#Plus there's also the thing of showing your online friends but not the wider public - where's the line?

[soyoursoulisgreen]

5, 11, and 30 for the artist ask meme!

5. Estimate of how much of your art you post online vs. the art you keep for yourself

It's increased over time! Well, actually, it's been a bell curve, kind of. Maybe more like a roller coaster lol. Obviously before I was online I wasn't sharing any of the stuff I drew; I drew for about seven years before posting anything - casually, for my own entertainment - and then for a while I was posting almost everything in some form or another; if I didn't post the original doodle, it was because I cleaned it digitally! But I got pretty burnt out on that haha - it does still come and go in cycles lol. Nowadays I probably keep back about 30% of what I draw? Although it can be hard to quantify - if you upload to an audience of zero, is it actually online? Haha ♪ Or an audience of one! Just because it's shared using the internet as a middle man, does that count as "posting"? :0 I don't know! I think it's an interesting question tho!

11. Do you listen to anything while drawing? If so, what

Yes! It really depends on what I'm drawing; my go-tos are always Reddit story readings since I don't have to think too hard about picking one, they last a while, and they keep my auditory brain occupied while my hands and eyes are busy. For a couple days of Requestober, especially the Portal/Stanley Parable days but also the song prompt, I was listening to themed stuff - GLaDOS lines, Narrator lines, the aforementioned song haha. I hate having to stop to pick the next thing! It makes editing my footage harder and throws off my flow :P

30. What piece of yours do you think is underrated

A lot of my Law Abiding Citizen stuff probably - LAC is such a good series!! I wish more people would see it/were still into it. We're few, and I was late to party, but my love still burns! If I had to pick just one thing tho, I think it'd have to go to one of my Just Desserts comics - I cried while drawing it initially, and I still think Charm's transition from her smiling-crying face to her angry-crying face is so well done ♥

[harley-sunday]

August Rush [07]

Summary: You’ve known Carlos for almost as long as you have been working in Formula One but you never expected it would take you seven years and a concussion to realise that maybe you like him as more than just a friend.

Pairing: Carlos Sainz jr x reader (OFC nicknamed Pip) | Max Verstappen x reader (best friends)

Warnings: Language. NSFW-ish. 18+ 

Word count: 4.6k

AN: First of all, I’m sorry for the long wait, bb’s. Adult life got in the way. Also, this was supposed to be the penultimate chapter but I still can’t seem to quit this story and so there’s at least another two parts after this. I don’t know what’s happening either. ♥

Last. I just want to give a big hug to each and every one of you, because the love you have for this little story makes my heart SO happy. To everyone who send me a message (anon or not) to tell me not to worry about rude anons - THANK YOU. Love you all something fierce! 🥰

Masterlist

A lazy smile spreads across your lips when you wake up on Wednesday because even though Carlos’ side of the bed is already empty, a quick glance at his alarm clock letting you know it’s close to eleven already, the memories of yesterday are enough to make it feel as if he’s right there with you. You relish the way your body feels worn out from a day at sea, with Carlos at the helm and you on your knees in front of him. 

Reaching for your phone you pull up your gallery app and scroll through the pictures you took, your smile growing even wider when you come across that one picture of Carlos where he sits on the deck and looks at you from over his shoulder with a cheeky smile. You know you’ve asked him if it’s ok to not go public for a while, mostly because you want to keep him to yourself a little longer, but you think the picture is innocent enough to not start any rumours if you were to post it online. After all, everyone who has access to your private Instagram account knows you’re here anyway. 

Looking through your camera roll there are a few other pictures you’d like to share - one of you that Carlos took that shows you lounging on the deck, another one a view of the coastline, and a selfie of you and Carlos that shows both of you laughing at the camera, his arm loosely draped over your shoulders and you leaning into him ever so slightly but which could totally pass as just two friends hanging out, after all you have posted pictures of him and you like this before. Maybe if you upload those three together with the one of Carlos you were looking at earlier, and caption it an innocent, ‘Sea, Sun & Captain Sainz’ it won’t be such a big deal, right? Right.

Wrong.

***

It takes your best friend less than a minute to see your post and video call you, which is some kind of record in and of itself even for Flo, who always seems to be on top of things. You push yourself up against the backboard of the bed, covering yourself with the dark blue sheet so as to not flash your boobs at her, and accept the call, “Hi friend.” 

“Uhu,” is all she says, eyeing you suspiciously. You know she’s doing that thing where she doesn’t say anything, doesn’t ask any questions, and instead waits for you to break and just tell her what’s going on, so you can never say she’s forced it out of you. She’s clever like that. And one of the reasons why you became friends so easily.  

While it’s a great tactic, and usually gets you to confess whatever it is you’ve done within a manner of seconds, this time you’re determined to keep your secret a little longer and so you stare back at her through the screen, “What’s going on babe?”

“I don’t know,” she says and you can see her sit down at the desk in her office. “You tell me.” 

“I’m good,” you tell her with a cheeky smile. "No more headaches or dizziness and the doctor cleared me to fly on Monday, so that's a big plus."

"Hmhm," she replies, narrowing her eyes at you and waving her finger at you from behind her desk. "You look different though." She doesn't say anything else for a moment but then she leans in closer and you can almost feel her eyes on you as she looks- searches- for something you're not sure you want her to figure out yet, but she's been your best friend for almost four years. Of course she does, "Oh my God!"

"Flo," you warn her, shaking your head even though you can't help your smile growing wider because you know what she’s going to say next. “Sssh. I don’t need your colleagues to hear this.”

"Oh. My. God." She exclaims again, even louder this time, either completely ignoring you or letting you know there’s no one else around to hear her anyway. She leans back in her seat then and grins wickedly, "You had sex with him, didn't you?!" She doesn't even wait for your reply as she does a little happy dance in her chair, "Freakin' finally."

You have to bite your lip to keep from laughing out loud at her reaction, while at the same time hiding behind your hand to keep her from seeing you all flustered.

"You need to tell me everything." 

"I can't," you whine, peeping at her from in between your fingers and glancing at the clock on the top of your screen. "Carlos is almost done with his workout and-"

"Ok, fine. I just need to know two things," she grins. "First things first, when?"

"When what?" You feign innocence, as if you don't know what she's talking about.

She rolls her eyes, "When did this happen?"

"Sunday," you draw out and you can see her eyes grow wide. Then, just so you can try to regain the upper hand in this conversation, you add with a cheeky smile, “And again on Monday. And yesterday- Twice.”

Flo leans back and folds her arms in front of her chest, the accusatory tone clear in her voice when she calls you out, "Pip."

"What?"

"What? It's Wednesday! Why didn't you tell me sooner? Just a text would have been enough, 'Hey bestie, just FYI-'" She lets out a heavy sigh and throws her hands up in defeat, "I hate you."

"I know you do," you tell her with a wink. You lean forward then and lower your voice, "I just wanted to keep him to myself for a few days-" you scrunch up your nose. "Just until the season starts."

She shrugs and nods, "Yeah, ok, that's fair." 

"You'll be at Spa, right?" You minimise the video call and pull up your calendar, "Why don't we meet up Friday night? There's a nice restaurant in Malmedy we could go to. Catch up. Just us two?" 

She nods, "Yeah, I'd like that."

"Good."

"Does Max know about this?" She waits until she sees you shake your head before she continues, "Pierre?"

"Nope," you reply, popping the 'p'. "Just you. Not that there's anything to talk about. It's just sex." You feel bad lying to your best friend but know it's for the best. At least for a little while longer.

"Oh babe, sure." She laughs, "You know they'll go and have 'the talk'-" she air-quotes the word, "-with him once they find out anyway, right?"

"Yeah," you sigh, cringing a little when you remember how both Max and Pierre, individually and without your knowledge, had cornered your last boyfriend at the Tuscan Grand Prix last year and told him that if he'd ever hurt you he'd be very sorry. Once you found out what they did you had called them into your office at Sochi, both of them together, and had given them a very stern talking to. "That's why I don't want to tell anyone just yet. Also because we're still figuring it out, you know?"

"Hmm," she agrees easily enough, either really not catching your lies or simply ignoring it for the sake of your friendship, "you know I won’t tell a soul, babe, but to be honest, they probably just need some time to get used to the idea of you guys hooking up though. You know how protective they are of you."

"Max is," you answer with a smile. "Your best friend just likes to stir the pot when it comes to my love life."

Flo lets out a laugh, "True." She leans closer again then and smiles deviously, “Ok. So second question, how was it?”

You feel the heat rise to your cheeks as the memories start flooding back and bite your lip, scrunching your nose at the same time as you tell her, “So worth the wait.”

***

The rest of the day passes by in a blur, an urgent meeting taking up all of your afternoon and most of your evening, as you and your team try to figure out how to bring the news that the technical director has decided to completely stop developing the 2021 car and focus on the 2022 car instead. Haas has already made a similar announcement back in March, so you won’t be the first team to do so, but you know the press will have a field day with it nonetheless.  

You’ve been using your bedroom as a makeshift office because even though you’re sure Carlos would never relay this information back to his team before the official press release, it’s not like you can ask him to sign a Non Disclosure Agreement either and so you rather not take any risks. When, after four hours, you can tell your team is in need of a break  you suggest taking one and urge everyone to get some food and some fresh air and meet back here in an hour, not missing the relieved smiles when you see people muting themselves and getting up from wherever it is they’re working from at the moment. 

You follow their example and make your way to the kitchen, hoping to throw together a quick salad and have at least one cup of coffee before going back. Piñon comes rushing towards you as soon as he sees you and after a few belly rubs he jumps up and sprints back outside, no doubt to go find Carlos, an excited bark escaping him when he spots his owner. 

You can’t help but smile when Piñon comes running back not much later, proudly looking from Carlos, who’s walking behind him, to you and back, as if he wants you to know that he’s responsible for this reunion. He is, of course, and so you give him a treat from the box on the counter and scratch his ears, “Good boy.” 

Carlos walks up at you and with one hand on your hip leans in and gives you a kiss, “Everything alright?”

“Yeah,” you nod, knowing there isn’t much else you can tell him. “It’s going to be another couple of hours for sure. I just came here to grab some dinner-”

“Say no more,” he grins as he lets go of you. He makes his way over to the fridge where he takes out a container that he hands you with a proud smile, “Here you go.” 

You pout, your heart quite possibly bursting at this small gesture, “You made me dinner?”

“Of course I did,” he replies with a shrug, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “How long have you got? Can we eat here or do you have to go back?” 

“We start again at seven,” you tell him as you open the container and see the salad he’s made. It’s like he’s read your mind and you’re not sure if it’s a happy coincidence or if he simply knows you this well. “This is perfect, thank you so much.”

“Don’t mention it, cariño.”

***

It’s almost eleven at night when you finally emerge from your bedroom again, the press release written and ready to be sent out on Saturday. You stretch your arms above your head as you walk to the living room, trying to relieve some of the tension in your shoulders from sitting hunched over your laptop for so long. 

Carlos is splayed out on the couch, watching a game of football that’s in its eighty-seventh minute and doesn’t look all that interesting if the nill-nill score is anything to go by. When he sees you walk up to him he holds out his arms and without saying anything you lie down on top of him, burying your face in the crook of his neck, exhaustion hitting you like a ton of bricks even though your head is still spinning. Carlos wraps his arms around you and holds you close, “Hey.”

“Hey,” you mutter against his skin, too tired to lift your head. 

“You ok?” 

You rub your nose against his neck, the now-familiar scent of his cologne grounding you, “Yeah, it’s just been a long day.”

He presses a kiss to your hair, “You want me to take you to bed?”

“No. Wanna stay,” you mumble even though you can feel your eyes growing heavy and you are slurring your words. You let out a content sigh, “This is nice.” 

Carlos chuckles and tightens his hold, “It is.” He grabs onto your hips then and moves you to the side before he rolls himself on top of you, taking some of his weight off you by propping himself up on his elbows. Still, you feel him press against you and so you roll your hips instinctively, drawing out a sharp breath from him, “That’s not what this is about, cariño. You’re too tired.”

You let out a frustrated whine even though you know he’s right.

He leans in then and lets his lips ghost over yours, his tongue licking across your lower lip. When you open your mouth he deepens the kiss but there’s no rush behind it, almost like you’ve got all the time in the world. 

Maybe you do.

You cross your arms behind his neck and pull him closer, relishing the way he’s boxing you in, most of his weight now on top of you, as you suck his tongue into your mouth, smiling into the kiss when you hear him groan in reply. 

***

You must have made your way to the bedroom eventually because it’s where you wake up the next morning when Carlos’ alarm goes off. He shuts it off with a groan before he presses a kiss to your forehead and gets out of bed. There’s a meeting planned with both Yuki and Pierre at nine and so you get up not much later, taking a quick shower before you get dressed and turn on your laptop. 

There’s still some time left before your call starts so you head to the kitchen for some breakfast and a cup of coffee, a little surprised to see an overcast sky outside. It’s not raining yet but when you sit down on the patio the promise of it hangs heavy in the air and you think you spot some thunderclouds in the distance. It doesn’t seem to bother Carlos, who currently is doing pull ups on a pull up bar he’s put up in the doorframe, and you can’t help but admire the view he offers.

“Looking good, Sainz,” you tell him as you slap his ass when you make your way back to the kitchen, letting out a laugh when you hear him chuckle and curse under his breath. 

Your meeting doesn’t take too long and once you’re finished you tell your team you’re logging off for the day, asking them to call you if anything comes up, and set out to clean the house in preparation for Carlos’ parents arriving tomorrow because even though Carlos told you not to worry about it you want everything to be perfect. 

***

Once you’re finished you and Carlos head out to the grocery store and if you thought it looked like you were feeding an orphanage before you were sorely mistaken because it takes you almost ten minutes to put all the groceries away this time. 

“I’ll go check on the laundry,” you tell Carlos once everything has been cleared away, knowing you still have one more load to put in. 

“I’ll take Piñon out for a walk,” Carlos replies, eyeing the sky suspiciously from inside the house. It still hasn’t rained but it’s growing more and more overcast, dark grey clouds blocking out the sun and the darkness makes it feel later in the day than it is. He grabs Piñon’s leash off the counter and whistles, the dog at his feet in an instant, looking at his owner expectantly. Carlos leans in and gives you a kiss, “See you in a bit.”

“Yep,” you nod and watch as the pair make their way outside. It’s been almost two weeks since Flo accused you of playing house with Carlos and even though you tried to fight it at first, still denying to yourself that there was anything going on between the two of you, you now wouldn’t want to have it any other way. You try not to think about having to leave all of this behind on Monday, not ready to give up on this safe space you seem to have created here, hidden away from the rest of the world. 

It’s only a few days until you’ll see Carlos again at Spa but you know it’s going to be different, the paddock not the most ideal place to keep a relationship under wraps, especially with all those prying eyes and photographers around. After Spa it’s onto Zandvoort, then Imola, and then another two-and-a-half months before the season is over and you have a chance to spend more than just a few days with him again. 

If he even wants to spend time together in between races.

There’s a little voice inside your head that wonders if maybe he doesn’t want any distractions until after the season. He’s currently sixth in the championship, his best result so far, a possibility to end up fifth or fourth. Even third place is still within reach and so you would understand if he’d choose to put all his focus on racing but- You shake your head, trying to clear your mind, understanding that this is a conversation you should have with him, instead of for him, and so you head down to the laundry room and focus on something you can control instead.

***

You shouldn’t laugh. Really you shouldn’t. Carlos looks miserable enough as is without you making fun of him but you just can’t help yourself, “Did you fall into the pool or-” 

Carlos just glares at you. He’s absolutely waterlogged, the skies opening about fifteen minutes into his walk when he had passed the halfway point and there was no use in turning back anymore. There’s a steady drip of water falling from his hair and his shirt and shorts, a small puddle already forming on the kitchen floor. Piñon is sitting at his feet and almost looks out of sorts, as if he doesn’t remember he can simply shake the water off and be done with it.

“I’m sorry, babe,” you tell him, pursing your lips to keep from laughing. “I’ll go get some towels.” You rush to the bathroom and return with at least four of them, handing two to Carlos and crouching down in front of Piñon to help towel him dry. The dog lets his head rest on your shoulder as you set to work and your heart melts at the trust he seems to have in you. 

Next to you Carlos strips out of his clothes, leaving him standing there in his boxers that are just as soaked as everything else and clinging to his skin in a way that has you stealing glances at them because Jesus- He cocks an eyebrow at you when he catches you, towel now ruffling through his hair, “My eyes are up here, cariño.” 

“Hmm,” you reply absentmindedly, still not taking your eyes off where the fabric outlines his dick perfectly, your mouth watering at the thought of tasting him again, remembering how heavy he felt on your tongue and- 

Carlos puts one hand on your chin and gently tilts it back to make you look at him, “You wanna use that pretty mouth of yours on me again?”

You swallow hard and nod, this time knowing exactly what it is he wants you to say, “Yes, papi.” 

***

Carlos is shivering by the time you pull off him, opening your mouth to show his cum on your tongue before you throw him a wink and swallow. He holds out his hands to you and pulls you to your feet so he can kiss you. It’s filthy, him licking into your mouth and no doubt tasting himself and you moaning and pressing yourself against him, and when he pulls back a little and curses quietly against your mouth you can actually feel your knees go weak. 

His hands trails down your side to the hem of your jeans, eager fingers tugging on the button, but you swat his hands away and shake your head, “Later.” 

He pulls back so he can look at you, eyebrows knitted together in confusion, “Why?”

“You’re cold,” you state. It's then another shiver runs through him as if to help you prove your point and so you press a kiss to his cheek, “Go take a shower, babe. I’ll clean up here."

"You're too good to me." He gives you another kiss, more chaste this time, but still he lets his lips linger on yours.

"Go take a shower, Sainz," you tell him again as you smile against his mouth before you nip at his bottom lip. "No more shenanigans until tonight."

He groans in frustration but pulls back anyway, "So strict, cariño."

"Don't you forget it, babe."

***

The rain stops sometime during the night so when you get up the next morning, Carlos already up and busy with his workouts no doubt, and open the curtains, it feels as if the world has been washed clean, the grass a little greener, the sky a little clearer, and everything just a little bit brighter. Somehow it makes you feel a little less nervous about seeing Carlos' parents today, almost as if the world wants you to know it's going to be ok.

After a quick shower you get dressed and make your way to what you now consider to be your spot at the breakfast bar, firing up your laptop as you make yourself a cup of coffee before you check up on your work email and set out to finish your weekly to-do list. You're a little distracted by Carlos doing weighted squats just outside the window, risking a quick glance every now and then to make sure you don't miss the view he's offering.

You're almost done with your email when your phone chimes, letting you know you've got a new message. Pulling up your messaging app you're surprised to see Flo has sent you a cryptic:

'FRIENDS.’ Ahahahaha. No.

and a screenshot of an F1 Instagram fanpage.

When you tap the image and zoom in, your heart drops and you curse quietly. There's a picture of you and Carlos in the parking lot of the supermarket you went to yesterday. You are looking at something on your phone, probably reading the message Max sent you around that time, while Carlos, walking next to you with an arm draped across your shoulders, looks at you with a fond smile. There's a tag beneath the picture that reads 'Former Toro Rosso colleagues turned friends spotted shopping together in Mallorca.'

The picture in itself isn't too bad and it isn't the first time you and Carlos have had picture of the two of you together published online. Most notably after his second place and first ever F1 podium in Monza last year. You found him in the press pen after the race and without thinking pulled him into a hug to congratulate him and held on for maybe a little too long. One particular picture, taken at the exact moment where Carlos hid his face in the crook of your neck, his arms tight around your waist while you cradled his head with one hand, telling him how proud of him your were and how you knew his time would come, made it onto both your and his team's social media pages and gained a lot of likes and comments, most of his fans happy to see you were still such good friends 

What got photographed yesterday wasn't even half as intimate as that moment and yet something has you- Worried. Maybe it's because the picture was taken without consent. Maybe it's because now the whole world knows you spent your summer break with Carlos, without them also knowing about what happened to preface this. Or maybe it's simply because of the way he's looking at you, all kind eyes and what seems to be a very smitten smile. All it takes is for one person to comment how cute of a couple you are or would be and then-

You wonder how many more pictures there are. Is this the only time someone has spotted you or have all your outings been photographed? Why hasn't your team picked up on this? Why hasn't his team picked up on this? Should you do something? Will it only make things worse if you ask them to take it down? What if they somehow find your Instagram post from yesterday? There's no way the whole 'just friends' angle would hold up if those ever got leaked. Should you delete them?

Then again, would it really be that bad if the world finds out? Yes, you decide easily enough, mostly because you don't want this to be how your friends - how Max and maybe even Pierre - find out. But even more so because then it wouldn't be on your own terms. Both of you would be forced into either acknowledging or denying this and- You shake your head. You're probably making too big of a deal out of it. No one has ever leaked your private pictures before so why would that happen now? 

Deep down you know there's no reason to panic and yet you can't help but think that this will be some sort of turning point in your relationship and you hate how much it seems to be out of your control now.

You're so lost in thoughts you don't notice Carlos has finished his workout and is walking up to you and so you startle a little when you feel him wrap his arms around your waist before he lets his chin rest on your shoulder. You quickly lock your phone, not wanting him to see what has you so on edge.

He chuckles, "Did I scare you?"

"Little bit, yeah," you answer truthfully, suddenly feeling as if you’re being suffocated when he pulls you closer to his chest. 

Carlos doesn't notice it, or maybe he pretends not to, and presses a kiss to the skin below your ear, "My parents will be here in an hour. I'm going to take a shower and maybe we can start on lunch after?"

"Yep," you reply flatly, trying your hardest to resist the urge to shrug him off. "I'll finish up here."

He must sense something is wrong then because he wraps his arms around you even tighter, kissing the top of your shoulder, "Don't worry, cariño. My parents already like you."

Ah. It makes sense that that is what he thinks this is about and so you decide to play along, hoping he won’t ask any more questions, "Yeah."

"Hey," Carlos lets go of you and puts his hands on your shoulders so he can make you face him. He looks worried, "Are you ok?"

"Yep," you say again, giving him your best media-trained smile as you try to come up with something that will make him back off. "Just a little nervous, that's all."

He furrows his brows, searching your face for something you know he'll find if you stand here any longer, because after years of dealing with the press together he must still know when you're not being completely honest and your smile is fake. 

You know you can't lie to him and so you duck under his arm and gently push him in the direction of his bedroom, "Go. I'll get started here."

He doesn't say anything and does as he's told but, when he looks back at you from over his shoulder as he walks out of the kitchen, you can tell he doesn't believe you.

Shit.

=====

Taglist:  @shes-homeward-bound | @chiogarza | @oyesmendes | @thatchickwiththecamera | @sanne-p | @your-favourite-blonde | @internetgremlin | @watermel0nsugarhigh | @fictional-l0v3r | @nochillnel | @dr3lover​ | @dan3avacado​ 

[sunmediamarketing]

Here’s How To Boost Your Online Presence in 2021

Let’s first understand what an online presence is. Suppose, you searched for a certain brand product to purchase and found that the site focused on providing the top three search results, which included the website itself, the product webpage, and the product review page. Doing further research of that brand, you found its Wikipedia page, social media pages, as well as its presence on other e-commerce sites. This shows that the brand has got a wider online presence on every possible digital platform.

On the other hand, as per Adaptive Marketing, about 97% of buyers depend on the internet to find their needs. This fact is, however, further intensified by the current pandemic.  

So, be it an offline business or online store, an active internet presence not only pertains to increasing e-commerce growth but also the local businesses alike.  

However, as the internet advances with time, the definition of online presence also evolves. In this information-dense guide, you will get a vivid idea of:

the definition of an online presence and its importance

5 proven strategies to accelerate your online presence

By the time you finish reading, you will be all set to fix the nooks and crannies of your online business.

What defines an online presence?

First of all, understand that online existence and online presence, both are different things. Having an online existence is not enough to determine an active online presence.

While your existence may bring you on the map, an online presence brings more visibility, value, and increases your business awareness.  

So, it is your online presence that goes a layer deeper into showcasing your entire business scenario, according to:

You: The measures you take to produce your business’ internet content

The internet: Where your website stands in social media algorithms and search engine results

The public: How people consider your online business, what they are say about it, how often they are get engaged with it

An online presence is an ultimate desideratum for your eCommerce plan.  

But, before heading to the tactics of how to boost online presence, let’s justify the bold stated above.  

Why is online presence so important in 2021?

The better the visibility of your business to your online target audience, the greater success in increasing awareness and building your brand reputation. But, other than that, here are some more benefits that online presence brings you:

Get Recognized: An active online presence eases the task for the potential traffic, who didn’t know your business existed, to discover and explore you, both when they aren’t and are looking for services/products you offer.

Be found as an authentic and authorized business: Consumers greatly depend on a number of data sources of a dedicated website before buying their product. If your business site lacks in providing its necessary information across these sources, you will be overlooked both by consumers and search engines.

Round-the-clock Business Marketing: Having a strong online presence helps people find, learn, and get engaged   with, contacting you whenever they want, regardless of what device they use or where they stand in the buyer journey.

Reduce Expense: All the online marketing platforms bring you data about what’s working well and what went wrong, so that you accordingly spend only on the necessities.

Close More Deals: It takes time for any business to go through several encounters before it can finally convert leads into customers. Being a prominent business on multiple digital channels creates more scopes to expedite those lead conversions.

Earn Google’s Loyalty: Google considers more than your website to determine its ranking in search results.  In essence,  Google checks out all your assets (social media channels, webpages,  etc.) across the internet database and how steady or dependable those are.

Make Buyer’s Journey A Cakewalk: Around 63% of buying journeys begin online. Through online presence, you can make your business compatible with cross-device paths for the consumers in their customership journey.

Each of your online business identities act as an asset, giving more value to one another when in concert than on its own.

Ways to Boost Online Presence in 2021

We will directly move to the factors that can influence your business’ online presence in 2021.

How to boost online presence through a website?

Regardless of whether or not people discover your business on social media, via direct email, friend, ad, or through listings, etc., their primary interest will be checking your website.

Making a direct call to the business seems less appealing than quick browsing of the website on their terms to gather his/her desired information.

That’s the reason why 56% of consumers didn’t consider businesses that don’t have their website. Well, that’s the statistical survey from 2017. The percentage has increased exponentially, especially considering this pandemic.

That being said, here is how to make substantial online presence through a website:

Create a modern and engaging website

Consumers these days come with greater expectations to check a website. So, if your business site doesn’t fulfill this point, you are already losing the race. About 75% of consumers determine a brand’s credibility by checking its website design, its loading time, multiple-device interface accessibility, and more.

And, truly speaking, it is better to hire a digital marketing expert to help set up your website. It will save you time, plus the risks of experiencing frequent glitches will subside when dealt by a professional.  

Building a lead-generating business site that both looks and functions just how you wanted, without losing hours behind it, is worth spending on a website expert.

How can SEO accelerate your online presence?

Only a small percentage of not more than 49% of SMEs invest in SEO. In fact, about 18% of these businesses don’t target SEO in their marketing plan.

But, if done right, SEO is the best and free strategy to bring your website on the first page of the search engine results.

Here’s how to do that:

Conduct SEO including all the latest updates

Pursue the tried and proven ways that include quality content development based on targeted keywords, image optimization, and backlink creations. Improvise the core web vitals, keeping those aligned with the update of your webpage experience.

Google uses mobile-first indexing to index and rank every website accordingly. So, make sure to keep your site content above all possible mobile errors.

Apply schema markup to come up with rich snippets appearing below your website header in the SERP, such as your site’s home page or main navigation page, ratings, etc.

Rank your local business at the top in organic listings by prioritizing local SEO. The pandemic has already strengthened the support for local businesses, which can be further reinforced with local seo.

Though SEO is a time-taking process to get increased online presence, in the end, it is the gift that continues giving.

How content and video creation through targeted terms and topics can boost online presence?

Developing consumer’s search-specific business blogs and video contents can increase your online presence to a notable extent. For that, the first thing you have to do is optimize the core content pages of your business site for keywords. Your goal is to keep the content highly search-relevant, containing the essentials the consumers are looking for.

Here is how:

Focus on a keyword theme per blog post and include it in the content title, image name, subheadings, alt text, and meta description

Your every blog posting should adhere to the relevant terms and topics that can be individually optimized to rank for that particular keyword. Include more H2s in your content to increase appearances in “People also ask“.

That way, your site gets multiple opportunities to show up in search results of your targeted audiences, at any stage of  their customership journey.

However, remember that frequent appearance in the first-page doesn’t only mean stronger online presence. It also influences the chances of attracting more leads to your conversion-optimized website and increases credibility. In fact, a web-business with blogs receives 55% more traffic than the businesses without blogs.

Use precise sentences and frequent bullets to be featured in snippets. Appearance of your business blog in featured snippets also increases your online presence.

Plus, blogging is the best way to demonstrate your expertise and create your brand personality in front of its visitors, which alongside act as a reputation component of your web presence.

Now coming to video content creation, almost every video marketing stat considers it a value-driven medium to accelerate business growth through online presence.  

So, here are the two things to focus on:

Leverage the benefits of video contents to effectuate more shares and views

(i) Create an account on YouTube to upload your business videos, which you can also embed into your website’s business blogs to drive traffic to your YouTube channel.

(ii) You can follow the same strategy for your other social media channels, like Instagram. Facebook, etc. Social media video posts get more shares and attention than the text and image contents.

Moreover, people remember 95% of the facts that they learn through videos than through text reading. So, video contents contribute a major part in increasing your online presence.  

How can social media presence benefit your online presence?

Social media is a necessary part of web marketing in this generation. In fact, as per 2021 stat, about 50.64% of the global population are actively using social media platforms. So, undoubtedly, it is a key tool to find and reach your intended customer target at a quicker pace.

Build your business page on social media to showcase your company services and products

Your posts should contain value that could drive followers to your page. The post content should relate to what visitors like or are looking for.

For example, if you have an online medicine website, then build your brand awareness targeting those people who are following your competitors’ pages. Post discounts, free delivery, and more that you have to offer which others don’t.

Nowadays, having Twitter and Facebook pages has become quite common for any website. So, failing to maintain the same for your website might build a sense of doubt among the visitors, no matter how cool your website looks or how truly genuine it is.

Potential customers look for the social media presence while researching any website to judge its genuineness and know how it served others earlier.

How can online advertising intensify your online presence?

PPC advertising on search engines and social media advertising are what most businesses use to grab their intended traffic within a short span. Plus, if your product/service ad appears  at the top in SERP, it will spread your brand awareness, increasing your web visibility.

Here is how to improve your online visibility through ads:

(i) Target multiple search engines PPC ads like  Google ads, Bing ads, and Yahoo ads.

(ii) Similarly, you can run ad campaigns on YouTube,  Facebook, Instagram, etc. which are popular for their effective advertising options.

Decide what content you want to promote through online ads. Also, check which platform  would bring better results to that ad (i.e. which platform has the right audience for your ad).

Looking for assistance to maximize online visibility of your maiden business website? Sun Media Marketing offers the above range of services and more to keep your business ahead through increased web presence.  

Contact us India: +91-9898-630-296, USA: +1-917-267-8626. Or, email info@sunmediamarketing.com to know more.

[squirrelly831]

Caught in Public [Jackson, Jinyoung, and Youngjae]

Unlike the EXO version, this is not part of the daddy!auverse

Enjoy~

Jackson

Ciara and Jackson went to Japan to celebrate their fifth year anniversary. They enjoyed every moment in Tokyo and when they returned they were no longer just boyfriend and girlfriend. While spending a day in Shinjuku Gyoen, Jackson had popped the question and she said yes. What neither of them knew was that there were a couple of fans witnessed their proposal and snapped photos.

They returned to South Korea and as they headed out from the Incheon Airport they were ambushed by fans and media. Jackson threw Ciara’s hoodie over she head and covered her from the flashes of the cameras around them. When they got on the train, they decided to look online to see that their proposal had been released to the public.

Ciara’s stomach did flips as she read the article over Jackson’s arm. “What’ll we do, Jackson? I know we were going to go public, but this isn’t how I wanted that to happen.”

Jackson blacked out his phone as he wrapped his arm over her shoulders. She put her head on his chest as he kissed her head, “I’ll deal with it. Don’t worry about it.”  

He went to the company a couple days later with Ciara by his side and talked to his boss about it. Jackson had two choices, he could go public with his engagement or he could deny it. It wasn’t hard for Jackson to decided and he made his engagement public. After he made the public statement to convey to the media, he left the office and saw Ciara nervously waiting outside in the lobby. She saw him and her expression shifted, “Well what did he say? Can we go public?”

He said nothing as he approached her, leaned towards her, and kissed her. “Let’s go, love.” He reached down and intertwined their fingers as they left the lobby and out the company doors. He didn’t need to say more, his actions answered her question. She sped up to walk by his side as he swung their hands together. “I was thinking we should go out with the boys today, we should tell them about the engagement. What do you think?”

Ciara nodded, “I’d like that!” She leaned close to him as they walked and Jackson couldn’t help but get a quick kiss from her.

Jinyoung

Noelle and Jinyoung had a lot to lose if their relationship was discovered by the public, so they did everything they could to keep it secret. They began to date when Jinyoung was a trainee and their time together just grew. However, when he was picked for Got7, Jinyoung signed on knowing full well that he would be under a dating ban. Noelle and him made a promise that if they got caught they’d end their relationship even though it was the last thing either of them would ever want.

It was a couple of months before his contract was up when they were caught by the media and true to their word, Noelle broke it off. Of course, not without Jinyoung fighting it saying he didn’t want to lose her, but she refused to listen.

Jinyoung was banned from contacting Noelle as his company tried to do damage control to fix the problem. However, Jinyoung didn’t give up. He showed everyone how dedicated he was to Got7 and that he could manage both his relationship with Noelle and his career as a singer of Got7. He pleaded until he was given the new contract and his dating banned was lifted.

After he signed the new contract, two and a half months since the break up, Jinyoung ran out of the company with his cell phone on his ear as he listened to the rings. Each passing ring only made his smile grow wider.

“Hello?”

“Where are you?”

Noelle paused, “I’m about to go to Hongdae with some friends… Jinyoung why are you–”

Jinyoung called for a taxi, “ Meet me at our place. Please.”

“Jinyoung, I don–”

He climbed inside one and asked him to drop him off at the metro. “Noelle, please” he begged, “Come to our spot… I’m begging you.”

Noelle spoke to her friends before she let out a sigh, “Fine. I’ll catch the metro…”

Jinyoung said nothing as he hung up and pressed his phone to his chest. His heart pounded hard against his chest as he felt jittery. He needed to see Noelle. He needed to be with her.

When he got to Banpo Bridge, he saw Noelle sitting at the edge with a coffee in hand and another beside her. He approached her from behind and bent down to wrap his arms around her. She jumped at the sudden touch and looked back to see him. Jinyoung knew what was on the tip of her tongue, but he didn’t give her the chance to ask as he pressed his lips to hers. It was something he missed. The taste of her lips. He felt an electric shock as he deepened the kiss not caring about the people who were around. Hearing her moan in the kiss made him pull back. His hand traced the side of her face as he smiled at her, “You’re not allowed to leave me again, okay?”

Noelle hid her face as she felt it heat up, “What about JYP?”

“I signed a contract with them. This one doesn’t have a dating ban and I don’t want to be with anyone else but you.”

Noelle said nothing and she grabbed the coffee beside her. She held it out to him and he laughed at her sudden shy demeanor. He sat beside her as they caught up with one another. Their hands were interlaced and never parted the rest of the night.

Youngjae

Narae found it hard dating Youngjae. Not just because he was an idol, though it was a big reason, but also because she worked in the office at the same company as him. She was one of their graphic designers and with her work, and his, it was difficult to make time for one another. Youngjae would take off sometimes and bring her coffee or snacks and other times he’d drag her out to eat with him. Regardless, Youngjae was respectful when it came to Narae’s work. She wanted work to be a place just for that and not have her private affairs involved, so they kept their relationship under lock and key. The only ones who knew were the Got7 members.

It had all went well for the first year and a half, but one night, Youngjae dragged Narae out of work. It was almost 1 in the morning and he worried about her overstaying and not getting sleep, so he took her home. They walked the streets to her apartment, hands intertwined, and they discussed their days as Narae occasionally let out a yawn.

Once outside her apartment, Youngjae leaned down and pressed his lips to hers. The kiss was a lot more heated than a simple peck to part ways. His hands squeezed her sides as his tongue slipped in her mouth drawing out a moan from her, “I don’t want to leave…”

She could tell by the mischievous look in his eyes that he didn’t want to just come in to sleep. Narae bit her lip as she tried to control her own lust for her boyfriend. Youngjae swallowed at the seductive way she looked. She then shook her head, “Not tonight… I need sleep if I’ll be at work early.”

Youngjae reluctantly agreed, “You’re right. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“I’ll see you tomorrow” she whispered as she headed to her apartment.

The next morning, as she got ready to work, her doorbell sounded repeatedly. Narae rushed to the door and swung it open to see Youngjae out of breath. “What in the world is wrong with you? It’s too early for all that.”

He pushed his way inside and shut the door, “Sorry. I just panicked and rushed over here.”

“What’s wrong?”

He took a few breaths as he looked at her, “What do you think about going public?” Narae looked at him curiously and waited for him to continue. She knew he didn’t just rush her apartment to ask her a question like that. Youngjae shook his head and laughed, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to ask that. It’s too late to ask something like that.”

“What do you mean by that?” Youngjae pulled out his phone and looked up an article that was posted in the last 30 minutes. He handed her his phone and she read the title. “Got7’s Youngjae Just Confirmed–YOU TOLD PEOPLE WE’RE TOGETHER!” She shouted in alarm. “Are you nuts?”

Youngjae took his phone and shook his head, “It couldn’t be avoided. Someone caught us outside the building holding hands. I couldn’t really deny the photos, but I didn’t tell them your name. Just said I was dating someone I work with and they make me happy.”

Narae’s eyes were wide as she looked at her boyfriend in disbelief, “And you didn’t get in trouble?”

“Oh no, I got lectured by hyung for being careless, but there’s not much I could do about it.” He pulled her in his arms, “I’m just happy I don’t have to hide us anymore.”

She let out a light chuckle, “I guess that’s a plus… but I don’t think I can go into work today knowing that they may suspect it’s me.”

Youngjae grinned, “I already talked to the big man and he gave you the day off.” His eyes changed to the same mischievous look he gave her the night before, “Which means we can make up for last night, yea?”

Narae bit her lip as she took his hand in hers and lead him to her bedroom, “Guess we can.” His lips captured hers as they entered the bedroom and he swung the door shut.

Part I || Part III

Credit to gif owners

Written & revamped by Squirrelly831

♕ REQUEST

☮ GOT7 MASTERLIST

∞ ULTIMATE MASTERLIST

[hablo-leo-escribo]

Hey everyone! I’m a current year 13 student preparing for my first year of university so I thought I’d ask my friends for any tips for new year 12s and put together a post with all our advice for anyone going into sixth form this year. Some of the tips (eg about UCAS etc) might be helpful to year 12s going into year 13 as well 😊 I’ve seen a few of these posts floating around but they were very US-centric, so I thought I’d make one specific to the UK education system in the hope that that can help some people.

NB: I went to sixth form at my previous secondary school, so it’s possible that some of these tips will be slightly different from the experience you get from an independent sixth form college, but it may still be helpful. I took AS and A2 levels in French, Spanish and Music, and a linear two-year A level in English Literature, as well as EPQ. I’m aware that specifications are always changing, but if anyone needs any specific help with those subjects feel free to message me 😊

Choosing your subjects

Yes, it’s probably too late for this if you’ve already got to the end of year 11, but during September of year 12 there’s usually some degree of finding your feet and it shouldn’t be impossible to change your subjects if you suddenly realise you’ve made a horrible mistake.

Pick subjects you like and/or have a reason for studying. A levels are tough, so if you go in with a passion for a particular subject, a will to learn something new, or a specific goal in mind (eg getting onto a particular career path), motivation will come more easily.

Having said that, it doesn’t matter how much you like a subject, around April-May of year 13 you will still find yourself, at least once, crying on the floor of your bedroom, surrounded by empty chocolate wrappers and dense piles of revision notes, wondering why you didn’t just run away to sea to be a pirate when you had the chance. It’s a normal part of sixth form life. Just let it happen, and keep going.

If you’re one of those people who always cracks under the pressure of exams, you might want to consider taking creative subjects. A couple of my friends only took subjects like art, photography and textiles which were almost entirely coursework-based. Equally, if you hate ongoing projects and would prefer an exam-assessed course, those are ones to avoid!

Choose your subjects wisely and don’t chop and change too much. When you pick these subjects you’re going to be stuck with them for the next two years. If you realise you’ve made a mistake your school may allow you to switch, but do that as early as you possibly can so you don’t miss too much curriculum. I would say October of year 12 is the absolute latest you should be trying to switch your subjects.

Similarly, if you aren’t a certified mega-genius, don’t take more than three A levels. I did and Oh Boy did I regret it. It severely restricts your time and puts you under a lot of stress, plus you generally only need three subjects to get into uni. If you’re really keen to have an extra on top of your three, consider taking EPQ if your school offers it.

Lessons

Try to have a good relationship with your teachers, they’re your most valuable resource. Depending on what subjects you’re taking and how big your sixth form is, you might end up with quite small class sizes (my biggest AS class had 15 students, which was the same size as my smallest GCSE class). So you’ll get to know your classmates and teacher better, but equally, lessons will be more painful if you don’t get on with the teacher.

Do wider reading for your classes whenever you can. This particularly applies to subjects like English, but it can help boost your understanding and enjoyment of any subject – especially if you’re thinking of going on to do it at university.

If you have to give presentations in class and you’re not a fan of public speaking (let’s be real, who is?), always prepare a handout. That will save your audience’s wrists from speedy note-taking, but it will also give them something to focus on so they won’t just be staring at you, which will probably make you feel less self-conscious.

Learning to reference books and articles properly is probably one of the most useful skills I’ve picked up in the whole two years, it’s worth spending some time on.

Coursework/EPQ/other large, ongoing projects: start working early and plan out your time. I cannot stress this enough. Break down your task into chunks, eg for EPQ that could take the form of planning, researching, drafting, refining and presenting your findings. Then give yourself a deadline for each of those and stick to it!

Start a groupchat for each of your classes! You can help each other with queries, plan revision sessions, stress together the night before an important deadline and just get to know each other better.

Organise your goddamn folders and try not to lose them? You’d be surprised how common this was in my sixth form. Keep it in your locker if it’s not in your bag or at home, don’t just leave it lying around your common room or study area – especially if you’ve got a common design of folder, like a generic black ringbinder.

Make notes as soon as you learn something. Taking notes in class is the best way – they don’t have to be beautiful (you could write them out again later as a form of revision, with lots of colour to help you remember things), you just have to get the info down on paper.

If you don’t understand something, keep emailing the teacher until they help you.

Exams

Don’t be afraid of taking a new specification. It is scary to be the first or second year group ever to take a certain exam but you’re not alone, students across the country will be in the same situation. Even if your exam board seems useless or impossible, your teachers are qualified to prepare you for it, I promise. I found the lack of past papers and example material to be the hardest part, but in that situation you just have to improvise. See if you can pinch and adapt a similar essay question from a different exam board, for example.

Revision is horrible but it has to be done. If you study as you’re going along throughout the year (eg reviewing all your class notes at the end of the week) it will seem like less of a chore.

Find fun ways to revise, that work for you! Lots of people swear by flashcards as you can put bitesize chunks of information down and just whip them out to go through whenever you have a spare 5 minutes. You could record yourself reading your notes and make your own revision podcasts to listen to just before bed, make giant revision posters… One of my friends even got some glass pens so she could write on the door of the shower!

Switch up your environment and go for walks between revision to help clear your head.

If you can find it online, print off the specification for the course you’re doing and use it as a checklist so that you know exactly what you need to know.

Exam technique is almost as important as the actual information you need to know. Get as familiar as possible with the different types of questions you’ll have to answer, how this will be marked and what weighting of the final grade it carries.

It’s a long way off for you guys, but for any current year 12s reading this: use the summer between 12 and 13 wisely. Make revision notes for the topics you covered in the past year. You don’t have to spend heaps of time on it, the trick is to keep reviewing the information in little bites so when study leave rolls around next year you won’t feel like you’re drowning in stuff you don’t know.

I probably don’t need to say this, but don’t start watching a series during exam time...

Time management

Don’t pull all-nighters, it’s never worth it. If you’re in the sort of position where you feel you need to pull an all-nighter to get your work done, there’s something wrong with your workload or your time management. Speak to someone for help with whichever of these it is.

Don’t do what one of my mates did, which is develop an unhealthy dependence on coffee and Red Bull. If you’re relying on caffeine to get you through the day, you are not getting enough sleep.

Use your free periods wisely for the love of God. When exam time rolls around you will regret every hour spent napping in the common room or dicking about on Snapchat instead of working, trust me. Time out is important, but save it for your lunch break.

Don’t make a habit of skipping school. You know when you need to take time out and when you could probably push on and keep going. 100% attendance is not necessary to pass a course, but remember that you can’t learn shit when you’re not actually there.

Know when your deadlines are. Double and triple check them and write them everywhere. When you get into your UCAS application this will be particularly important because you can’t just beg for an extension – if you miss it, you miss it. Get into the habit of doing things sooner, rather than later.

You could try setting your own deadline 3 days before the real thing so that you’ll work to get it done with time to spare. That way you’re prepared for any unexpectedly time-consuming tasks.

CV-building

You may not feel that you have a whole lot of free time with your workload, but it’s important that you put aside some time (particularly during year 12, before things get really intense the following year) to do some good old Character Building so that when it comes to personal statement time, your only hobbies aren’t watching Netflix and refreshing tumblr. This could take the form of learning a new skill – a language, musical instrument, coding, whatever – outside of school hours.

Volunteering also looks good to employers and universities, particularly to those who (like me) don’t have time for a part-time job. You can show you’ve had a position of responsibility and given back to the community as well.

Extra curriculars are worth it. Completely aside from being good for your CV and your personal statement, they’re also loads of fun and when you’re in sixth form you get loads of opportunities that the lower school just doesn’t get, running clubs and bands as well as just participating. As a sixth former I’ve done conducting, stage managing, and played in the orchestra of my school’s musical, but you could get into sports, art, drama, whatever you like.

Your school will probably grant you a week off at the end of year 12 for work experience – use it well! Try to get involved with something that’s as closely connected with your chosen area of further study or employment as possible, or if you can’t do that, try and turn whatever you end up with to your advantage. I was looking for language-related work experience but ended up in insurance, so the whole week I was there I specifically asked for tasks relating to the company’s international relations.

Any language students interested in work experience abroad, have a look at this website. They organise work experience for you in France, Spain, Germany or Italy - I went during year 12 and it was amazing.

It’s not essential to get a part-time or Saturday job, especially if it’s going to interfere with your studies, but I would advise finding a way of gaining at least some financial independence from your parents. Personally I picked up money by tutoring younger students, babysitting and feeding my neighbours’ cats on a freelance basis. It’s just something you can put on your CV and helps you gain experience of budgeting for yourself, which will all be useful when you leave home.

Applying to uni

When it comes to applying to uni, take it seriously and start early. Do your research and talk to current students wherever you can, try and get an honest opinion.

It’s not necessary to go carting off around the country to visit every university you even consider applying to – this gets expensive and time-consuming after a while! Some universities host virtual open days, and most are represented at UCAS fairs and events – there are other ways to get the *feel* of a place.

Send your personal statement to EVERYONE. I’m not kidding. I showed mine to my parents, my aunt, my subject teachers, my next door neighbours, my school’s UCAS adviser, my best friends, my cousins, my head teacher… It all helps you get the best draft together. That said, remember that everyone’s opinions on these things is going to be different and above all, it has to be a *personal* statement – don’t put in anything that you’re not happy with.

Equally, don’t write down stuff that you can’t stand behind! If you say you’ve read a particular book, make sure you’ve actually read it!

Uni interviews are scary, I won’t lie to you, but don’t let that put you off from applying to the big-name universities or competitive courses. If your grades are good enough and you have a passion to want to go there, you should go for it! If you want to know what it’s like to go through the Oxbridge interview process, go ahead and send me an ask 😊

Stress busting

Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Whether you’re struggling with something academically or need help with your workload, or if it’s a personal problem like mental health, there will be someone who can empathise and help you. They want to encourage your independence, but that doesn’t mean you have to deal with everything on your own.

No matter how stressful A levels may seem, remember that all you can do is try your best, and that’s all anyone can ask of you. There is no point in working yourself to death for A*s if it’s going to make you miserable.

It’s okay to put your mental health first, take some days out here and there to decompress, and practise self-care. I’m not saying skip school whenever you feel like it, but don’t wait to burn out before you let yourself take a break, or you’ll make yourself ill.

Eat breakfast and get a good night’s sleep. Just look after yourself. Don’t sacrifice your basic wellbeing in favour of good results, no grade is worth it.

Talk to your friends about how you’re feeling and share the stress. My friend group all send pics of our pets to the groupchat whenever someone’s feeling particularly down or stressed, just as a little way of cheering that person up. Be there for each other and work through stuff together.

General stuff

If you have a locker, use it. If not, try to minimise the amount of stuff you have to carry around on a daily basis. You can’t lug four bulging lever arch files around school every day without damaging your back.

Don’t be that one person who’s always borrowing pens, paper or lunch money from other people. Just don’t. Take responsibility for having your own supplies.

If you’re on studyblr already then I’m sure I don’t need to say this, but get a planner. It may just be a coincidence, but I’ve found that my friends who have a physical planner or bullet journal where they can write down their tasks have all turned out more organised than those of my friends who chose to use the apps on their phone instead.

Keep your study area orderly and organised. Tidy room = tidy mind. If you’re someone who really struggles with this (I personally can’t keep my room clear for longer than about 3 days at a time!), consider studying out of the house, at the library or somewhere similar.

Your performance in year 12 can and will affect your uni predictions, even if you don’t do AS levels. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking your first year doesn’t count.

It’s great when you turn 18 and you’re finally able to start going to licensed premises and drinking *legally*, but don’t let all that freedom go to your head. Use your common sense – know your limits, don’t abandon friends on nights out, have a designated driver, don’t get drunk on a school night, the usual.

Identify people who distract you, and avoid them when it comes down to it. You can quickly narrow down the people who will be proactive and do something when they have a problem, and those who would rather just complain about it. The latter group are just going to waste your time.

Last tip! From personal experience, sixth form will be stressful as hell. But it can also be some of the most fun you’ve ever had in school, and your time will go crazy fast! Make the most of it and enjoy 😊

That’s all I can think of so far, I hope it’s helpful! Please feel free to message me with any questions or concerns about anything I’ve said, or equally, if you can think of any tips for new year 12s that I didn’t include on this list go ahead and add some.

Have a relaxing summer everyone and good luck for next year! xx

[jigneshthanki-blog]

Promising 30 Digital Marketing Ideas for Taking Your Food Business Online

Prior to the advent of social media networks, e-commerce websites, and mobile devices, getting your food business noticed meant relying on the word-of-mouth, print media reviews, and walk-in traffic recommendations. It meant creating an unforgettable brick and mortar experience in a desirable location with busy foot traffic, as this is what equaled a constant flow of customers.

Nowadays, ambitious specialized bakeries operating out of home kitchens and unheard of start-ups can find success because the digital age has ushered in things like visual content, loyalty programs, geo-targeted ads, and online branded business identities.

Look at below 30 Digital Marketing ideas for taking your food business online so that you can reach your audience and compete with the best.

1. Enable Online Ordering:

Regardless of whether you sell packaged food or full-on meals that are prepped fresh in store, having an e-commerce website that allows individuals to buy online has huge potential leveraging on-demand food ordering platform development. Not only do they get to skip the line, but they may also pop in to grab their food if they are nearby.

2. Publish Dynamic Online Content:

Content is the King. Publishing helpful, original and value-laden content for your audience will help you in establishing authority, rank higher on Google and keep your target audience interested in what you have to say.

3. Be Active on Niche Food Communities:

If you are a small food company looking to get brand exposure, consider being active in niche food communities beyond Pinterest. Instagram is a must but there are also ones like FoodNiche & BakeSpace.

4. Pin Yourself to Success on Pinterest:

The food category is one of the most browsed and popular niches on the social media platform and is the one that gets pinned the most. Pinterest is also easier for smaller businesses to find new audiences on.

5. Jump onto the Bandwagon With Foodie Photos:

“Food porn” is very much alive and well and is one of the best ways to promote your restaurant or small town bakery. High-quality, drool-inducing photography draws in hungry eyes and produces new customers.

6. Partner with Loyalty Programs:

If you are running a restaurant, consider partnering with online food apps and customer loyalty programs that reward visitors to check out your restaurant. Incentives can be free purchases or discounts after a certain amount of items are bought.

7. Invest in Getting Yelp Reviews:

Even if you do not have a Yelp account, visitors will still review you on the platform. Yelp has tremendous backing power in the food industry because of how accredited and legitimate the website is. So, set up an account and make sure that the Yelp is working in your favor. Add details like photos, store hours, location, menu, price range, and whether you have WiFi, free parking, and outdoor seating.

8. Set Up a Google Account and Get Google My Business:

When individuals search up your business using Google, it’ll pop up to the right of the search results. This encourages users to visit your website, read reviews, and it gives them quick and easy access to your contact information. Best of all, it’s free.

9. Promote User-Generated Content:

When you promote and use content that is generated by your audience, not only are you showing them that you appreciate them but you get free brand exposure from their followers, friends, and family.

10. Start Up a Blog:

Having a consistent way to communicate and engage your community while building it simultaneously is what a blog offers. Not only do you get to create your business’ voice and personality, but you get to share your struggles and successes with your customers.

11. Share Blog Posts to Social Media Platforms:

Get paid traffic driven to your blog by using advertising campaigns through social media platforms like Facebook. This can help you build buzz around the content you create and drive more traffic to your website.

12. Consider Asking Food Bloggers to Promote Your Products:

Get in touch with food bloggers and ask them to promote your food products. Just make sure you choose a few to write to that have built up an excellent rapport with their audience first.

13. Publish Photos and Videos in Real Time:

Use Instagram stories and Snapchat to create ephemeral content, which is content that disappears after a short period of time and is filmed or created in real-time. Consumers love behind the scenes content because it builds authenticity.

14. Utilize the Power of Live Video or Streaming:

A lot of consumers prefer to be able to watch their brands live as this puts them in touch with you on a more intimate level.

15. Use Chatbots to Personalize Marketing Funnels:

Leverage AI based conversational and custom chatbot development for your restaurant and allow it to answer customer queries, generate leads, and analyze the feedback you get on your website and social media pages. Chatbots are good for having communication channels live 24/7.

16. Use Location-based Marketing or Geofencing:

If you are a restaurant with a mobile app, use Geolocation-based marketing to target your audience. Location-based marketing will trigger a response such as a push notification to pop up on your audience’s smartphones whenever they are near your restaurant.

17. Get an Alexa Skill Up on Amazon:

Jump into the voice control market and create an Alexa Skill App for your restaurant. This will allow your audience to listen to your menu through their Amazon device, make it easier to order on the go, or get information from your website.

18. Use iBeacons to Market to Customers:

Use Apple’s iBeacon technology to broadcast your restaurant’s advertisements through self-contained packets of data to smartphone devices in the area. You can deliver these advertisements through push notifications, app actions, and prompts.

19. Use High-Quality Content Marketing:

Create informative and relevant content for your restaurant through how-to guides that inform and educate, blog posts that outline menu recipes and fun infographics that detail out your restaurant’s selling points.

20. Use Influencer Marketing:

Working with food influencers is one of the best digital strategies you can use for your restaurant. This is especially true of Instagram media influencers who love to share photos about the type of foods they are eating. You can go about this a few ways: partner with the food influencer, ask them to write a review or host an event with them.

21. Don’t Forget Seasonal Offers Through Ads:

Pull out special offers for unique seasons and promote them using Facebook Ads. One of the best ways to get people to buy your products is by using Facebook’s “claim coupon” which allows your audience to claim a food product or discount.

22. Promote Customer Review Videos Through Ads:

Keep your audience engaged by promoting your company through the review videos you get. Although these should be up on your website, promoting them through Facebook and Google Ads helps spread them to a wider audience. Consumers who see these videos are going to feel more confident in purchasing from you.

23. Create an Infographic for Your Popular Foods:

An infographic is a great way to make a meaningful impact as it uses a combination of data, graphic design, and valuable content. Plus, these tend to get shared a lot on social media platforms.

24. Run an Instagram or Facebook Contest:

One of the easiest and most popular ways to increase your exposure and audience at the same time is by running contests that require your audience to engage with your social media profiles. This could be liking or sharing your page, commenting on a photograph, or creating a caption on an image.

25. Consider Hosting an Event at Your Restaurant:

Hosting an event, a wine tasting, or even a dish tasting at your restaurant is sure to bring in prospective customers. As always, you can promote this event on social media platforms, through blogs, and through press releases.

26. Create a Mobile Application:

This could be as simple as having a menu application to as complicated as ordering for delivery. Depending on what type of restaurant you own, you can even mesh these two together. Having a mobile application that is responsive and user-friendly with excellent reviews, will garner you exposure on the mobile market.

27. Consider Using Press Releases:

If your restaurant just won a big award, has a grand new opening coming up, or is choosing to expand, use press releases to announce it to the public. You can then use SEO to optimize it and build natural backlinks from external sources.

28. Include Customer Reviews on Your Website and Social Media Profiles:

If you are running a restaurant that has its hand in e-commerce, do not underestimate the value that customer reviews can have. Individuals want to read the feedback left and the more positive feedback that you receive, the better your reputation online will be.

29. Have a Website That is Engaging and Interesting:

Make sure that you are using colors that pop, designs that tell a story and images that are crisp, clear, and delicious looking. Include links to your popular dishes, food products, and drinks, and always make sure that promotions and deals are easily accessible. You want your customers to explore the website and stay on it as long as possible. If you are not shipping out food items and are running a restaurant, add on a reservation booking option.

30. Always Use Social Media Platforms that Suit Your Product:

Harness the power of social media marketing platforms by pairing up with the one that best suits what you are trying to sell. For food businesses and restaurants, visual platforms are often the best, as they allow you to show off your food in an aesthetically pleasing way.

According to a study by Harvard Business School, A one-star increase in Yelp rating leads to a 5-9% increase in revenue.

So what are you waiting for? Hire Professional SEO experts and get the best possible outcomes for your business growth and online reputation like never before! Request a FREE quote today!

[ais-n]

“For years my friend has told me to share my writing but I’ve been self-conscious about how it will be received or perceived. Lately, I’m wanting to post, but I don’t know where to start. Do you have any advice?”

I got the above question in an email (don’t worry, email friend! I will not name you for any privacy concerns) and since I thought it was a good question that others may wonder about too, and since I wrote a long answer, I figured I’d post it here too in case it’s useful for anyone. 

Basically, I totally understand self-consciousness; I feel the same way a lot too. It’s a tl;dr story but writing and sharing fanfic is what helped me start to feel more confident in my writing abilities because strangers said such nice things. I had a hard time believing all the nice things my family/friends had said my whole life about my writing; it was hard to believe it was anything other than them being nice or taking pity on me, I suppose because it was easier for me not to believe in myself than it was to believe in the pitying kindness of others. So I think sharing can be incredibly important if that feels like the right step for anyone at their current point in writing.

Below is from my emailed reply -- I’m putting it behind a cut for length but I go into these topics: 

**Sharing for free, **sharing for money, **compiling the story, and **how to look at feedback from readers if you are unused to sharing.

For posting, I should first of all say I'm not an expert so I may not be super helpful. But in case any of this is helpful, here are some thoughts I have:

SHARING - MONEY VERSION

First, decide if you think you are going to try to get it officially published or not. if you are, you may not want to share it online because some publishers may be less likely to want to take it on if it was totally free online at some point. That being said, I also think publishers are shifting their view on that a lot lately, and you could still eventually self-publish it as an ebook and if that sells well maybe some publishers would still be interested.

If you go the I-plan-to-publish-when-finished route, find a few beta readers (ideally some who usually read that genre and maybe 1 or 2 who don't or who have an outside view who may catch things the genre readers don't). This is a compromise between sharing online where you can get that encouragement to continue posting/get ongoing feedback, and keeping the story non-public for potential publishing.

If you want to do more of a hybrid version, you could consider sharing the story as you go on Patreon if you need to make money off it. I don't know a ton about this option, though, and keep in mind that if you add that monetary barrier you will limit the number of people who can read it.

If you decide to self-publish at some point, you can hire or find people to help you with the various aspects of it like formatting and cover creation and all that. I recommend doing a lot of research on the various self-publishing sites to make sure you are okay with all the pros and cons of the individual options, and also be sure it's a place you hear has been good about actually paying the authors and is showing no signs of closing down. There have been a few cases of online publishing companies closing abruptly or not paying their creators so just be a bit careful, but also there are some sites that have worked great for a lot of people so it's probably fine.

SHARING - FREE VERSION

If you want to get more experience and self-confidence and are more interested in sharing your story than worrying about money and all of that jazz, then there are a few options. If I were you, basically I would first check around for the genre and see where most people are posting stories like that, and then consider posting in that venue because maybe you'll get more eyes on it. You may also want to post in multiple locations at once so you spread out the audience. Keep in mind it's more of a pain in the ass that way because then you have to update a lot of places AND they probably have different formatting idiosyncrasies, but if you're starting out and want to make sure as many people see it as possible then that is going to help you out.

Some story-sharing sites I happen to know about which you could consider, depending on your specific story and if it meets criteria for them:

AO3 - Archive Of Our Own - http://archiveofourown.org/

AFFN - Adult Fanfiction - http://adult-fanfiction.org/ (that's where we started with ICoS although back then it was adultfanfiction.net)

FFN - fanfiction.net

Also social media like I think some people post stories on Goodreads, some on tumblr, you could make a blog and post it on there and then share links on social media, plus there are other places but they kind of delve a bit deeper into certain subset groups and I don't know a ton about them so I don't want to list them here. But if you google your genre you may find other options too.

When you find the place(s) you want to post your story, then make sure you 1) tag it appropriately, 2) try to write an intriguing summary for it (have your friend help if you aren't good at that like me lol), and then the biggest thing is:

3) CONSISTENCY -- if you can set a schedule (and stick to it) for sharing your story that helps because then people start to know when to look for the next part, they look forward to it, and depending on the way that site is set up it may also mean more random people see it because it may be showing up more often on the Recently Uploaded pages. I remember way back in the day there was a fic I read that this girl wrote and I loved the fic, and what I especially loved was she had set a schedule for the release. I literally wrote those release dates on my calendar because I loved building it into my schedule to look for an update. It became part of my routine; a small treat I pampered myself with on those Fridays.

Also, if you can post places that easily allow for comments like AO3 or wherever, that's awesome because you get that feedback from people, and you can garner a small sense of community. If you reply to people they usually really appreciate it because they know they were seen, but you would have to go according to what you feel is best.

Lastly, if you are posting it now to share but eventually decide you may want to upgrade it for publishing, Scribophile may be a good place for you -- http://www.scribophile.com/ -- it's basically a writing community site where you can choose your level of interaction with others, have people review things for you if needed, etc. In all honesty I haven't really used the site at all but I've been a member for a couple of years. It seems like a really good resource, I just haven't utilized it. But I wanted to make sure you knew about it in case it's more helpful for you.

COMPILING

Just a thought but if the story you are writing is complicated in any way, or you're having troubles keeping information compiled in one place, or you may eventually want to make it into a manuscript to present for publishing, or this will be a multi-year project, or really for any of many reasons-- I highly recommend Scrivener (or any other writing program that you prefer instead). That program is totally worth the cost, in my opinion, for the way it's worked for me. But if you decide to give it a go, you should really do the free trial version first AND watch all the main tutorials right away. It's a little bit of a learning curve but it's freaking awesome. But I know some people who haven't found it to be as helpful as I have so that's why I suggest you do the free trial, watch the tutorials, and really give it a go in that free month to see if you want to invest in it fully. If you don't need it for a year, during NaNo (November) they usually have it 50% off for anyone who completes NaNo.

FEEDBACK FROM READERS

Ok so one thing to keep in mind once you start sharing stories is you will never please everyone--as impossible as this will feel to do once it happens, try not to give more weight to negative feedback compared to positive. Most of the time there's way more positive than negative but it's human nature to focus on the negative.

Consider writing out some of the positive feedback on sticky notes around your computer or something so you can look at it when you're bummed out--this could even be positive comments from your friends :)

Don't personalize what people say about your story--first of all, they're coming at your story from their own life experiences which may differ from yours so they may react super strongly to something that to you feels really odd--but the reason I mention this is because as you share it will give you more and more opportunities to pause after you get feedback and try to objectively look at it, to see if it makes sense to you what they said or if it feels like maybe they are accidentally projecting something from their own life onto you and your story

A good story makes people feel things so also remember that strong emotions responding to a story is a good thing, not a bad thing

If you don't get a lot of response or reviews, don't fret and don't stop! The internet is wholly unbalanced in the way creativity is seen and responded to-- there are some people I know who are freaking incredible at what they do, but they get fewer notes or fewer reviews than others who I feel don't shine as creatively as they do. Also depending on the story you write, it may be something more mainstream with a wider audience or more niche with a smaller audience. But the size or type of audience doesn't matter; what matters (at least to me, personally) is knowing if a story touched even one person in any small or large way. Valuing every piece of feedback you get is important, I think, because it not only thanks the people who took the time to read your story, but also allows you to focus on what's important and not get caught up worrying about numbers. Numbers are not people. You could have a story that gets 1,000 reviews and another story that gets 1 review, but if that 1 review is someone saying that story literally changed their life and those 1000 reviews are all generic "lolz keep going!!111" reviews-- which is more valuable and impactful to you as a writer and a person? I'm not at all devaluing the super simple "omg I love this please keep going!" reviews because OH MY GOD are those so nice to get! I love people so much who do that! All I mean is that numbers alone don't tell the story of the impact that story can have on the readers, so don't let statistics have any sort of value judgment on them for yourself in terms of whether or not you "succeed"

It's important to remember to write for yourself and the story you're writing more than you're writing for others. If you are happy with the story, if you feel you're doing your best, then the variation and amount or lack thereof of feedback will be less discouraging and more encouraging

Also keep in mind you are not infallible, and every writer always has room for improvement. Constructive criticism can be awesome for helping a writer improve in ways they hadn't realized they could improve previously

I may seem in that 'feedback' section like I'm expecting you to get a lot of bad reviews or no reviews at all, and that's not it lol I just know that it's impossible to predict that sort of thing, and I know how I have felt and continue to feel about my own writing, and I know how friends have felt about their own creative works, and I know that we creative types tend to be our own harshest critics. So if you aren't used to sharing your stories to the world, if you're self-conscious and going into it a little worried or nervous, I wanted to mention that all ahead of time so if you don't initially get the reaction you hoped to get, you will hopefully not take it personally, and not let it stop you from continuing. Keep sharing! Keep improving! Keep having fun! And if you get nothing but a ton of super happy feedback, you'll already be on cloud nine anyway so you won't need to worry about personalizing anything.

I guess those are my main thoughts on it. I'm not sure if this helps at all but maybe if nothing else it will get you thinking about something that could be useful for you to research in the future for ideas or options out there to fit your specific project/story and your specific goals. I think your friend is right--you should share your story, if it's something that you feel is right for you at this time in your life. I think sharing can be incredibly helpful, and can also be a good way to ensure you actually finish a story you started, once there are other people involved.

To anyone who made it this far who is thinking of sharing but isn’t sure--if you believe that’s what’s best for you, I support your decision to share! I believe in you! Go go go, my friend! You can do it!

[coopdigitalnewsletter]

1 Apr 2020: Supermarkets are critical national infrastructure: delivering a worry-free wipe. Virus tracking and tradeoffs.

Content alert: this newsletter does not contain any April Fool’s jokes. Now really is not the time for April Fool’s jokes. Nor is it ever the time tbh.

Hello, this is the Co-op Digital newsletter - it looks at what's happening in the internet/digital world and how it's relevant to the Co-op, to retail businesses, and most importantly to people, communities and society. Thank you for reading - send ideas and feedback to @rod on Twitter. Please tell a friend about it!

[Image: Stay Home Now, by these clever creators.]

Supermarkets are critical national infrastructure: delivering a worry-free wipe

Supermarkets have become critical national infrastructure, like the NHS and social care, pharmacies, emergency services, post and delivery services, and, it turns out, so many other organisations. 

Tales from the front line in retail: Delivering a worry free wipe for the NHS is a good first-person account on what March has been like for food retail in some stores (also the follow-up piece as the chaos becomes more controlled). 

In some retail categories you’d expect to see high street activity smoothly transition over to online. Amazon is hiring 100,000 staff. Instacart is hiring 300,000. But it isn’t as simple as “online scales up and wins big” because online needs warehousing, logistics, delivery and all of those need people. So ecommerce varies. Coronavirus is throwing light on working conditions in online shopping: Amazon warehouse workers are walking out over COVID-19 fears. And Instacart shoppers are planning a nationwide strike to demand better safety protections and pay.

Related:

Recent Kantar grocery sales data, illustrated with Jose Mourinho gifs - this is funny, and it comes with bonus branding advice for the CoOp!

Out of work? These companies need workers right now: The firms hiring thousands of new staff. Remote-friendly jobs with a tech industry bias: job.garden and remote.io.

Secondary effects

Some of the secondary effects of coronaworld are unusual, and some show that industries are struggling:

Zoom effect: Walmart says it's seeing increased sales of tops - but not bottoms.

Delivery trucks are moving faster as traffic congestion drops and health experts ask for speed limits to be reduced to ease pressure on emergency services.

Restaurants and eating out have declined by roughly 100%.

“In tourism-heavy cities… the rental market is exploding, as AirBnB owners are suddenly forced to [take their houses off the platform and] put their houses on the market” (US data). Though because of the additional supply, rental prices are dropping: London landlords dump holiday lets on residential market, pushing down rents.

CityMapper is tracking how movement in cities has declined as self-isolation has grown - London and Manchester going from 80-something % of normal traffic two weeks ago to about 10% today.

Scootershare co Bird lays off 30% of workforce.

Virus tracking and tradeoffs

A new mobile app, COVID Symptom Tracker will let individuals “self-report symptoms daily to identify those at risk sooner”. About 2m people in the UK are using it as of 30 March. (More detail here.) We need to minimise harms from the coronavirus so this is just one of many efforts to rapidly build new services to trace contacts, minimise infections, and support the NHS.

NHS has announced a new data platform to support the response to the coronavirus. Partners are companies like Microsoft, Amazon and Google. And Palantir, whose involvement will surprise some readers.

Important work, but are tradeoffs being made? Are accessibility, privacy etc being ignored in favour of speed and effectiveness? The Information Commissioner’s Office is comfortable that if generalised location data trend data “is properly anonymised and aggregated [...] privacy laws are not breached as long as the appropriate safeguards are in place”.

Perhaps the privacy and ethical considerations are wider than the individual. Here are three excellent reads on tradeoffs and ethical ways forward:

Contact Tracking and NHSX: an open letter from a long-gone era (21 March), which calls for new technologies used in the suppression of Coronavirus to follow ethical best practice. 

To use data for public good we need a new approach to consent by Andrew Eland at Projects by IF: “when data collected with individual consent is reused for the public good, it challenges that model of consent”.

Society-Centered Design by Projects by IF, again: a manifesto that calls for a new approach to designing systems that puts society first, rather than the individual.

Projects

Project N95 and Mask match are two US services that try get medical equipment to healthcare teams that need them. If you have seen a service like this in the UK, let the newsletter know by hitting reply to the email or @rod on the Twitter.

Pay It Forward - “a promise between the people of Manchester and its hospitality and nightlife industry. It’s simple, you buy a voucher that is redeemable after COVID-19 has run its course”.

Responding to uncertainty

“Acknowledge the ambiguity. These are not normal times. Everyone is at least a little scared. We will be less scared if we acknowledge this and work together. As a leader you will set an example.” How to play chess on a rollercoaster by Richard Sullivan, who’s both a Co-oper and a resilience expert.

It would be called “working from home” if the only thing happening was that the office is closed for redecorating. But society is going through something very different. When this is over, some things will return to normal, but many things will never be the same again. So this is “Trying to live in a new world of accelerated change and uncertain risk, while being at home and looking after family and trying to do some work”. Be kind to yourselves.

Other news

Glimpse inside US chatco Slack as it went remote only.

Live traffic and searches on citizensadvice.org.uk - via “the search terms speak for themselves”.

The Prime Minister tweeted a picture of the cabinet using Zoom video conferencing which included the meeting ID. (This is bad because having 10 digit room IDs plus = “zoom bombing”, third parties trying out meeting numbers until they get one.)

“What I love [on Zoom calls] is looking at people’s book cases - the amount of John Grisham… they have on there. And these are educated people!”. Question: instead of blurring your background, does Zoom let you blur yourself? You could present your background in high definition, because complimenting people on their domestic stuff is one nice thing amidst all of this. (A virtue signalling bookshelf service is a thing Waterstones should get on to immediately.)

Co-op Digital news

It’s OK to do what you need to do - this may be the most important blog post Co-op Digital has ever written.

Thank you for reading

Thank you, beloved readers and contributors. Please continue to send ideas, questions, corrections, improvements, etc to the newsletter’s typing chicken @rod on Twitter. If you have enjoyed reading, please tell a friend!

If you want to find out more about Co-op Digital, follow us @CoopDigital on Twitter and read the Co-op Digital Blog. Previous newsletters.

[preciousmetals0]

While Wall Street Falls, Great Stuff Goes Alpha

While Wall Street Falls, Great Stuff Goes Alpha:

Friday Four Play: The “Get a Leg up” Edition

It’s no secret … I like being right. But to reference a line from The Matrix: “Not like this. Not like this.”

So far this week, the Dow is off 3,200 points … and counting. Wall Street’s favorite barometer is down roughly 13% from its February 12 high, putting the Dow firmly in correction territory. And with COVID-19 continuing to spread around the globe — U.S. readers, please be careful … it’s here in the wild now — the end of this correction appears to still be a way off.

Yes, this correction is painful — but you are Great Stuff readers. You were prepared. You moved a sizable portion of your portfolio into gold, currencies and other safe-haven investments back in January … right?

You also had a leg up on the rest of the market with Great Stuff’s “4 Stocks to Beat the Wuhan Virus.” And my, what a fine leg that is. “It’s a major award!” (Yes, I’m making a Christmas Story reference in February … so what?)

Let’s take a look at the returns on those four recommendations, shall we?

How do you like them apples?

All returns are calculated as of yesterday’s close, bringing your total average return to 89.5%. It looks even better when you compare it to the S&P 500 Index’s loss of 8.3% for the same period. (Are you guys feeling a little better now?)

As of today, ABBV is in negative territory versus your potential entry point. The company’s $63 billion acquisition of Allergan PLC (NYSE: AGN) overshadows any coronavirus benefits right now, but it’ll straighten itself out eventually.

However, the rest are going gangbusters. Alpha Pro Tech, in particular, is on fire! Remember: The company makes face masks, gowns and various other infection-control items for both the medical industry and the general public. So, you know it’s doing well in corona world.

For caution’s sake, if you bought into APT following Great Stuff’s recommendation, we officially recommend that you sell today.

There’s no need to be greedy after a win like this. Be like Billy Joe and Bobbie Sue — take the money and run!

But if you’re worried about “opportunity cost” or want to keep exposure through the rest of this COVID-19 outbreak, take at least half of your position off the table. That guarantees you a win on this trade.

Either way, congratulations are in order! Good job, you!

And now for something completely different … here’s your Friday Four Play:

No. 1: Beyond Crazy

Beyond Meat Inc. (Nasdaq: BYND) investors got something to cheer about today —whether they know it or not.

The veggie burger maker reported that retail sales surged 198% and food service/restaurant revenue spiked 223%! How’s that for beyond?

But … BYND shares are plummeting today.

Why? Well, Beyond posted a surprise loss of a penny per share, versus expectations for a gain of a penny. Furthermore, guidance was well short of Wall Street’s target. Beyond expects earnings of $25.3 million, while the consensus looked for $50.2 million.

Two things to note here:

One, Beyond is conservative with guidance due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Two, the company is spending money on growth … and it needs to.

“We would be crazy not to invest in growth right now,” said CEO Ethan Brown. “There is just so much opportunity right now. We want to make sure we move as fast as we can to open up these markets.”

Sure, BYND trades at elevated valuations that, honestly, seem a bit beyond belief. However, the company is part of mega trends in sustainability and alternative foods. It needs to be proactive now. As a result of that proactive attitude, Beyond is getting punished.

If you were looking to invest in BYND but missed the initial rally, this sell-off is the opportunity you’ve been waiting for.

No. 2: I Want to Ride My Bicycle

I want to ride it where I like … not in my living room. That’s the message that Wall Street is sending Peloton Interactive Inc. (Nasdaq: PTON) this week.

Analysts have repeatedly pushed the idea that Peloton will benefit from the COVID-19 outbreak as people stay home to avoid becoming a statistic. “We believe certain U.S. consumers will be less comfortable over time going to their gym and more likely to order a Peloton bike to stay home,” said Needham analyst Laura Martin in a note to clients this week.

Additionally, Peloton announced yesterday that it reached a settlement with the National Music Publishers Association (NMPA). The company was using music with its streamed workout sessions without the proper licensing. That’s copyright infringement, and the NMPA initially sued Peloton for $300 million because of it.

But the two have since made up. Peloton even agreed to collaborate with NMPA to “further optimize” the music-licensing process.

Despite today’s sharp decline, PTON is still up more than 5% on the week. So, at least the stock isn’t spinning its wheels.

No. 3: The Mouse’s House Is Cheap

The Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS) has had a rough week. (Haven’t we all?)

The stock initially dove on news that CEO Bob Iger would step down immediately. Then, as coronavirus fears accelerated, Tokyo Disneyland announced it was closing through mid-March. Analysts started questioning theme park revenue for Disney, and the shares fell further.

But BMO Capital Markets sees this dip in DIS as an opportunity. This morning, the ratings firm named Disney its top pick, ousting Netflix Inc. (Nasdaq: NFLX) from that lofty position.

BMO said that DIS is “increasingly baking in more challenges already. We would use any near-term weakness related to COVID-19 virus as an opportunity to build long-term positions.”

Remember, kids: Disney isn’t going anywhere. The company dominated the silver screen last year, and it’s poised to dominate video streaming in the years to come. I have to agree with BMO. This dip is an opportunity.

No. 4: No Fair

If you ever wondered what an online version of Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. (Nasdaq: BBBY) would look like … look no further than Wayfair Inc. (NYSE: W).

The company sells about 14 million products online, including furniture, décor, decorative accents … etcetera. It’s basically Bed Bath & Online with a fancier name. If you remember how BBBY’s earnings turned out, you can guess how Wayfair’s doing today.

The company reported a wider-than-expected quarterly loss of $2.80 per share, missed on revenue and reported that revenue growth trended below 20% — the company’s historical norm.

Guidance was also well below expectations, with first-quarter margins in the negative 7.3% to 7.8% range. Yes … negative margins.

Remember that lesson from the dot-com bust? Just because a company operates online doesn’t mean it’s automatically better.

Great Stuff: Congratulates YOU!

Did you crack open the champagne yet? No? Well, what’s stopping you?! Congratulations are in order, I tell you.

It’s not every week that you can boast about a 300%-plus gain … especially in the same week both the Dow and S&P 500 shed over 10%.

You won’t find any “I told you so!” here … this win is all about you, dear readers. If you took Great Stuff’s advice on buying when others were fearful — and oh, how fearful they were — you should be sitting on fresh gains while the rest of the market sees red.

Be the envy of your friends and fellow investors. Hey, if you don’t brag to them, why not brag to us? We’d love to hear how you’ve fared with Great Stuff picks. Shoot us a message at GreatStuffToday@banyanhill.com and let us know what’s up!

If there’s one single thing to take away from this crazy week, it’s this…

Your gain on APT just shows that there’s no shortage of good buys in today’s market … and there are discounts just waiting for you to find them. Whether you made bank on APT or not, don’t give up on finding your next bargain.

Jeff Yastine’s research can show you how. Jeff sifts through the market with a fine-toothed comb — hey, just like Great Stuff! — to find well-run, growing businesses that trade for pennies on the dollar. These are the solid businesses that will survive this outbreak, no matter how bad the sell-off makes it seem.

Click here to learn more about Jeff Yastine’s research.

That’s all for this week. But don’t fret, you can get more meme-y market goodness by following us on Facebook and Twitter!

Until next time, good trading!

Regards,

Joseph Hargett

Editor, Great Stuff

[goldira01]

Friday Four Play: The “Get a Leg up” Edition

It’s no secret … I like being right. But to reference a line from The Matrix: “Not like this. Not like this.”

So far this week, the Dow is off 3,200 points … and counting. Wall Street’s favorite barometer is down roughly 13% from its February 12 high, putting the Dow firmly in correction territory. And with COVID-19 continuing to spread around the globe — U.S. readers, please be careful … it’s here in the wild now — the end of this correction appears to still be a way off.

Yes, this correction is painful — but you are Great Stuff readers. You were prepared. You moved a sizable portion of your portfolio into gold, currencies and other safe-haven investments back in January … right?

You also had a leg up on the rest of the market with Great Stuff’s “4 Stocks to Beat the Wuhan Virus.” And my, what a fine leg that is. “It’s a major award!” (Yes, I’m making a Christmas Story reference in February … so what?)

Let’s take a look at the returns on those four recommendations, shall we?

How do you like them apples?

All returns are calculated as of yesterday’s close, bringing your total average return to 89.5%. It looks even better when you compare it to the S&P 500 Index’s loss of 8.3% for the same period. (Are you guys feeling a little better now?)

As of today, ABBV is in negative territory versus your potential entry point. The company’s $63 billion acquisition of Allergan PLC (NYSE: AGN) overshadows any coronavirus benefits right now, but it’ll straighten itself out eventually.

However, the rest are going gangbusters. Alpha Pro Tech, in particular, is on fire! Remember: The company makes face masks, gowns and various other infection-control items for both the medical industry and the general public. So, you know it’s doing well in corona world.

For caution’s sake, if you bought into APT following Great Stuff’s recommendation, we officially recommend that you sell today.

There’s no need to be greedy after a win like this. Be like Billy Joe and Bobbie Sue — take the money and run!

But if you’re worried about “opportunity cost” or want to keep exposure through the rest of this COVID-19 outbreak, take at least half of your position off the table. That guarantees you a win on this trade.

Either way, congratulations are in order! Good job, you!

And now for something completely different … here’s your Friday Four Play:

No. 1: Beyond Crazy

Beyond Meat Inc. (Nasdaq: BYND) investors got something to cheer about today —whether they know it or not.

The veggie burger maker reported that retail sales surged 198% and food service/restaurant revenue spiked 223%! How’s that for beyond?

But … BYND shares are plummeting today.

Why? Well, Beyond posted a surprise loss of a penny per share, versus expectations for a gain of a penny. Furthermore, guidance was well short of Wall Street’s target. Beyond expects earnings of $25.3 million, while the consensus looked for $50.2 million.

Two things to note here:

One, Beyond is conservative with guidance due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Two, the company is spending money on growth … and it needs to.

“We would be crazy not to invest in growth right now,” said CEO Ethan Brown. “There is just so much opportunity right now. We want to make sure we move as fast as we can to open up these markets.”

Sure, BYND trades at elevated valuations that, honestly, seem a bit beyond belief. However, the company is part of mega trends in sustainability and alternative foods. It needs to be proactive now. As a result of that proactive attitude, Beyond is getting punished.

If you were looking to invest in BYND but missed the initial rally, this sell-off is the opportunity you’ve been waiting for.

No. 2: I Want to Ride My Bicycle

I want to ride it where I like … not in my living room. That’s the message that Wall Street is sending Peloton Interactive Inc. (Nasdaq: PTON) this week.

Analysts have repeatedly pushed the idea that Peloton will benefit from the COVID-19 outbreak as people stay home to avoid becoming a statistic. “We believe certain U.S. consumers will be less comfortable over time going to their gym and more likely to order a Peloton bike to stay home,” said Needham analyst Laura Martin in a note to clients this week.

Additionally, Peloton announced yesterday that it reached a settlement with the National Music Publishers Association (NMPA). The company was using music with its streamed workout sessions without the proper licensing. That’s copyright infringement, and the NMPA initially sued Peloton for $300 million because of it.

But the two have since made up. Peloton even agreed to collaborate with NMPA to “further optimize” the music-licensing process.

Despite today’s sharp decline, PTON is still up more than 5% on the week. So, at least the stock isn’t spinning its wheels.

No. 3: The Mouse’s House Is Cheap

The Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS) has had a rough week. (Haven’t we all?)

The stock initially dove on news that CEO Bob Iger would step down immediately. Then, as coronavirus fears accelerated, Tokyo Disneyland announced it was closing through mid-March. Analysts started questioning theme park revenue for Disney, and the shares fell further.

But BMO Capital Markets sees this dip in DIS as an opportunity. This morning, the ratings firm named Disney its top pick, ousting Netflix Inc. (Nasdaq: NFLX) from that lofty position.

BMO said that DIS is “increasingly baking in more challenges already. We would use any near-term weakness related to COVID-19 virus as an opportunity to build long-term positions.”

Remember, kids: Disney isn’t going anywhere. The company dominated the silver screen last year, and it’s poised to dominate video streaming in the years to come. I have to agree with BMO. This dip is an opportunity.

No. 4: No Fair

If you ever wondered what an online version of Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. (Nasdaq: BBBY) would look like … look no further than Wayfair Inc. (NYSE: W).

The company sells about 14 million products online, including furniture, décor, decorative accents … etcetera. It’s basically Bed Bath & Online with a fancier name. If you remember how BBBY’s earnings turned out, you can guess how Wayfair’s doing today.

The company reported a wider-than-expected quarterly loss of $2.80 per share, missed on revenue and reported that revenue growth trended below 20% — the company’s historical norm.

Guidance was also well below expectations, with first-quarter margins in the negative 7.3% to 7.8% range. Yes … negative margins.

Remember that lesson from the dot-com bust? Just because a company operates online doesn’t mean it’s automatically better.

Great Stuff: Congratulates YOU!

Did you crack open the champagne yet? No? Well, what’s stopping you?! Congratulations are in order, I tell you.

It’s not every week that you can boast about a 300%-plus gain … especially in the same week both the Dow and S&P 500 shed over 10%.

You won’t find any “I told you so!” here … this win is all about you, dear readers. If you took Great Stuff’s advice on buying when others were fearful — and oh, how fearful they were — you should be sitting on fresh gains while the rest of the market sees red.

Be the envy of your friends and fellow investors. Hey, if you don’t brag to them, why not brag to us? We’d love to hear how you’ve fared with Great Stuff picks. Shoot us a message at GreatStuffToday@banyanhill.com and let us know what’s up!

If there’s one single thing to take away from this crazy week, it’s this…

Your gain on APT just shows that there’s no shortage of good buys in today’s market … and there are discounts just waiting for you to find them. Whether you made bank on APT or not, don’t give up on finding your next bargain.

Jeff Yastine’s research can show you how. Jeff sifts through the market with a fine-toothed comb — hey, just like Great Stuff! — to find well-run, growing businesses that trade for pennies on the dollar. These are the solid businesses that will survive this outbreak, no matter how bad the sell-off makes it seem.

Click here to learn more about Jeff Yastine’s research.

That’s all for this week. But don’t fret, you can get more meme-y market goodness by following us on Facebook and Twitter!

Until next time, good trading!

Regards,

Joseph Hargett

Editor, Great Stuff

[rickhorrow]

15 To Watch : Decade in Review Tech & Media

15 TO WATCH: DECADE IN REVIEW 

RICK HORROW’S TOP SPORTS TECHNOLOGY & MEDIA ISSUES OF 2010-2019 

with Tanner Simkins

It’s hard to believe, but we have reached the end of yet another decade. And in the business of sport, it’s been a busy one. Here are Rick Horrow’s top 15 sports technology and media trends and issues of the decade just ending. Stay tuned throughout December for most influential philanthropic/corporate social responsibility actions in sports, and an early look at the year and decade ahead.

High Definition (HD). The most essential element for the sports consumer? Watching the game. High definition pushed the envelope this decade so much that now anything non-HD seems archaic – just think about what those old “Wide World of Sports” clips look like. The first major sporting event broadcast nationwide in the U.S. in HD was Super Bowl XXXIV, broadcast by ABC on January 30, 2000. By the 2014–2015 television season, every network show producing new episodes had transitioned to high definition. And virtually all HD technology was developed by global sports league partners, with broadcasting live sporting events that delivered almost the same immediacy as being there a top line goal for developers. Over 90% of U.S. homes have an HD television, and nearly 30% have a 4K TV. 4K (UltraHD) is here and 8k coming, virtual reality is next, the envelope is still being pushed. 

Second screen. It’s hard to imagine a world without tablets, phones, and the many other connected devices we carry around with us. But this too was an advent of the 2010s. Now, second screen technology is so prevalent that we are plugged into a screen in one way or another every single day. A study by Strategy Analytics shows for around 33 billion total devices on the planet by end of the decade, this is about 4.3 smart devices per person. In sports, especially among the younger next generation of fans, it’s almost unheard of to watch a live or televised sporting event without engaging in a simultaneous second screen experience – to share with friends or fellow fans on social media, check stats and scores from other games, and participate in fantasy sports. 

Smart phones. Yes, Virginia, there are smart devices galore, but still the most core to our use is the mobile phone. iPhone and Samsung are the champions here, with Apple really being the pioneer. Sports properties have utilized apps to benefit their content, communications, data, and marketing efforts.  Fans use their smart phones for all of those second screen tasks just listed, as well as to take pictures and videos at live events and watch parties. In and around sports venues, smart phones are now used to find parking, get in via mobile ticketing, and order and pay for food and drinks. What didn’t survive, however – dedicated mobile devices from sports brand partners. Remember the short-lived Mobile ESPN? It didn’t even make it to the 2010s, dying a premature death in 2006 after losing ESPN a reported $150 million.

Content. In media, content is king. Text, audio, video, and all their possible creative combinations powered the 2010s to call claim to everything from viral memes to over the top (OTT) programming. The 2010s saw an explosion of broadcast and digital sports content. NFL Red Zone, for example, debuted in 2009 via cable but soon found a much wider audience as a mobile streaming option. Disney acquired the media assets of FOX for $71.3 billion and then sold, by government mandate, the FOX RSNs to Sinclair for $10.6 billion. Bill Simmons went from being an on air personality at ESPN to editing the acclaimed online sports magazine Grantland to founding The Ringer, a sports and pop culture website and podcast network, in 2016 and still serves as its CEO. The 2010s saw Grantland go under but subscription-based The Athletic rise in its place – the site and app, which has poached many of the best sports writers in the biz from traditional newspapers and magazines, is expecting to reach one million subscribers by year end. Pro athletes, finally, are developing media empires of their own, with LeBron James’ Uninterrupted leading the way.

Cameras. Cameras being built into devices was seen as a value add to tech products, especially mobile devices. The more cool tech things a gizmo could do the better, so cameras started appearing everywhere. We’ve already touched on how sports fans use their cameras, but advancing HDTV technology and ubiquitous mobile cameras also pushed the commercial broadcast tech to also improve. Other advances like aerial drone photography and augmented reality came from the pressure to innovate. The aerial camera technology was first introduced to Super Bowl fans in 1984, but didn't become regularly used by the NFL until around 2001. Now, aerial cameras are almost standard fixtures in stadiums, covering everything from football to soccer to tennis. In the 2010s we began to take drones for granted, starting at outdoor sporting and concert events and spreading outward. And launched in 2016, the Drone Racing League is currently in its fourth season, featuring seven races worldwide and broadcast on Twitter, NBC, SkySports, and other global media partners.

Wearables. Sport and fitness wearables emerged in the last decade and are here to stay. The ability to measure both performance and biometrics data proved to be big business for serious athletes and weekend warriors alike. Wearables are not limited to on your person, they have been implemented in game equipment and apparel. Top wearable device companies include FitBit, founded in 2007, which now reports to have sold more than 100 million devices and have 28 million users (and is being eyed by Google at a cool $2.1 billion purchase price); Apple, which now leads the market after entering in 2015 with its first smartwatch; Samsung; and Chinese giant Xiaomi, introduced in 2010, which includes earphones and VR headsets among its wearable offerings. And speaking of headphones, pro athletes remain one of the marketing cornerstones of Beats by Dre, which now boasts a market share north of 64% in the U.S. for headphones priced higher than $100, largely thanks to its partnering with athletes, hip hop artists, and other celebrities to develop and market co-branded products.

Connectivity. WiFi, Bluetooth, mobile data plans, cloud services, the Internet of Things (IoT) and getting devices communicating with other devices has created opportunities limited only by creativity. When devices can interact and share information, the smarter decisions media and tech companies can make. From minor league ballparks to arenas, soccer-specific stadiums, and the almost completed $4.93 billion SoFi Stadium and entertainment complex in Los Angeles, the “Connected Facility” over the last decade has become the absolute standard in sports stadia, empowering teams and vendors every bit as much as fans. At SoFi (named by a tech company, of course), according to CNBC, “Technology that will make the stadium experience unique includes a 70,000-sq-ft Oculus display board that will have 4K double-sided video; 5G communications network; Wi-Fi 6, the next generation of wireless to deliver faster speeds, and digital ticketing provided by Ticketmaster.

Social media. Social media has changed the world. While we all are understandably focused on the impact that social media has on global politics these days, outside of politics, there is nowhere that social media has made more of an impact than in sports and entertainment. Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram remain the big three here (RIP MySpace, Friendster, Vine, and Google Plus), but with dozens of other players, social media and social media marketing specifically has given a voice to sport – everyone from players to fans. Witness the rise of social media influencers inside and outside of sports, who can command seven-figure paydays from brands eager to reach their followers. Pro athletes are only as good as their Instagram Stories – just ask Cristiano Ronaldo (158.91 million followers); Neymar (112.71 million); David Beckham (54.89 million); LeBron James (47.91 million); and Gareth Bale (38.95 million). And it’s no coincidence that one of the main arguments for NCAA amateur athletes’ Name, Image, and Likeness ownership fight is the desire to capitalize on their own social media followings.

Esports. Esports events sell out arenas, it’s a Division 1 intercollegiate sport, professional leagues are continuing to grow, and there are countless other upward trajectories. The overall esports economy now tops $1 billion and 500 million viewers. All this for a sport (based largely on tech) that didn't exist prior to this decade. As we noted last week, by 2018, according to the Motley Fool, esports viewership grew 13.8% to 380 million people worldwide. And analysts expect this number to reach 557 million by 2021. U.S. pro sports leagues and team owners are investing in esports operations at all levels.  At baseball’s Winter Meetings in San Diego, for example, the operators of the minor league Albuquerque Isotopes on Sunday floated the idea of holding nightly esports tournaments at Isotopes Park to introduce a whole new fan base to baseball. And just this week, Astralis becomes first esports firm to go public. The esports organization plans to raise between $18-22 million, with shares priced at $1.32.

Sports gaming. Whether it’s traditional gambling, fantasy sports, or a fusion of the two; media companies are covering it. The last decade brought us Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS), which paved the way for legalized sports betting as slowly, sports leagues realized that sports gaming enhanced their product rather than threatened it. Founded in 2011, American DFS contest and sports betting provider DraftKings allows users to enter daily and weekly fantasy sports–related contests and win money based on individual player and team performances in five major American sports (MLB, the NHL, the NFL, the NBA, and the PGA), Premier League and UEFA Champions League soccer, NASCAR, and more recently, MMA and tennis. DraftKings’ biggest competitor was FanDuel, founded in 2009, before the two agreed to merge in 2016. And over the last decade, the smooth proliferation of sports gaming and legal sports wagering also removed the Las Vegas taboo from American sports leagues – Vegas now has the NHL Stanley Cup-competing Golden Knights, and next year, the NFL Raiders.

Sport for cause, online. Brands and leagues should always be compelled to give back, but this past decade provided extra motivation. As a happy consequence to the decade’s proliferation of digital media, the demand for sports content stretched the box score and media companies began covering the social impact of sports. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) became a buzzword for brands in the space as an overall sense that sports should give back increased. Olympic athletes successfully raised the money they need to compete via GoFundMe campaigns, and sports cause-related organizations such as LIVEStrong (which lives on despite founder Lance Armstrong’s downfall), the V Foundation for Cancer Research, and Oklahoma City-based Fields & Futures owe the vast majority of their reach to digital fundraising, marketing, and educational initiatives. Sport, finally, used the power of digital communication and texting functions to raise funds to help when disaster struck, from hurricane devastation in Puerto Rico to flooding in Houston and deadly fires in Northern California.

Media rights. This past decade was defined by mega deals in sports media rights. Whether it’s new networks, broadcast rights, digital rights, streaming rights, on demand, or over the top, the media rights deals now are now not uncommon to be in the billions. U.S. sports rights are estimated to be worth a total of $22.42 billion in 2019, about 44% of the total worldwide sports media market, according to SportBusiness Media. And a rising number of major sporting events available via streaming services is set to drive the revenue for global broadcast rights beyond $85 billion by the end of 2024, according to a recent Rethink TV report. The Sports Rights Forecast to 2025 paper shows the global value of sports rights currently at around $48.6 billion, though the report predicts an increase of 75% over the next five years due to a growth in audiences choosing direct-to-consumer (DTC) content.

Ticketing. Going to a sporting event is still core to the sports experience. In this past decade, the ticketing business saw tech related advances like dynamic pricing, paperless tickets, and digital second market sellers, all of which backed by data and CRM. As with so many things in our lives now, your mobile phone is now your sports ticket. At that Next Big Thing sports tech lab otherwise known as SoFi Stadium, CNBC notes the SafeTix digital ticketing provided by Ticketmaster “uses a rotating entry token that refreshes an encrypted barcode every 15 seconds to prevent counterfeiting and improve security. The digital ticket will also send customized messages to the ticketholder on a host of things — from VIP events to updates on parking information and merchandising offers.” And just last week, Swiss ticketing firm Viagogo agreed to buy StubHub for $4.05 billion, looking to leverage the brand globally.

Paywall. We saw the closing of many physical newspapers this decade, with the media companies behind them opting instead for digital content on their website. Different revenue models emerged like premium content paywalls for example. We’ve mentioned the success of The Athletic – and now venerable Sports Illustrated, under new millennial-focused ownership, is considering a paywall for its revamped short form content. DAZN, a London-based OTT subscription sports streaming service, first launched in Austria, Germany, Switzerland, and Japan in August 2016 and now has former ESPN chief John Skipper as its chairman as it is halfway to its magic number for an IPO. In the last few months alone we have seen the launch of ESPN+, Apple TV, and now Disney+, all subscription based Video on Demand streaming services. And YouTube, for years a free platform for literally billions of videos, is now making moves to segregate some of its sports and entertainment content behind a paywall.

Data analytics. Whether it is a team front office employing a cap room specialist, a coaching staff utilizing predictive analytics, an apparel company using purchase data to better understand consumer behavior, or the like, data analytics left its mark this past decade. What originated with sabermetrics and Bill James’ “Baseball Abstracts” that originated in 1977 by the 2010s had evolved to the point that most pro sports teams, in baseball and otherwise, have a full analytics staff working year round. And the tools have been simplified enough that they are now fully accessible to public school systems, volunteer youth sports coaches, and individual athletes looking to gauge and improve their own performances via stats, wearable tech, and other smart data-producing devices.

[dippedanddripped]

It’s been a bad week in the fight between fast fashion and the planet. First, Missguided came in strong with the big ‘fuck you climate breakdown’ that is their £1 bikini, which, despite some serious online backlash, sold out almost instantly. Next up, the Environmental Audit Committee confirmed that the government has rejected every single one of the recommendations in its ‘Fixing Fashion’ report they released earlier this year.

Their ideas to tackle issues such as waste, pollution, modern slavery, and over-consumption within the fashion industry included a tax of 1p per garment to be paid by retailers, a ban on incinerating and landfilling unsold stock, environmental targets for companies with an annual turnover of £36million or more and an ‘Extended Producer Responsibility’ scheme that would force retailers to take responsibility for the waste they produce.

All solid ideas that would make big, sweeping changes and transform the industry for the better. But, the government wants to keep their pals rich, so it looks like we’re going to have to sort this shit out ourselves. Here’s how.

CONTACT YOUR MP

The government might have rejected the recommendations, but it doesn’t mean the case is closed (and we all know they love to perform a dramatic U-turn on the big stuff every now and then). After a lot of protest and action, parliament finally approved a motion to declare an environment and climate emergency earlier this year, proving they can and do bend to pressure (even if it takes years). The fashion industry contributes around 10% of global greenhouse emissions and produces 20% of global waste water, meaning it’s closely tied to the issue of climate breakdown – which is proving harder and harder for politicians to ignore. Contact your local MP and tell them it’s important to you, tell them it will sway how you vote, and ask what their intentions are. Make this too hard for them to ignore too.

nobody: missguided: sHOp ouR £1 biKiNi!! fUcK thE enViroNmenT! bUy iT jUst fOr tHe sAke oF iT! fAst faShiOn woOo

25 people are talking about this

CONTACT OFFENDING BRANDS, PUBLICLY

Since sustainability has become a buzzword, brands have scrambled to tell the world how green and ethical they are – which would be great if it was true. But once you do a little digging, their claims are normally pretty flimsy and nothing more than greenwashing. Instead of letting brands set the narrative with carefully chosen words, contact them publicly (aka @ them on Twitter) about their ethics, factories, fabrics, and garment workers. Even if they don’t answer, their silence might just say it all.

KEEP YOUR CLOTHES FOR LONGER

The idea that individuals can fix an entire multi-billion pound industry all by themselves is obviously insane, but there are a few things that most of us can do that will genuinely help. Keeping your clothes for longer is a big one. As in, literally make zero effort and leave the clothes you have hanging in your wardrobe instead of getting rid of them.

We spend less money on clothes as a percentage of our household income than we did 20 years ago yet buy 400 per cent more items of clothing and keep them for half as long. Extend the life of your clothes by just three months, and it will result in a five to ten per cent 10% reduction in their water, carbon, and waste footprints. Make that nine months and the figures increase to 20 to 30 per cent. And after you’ve waited for a few weeks, you’ll probably like them again anyway.

BUY FEWER CLOTHES

We know it sounds obvious, but seeing as shopping is practically a default part of living for most of us it can be a difficult habit to break (check out our guide to tackling this). With over 100 billion garments produced every single year, there’s already more than enough to go around, but the massive turnover of trends (plus feeling sad, feeling happy, celebrating, commiserating, being stressed, being heartbroken, being bored…) keeps us buying more and more.

If the fashion industry carries on producing at its current rate, it will account for a quarter of the world’s carbon budget by 2050 but if we slow down, we might just be able to avoid it. It’s worth noting, though, that as much as 30 per cent of clothing made is never actually sold, so supply and demand aren’t always proportional. As individuals, with this in mind, we can only do so much really do need some input from brands and government on this one.

CHOOSE SECONDHAND FIRST

By now, pretty much everyone is over the whole ‘but what if someone died in it?’ horror when it comes to secondhand clothes, so when you do need to buy something, and you’re able to do so, make second hand your first port of call. Scouring charity shops, vintage stores and markets, eBay, and apps like Depop, Vinted, and Vestiaire, before you given in and buy new: not only will it extend the lifespan of the garment and therefore reduce its footprint, it stops another garment entering circulation. And that’s before we even get started on the £££s you’ll probably save.

VOTE FOR CHANGE

Sorry to break it to you (okay fine, this is likely news to no one) but fashion is a huge, dirty, complicated, massively unregulated, multi-billion pound industry. It’s fun and creative and expressive but it’s also 100 per cent serious enough to have a place in political discussion and if you care about its impact, you should vote for change. It’s a pretty new issue on the political mainstage and not that many MPs are speaking up on the subject, but people like Mary Creagh and Caroline Lucas (who are both on the EAC) are stand-out examples. Oh, and the ones who rejected the EAC’s recommendations? The Tories, duh!

ALWAYS ASK QUESTIONS

There’s one key difference between brands who are genuinely sustainable and brands who aren’t: the brands who are love to answer questions and the ones who aren’t absolutely hate to. If you’ve gone to the trouble of carefully selecting a sustainable cotton farming co-operative or setting up a fairtrade factory, you’re going to want to talk about it. If you’ve cobbled together a half-arsed paragraph about trying to be ethical wherever possible, you’re probably not. So ask questions all the time. Here’s a few to get you started: Who makes your clothes? Where are they made? What are they made from? Where are your factories? What is your waste policy?

No 1p garment tax, no ban on incinerating/landfilling unsold stock, no environmental targets and heavy reliance on SCAP's voluntary scheme (run by WRAP which has lost 80% of its government funding since 2010). So disappointing. https://twitter.com/CommonsEAC/status/1140861798268252161 …

We have published the Government's response to our #sustainablefashion report. Read the full response here http://bit.ly/2wXZo4T #EACFixingFashion

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SUPPORT AND BOOST LEGISLATIVE CHANGE

While we’re waiting for our government to get its act together, you can support and signal boost legislative change elsewhere. Not only will this prove to our government that moves like that are actually popular, it will show other people what’s possible on a wider scale. The Bangladesh Accord, set up after Rana Plaza to keep garment workers safe, garnered massive public support which helped it gain 220 brand sign-ups. And more recently, surging support for the Greens around Europe prompted France to ban the destruction of unsold consumer goods after the governing party made eco-credentials a major part of their manifesto for the European elections. Spread the message on social media! Tell your friends! Shout it from the rooftops if you feel like it! But make it known: change is needed now.

SHARE FACTS, BUT DON’T SHAME

The sustainable and ethical fashion movement is growing fast, but it’s built on privileged foundations and thin white women wearing linen on Instagram have basically become the face of it. Despite the ultra-curated facade, there’s a plethora of obstacles that are often overlooked. Not everyone can afford to start buying organic cotton clothes at five times the price they’re used to paying, for instance, and it’s difficult to find affordable, ethically made clothes that go above a size 16. It’s easy to point the finger at people who shop at Primark, but for the movement to work it needs to be inclusive and understanding. Share the shocking facts and talk about the problems with the industry, but don’t shame individuals. We need to work together on this one!

[shopcheaponline-blog]

Golden Goose Deluxe Brand Sale The most Advantageous Stocks to Find 2011 Cablevision

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The 11 Things New Parents Bring Up The Most In Therapy

New Post has been published on https://parentinguideto.com/must-see/the-11-things-new-parents-bring-up-the-most-in-therapy/

The 11 Things New Parents Bring Up The Most In Therapy

It’s a fact: life changes when you become a parent. And even if you think you’re prepared for the lack of sleep and change in routine (not to mention changing diapers!), adjusting to parenthood can bring challenges you never expected you’d face.

We asked a group of therapists to share with us the most common concerns they hear from their patients who are new parents. They may surprise you — and, if you’re a new parent yourself, offer some comfort.

“I don’t like being a parent. I miss my old life.”

“It’s common for new parents to have had unrealistic expectations or judgments about parenthood prior to the arrival of baby (“Our social life won’t change at all, we’ll just take the baby with us wherever we go!” or “My child would never act like that in public!”) This is easy to do as there is simply no way to understand what new parenthood is truly like until you’ve been there. As rewarding as it can be, it is also extremely unpredictable and hard! Therefore, some new parents come into therapy sharing an extreme amount of guilt about disliking their new role as mom or dad. This feels like a dirty little secret, as the common myth is that having a baby will fill us with feelings of unconditional love and joy. However, new parents may long for their lost personal freedom and feelings of resentment can occur as post-baby life becomes a reality. In therapy, it’s important to normalize these feelings with new parents and remind them any major transition often feels uncomfortable and unsettling at times. Get support, don’t be afraid to share your true feelings with others who have “been there” and, in time, life will again settle into place.” ― Tara Griffith, a therapist and founder of Wellspace SF

“Other parents seem to be better at this than I am.”

“One of the challenges I hear new parents bring up is the pressure of holding their own parenting abilities up against those of their peers. Eight percent of millennial parents say social-media posts by other parents often make them feel like an inadequate parent. This is twice as many parents from previous generations. There are so many ‘right’ ways to parent, from the type of bottles you give your baby, to the crunchy food regiments, to the social media movements encouraging breastfeeding proudly in public. While all of these are fine practices, they lead many parents to question their own opinions and decisions when it comes to what is right for their family. New parents are up against the opinions of their personal social media circles, their own parents, and the wider reach of external social media influences.” ― Liz Higgins, a licensed marriage and family therapist and owner of Millennial Life Counseling

“I’m worried I’m losing myself.”

“Many new parents struggle with the change of their own sense of self when becoming a parent. Women tend to feel this more strongly than men, but all parents can struggle with identity changes and processing and accepting what it means to be a parent on top of your own individual sense of self.” ― Shanna Donhauser, a child and family therapist and founder of Happy Nest

“What if I don’t measure up?”

“Many men come to me very worried that they are going to pass on their lack of emotion to their children, and they are aware of how much steeper their learning curve may be from their female partner. They may have never babysat for siblings or cousins ― never even held a baby before ― and they want to be present, they want to be involved, they want to share responsibility, and they don’t want the burden of all of this to fall on their female partner. Yet they are so worried that they’re not going to measure up. Early on they may try a few things a few times, not do it well, get discouraged, and back off. Their partner then thinks they don’t care and they’re labeled as lazy, and they disengage more. These guys also often reference their distant, stoic father ― whom they care about, but are aware that he did not model for them the dad they want to be.” ― Justin Lioi, a men’s mental health and relationship expert in New York

“Am I doing it wrong?”

“The number one thing that I hear from new moms is concern that they are doing ‘it’ wrong. When women become moms they are overcome with all these emotions: love, worry, hope, strength, responsibility. It can be a lot to sort through, but what it really boils down to is that they want to be a good parent and make the right choices for their babies. I work with new moms to develop a sense of confidence in their ability to parent, I help them to understand that mistakes are normal and OK, and I help them to come to terms with and to understand that there really is no such thing as a perfect parent.” ― Gwendolyn Nelson-Terry, a marriage and family therapist in California

“I am so worried all the time. I wasn’t like this before.”

“When a woman becomes a mother, her brain changes. Amygdala fires up, gray matter becomes denser and oxytocin increases the activities in the regions that control empathy, anxiety and social interaction. The plus side of oxytocin is increased maternal bonding, the downside is overwhelming love and protectiveness, hence the anxious feeling. You love the baby, and it’s a good thing. I work with women with learning mindfulness strategies to alleviate the anxious response and to find resources to help decrease the stress. Remember, as long as you have your basic safety covered, most babies can adapt to various circumstances. My sister once forgot to change her baby’s diaper for a whole day, now her baby is in college. Have more faith in your baby. After all, your baby is the product of millions of years of human evolution.” ― Mabel Yiu, a marriage and family therapist in California

“Parenthood is putting a strain on my relationship with my partner.”

“One of the greatest issues new parents bring to therapy is the issue of losing quality time with each other. The new baby is very demanding of their time, especially that of the new mother. Parents’ emotional, physical, sexual and spiritual intimacy are often challenged and sometimes threatened by the lack of quality time together. Practical approaches to helping them to deal with this issue are to have a weekly date night, securing the help of trusted family members and friends to assist with childcare and to give mom a break during the day, ensuring her own physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual care. Further, mom and dad must decide on a division of labor, including household chores, especially if they are both working outside the home.” ― Joyce Morley, a marriage and family therapist in Georgia. 

“This is supposed to be the sweetest time of my life. Why don’t I feel it?”

“We have all been exposed to the beautiful mother-baby bonding images in baby product advertising and social media. What those images don’t show is the woman feeling exhausted and having clots bleeding out of her woman hole. Other mothers don’t talk about it because exhaustion begets selective memory. Having a baby changes everything, mind and the body, so take it easy. Here are a few things you can do. First, take a moment and detach from that ‘supposed’ beautiful mother-baby bonding image. Search for some parenting humor sites that ‘get’ you, and then Google the word ‘lochia.’ Take note of the small, endearing moments because there are little moments you can still savor.” ― Yiu

“I’m afraid of becoming my mother.”

“Having a child often triggers us to reflect on our own upbringing and parental relationships. Therefore, in therapy, fears or concerns can arise in new parents about potentially repeating dysfunctional familial patterns and/or parenting styles. Clients who did not have positive parental role models may worry that they don’t have the necessary tools or experience to draw upon in order to raise their own children in a healthy, loving way. This can be particularly worrisome for new parents who come to therapy with a history of trauma or abuse. Although it’s true that our childhood experiences can shape who we are and how we may instinctually parent, it does not always mean that we are doomed to recreate the mistakes of our parents.” ― Griffith

“I’m so overwhelmed.”

“After the birth of a baby, family and friends often want to come help, but it is so important for new parents to set their own boundaries, decide how they want to spend this precious time with their baby and focus on settling into their new normal as a family.  It is completely OK to say ‘no’ to the uninvited houseguest if it doesn’t fit into your plan or vision for the first few weeks or months of your child’s life. New parents receive many tips and pointers from well-meaning advice-givers, but sometimes this advice can come across as intrusive and even judgmental. I sometimes advise new parents to have a short response ready to go for these situations, which can help them remain grounded and empowered in such moments.” ― Sarah Weisberg, a licensed psychologist and founder of Potomac Therapy Group

“I feel so alone.”

“New parents in therapy at my practice will often talk about feeling isolated, lonely, sad and very often worried about doing things ‘right.’ It is so important that we lift the stigma around seeking mental health care and that new parents are encouraged to build up a solid scaffolding of support before and after a baby arrives. I encourage new parents to seek therapy and join a new parents support group online or in-person (if feasible).” ― Weisberg

Quotes have been edited and condensed for clarity.  

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[sheminecrafts]

Seven reasons not to trust Facebook to play cupid

This week Facebook has launched a major new product play, slotting an algorithmic dating service inside its walled garden as if that’s perfectly normal behavior for an ageing social network.

Insert your [dad dancing GIF of choice] right here.

Facebook getting into dating looks very much like a mid-life crisis — as a veteran social network desperately seeks a new strategy to stay relevant in an age when app users have largely moved on from social network ‘lifecasting’ to more bounded forms of sharing, via private messaging and/or friend groups inside dedicated messaging and sharing apps.

The erstwhile Facebook status update has long been usurped by the Snapchat (and now Instagram) Story as the social currency of choice for younger app users. Of course Facebook owns the latter product too, and has mercilessly cloned Stories. But it hardly wants its flagship service to just fade away into the background like the old fart it actually is in Internet age terms.

Not if it can reinvigorate the product with a new purpose — and so we arrive at online dating.

Facebook — or should that be ‘Datebook’ now?! — is starting its dating experiment in Colombia, as its beta market. But the company clearly has ambitious designs on becoming a major global force in the increasingly popular online dating arena — to challenge dedicated longtime players like eHarmony and OkCupid, as well as the newer breed of more specialized dating startups, such as female-led app, Bumble.

Zuckerberg is not trying to compete with online dating behemoth Tinder, though. Which Facebook dismisses as a mere ‘hook up’ app — a sub category it claims it wants nothing to do with.

Rather it’s hoping to build something more along the lines of ‘get together with friends of your friends who’re also into soap carving/competitive dog grooming/extreme ironing’ than, for e.g., the raw spank in the face shock of ‘Bang with Friends‘. (The latter being the experimental startup which tried, some six years ago, to combine Facebook and sex — before eventually exiting to a Singapore-based dating app player, Paktor, never to be heard of again. Or, well, not until Facebook decided to get into the dating game and reminded us all how we lol’d about it.)

Mark Zuckerberg’s company doesn’t want to get into anything smutty, though. Oh no, no, NO! No sex please, we’re Facebook!

Facebook Dating has been carefully positioned to avoid sounding like a sex app. It’s being flogged as a tasteful take on the online dating game, with — for instance — the app explicitly architected not to push existing friends together via suggestive matching (though you’ll just have to hope you don’t end up being algorithmically paired with any exes, which judging by Facebook’s penchant for showing users ‘photo memories’ of past stuff with exes may not pan out so well… ). And no ability to swap photo messages with mutual matches in case, well, something pornographic were to pass through.

Facebook is famously no fan of nudes. Unsurprisingly, then, nor is its buttoned up dating app. Only ‘good, old-fashioned wholesome’ text-based chat-up lines (related to ‘good clean pieces of Facebook content’) here please.

If you feel moved to text an up-front marriage proposal — feeling 100% confident in Facebook’s data scientists’ prowess in reading the social media tea leaves and plucking your future life partner out of the mix — its algorithms will probably smile on that though.

The company’s line is that dating will help fulfil its new mission of encouraging ‘time well spent’ — by helping people forge more meaningful (new) relationships thanks to the power of its network (and the data it sucks out of it).

This mission is certainly an upgrade on Facebook’s earlier and baser interest in just trying to connect every human on planet Earth to every other human on planet Earth in some kind of mass data-swinging orgy — regardless of the ethical and/or moral consequences (as Boz memorably penned it), as if it was trying to channel the horror-loving spirit of Pasolini’s Salò. Or, well, a human centipede.

But that was then. These days, in its mid teens, Facebook wants to be seen as grown up and a bit worth. So its take on dating looks a lot more ‘marriage material’ than ‘casual encounters’. Though, well, products don’t always pan out how their makers intend. So it might need to screw its courage to the sticking place and hope things don’t go south.

From the user perspective, there’s a whole other side here too though. Because given how much baggage inevitably comes with Facebook nowadays, the really burning question is whether any sensible person should be letting Mark Zuckerberg fire cupid’s arrows on their behalf?

He famously couldn’t tell malicious Kremlin propaganda from business as usual social networking like latte photos and baby pics — so what makes you think he’s going to be attuned to the subtle nuances of human chemistry?!

Here are just a few reasons why we think you should stay as far away from Facebook’s dalliance with dating as you possibly can…

It’s yet another cynical data grab Facebook’s ad-targeting business model relies on continuous people tracking to function — which means it needs your data to exist. Simply put: Your privacy is Facebook’s lifeblood. Dating is therefore just a convenient veneer to slap atop another major data grab as Facebook tries to find less icky ways to worm its way back and/or deeper into people’s lives. Connecting singles to nurture ‘meaningful relationships’ is the marketing gloss being slicked over its latest invitation to ask people to forget how much private information they’re handing it. Worse still, dating means Facebook is asking people to share even more intimate and personal information than they might otherwise willingly divulge — again with a company whose business model relies upon tracking everything everyone does, on or offline, within its walled garden or outside it on the wider web, and whether they’re Facebook a user or not. This also comes at a time when users of Facebook’s eponymous social network have been showing signs of Facebook fatigue, and even changing how they use the service after a string of major privacy scandals. So Facebook doing dating also looks intended to function as a fresh distraction — to try to draw attention away from its detractors and prevent any more scales falling away from users’ eyes. The company wants to paper over growing scepticism about ad-targeting business models with algorithmic heart-shaped promises. Yet the real underlying passion here is still Facebook’s burning desire to keep minting money off of your private bits and bytes.

Facebook’s history of privacy hostility shows it simply can’t be trusted Facebook also has a very long history of being outright hostile to privacy — including deliberately switching settings to make previously private settings public by default (regulatory intervention has been required to push back against that ratchet) — so its claim, with Dating, to be siloing data in a totally separate bucket, and also that information shared for this service won’t be used to further flesh out user profiles or to target people with ads elsewhere across its empire should be treated with extreme scepticism. Facebook also said WhatsApp users’ data would not be mingled and conjoined with Facebook user data — and, er, look what ended up happening there…!! ————————————————————————————————–>

WhatsApp to share user data with Facebook for ad targeting — here’s how to opt out

And then there’s Facebook record of letting app developers liberally rip user data out of its platform — including (for years and years) ‘friend data’. Which almost sounded cosy. But Facebook’s friends data API meant that an individual Facebook user could have their data sucked out without even agreeing to a particular app’s ToS themselves. Which is part of the reason why users’ personal information has ended up all over the place — and in all sorts of unusual places. (Facebook not enforcing its own policies, and implementing features that could be systematically abused to suck out user data are among some of the many other reasons.) The long and short history of Facebook and privacy is that information given to it for one purpose has ended up being used for all sorts of other things — things we likely don’t even know the half of. Even Facebook itself doesn’t know which is why it’s engaged in a major historical app audit right now. Yet this very same company now wants you to tell it intimate details about your romantic and sexual preferences? Uhhhh, hold that thought, truly.

Facebook already owns the majority of online attention — why pay the company any more mind? Especially as dating singles already have amazingly diverse app choice… In the West there’s pretty much no escape from Facebook Inc. Not if you want to be able to use the social sharing tools your friends are using. Network effects are hugely powerful for that reason, and Facebook owns not just one popular and dominant social network but a whole clutch of them — given it also bought Instagram and WhatsApp (plus some others it bought and just closed, shutting down those alternative options). But online dating, as it currently is, offers a welcome respite from Facebook. It’s arguably also no accident that the Facebook-less zone is so very richly served with startups and services catering to all sorts of types and tastes. There are dating apps for black singles; matchmaking services for Muslims; several for Jewish people; plenty of Christian dating apps; at least one dating service to match ex-pat Asians; another for Chinese-Americans; queer dating apps for women; gay dating apps for men (and of course gay hook up apps too), to name just a few; there’s dating apps that offer games to generate matches; apps that rely on serendipity and location to rub strangers together via missed connections; apps that let you try live video chats with potential matches; and of course no shortage of algorithmic matching dating apps. No singles are lonely for dating apps to try, that’s for sure. So why on earth should humanity cede this very rich, fertile and creative ‘stranger interaction’ space, which caters to singles of all stripes and fancies, to a social network behemoth — just so Facebook can expand its existing monopoly on people’s attention? Why shrink the luxury of choice to give Facebook’s business extra uplift? If Facebook Dating became popular it would inexorably pull attention away from alternatives — perhaps driving consolidation among a myriad of smaller dating players, forcing some to band together to try to achieve greater scale and survive the arrival of the 800lb Facebook gorilla. Some services might feel they have to become a bit less specialized, pushed by market forces to go after a more generic (and thus larger) pool of singles. Others might find they just can’t get enough niche users anymore to self-sustain. The loss of the rich choice in dating apps singles currently enjoy would be a crying shame indeed. Which is as good a reason as any to snub Facebook’s overtures here.

Algorithmic dating is both empty promise and cynical attempt to humanize Facebook surveillance Facebook typically counters the charge that because it tracks people to target them with ads its in the surveillance business by claiming people tracking benefits humanity because it can serve you “relevant ads”. Of course that’s a paper thin argument since all display advertising is something no one has chosen to see and therefore is necessarily a distraction from whatever a person was actually engaged with. It’s also an argument that’s come under increasing strain in recent times, given all the major scandals attached to Facebook’s ad platform, whether that’s to do with socially divisive Facebook ads, or malicious political propaganda spread via Facebook, or targeted Facebook ads that discriminate against protected groups, or Facebook ads that are actually just spreading scams. Safe to say, the list of problems attached to its ad targeting enterprise is long and keeps growing. But Facebook’s follow on claim now, with Dating and the data it intends to hold on people for this matchmaking purpose, is it has the algorithmic expertise to turn a creepy habit of tracking everything everyone does into a formula for locating love. So now it’s not just got “relevant” ads to sell you; it’s claiming Facebook surveillance is the special sauce to find your Significant Other! Frankly, this is beyond insidious. (It is also literally a Black Mirror episode — and that’s supposed to be dysfunctional sci-fi.) Facebook is moving into dating because it needs a new way to package and sell its unpleasant practice of people surveillance. It’s hoping to move beyond its attempt at normalizing its business line (i.e. that surveillance is necessary to show ads that people might be marginally more likely to click on) — which has become increasingly problematic as its ad platform has been shown to be causing all sorts of knock-on societal problems — by implying that by letting Facebook creep on you 24/7 it could secure your future happiness because its algorithms are working to track down your perfect other half — among all those 1s and 0s it’s continuously manhandling. Of course this is total bunkum. There’s no algorithmic formula to determine what makes one person click with another (or not). If there was humans would have figured it out long, long ago — and monetized it mercilessly. (And run into all sorts of horrible ethical problems along the way.) Thing is, people aren’t math. Humans cannot be made to neatly sum to the total of their collective parts and interests. Which is why life is a lot more interesting than the stuff you see on Facebook. And also why there’s a near infinite number of dating apps out there, catering to all sorts of people and predilections. Sadly Facebook can’t see that. Or rather it can’t admit it. And so we get nonsense notions of ‘expert’ algorithmic matchmaking and ‘data science’ as the underpinning justification for yet another dating app launch. Sorry but that’s all just marketing. The idea that Facebook’s data scientists are going to turn out to be bullseye hitting cupids is as preposterous as it is ridiculous. Like any matchmaking service there will be combinations thrown up that work and plenty more than do not. But if the price of a random result is ceaseless surveillance the service has a disproportionate cost attached to it — making it both an unfair and an unattractive exchange for the user. And once again people are being encouraged to give up far more than they’re getting in return. If you believe that finding ‘the one’ will be easier if you focus on people with similar interests to you or who are in the same friend group there’s no shortage of existing ‘life avenues’ you can pursue without having to resort to Facebook Dating. (Try joining a club. Or going to your friends’ parties. Or indeed taking your pick from the scores of existing dating apps that already offer interest-based matching.) Equally you could just take a hike up a mountain and meet your future wife at the top (as one couple I know did). Safe to say, there’s no formula to love. And thankfully so. Don’t believe anyone trying to sell you a dating service with the claim their nerdtastic data scientists will hook you up good and proper. Facebook’s chance of working any ‘love magic’ will be as good/poor as the next app-based matchmaking service. Which is to say it will be random. There’s certainly no formula to be distilled beyond connecting ‘available to date’ singles — which dating apps and websites have been doing very well for years and years and years. No Facebook dates necessary. The company has little more to offer the world of online dating than, say, OkCupid, which has scale and already combines the location and stated interests of its users in an attempt to throw up possible clicks. The only extra bit is Facebook’s quasi-bundling of Events into dating, as a potential avenue to try and date in a marginally more informal setting than agreeing to go on an actual date. Though, really, it just sounds like it might be more awkward to organize and pull off. Facebook’s generic approach to dating is also going to offer much less for certain singles who benefit from a more specialized and tailored service (such as a female-focused player like Bumble which has created a service to cater to women’s needs; or, indeed, any of the aforementioned community focused offerings cited above which help people meet other likeminded singles). Facebook appears to believe that size matters in dating. And seems to want to be a generic giant in a market that’s already richly catering to all sorts of different communities. For many singles that catch-all approach is going to earn it a very hard left swipe.

Dating takes resource and focus away from problems Facebook should actually be fixing Facebook’s founder made ‘fixing Facebook’ his personal priority this year. Which underlines quite how many issues the company has smashing through its plate. We’re not talking little bug fixes. Facebook has a huge bunch of existentially awful hellholes burning through its platform and punching various human rights in the process. This is not at all trivial. Some really terrible stuff has been going on with its platforms acting as the conduit. Earlier this year, for instance, the UN blasted Facebook saying its platform had became a “beast” in Myanmar — weaponized and used to accelerate ethnic violence against the Rohingya Muslim minority. Facebook has admitted it did not have enough local resource to stop its software being used to amplify ethnic hate and violence in the market. Massacres of Rohingya refuges have been described by human rights organizations as a genocide. And it’s not an isolated instance. In the Philippines the country has recently been plunged into a major human rights crisis — and the government there, which used Facebook to help get elected, has also been using Facebook to savage its critics at the same time as carrying out thousands of urban killings in a bloody so-called ‘war on drugs’. In India, Facebook’s WhatsApp messaging app has been identified as a contributing factor in multiple instances of mob violence and killings — as people have been whipped up by lies spread like lightning via the app. Set against such awful problems — where Facebook’s products are at very least not helping — we now see the company ploughing resource into expanding into a new business area, and expending engineering resource to build a whole new interface and messaging system (the latter to ensure Facebook Dating users can only swap texts, and can’t send photos or videos because that might be a dick pic risk). So it’s a genuine crying shame that Facebook did not pay so much close attention to goings on in Myanmar — where local organizations have long been calling for intelligent limits to be built in to its products to help stop abusive misuse. Yet Facebook only added the option to report conversations in its Messenger app this May.  So the sight of the company expending major effort to launch a dating product at the same time as it stands accused of failing to do enough to prevent its products from being conduits for human rights abuses in multiple markets is ethically uncomfortable, to say the least. Prospective users of Facebook Dating might therefore feel a bit queasy to think that their passing fancies have been prioritized by Zuckerberg & co over and above adding stronger safeguards and guardrails to the various platforms they operate to try to safeguard humans from actual death in other corners of the globe.

By getting involved with dating, Facebook is mixing separate social streams Talking of feeling queasy, with Facebook Dating the company is attempting to pull off a tricky balancing act of convincing existing users (many of whom will already be married and/or in a long term relationship) that it’s somehow totally normal to just bolt on a dating layer to something that’s supposed to be a generic social network. All of a sudden a space that’s always been sold — and traded — as a platonic place for people to forge ‘friendships’ is suddenly having sexual opportunity injected into it. Sure, the company is trying to keep these differently oriented desires entirely separate, by making the Dating component an opt-in feature that lurks within Facebook (and where (it says) any activity is siloed and kept off of mainstream Facebook (at least that’s the claim)). But the very existence of Facebook Dating means anyone in a relationship who is already on Facebook is now, on one level, involved with a dating app company. Facebook users may also feel they’re being dangled the opportunity to sign up to online dating on the sly — with the company then committed itself to being the secret-keeping go-between ferrying any flirtatious messages they care to send in a way that would be difficult for their spouse to know about, whether they’re on Facebook or not. How comfortable is Facebook going to be with being a potential aid to adultery? I guess we’ll have to wait and see how that pans out. As noted above, Facebook execs have — in the past — suggested the company is in the business of ‘connecting people, period’. So there’s perhaps a certain twisted logic working away as an undercurrent and driving its impulse to push for ever more human connections. But the company could be at risk of applying its famous “it’s complicated” relationship status to itself with the dating launch — and then raining complicated consequences down upon its users as a result. (As, well, it so often seems to do in the name of expanding its own business.) So instead of ‘don’t mix the streams’, with dating we’re seeing Facebook trying to get away with running entirely opposite types of social interactions in close parallel. What could possibly go wrong?! Or rather what’s to stop someone in the ‘separate’ Facebook dating pool trying to Facebook-stalk a single they come across there who doesn’t responded to their overtures? (Given Facebook dating users are badged with their real Facebook names there could easily be user attempts to ‘cross over’.) And if sentiments from one siloed service spill over into mainstream Facebook things could get very messy indeed — and users could end up being doubly repelled by its service rather than additionally compelled. The risk is Facebook ends up fouling not feathering its own nest by trying to combine dating and social networking. (This less polite phrase also springs to mind.)

Who are you hoping to date anyway?! Outside emerging markets Facebook’s growth has stalled. Even social networking’s later stage middle age boom looks tapped out. At the same time today’s teens are not at all hot for Facebook. The youngest web users are more interested in visually engaging social apps. And the company will have its work cut out trying to lure this trend-sensitive youth crowd. Facebook dating will probably sound like a bad joke — or a dad joke — to these kids. Going up the age range a bit, the under ~35s are hardly enamoured with Facebook either. They may still have a profile but also hardly think Facebook is cool. Some will have reduced their usage or even taken a mini break. The days of this age-group using Facebook to flirt with old college classmates are as long gone as sending a joke Facebook poke. Some are deleting their Facebook account entirely — and not looking back. Is this prime dating age-group suddenly likely to fall en masse for Facebook’s love match experiment? It seems doubtful. And it certainly looks like no accident Facebook is debuting Dating outside the US. Emerging markets, which often have young, app-loving populations, probably represent its best chance at bagging the critical mass of singles absolutely required to make any dating product even vaguely interesting. But in its marketing shots for the service Facebook seems to be hoping to attract singles in the late twenties age-range — dating app users who are probably among the ficklest, trickiest people for Facebook to lure with a late-stage, catch-all and, er, cringey proposition. After that, who’s left? Those over 35s who are still actively on Facebook are either going to be married — and thus busy sharing their wedding/baby pics — and not in the market for dating anyway; or if they are single they may be less inclined towards getting involved with online dating vs younger users who are now well accustomed to dating apps. So again, for Facebook, it looks like diminishing returns up here. And of course a dating app is only as interesting and attractive as the people on it. Which might be the most challenging hurdle for Facebook to make a mark on this well-served playing field — given its eponymous network is now neither young nor cool, hip nor happening, and seems to be having more of an identity crisis with each passing year. Perhaps Facebook could carve out a dating niche for itself among middle-age divorcees — by offering to digitally hand-hold them and help get them back into the dating game. (Although there’s zero suggestion that’s what it’s hoping to do with the service it debuted this week.) If Zuckerberg really wants to bag the younger singles he seems most interested in — at least judging by Facebook Dating’s marketing — he might have been better off adding a dating stream to Instagram. I mean, InstaLovegram almost sounds like it could be a thing.

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This week Facebook has launched a major new product play, slotting an algorithmic dating service inside its walled garden as if that’s perfectly normal behavior for an ageing social network.

Insert your [dad dancing GIF of choice] right here.

Facebook getting into dating looks very much like a mid-life crisis — as a veteran social network desperately seeks a new strategy to stay relevant in an age when app users have largely moved on from social network ‘lifecasting’ to more bounded forms of sharing, via private messaging and/or friend groups inside dedicated messaging and sharing apps.

The erstwhile Facebook status update has long been usurped by the Snapchat (and now Instagram) Story as the social currency of choice for younger app users. Of course Facebook owns the latter product too, and has mercilessly cloned Stories. But it hardly wants its flagship service to just fade away into the background like the old fart it actually is in Internet age terms.

Not if it can reinvigorate the product with a new purpose — and so we arrive at online dating.

Facebook — or should that be ‘Datebook’ now?! — is starting its dating experiment in Colombia, as its beta market. But the company clearly has ambitious designs on becoming a major global force in the increasingly popular online dating arena — to challenge dedicated longtime players like eHarmony and OkCupid, as well as the newer breed of more specialized dating startups, such as female-led app, Bumble.

Zuckerberg is not trying to compete with online dating behemoth Tinder, though. Which Facebook dismisses as a mere ‘hook up’ app — a sub category it claims it wants nothing to do with.

Rather it’s hoping to build something more along the lines of ‘get together with friends of your friends who’re also into soap carving/competitive dog grooming/extreme ironing’ than, for e.g., the raw spank in the face shock of ‘Bang with Friends‘. (The latter being the experimental startup which tried, some six years ago, to combine Facebook and sex — before eventually exiting to a Singapore-based dating app player, Paktor, never to be heard of again. Or, well, not until Facebook decided to get into the dating game and reminded us all how we lol’d about it.)

Mark Zuckerberg’s company doesn’t want to get into anything smutty, though. Oh no, no, NO! No sex please, we’re Facebook!

Facebook Dating has been carefully positioned to avoid sounding like a sex app. It’s being flogged as a tasteful take on the online dating game, with — for instance — the app explicitly architected not to push existing friends together via suggestive matching (though you’ll just have to hope you don’t end up being algorithmically paired with any exes, which judging by Facebook’s penchant for showing users ‘photo memories’ of past stuff with exes may not pan out so well… ). And no ability to swap photo messages with mutual matches in case, well, something pornographic were to pass through.

Facebook is famously no fan of nudes. Unsurprisingly, then, nor is its buttoned up dating app. Only ‘good, old-fashioned wholesome’ text-based chat-up lines (related to ‘good clean pieces of Facebook content’) here please.

If you feel moved to text an up-front marriage proposal — feeling 100% confident in Facebook’s data scientists’ prowess in reading the social media tea leaves and plucking your future life partner out of the mix — its algorithms will probably smile on that though.

The company’s line is that dating will help fulfil its new mission of encouraging ‘time well spent’ — by helping people forge more meaningful (new) relationships thanks to the power of its network (and the data it sucks out of it).

This mission is certainly an upgrade on Facebook’s earlier and baser interest in just trying to connect every human on planet Earth to every other human on planet Earth in some kind of mass data-swinging orgy — regardless of the ethical and/or moral consequences (as Boz memorably penned it), as if it was trying to channel the horror-loving spirit of Pasolini’s Salò. Or, well, a human centipede.

But that was then. These days, in its mid teens, Facebook wants to be seen as grown up and a bit worth. So its take on dating looks a lot more ‘marriage material’ than ‘casual encounters’. Though, well, products don’t always pan out how their makers intend. So it might need to screw its courage to the sticking place and hope things don’t go south.

From the user perspective, there’s a whole other side here too though. Because given how much baggage inevitably comes with Facebook nowadays, the really burning question is whether any sensible person should be letting Mark Zuckerberg fire cupid’s arrows on their behalf?

He famously couldn’t tell malicious Kremlin propaganda from business as usual social networking like latte photos and baby pics — so what makes you think he’s going to be attuned to the subtle nuances of human chemistry?!

Here are just a few reasons why we think you should stay as far away from Facebook’s dalliance with dating as you possibly can…

It’s yet another cynical data grab Facebook’s ad-targeting business model relies on continuous people tracking to function — which means it needs your data to exist. Simply put: Your privacy is Facebook’s lifeblood. Dating is therefore just a convenient veneer to slap atop another major data grab as Facebook tries to find less icky ways to worm its way back and/or deeper into people’s lives. Connecting singles to nurture ‘meaningful relationships’ is the marketing gloss being slicked over its latest invitation to ask people to forget how much private information they’re handing it. Worse still, dating means Facebook is asking people to share even more intimate and personal information than they might otherwise willingly divulge — again with a company whose business model relies upon tracking everything everyone does, on or offline, within its walled garden or outside it on the wider web, and whether they’re Facebook a user or not. This also comes at a time when users of Facebook’s eponymous social network have been showing signs of Facebook fatigue, and even changing how they use the service after a string of major privacy scandals. So Facebook doing dating also looks intended to function as a fresh distraction — to try to draw attention away from its detractors and prevent any more scales falling away from users’ eyes. The company wants to paper over growing scepticism about ad-targeting business models with algorithmic heart-shaped promises. Yet the real underlying passion here is still Facebook’s burning desire to keep minting money off of your private bits and bytes.

Facebook’s history of privacy hostility shows it simply can’t be trusted Facebook also has a very long history of being outright hostile to privacy — including deliberately switching settings to make previously private settings public by default (regulatory intervention has been required to push back against that ratchet) — so its claim, with Dating, to be siloing data in a totally separate bucket, and also that information shared for this service won’t be used to further flesh out user profiles or to target people with ads elsewhere across its empire should be treated with extreme scepticism. Facebook also said WhatsApp users’ data would not be mingled and conjoined with Facebook user data — and, er, look what ended up happening there…!! ————————————————————————————————–>

WhatsApp to share user data with Facebook for ad targeting — here’s how to opt out

And then there’s Facebook record of letting app developers liberally rip user data out of its platform — including (for years and years) ‘friend data’. Which almost sounded cosy. But Facebook’s friends data API meant that an individual Facebook user could have their data sucked out without even agreeing to a particular app’s ToS themselves. Which is part of the reason why users’ personal information has ended up all over the place — and in all sorts of unusual places. (Facebook not enforcing its own policies, and implementing features that could be systematically abused to suck out user data are among some of the many other reasons.) The long and short history of Facebook and privacy is that information given to it for one purpose has ended up being used for all sorts of other things — things we likely don’t even know the half of. Even Facebook itself doesn’t know which is why it’s engaged in a major historical app audit right now. Yet this very same company now wants you to tell it intimate details about your romantic and sexual preferences? Uhhhh, hold that thought, truly.

Facebook already owns the majority of online attention — why pay the company any more mind? Especially as dating singles already have amazingly diverse app choice… In the West there’s pretty much no escape from Facebook Inc. Not if you want to be able to use the social sharing tools your friends are using. Network effects are hugely powerful for that reason, and Facebook owns not just one popular and dominant social network but a whole clutch of them — given it also bought Instagram and WhatsApp (plus some others it bought and just closed, shutting down those alternative options). But online dating, as it currently is, offers a welcome respite from Facebook. It’s arguably also no accident that the Facebook-less zone is so very richly served with startups and services catering to all sorts of types and tastes. There are dating apps for black singles; matchmaking services for Muslims; several for Jewish people; plenty of Christian dating apps; at least one dating service to match ex-pat Asians; another for Chinese-Americans; queer dating apps for women; gay dating apps for men (and of course gay hook up apps too), to name just a few; there’s dating apps that offer games to generate matches; apps that rely on serendipity and location to rub strangers together via missed connections; apps that let you try live video chats with potential matches; and of course no shortage of algorithmic matching dating apps. No singles are lonely for dating apps to try, that’s for sure. So why on earth should humanity cede this very rich, fertile and creative ‘stranger interaction’ space, which caters to singles of all stripes and fancies, to a social network behemoth — just so Facebook can expand its existing monopoly on people’s attention? Why shrink the luxury of choice to give Facebook’s business extra uplift? If Facebook Dating became popular it would inexorably pull attention away from alternatives — perhaps driving consolidation among a myriad of smaller dating players, forcing some to band together to try to achieve greater scale and survive the arrival of the 800lb Facebook gorilla. Some services might feel they have to become a bit less specialized, pushed by market forces to go after a more generic (and thus larger) pool of singles. Others might find they just can’t get enough niche users anymore to self-sustain. The loss of the rich choice in dating apps singles currently enjoy would be a crying shame indeed. Which is as good a reason as any to snub Facebook’s overtures here.

Algorithmic dating is both empty promise and cynical attempt to humanize Facebook surveillance Facebook typically counters the charge that because it tracks people to target them with ads its in the surveillance business by claiming people tracking benefits humanity because it can serve you “relevant ads”. Of course that’s a paper thin argument since all display advertising is something no one has chosen to see and therefore is necessarily a distraction from whatever a person was actually engaged with. It’s also an argument that’s come under increasing strain in recent times, given all the major scandals attached to Facebook’s ad platform, whether that’s to do with socially divisive Facebook ads, or malicious political propaganda spread via Facebook, or targeted Facebook ads that discriminate against protected groups, or Facebook ads that are actually just spreading scams. Safe to say, the list of problems attached to its ad targeting enterprise is long and keeps growing. But Facebook’s follow on claim now, with Dating and the data it intends to hold on people for this matchmaking purpose, is it has the algorithmic expertise to turn a creepy habit of tracking everything everyone does into a formula for locating love. So now it’s not just got “relevant” ads to sell you; it’s claiming Facebook surveillance is the special sauce to find your Significant Other! Frankly, this is beyond insidious. (It is also literally a Black Mirror episode — and that’s supposed to be dysfunctional sci-fi.) Facebook is moving into dating because it needs a new way to package and sell its unpleasant practice of people surveillance. It’s hoping to move beyond its attempt at normalizing its business line (i.e. that surveillance is necessary to show ads that people might be marginally more likely to click on) — which has become increasingly problematic as its ad platform has been shown to be causing all sorts of knock-on societal problems — by implying that by letting Facebook creep on you 24/7 it could secure your future happiness because its algorithms are working to track down your perfect other half — among all those 1s and 0s it’s continuously manhandling. Of course this is total bunkum. There’s no algorithmic formula to determine what makes one person click with another (or not). If there was humans would have figured it out long, long ago — and monetized it mercilessly. (And run into all sorts of horrible ethical problems along the way.) Thing is, people aren’t math. Humans cannot be made to neatly sum to the total of their collective parts and interests. Which is why life is a lot more interesting than the stuff you see on Facebook. And also why there’s a near infinite number of dating apps out there, catering to all sorts of people and predilections. Sadly Facebook can’t see that. Or rather it can’t admit it. And so we get nonsense notions of ‘expert’ algorithmic matchmaking and ‘data science’ as the underpinning justification for yet another dating app launch. Sorry but that’s all just marketing. The idea that Facebook’s data scientists are going to turn out to be bullseye hitting cupids is as preposterous as it is ridiculous. Like any matchmaking service there will be combinations thrown up that work and plenty more than do not. But if the price of a random result is ceaseless surveillance the service has a disproportionate cost attached to it — making it both an unfair and an unattractive exchange for the user. And once again people are being encouraged to give up far more than they’re getting in return. If you believe that finding ‘the one’ will be easier if you focus on people with similar interests to you or who are in the same friend group there’s no shortage of existing ‘life avenues’ you can pursue without having to resort to Facebook Dating. (Try joining a club. Or going to your friends’ parties. Or indeed taking your pick from the scores of existing dating apps that already offer interest-based matching.) Equally you could just take a hike up a mountain and meet your future wife at the top (as one couple I know did). Safe to say, there’s no formula to love. And thankfully so. Don’t believe anyone trying to sell you a dating service with the claim their nerdtastic data scientists will hook you up good and proper. Facebook’s chance of working any ‘love magic’ will be as good/poor as the next app-based matchmaking service. Which is to say it will be random. There’s certainly no formula to be distilled beyond connecting ‘available to date’ singles — which dating apps and websites have been doing very well for years and years and years. No Facebook dates necessary. The company has little more to offer the world of online dating than, say, OkCupid, which has scale and already combines the location and stated interests of its users in an attempt to throw up possible clicks. The only extra bit is Facebook’s quasi-bundling of Events into dating, as a potential avenue to try and date in a marginally more informal setting than agreeing to go on an actual date. Though, really, it just sounds like it might be more awkward to organize and pull off. Facebook’s generic approach to dating is also going to offer much less for certain singles who benefit from a more specialized and tailored service (such as a female-focused player like Bumble which has created a service to cater to women’s needs; or, indeed, any of the aforementioned community focused offerings cited above which help people meet other likeminded singles). Facebook appears to believe that size matters in dating. And seems to want to be a generic giant in a market that’s already richly catering to all sorts of different communities. For many singles that catch-all approach is going to earn it a very hard left swipe.

Dating takes resource and focus away from problems Facebook should actually be fixing Facebook’s founder made ‘fixing Facebook’ his personal priority this year. Which underlines quite how many issues the company has smashing through its plate. We’re not talking little bug fixes. Facebook has a huge bunch of existentially awful hellholes burning through its platform and punching various human rights in the process. This is not at all trivial. Some really terrible stuff has been going on with its platforms acting as the conduit. Earlier this year, for instance, the UN blasted Facebook saying its platform had became a “beast” in Myanmar — weaponized and used to accelerate ethnic violence against the Rohingya Muslim minority. Facebook has admitted it did not have enough local resource to stop its software being used to amplify ethnic hate and violence in the market. Massacres of Rohingya refuges have been described by human rights organizations as a genocide. And it’s not an isolated instance. In the Philippines the country has recently been plunged into a major human rights crisis — and the government there, which used Facebook to help get elected, has also been using Facebook to savage its critics at the same time as carrying out thousands of urban killings in a bloody so-called ‘war on drugs’. In India, Facebook’s WhatsApp messaging app has been identified as a contributing factor in multiple instances of mob violence and killings — as people have been whipped up by lies spread like lightning via the app. Set against such awful problems — where Facebook’s products are at very least not helping — we now see the company ploughing resource into expanding into a new business area, and expending engineering resource to build a whole new interface and messaging system (the latter to ensure Facebook Dating users can only swap texts, and can’t send photos or videos because that might be a dick pic risk). So it’s a genuine crying shame that Facebook did not pay so much close attention to goings on in Myanmar — where local organizations have long been calling for intelligent limits to be built in to its products to help stop abusive misuse. Yet Facebook only added the option to report conversations in its Messenger app this May.  So the sight of the company expending major effort to launch a dating product at the same time as it stands accused of failing to do enough to prevent its products from being conduits for human rights abuses in multiple markets is ethically uncomfortable, to say the least. Prospective users of Facebook Dating might therefore feel a bit queasy to think that their passing fancies have been prioritized by Zuckerberg & co over and above adding stronger safeguards and guardrails to the various platforms they operate to try to safeguard humans from actual death in other corners of the globe.

By getting involved with dating, Facebook is mixing separate social streams Talking of feeling queasy, with Facebook Dating the company is attempting to pull off a tricky balancing act of convincing existing users (many of whom will already be married and/or in a long term relationship) that it’s somehow totally normal to just bolt on a dating layer to something that’s supposed to be a generic social network. All of a sudden a space that’s always been sold — and traded — as a platonic place for people to forge ‘friendships’ is suddenly having sexual opportunity injected into it. Sure, the company is trying to keep these differently oriented desires entirely separate, by making the Dating component an opt-in feature that lurks within Facebook (and where (it says) any activity is siloed and kept off of mainstream Facebook (at least that’s the claim)). But the very existence of Facebook Dating means anyone in a relationship who is already on Facebook is now, on one level, involved with a dating app company. Facebook users may also feel they’re being dangled the opportunity to sign up to online dating on the sly — with the company then committed itself to being the secret-keeping go-between ferrying any flirtatious messages they care to send in a way that would be difficult for their spouse to know about, whether they’re on Facebook or not. How comfortable is Facebook going to be with being a potential aid to adultery? I guess we’ll have to wait and see how that pans out. As noted above, Facebook execs have — in the past — suggested the company is in the business of ‘connecting people, period’. So there’s perhaps a certain twisted logic working away as an undercurrent and driving its impulse to push for ever more human connections. But the company could be at risk of applying its famous “it’s complicated” relationship status to itself with the dating launch — and then raining complicated consequences down upon its users as a result. (As, well, it so often seems to do in the name of expanding its own business.) So instead of ‘don’t mix the streams’, with dating we’re seeing Facebook trying to get away with running entirely opposite types of social interactions in close parallel. What could possibly go wrong?! Or rather what’s to stop someone in the ‘separate’ Facebook dating pool trying to Facebook-stalk a single they come across there who doesn’t responded to their overtures? (Given Facebook dating users are badged with their real Facebook names there could easily be user attempts to ‘cross over’.) And if sentiments from one siloed service spill over into mainstream Facebook things could get very messy indeed — and users could end up being doubly repelled by its service rather than additionally compelled. The risk is Facebook ends up fouling not feathering its own nest by trying to combine dating and social networking. (This less polite phrase also springs to mind.)

Who are you hoping to date anyway?! Outside emerging markets Facebook’s growth has stalled. Even social networking’s later stage middle age boom looks tapped out. At the same time today’s teens are not at all hot for Facebook. The youngest web users are more interested in visually engaging social apps. And the company will have its work cut out trying to lure this trend-sensitive youth crowd. Facebook dating will probably sound like a bad joke — or a dad joke — to these kids. Going up the age range a bit, the under ~35s are hardly enamoured with Facebook either. They may still have a profile but also hardly think Facebook is cool. Some will have reduced their usage or even taken a mini break. The days of this age-group using Facebook to flirt with old college classmates are as long gone as sending a joke Facebook poke. Some are deleting their Facebook account entirely — and not looking back. Is this prime dating age-group suddenly likely to fall en masse for Facebook’s love match experiment? It seems doubtful. And it certainly looks like no accident Facebook is debuting Dating outside the US. Emerging markets, which often have young, app-loving populations, probably represent its best chance at bagging the critical mass of singles absolutely required to make any dating product even vaguely interesting. But in its marketing shots for the service Facebook seems to be hoping to attract singles in the late twenties age-range — dating app users who are probably among the ficklest, trickiest people for Facebook to lure with a late-stage, catch-all and, er, cringey proposition. After that, who’s left? Those over 35s who are still actively on Facebook are either going to be married — and thus busy sharing their wedding/baby pics — and not in the market for dating anyway; or if they are single they may be less inclined towards getting involved with online dating vs younger users who are now well accustomed to dating apps. So again, for Facebook, it looks like diminishing returns up here. And of course a dating app is only as interesting and attractive as the people on it. Which might be the most challenging hurdle for Facebook to make a mark on this well-served playing field — given its eponymous network is now neither young nor cool, hip nor happening, and seems to be having more of an identity crisis with each passing year. Perhaps Facebook could carve out a dating niche for itself among middle-age divorcees — by offering to digitally hand-hold them and help get them back into the dating game. (Although there’s zero suggestion that’s what it’s hoping to do with the service it debuted this week.) If Zuckerberg really wants to bag the younger singles he seems most interested in — at least judging by Facebook Dating’s marketing — he might have been better off adding a dating stream to Instagram. I mean, InstaLovegram almost sounds like it could be a thing.

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