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24 ways: The advent calendar for web geeks

24 ways is the advent calendar for web geeks: "It's a fun trip down memory lane and you may learn a thing or two along the way."

“24 ways is the advent calendar for web geeks. For twenty-four days each December we publish a daily dose of web design and development goodness to bring you all a little Christmas cheer.”

— 24 Ways

The annual tradition of 24 Ways has chugged along since the nascent days of Web 2.0. Every December, a group of web designers & developers come together to share useful tips and tidbits for their…

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Advice for new marketers: Focus on the outcomes to increase your value

Advice for new marketers: "To truly increase your value, you need to understand what drives the company’s long term growth and focus maniacally on that."

“To truly increase your value, you need to understand what drives the company’s long term growth and focus maniacally on that. This means elevating your mental frameworks from tactics (i.e. “I must publish three articles a week”) to strategy (i.e. “I must find a way to help our events team sell more tickets”). And it means structuring the content operation to lead to outcomes (i.e. “webinar…

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Riding 3000km to WordCamp Europe

Riding 3000km to WordCamp Europe: Shout out to the WP&UP team for making one hell of a trek.

“In May 2020 members of the WP&UP team will be leaving the WordCamp Europe 2019 venue; The Estrel, Berlin, Germany and undertaking a gruelling 3,000 km ride across Europe to the 2020 #WCEU venue; Super Bock Arena, Porto, Portugal.”

— #HeadToWCEU

Shout out to my fellow cyclists + WordPressers for making one hell of a trek. For the unaware, WP&UPis an organization providing mental health support…

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Disney's emotional comfort zone

Disney's emotional comfort zone: "In the VHS and DVD days, Disney made bank by releasing old classics from The Vault. Disney+ will make bank because it blows the vault wide open."

“It’s in that emotional comfort zone that Disney has an advantage. While there may be something relaxing about re-watching Futurama as you drift off to sleep, Disney’s shows and movies go a step further by bringing you back to childhood. Even the entries in their library that might otherwise be considered crap can be hits simply because you watched them when you were a kid.”

— Why Disney+ Will Win…

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Own your platform

Own your platform: "Stop giving away your work to people who don't care about it. Host it yourself. Distribute it via methods you control. Build your audience deliberately and on your own terms."

“The original dream of the web is dying. Facebook, Google, Twitter, Medium, and YouTube entice us to give them our creative work.

They control what gets amplified and what gets monetized. A few conference rooms in Silicon Valley dictate our online culture. It’s time to take it back.

Stop giving away your work to people who don’t care about it. Host it yourself. Distribute it via methods you…

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The place for web regulation

The place for web regulation: "The 20th century was about infrastructure. The 21st century is about data."

“Any system that allows for automated processing of messages is subject to directed, sophisticated abuse. The place for regulation is not in advertising (even though that’s where it’s begun with the Honest Ads Act), it’s in how the system works architecturally.”

— The Internet Must Change. To Get There, Start With the Data (Newco Shift)

The 20th century was about infrastructure. The 21st…

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Sorry, Google doesn't want to send search traffic to you.

Sorry, Google doesn't want to send search traffic to you: "Free traffic from Google was never going to last."

“Broadly, I believe the narrative for web marketers is clear. The largest source of traffic on the web — free and paid — is becoming a walled garden, intent on not only keeping people on its own properties, but competing directly with those that helped it become a dominant, monopoly power.

If you’re a marketer or a business that relies on Google, there’s still tons of opportunity left (at least…

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Learning through repetition is better than cramming

Learning through repetition is better than cramming: "The information we learn from it can last a lifetime"

“Spaced repetition might not have the immediacy of cramming or the adrenaline rush of a manic all-nighter. But the information we learn from it can last a lifetime and tends to be effectively retained.”

— The Spacing Effect (Farnam Street)

This pairs well with deliberate practice (h/t James Clear).

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Wear out your beginner gear

"Wear out your beginner gear, buy the nicer gear when you know what you want and need." (h/t Kottke)

” Wearing out your beginner gear is like graduating. You know that you’ve stuck with the sport long enough that you aren’t truly a beginner anymore. You may have managed to save up some cash for the next step. And you can buy the nicer gear now, knowing exactly what you want and need.”

— Buy the cheap thing first (Kottke)

+ Beginner gear isn’t the same thing as cheap gear. A decent entry-level…

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Scammy "online entrepreneurs" and their collateral damage

Scammy "online entrepreneurs" and their collateral damage: "Entrepreneurship is legitimate. But scammers and posers ruin it."

“Assuming because someone makes a living online that they’re frauds or scammers is ridiculous. Of course there are some, but there are also some amazing folks who do stellar work and provide real value for a price. Selling isn’t spamming.We’re not evil simply because we’re trying to make a living online if we take into consideration our customers and audiences. Most huge companies never do this.…

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Online community predates the web

Online community predates the web. It was built on open protocols and platforms of the early internet. That spirit lived on in Web 1.0. We lost some of that with Web 2.0 and centralized services, but we're not beyond redemption.

“While working at CERN, Berners-Lee had put together all of the elements of the World Wide Web, and it was even starting to get some use internally. But he had yet to announce the project publicly. The message above was his first time doing so. The venue he chose was the most familiar to him. In a Usenet post, unceremoniously tucked away inside another thread.”

— The Importance of Being on Usenet…

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Chaos is a feature of the online world

Chaos is a feature of the online world: "We all contain multitudes. The kids seem to know that’s all right."

“This chaos — this cubism, this unleashing of our multiple selves — is a feature, not a bug, of the online world. It’s arguably its defining characteristic for those who grew up there. You could attribute all the jump cuts, all the endlessly iterating memes, to a destroyed attention span. But it’s also evidence of something deeper, a mind-set people are just trying to name.”

“Arguably it is…

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Subscriptions might save local news

Subscriptions might save local news: "What people will pay for is quality content about things they care about."

“Most local newspapers are simply not worth saving, not because local news isn’t valuable, but rather because everything else in your typical local newspaper is worthless (from a business perspective). That is why I was careful in my wording: subscriptions will not save newspapers, but they just might save local news, and the sooner that distinction is made the better.

A sustainable local news…

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The blurring line between UGC and branded content

The blurring line between UGC and branded content: "It's like a refer-a-friend program with kickbacks. Of course Gen Z is going to be all over that."

“Gen Z kids have never known a world where their private browsing data wasn’t commodified. They’ve grown up surrounded by brands tweeting memes, partnering with influencers, and angling to profit off their attention. That’s probably why they’re no less likely to share content if it was produced by a corporation, or if it has a promotional or advertisement bent. The line between UGC and branded…

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The value of local biz websites for SEO

The value of local biz websites for SEO: "Small businesses need websites. Everything else they do online should point back to it."

“Far from it being the case that websites have become obsolete, they are the firmest bedrock for maintaining free local SERP visibility amidst an increasing scarcity of opportunities.”

— Why Local Businesses Will Need Websites More than Ever in 2019 (Moz)

Small businesses need websites. I’m biased of course — I work at GoDaddy, we sell a website builder, and we sell WordPress hosting— but I…

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Let's make simplicity the default

Let's make simplicity the default: "Start with the basics. Clean markup. Plain ol' HTML. Figure out the semantic structure, then add from there. Bolt on new pieces as needed, only if needed."

” Eminently usable designs and architectures result when simplicity is the default. It’s why unadorned HTML works. It beautifully solves the problem of presenting documents to the screen that we don’t even consider all the careful thought that went into the user agent stylesheets that provide its utterly boring presentation.We can take a lesson from this, especially during a time when more…

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Millennials and Gen Z were born on the wrong side

"Born on the wrong side of skyrocketing property values, 30-year-olds are only half as likely to own homes as baby boomers were at the same age."

” Britons who came of age in the wake of the global financial crisis of 2008 will, in many cases, be worse off than their parents. Born on the wrong side of skyrocketing property values, 30-year-olds are only half as likely to own homes as baby boomers were at the same age. A third are expected to rent for their whole lives.”

— The Making of a Young U.K. Socialist (New York Times)

I recognize…

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