‘social distancing’ for years. Can our digital ‘lifeline’ get us through the coronavirus pandemic? By www.seattletimes.com Published On :: Thu, 16 Apr 2020 06:00:30 -0700 In some ways, we’ve been social distancing for years as more aspects of our social lives go digital. So now, we may be uniquely equipped (if not conditioned) to adapt our lives to stay-at-home orders. Full Article Life Lifestyle Technology Wellness
nc Coronavirus pandemic triggers a wave of self-sufficiency around Seattle: Vegetable gardens, urban chickens are in-demand By www.seattletimes.com Published On :: Sat, 18 Apr 2020 06:00:51 -0700 Since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, many local plant nurseries say there’s been a run on seeds as people all over Seattle take to gardening to grow food and provide solace during an uncertain time. Full Article Garden Health Life Lifestyle Outdoors Wellness
nc It’s cloudy with a chance of iron rain at hot, faraway world By www.seattletimes.com Published On :: Wed, 11 Mar 2020 09:43:41 -0700 CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — At one hot, faraway world, it’s always cloudy with a chance of iron rain. That’s the otherworldly forecast from Swiss and other European astronomers who have detected clouds full of iron droplets at a hot Jupiterlike planet 390 light-years away. This mega planet is so hot on the sunny side […] Full Article Nation Nation & World Oddities Science Weather
nc Good day to stay home: Rain, gusty winds and a chance of lightning in the forecast By www.seattletimes.com Published On :: Mon, 30 Mar 2020 07:08:32 -0700 Nothing dramatic is coming -- just some aptly named "nuisance rain." Full Article Eastside Local News Puget Sound Weather
nc Thursday was Seattle area’s warmest day since September, and the forecast looks mostly sunny. Remember these guidelines if you go outside. By www.seattletimes.com Published On :: Thu, 09 Apr 2020 11:37:14 -0700 The high hit 67 degrees at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport as of 4 p.m. Thursday, marking the warmest day since the area reached 69 degrees on Sept. 26, 2019. If you're tempted to go outside and enjoy the sunshine, remember to stay away from other people and wear the proper gear. Full Article Local News Outdoors Puget Sound Weather Wellness
nc Microsoft lured Ninja to Mixer, but audience is barely growing By www.seattletimes.com Published On :: Wed, 12 Feb 2020 11:08:19 -0800 Despite enlisting stars such as Ninja, Shroud and KingGothalion over the past year, Microsoft’s Mixer video-game streaming service is having trouble increasing its audience. The number of hours watched — a key benchmark for streaming platforms — was up less than 2% in January from a year earlier, according to a report Wednesday from StreamElements […] Full Article Amazon Business Microsoft Video Games
nc Emerald City Comic Con to allow refunds for fans who decide not to go due to coronavirus concerns By www.seattletimes.com Published On :: Wed, 04 Mar 2020 12:44:00 -0800 Emerald City Comic Con organizers said Wednesday morning that they will change their policy and allow refunds to fans who choose not to attend this year because of coronavirus concerns. Full Article Books Comics Entertainment Events Movies Video Games
nc Emerald City Comic Con postponed due to coronavirus concerns By www.seattletimes.com Published On :: Fri, 06 Mar 2020 10:41:38 -0800 Organizers of Emerald City Comic Con said they're moving the event to this summer because of the coronavirus outbreak in Seattle. Full Article Entertainment Events Local News Movies TV/Streaming Video Games
nc World of Warcraft experienced a pandemic in 2005, which may help coronavirus researchers By www.seattletimes.com Published On :: Fri, 10 Apr 2020 01:01:28 -0700 A "virus" decimated in-game cities. Player behavior may prove instructive for researchers projecting the spread of covid-19. Full Article Business Technology Video Games
nc WSU’s DJ Rodman talks about watching ‘Last Dance’ show spotlighting his dad Dennis Rodman By www.seattletimes.com Published On :: Wed, 29 Apr 2020 13:42:32 -0700 With the third episode of "The Last Dance" largely centered on his father, DJ Rodman made sure his schedule was clear so he could watch unbothered and uninterrupted. What he saw even surprised him. Full Article Cougar Basketball Cougars Sports
nc Amid concern over coronavirus, Chicago State’s men’s basketball cancels game at Seattle University By www.seattletimes.com Published On :: Tue, 03 Mar 2020 22:24:42 -0800 The Chicago State University men's basketball team will not travel for two regularly scheduled games this week, including a trip to face Seattle University, citing the spread of the coronavirus. Full Article College Sports Local News NBA Seattle University Sports