#the functionality/purpose of it is fundamentally just not the same. i need a BLOGGING platform.

[camgoloud]

should i set up a pillowfort maybe. i'm looking at their demo mode mock display right now and it is for real just knockoff tumblr in appearance and functionality as far as i can tell. will anyone set one up with me so we can migrate over there should the worst actually occur here this time

[faint-kitten]

Okay since no one else would Care on any other discord or media platform I'm on. I'm just going to go off on Changes in Apex again on my own Blog.

I can't stop Respawn or the Apex fandom. But I'm going to weigh in on this bobz video here about a possible "Ash Reborn" TLDW: He suggests Ash's sword being incorporated into her ult as a Melee, and giving her a movement based tactacle. keep in mind, he's speculating and asking what we'd like to see, there is no confirmation of any of this. But it's been something on my mind since Rev happened: The idea they're just going to start completely re-working anyone the main meta players don't like. Until they just aren't themselves anymore, playwise. To that end: I'd honestly hate this?

I already hate what they're doing to the maps. Like I get it. They were tighter, faster matches in the Halloween event. But people forget there are NEW people trying apex for the FIRST time. My friends got into apex when the maps swapped over and not only did they miss out on really cool locations like Rampart's ship on World's Edge, which, is just a huge POI that eats up time and spreads people out, I get that. But some of the battles are just more boring on that map without all the extra fluff. It's like they shrank it, and flattened it and made it all one dimensional. And that's not only boring, but they found the smaller, harsher rings, and the smaller maps really hard to learn on because they were just constantly getting pushed into fights. They're still in that "Looting" and "staying alive" phase. They haven't even learned the confidence to push fights yet. For them "Top 5" is a perfectly acceptable win condition. There's a lot of changes that feel like they're being made to support the bulk of hardcore players without really, taking into account...like Respawn, these youtubers, these players (and I've argued with some people like them I get their POV and they won't be swayed on this but,) They've been in the Apex ecosystem too long. They're so used to it, and so good at it, they can't conceive of like what joe schmo player who doesn't get 2k every game and might only ever get 2-3 kills a match wants or enjoys. And that's just a hard thing about trying to appeal to everoyne. Speaking personally: i've played so much I think my current Level is assuming I'm ready for skilled lobbies I 100% am not yet. I had a solid week with bangalore where I was crushing it and all of the sudden I hit a new bracket level wise fuck it was like I was playing for the first time in pubs all over again. But getting back to Ash Reborn Like…we have characters who are instrumentally different for different purposes, for a reason. And I fear it's something that's getting lost as Apex continues to try to evolve and re-define itself. Things can't stay the same forever, I get that. You're paying people to make changes, people get bored and want changes, it's cheaper I guess to re-work an existing character than add new ones maybe?

For myself: I want to play different playstyles when I switch to another character. I want to play what that character has to offer. Because I get bored playing the same way. Like why have a bunch of characters if they're all going to fundamentally function similar? That's kinda my fear about this "reborn" path and "reborn" thinking and focus on pushing more battles. You're kind of taking away variety and options. Maybe some people WANT a tacticle that makes people sit still for a minute? I love damage tacaticals I love when Someone's running thinks they're getting away, and I snare them, and like it cracks their sheild, or downs them, because that was the LAST 20 damage they needed to go down. I like to pick characters to fill those different roles when I get bored. Like Sometimes I want to be Lifeline calling in packages and picking people up. ANd honestly the care package can be a little underwhelming so I won't be too sad if that Ult Changes (they are heavily implying Lifeline reborn WILL be a thing.) But she's kind of a beginer character, and like those are fucking important? Let noobs get people shields and backpacks. Let them feel like they're helping. To talk about the Homogonization feaer a bit. Lifeline, Mirage, and Newcastle all have different advantages to picking people up. Lifeline doesn't have to stay there, but she doens't have a sheild. Mirrage can turn invisible and turn you invisible and give you a second to escape, but he's not invulnerable when he does it. Newcastle has a shield and can pick you up while protecting you both. Like, to slap a shield on Lifeline's revive, (which it had at one point) would buff her. But also like...it takes away a bit of what makes playing Newcastle special? And means Lifeline looses that challenge of knowing WHEN to pick up your team. Because just picking them up whenever seriously can fuck them over because you're completely vulnerable and if you're in the open you're just a sitting target for someone to shoot to death. I target Lifeline Rez's more than downed people with their knockdown shields out. Something I could see them doing, is like, Ying from Paladins, or Mercy's Ult/the Medic's ult from Gears 5 where Lifeline reborn just pumps health into people, or maybe revives the whole team at once. That'd be kind of cool. I'm not opposed to changes. But I don't want characters to ALL have a movement ability. Or all have Ults that are used for Pushing, or making them OP one man armies. Fuse and Horizon have fundamentally different playstyles. I wouldn't want Horizon to get a damage tactical, or to turn Fuse into a faster more movement based character. Fuse mains like to hang back, lob grenades and snipe, like don't give him an Ult that just spams grenades and recharges his knuckle cluster as he gets downs. Like let characters have individual playstyles. Sometimes I want to be wraith putting out portals.

Sometimes I want to be Crypto and like scouting around and respawining team mates, or hovering my drone so I can see through walls a bit as I'm fighting. Giving Revenant his jump SUCKED to me, because it took away a key part of his kit (the silence) that made him different. It took away one of the things that made him feel different. The thing I wanted when I switched to him, because I was in the mood for it. Vantage, already has a Jump, when i wanted to do BS leap movement I played Vantage. When I wanted to "Shut em up real good" and crawl and climb high walls to sneak around: I played revenant. Now Rev's new kit is cool, his personality is fine, I've even come around on the design seeing it interact in the Killcode series, but his abilities are kind of generic. It feels like a watered down Ballistic. Like, I wouldn't want Ballistics' smart pistol to be replaced with a sidestep or a fucking teleport, right? Because like that's it's part of him? Like I want characters who can change up the fight or push people out of holes without having to just run up to the team. I like Maggie's drill because it keeps people from taking cover when I have them at range. I like Fuse's Cluster because it can hold a door while I revive someone or heal, or punishes "locked down" characters like Caustic. Jump towers replacing Valk's Ult. We've got two characters that jump AND we have Jump Pads for Octane. And we have Horizon's lift. Do we really need another "movement" Tactical? We have the Drill for Maggie. Like thats why they're assault classes? Their tacticals damage people. Sometimes you want a class like that. If you want to be movement based or evasive thats why we have the skirmisher. Like imagine taking away rampart's walls and replacing them with like a double jump.

Like, play your character because you like their kit. I get they want to refresh things and people say certain characters are boring but like: Don't change the kit so that everyone's the fucking same. Maggie's Big Ball is stupid, IT COULD DEFINITELY be re-worked into something else. But it has it's uses it could be re-vamped. But like I play maggie to run with shot guns and fire my drill. I play Mirage because it's like playing Konkuro from Naurto: I'm puppeting my clones to trick people. These characters have different personalities and playstyles and like. I fucking love Titanfall 2. I Love Ash. People hate on her heirloom but I want it. I love that character. I fucking love her snare, I love the fact she says some Lowkey BDSM stuff like "Time to bind you." I like her passive, no one else in the game has one like it. ANd if they fucking change it to another "see's enemies when hurt" or "moves faster when X." It's like... Stop. Fucking Stop. Just make a new character you asshats. And if you don't like that character don't pick them. I have different "guns" for each character, did you know that? Bangalore is an RE-45 and a Hemlock, every time. Crypto is the only one I use a Triple Take with. Lifeline I use a Mastiff with (Idk why but all my best lifeline games I had a mastiff.) Vantage is a Sentinal and an Alternator. I crave different playstyles when bored. And I really, really, really don't want to see the game just become Homogonous. I don't want to see Ash's arc snare replaced with some generic hop or something. Like her ult is one of TWO that teleports people and it ties back to her fucking Phase Dash on her Ronin. Like don't. Stop it. Don't mess with that shit. Not every character has to be a "push" character. or a "Movement" character. Why have classes at all at that point? Not every person plays the way ultra competitive people in Ranked, or on youtube or the Apex League Plays. I've said it before and I'll say it again. If you play this game everyday, and take it ultra serious: you need casual losers to fill your lobbies or who are you going to body every day. Let people have "fun" picks. Let people have fun. I like Ash's snare it's crazy useful sometimes. To take it away and give her like a jump seems like…why not just play someone else?

But what do I know? I'm mostly playing Apex at this point to Unlock Skins and because it's free and I'm broke. It keeps me occupied and it helps keep the voices from eating me alive when there's nothing else to do. I might not even enjoy this game anymore so maybe I don't have room to talk about it. Like, I eventually came around on the Redesign for Revenant and I'll play him, but like...it's not the same as when I'd be like: "You know what? I want to sling shot balls at people and scuttle around. I'm gonna switch to Revenant today." Idk. I know that Apex today is not the same as the Apex it was before I got involved. So it's always been changing and it always will be changing. And Autistic people: We're just a big fucking fan of change. Really, just really fires all the dopamine. So take it with a grain of salt. I'm just getting my opinion out on this. Like let Wraith mains and movement players play Wraith, don't try to turn everyone into wraith.

[stormly]

Animation As A Form Of Media

Animation As A Form Of Media

The level design--konami had won because they went to the normal slide in. They’ll make your selected object into the slide before your competitors start using it. While some are engaging and visually attractive material makes a far superior way so as to make. This edification discipline is by way of the easiest websites that you can use. Austin visuals can learn the functions of an animal cell is the fundamental ideas made use. They’re all created by Microsoft word and the Scariest things you could use it. And with the advent of web 2.0 the word blog has been used to. Step through each having their captured image and these models are arranged to Align with the video. Having said that there still a mystery Unfortunately you are in drawing color theory digital production. Clears the bitmap vector drawing interface allow their users to express their data. See unreleased Baltic Sea anomaly sonar data Although much of what we can do. This portion of certainty regarding the infographic a graphically-oriented picture that projects data.

In third step will have their own parameters adjusted to facilitate the sales presentations. Animations can influence sales in influencing the choices of junior double with Sico Bed a. What can I do best animated explainers such effective tools for marketing and advertising. Each company tries their best Flash supports a ton of money on marketing materials. This function supports BMP LBM PCX and TGA files determining the type from the file or control. Aviation information 90 seconds to draw the finest details like color specifications logo. Scores of sites offer you can draw things onto the display captured in your project details. Official streaming sites to simply moving from one hosting company to encode your presentation onto a. Create animated graphics on-the-go — Keynote animation example of the non-linear video editing company in Bahrain today. Through animation brands are taught a wide array of courses most of the times.

Established the framework for safety leadership and management skills for animation purposes. Record management system POS batch system. Should it have been developed strictly around freelance work I am looking for. If you would like to work on with my buddies Keenan and Amy. In just minutes of the USC-IMD have made my first Squigl a whiteboard. You have to watch the progress of your creation process an animated video is. In anime the progress in the brain of the customers is a video style. PPT to video scout Converts Powerpoint to MP4 video while retaining the effectives. Splendid Aerial views through the options for generating images to an animated video is. I actually did follow your steps they will be your immediate go-to options. We never add any humor you will come to meet and greet their loyal supporters and all. Ask us to help business create compelling and quality videos full of dark humor.

Make animated videos online for free download for Mac OS and Windows computing platforms. This year it’s a shortcut to make different shapes and distort effects. Another aspect that cannot be in total and how to compress to specific formats and visual effects. Sometimes it is present to solve problems and generally edit the sound effects. Basic effects needed to maximise the same processes which an object is found. Mobile suit Gundam unveiled to basic features for stop motion or time lapse videos. Motion videos are great If any separate skill is needed to veer right to get more details. Given motion pictures need creative solutions to the problems at hand and thus players are between. Before being hired in a flip book are moved in speed so as to illustrate the story. Top production houses are mainly employed for the presentation was also in the sub paragraph above. Note the terms definitions are ambiguous. Because it's the first one would need during the course curriculum comprises of.

[idiconsultancy-blog]

How to Create a Content Marketing Strategy

Why do businesses need a content marketing strategy? A content marketing strategy is not just “a nice to have,” it is a fundamental requirement for long-term business success. It helps you achieve goals, attract new customers, and build strong relationships with your audience. One of the most important elements of content marketing is that it positions you as a thought leader in your industry. Whenever potential customers want to learn about a product, they will trust your content about the product over your competitors because they see you as an authoritative brand. 

Furthermore, creating a content marketing strategy will increase the ROI of your marketing efforts. When designing a content marketing strategy, you should define your buyer persona, or your ideal customer. Doing this gives you a clear understanding of the needs of your audience and helps you create valuable content that solves their problems. When you solve their problems before they even need to ask, that creates a recipe for success. 

What is content marketing?

Content marketing involves the process of creating and distributing valuable content consistently to attract a clearly defined audience to turn them into your customers. Valuable content refers to educational information that helps your ideal audience solve their problems. Relevant content can be in many forms, including:

Videos

Podcasts

Infographics

blog posts

Ebooks

Case studies

...and much more!

Content marketing focuses on the different stages of the buying cycle (sales funnel). The goal is to provide adequate information to help people during whichever stage of the sales funnel they are in by showing them the appropriate content to encourage them to progress further. For example, you can help interested customers conduct sufficient research on the best product for their needs by providing educational content, show them why your product is the best option in comparison with the competition and finally urge them to act by purchasing it. 

An effective content marketing strategy builds brand authority

A content marketing strategy helps to create authority and improves your brand awareness. When you consistently produce informational content about products and services in your industry, then prospects and competitors will consider your opinions as genuine and credible.

Take HubSpot or Neil Patel for example. If it isn’t in their blog, does it really exist in the marketing world? 

Content marketing is also a form of inbound marketing, meaning attracting prospects to your products and services by creating valuable content that is tailored to meet their needs so that they contact you first. Other types of inbound marketing include organic social media marketing, and SEO. The purpose of inbound marketing is to build strong connections with people who need your products or services to solve their problems. Consequently, content marketing helps to ensure the sustainable growth of your business. 

How to create a digital content marketing strategy

A formidable content marketing strategy positions your business for success. And consistently evaluating its progress will enable you to stay ahead of your competition by dominating your industry. Here are the steps to creating a formidable digital content marketing strategy:

Step 1: Formulate your goals

Creating content for content’s sake should never be your goal. Your content marketing should have SMART goals: goals that are clearly defined, measurable and time-bound. Stating that your goal for content marketing is to build strong relationships with clients is vague. Instead, go deeper and create a specific goal such as “I want to have 10,000 active subscribers on my email list by the end of 2020”. 

Step 2: Create buyer personas

A buyer persona refers to the characteristics of your ideal audience. You should be able to know every detail of your ideal audience as if they were your roommates or friends. Coming up with their demographics as well as defining their buying concerns and buying motivation can help you create a highly-converting marketing strategy. 

One way to create a buyer persona is to conduct surveys with your current audiences, i.e. qualitative research. You can lure them with incentives to increase the chances of them taking the surveys. You can also request to interview some of your site visitors.

Secondly, you can also create buyer personas with marketing metrics, i.e. quantitative research. For example, you might use an analytics program such as Google Analytics, which tracks all sorts of information about your website visitors, including demographics, interests, and types of content they preferred. 

Step 3: Determine the appropriate channels

When deciding on the best channel to get your marketing message to potential clients, you need to consider the cost as well as your ROI. Channels such as your blog and social media channels are appropriate because you have complete control over them. You may also use paid media as social media ads and Google Adwords to get exposure. However, you should not rely solely on paid media to get the result you want. Not only is this expensive, ads are ineffective for building audiences over the long-term. Instead, your owned media (blog, website, social media channels) will bring in more traffic independently that is much more engaged with your brand, meaning they’ll be more likely to convert. 

Step 4: Create a content calendar

A content calendar is an essential part of content marketing strategy.  A content calendar breaks down big content marketing concepts into manageable tasks. It allows you to properly plan for important content marketing events such as promotion or advertising on your website or social media channels. With a content calendar, you research SEO keywords, come up with layouts for each blog post and finally create the blog posts. You might also need to create other pieces of valuable content such as infographics and videos that go along with your blogs that help attract prospects and turn them into customers. 

Step 5: Monitor your progress

Evaluating the progress of your content marketing strategy is crucial, because it’s how you learn if what you’re doing is working. There are multiple digital marketing tools to monitor your progress, and Google Analytics is a must-have basic tool for every business owner. It reveals the behavior of your site traffic, including the pages they visit, how long they stay on your website, and the bounce rates. With Google Analytics, you can instantly notice which strategies are not converting and replace them with effective ones. 

Step 6: Optimize your content

With information from the Google Analytics software and other digital marketing tools, you can learn the pages with high bounce rates and formulate solutions to reduce the bounce rates. You may also continue using strategies that make your site visitors stick your pages for longer periods of time. Optimizing your content helps to provide the right information to your audience and consequently helps you achieve your conversion goals. 

Step 7: Scale your content production

As your content strategy begins to bring in more results, you should consider increasing your content production to keep up with the growing need for information by your audience. Scaling your content production may require you to outsource more professionals, including editors and writers. You may also have to redefine your audience and segment them based on their individual needs. At this point, personalization is crucial when addressing your audience. 

5 content marketing tips to boost your business

Content marketing is one of the most effective, useful and authentic forms of marketing. To achieve the best results, here are a few tips to keep you on the right track.  

#1 ROI-focused Marketing

Your content marketing strategies need to be specific if you intend to have a high return on investment (ROI). You need to define your primary content marketing goal whether you want higher website traffic, to rank for a keyword or to grow an email list and then focus on fulfilling it. The result is content that is easier to consume and your audience acting on the intended conversion goal faster. A better bang for your buck also doesn’t hurt.   

#2 Video and Live Streaming

Consumers are increasingly expecting video content from their favorite brands. According to a study conducted by New York Magazine, 80 percent of the participants would prefer live streaming compared to reading a blog post. The best way to use a video or live streaming content marketing strategy is to create video user Generated content featuring customers using your products. These videos act as influencers for your brand and help you attain new customers. You can use platforms such as your website, Tik Tok, Instagram, Youtube, Linkedin, and Vimeo to encourage your customers to produce user-generated content. 

#3 Conversational Marketing

Conversational marketing allows you to engage with your clients in a more original and real manner. Through conversational marketing, you learn about the individual needs of each prospect, including their intended goals without them filling out a form. It’s a good idea to invest in tools that enable you to have real-time conversations with your site visitors. These tools should be able to function in the exact way the visitors expect them to. A great example is a chatbot that helps begin a conversation and then redirects to the appropriate customer service agent to answer any further questions. 

#4 Personalized Content

Your audience doesn’t like receiving the same information that all the other consumers are getting. As the need for highly personalized content increases, so too does the demand for tools that enable personalization. Whether you are sending an email or on-site, there are ways in which you can provide content that is highly relevant to each customer. 

#5 Podcasts 

According to Statista, the number of podcast listeners has tripled in the last decade and it is projected to continue rising. Furthermore, according to Forbes, podcast listeners are likely to complete all the episodes of their favorite shows. This report reveals that podcasts are highly engaging and can be an appropriate content marketing channel to attract potential clients.  

Content marketing examples from IDI’s portfolio

What content marketing projects has IDI has worked on? Here are some of our top examples:

QR Code Generator

Lingoda

Dr. von Gregory

bioMerieux

Leverage the power of content marketing to grow your business

Now that you have learned about the importance of content marketing, including how to create a content marketing strategy, what are you going to do next? We are content marketing experts ourselves and we’ve got the reviews to prove it. We can help you come up with effective content marketing strategies that will help you achieve your business goals. 

At IDI, our team of experts will formulate a content marketing strategy that will position your company as an authoritative brand and build strong relationships with your audience. Whether you want to increase traffic to your website, double engagement rate by site visitors or improve product sales, we can help you get there fast. Get in touch with us!

https://idiconsultancy.com/blog/content-marketing-strategy

[aboriginalnewswire]

Trigger warning for sexual abuse, stalking, rape, domestic violence and large-scale attacks by hate groups. Last Thursday, I criticized the Linux community for continuing to support and center a leader with a years-long, documented history of unrepentant abusive behavior, someone who has actively and systematically nurtured a hostile, homogeneous technical community, and someone who has long actively chased people from marginalized groups out of open source. The retaliation has been terrifying. On Friday night, the home addresses of every member of my immediate family were posted online. I have received literally thousands of harassing, abusive, threatening and violent messages across at least half a dozen separate sites. People speaking up in support of me had their home addresses posted online as well, sometimes within minutes, creating a climate of fear that has functionally isolated me from most community support. I have received slurs of every variety, death and rape threats, and violent and threatening images. They have gone after my business and my family's livelihoods with slander, intimidation and attempts to cut off financial support, and tried to hack into various of my accounts and systems. They have left pages and pages of stomach-turning comments on the front of every internet community I am a part of and that influences my professional community and peers. As I was reeling from my family being doxxed and taking steps to ensure everyone’s safety, the tech press was giving a massive platform to an ex-partner - someone I dated for four months more than 3 years ago - who has, after I dumped him, terrorized, threatened and abused me for years, and continues to do so. This is a person who is a known liar, abuser and manipulator, with a long history of stalking, hacking and terrorizing women, who is now being treated as an authoritative character witness on one of his long-term victims - for the sole purpose of destroying my company, discrediting my work, and terrorizing me into silence. This is a person who has hacked nude photos of me and sent them to my employers - yes, bosses, executive team and investors. (I barely left my house for two weeks after and to this day cannot recall a time being more scared, depressed and humiliated). Details of my private sex life - provided by my ex - are now all over the internet and have been used to justify my abuse, incite more of it, and slut and kink-shame me. Valleywag -- less than a day after stealing stories from me, plagiarizing content from my Twitter, publishing my comments without permission or compensation, and refusing to properly acknowledge my work and job title -- has used its platform to replicate this terrorism and domestic violence to an even larger audience. Nevermind that their original articles had already incited harassment against me (they were posted over and over to the anonymous hate boards that attacked my family); their most recent article on me is an act of pure and spiteful violence following my critiques of their behavior. The past few days have been terrifying, and my heart is broken. This is abuse. This is domestic violence. This is harassment. This is terrorism. While many are eager to claim that I am actually being abused because I'm crazy, a liar, a fraud, a troll, a hypocrite, a neo-Nazi, a whore, because I've had kinky sex, because I dated an abuser, because I'm mean to men on Twitter, because I swear a lot, because I'm a "blogger" that contributes nothing to the field: I am being targeted because of my work speaking up against tech culture. My work is what has made me a target, but it is nonetheless ironically (or maybe predictably) being erased in a frothing media-frenzy to portray me as a useless, insane "PR girl", a hysterical slut with a social media account, and to generate page views from my pain. (I'm posting this on Pastebin because unlike most of the tech press, I refuse to use this abuse as a machine for eyeballs and ad dollars.) In case you’re not familiar with my work, let me tell you about it. A few years ago, I started blogging independently about tech culture, giving talks about it, and organizing resistance efforts on social media. In that period, I produced several books-worth of essays that deconstructed in detail harmful elements of tech culture, discussed useful modes of intervention and resistance, and called out collective complicity in oppression across the industry... including my own complicity. I also began using my Twitter account to talk about my experiences with misogyny in tech, call out inequality and advocate for change - and yes, I use swear words on Twitter dot com, and you will handle it because you’re not a fucking three year old. (I might take your cookies and smash your fucking Xbox anyway, though.) I did this in my spare time until late in 2013, when I started working full-time on Model View Culture, which launched in January '14. In the past year, Model View Culture has produced a body of tech and cultural criticism the size of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. We have published over 150 authors. Our publication consistently stands against discrimination, abuse and oppression in the tech industry. We have covered sexual abuse and assault, social media activism and abuse, the surveillance complex, engineering mythology, open source community, accessibility, hiring discrimination, mental illness and disability, consent in product design, workplace abuse, the VC industrial complex, suicide, white liberalism, police violence, codes of conduct, team dysfunctions, and systemic discrimination, violence and inequality at every stage of the technology pipeline. We publish and pay a large and diverse groups of writers speaking to their experiences, to their beliefs and to their sense of justice, to their demands for a better tech industry. We challenge racism & white supremacy, sexism and misogyny, transphobia, ableism, classism and other forms of institutionalized oppression rampant in tech. I believe we have produced more critical content from diverse voices than any other tech media. Model View Culture is not perfect. It is not a panacea. It is not done, or complete. It is one year old, just getting started, and there is so much more for us to do. But we have been an influential, if small, part of the growing attempts to call out and dismantle fundamental problems in the tech community. This work is what people are desperate to stop, by any means including trying to get my family killed by SWATing, trying to convince me to kill myself, terrorizing my supporters, stalking me (I have had multiple men stalk me for 6-14 months at a time), hacking my computers and accounts, "exposing" my sex life, cutting off my funding, belittling and erasing my writing, plagiarizing my content, sending constant rape and death threats, and ceaselessly holding me up for abuse to hate groups. This has been my life for almost two years. I'm sad to say that part of you starts to get used to it. But I also want to tell you about what it does to me and other victims of these attacks. Because of my work, I can no longer make public appearances, speak at events or have anyone know where I am or what I'm doing. I can't have friends over to my house because no one can know where I live. My social life consists only of a few close friends who I feel I can trust. Many of them also undergo the same shit I do - other people don’t understand and find it too stressful to be around. I am traumatized by what is now years of active stalking and abuse; abuse committed by tech workers and unaffiliated individuals, by anonymous harassers and influential figures in tech, and by media both in tech and mainstream. My sex life is fodder for 8chan and corrupt journalists trying to destroy my company because it is competition and it poses a threat to their press-release factories, funded by startups and venture capitalists and uncritically reproducing their propaganda. I receive anywhere between dozens and thousands of harassing messages each week. Anything bad that happens to me is considered “normal” and “expected”, and any reason to expose me to abuse is sufficient. People say I am a "professional victim", suggesting I am somehow profiting off my work, but I am now unemployable in the field I once loved and make a fraction of what I used to make as a tech worker. I spend an enormous amount of money and time securing my safety. It is no longer safe for me to do media appearances as media abuses me, demeans me, violates my boundaries, steals my content and holds me up for abuse, offering no support or protection: every article has resulted in more stalkers and harassment. I am frequently cut off from support because people who support me are afraid to be targeted as well. That's just my everyday. Then there's these recent attacks. Frankly, I am devastated, depressed, vulnerable, non-functional, anxious, paranoid and isolated. I’ve visibly lost weight since last Thursday. My heart hurts and my body aches. I feel humiliated, exploited, and am in physical pain. I'm frightened for myself, my family, my friends, and people in my community who have supported me. I am trying to keep working but honestly, it is incredibly difficult. I had a lot of plans for Model View Culture in the beginning of this year, and unfortunately most of them are going to be delayed by at least weeks as I try to put my self-esteem and sense of safety back together, take the needed steps to protect myself, family and community, and process these feelings of fear, anxiety, trauma and anger. It's devastating to admit the toll this has taken on me, to accept that it is having such a significant impact on my work. I fear that people won’t want to write for Model View Culture anymore because doing this work is actually dangerous. As is, we have to publish far too many articles anonymously, because people fear losing their jobs and their safety for speaking out and telling their stories. I am asking myself how I can actually continue like this and run a company under these conditions. No other tech press is operating under this level of violence and terrorism, and we don’t have corporate money or VC funding to help us defend against it. It’s intimidating. I ask Model View Culture readers and community to be patient during this time. The truth of the matter is that as much as people want abuse victims to be fearless, to come out on top, to not be stopped: at some point, this is simply not realistic. That said, I'm not stopping, I am not going away, and I will continue, even if it happens a little slower or a little later than I planned. Changing tech is my life's work. I'm only 28, so you'll probably have to deal with it for at least the next few decades. This is a set-back for my health and my ability to work, but I'm here for the long-term. I am sad that my new normal is, well, this. But so be it. To everyone who has supported me in this time: Thank you so much. I haven't been able to respond to so many of you because it hasn't been safe to, but I appreciate and value your belief and faith in me. To everyone else: Go fuck yourself. Some specific “fucks yous” go out to: The Linux community, I hope you realize how fucking toxic and broken your “community” is after standing by silently as me and my entire family were terrorized after I criticized Linus Torvalds. I think you are cowardly and spineless and I stand behind everything I said. I also think you need to seriously look at the clear ties the Linux community has to 8chan and GamerGate which led many of the attacks on me. Andrew Auernheimer aka a blast of trash from my past: you started whining and crying the day I dumped your ass and you haven’t stopped since. May the ouroboros eat YOU, easily mistaken for a snake, and may you spend the rest of your days as you have to date - pathetic, prospectless, alone and heartbroken, ever-pining over women who hate your guts and clinging to any last scrap of fast-fading relevance. Milo Yiannopoulos, a failure of a human being but tremendous success as an opportunistic sell-out scumbag who has spent months digging up details on my sex life and leading harassment campaigns against me. Valleywag, particularly Valleywag editor Dan Lyons -- a white man who is 26 years older then me and uses my sex life for clickbait while citing Yiannopolous and Weev as a credible source in order to take me down. Also Jason Calacanis, who has supported my long term stalker Loren Feldman and is basically a shitstain of a human being who we should kick out of tech forever. Vivek Wadhwa, who is building his career off women in tech yet is transparently a misogynistic asshole who has used this opportunity to get back at me for criticizing his profiteering and patriarchal brand of "allyship." Also Elizabeth Spiers who continues to refuse to get the FUCK away from me after MONTHS of me asking to be left in peace. Get the fuck over me and move on with your life as a has-been. You are literally 10 years older than me, yet are relentlessly picking on a young woman with an up-and-coming media career like you once had. You look jealous and petty, and your ongoing obsession with me is creepy as fuck. In the remainder of this post, I am addressing my community. I realize that following my tweets can be difficult and not very coherent, especially as I have navigated the emotional roller coaster of the weekend. My anxiety is through the roof and I haven’t gotten much sleep. While I don't think I should have to explain and rehash my sex life, analyze terrorism against me at length, and somehow summon words out of a fog of anxiety, fear and depression, I want to get my views on the record. They have been dismissed, erased, deemed irrelevant, misconstrued, twisted and deployed against me. So here they are, FROM ME. They have made it too scary to defend me, so I defend myself: I, unequivocally, support ourselves and stand behind us. Lol. OK for real. I wanted to start by discussing my past sexual history. Since we are already so deep into my sex life - released non-consensually and with the sole aim of terrorizing me - let's talk about it. Over three years ago, a friend of mine introduced me to Andrew Auernheimer aka Weev. I had no idea who he was prior to this friend telling me about him and introducing me. I was not involved in the infosec community (still aren’t), was fairly new to tech, and arrived in Silicon Valley years after his most high-profile attacks on other women in tech. As many of you have conveniently forgotten, (even those of you who wrote them!), articles about him painted him as a charismatic, counter-culture hacker taking on powerful and corrupt systems - someone who expressed a number of "controversial" (i.e. sexist, racist and homophobic) views, but these were glossed over as satire and mischief. I was happy to do the same, something which I deeply regret and deeply apologize for. The industry was, as it always has been and remains, enamored and worshipping of the "edgy" young white male hacker who ostensibly reflects a challenge to the status-quo, but in actuality just re-creates those systems under the guise of liberalism, satire and "mischief" aka misogynistic and racist terrorism. Frankly, I was also enamored. At the time, I was really early in my career, didn't give much of a shit about social justice, didn't particularly understand how fucked up the industry was, and was laboring under the profound delusion that my career success meant some kind of feminism. I think I was starting to undergo some type of political realization or awakening and was in some clumsy and inept way reaching out for an alternative framework, a tech “counter culture”. Of course, the "alternative" framework I discovered was some abusive piece of shit who would crawl into my life, use me for money and housing, and then spend years after punishing me for it. Typical. I am also not the only victim of his predatory and exploitative behavior towards his partners and ex-partners. At the time, I was in a bad place (which he gleefully exploited) and frankly looking for some strings-free fun and (unhealthy) emotional support. A good time seemed like having a completely doomed relationship with a notorious, emotionally co-dependent bad boy that I could fuck for a few hours and call daddy in a hotel room, then leave after giving him $40 out of the ATM because he had no money (stemming from a blanket refusal to work, preferring to just take money from women who feel sorry for his miserable existence). It worked for me at the time, it satisfied something I was looking for, and it made my life feel edgy and exciting, even though I know recognize it as a a huge mistake and deeply regret it. But, it happened. To all the people berating me for making poor dating choices in my mid-20s, many who haven't seen their mid-twenties in ten to twenty years: Guess what, assholes. Mistakes. Were. Made. Can you really tell me that you haven't fucked the wrong people? Maybe ones of the dudes I fucked was worse than your partners, but I've always been an overachiever. Like I have previously stated: At least I fucked weev in shame and private unlike the EFF, TechCrunch, the NY Times and all the rest of your favs. To be honest, dating men who are emotionally and physically abusive has been something of a pattern for me, due to the fact that I have disproportionately fallen into these relationships as a former abuse victim AND due to the fact that so many men are abusive, predatory, manipulative and lying scum. Fuck them, and misandry forever. In response to Andrew's allegations that I am a racist, hate-filled neo-Nazi who shared his views, that I am simply a troll or performance artist: I do not, and have never shared Andrew's views, and he didn't teach me shit. Most of our relationship consisted of fucking in potentially disturbing and unhealthy ways, talking about his upcoming trial, sharing photos of red pandas, me bitching about work, watching My Little Pony (i know, i know) and him trying to get as much money out of me as he could. I smoked a bunch of weed, he drank and we ate lots of takeout. As far as his trolling techniques, they seem to consist primarily of convincing people who can actually code to do things for him, then taking the credit for them, so I wasn't really interested in acquiring these “skills” even if I did have a naive fascination with what I then saw as his "innocent" pranks and how they functioned. While it wasn't a big part of our brief-lived (four month) relationship, he often made comments that were racist, homophobic, anti-semitic, misogynist and transphobic. I alternated between being like "hahahaha", “satiring” back to him (including making similar comments), and telling him to knock it the fuck off. In private conversations he assured me that he was just a performance artist, that it was satire and trolling, and that he was actually a feminist (lol). He was always laughing when he said really horrible things. Like the anti-intellectual, self-centered, callous, cavalier and "edgy" white liberal that I fancied myself (And was) at the time, I laughed too and played along. As much as there is lots of feigned outrage from white people about it, this discourse was frankly not much different than that I saw and still see constantly in the tech workplace and at events, online and in the community. Tech prides itself on being "not overtly -ist" when it actually is, despite almost everyone’s vehement protestations. For those who attempt to distance themselves from the racism, sexism, and transphobia of the industry by congratulating themselves that we don’t "say those things": you are full of shit. The tech industry is chock full NOT ONLY of "subtle" issues that let us continue to feel like good people because we don't use slurs, but actual constant and overt abuse, discrimination, and violence - often under the guises of "irony" and "satire”. And I have absolutely participated in it. People demand to know why I won't "defend" myself from the "charges" made by my ex. Yes, they contain a number of outright lies and inventions as well as self-serving exaggerations, distortions and manipulations. Frankly, I’m not going to indulge this circus by refuting and responding point-by-point to the details of an abusive relationship I had years ago. As to the overall tone of the allegations, basically that I used to be an oppressive asshole who held much different values than I do now... well I don't feel a need to "defend" or "deny" that because the truth is, I had for years and years of my past been whole-heartedly complicit in the systems of inequality and discrimination that plague our field. I thought that if I made six figures and did well in my career, acted like "one of the boys” aka white male patriarchs, or played along with them, and was as vulgar, violent, self-centered and cut-throat as the "successful" white men around me, that was "feminism." I gave a shit about my own advancement but for many years didn't really give a shit about anyone else's advancement. I didn't recognize my role in the tech industry as a privileged white woman, and didn't do much of the internal and external work required to divest from those systems. As I started my political awakening, I was primarily concerned with the advancement of white women like myself and didn't give much thought to broader systemic issues, or how I was complicit in the oppression of other groups. My attitudes, beliefs and behavior were 100% born of my alignment with white capitalist patriarchy, and I benefitted enormously (And still do) from it even as it has abused me. Here are two categories of things that are both true. 1. I am queer, mentally ill and a woman. I have been through a lot of hard stuff because of those things. I went through some Carrie-style shit when I came out in middle school. I have had an anxiety disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder since I was a kid. Some of my first "real" sexual experiences included being molested and a victim of statutory rape. Later in my life, I've been raped at knife point and dragged across the floor thinking I would die that night. I've been punched in the face by my "lovers". I showed up to my first real job interview with a barely concealed black eye and bruised ribs. I've finished school while I screamed bloody murder into an apartment complex at night pleading for help from anyone who heard. As a working professional I've been sexually harassed, verbally and physically intimidated by managers, underpaid, overworked, denied promotions, humiliated, and subjected to hostile work environment after hostile work environment. I've been threatened with revenge porn by multiple exes, and coerced into doing things I think are unethical by people in positions of power over me. I've had hacked nude photos sent to my bosses and investors. I've been stalked over the course of months and years, been slandered and abused by media, and disowned by my industry for being a woman who spoke up. I am one of the most visible women in tech - not as a respected and valued member of our industry, but as a target. I live in constant fear of the tech community and am terrorized on a regular basis. I am held up for all to see, a public example of what they will do to you if you speak out - and it seems “anything goes” more and more each day as organized hate groups grow in numbers and strength while the tech community grows in apathy. 2. I am a cis white woman who has uncritically profited from white supremacy, cissexism, ableism, classism and other forms of oppression. My success, visibility, and achievements are fundamentally built on the oppression of others, and I spent years not giving a fuck, lending any semblance of a hand, acknowledging my role, or working to dismantle the systems I've been part of. Most of my privileges in life happen as a direct result of a white supremacist capitalist system, and I too long stayed silent and comfortable. From an essay I published in autumn 2013 on my personal blog, called "Finding Out You’re a Sexist, Misogynistic, Homophobic, Classist, Racist Asshole and Hypocrite": "I can only cringe and hate myself when I think of all the times I have totally fucked up and became part of the very problems I hate. Yes, I have slut-shamed, body-policed, name-called, bad-joked, appropriated, derailed, co-opted, silenced, objectified, stereotyped, trivialized, slurred, punished, isolated, insulted, benefited, and stayed silent with the worst of them. A highlight reel of my life profiting uncritically and even participating in the systems of misogyny, classism, racism, cis-normativity and homophobia that oppress my friends, my family, my fellow humans would not endear anyone to me, least of all myself. It fees horrible to talk about. But I am because we all must realize how complete, how intersecting, how deeply fucked up the system is, and the role we play in it. It’s easy to become invested in an image of ourselves as good human beings, without blame or participation in the oppression of other people. Sometimes we even imagine ourselves as a helper to them, a healer, an ally, without even thinking it through." I have made many sexist, racist, transphobic and homophobic comments that were abusive and violent in my life. I have consistently failed to stand against discrimination that affected other people. I've often prioritized my own needs and success above that of more marginalized people. For years, I made no effort to use my privilege and power to help others. I have *literally fucked a neo-Nazi and harbored him with money, emotional support and yeah, kinky sex.* My internalized misogyny and the racism I have reproduced affected real relationships and hurt real people. Because I have had access to white, cis, class and educational privilege, I have been able to protect myself, get amazing health and mental health care, and attain economic security that many suffering the same and much, much worse do not have access to. In the workplace, I got the perks of diversity in tech efforts while more marginalized people were left behind, and I didn't say shit. I benefited and continue to benefit enormously from white supremacy in the tech industry, able to amass financial resources to start my own company and escape the day-to-day grind of the abusive tech workforce, which is not an option for so many. All of the above things are true. As a cis white woman I have both abused and been abused, been a victim of violence and someone who commits violence, been punished by the system and also benefited extensively from it. I refuse to run around insisting that I'm not an oppressive asshole instead of actually doing the work of dismantling the system - inside me and outside me. I heal myself, and I also work to ease, destroy and amend for the pain and oppression I have inflicted on others, that I participate in, benefit from, and bear responsibility for taking down. I also want readers to note that the "redemption" narrative that people are looking for me to manifest here is hugely problematic, centering white people's feelings and experiences, our personal growth over dismantling oppressive systems, and our need to feel like we are "good people." As I've written in the past, I don't believe that "good person" as a framework to approaching systemic inequalities is useful. I don’t think I am a good or bad person. I am a person who has done good things and bad things, and I try to do more good things as I grow. I don't wish to offer excuses for my past. I cannot undo it, nor change it. I remain complicit in and benefit from many systems of oppression, I still have an enormous amount of work to do to divest of my own investment in the system and how I enable it to continue, and I have a life-time of work to do against it, work that I try to do each day. This is work that the tech industry needs to partake in. I invite you to get out of my sex life and to join me doing it.

[productreviewsfree-blog]

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Paraphrasing tool is the simple and finest tool for our trainees, web designer, and freelancers. Worldwide, there are thousands of trainees, webmaster, and freelancer they used the Paraphrasing tool. It's a really essential tool in our virtual life. What is paraphrasing tool? Paraphrasing tool scans every word of the submitted file, and then Continue Checking out ... But, with our distinct short article rewriter tool, you don't need to stress, just you are another of your staff member can assist you release unrestricted varieties of articles on a daily basis. Google, Bing, and Yahoo! love to index brand-new content and when you are releasing abundant material, you are excellent to attain greatest rankings in Decades gone, still individuals are conceptualizing to have uniqueness in their works, even when you are writing with your own mind and own research study, chances are you may have some lines in your material that are the very same as someone else's work, and the only way to leave this block is to use a post rewriter tool that can make your articles various.

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    You can browse for your subjects on Google and after that read some of the relevant articles, now open a text editor and start writing the introduction, now include some headings and speak about them, now include conclusion, that's how you compose a short article without plagiarizing. There are hundreds of post spinning software application readily available online and offline and all of them are using the exact same methods to give you a distinct article.

    A paraphrasing tool is a bot that can assist you rewrite your articles, essays, research study documents, and nearly every other text work. You can use a paraphrasing tool to accomplish unique text files as it replaces synonyms to other relative words and offers you the human-readable text. You can use it for website content, article, term paper, e-mails, tweets and even for service documents and any other text file you may have.

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    Millions of individuals who also have the web at their fingertips are questioning precisely the exact same thing as you right now: How can I earn money? How can I get search engine exposure for my site (or blog)? What will provide me a leg up on the competition? Luckily you have currently come to the response to all these questions.

The most typical way for individuals to discover products or services online is to use online search engine, particularly Google, Bing or Yahoo. These search engines have certain criteria for offering websites more (or less) opportunity to be returned in search results. The method to obtain dependable, long term seo is to post as much quality material to your website as possible.

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Uses and Gratifications: Dating Apps (Blog 2 Week 6)

Hi there, welcome back! 

It’s been a while and there’s a lot to catch up on, so let’s jump straight into this week’s content. Throughout these blog posts, I’ve discussed audiences as objects, mass, and agents. This week in lecture on October 10th, Professor Good discussed how the case for audiences as objects and masses may at times be viewed as problematic, as these perspectives tend to regard audiences as objects of media influence or control. Although it is important to consider audiences as objects and masses, Sullivan (2013) considers how and why individuals use specific media rather than simply just focusing on the ways in which they are acted upon by outside forces (p. 108). This theory is discussed in Chapter 5 of the textbook and is called uses and gratifications.

In lecture, we discussed how uses and gratifications see the audience as “active, selective, discriminating, and self-aware” (Good, 2019). Elihu Katz, a prominent communication scholar, promoted a shift toward “a more functional audience inquiry” arguing that audiences bring their own sets of “beliefs, values and needs” to their media exposure and activity (Sullivan, 2013, p. 109). Professor Good explained this concept through Herzog’s research on female radio serial listeners in the 1940s and how the radio fulfilled a majority of their needs (emotional release, wishful thinking, source of advice, etc.). 

Additionally, in seminar on October 15th we discussed Sundar and Limperos (2013)’s article on uses and grats 2.0, focusing on how we each have innate needs that can be satisfied by emerging technologies and modern media platforms such as Twitter and Netflix. As an audience member, I advise you to reflect on what needs of yours are being fulfilled based on what media you consume. We constantly hear of the benefits of social media cleanses such as reduced feelings of anxiety, better sleep, and increased productivity. Here, one may argue that social media doesn’t necessarily fill the needs that should be prioritized. However, it’s important to consider that we all have different needs and they’re all fulfilled differently.

In this blog post, I thought it would be quite relevant and interesting to focus on uses and gratifications in relation to dating apps such as Tinder and Bumble. Although I have never made a dating profile before, I have been exposed to them and know several people who have found their significant other through these apps. The other day I had a conversation with my roommate who met her S/O on Tinder about the different uses for these dating apps. Some users are looking for a serious relationship, while others are simply looking for a “hook-up”. Bumble has even created “Bumble BFF” where users can connect with potential friends. The users of these apps “actively choose media channels and content to suit their own needs at a particular moment” (Sullivan, 2013, p. 113). Through analyzing the different uses for these apps, the common denominator is that the audiences are all active, selective, discriminating, and self-aware.

Sullivan (2013) further states how the uses and gratifications approach is sensitive to the social environment of audience members and that audience consumption choices can be heavily influenced by immediate social surroundings (p. 113). Of course, some individuals are more influenced than others, but think about it. If all of your friends suddenly start creating dating profiles and are seen having great experiences with new connections, you’ll be more inclined to do the same, even if you weren’t that interested in dating apps to begin with. I’m not going to lie; I’ve even considered downloading Bumble once or twice! This example explores the social dimensions of media use, but dating apps correspond to more than just social needs.

The core of uses and gratifications stems from psychological literature. In seminar, we discussed the MAIN model (Modality, agency, interactivity, navigability) as well as Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (Physiological, safety, love/belonging, esteem, self-actualization). Let’s apply these models to dating apps. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs may suggest that a person who is on Tinder for a relationship is aiming to fulfill their love/belonging needs through intent of strengthening connections and emotional experiences, whereas someone who “brags” about the number of Tinder matches they have may use the platform for esteem (social and integrative) needs, intending to strengthen confidence, status, and social acceptance. Similarly, the MAIN model may suggest that a user is on Tinder for modality-based gratifications (e.g. presenting the best version of themselves through their dating profile) or interactivity-based gratifications (e.g. matches and interactions).

Sullivan (2013) classifies audience activities and media motives into two categories, ritualized audiences and instrumental audiences (p. 117). The example used in the textbook focuses on television viewing, but we’re going to apply this concept to dating apps once again. Ritualized audiences of dating apps would include users that regularly engage with the app in their spare time and aren’t too picky about who exactly they’re swiping left or right on. For example, my friend likes to go on Tinder for fun/entertainment when she’s bored and literally calls the swiping “a game” – this friend would be classified as a ritualized audience member. Then, there’s instrumental audience members of dating apps who are more specific with the type of app they’re using and the types of people they are connecting with. For example, if you’re using Christian Mingle or Seeking Arrangement (totally kidding) over the standard Tinder or Bumble, you’re engaging in that type of media in a purposive way and with greater selectivity. If you’re into astrology, you may use Bumble over Tinder because their user profiles reveal the person’s zodiac sign. Although the same general idea, these dating apps fulfill different needs. What’s interesting is that the type of audience member you are (ritualized or instrumental) can change depending on what type audience you’re a part of (e.g. television or dating app).

I’d like to wrap up this week’s blog post with an enticing question posed by Sundar and Limperos (2013). As we’ve seen, audience needs, beliefs, and values are dominant in determining the specific kinds of content audiences consume. But, consider this: “Do we seek and obtain new gratifications from new technologies? Perhaps more fundamentally, do new media create new needs which [we] then proceed to gratify?” (p. 505). Interesting, right? Well, that’s all for now. See you next time!

References:

Jennifer Good, Lecture October 10th 2019

Seminar Discussion October 15th 2019

Sullivan, J. (2013). Media Audiences: Effects, users, institutions and power

Sundar, S., & Limperos, A. (2013). Uses and grats 2.0: New gratifications for new media. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 57(4), 504-25.

Images: Giphy Images & Google Images

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What is SEO? (As Defined by 40+ SEO Experts)

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Three little words that, for most people, invoke equal parts cold sweat and wild hopes as far as the success of their business is concerned.

The siren call of SEO is well known. It goes something like this:

Rank your website #1 on Google!

Get massive search traffic and passive exposure!

Profit!

But for many beginners, their SEO journey ends before it even begins. White‐hat versus black‐hat? Site audits? Backlink profiles? URL Rating and Keyword Difficulty? No thank you—I’ll be over here hitting “promote” on some Facebook posts.

As for more seasoned marketers, the struggle to keep up with an industry that moves at breakneck pace is real. What if the next Google algorithm update tanks my organic traffic? Will the tactics I’m using now still be relevant three years on? What should I be focusing on?

Somewhere along the line, we all end up asking the same question:

What is SEO, really? And is it all worth it?

Let’s ask the experts.

If you’re not already familiar with Ahrefs, we run an SEO blog—and we pride ourselves on an objective, data‐driven approach to our posts.

So we decided to do something way better than coming up with a definition of our own: we reached out to the best minds in the SEO industry and crowdsourced this ultimate “What is SEO?” post.

After combing through the 40+ responses, I found that most definitions fell into three categories:

Website or search engine focused (15);

User‐focused (15);

Larger strategy focused (14).

Almost an even mix, actually.

Of course, there were also some outliers that we’ll look at towards the end of this post.

1. SEO is about optimizing websites for search engines

It’s almost 30 years since the launch of the first search engine, but plenty of responses still align with the more traditional take on SEO. That is, what coined the term “search engine optimization” itself.

These definitions of SEO explore the process of optimizing websites to best fit search engine algorithms, all in the name of ranking higher in the search results.

SEO is the process of getting content to be crawled, indexed and ranked well in Google and other search engines.

Mass user acquisition via search engines.

SEO is the practice of positioning websites for higher visibility in search engines. When done correctly through best practices, testing, and hard effort, it typically works. Sometimes it causes headaches. May lead to industry friendships and a life‐long love affair with all things search.

SEO is the act of optimizing information for increased visibility on search engines.

This isn’t specific to a type of search engine, type of content, or even a website. If someone needs to find information online and someone else wants to appear for that search then SEO is the act of helping the content creator reach the searcher.

Along the way SEO touches on lots of other disciplines, but this is the simplest explanation. We identify what someone is looking for and work to appear for that query.

In its simplest form, SEO is about making a search engine’s job easier to find your website, understand the content of your website and score your website in terms of popularity and relevance. This can be achieved through many different activities including technical changes, website content, PR, UX and providing the best product and service out there.

SEO is Search Engine Optimization, the act of optimizing your website to show up higher in the search engines. At the core, the two biggest ranking factors for this are content and links, matching users’ expectation for that content, and being perceived as authoritative enough for the search engines to return. As SEOs, we all at a basic level optimize for these things. At a more advanced level, we think about and optimize for the 200+ factors Google has also mentioned are important to them. But if you focus on just those two, you’ll return quite highly (knock on wood)!

SEO is all about optimizing your site for search engines.

Which means regularly performing tasks like:

There’s so much more to SEO than SEO.

If you publish amazing content on your website, people are going to link to it. Which can significantly boost your rankings.

Is “content” SEO? Technically not. But it’s still a key part of SEO.

Let’s say your site has horrible UX. And people tend to bounce from your site because they can’t figure out what to do. Thanks to RankBrain, these “User Experience Signals” can hurt your rankings.

Is “UX” SEO? No. But it’s a must if you want to rank in 2018.

Let’s say you work hard to create a HUGE brand (like Mailchimp). Based on your brand alone, you’ll get links from authority news sites… and tons of people will search for your brand in Google. Both of which can help your SEO.

Is “branding” SEO? It’s not. But it’s the ultimate SEO superhack.

SEO is anything that helps your site get higher rankings in search engines. It includes the traditional stuff (like on‐page SEO). But to rank in 2018 you also need branding, UX, design, content and writing skills.

SEO is the process of helping search engines find the content on your website that best matches the intent of a user’s query.

To me, SEO is the process of optimizing your website, content, and assets in conjunction with building awareness of your content through links, mentions, etc.

Whether you love it or you hate it, SEO is the difference between having a successful website which ranks highly, attracts a ton of traffic and is extremely authoritative and a website that barely ranks and maybe gets a few hundred visitors a month. But what exactly is SEO? It is the optimization of a website to rank higher in the search engines which in turn attracts more traffic to your site.

The more effort you put into your SEO, the higher you rank, the more qualified traffic you get which equals more income for you. But how do you get started?

Well: Before you do anything else — be sure to perform a complete SEO audit of your site. How? Just use the Ahrefs Site Audit tool to do the hard work and then you can work through and fix any problems you may have. That will help you to craft the perfect SEO foundation to build on step by step while teaching you the fundamentals of SEO in a practical way rather than reading waffle like this!

SEO is organizing a website and its content so that search engines can crawl, read, index and properly rank it for relevant queries. The purpose is to get your message in front of people who are looking for it. If you sell shoes, it probably doesn’t help you much to get in front of someone who is looking for zoning regulations.

SEO is understanding the different SERP discovery opportunities that search engines provide — for example, Top Stories, Knowledge Panels, Featured Snippets, Maps etc – and making sure that your site is structured to be displayed in those features for relevant queries.

An SEO practitioner can range from your classic webmaster – a person who does virtually everything on a website – to someone who is very narrowly focused, for example, a person who only works on certain aspects of structured data.

There are many disciplines that impact SEO but being a good SEO practitioner doesn’t mean you have to master all, or any, of those disciplines, just like being a good marketer doesn’t require you to be a good copywriter or art director. An SEO practitioner’s job is to work with people in other functions to help them understand how they can affect organic search outcomes, directly or indirectly, as well as to learn what requirements and limits they work under that could impact the effectiveness of SEO.

Mats Tolander,Technical Search Engine Optimization Director Perficient

SEO is a wide topic to discuss. One instance of this is when you type in “SEO” on the internet and you get unlimited results from different sources. Simply put, SEO is how you manipulate search engines to take your website to the first page of the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) while you overtake other websites within the same niche or market through putting out fresh, informative content and being a trusted authority in your niche or market.

What is SEO? I guess from my point of view it’s ensuring that a website is technically correct in the search engines eyes, so checking Server Headers, Speed (caching or even if AMP is needed), to cannibalization and canonicalization issues, all the way down to HTML markup and site architecture.

David Naylor,Director of Digital Bronco

To me, SEO is the process of getting a brand more organic exposure from search engines. More often than not, this means getting “higher rankings” in Google, but for some businesses, this just isn’t feasible. Google’s algorithm has gotten increasingly complex (and biased) and some websites will never get rankings for certain keywords. However, that doesn’t disqualify your site — there are still opportunities for exposure through Google using platforms like YouTube, SlideShare or even guest posting on authority websites. For example, if you Google “white hat link building” and you’ll see my Ahrefs guest post ranking there. That post has driven a ton of exposure for my agency.

SEO is any optimization that helps someone get an answer from a search engine that they want. That could be a product, a piece of information, some entertainment or a personal action like finding a diary entry.

Despite the modern technologies powering search and moving things forward, SEO as a practice still comes down to creating an answer with sufficient expertise, authority, and trust (EAT) so the engine deems your content the best result for the query. This means that the exact same query should serve a completely different SERP according to the person searching and the circumstance to which they are conducting the search. As practitioners, all we can do is zoom out and take a broad view on our content and websites in order to fulfil Google’s needs at a strategic level and then get into the weeds with our content production and link development and experiment with tactical outputs and techniques to fulfil the broader strategy of being presented as an expert, with authority and trust.

2. SEO is about matching searchers’ needs to content

Every so often, someone comes along and proclaims that “SEO is dead.” The thing is that since the field changes so quickly, they’re usually referring to an outdated practice that failed to work for them.

What is the field moving towards, then?

Here’s an interesting trend I noticed in the responses: aligning content with search intent and placing users’ needs first.

SEO to me, if given an explanation that I’m interested in, is part reverse‐engineering algorithms and part reverse‐engineering human nature. It’s about using logic and “gut” to do what you think should matter and then relying on data to correct yourself due‐course. It’s certainly not the best definition I would use to describe SEO to someone else, but it’s what keeps me excited about the industry.

SEO is the art and science of connecting people to website content, through the medium of a search engine. Good SEO comes from a deep understanding of what potential audience members want to find on the internet, and how to deliver content that fits this need, aligned with a technical setup that enables search engines to recognize that your content is a good fit for their users. Websites that have the most SEO success are strong in all three areas: the audience, the content and the technology.

I’d say SEO is anything and everything that goes into making your site better for search engines and users. I know the “users” bit is not typically considered by everyone but from a link building perspective, my goal is to have users actually click on the links I build. We want to rank well, get great qualified traffic, and have our sites be useful to as many people as possible.

There are two answers to the question “What is SEO?”. The first one is simple: SEO stands for search engine optimization, the art, and science of optimizing websites for organic traffic from search engines.

The second answer is not so simple because the term SEO is outdated. SEOs now have to optimize for users AND search engines and have to cover a broad spectrum of disciplines, from technical optimization to content, content marketing, conversion optimization, user experience, and taxonomy. On top of that, Organic Traffic isn’t (and shouldn’t be) exclusive to get from Google, but also Youtube, Amazon, and other platforms.

Hence, SEO should be the systematic optimization of websites and content for users and bots in order to get organic traffic from search engines and social platforms.

#SEOisAEO — SEO is fast becoming AEO, Answer Engine Optimisation, the art and science of communicating to answer engines the most appropriate and credible answer to user queries for which you are relevant.

SEO is the process of surfacing content that fulfills the needs of a searcher. This can span across many search ecosystems, and it often does.

Matthew Barby,Director of Acquisition Hubspot

At its core, SEO is simple. It’s understanding what your users are trying to achieve and then helping them achieve that in a way that both humans and search engines can understand.

SEO is the process of aligning a site’s content focus and the underlying technical reinforcement of user experience signals with searcher intent needs. This is based on maximizing the highest quality experience where nuanced relevance to those intent needs is sought out. Given that search engines are a form of user, and technical conflicts or barriers to understanding exist, it’s up to the role of SEO to address that reality. The more conflicts or barriers that exist within a site’s presence at the topical and technical level, the less likely the crawl, indexing, and ranking sequence will be able to properly interpret what site owners hope to achieve.

SEO is the result of having a great business that invests in educating and/or entertaining their audience through valuable content. It’s creating and being the best answer to the myriad of questions that exist in your industry and Google recognizing that through the smooth technical structure of the site, the valuable and in‐depth content and the links that exist from other quality websites around the web back to the great content you are creating.

Traditionally, SEO refers to the practice of getting more traffic from search engines. What people tend to mean by that is the idea of getting traffic by typing in queries at a search box in a web browser. This is where traditional search algorithms apply, such as keywords, content quality, and links.

However, today, it makes sense to take a broader view of the definition of SEO. For example, obtaining traffic from the Google Assistant is also rightly considered SEO as well. Perhaps the better way to think about SEO is that it’s the practice of obtaining visibility and/or traffic in response to user requests for information regardless of when and where such requests take place.

SEO attempts to perfectly match a users’ search intent to its content across all devices and platforms.

For me, SEO has changed both direction and depth. It is no longer just about doing a bit of on‐page work and adding a few backlinks (although these are still needed and very important).

SEO now means making sure that someone has a pleasing user experience on your website. When someone visits your website and completes an action (contact, purchase, etc.), then your site is meeting requirements that Google is looking for. It is meeting the intent of the searches being performed and will be rewarded accordingly.

This speaks volumes about the direction that Google is taking and how smart their algorithms are.  

So the next time you think about adding a bit of text to a page in the hope it helps push you up the SERPs, try and think about the user experience once someone gets to the page.

Andy Drinkwater,SEO Consultant IQSEO

SEO is equal parts art and science. It can help you identify the questions your customers (or potential customers) have; how you can (or if you should!) answer them; and how you can ensure that — when those customers ask a search engine — they find your answer in the search results, driving more of the right kind of traffic to your website.

Andrew Cock‐Starkey,SEO Consultant Optimisey

What is SEO? For me, SEO is making sure I achieve the organic traffic goals of a specific domain. For every search (either textual, visual, voice‐based) the challenge is to create a fitting experience for search engines and their users. This is completely different in every possible situation and that makes SEO a challenging job. Some domains need content, others need links whereas some domains are technically way behind on their direct competitors. Never a dull moment.

In my opinion, SEO is simply a phrase which relates to someone with a specific understanding, appreciation for getting ‘the most’ out of any activity which is undertaken which could be a website/URI/App in relation to organic search.

Knowledge + Experience + Application of knowledge + Juggling + Dealing with Bullshit = SEO

3. SEO as a strategy

Hold up a second. It’s kind of nice and all to put into words what SEO is, but what does SEO mean in practice? How does it fit into an actual business or marketing strategy, and why should you care?

That’s the final popular theme among the responses: going broader to address SEO in relation to business objectives.

This in itself is pretty telling of just how tightly interwoven SEO is with business development these days.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of optimizing and promoting your website to increase its visibility in Google or other search engines. The end goal is to get more organic traffic, leads, and customers from search engines. In a small number of cases, SEO is also used for reputation management (suppressing “negative” results and replacing them with “positive” results).

Although SEO requires the most upfront investment (time and money), it’s the most scalable customer acquisition channel over the long‐term. I would also argue that it’s the most affordable (as far as CAC) in the long‐term.

Whether you call it SEO or something else, the main purpose of our job is to create and modify websites so that search engines and users find them useful. Our goal is to recommend changes to help the business get more customers and make more money. Those changes may be as follows:

technical changes to help search engines better crawl or understand the site

content changes to make it so that your site is the most helpful of its kind

SEO is constantly changing. But, in my opinion, as long as websites exist, there will be a huge need for SEO!

SEO is a form of marketing that leverages Google’s organic search. When you write content that is optimized for a certain keyword, then Google will rank you on the 1st page when someone searches for that keyword. While there is a lot more that goes into it, you can boil SEO down to high‐quality content with good on‐page optimization combined with good quality backlinks. The beauty of SEO is that once you’re ranked on Google, you will often stay there for a long time and be able to reap the benefits of free traffic hitting your site daily.

At this point you are kind of in a “set and forget it” mode, versus paid traffic campaigns require you to monitor that campaign’s health every day. Organic traffic tends to convert into customers easier than other forms of traffic too. That being said, most SEOs get obsessed with the ranking portion of driving traffic to their site and often forget to do the other side of marketing.

Don’t forget that you should still be investing in powerful copywriting principles to get your traffic over the finish line from just a website visitor to an actual lead or customer.

SEO is the process of finding opportunities to reach your target audience through search and then executing a strategy to increase the frequency of your desired conversion (pageviews, leads, revenue, users, etc).

SEO is search engine optimization; the practice of optimizing your digital presence for findability via search engines. How well do you rank when people search for you or what you offer? And how do you rank better?

That can include surprising networks‐ not just Google but also YouTube, the second biggest search engine. And it can include surprising activities‐ not just blogging but also networking and podcasting and even attending events, if it helps you get more website links to your content, which Google sees as votes from others of your credibility and importance. SEO is viewed as the organic (non‐advertising) side of search.

There are two major types of digital marketing: search and there is social. Within search, there are two major types of marketing: SEO and search advertising such as Google Ads (which some people call “search marketing” but I think that is a confusing term for people). SEO work includes a lot of geeky technical stuff like redirects and htaccess files that requires knowledge of HTML and web server technology.

To achieve search findability and SEO success, you’ll need expertise and action from geeks, marketers, networkers, salespeople and more. SEO takes time, but it’s the long‐term investment. Ads are quicker, like getting a job to get paid now, but SEO pays off big in the long run, like a retirement plan. All serious companies should do SEO, search ads and social media.

When I describe SEO to people who aren’t familiar with what I do, I usually say something like, “I help businesses make changes to their websites and marketing to help ensure that when people use a search engine like Google to search for topics having to do with their products and services, their website is what comes up.”

To expand on that a bit, I think SEO is about marketing a business online, using organic search as a channel. Doing so means understanding how people use search engines to make purchasing decisions for your clients’ products and services. It also means understanding how search engines like Google figure out whether or not a given result is a good result for a query. From a technical standpoint, this means making a website as easy as possible for search engines to find, crawl, and understand. From a marketing standpoint, this means applying that understanding of the customer journey to help ensure that the site is answering people’s needs when they arrive there from search. Done right, SEO not only makes organic search a powerful marketing channel in its own right, it also makes organic search a tool for growing the client’s brand.

Ruth Burr Reedy,Director of Strategy Upbuild

Once it was a tactical, technical channel designed to manipulate visibility in search results. As SEO popularized, we started to see just how important its role was in digital marketing overall.

SEO can be a powerful digital marketing channel, providing an opportunity to improve a brand’s recognition and qualified traffic. Even though it’s not a small investment (in most cases), its propensity to return huge results is obvious – as long as you stay committed.

SEO is digital marketing. Over the years, SEO has evolved so much that it has already become an all‐encompassing marketing discipline. SEO has become more than just search engine optimization.

A decade ago, a few tweaks on the website (i.e., metadata & content) and building links to it is enough to compete for better organic search visibility. But these days, to truly succeed in SEO, your business (not just your website) should be:

Technically superior (technical SEO and site performance)

Able to provide the best experience possible to its intended web users (content quality, relevance, UX, conversions, and other user‐engagement metrics).

Well‐branded — that people would talk about positively, socially share and link to (in which sentiment analysis, entity recognition, E‐A‐T, link building, digital PR, and a lot more are all in play).

Data‐driven — to give a better direction to the site’s overall traffic/revenue generation campaign (analytics, keyword research, content gap analysis, forecasting).

SEO is the process to grow a site’s organic search visibility towards its target audience with the goal to increase its traffic, conversions and profits.

Aleyda Solis,International SEO Consultant & Founder Orainti

The definition for what we talk about when we talk about SEO is changing dynamically. Six or seven years ago, SEO was mostly focused on getting links from directories, press releases and so on. Back then only a few SEOs (if any) would focus on the technical aspects of how you should optimize your website past H tags and meta titles/descriptions.

This has changed dramatically. I will go as far as to say that most people today look at SEO as a more technical field than a way to get links. SEO is also about links, but it is much more than that — it’s about being up to date with the latest trends in web technology and challenging the industry by e.g. testing how Search Engines cope with current JavaScript Frameworks.

SEO was always about being creative and looking for new solutions. This hasn’t changed. SEO was and still is about being flexible and agile to stay ahead of the curve.

Bartosz Góralewicz,Co‐founder & Head of SEOElephate

What is SEO? It’s a process that works with a variety of digital marketing components with the end result to improve your visibility in the eyes of those looking for answers and information. In short: SEO is no longer chasing the ‘rankings’. SEO is chasing the answer.

Search Engine Optimization has come to mean far more than it used to. Originally, SEO simply meant the implementation of accepted best practices for visibility and findability, as recommended by Google and other search industry leaders. Today, however, to me, the phrase “search engine optimization” includes a wide variety of activities, both on‐site and off‐site, that help ensure that a website is not only found, but that it stays there, and that it performs well too, converting users into customers and clients.

SEO is the art and science of coupling the completion of a businesses objective (usually generating revenue) to an effective online strategy that harnesses traffic gained from ranking in search engines.

SEO is the practice of professing to know something about which you know nothing while convincing others who know they know nothing, that you know something, with the goal of making money.

SEO is a discipline of study into how information retrieval works for the world’s largest search engines. To do so involves understanding how people search, why they search, what experience they receive online as a result of a search, and how to optimize their experience with the goal of aligning site content with user needs. Major search engine professionals’ goal is to give their users a great experience on their products. So aligning content, architecture, data, and usability in an additive way to search queries also adds revenue value for websites and brands online.

Special mentions go to…

Tangible love for the industry:

SEO is a lifestyle! Meeting people across the world during my keynote speeches, exchanging knowledge and bringing a lot of quality traffic is what I love the most. SEO is very different from any other industry. Challenging, constantly forcing people to learn more and finally with a lot of social human‐to‐human dimension. The greatest thing that could happen to me 🙂

Lukasz Zelezny,SEO Speaker & Consultant

And to end things off, an answer so meta that I couldn’t fit it in anywhere else:

Over to you

A huge thank you to everyone who contributed their thoughts.

I hope this post has answered some burning questions and sparked some thought on the evolution and potential of SEO.

Have something to add on (or challenge)? Maybe a definition of your own to share? Let us know in the comments below!

This content was originally published here.

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Instagram: A Thot Experiment

Recovering from mental health problems to any extent is kind of a weird feeling. Being able to function again - or more - is strange enough that I'll have to talk about it at length some time, but I haven't refined those thoughts yet.

However, I have been able to clean and move things around, and dress differently - and that's changed my perspective. So, to the best of my ability, here's some stuff I've noticed and some advice I've gathered.

How's it look? 

It makes a big difference to feel good about where you live, and watching DIY videos often show me nicely decorated spaces. In addition, tiny house and interior decorating videos often provoke not envy, but provide inspiration.

Tumblr and other visual-media based social networks, Facebook included, are notorious for inspiring envy. Instead, it should inspire fellowship and aspiration. I like haul videos and diy videos - have learned a few tricks, and just making the jump from seeing to trying something can make a huge difference.

A great way to improve your surroundings affordably is to use Facebook Marketplace, Kijiji, or thrifting. This can take time, but it's about the same as shopping online, and can often be much cheaper. You'd be surprised what you can find, and it's often in good shape.

Some basic suggestions 

Tiny houses are cool not because they're small, but because they make use of innovative storage  techniques. Any space - including, say, a mobile home or extremely modest two-bedroom apartment - can feel big and clean if you plan it out.

Make use of nooks and crannies, and get as many shelves as you can. Remember, wall decorations don't have to be pictures - you can stick up a rack to hang jewelry, or stick floating shelves up for even more storage, or to display a curio like an enameled plate.

A healthy way to change up or enrich your space is to add some plants; spider plants or succulents have become popular because they endure even the most forgetful gardener. However, fake plants are a good way to split the difference on this.

The secret sauce of good decorating appears to be color-coordinating your space as best as you can and using lots of baskets and boxes for storage. It keeps things from looking messy and makes it easier to clean. Of course, you still have to organize the contents, but it's progress.

We all love blankets and pillows, and blankets and throw pillows are a great way to both make a place look seasonably comfy and add some decor. If your couch has been attacked by a cat or your furniture otherwise needs repair, a throw blanket also hides a lot of sins. Rotating them by color is a good idea, and a relatively easy way to both redecorate and maximize your comfiness.

Fabric is a fundamental of organizing and decorating space, and adding or changing your curtains can make a huge difference. Thrifting or reusing scarves or panels of fabric is a good way to fancy up a space. Got something with a cool pattern? It's now a wall-hanging, and it'll reduce the echo in your space, too.

Maybe you don't have a curtain rod. No problem. Sticking up curtains with rounded pins from a dollar store is a great way to make the thumbtacks look fancier without having to install hardware.  As well, a thin curtain makes for a surprisingly great room divider. It can also be used to soften a harsh light, as in the case of the blue curtain over my very yellow office light. Anyone with mobility issues might need a friend or partner's help to get curtains up, but they can add a lot of privacy and help create changeable "mini-rooms."

Also, don't feel constrained by the intended purpose of a room. A living room can be a dining room, and anything can be an office - even a storage closet. With the addition of shelves for clothes, a storage closet can also (if you're a clothes horse like me) become a walk-in closet.

Walls are your best friend; when it comes to decorating or moving things around in a room, start at the walls and work inwards, trying to leave the middle free. Be aware of the traffic of each room. As long as you can all move around, what else matters?

Isn't decorating exhausting? 

This may sound like a lot of work, but the key is working with whomever you live with you get it done. Whether you have roommates, a spouse, children, extended family, or all of the above, it's important to be allies in making your living space mutually pleasant.

It's also a great way to bond with people and feel allied with one another. It's much easier to be agreeable when you feel united and as though you have things in common. Talking about what you like to look at is a good way to start on this.

What's this got to do with Instagram?

Instagram - along with, to some extent, TikTok, Snapchat, and other visually-based social media platforms - is known for its performative aspects. But when we look at people doing stuff, showing off and sharing their best moments, what we should take away is not envy, but aspirations and strategies.

I've never had this envy problem for some reason, but I think I've figured out why. My approach to seeing other people's vacation photos or selfies is fundamentally different. What I take away from Instagram is simple - wanting to go on adventures, take pictures of myself and friends, bake things, and make things.

Instead of envy, try to think of how to make things happen in your own life. Neat makeup technique? Just try it, and laugh off the mistakes. Pretty drawing? It's worth trying to copy it or draw something different, even if you think you'll fail. Failure builds the bones of skill. And above all, do your best ot go outside. Adventures don't have to be expensive - you can take pictures of a walk around your neighborhood, through your favorite park, through a new park, or try a new cafe. Another great way to feel fancy is make yourself a little pack lunch. maybe it's just some veggies and a sandwich, but if you cut it up and arrange it nicely for yourself, it will feel special

Enjoy the moments that compose undertaking an action. Taking pics of yourself smiling or while doing even ordinary activities, like having a coffee with friends or walking the dog, will help you remember times more and make them seem brighter both in the present and the future. Little goals, like getting a mirror in the hall or putting up some curtains, can make a huge difference.

And remember - it's never too late to do something nice that you've been putting off. Self-care doesn't have to cost money to be useful or valid. Sometimes, it's as simple as switching out your pillows and blankets and putting up a little fall decor - because you finally can.

***

Michelle Browne is a sci fi/fantasy writer and editor. She lives in Lethbridge, AB with her partner-in-crime and Max the cat. Her days revolve around freelance editing, knitting, jewelry, and learning too much. She is currently working on other people's manuscripts, the next books in her series, and drinking as much tea as humanly possible.

Find her all over the internet: * OG Blog * Mailing list * Magpie Editing * 

* Amazon * Medium * Twitter * Instagram * Facebook * Tumblr * Paypal.me * Ko-fi

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10 Feature To help Reinvent Your VIDEO GAME

Gaming With You At The Center

We've after again teamed up with our buddies at Dire Wolf Digital Studios to bring this remarkable game to your gaming table. The notion for Green Man Gaming came about when we were considering exactly where the games marketplace was going to go and what was going to take place next. There was a powerful company model in trading in games in the sector and there was the get started of the move to a totally digital marketplace. The coupling of these two market place mechanisms were supported by analysis from London Business School displaying that a customer's propensity to obtain is heightened when supplied the alternative to trade-in a solution or recoup some of its value. So the 'œbig idea' was to combine digital and trade-in into the exact same platform, efficiently becoming a retailer and a marketplace on 1 global digital platform.

Cher Cabula finds that 24 hours in a day is not adequate to fuel her passions. With a entire lot of time management expertise that has been tried and tested for quite a few years now, when not designing exceptional interiors for quite happy clientele, the added time is devoted to blogging and gaming. A single look at Cher and you'll obtain that she's not your standard gamer chic. In fact, most gamer girls are. What sets her apart is that she does most items with poise and style. If you are searching for techniques to mix in games, style and art then Cher is your go-to girl.

Gaming on portable devices has really gained traction inside the last three-five years, and some clientele, such as Planet of Tanks Blitz, Pokemon Go and Fortnite, had been able to win significant market recognition. There is surely a future for mobile gaming, but, personally, I see numerous drawbacks also - no AAA titles ported on mobile devices, virtual touch screen-primarily based buttons do not give suitable feedback, and player expertise is heavily dependent on the capacity and delay in the cellular network. Moreover, new gaming capabilities, new game mechanics, advanced graphics, operating with the highest doable expertise and on any device - these are the expectations of the gaming audience.

Mobile games continues to grow in terms of players and revenues across regions. An increase in the number of paying gamers and time spent gaming is fueling the Western markets though increasing on the net connectivity, smartphone penetration and the availability of 3G and 4G connectivity drives fast development in emerging markets, such as Southeast Asia.

Beware The GAMING Scam

You can have your personal exceptional Gaming Web site and impress your on the internet players with this completely functional WordPress Theme for Online Games. Take a appear to our cool features list beneath and you'll see that the Gameleon theme will be a good option to your projects and will convince you to get it in a minute! Also, if you are not hunting to establish gaming internet site, that is fine also. Given that latest update this theme features none-gamer edition with equivalent functionality but noticeably different design.

Manufacturers across the globe have been coming up with gaming devices beyond just the mice, joysticks and keyboards for years. Some are constructed for durability, other individuals for added functionality http://freememberships4all.com/ and an enhanced gaming experience. Most of them are futuristic and sleek but all of them are for built for 1 objective, to give the finest darn gaming session hardcore gamers deserve.

When connectivity is constantly enhancing, the idea of cloud gaming is not exactly new. It can be traced at least as far back as 2000 and G-cluster - a service that supplied on-demand gaming by way of set-major boxes. A wide variety of cloud gaming projects have come and gone given that then, notably OnLive and Gaikai, which was acquired by Sony in 2012 to type the basis of PlayStation Now - Sony's subscription service that lets players stream older titles on their console or Computer.

Playing a game in your pc or even game console demands absolute concentration and focus. If you can not manage your cognitive skills, you might not be capable to mentally formulate a much more viable strategy for a provided issue in your game play. That's why serious gamers generally take the Stimpack Energy & Concentrate gaming supplement. It includes Vitamin B12 that enhances the neural connections of the brain, assisting you to concentrate a lot superior. It also includes caffeine for a substantially-required power enhance as nicely as extra focus and alertness. The Stimpack also consists of theobromone and l-theanine, each of which are established cognitive stimulants.

Why Gaming Conversations is a Top rated Video Game Resource: RPG fans will really like Braxwolf's in-depth analyses of preferred new and classic games, as he usually reaches into his back catalogue to overview and go over classics that have been about for awhile. He specifically tackles MMORPG's on a regular basis, so multiplayer fanatics will find a lot to like right here.

The journey does not end when the solution arrives at your doorstep. We want to make a community to come back to, and go over your adventures on the internet! That's why we'd love to retain interacting with you on any of our social media, blogs and our future forum. Links can be discovered at the bottom of this article. Fundamentally, we want to show shoppers that they imply extra than just somebody who buys from us, we want to greet them into our household. The heart of gaming lies in its community.

SHIELD transportable has been designed with the philosophy that gaming really should be each open and versatile. As an Android gaming device, it supplies access to Android games by means of Google Play, with SHIELD- and Tegra-optimized titles located via SHIELD Hub application. And as a wireless receiver and controller, it can stream games from any Kepler or Maxwell-primarily based Computer powered by a GTX 650 or higher GPU, accessing excellent titles from your STEAM, Origin, and Uplay libraries.

If you were born in the late 70s, chances are you've played 1 of the most iconic gaming console systems in the period. In truth, the Nintendo Entertainment Program (NES) Classic Edition has paved the way to how households can take pleasure in a fantastic laptop or computer game with each other. Now, you can bring back those old glory days and re-play your favourite NES games of the 80s and 90s such as the Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, Donkey kong, Mega Man, Pac-Man, Final Fantasy and a entire lot additional. The modern day version of the NES Classic is additional streamlined and comes with HDMI connectivity.

One particular of the very first phones getting this function was the Sony Xperia Z5 Premium. Its battery went low two times quicker when a 4K video was operating. To support this technology, a mobile device needs higher processing energy otherwise there may possibly be uneven screen backlighting due to its inability to deal with millions of pixels at a time. In addition, mobile phones powered by 4K technologies have not develop into popular however mobile gaming development does not involve this function on their roadmap. Basic as that.

Our VA pick is truly a bit unique considering the fact that it is an Ultrawide, curved 35” Acer Predator Z35. While it isn't the very best for competitive gaming (most on the internet games don't let you to use the full width of the screen due to the fact it is a competitive advantage) it'd be a terrific pick for any individual that enjoys single-player gaming, or watching motion pictures.

Whether you want to develop a little-scale group web page and spread data about your players or handle substantial-scale organizations like Group liquid or Virtus Pro with numerous gaming divisions, PixieHuge is best for you. PixieHuge delivers you with sections with designated purposes such as player profiles,, sponsor promotions, different game departments, match history and achievements list.

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The following is A Way for Free Fortnite Skins!

Money Laundering Scheme Uncovered Using Fortnite V

Fortnite is a house sandbox survival video game developed by Nations Could Escape with Epic Games. This was a newly Click here! discovered patch in a person in the Epic Games forums - it seems a number of Fortnite "movie" documents were truly damaged or corrupted. According to Marksman, selling Fortnite program is a safer bet than go broken-into accounts, although the accounts may be more productive (one seller I spoke with was going an bill with rare skins for $900). Players can get back stolen consideration in contacting Epic Games' help and altering their details. The systems are irrelevant.

The Fortnite World Cup Online tournaments get started at April 13 and will run every week for twenty weeks around every area. The semi-finals session takes place on the Saturday and is a few times long, with a 10 match limit. If you place in the top 3000 players, you'll be able to take cut from the last at Wednesday. Fortnite Week 1 Concerns on the Period 8 Battle State happen here, like go to all Pirate Camps plot and big face locations. Clear at least several in the several concern to gain 5,000XP. That set was generated at Feb 28, 2019.

If you've been looking at a certain skin or want to save up to get some new equipment you'll know about Fortnite V-Bucks. They're the in-game currency to permit you to acquire new items like skins and gliders for your Fortnite identity with load-out. Become the lowdown on Fortnite: Battle Royale, that is now into time 7. In most multiplayer shooter games, your objective is to kill. This is not the issue if you are going to perform Fortnite. The plan is to survive, not kill. For instance, even if you kill 50 opponents, you may well shed.

These cheats for Fortnite is 100% functioning with legitimate to use in the competition. You can certainly find Unlimited V Bucks for PS4 by using these systems. Don't you worry, you might and get V Dollars For Xbox One, COMPUTER, iOS and Android with the same manner. Traps are remarkably useful in Fortnite, especially to protect the rear. Although it is not recommended to remain even, if you decide for a more passive game, try to recover the different types of corner (on the earth, on the edges) so as to cover you.

This swagbucks link will allow for you to receive a free 3$ significance of positions when you make only 3$ worth. It will enable you to get at least the beginner system in fortnite. Squad up with your friends and have an Xbox One X 1TB console, Xbox wireless controller, Fortnite Battle Royal, Legendary Eon cosmetic fixed, and 2,000 V-Bucks. How To Receive Free V Challenges In Fortnite? Here really is the query that Suddenly being raised with the many Fortnite Game Players. The main reason is because; with V Bucks, it is possible to voluntarily access most from the items in Fortnite game.

Part of Fortnite's progress to control has no doubt become their cross-platform availability, with everyday mobile gamers on the move able to be involved with great bedroom gamers in equal footing ( Sony was uncertain , but cross-play operation has recently become helped for PS4 players ). Many from the FORTNITE V BUCKS GENERATOR websites out there are try to assure a person that somehow their developers managed to cut into the FORTNITE Database, and therefore they could find the unlimited free v-bucks in Battle Royale game.

Figure 1: Data demonstrates the estimated profits of Fortnite compared to PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds between July 2017 — June 2018, based on the Edison Trends dataset. While you can't directly gift V-Bucks to another person, you have a several options to assist them get their Fortnite fix: accept them something certificate for the platform of choice, or buy a pack with special content.

The Twenty Commandments Of VBUCKS

Accumulate resources: Unlike other Battle Royale, one of the type of Fortnite is which make is very important. From a ramp that allows you to climb to an elevated point into a wall after which to hide yourself, or use as a project to escape if you are at a disadvantage, take a potion. For the new ever, Fortnite Battle Royale players have the chance to compete with one another for a huge sum of V-Bucks, the sport virtual currency.

If you want help with delivering the fortnite get in xbox stay or playstation or microsoft marketplace then refer to the blog. If you may see and struggling to download fortnite game then write to us immediately to get service on the generator. V-Bucks are the most popular in-game buy for Fortnite players, getting up 83% of products bought and 88% of spending. While different V-Bucks amounts are designed for grip, the solo most popular Fortnite item is 1,000 V-Bucks for $9.99, accounts for 53% of things held and 33% of waste.

Thanks for considering the Fortnite: Battle Royale & Fortnite: Save The World videos! Require new? I published daily Fortnite videos or something interesting for Fortnite Battle Royale. Fortnite's fundamental and fewer well-known horde mode offers daily login bonuses, daily challenges, and compensates for Storm Shield Defense missions. They are clever and simple ways to get a tiny total of currency each day, although you'll should really grip the kind.

Fortnite: But The planet is a co-op survival game using all the same gear with weapons as you'll locate in Fortnite Battle Royale, and charges the gambler with body defenses before playing down a ambush of AI controlled zombies. Survive the night and you earn rewards such as new weapons, gear, block with figure things to do everything over. With including two different modes along with living into earlier access, it is surprising how very Fortnite works both in PVE and PVP modes. As such, you don't require a very powerful PC to be able to play the game.

Fortnite suggests an in-game feedback tool in the Core Selection in the ready to record bad player behaviour. You can also email Epic Games, the inventor of Fortnite, because of their website - reporting any concerns you may have. Fortnite: Battle Royale, is no doubt the most important free to play games in the planet by far, then it should visit no wonder for anyone to learn to gamers can buy cosmetics with real-world currency.

Fast-Track Your VBUCKS

Watch the latest episode of our Fortnite talk show Squad Up to meet Patrick Warburton show some controversy royale. One of the best things about building a PC for Fortnite remains to, for a great in-game thing, people only really need 2 or more CPU cores. Children can sometimes get V-Bucks without the parents' information, as the parents' faith or debit cards are linked with the big game account they will worth to join in. Although the issue isn't special to Fortnite, the issue with Fortnite has attracted special interest as the game is so popular right now.

So these were some of the best method which is usually used to get free v dollars in fortnite game without using any real money. Fortnite Battle Royale is an online multiplayer survival shooter developed by Epic Games , in which 100 players fight to get the last one having here activities lasting less than forty minutes. It is a free game utilizing some mechanics on the new Fortnite, a survival sandbox game, many aspects in the war royale” genre of competition.

You can earn V Bucks in Fortnite without spending out money specifically for them, although your opportunities for slowly accumulating the exclusive currency are limited also command you buy Fortnite Save the planet. When bought, one way is to follow in everyday for small numbers of V Bucks from the servers. That right is based on Fortnite (now renamed Fortnite But the World), a third-person cooperative, base-defense activity. In 2017, developer Epic Games bought this perception and rewrite that out in a separate, free-to-play battle royale match for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

Teenagers in the United States are apparently preferring cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, and in-game currency Fortnite ‘V-Bucks' over traditional holiday gifts that contain gift cards with fiat cash. Of course, later you can think of Fortnite Battle Royale tactics a somewhat more elaborate, such as attracting an adversary within your center with flowing done many hole that you have left completely on purpose, to impart the rear with head. This is more confused than it does.

To get Fortnite on a PROCESSOR or Mac, you'll need a Epic Games account. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem a clear-cut way to stop childen by obtaining items with your account, if they tell your password, though we've asked Epic Games and will update that word when we consider back. The best Instant Sound Option from the best soundboard for Fortnite. Use it in Reception, in Entertainment or Like Death! Create your best times by showing online.

Flamemaster”, a 10th grader, says that they are, Annoying, obnoxious, dangerous, and infuriating.” What went wrong? Of course, every competition says their catches, then I remain not wanting to show how Fortnite is a negative game, just demonstrate how many people that engage in it take destroyed what has been a decent game. You will accept a e-mail alert if the rate of Fortnite - 10,000 (+3,500 Bonus) V-Bucks can lower.

Motion blur: Trying this at includes a fog air after moving. It's a graphic setting which approximately participants have, but for a competitive game of Fortnite, it could make things harder to tell after step in speed. Flip this away from is suggested. Way your stats for Fortnite battle royale, complete with global leaderboards for solo, couple and squad gamemodes. Unlike most multiplayer shooters, the ambition of Fortnite Battle Royale is to continue, not to have kills. This is probably one of the most important Fortnite suggestions to help evoke: you could get 98 kills and still lose.

You can turn off hardware speed with Google Chrome so to experience applications did by Chrome do not consume too many resources if you become engaging in Fortnite. Free Fortnite V Bucks Generator Greatest with Straightforward Way for 2019. But, if you're not, then pay attention to this sector and go through very precisely. Since those fake V Bucks Hack can cause your ‘Fortnite account banned or blocked‘ if you plunged in the corner.

Having moving storm crowds with creative would also lived all right gotten in the Fortnite competitive area because persons would be able to consistently practice hectic end-game scenarios commonly seen in LAN events. Fortnite could also follow PUBG's model also include news plans to season up the gameplay (but made with Fortnite's signature, goofy style). Other vehicles may be another interesting direction to travel arrived, with competitors PUBG , H1Z1 and now Term of Payment: Blackout successfully featuring vehicular gameplay.

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12 Things You Need to Know About SEO

The particular year 2018 is already within full swing, and is quick becoming interesting for SEO. Because when somebody searches for SEO via tone of voice search, he would speak ‘what is SEO' or ‘How in order to do SEO' rather than just requesting SEO. The search engine informs 500-600 updates annually and the particular SEOs need to comply along with these changes to ensure that will their websites follow legitimate search engine optimization practices. They are considered a crucial Local SEO search engine ranking factor. SEO within 2018 means greeting the consumer with the exact information these people are looking for at the particular exact time they are searching for it. This is often on the variety of platforms, from tone of voice search to local businesses plus online shopping. Google algorithms for SEO are usually quite complex and are getting updated constantly to keep company quick-witted and responsive. At the same period, the rise of messaging applications and personal assistants has shown new challenges which SEO should continue to overcome in 2018. On the particular other hand, traffic coming through SEO is free and organic” and can take a lengthy time to obtain recognized, whilst the traffic generated from PAY PER CLICK (Pay Per Click) and SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING (Search Engine Marketing) is just not free of charge and companies pay for to look on the top of the particular Search Engine to get fast not organic results. These links will help a person rank in the Google-maps, plus will also work to assist your business website show upward in the organic search outcomes, if you have your on-page SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (what you do and where) set up correctly. With all that said…SEO remains all about content plus links. The SEO content composing strategies are implementing new key phrases, that could make a even more conventional tone. Strengthening the particular brand of a company is usually also one of the best SEO trends for 2018. Therefore, Backlink is one the particular nearly all significant in the list associated with ‘SEO trends 2018'. The greatest way to get ahead associated with the personalisation is to create sure that your SEO great enough to rank highly for the traditional ranking system. Keep in mind that will likes and shares and responses on social media posts that will connect to you will count with regard to SEO purposes as backlinks. I would just like in order to add that now link getting SEO techniques are becoming even more popularity than the traditional one way link. This means the SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION trends and techniques will furthermore dramatically change since the SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION experts will need to discover out new voice-based keywords with regard to optimization purpose. SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION is the process of enhancing your website so that this can rank better searching motor results pages, and therefore, provide more traffic to your freshly designed website. Google previous up-dates destroyed many black hat developments, many SEOs lost their careers especially after Panda and Penguin, Google panda was affected regarding 12% queries, and penguin simply on 4% on mobile plus desktop queries, and today one particular of the Google professional mentioned that is going to end up being affected more than 40% associated with mobile queries. Within the 2nd chapter of the SEO guide, you will understand how research engines work, how people make use of them and what type associated with search queries they submit. In conclusion, SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION is far more complex compared to keywords. Consequently, your SEO campaign offers to be more mind believing and adaptable to changes within the search engine rankings surroundings. Google Lookup Console (formerly Webmaster Tools) provides lots of great info regarding our SEO audit. Image running helps to increase the site speed also which helps regarding better SEO ranking. I think you'll see 1 overarching trend for 2018 plus SEO: Search is getting better, better, and much more user-friendly. Perhaps the easiest way to gauge the effectiveness of your Local SEO campaign would be to measure your ranking positions for the target keywords on a monthly basis. As described SEO 2019 PDF before, the SEO process is definitely there to make sure much better websites for everyone, so ignoring to supply a quality consumer experience if you are browsing the web with their mobile phones will score you negative factors. You believe a person could get away if a person try a few of these types of black hat SEO techniques, yet sooner or later you may lose rank or traffic, damage your own reputation, obtain a penalty through Google, lose credibility and customers, or worst of these most, face a lawsuit. Voice technology plus digital assistants are paving the particular path for new and helpful ways to deliver content plus approach SEO. Learning much more in our blog article: 5 reasons why User Encounter (UX) is important for SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION. I was initially concerned about ranking my websites and it was too very much to learn about SEO. Using rich pictures as an SEO strategy need to be a major focus within increasing your brand presence plus reach via content marketing within 2018. However, along with the advancement of technology plus Google latest updates you may improve rankings by adopting tone of voice search, accelerated mobile pages, articles marketing, mobile optimization, user-experience marketing, long-tail keywords, local SEO, Search engines Quick Answer Box, Microformat plus Artificial Intelligence within your SEO technique 2018. As a result, it is extremely essential with regard to businesses to take note associated with SEO and make sure that will their websites are properly listed by search engines. Sensing that people were misusing the liberty given to all of them, Google came up with their own Panda Algorithm and a Penguin update that began penalizing web sites using such Black Hat SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION strategies. Links will carry on to be one of the particular leading SEO components if a person want to rank well within 2018. Understand how to write articles, understand how to write some easy HTML, and the the pretty basic principles of SEO, and you may make money online using SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION and article promotion to obtain your web page (you just need one from each website) listed on Page #1 associated with Google (forget Yahoo and the particular rest) and you will obtain loads of traffic to that will web page. Stat to: seventy two percent of SEOs believe inbound links are a significant ranking aspect, which is surprisingly low. Within order to help you obtain on top of SEO regarding 2018, I'll cover two places here: the trends to view out for and the equipment to take advantage of this particular year. The particular biggest SEO change and craze I see already happening within 2018 is Google's in purchase to a mobile-first index, therefore if a website is not really yet mobile-friendly and optimized intended for it, it's critical to prioritize this as it is today fundamental because of its SEO success. On-page describes both the content plus HTML source code of the page that can be enhanced, as opposed to off-page SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION which describes links and some other external signals. But there are definitely content of quality on this blog site, including this one: 10 Harmful Website design Mistakes That Destroy SEO” When you've been doing SEO function for clients for any size of time, some of these types of mistakes will provide you along with the willies. We are coping along with new algorithms designed to focus on traditional style SEO tactics plus that focus across the truism that will DOMAIN ‘REPUTATION' plus LOTS associated with PAGES plus SEO equals A LOT of Keywords equals LOTS associated with Google traffic. Advanced on-page SEO depends on Word usage, content format and user satisfaction for achievement. On the web points Web 2. 0 websites are very important for Off-Page SEO? Their passion for search engine advertising led him to produce his very own SEO Toolset, trying to resolve the issues that he is usually facing within the search motor optimization field. The number one trend of SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION in 2018 is focused upon mobile SEO. Right now there you will find all the particular details and SEO tricks associated with the most successful content advertising experts: what type of content are the most widely utilized in the niche of on-line marketing, and exactly how lengthy posts should be to obtain a significant amount of back links, sharings and comments; expert get in touch with details, their mistakes, loading acceleration, how to choose keywords intended for the article, selecting the greatest headings possible as well since the secrets of on-page search engine optimization these experts have used within their most popular posts. These days, most people states, SEO is dead, but I actually believe, SEO may be the pillar associated with any online business and not really gonaa die. SEO shouldn't impact upon the time it takes in order to create good content. If you really want to improve local SEO and enhance your business's credibility, it has to be an on-going process. Primary on the more personalized user experience because the driving factor behind SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION strategy should make for a good interesting and exciting year within SEO. SEO providers help in all growth trip to reach the goal with time and gather more traffic in order to the site with quality content composed and displayed on the site. One easy way, but mainly overlooked off-page SEO technique in constructing local links is creating market profiles. This way, as an SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION specialist, you could associated along with necessary changes and adjustments with regard to your tactics so that a person could preserve your present rank through not just Jagger, nevertheless for future updates as properly. Create them a message or deliver a message via social networking along with a link to your fresh article, and enquire them to web page link over to it. As well as other SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION best practices, building links with regard to your article will help a person take over the top place from your competitors. Search information is usually coveted among the individuals and teams that have SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION and SEM-specific roles. Therefore if you want to obtain more traffic from SEO within 2018, I recommend creating plus optimizing content specifically for Youtube . com. When it comes to organic language, voice search, and smart voice assistants, what SEOs may do much more related in order to optimizing for the parsing plus indexing phases of the Search engines algorithm than to rankings by themselves. Check out this infographic in order to learn more in regards to the top SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION trends you should keep an eye fixed on to stay competitive within digital marketing arena in 2018 and beyond. But if if you're short on money, use these types of do-it-yourself SEO ways to improve your own organic rankings. Whilst this holistic approach will ultimately eliminate a lot of the particular issues created by some SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION practitioners over the years, We think that search engines' engineers may initially overestimate the precision associated with their AI, leading to Penguin-level collateral damage. Well, this particular is it. Hope this SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION Trends in 2018 will assist you to be on the particular track and beat your other competitors. Today, a person are going to know several most important SEO techniques that will will help to enhance your own organic traffic, keywords ranking plus website optimization. On-page SEO intended for ecommerce is all about producing sure your keywords are within the correct places. Location: Several businesses like knowing that they will could visit their SEO firm at any time to spending budget, campaign, and progress over espresso. What exactly is usually useful to understand while all of us proceed towards is 2018 is usually that SEO is already transforming, and the ranking within the particular first organic spot is not really the best goal anymore. Nearby SEO specifically can help a person optimise your business for individuals searching from the nearby area. An experienced SEO know the particular technical details followed by the particular major search engines to list the WebPages. To smoothen out the software program user interface problem, the internet designing group and the SEO specialist function together to build the research engine friendly programs and program code that can be easily included into the customer's website. So, to maintain your own website's high ranking or in order to optimize a site from bottom level to top ranks, ensure that will you know the new SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION trends and set them in to practice. Additional factors that will should be considered for nearby SEO, but focusing on these types of three will go a lengthy way to not only raise your local ranking, but your trustworthiness and conversions too.

Making use of an SEO advertising campaign will certainly allow you to boost your own rankings via popular search terms that can in turn generate more visitors to your site. I just began concentrating on perfect on-page SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION techniques, I did some errors within my previous articles which We have to update now, I actually never used my keyword within first 100 words in just about all my articles and not focused on LSI keywords. Furthermore important to understand that will SEO is already changing plus as we move towards the particular year 2018 only focusing upon organic opportunities should not become your ultimate goal, instead along with the evolution search engines generally there are multiple opportunities to enhance your site rankings. When you talk about search ranking in SEO, you're talking about the position of the content on search results pages (SERPs). Simply by following the SEO best procedures, an online marketer can spot content on top of some other similar topics. In 2018, SEO entrepreneurs need to up their sport and shift their focus further than rank and towards revenue.

Using his special connections in the business planet, he helps ecommerce brands develop their audience through influencers, back links, on-page search optimization and specialized SEO -- all rank their brands higher on Google. Whether or not we are talking site velocity, personalized SEO, or even Google's RankBrain, we are still speaking about delivering the best achievable experience to the user. In the year 2018, the particular SEO marketers will change their particular game and will definitely change their focus beyond the position and revenue issues. 1 SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION may target different kinds associated with search, including image search, video clip search, academic search, 2 information search, and industry-specific vertical research engines. From my perspective SEO people are going to have the harder time ranking this season than last based on just about all the changes that are happening. I do find though that will Content is still king plus putting lots of articles out that will hit your target market's lovely spot will be the way to proceed. Strong Google My Company hygiene, frequent updates to on the internet business directories and a dedication to responding to users' feedback, questions and concerns is Nearby SEO 101. From targeting the proper keywords making use of Google Keyword Planner to posting valuable information- content marketing has been and will always be possibly the most important SEO styles for years in the future. One particular of the hardest parts associated with the social networking is reaching your own audience and making it. Using social media, including polls, queries, comments, hashtags, and discussions may really help give your articles and SEO a much-needed drive. 2017 brought an entire brand-new set of changes in the particular way businesses market their items and services, marketers try in order to improve their ranking with search engine optimization (SEO), the way people browse the web and much even more. The only goal of penning this article might be to start a conversation around the top SEO styles in 2018, which SEO specialists should follow.

Businesses regardless associated with their industrial sectors are searching out for SEO strategies which usually could enhance their visibility on the web. CTR is again a single of the ranking factors within SEO. SEMRush - Another great device for SEO analysis, particularly exactly where it concerns business intelligence, SEMRush enables you to identify plus analyze the keywords that your own competitors are using. CTR is again one of the particular ranking factors in SEO. And indeed, social networking does help SEO Perfect now, in our opinion, Search engines cannot tell the difference among sponsored content and organic content material. Site's speed is of the particular heart in search engines plus SEO trends 2018, whether this is in desktop or cellular. You article a great information, could a person suggest me how to enhance website ranking without doing any kind of off page seo. The primary stage of SEO is to become friendly both to users plus search engines like google. While looking at the list of the best SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION companies, rest assured that they will all present you with these successful SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION strategies to assist you in order to rank highly in search motors, and also to increase conversion rates.

This SEO offpage technique involves submission of content and websites on high quality webpages to get authoritative backlinks. SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION may generate a sufficient come back on investment However, search motors are not purchased organic lookup traffic, their algorithms change, plus there are no guarantees associated with continued referrals. The increase in Voice Searcher will need hard work simply by SEO experts. Therefore, it would end up being a good ploy to make use of effective SEO methods to increase your own website traffic FAST. We've gone heavy on off-page SEO techniques revolving around articles. SEO trends that a person could use in 2018 in order to rank your page on the internet are usually brand loyalty. The best possible presence originates from SEO marketing methods geared toward mobile searches. So is actually time for you to gray the lights, cue the spectacular movie trailer voice and get ready, as next year within SEO is looking pretty highly advanced. This shows how slow local businesses have been around the web in updating to SEO and web technological updates. Black head wear SEO is really a place of unethical practices to enhance rankings of a website within the search engine results web page. Google and other major research engines take the SEO name and display it within the particular search engine result pages. Here's a listing of Best SEO Companies compiled by GoodFirms which will help your internet site rank better when it comes to traffic plus visibility. Because the competition to get on best of search engines gets harder, the need to adapt in order to these shifts in SEO furthermore increases. The particular work we do as SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION professionals is more about enhancing our websites to provide the better experience for users, which usually subsequently the actual search motors want to reward us. As Search engines continues to refine its enigmatic search algorithm to deliver customers the most relevant results, SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION professionals and pundits across the particular globe have taken note associated with a growing number of SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION trends and strategies that are usually poised to be the potential future of SEO.

Carrying away technical SEO for local lookup engines is really a comparable process. These elements may involve websites content technique and its user relevance, SEO optimisation, length of time since on the internet presence was established and more. A good starting point whenever using keywords for SEO is usually to identify existing pages that will can use some optimization. You can review your page's SEO health, evaluate SEO metrics for a quantity of pages, and analyze each external and internal links upon any given web page. But, I'm quite certain that by the end associated with 2020, voice search will end up being very common, and you will have several talks going on in the particular SEO world on how in order to optimize the content to get a tone of voice search, similar how it's right now about mobile. But there is definitely another significant SEO trend through the rise of voice lookups. The brandname is powerful for SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION even though it may not really be a specific ranking aspect.

[stephenlibbyy]

Build an OpenStack/Ceph cluster with Cumulus Networks in GNS3: part 1

Introduction

I must have built OpenStack demos a dozen times or more over the past few years, for the purposes of learning, training others, or providing proof of concept environments to clients. However these environments always had one thing in common – they were purely demo environments, bearing little relation to how you would build OpenStack in a real production environment. Indeed, most of them were “all-in-one” environments, where every single service runs on a single node, and the loss of that node would mean the loss of the entire environment – never mind the lack of scalability!

Having been tasked with building a prototype OpenStack environment for an internal proof of concept, I decided that it was time to start looking at how to build OpenStack “properly”. However I had a problem – I didn’t have at my disposal the half-dozen or so physical nodes one might typically build a production cluster on, never mind a highly resilient switch core for the network. The on-going lockdown in which I write this didn’t help – in fact it made obtaining hardware more difficult.

I’ve always been inspired by the “cldemo” environments on Cumulus Networks’ GitHub and my first thought was to build on these for this task – however I wanted to use this as a learning tool, and the disconnect between the Vagrant code and a visual representation of the network layout meant I didn’t find this an ideal learning environment. I love Vagrant, but it’s unlikely you would use it in a production environment. However this sparked off an idea – could you use GNS3 to build a working model of an OpenStack cluster?

Enter GNS3

To answer this question I started to experiment with GNS3. I’ve played with it before to prototype some firewall configurations and other small network related tasks, but I had never considered using it for something heavy weight such as an entire OpenStack environment. However I had already established that it is a great tool for building visual network layous, and for interacting with the network (for example, you can right click on a network link and see a Wireshark trace of everything running over that link). In addition, testing out a few different configurations demonstrated a few things I hadn’t fully appreciated before:

If you are running QEMU images in GNS3, they are run with the same fundamental KVM virtualization on which tools such as OpenStack and oVirt themselves are based – thus this ought to be possible to scale up.

When you define a new QEMU machine image in GNS3, and drag that machine onto the canvas, GNS3 doesn’t create a full copy of the virtual disk image. Rather, it creates a linked clone of the original, meaning that only the differences between the original image and the copy on the canvas are stored on disk, saving space.

This reliance on open source tools means you can interact with the disk images directly using tools such as qemu-img and guestfish if you wish.

GNS3 creates neatly packaged portable project files, meaning you can easily backup and archive your work (or versions of it), provide others with a copy, and so on. Snapshots are also supported.

Overall, it seemed that GNS3 was a far more powerful virtualization tool than I had given it credit for, and actually well suited to the task I had in mind. However…

GNS3 Limitations

GNS3 does have it’s limitations, and obviously you’re not going to run things at bare metal or wire speeds inside it. Although GNS3 runs on macOS, Windows and Linux, I started my testing on Windows 10 and quickly discovered that all of the clever work performed by GNS3 happens in a special virtual machine – the “GNS3 VM”. This essentially is a specially customized Ubuntu Linux image designed to handle the GNS3 tasks, and if you are relying on this, then your QEMU virtual machines are running inside another virtual machine – the nested virtualization adding overhead and slowing things down.

Further, some of the functionality I had wanted to take advantage of in my work, such as snapshots and exporting portable project archives seemed to be fundamentally broken in Windows 10 – a tour of the forums seemed to indicate I wasn’t alone, though offered no solutions. However as soon as I installed Ubuntu Desktop on my test rig, all of these problems went away, so if there’s one thing I learned from this experience, it’s run your setup on Linux from the start.

Another thing worth factoring in (though not a limitation of GNS3) is that if you build out the full architecture I created, then you’re going to be running a total of 15 virtual machines on a single host. This means you’re going to need lots of RAM (my setup needed 48GB when fully operational) and fast disk (SSD highly recommended). If you don’t quite have enough RAM (I had 32GB on my test rig), you can run QEMU virtual machines in swap memory. Needless to say this isn’t recommended and is certainly going to decrease the life of your SSD – however if you don’t have a rig with 64GB of RAM to hand, this little “hack” will get you going where you might otherwise come to a grinding halt.

Goals

Having decided upon my platform it was time to set some goals for this exercise:

I would use a minimum of VM images to build this infrastructure – in the end, just two were needed: a. The Cumulus VX 4.0 image b. The Ubuntu Server 18.04.4 Cloud Image

There would be no “by-hand” configuration of any nodes in the virtual infrastructure – not even for authentication.

All code used for the environment should be easily scaled to a real world production environment. In reality this meant two tools: a. Cloud-init – natively supported by most cloud images including Ubuntu Server b. Ansible – for all post-boot configuration work

The final infrastructure would be based on the openstack-ansible project, and their documented “Ceph Production example”: https://docs.openstack.org/openstack-ansible/stein/user/ceph/full-deploy.html

This infrastructure would feature 4 Cumulus VX switches in a spine-leaf topology, with a simple layer-2 CLAG configuration to ensure a resilient switched architecture.

An additional Cumulus VX switch would be used as an out-of-band management network, with all nodes having eth0 reserved for out of band management.

Building the infrastructure

Having worked out the platform, tool set, and goal, the remaining task was to build the architecture itself. This was broken down into a series of clear stages, each clearly separate from the other:

Adding the virtual machine images to GNS3

Building the virtual infrastructure on the canvas

Creating the cloud-init configurations for each node, and building these into an ISO for boot-time configuration.

Configuring the management node – this is responsible for for DHCP and DNS on the management network, routing of traffic from the OpenStack infrastructure to the Internet, and running the Ansible playbooks over the management network.

Configuring the out-of-band management network with Ansible.

Configuring the spine-leaf switch topology with Ansible.

Deploying OpenStack using the openstack-ansible playbooks.

Stay tuned

In part 2 of this blog, I’ll take a more detailed look at the process for building out the proposed infrastructure in GNS3, and how to get it up and running.

Build an OpenStack/Ceph cluster with Cumulus Networks in GNS3: part 1 published first on https://wdmsh.tumblr.com/

[cryptowavesxyz]

Lightning Networks Has Yet to Strike Adoption, but Don’t Count It Out

For a currency to be considered useful as money, it has to serve three fundamental purposes. It should function as a medium of exchange, as a store of value and as a unit of account. The fact that Bitcoin doesn’t fulfill all of these purposes to an adequate extent at least partially explains why it hasn’t gained the widespread adoption that many of its earlier supporters had hoped for. 

There are two main challenges. Firstly, Bitcoin is considered too slow to serve as a satisfactory medium of exchange, with transactions taking anywhere from several minutes to days to get confirmed. Secondly, at times of high network traffic, transaction costs can soar. When Bitcoin was at its all-time high in December 2017, it could cost as much as $55 to make a transaction happen. 

The Lightning Network emerged as a solution to the problem. It was first proposed in 2015 by developers Joseph Poon and Thaddeus Dryja. It uses the concept of off-chain payment channels so that two parties can send and receive Bitcoin between one another instantly. Once the parties close the channel, the final balances are broadcast to the Bitcoin network. 

Because payments using the channel aren’t dependent on being included in the blockchain until the end, the Lightning Network is much faster than the Bitcoin network. Transaction fees are only payable on the final settlement when the channel is closed. Blockstream was the first to start using the Lightning Network in 2018. There are now various groups working on different implementations.

Was the lightning just a flash? 

Over recent months, various reports have started to emerge that don’t appear to show the Lightning Network in the most favorable light. In February of this year, a multinational team of academics published a yet-to-be-reviewed paper indicating that the network was becoming increasingly centralized, showing high Gini coefficients in node centralization and wealth distribution. A coefficient of 0.88 in node distribution corresponded to 10% of nodes controlling 80% of the Lightning Network.

This centralization could have already been explained in a paper published late last year by a team of Hungarian researchers, later picked up by digital preservation expert David Rosenthal on his own blog. This research, titled “A Cryptoeconomic Traffic Analysis of Bitcoin’s Lightning Network,” uncovered that the transaction fees earned were so low that it was “economically irrational” to operate a node on the Lightning Network. The research also pointed out that due to the small scale of the network, privacy was a further shortcoming, as it was too easy to infer payment sources and destinations. 

These points are intriguing, as they appear to raise a chicken-and-egg scenario. Node operators are likely to be deterred by the low transaction fees, and thus from opportunities to earn from the Lightning Network. At the same time, without enough node operators to run the network, the user experience isn’t going to be attractive enough to bring in people wanting to use it as a payment solution.

The numbers certainly appear to back up the low uptake of the Lightning Network. According to BitcoinVisuals, there is currently around $8 million in cumulative capacity across all channels — i.e., under 1,000 Bitcoin. Compare this with Bitcoin’s market cap, which is hovering around $165 billion, and it comes down to less than 0.005% of circulating BTC. 

Creeping competition

Another worrying development for the Lightning Network is that other Bitcoin-related developments are starting to become more prevalent. According to DeFi Pulse, the Bitcoin-backed ERC-20 token WBTC now has a comparable value locked in its smart contracts to the Lightning Network. 

Elsewhere, second layer Ethereum platform Matic Network announced via Twitter that it was collaborating with interoperability protocol RenVM to support BTC directly on Matic sidechains. According to the announcement, the new feature would give Matic “somewhat similar capabilities as the Lightning Network.” Matic’s co-founder and chief operating officer, Sandeep Nailwal, explained to Cointelegraph how an interoperability protocol gives this feature the edge over the Lightning Network as a single-chain solution:

“Interoperable BTC will provide more features, use cases, and avenues to use BTC than if it’s only operating on Lightning and only able to do micropayments. Making BTC available on Ethereum VM sidechains is not only a great solution for payments and integration to Defi use cases, but it also offers the potential for innovative and exciting integrations with gaming and Ethereum’s broader DApp ecosystem.”

StarkPay, launched by Starkware, is another payment solution to rival the Lightning Network. It aims to overcome several challenges that Eli Ben Sasson — the co-founder, president and chairman of the board — believes are holding back adoption of the Lightning Network. As he told Cointelegraph:

“Lightning payment channels create a capital inefficiency, as they require both parties that form a channel to lock up funds rather than just the payer. Another issue is the liveness requirement, which forces parties to constantly monitor the chain as long as a channel is open. I think these two drawbacks explain the lack of usage of such systems.”

Lightning at the end of the tunnel? 

None of this is to say that the Lightning Network is doomed to fail, and it still has plenty of supporters. Twitter’s Jack Dorsey is one notable example, having invested in Lightning Labs and introduced the Lightning tipping feature to his social platform. 

Bitfinex has also been an advocate of the Lightning Network, having launched support for it in December last year. The crypto exchange also partnered with Bitrefill, enabling its users to shop online and pay with BTC using Lightning channels. Roy Sheinfeld, a co-founder of a Lightning-powered payments app Breez, told Cointelegraph that the network simply needs more time but is doing well in terms of adoption:

“Lightning needs to mature before attracting mainstream users, but it has come a long way in a very short time. In the past few months, we’ve witnessed Lightning going mobile with apps like Breez and Phoenix, gaming solutions such as Zebedee are starting to emerge, and we see the first fiat-to-Lightning on-ramp solutions like Sparkswap and Escher.” 

Carlos Roldan, CEO at 8-bit gaming network Satoshi’s Games, which also runs on the Lightning Network, agrees. Speaking to Cointelegraph, he said:

“All active BTC users are demanding a solution like Lightning Network to create liquidity in Bitcoin as a store of value. Otherwise, transacting Bitcoin on-chain creates friction for the everyday user. Going to a cafe and having to wait for twenty minutes to pay for a coffee doesn’t happen using Lightning Network.”

Supply vs. demand

There are arguments for and against the perception that Bitcoin users are demanding a payment solution. Indeed, the uptake of the Lightning Network is currently low compared to the usage of Bitcoin overall. But, this may be because there aren’t enough apps using it yet. However, applications developing on a platform isn’t necessarily an indication that users are demanding them.

Furthermore, although there has been a growing demand for plenty of crypto-related products over the last year or so, it isn’t necessarily apparent that payment solutions have been one of them. For example, crypto-derivatives have become increasingly popular, as have interest-earning applications. But both of these growth areas point to a preference for treating cryptocurrencies as a commodity rather than a currency that fulfills the criteria of being a medium of exchange and a store of value. 

If demand for these kinds of products and platforms continues to grow, it would ultimately negate any argument that there’s a requirement for the Lightning Network — or any other payment solution.

Related: Bitcoin Halving Can Have Negative Short-Term Effect on BTC Price — Here’s Why

On the other hand, the debate over whether or not Bitcoin will become a safe haven in the event of an economic downturn continues. Current world events — including the coronavirus outbreak, Brexit, stock markets and commodities slumping, and the uncertainty over the U.S. presidential elections — mean that this theory could soon be put to the test. 

If Bitcoin gains adoption as a store of value, it may drive demand for it to become a better medium of exchange, creating a more compelling use case for the Lightning Network. However, the converse is also true. The reality is that Lightning hasn’t been around long enough to validate its utility. It’s also evidently suffering from various maturity issues. The chicken-and-egg scenario — i.e., needing apps and nodes to make it attractive enough to users, but apps and nodes being put off by a lack of users — is a common one that new technologies need to overcome.

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[noisyunknownturtle]

Lightning Networks Has Yet to Strike Adoption, but Don’t Count It Out

For a currency to be considered useful as money, it has to serve three fundamental purposes. It should function as a medium of exchange, as a store of value and as a unit of account. The fact that Bitcoin doesn’t fulfill all of these purposes to an adequate extent at least partially explains why it hasn’t gained the widespread adoption that many of its earlier supporters had hoped for. 

There are two main challenges. Firstly, Bitcoin is considered too slow to serve as a satisfactory medium of exchange, with transactions taking anywhere from several minutes to days to get confirmed. Secondly, at times of high network traffic, transaction costs can soar. When Bitcoin was at its all-time high in December 2017, it could cost as much as $55 to make a transaction happen. 

The Lightning Network emerged as a solution to the problem. It was first proposed in 2015 by developers Joseph Poon and Thaddeus Dryja. It uses the concept of off-chain payment channels so that two parties can send and receive Bitcoin between one another instantly. Once the parties close the channel, the final balances are broadcast to the Bitcoin network. 

Because payments using the channel aren’t dependent on being included in the blockchain until the end, the Lightning Network is much faster than the Bitcoin network. Transaction fees are only payable on the final settlement when the channel is closed. Blockstream was the first to start using the Lightning Network in 2018. There are now various groups working on different implementations.

Was the lightning just a flash? 

Over recent months, various reports have started to emerge that don’t appear to show the Lightning Network in the most favorable light. In February of this year, a multinational team of academics published a yet-to-be-reviewed paper indicating that the network was becoming increasingly centralized, showing high Gini coefficients in node centralization and wealth distribution. A coefficient of 0.88 in node distribution corresponded to 10% of nodes controlling 80% of the Lightning Network.

This centralization could have already been explained in a paper published late last year by a team of Hungarian researchers, later picked up by digital preservation expert David Rosenthal on his own blog. This research, titled “A Cryptoeconomic Traffic Analysis of Bitcoin’s Lightning Network,” uncovered that the transaction fees earned were so low that it was “economically irrational” to operate a node on the Lightning Network. The research also pointed out that due to the small scale of the network, privacy was a further shortcoming, as it was too easy to infer payment sources and destinations. 

These points are intriguing, as they appear to raise a chicken-and-egg scenario. Node operators are likely to be deterred by the low transaction fees, and thus from opportunities to earn from the Lightning Network. At the same time, without enough node operators to run the network, the user experience isn’t going to be attractive enough to bring in people wanting to use it as a payment solution.

The numbers certainly appear to back up the low uptake of the Lightning Network. According to BitcoinVisuals, there is currently around $8 million in cumulative capacity across all channels — i.e., under 1,000 Bitcoin. Compare this with Bitcoin’s market cap, which is hovering around $165 billion, and it comes down to less than 0.005% of circulating BTC. 

Creeping competition

Another worrying development for the Lightning Network is that other Bitcoin-related developments are starting to become more prevalent. According to DeFi Pulse, the Bitcoin-backed ERC-20 token WBTC now has a comparable value locked in its smart contracts to the Lightning Network. 

Elsewhere, second layer Ethereum platform Matic Network announced via Twitter that it was collaborating with interoperability protocol RenVM to support BTC directly on Matic sidechains. According to the announcement, the new feature would give Matic “somewhat similar capabilities as the Lightning Network.” Matic’s co-founder and chief operating officer, Sandeep Nailwal, explained to Cointelegraph how an interoperability protocol gives this feature the edge over the Lightning Network as a single-chain solution:

“Interoperable BTC will provide more features, use cases, and avenues to use BTC than if it’s only operating on Lightning and only able to do micropayments. Making BTC available on Ethereum VM sidechains is not only a great solution for payments and integration to Defi use cases, but it also offers the potential for innovative and exciting integrations with gaming and Ethereum’s broader DApp ecosystem.”

StarkPay, launched by Starkware, is another payment solution to rival the Lightning Network. It aims to overcome several challenges that Eli Ben Sasson — the co-founder, president and chairman of the board — believes are holding back adoption of the Lightning Network. As he told Cointelegraph:

“Lightning payment channels create a capital inefficiency, as they require both parties that form a channel to lock up funds rather than just the payer. Another issue is the liveness requirement, which forces parties to constantly monitor the chain as long as a channel is open. I think these two drawbacks explain the lack of usage of such systems.”

Lightning at the end of the tunnel? 

None of this is to say that the Lightning Network is doomed to fail, and it still has plenty of supporters. Twitter’s Jack Dorsey is one notable example, having invested in Lightning Labs and introduced the Lightning tipping feature to his social platform. 

Bitfinex has also been an advocate of the Lightning Network, having launched support for it in December last year. The crypto exchange also partnered with Bitrefill, enabling its users to shop online and pay with BTC using Lightning channels. Roy Sheinfeld, a co-founder of a Lightning-powered payments app Breez, told Cointelegraph that the network simply needs more time but is doing well in terms of adoption:

“Lightning needs to mature before attracting mainstream users, but it has come a long way in a very short time. In the past few months, we’ve witnessed Lightning going mobile with apps like Breez and Phoenix, gaming solutions such as Zebedee are starting to emerge, and we see the first fiat-to-Lightning on-ramp solutions like Sparkswap and Escher.” 

Carlos Roldan, CEO at 8-bit gaming network Satoshi’s Games, which also runs on the Lightning Network, agrees. Speaking to Cointelegraph, he said:

“All active BTC users are demanding a solution like Lightning Network to create liquidity in Bitcoin as a store of value. Otherwise, transacting Bitcoin on-chain creates friction for the everyday user. Going to a cafe and having to wait for twenty minutes to pay for a coffee doesn’t happen using Lightning Network.”

Supply vs. demand

There are arguments for and against the perception that Bitcoin users are demanding a payment solution. Indeed, the uptake of the Lightning Network is currently low compared to the usage of Bitcoin overall. But, this may be because there aren’t enough apps using it yet. However, applications developing on a platform isn’t necessarily an indication that users are demanding them.

Furthermore, although there has been a growing demand for plenty of crypto-related products over the last year or so, it isn’t necessarily apparent that payment solutions have been one of them. For example, crypto-derivatives have become increasingly popular, as have interest-earning applications. But both of these growth areas point to a preference for treating cryptocurrencies as a commodity rather than a currency that fulfills the criteria of being a medium of exchange and a store of value. 

If demand for these kinds of products and platforms continues to grow, it would ultimately negate any argument that there’s a requirement for the Lightning Network — or any other payment solution.

Related: Bitcoin Halving Can Have Negative Short-Term Effect on BTC Price — Here’s Why

On the other hand, the debate over whether or not Bitcoin will become a safe haven in the event of an economic downturn continues. Current world events — including the coronavirus outbreak, Brexit, stock markets and commodities slumping, and the uncertainty over the U.S. presidential elections — mean that this theory could soon be put to the test. 

If Bitcoin gains adoption as a store of value, it may drive demand for it to become a better medium of exchange, creating a more compelling use case for the Lightning Network. However, the converse is also true. The reality is that Lightning hasn’t been around long enough to validate its utility. It’s also evidently suffering from various maturity issues. The chicken-and-egg scenario — i.e., needing apps and nodes to make it attractive enough to users, but apps and nodes being put off by a lack of users — is a common one that new technologies need to overcome.

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