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btsandvmin · 4 years

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Hi I m a hardcore vmin shipper. But recently i watched a vkook video to compare and it was an analysis video in which they say that actually vkook are sharing a room in their new dorm and trying to hide it and it seemed very real and i have been very upset. There are lots of moments made sense like jk's henna tattoo in malta, v showing ILY symbol behind his back to sick JK on burn the stage, them sharing a room and even blanket in malta, Jk's dog being in making video of winter bear. I m confuse

I would to know the thoughts of a fellow vminie on this. Please do respond since i am literally breaking apart at the thought of vmin being just a cover for vkook.

Hi, I think you might be the same person who just sent me another similar ask about this, and I added the end of that ask which had one more thing that this ask didn’t. I hope that’s ok.

First of all I am sorry that you feel so sad about this… There is a certain emotional danger with getting too involved with shipping and especially seeing a ship as real in a romantic way, as it can set you up for a lot of struggle with your feelings about the members and their relationships.

Before anything else what I want to say is that Vmin’s bond is lovely and special and they truly love each other. Even if it’s platonic or even if they are together with someone else nothing is going to change that. That’s why the best thing to do if possible is to simply love them and support them without having a need for it to be something “more”. Especially since it’s unlikely we would ever find out even if a ship is real. So regarding the extra part of your question, namely “vmin being a cover for vkook” I really don’t see how that is possible or at the very least how that makes Vmin’s moments any less real.

Here’s my take on this issue, no matter which ships. If a ship is real I don’t think it makes sense to hide them by faking another gay ship. The only way I think this can to some extent be possible is if it comes from the members themselves and they for example do a lot of fanservice (which is still genuine) with all or many members to not make one person stand out. Even so I think the members do show that they do a lot of both genuine and more played up (but still on their own terms because they enjoy it) fanservice. Basically what I am saying is that even if a ship that isn’t Vmin is real it doesn’t make Vmin fake. They are not a cover up, they do the things they do because they enjoy it and they certainly love each other.

As for the part about tae/kook I know what analysis you are talking about even though it’s been a while since I watched them.

Nothing in any analysis I have ever seen has had anything we can call proof. Because even if all those things you mention are true the meaning behind those things is all just speculation. Who says Tae and JK can’t do these things platonically? Just like people argue about weird things for other ships, even if we can prove something has happened or is real, we can’t know if there is a romantic purpose or not. Like with the hand gesture (and tattoo of it), it could just be a platonic inside “joke” for example. Or a way to show support for each other. Like a secret language it could be special between them, but even so it still doesn’t have to be romantic. They also have their handshake which has the same gesture (ILY in sign language) and we have seen Taehyung teaching Jimin this. Also if it’s some sort of secret signal to JK, what’s the point if JK is turned away and can’t see it? Then it doesn’t even really count as a secret sign because JK can’t receive it.

You have JK and Jimin doing the “You are me and I am you” which shippers see in one way but which easily just could be an inside joke. Likewise the hand sign could be something JK and Tae does, and maybe it is to show love and support, but does it have to be romantic? If all ships have weird things about them, how are we supposed to know what everything means? We can’t, which is why I think using the word “proof” which is kind of ridiculous to begin with. Who decides what is romantic or not? Only the individual shipper, which means it’s always going to be biased and remain a speculation until they actually say something (which they probably would never do).

As for the part about sharing a room I thought it was said that JK and Taehyung both sleeps in the living room, but with a wall between them, aka sharing room but not really? Which explains the same floor and saying they have rooms “next to each other” etc. It also seems recently that they might be spending less time in the dorm in general. But to be fair as I said I have not watched any shipping analysis in a while so there might be more proof of them sharing and hiding it. Who knows. But even if they do sleep in the same room (a claim basically all shippers try to add to their ship) again it doesn’t have to be romantic. BTS could simply be that close and like to be that close but choses to keep it lowkey, perhaps because of the shippers. I mean, Jimin, JK and Tae all slept basically naked together on Jimin’s first day in the dorm, I am sure they are way beyond what most people see as normal boundaries by this point.

Also when it comes to sharing rooms people really seem to magically ignore Vmin who has many times showed that they like and want to share a room. Just look at Bon Voyage. If you say JK and Tae sharing in Malta and using the same blanket was a big deal, what makes it different to what Vmin did now in BV4?

In Malta there are 3 reasons I believe Vmin truly wanted to share a room. First, Jimin is excited and interested in where Tae will end up even before he gets there. Second when Tae arrives he asks about the rooms and tries to find clues and Jimin spills some beans by far being the most invested in Taehyung’s room situation, Jimin also asks if Tae wants to share with him. And third they say it straight out and it looks very genuine to me. The reason Tae went to JK’s room at least to me looks like it’s because he misinterpreted Jimin.

Because I think if they both knew they wanted to share then Tae probably assumed that when Jimin said “you can’t look” about the room upstairs he was trying to stop Tae from picking that room because Jimin wasn’t in it. Basically I think Jimin screwed over himself and made Tae believe the upper floor couldn’t be Jimin’s. I really don’t think they are that good actors to fake the interest at several points during the trip and that whole choosing room moment just to cover for Tae/kook. Not to mention how glued together they were. So at least to me I don’t doubt that they really wanted to share. Why make that up? If there was no problem with Tae/kook sharing the whole part with Vmin messing around just becomes unnecessary.

On top of that we have Vmin actually confirming sharing a hotel room as late as march 2017 (though they didn’t show it initially but fans noticed Tae’s slipper in a Jimin tweet) and we have Tae telling us about going to sleep with Jimin when he had a bad dream. He seems very consistent with his lie of preferring to share a room with Jimin, which makes me think it’s not a lie.

In fact, once we start doubting everything the boys say and do as fake or covering up then basically everything can be fake or a cover up. Then the ILY sign can be done just to confuse people into thinking Tae/kook is real etc. You see the problem? All ships have weird moments, but they mostly become weird because people assume they are romantic and that they are hiding because they are together, which they don’t have to be. There could be other reasons behind the things they do and I don’t want to question every little thing they do and not trust them when they say something. For me if they are lying to us I think it makes more sense to not tell us things rather than fake and make up things that they probably wouldn’t be able to fake and keep track of.

In the recent season of BV Vmin also slept together three times, and I think that’s what they wanted as Tae picks the bunk bed knowing Jimin had picked the one under when he could have chosen the same room as JK. Same in the last house, they didn’t have to share because the order wasn’t for who they were with but simply in what order they would get to pick. If Jimin picked a room then Tae could have picked another one. In both cases Vmin also slept very close and shared blankets. So maybe it’s just not a big deal for maknae line in general?

Vmin has shared a room at times when they didn’t have to by choice so I think if we look at things we know and not at what people speculate about there is a good case to be made for Vmin really liking to share rooms. In fact they are some of few members in general that has said that they want to share with a specific person. Also in the Canada episode when they all end up in the same room then why is JK so incredibly happy about getting to share with Jin? Or JK sharing with Hobi and basically cuddling doesn’t mean anything, but Tae and JK sharing a blanket does? To me I think it’s because when so many people say it and see it, and when it looks “suspicious”, it creates room for such a narrative. But when it comes to Tae/kook in general, even though I don’t know of course, it always seemed to me that Tae has favored Jimin above JK in various ways, and that’s not something I think they would be able to fake, especially not for many many years.

As for the last one about the Winter Bear MV and Gureum possibly being the dog, I say possibly because I am not 100% it is the same dog, they were at the same location as for their Summer package, so even so it wouldn’t be weird if another member came along.

But as for the dog the reason I am unsure it even is that dog is because the snout seem much longer on the dog in the Winter Bear making. It honestly looks like a different kind of breed both in body shape, nose shape, ears and type of fur. But it is difficult to tell because of the angles and also because the pictures are old and Gureum could have gotten fatter or gotten his fur trimmed etc.

Either way, again, why does this indicate romance between V/kook? For me Taehyung’s behaviour towards Jimin is the biggest reason I think about Vmin being possible and that’s also one of the reasons why Tae/kook always have made the least sense out of the three maknae line ships.

All this being said, who knows. I don’t think you should put too much focus and hope into any ship being real but rather enjoy their bonds and be open to whatever could be the truth.

95z is love, that’s real no matter what. Love isn’t a competition where we as fans place our bets on the most likely romance like it’s some sort of fanfiction or drama. All we can do is support our boys and whomever they may choose to love. I want to point out again that this is not a blog to prove Vmin, but that I do find things about them odd or suspicious at times, but the same can be said about other ships too, so I’m not going to tell you Tae/kook is impossible, because it isn’t. Personally I think it’s less likely than Vmin, but I know I can be wrong and that’s fine.

I don’t know if this post will bring any comfort, but I want to try and be as honest as I can. Hope you can feel better and love Vmin no matter what.

Thank you everyone who read this and don’t get disappointed or angry with me. 95z is love!

#vmin #vmin analysis #bts shipping #btsandvmin #btsandvmin answers #btsandvmin ask #jimin #taehyung #my post #bon voyage 3 #bon voyage #bon voyage season 4 #bon voyage season 3

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seotipsandtricks-me · 5 years

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Special Edition incl. “Why it’s Fabulous” and “Lulu’s List of Lessons Learnt” I’m Lulu, a 21-year-old Marketing with Advertising Management student. Over the summer I completed a 3-month internship with SiteVisibility, before going into my big bad third year. It was just enough time to fall fully in love with SiteVis, but short enough that it went by far too quickly. Why Any Internships are a Good Idea Even with a degree, graduate life is tough. A whole load of people will come onto the job market at the same time of you, having done the same course as you. What are you going to have that helps you stand out? 58% of employers agree that work experience is the most popular qualification (with personality coming in second interestingly, with 48%). They want to see that you have experience applying the theories that you’ve learnt in the real world. Additionally, it’s so hard to know how much you’ll enjoy a profession until you’re there getting stuck in. Internships can be crucial when it comes to this with helping you to work out if you’ve chosen the right area to work in and where you may even want to specialise further. Alongside this, it helps you get an idea of the company and how you fit into it. It’s a brilliant entry point, with 85% of companies using internships to recruit for full-time roles. Taking all of this into account, it’s no surprise that student interns are three times more likely to get top jobs. So many joke about the struggle of finding a job when they ask for experience of the work previously. They feel this isn’t the case due to having not been awarded previous jobs due to lack of experience. How my Internship at SiteVisibility came about Jason (the companies CEO) and I both went to the same school, and so met at a Marketing Networking events held by them. Everyone’s had a moment of feeling slightly judged or inferior to someone. As a student around a load of business owners and people at the top of their game it’s very easy to feel this, regardless of whether the other person you’re interacting with means for this to be the case. Jason however was super approachable and easy to talk to; he was down to earth, had time for me and gave me some really sound, personalised advice that’s ended up shaping what I plan to go on to do. I saw him the following year however he was surrounded by people the whole evening so I was only able to catch him on the way out. And, as it turned out, it was the most productive 2 minutes of the evening! (I know this only from asking him, whilst I was an intern, why he had agreed to look at my CV. To this, he told me how far a good handshake and remembering someone goes). The points that made sure this happened were: Introducing myself to him (incl. handshake, eye contact and smile) Catching him when he was about to run off home to grab a business card Interrupting a conversation to quickly say hi before leaving (having remembered his name) I still however had no clue I’d made a good impression, let alone remembered me until he mentioned having met me upon bumping into my dad (Pa) a month or so later at another event and was surprisingly positive. If it weren’t for Pa telling me about this, I wouldn’t have sent the email leading to the internship and would have missed out on this huge experience. Therefore, I’m adding: 4. Actually send the email / LinkedIn message / make the call With each of the steps you may feel like you’re being annoying, as I did, however if you’re polite on each encounter, they are going to put you in a much better position than if you wimp out and don’t do it at all. One quote brilliant theory to live by is Mark Twain’s famous quote: “Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So, throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” (He forgot about the stern lines, nonetheless these are very wise words.) Go introduce yourself to that person or send that email rather than allowing yourself to only wonder what would’ve happened if you had. My Role at SiteVisibility Jason and Scott had been considering the role for a little while before I came onto the scene as Jason has a lot of networking, responding to day-to-day emails, meetings and looking communicating with prospects, alongside the actual running of the business. They wanted someone to help take a few of his tasks so he had more time to do his Mr-Boss-man stuff. When I did get in contact, they said it all worked together perfectly and so offered this position (after a few emails back and forth, a chat with the Scottmeister/Scottdog both over the phone and in person). My first day was basically back to back meetings which was awesome as I got to get an idea of the business. My role was “supporting the Sales and Marketing function by learning about and then executing various lead generation and prospect nurturing activities designed to help grow the business.” My role was largely sending emails and carrying out various social media activities on behalf of the CEO and improving the sales process, coaxing prospects further along the pipeline. However, I had no clue just how much I would learn along the way. I got to attend a whole load of events whether for educational reasons or to represent SiteVis and learnt how to use a whole load of programmes including Salesforce, SEMrush, Leadfeeder, Sales Navigator, Process Street, Hunter, Trello and more. My desk buddy, Peter, who was also my line manager was super duper clever and taught me loads of short cuts for tasks which I previously hadn’t thought could ever be automated, which I’ll use forever and ever. Mind blown. Why it’s Fabulous. Monthly Team events; our specially elected Minister of Fun organises this. Each month we all vote what we fancy doing (meal, water sports, climbing, outdoor cinema, cocktails, paintballing, escape rooms, volleyball etc.) and when, which is then booked with the Minister of Fun’s allocated budget. Beer O’Clock; employees are given (optional) a beer or cider at 4pm on Fridays to get the weekend off to a “lubricated start”. Cheers for peers / Onboarding; Site Visibility uses a program which especially helps with the moving in process to keep a positive environment. You can send a “Cheers” any time you’ve appreciated something someone’s done and the person with the most each month gets a reward. They have spinny, wheely, height altering office chairs; I know everywhere has them however aren’t they just one of the most beautiful things invented? Buddy system; you’re allocated a buddy who will take you out for lunch on your first day, take you around the office and be there for any questions you may have. This can be the same or separate to your line manager. Flexible Working Hours; you can come in whenever you fancy from 7:30am to 10am (subject to meetings). You can then leave earlier or later according to this, just making sure you’ve worked your 7.5 hours at some point that day. Bagel Mondays; free bagels on a Monday – I never had Sunday Blues (that feeling when you remember you have work tomorrow) in the whole three months I was there. I adore my job; however, I think SiteVis are onto something with this. Office Atmosphere; everyone is just brilliant. I always get nervous around office environments, however it’s very relaxed (we get work done, but can have a laugh too), it’s such a perfect size and your colleagues make you feel right at home early on. Lulu’s list of lessons learnt: You’ve got this It’s okay to be nervous – I thought I was the only one until I discussed it with a few chums the other day. You’ve sold yourself and it worked. Now what? What if you’ve sold more than you can deliver? What if you’ve set yourself up to fail and can’t do everything the job requires? My 56-year-old Aunty explained to me the other day “Absolutely everyone, probably even the queen, has those thoughts every now and then; the oh no, what if they find me out? What if they realise I can’t properly adult?”. It turns out this is called imposter syndrome, and there’s a lot written on it. Our minds make us think of all the things that could go wrong. That’s how we’ve managed to stay alive for so long, both you and humankind. It’s good to be prepared, however sometimes this part of our mind goes into overdrive. There will always be a voice that tells you that you can’t do things you want to do (and sometimes even things you need to do). Experience in environments that are new, and challenging can make you nervous and therefore give you the experience to distinguish between rational and irrational anxieties. The most important thing to remember is that you aren’t alone in these thoughts and your new bosses want you to succeed too. Take notes on EVERYTHING / take it all in Even if you think someone else is taking notes – take better notes. This works when on your own, in a meeting or at your desk. It’s always great to share anything you’ve written down as different people will have picked up certain things from the meeting which you may have missed. Comparing different summaries not only allows you to pick up what you may have missed, but also make sure you’re all clear on the actions to be carried out following the meeting. It avoids the classic feeling of knowing you had a really good thought on something or something really important to do but not being able to remember it. Additionally, the process with which you carry out an activity can be super useful to someone else carrying out that activity, or even yourself when coming back to it. There are so many new things you’ll come across as an intern, however, the quicker you learn it, the easier it all becomes. The more you learn, the easier it becomes and the better you feel about your job. Get excited about it / give it 100% I was lucky enough to be interning in a new city (big up Brighton) which allowed me to be antisocial for a couple of weeks when getting started – I’d forgotten how tiring it can be when you’re new! So many words which I’d learnt at university with the sole purpose of regurgitating them for assessments and now had to remember what they ACTUALLY meant. It sounded so much like a foreign language at some points that I felt I was back in my GCSE French listening exams and similarly I was frantically writing down words I was hearing in order to go away and Google them at my first opportunity. And I loved it. It was so exciting finding out about all these different programs, writing lists of everything, meeting everyone and seeing how I could make an impact. I found this really pushed me to learn more and do a better job. Make friends. Get involved with everything (out of the office too). I understand not everything is in your control and it’s hard to get the right balance of being friendly without looking overly confident, but the more you get involved and get to know everyone, the less you will worry about this balance and the more fun it will be. Every single person in the office made my experience that little bit better. Take every opportunity you’re given Be a “yes” person. Be sure in yourself; the only feedback I had for my boss was to spartan kick me out of my comfort zone. Even if you feel you’re not ready for it, you can make yourself ready for it. Stop waiting for the perfect moment when you feel 100% ready. I was really lucky with all the opportunities offered at SiteVisibility not only with educational / entertaining events going on, but also the responsibility they were willing to give me if they felt I deserved it which was sometimes more work but super rewarding. Nothing like a bit of DIY If there’s a task which you find yourself waiting on input from others in order to complete, don’t be afraid of finding a way to do it yourself. This may involve getting a colleague to train you up on it or checking out a load of YouTube videos. There may also be things you think could work better. Feel free to create a plan for this or create a draft to show your boss just how possible it is and how well it could work / good it would look. Record all your successes This is something I didn’t think of until half way through, unfortunately; however I highly recommend as it helps in a surprisingly large number of areas. Even the most ambitious, motivated people find themselves feeling a little lost and losing the will to keep going with their tasks with out Key Performance Indicator (KPI) is a term frequently used in the marketing world especially, however, it’s also incredibly important when doing personal evaluations. Get help if you need it You’re there to learn and help them out. You won’t be able to learn everything by yourself. They’ll want to make sure that you’re benefitting fully and learning what’s needed, in terms of what they’re getting in return, the more you know about what to do, the more productive you’ll be for them. So, don’t be afraid to ask for a hand in working something out if you find yourself stuck at any point. Be prepped to get addicted to coffee …or just any kind of caffeine

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ladystylestores · 4 years

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We now have more evidence that Galileo likely never said “And yet it moves”

Enlarge / Portrait of Galileo Galilei by Justus Sustermans, circa 1640.

Galileo Galilei famously stood trial for his insistence—based on astronomical observations through his telescopes—that the Copernican model of the Solar System was correct. The Earth revolved around the Sun, not the other way around, contrary to the Catholic Church’s teachings at the time. He was never formally charged with heresy, but he was forced to recant his stance. Legend has it that after he did so, he muttered, “E pur si muove“ (“And yet it moves”), meaning the Earth.

As with many such legends, it’s probably too good to be true. “It would have been crazy for Galileo to say that in front of the Inquisitor,” astrophysicist Mario Livio told Ars. Livio is the author of a new biography of the famous scientist, Galileo and the Science Deniers, and while researching the book, he found himself captivated by the longstanding debate about whether or not Galileo really spoke those words. It resulted in a separate academic paper about his findings.

The earliest biography of Galileo was written by his protege, Vincenzo Viviana in 1655-1656, with no mention of the phrase. According to Livio, the first mention in print is in a single paragraph in the 1757 book, The Italian Library, by Giuseppe Baretti, written over 100 years after Galileo’s death. That would point to the story being a myth. But then a science historian named Antonio Favaro spent four decades studying Galileo’s life and work, publishing a massive tome, The Works of Galileo Galilei. In 1911, he also published several articles detailing his efforts to determine the origin of the famous phrase.

Enlarge / Portrait of Galileo in prison, often attributed to Murillo circa 1643. New evidence suggests it was painted much later by a different artist.

That year, Favaro received a letter from a man in Belgium named Jules Van Belle, claiming to own a painting, circa 1643—shortly after Galileo’s death in 1642—that depicted Galileo in prison, holding a nail in his right hand, having traced the Earth moving around the Sun. Written underneath was the famous motto. The painting was attributed to a Spanish painter named Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, and Van Belle thought it may have once belonged to an army commander named Ottavio Piccolomini, brother of the Archbishop of Siena. Galileo served the first six months of his house arrest at the archbishop’s home.

That raised the possibility that Galileo had said those words, just not in front of the Inquisitor. Yet the painting was never examined by any independent art historians. When Livio decided to follow up on Favaro’s work more than a century later, he found that nobody knew the current location of the Murillo painting. He consulted with four art experts specializing in Murillo’s art, and all determined, based on photographs of the canvas, that it was not the Spanish artist’s work.

After about a year hunting down various clues, Livio finally rediscovered Van Belle’s painting. It had been sold to a private collector in 2007 by one of Van Belle’s descendants. The auction house had dated the painting to the 19th century. So it is still far more likely that the famous phrase is just a legend that emerged sometime in the mid-18th century. But no final determination can be made unless the new owner agrees to let the painting be examined by art historians.

Nonetheless, “Even if Galileo never spoke those words, they have some relevance for our current troubled times, when even provable facts are under attack by science deniers,” Livio recently wrote at Scientific American. “Galileo’s legendary intellectual defiance—’in spite of what you believe, these are the facts’—becomes more important than ever.” Ars sat down with Livio to learn more.

Enlarge / Cristiano Banti’s 1857 painting Galileo Facing the Roman Inquisition.

Public domain

Ars: Perhaps Galileo never actually said “And yet it moves.” But one of the most famous genuine quotes attributed to Galileo is this: “The book of Nature is written in the language of mathematics.”

Livio: That was one of his incredible intuitions. Today, this is so natural to us. We still don’t exactly understand it, but it’s very natural that all the laws of physics are written as mathematical expressions or equations. But in his time, those laws were not written in any way. So how did he get this intuition that it is all written in the language of mathematics? To me, this is absolutely incredible that he thought about that. In fact, he formulated the very first laws of physics, with the slight exception of Archimedes maybe.

Ars Technica: Galileo is one of the most famous scientists in history, and there have been so many books published about his life and work. What led you to write your own take?

Mario Livio: One reason is that all the existing biographies of Galileo, at least the serious biographies, were written mostly by science historians or science writers. None was written by an active researcher in astronomy or astrophysics. So I did think that I can perhaps put his discoveries in the context of what we know today. A second reason is that the very best biographies that exist are not that accessible for a general audience. They are scholarly biographies. So my goal was to write a somewhat shorter, more accessible, focused biography, but I did my best to still keep it entirely accurate.

Finally, I always knew this, but it just struck me even more so recently, that at the end of the day, Galileo was fighting science deniers, and we are unfortunately encountering a rampant science denial today. So I thought that this would be an important book to write. A fight that Galileo fought already 400 years ago, and truly, eventually won, it seems we somehow need to fight again.

Ars: Galileo is still a powerful symbol of intellectual freedom (scientific or otherwise). Why has Galileo captured our imaginations for so long?

Livio: There are many reasons for that. Galileo, by writing the Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems, attracted a lot of attention. He was perhaps the best known scientist in Europe because of his discoveries in astronomy. So his book attracted the wrath of the Inquisition and the Pope, and he was put on trial for this and was humiliated and suspected of heresy and put on house arrest for eight and a half years. This is pretty incredible. We are now in lockdown for what, a couple of months, and we’re going crazy.

So he became the symbol for the fight for intellectual freedom. It was not, as sometimes it is portrayed, the fight between science and religion. Galileo was a religious person, like everybody else at that time. All his point was that the Bible is not a science book, and we shouldn’t therefore interpret literally what is said there as if these are scientific facts. “The Bible was written for our salvation,” he said, “Not as a science book.”

“His tongue could be sharp, and his pen even sharper.”

If there is an apparent conflict between a literal interpretation of the text in scripture and what experiments or observations tell us, then it means that we didn’t understand and we need to change the interpretation. As long as the conclusions of science concerning physical reality are accepted, with no intervention of religious beliefs and no denouncing of provable facts, no conflict between the two realms can exist.

It had also to do with his personal characteristics, of which stubbornness was a chief one, as well as a high degree of self-righteousness. Galileo advocated that there were only three things one needs to do to determine truths about the world: experiments, observations, and reasoning based on data from those. He also said that he didn’t believe that the same God who has given us our senses, intelligence, and reasoning wanted us to abandon their use. So his tongue could be sharp, and his pen even sharper.

Enlarge / Astrophysicist Mario Livio says his new book holds lessons for what the life of Galileo can teach us about how to respond to science denial today.

Simon and Schuster

Ars: Conversely, Galileo’s example has been twisted by various cranks and crackpots into the exact opposite of what Galileo stood for. I’m reminded of Carl Sagan’s observation: “They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.”

Livio: This is the Galileo fallacy. It is really a complete twist of logic. There are people who say, “Look, Galileo also was alone among all those people who disagreed with him, and he turned out to be right. So if I have my opinion and it’s against everybody else, then I am right too.” But that really doesn’t apply. Galileo was right because he was right, not because he was alone against everybody else. Most people who are alone against everybody else are wrong. Putting Galileo on trial, finding him guilty, and condemning him to house arrest would have been wrong even had he been wrong about his model of the Solar System. He expressed a different scientific view. So what?

Ars: Science builds on what came before, and we’ve come a long way since Galileo. So let’s talk about the connection between the past and the present in terms of his work.

Livio: Galileo wasn’t always right. For instance, because he was a mechanical person, it was very foreign to him to think of forces that act mysteriously across distance. So he didn’t really think about gravity the way we think about it today, not even in the way that Newton thought about it. Kepler, for example, had written about the moon perhaps having an influence on the tides, which is correct. Galileo ignored that. He suggested this model that had to do with the Earth’s speed and its revolution about the Sun, with those two motions combining to generate the tides. This was an interesting mechanical model, only it’s incorrect and didn’t really work.

He also never accepted Kepler’s elliptical orbits of planets, based on false impressions from the Greeks about things being perfectly symmetrical. So he thought orbits should be circles and not ellipses. But when you talk about symmetry, it’s not the symmetry of the shapes that counts, it’s the symmetry of the law. In other words, the orbit can be elliptical, but the ellipse can have any orientation in space.

Trust in science. That’s my main message. What is good about science is that it self-corrects. The self-correction sometimes takes a very short time and sometimes take a very long time. It could take sometimes decades, or maybe even centuries, but eventually it self-corrects. It is generally not wise to bet against the judgement of science. In a case such as climate change, or a pandemic, when the fate of life on our planet is at stake, it is absolutely insane.

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siliconwebx · 5 years

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State of the Word 2018: WordPress Embraces the Block Editor

photo credit: WP Tavern

WordCamp US kicked off in Nashville over the weekend, following the release of WordPress 5.0. In the first 48 hours, 5.0 had been downloaded more than 2.8 million times. It passed 3 million Saturday night.

“There’s been a lot that’s been going on, so I’d like to allow WordPress the chance to re-introduce itself,” Matt Mullenweg said during the preamble of his State of the Word address. He invoked the four freedoms as the project’s constitution and called the community back to its roots.

“It’s the reason we’re here,” Mullenweg said. “WordPress isn’t a physical thing; it’s not a set of code. It’s kind of an idea. WordPress is backed by the full faith and credit of every person and company that depends on it.”

He reiterated the project’s mission to democratize publishing and recast his vision for advancing the open web.

“Like I said a few years ago, we’re building a web operating system, an operating system for the open, independent web and a platform that others can truly build on,” Mullenweg said.

WordPress’ 32.5% market share and its commercial ecosystem, which Mullenweg estimates at $10 billion/year, give the project the resources to make a powerful impact on the future of the web.

Mullenweg Builds a Compelling Case for the Block Editor

photo credit: WCUS Photography Team

Mullenweg drove home the necessity of Gutenberg by showing a selection of videos where new users struggled to accomplish simple tasks in the old editor. Their experiences were accompanied by painful commentary:

“This feels like writing a blog back in 2005.”

“This was very finnicky; this does not work.”

“How would I add a caption? I have no clue.”

Mullenweg described how he used to effortlessly switch back and forth between the visual and HTML editors prior to WordPress 5.0 but realized that not all users are able to do this.

”This has been our editor experience for over a decade now and many of us have learned to deal with it,” he said.

He followed up with a video demonstrating how much easier these tasks are in the new block editor and identified blocks as the way forward for WordPress.

Some attendees commented after the fact on how the user testing videos, paired up against an expert using Gutenberg, seemed unbalanced and they would have liked to see videos of new users attempting the same tasks in the new editor. The goal of that segment, however, seemed to be more aimed at communicating the need for Gutenberg and the possibilities it opens up once users have had the chance to grow into it.

Mullenweg Urges Attendees to “Learn Blocks Deeply”

Millions of early adopters have already embraced the block editor during phase 1 of the Gutenberg project, which closed out with 1.2 million active installs and 1.2 million posts written. There have already been 277 WordCamp talks on Gutenberg, 555 meetup events focused on the new editor, and more than 1,000 blog posts discussing it.

Blocks are taking over the world of WordPress. Version 5.0 shipped with 70 native blocks and there are already more than 100 third-party blocks in existence and 1,000 configurations related to that.

“Blocks are predictable, tactile, and can be simple like a text block, or as rich as an e-commerce interface,” Mullenweg said. He described them as the new DNA of WordPress, from which users can create anything they can imagine.

Mullenweg showcased two sites built using the block editor, the Indigo Mill and Lumina Solar. These beautiful sites open the imagination to what Gutenberg is capable of bringing to websites.

WordPress.org will be highlighting plugins and themes to push the block ecosystem forward. There are also more than 100 Gutenberg-ready themes available to users on the directory and a new Gutenberg block tag that is currently live for plugins. It will also be available for themes soon.

Mullenweg highlighted tools like the create-guten-block toolkit, Block Lab, and Lazy Blocks that are making it easy for developers to create their own blocks. Block collections and libraries are also emerging. He said one of the priorities for 2019 is to build a WordPress.org directory for discovering blocks and a way to seamlessly install them.

Building on the homework he gave to WordPress developers in 2015, to “Learn JavaScript Deeply,” Mullenweg urged the community to “Learn Blocks Deeply.” Blocks provide a host of opportunities to improve the user experience beyond what Gutenberg’s creators could have imagined in the beginning.

Gutenberg Phase 2: Navigation Menu Block, Widget blocks, Theme Content Areas

Mullenweg announced the next phases for the Gutenberg project. Phase 2 has already begun and focuses on site customization, expanding the block interface to other aspects of content management. This includes creating a navigation menu block. Reimagining menus is will be challenging, and Mullenweg said they may even get renamed during the process.

Phase 2 goals also include porting all widgets over to blocks and registering theme content areas in Gutenberg. An early version of phase 2 will be in the Gutenberg plugin so anyone wanting to be part of testing can reactivate it.

During the Q&A time, one attendee asked a question about how this phase seems to include very little about making layout capabilities more robust. He asked if Mullenweg plans to let those the marketplace handle those layout decision or if core will define a layout language. Mullenweg responded that it may be more prudent to see what others in the ecosystem are doing and cherry pick and adopt the best solutions. He also remarked that it would be exciting if users could switch between different page builders in the future and not lose their content.

Gutenberg Phases 3 and 4: Collaboration and Core Support for Multilingual Sites

Mullenweg announced that Gutenberg phase 3, targeted for 2020, will focus on collaboration, multi-user editing, and workflows. Phase 4 (2020+) is aimed at developing an official way for WordPress to support multilingual sites. When asked what that will look like from a technical standpoint, given the many existing solutions already available, Mullenweg said he didn’t want to prescribe anything yet, as it’s still in the experimental stage.

Other major announcements included a highly anticipated bump in the minimum PHP version required for using WordPress. By April 2019, PHP 5.6 will be the minimum PHP version for WordPress, and by December 2019, the requirement will be updated to PHP 7.

WordPress releases are going to come faster in the future, as Gutenberg development has set a new pace for iteration. Mullenweg said he would like WordPress to get to the point where users are not thinking about what version they are on but instead choose a channel where they can easily run betas or the stable version.

Mullenweg Acknowledges Mistakes Made and Lessons Learned in the 5.0 Release Process

WordPress 5.0 was one of the longest and most controversial release cycles in the project’s history. Those outside the inner circle of decision-making endured a great deal of uncertainty, as dates were announced and then missed, with secondary dates thrown out in favor of pushing 5.0 out with just three days’ notice.

“We were scared to announce a new release date after missing our previous one,” Mullenweg said, acknowledging the controversial release date. He said this seemed to create a lot of fear and uncertainty until they announced a new date. The dates seemed to come out of the blue and were stressful for the community.

Mullenweg highlighted the lessons they learned in the process of releasing 5.0:

Need the various teams across WordPress working together better

Need to keep learning JavaScript, even more deeply

Importance of triage and code freezes

Always announce release dates

Mullenweg noted that WordPress 5.0’s beta releases were tested 100 times more than other releases, which he said contributed to Gutenberg becoming more robust before landing in 5.0. However, these positives seemed to be overshadowed by several critical breakdowns in communication that many feel betrayed the community’s trust.

He noted that people used the plugin review system as a way to vote on Gutenberg and that perhaps the community needs a different medium for expressing those kinds of things. Users did this because they felt it was one of the only feedback mechanisms where they had a voice. Negative reviews piled on in the early days of the plugin’s development but they continued steadily throughout the feature plugin’s journey into core. After 5.0 was released, negative reviews on the Gutenberg plugin have continued to pour in, and its rating has fallen to 2.2/5 stars.

Growing Pains and a Call for Transparency

photo credit: David Bisset for Post Status

Mullenweg said that Gutenberg development happened entirely in the public eye, surfacing many challenges associated with developing open source software in public. The code was public, but the most important decisions were made behind closed doors. This was compounded by the developer community voicing frustrations during core dev chats and on social media.

During the Q&A segment, several audience members called for more transparency in the release process, noting that most of the posts and announcements regarding 5.0 came from Automattic employees. Morten Rand-Hendriksen, who has become somewhat of a community firebrand at WordCamp Q&A’s, received applause for his question regarding the use of the word “we” in connection to posts on the make blogs. He pressed Mullenweg for more insight into where these decisions are made.

Mullenweg said the “we” he meant in regards to 5.0 release dates referred to a private channel where the release leads discussed it. He said with so many people showing up to the dev chats, the discussions became difficult.

“I don’t just go in a cave and come up with these things,” Mullenweg said. “A lot of people were showing up [to dev chats] who had never contributed to WordPress before and were crowding out the discussion of the core team.” He also said the private conversations were “every bit as feisty as the public one,” except there weren’t any drive-by opinions.

To those on the outside, these meetings appeared to be secret, as they were never referenced or summarized on the make blogs. This left the developmer community wondering where these decisions were coming from and whether or not they had a voice.

Gutenberg was developed in public, but too many decisions were made in silos and not clearly communicated. This can be improved for 5.1 and beyond #WCUS

— K. Adam White (@kadamwhite) December 8, 2018

During the Q&A, Mulllenweg said he listened to vigorous discussion and diverse viewpoints from release leads coming from different companies, while gathering as much information as possible from reading reviews, blog posts, and comments from the community. He described this process as part of the art of trying to make sense of all the different things people are saying and balance that.

Supporting a BDFL-led project requires a certain amount of trust that the leadership is listening. Over the past several weeks Mullenweg has made a strong effort to keep the channels of communication open.

The painful user testing videos Mullenweg shared demonstrated how desperately WordPress needed to grow out of its old editor. It isn’t often that core makes changes that affect nearly every corner of the WordPress ecosystem at the same time. This experience came with its fair share of growing pains. Despite communication missteps during the 5.0 release process, Mullenweg has successfully navigated the project through this rocky transition. Although WordCamp US attendees seemed road weary after 5.0, they were united by a shared desire to move forward and continue working together with the leadership that has kept WordPress on the course of growth and improvement for the past 15 years.

😉SiliconWebX | 🌐WPTavern

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jennifersnyderca90 · 6 years

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Who and What Is Coinhive?

Multiple security firms recently identified cryptocurrency mining service Coinhive as the top malicious threat to Web users, thanks to the tendency for Coinhive’s computer code to be used on hacked Web sites to steal the processing power of its visitors’ devices. This post looks at how Coinhive vaulted to the top of the threat list less than a year after its debut, and explores clues about the possible identities of the individuals behind the service.

Coinhive is a cryptocurrency mining service that relies on a small chunk of computer code designed to be installed on Web sites. The code uses some or all of the computing power of any browser that visits the site in question, enlisting the machine in a bid to mine bits of the Monero cryptocurrency.

Monero differs from Bitcoin in that its transactions are virtually untraceble, and there is no way for an outsider to track Monero transactions between two parties. Naturally, this quality makes Monero an especially appealing choice for cybercriminals.

Coinhive released its mining code last summer, pitching it as a way for Web site owners to earn an income without running intrusive or annoying advertisements. But since then, Coinhive’s code has emerged as the top malware threat tracked by multiple security firms. That’s because much of the time the code is installed on hacked Web sites — without the owner’s knowledge or permission.

Much like a malware infection by a malicious bot or Trojan, Coinhive’s code frequently locks up a user’s browser and drains the device’s battery as it continues to mine Monero for as long a visitor is browsing the site.

According to publicwww.com, a service that indexes the source code of Web sites, there are nearly 32,000 Web sites currently running Coinhive’s JavaScript miner code. It’s impossible to say how many of those sites have installed the code intentionally, but in recent months hackers have secretly stitched it into some extremely high-profile Web sites, including sites for such companies as The Los Angeles Times, mobile device maker Blackberry, Politifact, and Showtime.

And it’s turning up in some unexpected places: In December, Coinhive code was found embedded in all Web pages served by a WiFi hotspot at a Starbucks in Buenos Aires. For roughly a week in January, Coinhive was found hidden inside of YouTube advertisements (via Google’s DoubleClick platform) in select countries, including Japan, France, Taiwan, Italy and Spain. In February, Coinhive was found on “Browsealoud,” a service provided by Texthelp that reads web pages out loud for the visually impaired. The service is widely used on many UK government websites, in addition to a few US and Canadian government sites.

What does Coinhive get out of all this? Coinhive keeps 30 percent of whatever amount of Monero cryptocurrency that is mined using its code, whether or not a Web site has given consent to run it. The code is tied to a special cryptographic key that identifies which user account is to receive the other 70 percent.

Coinhive does accept abuse complaints, but it generally refuses to respond to any complaints that do not come from a hacked Web site’s owner (it mostly ignores abuse complaints lodged by third parties). What’s more, when Coinhive does respond to abuse complaints, it does so by invalidating the key tied to the abuse.

But according to Troy Mursch, a security expert who spends much of his time tracking Coinhive and other instances of “cryptojacking,” killing the key doesn’t do anything to stop Coinhive’s code from continuing to mine Monero on a hacked site. Once a key is invalidated, Mursch said, Coinhive keeps 100 percent of the cryptocurrency mined by sites tied to that account from then on.

Mursch said Coinhive appears to have zero incentive to police the widespread abuse that is leveraging its platform.

“When they ‘terminate’ a key, it just terminates the user on that platform, it doesn’t stop the malicious JavaScript from running, and it just means that particular Coinhive user doesn’t get paid anymore,” Mursch said. “The code keeps running, and Coinhive gets all of it. Maybe they can’t do anything about it, or maybe they don’t want to. But as long as the code is still on the hacked site, it’s still making them money.”

Reached for comment about this apparent conflict of interest, Coinhive replied with a highly technical response, claiming the organization is working on a fix to correct that conflict.

“We have developed Coinhive under the assumption that site keys are immutable,” Coinhive wrote in an email to KrebsOnSecurity. “This is evident by the fact that a site key can not be deleted by a user. This assumption greatly simplified our initial development. We can cache site keys on our WebSocket servers instead of reloading them from the database for every new client. We’re working on a mechanism [to] propagate the invalidation of a key to our WebSocket servers.”

AUTHEDMINE

Coinhive has responded to such criticism by releasing a version of their code called “AuthedMine,” which is designed to seek a Web site visitor’s consent before running the Monero mining scripts. Coinhive maintains that approximately 35 percent of the Monero cryptocurrency mining activity that uses its platform comes from sites using AuthedMine.

But according to a report published in February by security firm Malwarebytes, the AuthedMine code is “barely used” compared to the use of Coinhive’s mining code that does not seek permission from Web site visitors. Malwarebytes’ telemetry data (drawn from antivirus alerts when users browse to a site running Coinhive’s code) determined that AuthedMine is used in a little more than one percent of all cases that involve Coinhive’s mining code.

Image: Malwarebytes. The statistic above refer to the number of times per day between Jan. 10 and Feb. 7 that Malwarebytes blocked connections to AuthedMine and Coinhive, respectively.

Asked to comment on the Malwarebytes findings, Coinhive replied that if relatively few people are using AuthedMine it might be because anti-malware companies like Malwarebytes have made it unprofitable for people to do so.

“They identify our opt-in version as a threat and block it,” Coinhive said. “Why would anyone use AuthedMine if it’s blocked just as our original implementation? We don’t think there’s any way that we could have launched Coinhive and not get it blacklisted by Antiviruses. If antiviruses say ‘mining is bad,’ then mining is bad.”

Similarly, data from the aforementioned source code tracking site publicwww.com shows that some 32,000 sites are running the original Coinhive mining script, while the site lists just under 1,200 sites running AuthedMine.

WHO IS COINHIVE?

[Author’s’ note: Ordinarily, I prefer to link to sources of information cited in stories, such as those on Coinhive’s own site and other entities mentioned throughout the rest of this piece. However, because many of these links either go to sites that actively mine with Coinhive or that include decidedly not-safe-for-work content, I have included screenshots instead of links in these cases].

According to a since-deleted statement on the original version of Coinhive’s Web site — coin-hive[dot]com — Coinhive was born out of an experiment on the German-language image hosting and discussion forum pr0gramm[dot]com.

A now-deleted “About us” statement on the original coin-hive[dot]com Web site. This snapshop was taken on Sept. 15, 2017. Image courtesy archive.org.

Indeed, multiple discussion threads on pr0gramm[dot]com show that Coinhive’s code first surfaced there in the third week of July 2017. At the time, the experiment was dubbed “pr0miner,” and those threads indicate that the core programmer responsible for pr0miner used the nickname “int13h” on pr0gramm. In a message to this author, Coinhive confirmed that “most of the work back then was done by int13h, who is still on our team.”

I asked Coinhive for clarity on the disappearance of the above statement from its site concerning its affiliation with pr0gramm. Coinhive replied that it had been a convenient fiction:

“The owners of pr0gramm are good friends and we’ve helped them with their infrastructure and various projects in the past. They let us use pr0gramm as a testbed for the miner and also allowed us to use their name to get some more credibility. Launching a new platform is difficult if you don’t have a track record. As we later gained some publicity, this statement was no longer needed.”

Asked for clarification about the “platform” referred to in its statement (“We are self-funded and have been running this platform for the past 11 years”) Coinhive replied, “Sorry for not making it clearer: ‘this platform’ is indeed pr0gramm.”

After receiving this response, it occurred to me that someone might be able to find out who’s running Coinhive by determining the identities of the pr0gramm forum administrators. I reasoned that if they were not one and the same, the pr0gramm admins almost certainly would know the identities of the folks behind Coinhive.

WHO IS PR0GRAMM?

So I set about trying to figure out who’s running pr0gramm. It wasn’t easy, but in the end all of the information needed to determine that was freely available online.

Let me be crystal clear on this point: All of the data I gathered (and presented in the detailed ‘mind map’ below) was derived from either public Web site WHOIS domain name registration records or from information posted to various social media networks by the pr0gramm administrators themselves. In other words, there is nothing in this research that was not put online by the pr0gramm administrators themselves.

I began with the pr0gramm domain itself which, like many other domains tied to this research, was originally registered to an individual named Dr. Matthias Moench. Mr. Moench is only tangentially connected to this research, so I will dispense with a discussion of him for now except to say that he is a convicted spammer and murderer, and that the last subsection of this story explains who Moench is and why he may be connected to so many of these domains. His is a fascinating and terrifying story.

Through many weeks of research, I learned that pr0gramm was originally tied to a network of adult Web sites linked to two companies that were both incorporated more than a decade ago in Las Vegas, Nevada: Eroxell Limited, and Dustweb Inc. Both of these companies stated they were involved in online advertising of some form or another.

Both Eroxell and Dustweb, as well as several related pr0gramm Web sites (e.g., pr0mining[dot]com, pr0mart[dot]de, pr0shop[dot]com) are connected to a German man named Reinhard Fuerstberger, whose domain registration records include the email address “admin@pr0gramm[dot]com”. Eroxell/Dustweb also each are connected to a company incorporated in Spain called Suntainment SL, of which Fuerstberger is the apparent owner.

As stated on pr0gramm’s own site, the forum began in 2007 as a German language message board that originated from an automated bot that would index and display images posted to certain online chat channels associated with the wildly popular video first-person shooter game Quake.

As the forum’s user base grew, so did the diversity of the site’s cache of images, and pr0gramm began offering paid so-called “pr0mium” accounts that allowed users to view all of the forum’s not-safe-for-work images and to comment on the discussion board. When pr0gramm last July first launched pr0miner (the precursor to what is now Coinhive), it invited pr0gramm members to try the code on their own sites, offering any who did so to claim their reward in the form of pr0mium points.

DEIMOS AND PHOBOS

Pr0gramm was launched in late 2007 by a Quake enthusiast from Germany named Dominic Szablewski, a computer expert better known to most on pr0gramm by his screen name “cha0s.”

At the time of pr0gramm’s inception, Szbalewski ran a Quake discussion board called chaosquake[dot]de, and a personal blog — phoboslab[dot]org. I was able to determine this by tracing a variety of connections, but most importantly because phoboslab and pr0gramm both once shared the same Google Analytics tracking code (UA-571256).

Reached via email, Szablewski said he did not wish to comment for this story beyond stating that he sold pr0gramm a few years ago to another, unnamed individual.

Multiple longtime pr0gramm members have remarked that since cha0s departed as administrator, the forum has become overrun by individuals with populist far-right political leanings. Mr. Fuerstberger describes himself on various social media sites as a “politically incorrect, Bavarian separatist” [Wiki link added]. What’s more, there are countless posts on pr0gramm that are particularly hateful and denigrating to specific ethnic or religious groups.

Responding to questions via email, Fuerstberger said he had no idea pr0gramm was used to launch Coinhive.

“I can assure you that I heard about Coinhive for the first time in my life earlier this week,” he said. “I can assure you that the company Suntainment has nothing to do with it. I do not even have anything to do with Pr0gram. That’s what my partner does. When I found out now what was abusing my company, I was shocked.”

Below is a “mind map” I assembled to keep track of the connections between and among the various names, emails and Web sites mentioned in this research.

A “mind map” I put together to keep track of and organize my research on pr0gramm and Coinhive. This map was created with Mindnode Pro for Mac. Click to enlarge.

GAMB

I was able to learn the identity of Fuerstberger’s partner — the current pr0gramm administrator, who goes by the nickname “Gamb” — by following the WHOIS data from sites registered to the U.S.-based company tied to pr0gramm (Eroxell Ltd).

Among the many domains registered to Eroxell was deimoslab[dot]com, which at one point was a site that sold electronics. As can be seen below in a copy of the site from 2010 (thanks to archive.org), the proprietor of deimoslab used the same Gamb nickname.

Deimos and Phobos are the names of the two moons of the planet Mars. They also refer to the names of the fourth and fifth level in the computer game “Doom.” In addition, they are the names of two spaceships that feature prominently in the game Quake II.

A screenshot of Deimoslab.com from 2010 (courtesy of archive.org) shows the user “Gamb” was responsible for the site.

A passive DNS lookup on an Internet address long used by pr0gramm[dot]com shows that deimoslab[dot]com once shared the server with several other domains, including phpeditor[dot]de. According to a historic WHOIS lookup on phpeditor[dot]de, the domain was originally registered by an Andre Krumb from Gross-Gerau, Germany.

When I discovered this connection, I still couldn’t see anything tying Krumb to “Gamb,” the nickname of the current administrator of pr0gramm. That is, until I began searching the Web for online forum accounts leveraging usernames that included the nickname “Gamb.”

One such site is ameisenforum[dot]de, a discussion forum for people interested in creating and raising ant farms. I didn’t know what to make of this initially and so at first disregarded it. That is, until I discovered that the email address used to register phpeditor[dot]de also was used to register a rather unusual domain: antsonline[dot]de.

In a series of email exchanges with KrebsOnSecurity, Krumb acknowledged that he was the administrator of pr0gramm (as well as chief technology officer at the aforementioned Suntainment SL), but insisted that neither he nor pr0gramm was involved in Coinhive.

Krumb repeatedly told me something I still have trouble believing: That Coinhive was the work of just one individual — int13h, the pr0gramm user credited by Coinhive with creating its mining code.

“Coinhive is not affiliated with Suntainment or Suntainment’s permanent employees in any way,” Krumb said in an email, declining to share any information about int13h. “Also it’s not a group of people you are looking for, it’s just one guy who sometimes worked for Suntainment as a freelancer.”

COINHIVE CHANGES ITS STORY, WEB SITE

Very soon after I began receiving email replies from Mr. Fuerstberger and Mr. Krumb, I started getting emails from Coinhive again.

“Some people involved with pr0gramm have contacted us, saying they’re being extorted by you,” Coinhive wrote. “They want to run pr0gramm anonymously because admins and moderators had a history of being harassed by some trolls. I’m sure you can relate to that. You have them on edge, which of course is exactly where you want them. While we must applaud your efficiency for finding information, your tactics for doing so are questionable in our opinion.”

Coinhive was rather dramatically referring to my communications with Krumb, in which I stated that I was seeking more information about int13h and anyone else affiliated with Coinhive.

“We want to make it very clear again that Coinhive in its current form has nothing to do with pr0gramm or its owners,” Coinhive said. “We tested a ‘toy implementation’ of the miner on pr0gramm, because they had a community open for these kind of things. That’s it.”

When asked about their earlier statement to this author — that the people behind Coinhive claimed pr0gramm as “their platform of 11 years” (which, incidentally, is exactly how long pr0gramm has been online) — Coinhive reiterated its revised statement: That this had been a convenient fabrication, and that the two were completely separate organizations.

On March 22, the Coinhive folks sent me a follow-up email, saying that in response to my inquiries they consulted their legal team and decided to add some contact information to their Web site.

“Legal information” that Coinhive added to its Web site on March 22 in response to inquiries from this reporter.

That addition, which can be viewed at coinhive[dot]com/legal, lists a company in Kaiserlautern, Germany called Badges2Go UG. Business records show Badges2Go is a limited liability company established in April 2017 and headed by a Sylvia Klein from Frankfurt. Klein’s Linkedin profile states that she is the CEO of several organizations in Germany, including one called Blockchain Future.

“I founded Badges2Go as an incubator for promising web and mobile applications,” Klein said in a instant message chat with KrebsOnSecurity. “Coinhive is one of them. Right now we check the potential and fix the next steps to professionalize the service.”

THE BIZARRE SIDE STORY OF DR. MATTHIAS MOENCH

I have one final and disturbing anecdote to share about some of the Web site registration data in the mind map above. As mentioned earlier, readers can see that many of the domain names tied to the pr0gramm forum administrators were originally registered to an individual named “Dr. Matthias Moench.”

When I first began this research back in January 2018, I guessed that Mr. Moench was almost certainly a pseudonym used to throw off researchers. But the truth is Dr. Moench is indeed a real person — and a very scary individual at that.

According to a chilling 2014 article in the German daily newspaper Die Welt, Moench was the son of a wealthy entrepreneurial family in Germany who was convicted at age 19 of hiring a Turkish man to murder his parents a year earlier in 1988. Die Welt says the man Moench hired used a machete to hack to death Moench’s parents and the family poodle. Moench reportedly later explained his actions by saying he was upset that his parents bought him a used car for his 18th birthday instead of the Ferrari that he’d always wanted.

Matthias Moench in 1989. Image: Welt.de.

Moench was ultimately convicted and sentenced to nine years in a juvenile detention facility, but he would only serve five years of that sentence. Upon his release, Moench claimed he had found religion and wished to become a priest.

Somewhere along the way, however, Moench ditched the priest idea and decided to become a spammer instead. For years, he worked assiduously to pump out spam emails pimping erectile dysfunction medications, reportedly earning at least 21.5 million Euros from his various spamming activities.

Once again, Mr. Moench was arrested and put on trial. In 2015, he and several other co-defendants were convicted of fraud and drug-related offenses. Moench was sentenced to six years in prison. According to Lars-Marten Nagel, the author of the original Die Welt story on Moench’s murderous childhood, German prosecutors say Moench is expected to be released from prison later this year.

It may be tempting to connect the pr0gramm administrators with Mr. Moench, but it seems likely that there is little to no connection here. An incredibly detailed blog post from 2006 which sought to determine the identity of the Matthias Moench named as the original registrant of so many domains (they number in the tens of thousands) found that Moench himself stated on several Internet forums that his name and mailing addresses in Germany and the Czech Republic could be freely used or abused by any like-minded spammer or scammer who wished to hide his identity. Apparently, many people took him up on that offer.

from https://krebsonsecurity.com/2018/03/who-and-what-is-coinhive/

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nedsvallesny · 6 years

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Who and What Is Coinhive?

Mursch said Coinhive appears to have zero incentive to police the widespread abuse that is leveraging its platform.

Reached for comment about this apparent conflict of interest, Coinhive replied with a highly technical response, claiming the organization is working on a fix to correct that conflict.

AUTHEDMINE

Image: Malwarebytes. The statistic above refer to the number of times per day between Jan. 10 and Feb. 7 that Malwarebytes blocked connections to AuthedMine and Coinhive, respectively.

WHO IS COINHIVE?

A now-deleted “About us” statement on the original coin-hive[dot]com Web site. This snapshop was taken on Sept. 15, 2017. Image courtesy archive.org.

I asked Coinhive for clarity on the disappearance of the above statement from its site concerning its affiliation with pr0gramm. Coinhive replied that it had been a convenient fiction:

WHO IS PR0GRAMM?

So I set about trying to figure out who’s running pr0gramm. It wasn’t easy, but in the end all of the information needed to determine that was freely available online.

DEIMOS AND PHOBOS

Pr0gramm was launched in late 2007 by a Quake enthusiast from Germany named Dominic Szablewski, a computer expert better known to most on pr0gramm by his screen name “cha0s.”

Reached via email, Szablewski said he did not wish to comment for this story beyond stating that he sold pr0gramm a few years ago to another, unnamed individual.

Responding to questions via email, Fuerstberger said he had no idea pr0gramm was used to launch Coinhive.

Below is a “mind map” I assembled to keep track of the connections between and among the various names, emails and Web sites mentioned in this research.

A “mind map” I put together to keep track of and organize my research on pr0gramm and Coinhive. This map was created with Mindnode Pro for Mac. Click to enlarge.

GAMB

A screenshot of Deimoslab.com from 2010 (courtesy of archive.org) shows the user “Gamb” was responsible for the site.

Krumb repeatedly told me something I still have trouble believing: That Coinhive was the work of just one individual — int13h, the pr0gramm user credited by Coinhive with creating its mining code.

COINHIVE CHANGES ITS STORY, WEB SITE

Very soon after I began receiving email replies from Mr. Fuerstberger and Mr. Krumb, I started getting emails from Coinhive again.

Coinhive was rather dramatically referring to my communications with Krumb, in which I stated that I was seeking more information about int13h and anyone else affiliated with Coinhive.

On March 22, the Coinhive folks sent me a follow-up email, saying that in response to my inquiries they consulted their legal team and decided to add some contact information to their Web site.

“Legal information” that Coinhive added to its Web site on March 22 in response to inquiries from this reporter.

THE BIZARRE SIDE STORY OF DR. MATTHIAS MOENCH

Matthias Moench in 1989. Image: Welt.de.

from Technology News https://krebsonsecurity.com/2018/03/who-and-what-is-coinhive/

0 notes

tradingprotools-blog · 6 years

Photo

[GET] Paul Mascetta - Paramount NLP - Volume 1 to 4

http://www.tradingprotoolsnews.com/2018/03/25/get-paul-mascetta-paramount-nlp-volume-1-to-4/

From desk of Paul Mascetta, NY Sunday, March 25, 2018 Dear friend, Do you ever wonder how some people seem to learn and master new concepts in no time flat and just seem to excel at everything they do while you seem to struggle? Do you ever wish that you could truly understand why other people think and act in a certain way so you could gain more cooperation from them? Do you ever wonder if you could obtain very specific outcomes in various aspects of your life like your relationships, finances and career? If so, then I suggest you take the next few minutes to read the information on this page as it contains the answers to these questions. Moral Disclaimer: Before we go any further, I need you to understand that what I’m about to reveal here WILL enable you to become a person with powers far more advanced than the average human being. And as the person introducing it to you, I have to morally (and legally) tell you that this information should only be used with good intentions. It should never be used to manipulate, coerce or unwillingly force people to do things that are not mutually beneficial to all parties. The Key To Really Getting What You Want Perhaps you’ve heard of Neuro Linguistic Programming or NLP before but in case you haven’t: NLP is a powerful is a powerful body of knowledge which contains an arsenal of tools that enable you to really understand how the human mind works and how to communicate with it in the most effective way possible in order to achieve a specific result. In other words it serves as the blueprint to really understand what’s going in your mind as well as the minds of others. To keep it simple, think of it like this. Your entire life as you know it is the result of your thoughts, feelings and actions. And at the center of all of this is your mind. Your mind is controlling everything from how much money you make to your psychical shape to whether or not you’re in a happy relationship. In a perfect world, you would would always have the right track of thought, would always feel good and would always make the best possible decisions. Now we both know that world isn’t perfect and things don’t always work out the way that we hoped. Now more then ever there are more people out of shape, unemployed, poor, divorced and unhappy. And if you really look at the cause, it’s mind-related. Simply put, if there is something that you want out of life and you don’t have it yet it’s because somewhere along the line there is a disconnect taking place in your mind. In other words, there’s a part of your mind that wants to lose weight but for whatever reason that part of your mind isn’t communicating effectively enough with the part of your mind that enables you to take the action needed to achieve that goal. Well that’s where NLP comes in. NLP gives you the knowledge to learn how your mind (and the minds of others) works and responds to the stimuli needed to help a person achieve a specific goal or outcome. And what I’ve always found fascinating about it is that not only does it help me improve my life, it helps me improve the lives of others and gives me a birds eye view at what’s going on in their minds which is a key part of the persuasion process. Now with that being said, just so you understand: It doesn’t matter if you have no clue where to begin or get overwhelmed with information very easily It doesn’t matter if you’ve tried to read and/or understand Neuro Linguistic Programming or NLP It doesn’t matter if you’ve tried this before only to fail in “real life” settings no matter how hard you try It doesn’t even matter if you’ve never even one social interaction in your entire life In fact, the more challenges you’ve had trying to master the art of using the power of NLP to gain the cooperation of others & do what you want them to, the more EXCITED I am to share my unique twist on this information with you. Here’s What You May Not Know Very few people who study influence & persuasion have actually mastered NLP in a way that actually serves them positively. In fact, I’ll even go as far as to say that a good amount of those who get certified to teach NLP don’t even learn 10% of the material they’re supposed to be experts in. The reasons have to do with these three (often paralyzing) hurdles: Information Overload - Too much information is being presented at once which overwhelms the person studying it causing them to withdraw and move onto something else. Information Confusion – The information is not presented in an easy to understand, clear manner which makes it very confusing which again causes the person to withdraw and say “this is too hard to learn”. Information Misuse - The information is not being taught 100 correctly which causes people to use it wrongs which equals poor results and causes the person to think “this doesn’t really work”. The sad (but very realistic) result is that they never acquire the skills needed to truly learn NLP nevertheless master it and capitalize from it. Then of course, there are the people that never learn this stuff because they completely underestimate the value of it. Sales page : http://paramountnlp.com/secret-offer-2

#Copywriting & Persuasion Section #Copywriting &amp; Persuasion Section

0 notes

samiam03x · 7 years

Text

Covert Conversion Hacking: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at How to Spy on Your Website Visitors

You’ve seen the stats before.

1-2% conversion rates for websites. Which means 98-99% ain’t buying. For one reason or another.

A bigger chunk of that is bouncing; leaving your site almost immediately after getting there.

You work so hard (and spend so much) on getting them there in the first place, and then they just… leave. It’s disheartening. Depressing.

The worst part is that you have no reason why. No specific clue or indication for what caused them to leave so abruptly.

It’s like someone walks into your retail store, takes one look at your goofy haircut today, and bolts for the door. You take it personal. The question eats away at you hours later.

WHAT is driving people away? Here’s how to find out.

The Problem with Surveys (Or, Why No One Answers Your Stupid ‘Likert’ Questions)

You could ask them, right? Hey, you could ask them!

Throw up a pop-up overlay, screen takeover, or slide something up in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. Whatever it takes to grab their attention.

‘Cept for one problem: math.

You want a “statistically accurate” result, so you need a large enough sample size. For starters, let’s say you’re gonna shoot for around 100 respondents. (That’s on the low size, but it makes for simple math in a second. And I ain’t that smart, so gotta KISS.)

Image Source

Great. How many people do we have to ask in order to get those 100?

SurveyGizmo, whose advice seems decent given “survey” is in the name, says you can expect to see an average 10-15% response rate for ‘external’ surveys.

Image Source

But…

That number can fall as low as 2% if your population is “less-targeted, when contact information is unreliable, or where there is less incentive or little motivation to respond.” In other words, exactly who we’re trying to reach with those flashy little tactics for untargeted website visitors.

So. IF we’re being incredibly optimistic, you need a population of 1,000 (at 10% response rates). But in reality, because it’s hard to incentivize and segment random site visitors, that number might be as high as 5,000. That number could go up still further, depending on how many terrible ‘likert’ and other terrible question formats are used.

Now. How many visits does your boring Services page get? How many for that new product?

It’s an uphill battle. Of Mt. Everest proportions. Just to get someone to give you any indication of what is preventing them from opting in or buying on this page.

Not to mention, the reliability of any information you do receive might be flawed based on lack of context and other common errors in surveys. We haven’t even touched on inherent survey bias. Which, there always is. (And which freaking Deming wrote about in ‘44!)

So. We can sit here and dream up ways to maybe, possibly, hopefully, get someone to answer a few basic questions and give you the ‘magic bullet’ for why they’re not convertin’.

Or. We can roll up our sleeves and find out for ourselves.

‘Specially, as it turns out, we ain’t got many other options. Here goes nothin’.

Three Easy Ways to Spy on Website Visitors

BounceX calls it “conversion friction”.

Which applies to all the things on your site that are preventing people from taking this microsteps, from looking at a particular page to adding a product to their cart or filling out a form.

The trick to spotting these friction points are to look for the clues left behind.

Some stats say 93% of our communication is nonverbal. Which means our behavior, or expressions, gestures, etc., give off more than we think.

Online, customer behavior can tell us what’s working or not working. Their actions give it away. If we only know how to listen.

Here’s three questions to ask in order to find out.

Question #1. Are people interested in this information?

Way before a purchase happens. Prior to a quote form getting filled out.

People land on a page and decide what to do next. To click, or not. The red pill, or the blue.

Design is the first thing they notice, 94% of the time, which helps them for a first impression with a few fractions of a second.

Much of that, is colored by their expectations. Their thoughts and motivations before ever arriving here. And the match (or lackthereof) of your page to those expectations can dictate whether they stick around (or not).

A person’s “state of awareness” can be deciphered based on how they got to your site. Namely, which channel or avenue they used.

For example, Google’s Customer Journey to Online Purchase tool will tell you how people use different channels, differently, along their own ‘customer journey’.

And this can help you answer age-old questions, like “long copy vs short”?

If it’s cold traffic from Generic Paid Search, long. If it’s warm traffic from a Brand Paid Search, short.

The thing to watch for, is page consumption.

Are people consuming the information on this page, or not? Are people reading and interacting with it, or not? Are they learning and discovering and finding what they need in order to make the next decision (that gets you closer to the money)? Or not?

Good old-fashioned heatmaps and scrollmaps can help you here, visually showing you whether you got it right (or not).

For example, feast your eyes on this:

This, is a long page. That rainbow-like color palette tells us it’s working though. People are actively reading and engaging along the way. Which ain’t too shabby, considering this is largely cold traffic from ads.

Case in point: let’s zoom into the ‘What You Get’ section two-thirds of the way down. Here, we’re trying to show, not explain, responsive design (without using complex, industry-jargon). So you want people clicking on the different options on the left, and then flipping between the corresponding device options on the right.

To summarize:

People had their own expectations before coming to this page. (In this example, based on the ad they clicked on prior to coming here.)

They’re expecting to see those expectations laid out properly.

You design a page and present information to hopefully align those first two things.

Heatmaps and scrollmaps can help you quickly, visually see if you got it right, or wrong.

Page consumption is a good indication that people are going to click the next link, button, or CTA that gets them one step closer to conversion.

Question #2. Where are people focused?

Trick question: What’s the primary action you want visitors to take on a Get Quotes page?

To Get Quotes!

Which means filling out a short form, and hitting a button or link of some sort that will send you their information, so that you’re able to, you know, send them quotes.

That’s it. That’s the whole goal of that page. Click distribution on a particular page can tell you if that’s happening.

So sticking with the same example, you should see the majority of page clicks on a ‘Get Quotes’ CTA for a Get Quotes page. Simple, right?

Let’s back up a second though.

What page, or CTAs across your site, are sending people to this Get Quotes page in the first place? Many times your final destination or purchase page is working fine. It just doesn’t have enough eyeballs or visitors on it yet. The ‘paths’ or funnels throughout your site aren’t clear.

For example, which of these two CTAs are you supposed to click first?

There’s no way to tell. They aren’t doing their job. Because they look and sound exactly the same.

You know what happens when a visitor isn’t led or directed properly?

This:

Chaos. Click distribution is all over the map. With the majority unfortunately congregating in the upper right-hand corner of the page on the primary menu, which is like the virtual equivalent to hitting your browser’s Back button ‘cause you didn’t find what you wanted.

Conversion-focused design centers everything around those one or two actions people need to take on a page. And in this example, just by simply changing a CTA’s shape or color, you could see a 64% conversion increase according to one MarketingExperiments study.

Image Source

To summarize:

Click distribution, or the percentage of people clicking different variables on your site, can help you quickly spot problems.

The elements with the highest clicks should be your primary page objectives.

Look at the page(s) that precede your ‘converting’-one to make sure they’re doing their job; priming people properly and sending a majority of its traffic.

Change that page’s CTA’s to increase the number of people interacting with them.

Question #3. Are there conversion bottlenecks?

Every website contains a funnel. A path people progress through, exactly like a checkout process, to get from A -> B.

No matter if it’s B2C or B2B, people will go through various pages and steps to eventually transform from Stranger -> Lead -> Marketing Qualified Lead -> Sales Qualified Lead -> Customer or Client.

Often, the easiest way to increase conversions is to streamline or remove steps from this process. That way, you can get people to what they’re looking for faster, and easier.

We’ve already looked at a few ways to do that. You can spot which pages are ‘bottlenecks’ to the conversion process, by spotting that huge drop off of people from one step to the next and then cross-referencing what that page’s activity looks like to see what’s going on.

Keep thinking of it like one giant eCommerce Checkout process (even when it isn’t), where you’re sleuthing for clues behind the theoretical cart abandonment.

There’s only one problem to watch out for, however.

Statistics lie.

Up-and-to-the-right graphs aren’t always what they appear to be. GrowthHackers-newsfeed-busting-case studies featuring button A/B tests that delivered 10X traffic can turn out to be a red herring when little-to-no sales come in the door.

(Read our new A/B testing guide to discover the step-by-step process for getting results from your A/B tests.)

You don’t see everything you should be. Or you’re seeing bumps in one area, but not where it counts.

Skyrocketing free trials, when 70% of them turn out useless, are a pretty useless metric too.

The trick is to optimize the entire ‘user flow’ so that you’re optimizing revenue and not just conversion rates. That involves identifying and eliminating bottlenecks, or introducing new features at each step of the way to increase revenue gained.

Videos are one of my favorite examples because they’re one of the few things that almost always increases results.

You can see this in action by creating a Funnel Report. For example, you can see how those middle-of-the-funnel steps eventually influence the right conversions you’re after all along.

Now, when you decide to run A/B tests, you can look at how those leading indicator changes not only affect initial signups, but more importantly the number of actual paying customers too.

To Summarize:

Think of your website like an eCommerce Checkout funnel.

Look for clues along each transition from one step to another to spot bottlenecks that are strangling your conversions.

Remove or streamline the process from one step to the next to increase total conversions.

Just be careful of ‘lying’ stats, that tell you one change is working to drive more sign ups (even though total conversions hasn’t changed).

Look at how changes in the top or middle of your funnel affect the entire thing, including your ‘macro’-revenue generating objective at the very bottom.

Conclusion

Getting quality, qualitative feedback from website visitors is tough.

The numbers behind successful response rates are dim. Not to mention, all of the problems and errors and bias that most surveys contain.

Instead, let customer actions and behavior be your guide, showing you the spots on your website that are working and the ones that are strangling conversions.

Simple heat and scroll mapping tools will tell you if people are consuming the information on a page. Looking at total click distribution gives you an idea of if people are focusing on what they’re supposed to on each page. And full-funnel A/B tests will help you see how changes on inputs at one end affect results on the other.

Clues are left behind. You just need to know where to look.

About the Author: Brad Smith is a marketing writer, agency partner, and creator of Copy Weekly, a free weekly copywriting newsletter for marketers & founders.

http://ift.tt/2lcGaVo from MarketingRSS http://ift.tt/2lc2rlZ via Youtube

#MarketingRSS

0 notes

marie85marketing · 7 years

Text

Covert Conversion Hacking: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at How to Spy on Your Website Visitors

You’ve seen the stats before.

1-2% conversion rates for websites. Which means 98-99% ain’t buying. For one reason or another.

A bigger chunk of that is bouncing; leaving your site almost immediately after getting there.

You work so hard (and spend so much) on getting them there in the first place, and then they just… leave. It’s disheartening. Depressing.

The worst part is that you have no reason why. No specific clue or indication for what caused them to leave so abruptly.

It’s like someone walks into your retail store, takes one look at your goofy haircut today, and bolts for the door. You take it personal. The question eats away at you hours later.

WHAT is driving people away? Here’s how to find out.

The Problem with Surveys (Or, Why No One Answers Your Stupid ‘Likert’ Questions)

You could ask them, right? Hey, you could ask them!

Throw up a pop-up overlay, screen takeover, or slide something up in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. Whatever it takes to grab their attention.

‘Cept for one problem: math.

Image Source

Great. How many people do we have to ask in order to get those 100?

SurveyGizmo, whose advice seems decent given “survey” is in the name, says you can expect to see an average 10-15% response rate for ‘external’ surveys.

Image Source

But…

Now. How many visits does your boring Services page get? How many for that new product?

It’s an uphill battle. Of Mt. Everest proportions. Just to get someone to give you any indication of what is preventing them from opting in or buying on this page.

So. We can sit here and dream up ways to maybe, possibly, hopefully, get someone to answer a few basic questions and give you the ‘magic bullet’ for why they’re not convertin’.

Or. We can roll up our sleeves and find out for ourselves.

‘Specially, as it turns out, we ain’t got many other options. Here goes nothin’.

Three Easy Ways to Spy on Website Visitors

BounceX calls it “conversion friction”.

Which applies to all the things on your site that are preventing people from taking this microsteps, from looking at a particular page to adding a product to their cart or filling out a form.

The trick to spotting these friction points are to look for the clues left behind.

Some stats say 93% of our communication is nonverbal. Which means our behavior, or expressions, gestures, etc., give off more than we think.

Online, customer behavior can tell us what’s working or not working. Their actions give it away. If we only know how to listen.

Here’s three questions to ask in order to find out.

Question #1. Are people interested in this information?

Way before a purchase happens. Prior to a quote form getting filled out.

People land on a page and decide what to do next. To click, or not. The red pill, or the blue.

Design is the first thing they notice, 94% of the time, which helps them for a first impression with a few fractions of a second.

A person’s “state of awareness” can be deciphered based on how they got to your site. Namely, which channel or avenue they used.

For example, Google’s Customer Journey to Online Purchase tool will tell you how people use different channels, differently, along their own ‘customer journey’.

And this can help you answer age-old questions, like “long copy vs short”?

If it’s cold traffic from Generic Paid Search, long. If it’s warm traffic from a Brand Paid Search, short.

The thing to watch for, is page consumption.

Good old-fashioned heatmaps and scrollmaps can help you here, visually showing you whether you got it right (or not).

For example, feast your eyes on this:

To summarize:

People had their own expectations before coming to this page. (In this example, based on the ad they clicked on prior to coming here.)

They’re expecting to see those expectations laid out properly.

You design a page and present information to hopefully align those first two things.

Heatmaps and scrollmaps can help you quickly, visually see if you got it right, or wrong.

Page consumption is a good indication that people are going to click the next link, button, or CTA that gets them one step closer to conversion.

Question #2. Where are people focused?

Trick question: What’s the primary action you want visitors to take on a Get Quotes page?

To Get Quotes!

Which means filling out a short form, and hitting a button or link of some sort that will send you their information, so that you’re able to, you know, send them quotes.

That’s it. That’s the whole goal of that page. Click distribution on a particular page can tell you if that’s happening.

So sticking with the same example, you should see the majority of page clicks on a ‘Get Quotes’ CTA for a Get Quotes page. Simple, right?

Let’s back up a second though.

For example, which of these two CTAs are you supposed to click first?

There’s no way to tell. They aren’t doing their job. Because they look and sound exactly the same.

You know what happens when a visitor isn’t led or directed properly?

This:

Image Source

To summarize:

Click distribution, or the percentage of people clicking different variables on your site, can help you quickly spot problems.

The elements with the highest clicks should be your primary page objectives.

Look at the page(s) that precede your ‘converting’-one to make sure they’re doing their job; priming people properly and sending a majority of its traffic.

Change that page’s CTA’s to increase the number of people interacting with them.

Question #3. Are there conversion bottlenecks?

Every website contains a funnel. A path people progress through, exactly like a checkout process, to get from A -> B.

No matter if it’s B2C or B2B, people will go through various pages and steps to eventually transform from Stranger -> Lead -> Marketing Qualified Lead -> Sales Qualified Lead -> Customer or Client.

Often, the easiest way to increase conversions is to streamline or remove steps from this process. That way, you can get people to what they’re looking for faster, and easier.

Keep thinking of it like one giant eCommerce Checkout process (even when it isn’t), where you’re sleuthing for clues behind the theoretical cart abandonment.

There’s only one problem to watch out for, however.

Statistics lie.

(Read our new A/B testing guide to discover the step-by-step process for getting results from your A/B tests.)

You don’t see everything you should be. Or you’re seeing bumps in one area, but not where it counts.

Skyrocketing free trials, when 70% of them turn out useless, are a pretty useless metric too.

Videos are one of my favorite examples because they’re one of the few things that almost always increases results.

You can see this in action by creating a Funnel Report. For example, you can see how those middle-of-the-funnel steps eventually influence the right conversions you’re after all along.

Now, when you decide to run A/B tests, you can look at how those leading indicator changes not only affect initial signups, but more importantly the number of actual paying customers too.

To Summarize:

Think of your website like an eCommerce Checkout funnel.

Look for clues along each transition from one step to another to spot bottlenecks that are strangling your conversions.

Remove or streamline the process from one step to the next to increase total conversions.

Just be careful of ‘lying’ stats, that tell you one change is working to drive more sign ups (even though total conversions hasn’t changed).

Look at how changes in the top or middle of your funnel affect the entire thing, including your ‘macro’-revenue generating objective at the very bottom.

Conclusion

Getting quality, qualitative feedback from website visitors is tough.

The numbers behind successful response rates are dim. Not to mention, all of the problems and errors and bias that most surveys contain.

Instead, let customer actions and behavior be your guide, showing you the spots on your website that are working and the ones that are strangling conversions.

Clues are left behind. You just need to know where to look.

About the Author: Brad Smith is a marketing writer, agency partner, and creator of Copy Weekly, a free weekly copywriting newsletter for marketers & founders.

0 notes

dianesaddler · 7 years

Text

Covert Conversion Hacking: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at How to Spy on Your Website Visitors

You’ve seen the stats before.

1-2% conversion rates for websites. Which means 98-99% ain’t buying. For one reason or another.

A bigger chunk of that is bouncing; leaving your site almost immediately after getting there.

You work so hard (and spend so much) on getting them there in the first place, and then they just… leave. It’s disheartening. Depressing.

The worst part is that you have no reason why. No specific clue or indication for what caused them to leave so abruptly.

It’s like someone walks into your retail store, takes one look at your goofy haircut today, and bolts for the door. You take it personal. The question eats away at you hours later.

WHAT is driving people away? Here’s how to find out.

The Problem with Surveys (Or, Why No One Answers Your Stupid ‘Likert’ Questions)

You could ask them, right? Hey, you could ask them!

Throw up a pop-up overlay, screen takeover, or slide something up in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. Whatever it takes to grab their attention.

‘Cept for one problem: math.

Image Source

Great. How many people do we have to ask in order to get those 100?

SurveyGizmo, whose advice seems decent given “survey” is in the name, says you can expect to see an average 10-15% response rate for ‘external’ surveys.

Image Source

But…

Now. How many visits does your boring Services page get? How many for that new product?

It’s an uphill battle. Of Mt. Everest proportions. Just to get someone to give you any indication of what is preventing them from opting in or buying on this page.

So. We can sit here and dream up ways to maybe, possibly, hopefully, get someone to answer a few basic questions and give you the ‘magic bullet’ for why they’re not convertin’.

Or. We can roll up our sleeves and find out for ourselves.

‘Specially, as it turns out, we ain’t got many other options. Here goes nothin’.

Three Easy Ways to Spy on Website Visitors

BounceX calls it “conversion friction”.

Which applies to all the things on your site that are preventing people from taking this microsteps, from looking at a particular page to adding a product to their cart or filling out a form.

The trick to spotting these friction points are to look for the clues left behind.

Some stats say 93% of our communication is nonverbal. Which means our behavior, or expressions, gestures, etc., give off more than we think.

Online, customer behavior can tell us what’s working or not working. Their actions give it away. If we only know how to listen.

Here’s three questions to ask in order to find out.

Question #1. Are people interested in this information?

Way before a purchase happens. Prior to a quote form getting filled out.

People land on a page and decide what to do next. To click, or not. The red pill, or the blue.

Design is the first thing they notice, 94% of the time, which helps them for a first impression with a few fractions of a second.

A person’s “state of awareness” can be deciphered based on how they got to your site. Namely, which channel or avenue they used.

For example, Google’s Customer Journey to Online Purchase tool will tell you how people use different channels, differently, along their own ‘customer journey’.

And this can help you answer age-old questions, like “long copy vs short”?

If it’s cold traffic from Generic Paid Search, long. If it’s warm traffic from a Brand Paid Search, short.

The thing to watch for, is page consumption.

Good old-fashioned heatmaps and scrollmaps can help you here, visually showing you whether you got it right (or not).

For example, feast your eyes on this:

To summarize:

People had their own expectations before coming to this page. (In this example, based on the ad they clicked on prior to coming here.)

They’re expecting to see those expectations laid out properly.

You design a page and present information to hopefully align those first two things.

Heatmaps and scrollmaps can help you quickly, visually see if you got it right, or wrong.

Page consumption is a good indication that people are going to click the next link, button, or CTA that gets them one step closer to conversion.

Question #2. Where are people focused?

Trick question: What’s the primary action you want visitors to take on a Get Quotes page?

To Get Quotes!

Which means filling out a short form, and hitting a button or link of some sort that will send you their information, so that you’re able to, you know, send them quotes.

That’s it. That’s the whole goal of that page. Click distribution on a particular page can tell you if that’s happening.

So sticking with the same example, you should see the majority of page clicks on a ‘Get Quotes’ CTA for a Get Quotes page. Simple, right?

Let’s back up a second though.

For example, which of these two CTAs are you supposed to click first?

There’s no way to tell. They aren’t doing their job. Because they look and sound exactly the same.

You know what happens when a visitor isn’t led or directed properly?

This:

Image Source

To summarize:

Click distribution, or the percentage of people clicking different variables on your site, can help you quickly spot problems.

The elements with the highest clicks should be your primary page objectives.

Look at the page(s) that precede your ‘converting’-one to make sure they’re doing their job; priming people properly and sending a majority of its traffic.

Change that page’s CTA’s to increase the number of people interacting with them.

Question #3. Are there conversion bottlenecks?

Every website contains a funnel. A path people progress through, exactly like a checkout process, to get from A -> B.

No matter if it’s B2C or B2B, people will go through various pages and steps to eventually transform from Stranger -> Lead -> Marketing Qualified Lead -> Sales Qualified Lead -> Customer or Client.

Often, the easiest way to increase conversions is to streamline or remove steps from this process. That way, you can get people to what they’re looking for faster, and easier.

Keep thinking of it like one giant eCommerce Checkout process (even when it isn’t), where you’re sleuthing for clues behind the theoretical cart abandonment.

There’s only one problem to watch out for, however.

Statistics lie.

(Read our new A/B testing guide to discover the step-by-step process for getting results from your A/B tests.)

You don’t see everything you should be. Or you’re seeing bumps in one area, but not where it counts.

Skyrocketing free trials, when 70% of them turn out useless, are a pretty useless metric too.

Videos are one of my favorite examples because they’re one of the few things that almost always increases results.

You can see this in action by creating a Funnel Report. For example, you can see how those middle-of-the-funnel steps eventually influence the right conversions you’re after all along.

Now, when you decide to run A/B tests, you can look at how those leading indicator changes not only affect initial signups, but more importantly the number of actual paying customers too.

To Summarize:

Think of your website like an eCommerce Checkout funnel.

Look for clues along each transition from one step to another to spot bottlenecks that are strangling your conversions.

Remove or streamline the process from one step to the next to increase total conversions.

Just be careful of ‘lying’ stats, that tell you one change is working to drive more sign ups (even though total conversions hasn’t changed).

Look at how changes in the top or middle of your funnel affect the entire thing, including your ‘macro’-revenue generating objective at the very bottom.

Conclusion

Getting quality, qualitative feedback from website visitors is tough.

The numbers behind successful response rates are dim. Not to mention, all of the problems and errors and bias that most surveys contain.

Instead, let customer actions and behavior be your guide, showing you the spots on your website that are working and the ones that are strangling conversions.

Clues are left behind. You just need to know where to look.

About the Author: Brad Smith is a marketing writer, agency partner, and creator of Copy Weekly, a free weekly copywriting newsletter for marketers & founders.

Covert Conversion Hacking: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at How to Spy on Your Website Visitors posted first on Kissmetrics Blog

from Blogger http://scottmcateerblog.blogspot.com/2017/02/covert-conversion-hacking-behind-scenes.html

from Scott McAteer https://scottmcateer.wordpress.com/2017/02/06/covert-conversion-hacking-a-behind-the-scenes-look-at-how-to-spy-on-your-website-visitors/

from WordPress https://dianesaddler.wordpress.com/2017/02/06/covert-conversion-hacking-a-behind-the-scenes-look-at-how-to-spy-on-your-website-visitors/

#Uncategorized #Scott McAteer

0 notes

scottmcateer · 7 years

Text

Covert Conversion Hacking: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at How to Spy on Your Website Visitors

You’ve seen the stats before.

1-2% conversion rates for websites. Which means 98-99% ain’t buying. For one reason or another.

A bigger chunk of that is bouncing; leaving your site almost immediately after getting there.

You work so hard (and spend so much) on getting them there in the first place, and then they just… leave. It’s disheartening. Depressing.

The worst part is that you have no reason why. No specific clue or indication for what caused them to leave so abruptly.

It’s like someone walks into your retail store, takes one look at your goofy haircut today, and bolts for the door. You take it personal. The question eats away at you hours later.

WHAT is driving people away? Here’s how to find out.

The Problem with Surveys (Or, Why No One Answers Your Stupid ‘Likert’ Questions)

You could ask them, right? Hey, you could ask them!

Throw up a pop-up overlay, screen takeover, or slide something up in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. Whatever it takes to grab their attention.

‘Cept for one problem: math.

Image Source

Great. How many people do we have to ask in order to get those 100?

SurveyGizmo, whose advice seems decent given “survey” is in the name, says you can expect to see an average 10-15% response rate for ‘external’ surveys.

Image Source

But…

Now. How many visits does your boring Services page get? How many for that new product?

It’s an uphill battle. Of Mt. Everest proportions. Just to get someone to give you any indication of what is preventing them from opting in or buying on this page.

So. We can sit here and dream up ways to maybe, possibly, hopefully, get someone to answer a few basic questions and give you the ‘magic bullet’ for why they’re not convertin’.

Or. We can roll up our sleeves and find out for ourselves.

‘Specially, as it turns out, we ain’t got many other options. Here goes nothin’.

Three Easy Ways to Spy on Website Visitors

BounceX calls it “conversion friction”.

Which applies to all the things on your site that are preventing people from taking this microsteps, from looking at a particular page to adding a product to their cart or filling out a form.

The trick to spotting these friction points are to look for the clues left behind.

Some stats say 93% of our communication is nonverbal. Which means our behavior, or expressions, gestures, etc., give off more than we think.

Online, customer behavior can tell us what’s working or not working. Their actions give it away. If we only know how to listen.

Here’s three questions to ask in order to find out.

Question #1. Are people interested in this information?

Way before a purchase happens. Prior to a quote form getting filled out.

People land on a page and decide what to do next. To click, or not. The red pill, or the blue.

Design is the first thing they notice, 94% of the time, which helps them for a first impression with a few fractions of a second.

A person’s “state of awareness” can be deciphered based on how they got to your site. Namely, which channel or avenue they used.

For example, Google’s Customer Journey to Online Purchase tool will tell you how people use different channels, differently, along their own ‘customer journey’.

And this can help you answer age-old questions, like “long copy vs short”?

If it’s cold traffic from Generic Paid Search, long. If it’s warm traffic from a Brand Paid Search, short.

The thing to watch for, is page consumption.

Good old-fashioned heatmaps and scrollmaps can help you here, visually showing you whether you got it right (or not).

For example, feast your eyes on this:

To summarize:

People had their own expectations before coming to this page. (In this example, based on the ad they clicked on prior to coming here.)

They’re expecting to see those expectations laid out properly.

You design a page and present information to hopefully align those first two things.

Heatmaps and scrollmaps can help you quickly, visually see if you got it right, or wrong.

Page consumption is a good indication that people are going to click the next link, button, or CTA that gets them one step closer to conversion.

Question #2. Where are people focused?

Trick question: What’s the primary action you want visitors to take on a Get Quotes page?

To Get Quotes!

Which means filling out a short form, and hitting a button or link of some sort that will send you their information, so that you’re able to, you know, send them quotes.

That’s it. That’s the whole goal of that page. Click distribution on a particular page can tell you if that’s happening.

So sticking with the same example, you should see the majority of page clicks on a ‘Get Quotes’ CTA for a Get Quotes page. Simple, right?

Let’s back up a second though.

For example, which of these two CTAs are you supposed to click first?

There’s no way to tell. They aren’t doing their job. Because they look and sound exactly the same.

You know what happens when a visitor isn’t led or directed properly?

This:

Image Source

To summarize:

Click distribution, or the percentage of people clicking different variables on your site, can help you quickly spot problems.

The elements with the highest clicks should be your primary page objectives.

Look at the page(s) that precede your ‘converting’-one to make sure they’re doing their job; priming people properly and sending a majority of its traffic.

Change that page’s CTA’s to increase the number of people interacting with them.

Question #3. Are there conversion bottlenecks?

Every website contains a funnel. A path people progress through, exactly like a checkout process, to get from A -> B.

No matter if it’s B2C or B2B, people will go through various pages and steps to eventually transform from Stranger -> Lead -> Marketing Qualified Lead -> Sales Qualified Lead -> Customer or Client.

Often, the easiest way to increase conversions is to streamline or remove steps from this process. That way, you can get people to what they’re looking for faster, and easier.

Keep thinking of it like one giant eCommerce Checkout process (even when it isn’t), where you’re sleuthing for clues behind the theoretical cart abandonment.

There’s only one problem to watch out for, however.

Statistics lie.

(Read our new A/B testing guide to discover the step-by-step process for getting results from your A/B tests.)

You don’t see everything you should be. Or you’re seeing bumps in one area, but not where it counts.

Skyrocketing free trials, when 70% of them turn out useless, are a pretty useless metric too.

Videos are one of my favorite examples because they’re one of the few things that almost always increases results.

You can see this in action by creating a Funnel Report. For example, you can see how those middle-of-the-funnel steps eventually influence the right conversions you’re after all along.

Now, when you decide to run A/B tests, you can look at how those leading indicator changes not only affect initial signups, but more importantly the number of actual paying customers too.

To Summarize:

Think of your website like an eCommerce Checkout funnel.

Look for clues along each transition from one step to another to spot bottlenecks that are strangling your conversions.

Remove or streamline the process from one step to the next to increase total conversions.

Just be careful of ‘lying’ stats, that tell you one change is working to drive more sign ups (even though total conversions hasn’t changed).

Look at how changes in the top or middle of your funnel affect the entire thing, including your ‘macro’-revenue generating objective at the very bottom.

Conclusion

Getting quality, qualitative feedback from website visitors is tough.

The numbers behind successful response rates are dim. Not to mention, all of the problems and errors and bias that most surveys contain.

Instead, let customer actions and behavior be your guide, showing you the spots on your website that are working and the ones that are strangling conversions.

Clues are left behind. You just need to know where to look.

About the Author: Brad Smith is a marketing writer, agency partner, and creator of Copy Weekly, a free weekly copywriting newsletter for marketers & founders.

Covert Conversion Hacking: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at How to Spy on Your Website Visitors posted first on Kissmetrics Blog from Blogger http://scottmcateerblog.blogspot.com/2017/02/covert-conversion-hacking-behind-scenes.html

0 notes

ericsburden-blog · 7 years

Text

Covert Conversion Hacking: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at How to Spy on Your Website Visitors

You’ve seen the stats before.

1-2% conversion rates for websites. Which means 98-99% ain’t buying. For one reason or another.

A bigger chunk of that is bouncing; leaving your site almost immediately after getting there.

You work so hard (and spend so much) on getting them there in the first place, and then they just… leave. It’s disheartening. Depressing.

The worst part is that you have no reason why. No specific clue or indication for what caused them to leave so abruptly.

It’s like someone walks into your retail store, takes one look at your goofy haircut today, and bolts for the door. You take it personal. The question eats away at you hours later.

WHAT is driving people away? Here’s how to find out.

The Problem with Surveys (Or, Why No One Answers Your Stupid ‘Likert’ Questions)

You could ask them, right? Hey, you could ask them!

Throw up a pop-up overlay, screen takeover, or slide something up in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. Whatever it takes to grab their attention.

‘Cept for one problem: math.

Image Source

Great. How many people do we have to ask in order to get those 100?

SurveyGizmo, whose advice seems decent given “survey” is in the name, says you can expect to see an average 10-15% response rate for ‘external’ surveys.

Image Source

But…

Now. How many visits does your boring Services page get? How many for that new product?

It’s an uphill battle. Of Mt. Everest proportions. Just to get someone to give you any indication of what is preventing them from opting in or buying on this page.

So. We can sit here and dream up ways to maybe, possibly, hopefully, get someone to answer a few basic questions and give you the ‘magic bullet’ for why they’re not convertin’.

Or. We can roll up our sleeves and find out for ourselves.

‘Specially, as it turns out, we ain’t got many other options. Here goes nothin’.

Three Easy Ways to Spy on Website Visitors

BounceX calls it “conversion friction”.

Which applies to all the things on your site that are preventing people from taking this microsteps, from looking at a particular page to adding a product to their cart or filling out a form.

The trick to spotting these friction points are to look for the clues left behind.

Some stats say 93% of our communication is nonverbal. Which means our behavior, or expressions, gestures, etc., give off more than we think.

Online, customer behavior can tell us what’s working or not working. Their actions give it away. If we only know how to listen.

Here’s three questions to ask in order to find out.

Question #1. Are people interested in this information?

Way before a purchase happens. Prior to a quote form getting filled out.

People land on a page and decide what to do next. To click, or not. The red pill, or the blue.

Design is the first thing they notice, 94% of the time, which helps them for a first impression with a few fractions of a second.

A person’s “state of awareness” can be deciphered based on how they got to your site. Namely, which channel or avenue they used.

For example, Google’s Customer Journey to Online Purchase tool will tell you how people use different channels, differently, along their own ‘customer journey’.

And this can help you answer age-old questions, like “long copy vs short”?

If it’s cold traffic from Generic Paid Search, long. If it’s warm traffic from a Brand Paid Search, short.

The thing to watch for, is page consumption.

Good old-fashioned heatmaps and scrollmaps can help you here, visually showing you whether you got it right (or not).

For example, feast your eyes on this:

To summarize:

People had their own expectations before coming to this page. (In this example, based on the ad they clicked on prior to coming here.)

They’re expecting to see those expectations laid out properly.

You design a page and present information to hopefully align those first two things.

Heatmaps and scrollmaps can help you quickly, visually see if you got it right, or wrong.

Page consumption is a good indication that people are going to click the next link, button, or CTA that gets them one step closer to conversion.

Question #2. Where are people focused?

Trick question: What’s the primary action you want visitors to take on a Get Quotes page?

To Get Quotes!

Which means filling out a short form, and hitting a button or link of some sort that will send you their information, so that you’re able to, you know, send them quotes.

That’s it. That’s the whole goal of that page. Click distribution on a particular page can tell you if that’s happening.

So sticking with the same example, you should see the majority of page clicks on a ‘Get Quotes’ CTA for a Get Quotes page. Simple, right?

Let’s back up a second though.

For example, which of these two CTAs are you supposed to click first?

There’s no way to tell. They aren’t doing their job. Because they look and sound exactly the same.

You know what happens when a visitor isn’t led or directed properly?

This:

Image Source

To summarize:

Click distribution, or the percentage of people clicking different variables on your site, can help you quickly spot problems.

The elements with the highest clicks should be your primary page objectives.

Look at the page(s) that precede your ‘converting’-one to make sure they’re doing their job; priming people properly and sending a majority of its traffic.

Change that page’s CTA’s to increase the number of people interacting with them.

Question #3. Are there conversion bottlenecks?

Every website contains a funnel. A path people progress through, exactly like a checkout process, to get from A -> B.

No matter if it’s B2C or B2B, people will go through various pages and steps to eventually transform from Stranger -> Lead -> Marketing Qualified Lead -> Sales Qualified Lead -> Customer or Client.

Often, the easiest way to increase conversions is to streamline or remove steps from this process. That way, you can get people to what they’re looking for faster, and easier.

Keep thinking of it like one giant eCommerce Checkout process (even when it isn’t), where you’re sleuthing for clues behind the theoretical cart abandonment.

There’s only one problem to watch out for, however.

Statistics lie.

(Read our new A/B testing guide to discover the step-by-step process for getting results from your A/B tests.)

You don’t see everything you should be. Or you’re seeing bumps in one area, but not where it counts.

Skyrocketing free trials, when 70% of them turn out useless, are a pretty useless metric too.

Videos are one of my favorite examples because they’re one of the few things that almost always increases results.

You can see this in action by creating a Funnel Report. For example, you can see how those middle-of-the-funnel steps eventually influence the right conversions you’re after all along.

Now, when you decide to run A/B tests, you can look at how those leading indicator changes not only affect initial signups, but more importantly the number of actual paying customers too.

To Summarize:

Think of your website like an eCommerce Checkout funnel.

Look for clues along each transition from one step to another to spot bottlenecks that are strangling your conversions.

Remove or streamline the process from one step to the next to increase total conversions.

Just be careful of ‘lying’ stats, that tell you one change is working to drive more sign ups (even though total conversions hasn’t changed).

Look at how changes in the top or middle of your funnel affect the entire thing, including your ‘macro’-revenue generating objective at the very bottom.

Conclusion

Getting quality, qualitative feedback from website visitors is tough.

The numbers behind successful response rates are dim. Not to mention, all of the problems and errors and bias that most surveys contain.

Instead, let customer actions and behavior be your guide, showing you the spots on your website that are working and the ones that are strangling conversions.

Clues are left behind. You just need to know where to look.

About the Author: Brad Smith is a marketing writer, agency partner, and creator of Copy Weekly, a free weekly copywriting newsletter for marketers & founders.

Covert Conversion Hacking: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at How to Spy on Your Website Visitors

0 notes