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Earlier this week, after a complicated debate involving feminism, internet culture, harassment, and herpes, a new website script appeared. The goal of Genius Defender is to allow certain website owners to block the annotation website Genius from being able to access and annotate their content.

The idea of annotating the internet by leaving notes and comments around the web for yourself or others to find has been around for years — since the dawn of the web browser, in fact. But a recent argument against Genius has left many people challenging the idea that annotations are useful for anything except online harassment.

More specifically: In March, sexual health blogger Ella Dawson sparked a debate over the Genius subsite News Genius, when she argued that the site promotes harassment. Dawson became embroiled in the question of annotation use after a journalist responded to a blog post Dawson had authored by annotating the post on News Genius. The conflict raised questions about the nature of content ownership and crowdsourced harassment in an open web culture, highlighting a tricky problem for which there are no easy answers.

What is Genius?

You may not have heard of News Genius, but you might recall its hip-hop-infused predecessor, Rap Genius, an annotation platform that allowed users to communally comment on, explain, and expand upon song lyrics and other texts. Rap Genius was founded in 2009 by a trio of male Yale grads who viewed rap as a poetic movement that deserved to be treated as serious literature — with all the critique and expansion that implies.

Genius dropped the "rap" part of its name two years ago, when it branched out and began more aggressively pursuing its stated goal of "[doing] for everything what Rap Genius did for rap." In 2015, Genius launched a bevy of tools that allow you to annotate any page on the web.

Genius annotations are often excellent. For instance, the Genius community for Hamilton has generated more than 200,000 words of meticulously researched and sourced annotations for the complex rap musical. The Hamilton annotation project clearly demonstrates the kind of potential Genius has as a forum for crowdsourced knowledge: Used wisely, it could essentially function as a kind of Wikipedia composed of marginalia.

The problem is that, in addition to scrawling comments, notes, and background information in the margins of a given text, plenty of people also like to snark. And although Genius employs a team of moderators, unlike Wikipedia — where editors throw themselves into the daily grind of removing vandalism, opinions, and extraneous clutter — the Genius community often seems to welcome the irreverence. The result is that Genius annotations sound a lot better in theory than they appear in practice.

For instance, the Genius annotations for the Wikipedia page explaining what annotations are consists of inane meme-ified comments like these:

Other pages on Genius serve up more of this type of reaction and commentary, ranging from memes to incorrect statements presented as factual to sexism:

Complex A Genius annotation for the Nicki Minaj verse of the Kanye West song "Monster" accompanies the line "I think big" with a sexualized picture of Minaj and a comment about her "large features." This annotation appeared for four years on the Genius website but was replaced within the last year.

The Genius Community Policy is firmly against "abuse and harassment," but also notes "we believe in freedom of expression" and will "allow controversial texts to be posted" as long as they generate thoughtful discussion. Yet despite the site's reticent approach to crowd control and several controversies along the way, Genius has mostly accomplished its goals: It built a community of lyrics annotators and attracted millions in investor funding by exploring the potential it held to do more.

The idea of annotating the internet isn't new

The idea of annotation has long been a part of discussions about how to build a better internet. In the '90s, when internet pioneer Marc Andreessen was developing the first incarnation of Netscape, he originally planned to include a simple annotation tool. Andreessen was still so interested in the possibilities for an annotated internet that two decades later, in 2012, he helped Genius raise $40 million in funding.

Genius isn't the only tool that allows you to annotate what you read online. Other websites and browser extensions, like Scrible and Annotate It, allow users to write notes for themselves about what they find on the web. Some apps, like iAnnotate, allow users to annotate specific articles, while some allow users who are logged in to read what others are saying about a specific website.

But Genius goes slightly further. You can read other Genius annotations that people have added to lyrics, texts, and other websites without logging in to Genius, and you can even contribute annotations yourself without signing up for an account. By allowing a relative degree of anonymity for those who are writing annotations and making it extremely easy to annotate any website on the internet, Genius has combined the concept of annotations with the concept of crowdsourcing in a fundamental way.

The result is that Genius has gained unprecedented access to significant cultural and news events. The aforementioned Hamilton project, for example, collaborated with production itself to import its annotations of the Hamilton soundtrack to the musical's official lyrics website. The Washington Post used its official Genius account to annotate Apple's recent open letter regarding its dispute with the FBI. And in January, the White House partnered with Genius to annotate President Obama's final State of the Union address.

So where does News Genius fit in?

News Genius launched in 2013 with the intention of emphasizing Genius's expanded focus, inviting the Genius community to do for journalism what they'd previously been doing for lyrics. News Genius purports to be an energized forum for debate about the issues of the day. The front page of the subsite notes, "We see news as an ongoing and evolving discussion between many parties." The site heralds a perceived new era of journalism in which the "gatekeepers" of news — the media — are hypothetically balanced with crowdsourced commentary and additional information:

News Genius

But just as with the larger Genius project, News Genius often falls short of its ostensible goal. The lead editor of News Genius is Leah Finnegan, formerly of the New York Times and Gawker. Finnegan, who served as Gawker's features editor from mid-2014 to mid-2015, is known for snark; when Gawker hired her, she was touted internally as "hat[ing] the right people."

As a paid employee of the site (as opposed to an unpaid user), Finnegan often leads the way on News Genius contributions, which, like all Genius texts, are open to anyone with an email address. She tends to interlay her more serious commentary with sarcasm, a kind of jeering from the peanut gallery (or the margins). Sometimes her criticisms are well-placed — like when a man writes an essay about misogyny without quoting a single woman.

Genius

Other times, the snark can obscure more nuanced discussion. For instance, in a response to one woman's personal essay about loneliness, Finnegan nitpicks writing style and word usage, implies repeatedly that the writer is mentally ill, and responds to one sentence with "This is … quite a succession of words."

While News Genius implies that it's offering a discussion about the limits of the author's take on loneliness with respect to depression and other life experiences, the overall impact of the annotations is muddled by what seems to be the annotator's cavalier dismissal of the author's ownership of her own experiences.

This approach to "news" came to a head earlier this month when a reporter named Sara Morrison disagreed with, debated, and then used Genius to annotate a blog post that Ella Dawson wrote about herpes.

What does herpes have to do with this?

As a herpes-positive activist, Dawson frequently argues that the media and society at large stigmatize sexually transmitted diseases. Her recent blog post took aim at the word "suffer" and the way in which the media tends to describe those with herpes as "herpes sufferers," or people who "suffer from" herpes and other STDs.

Morrison, a freelance journalist, had a knee-jerk negative reaction to Dawson's blog post:

Dawson initially approached Morrison on Twitter and discussed the issue with her there, but ultimately wound up blocking her and updating her original blog post with excerpts from the exchange. Morrison then decided to respond to Dawson's piece by annotating it on News Genius, questioning many of Dawson's assumptions.

Editor Finnegan joined in with her usual mix of serious and snarky commentary, and the Genius annotation became a source of what Dawson claimed was a silencing effect:

Genius as a harassment tool

Genius had already been used as a tool for minimizing the experiences women face — by no less than one of the site's co-founders. Mahbod Moghadam was forced to resign from Genius in 2014 after leaving a number of inappropriate and shallow annotations on the manifesto of Elliot Rodger, the Santa Barbara shooter whose actions were motivated partly by misogyny. Moghadam commented that several passages in the manifesto were "beautiful," and made dismissive remarks about women mentioned in the manifesto. In his eventual apology, Moghadam stated, "[T]hankfully the rap genius community edits out my poor judgement."

But to Dawson, it's the fact that annotations can be crowdsourced at all that's at issue. The idea of not being able to control what is said about her own blog page is central to her concept of internet harassment and her feeling of being "silenced" as a writer.

In a second blog post, which she wrote in response to the annotation of the original blog post, Dawson explains that after having fought off numerous harassers and trolls on social media platforms, she implemented tight moderation on her own blog — moderation she feels News Genius violated:

My experience with comments has led me to make two choices: to write more often on my blog, where I have full editorial control, and to not allow comments to go live without my approval ... Except that's not true anymore, thanks to News Genius, which allows readers to annotate pages anywhere on the web. News Genius puts comment sections in the margins, just as most publishers are taking them away to protect their writers.

Dawson believes Genius damages writers like her by removing their ability to control their own content:

Because my blog is currently a free WordPress website, anyone can use Genius to annotate my posts without my control. It is not opt-in for the creator, and if I want to engage with the annotations, I have to sign in using a Genius account. I see no way to report an annotation for abuse or harassment — perhaps that is only available for users? — and I see no way to block a user from annotating my content.

She also points out that the New York Times has the ability to limit the access Genius has to its content, and suggested that all she wanted was a similar opt-in ability for the average internet user. But others, including News Genius itself, suggested that this approach violates the fundamental open culture of the internet:

When does the free exchange of ideas cross the line into harassment?

In response to Dawson's post and the subsequent discussion about it that made the rounds on social media, the Genius community had a powwow about the issue and what they could have done better. A contributor named Doyle noted that Dawson's blog clearly stated her on-site comment policy, and argued extensively that Genius annotators need to pay attention when annotating such personal blog sites or posts — or, better yet, avoid annotating them altogether. The thread contained considerable debate about whether Genius had fostered a "mob mentality," whether Finnegan was taking the News Genius subsite in a negative direction, or whether Dawson was simply being overly sensitive.

The internal debate among Genius users is only part of a larger debate about the merits of repurposing content without asking permission from the original author. Many people who participate in social justice and activism conversations online view common social media practices like reblogging and retweeting as potentially abusive, depending on who's doing the retweeting and for what purpose. For instance, Gamergate supporters or trolls attached to the movement often retweet posts by anti-Gamergate feminists as a way of generating hostile debate about the issue.

When it comes to embedding Twitter and Tumblr posts on entirely separate websites, the ethical issues are even more complicated, and many Twitter users block embedders who fail to ask permission before embedding. Sure, the internet is a free and open space where anything public is fair game for being copied and pasted somewhere else, but social media users are increasingly calling for enhanced etiquette and reform around the issue of repurposing someone else's original content.

And News Genius and its community may have unwittingly demonstrated the potential for Genius as a brigading tool: After Dawson's original post and Morrison's response, both of which deviated from the site's emphasis on journalism, users began to stray from commenting on the news in order to follow Morrison's footsteps of annotating posts defensively.

Earlier this week on Slate, writer Chelsea Hassler argued that Genius's tools harbored "a very real potential for abuse." In response, Genius users annotated the Slate post, with many Genius editors passionately defending their site and its ability to host nuanced, dynamic, and vigorous discussion and debate. But many also noted that News Genius community editor Stephen Pringle kicked off the annotation by questioning Hassler's experience and ability to comment on the issue — a common minimizing tactic. Genius users have continued to annotate other media reports and reactions to the debate.

Still, given Genius's stated mission of expanding beyond rap and news to annotate the entire internet, the way the site functions as news commentary doesn't matter as much as the way it functions as a platform where crowds can interact with the world of the web. The best-case scenario of the way Genius is used — something like the Hamilton project or the officially sanctioned White House annotations — inevitably stands toe to toe with images of a horde of angry online citizens brigading a post in the Genius arena to express their disagreement with the author.

Perhaps the answer to this is simple: Don't like, don't read. After all, no one made Dawson visit Genius to find out what was being said in reaction to her post. But if Genius wants to truly annotate the internet, avoiding it is easier said than done.

Update: This article has been updated to clarify that the Genius annotation of Nicki Minaj's "Monster" verse cited in the article was originally posted to the website four years ago. The photo was replaced within the last year while the accompanying text was replaced within the last ten months.

Source: How a blog post about herpes led to a fierce debate about annotations, harassment, and free speech on the internet

PHOENIX, March 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- "Whether you need a business website, personal blog or e-commerce store, I just published a simple, straightforward YouTube video that anyone can follow—even if you can barely send an email," says Brad Campbell, the self-proclaimed WordPress Millionaire.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160330/349614

A Doctor of Pharmacy turned internet mogul, Campbell now spends his days creating step by step training videos to help other entrepreneurs and business owners build websites that work.

"There's a lot of paralysis by analysis when someone looks into getting a website for the first time.  That's unfortunate.  Today, anyone can have a gorgeous website up and live on the internet in just a few minutes, for only a few bucks.  My new YouTube training will take you by the hand and show you how," he says.

Watch the free video, titled How to Make a Website Step by Step, here:

http://TheWPMillionaire.com/Make-Website

By the end of the step by step video, Campbell will have walked you through an entire website setup from scratch.  

"I've taught this to thousands of people, ages 17 to 77, from every corner of the globe.  It's quick and easy, I promise.  If you want a professional blog or website that's mobile-friendly… with social sharing and all the cool features you see on your favorite websites… you should absolutely check it out."

About The WordPress Millionaire  

"I've make multiple seven figures thanks to simple little websites and WordPress blogs.  This project will show you how I do it, through no-nonsense articles, video tutorials and entertaining stories about my journey.  I've made everything simple to follow and affordable, so that anyone can make a website that serves its purpose." —Brad Campbell, husband, father, average guy, unexpected millionaire.

This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. For more info visit: http://www.newswire.com

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/how-to-make-a-website-step-by-step-new-youtube-tutorial-by-the-wordpress-millionaire-300243730.html

SOURCE The WordPress Millionaire

Source: How to Make a Website Step by Step: New YouTube Tutorial by the WordPress Millionaire

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PHOENIX, March 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- "My parents thought I was crazy when I walked away from a comfy six-figure pharmacist job," admits Brad Campbell, founder of The WordPress Millionaire — a tell-all blog about his journey from frustrated pharmacist to renegade blogger. "But now they get it," he laughs. Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160330/349536 Campbell first began blogging about health and fitness six years ago, after coming home from grueling 10 and 12-hour shifts behind the counter "pushing pills" at Walgreens. "After a couple months of publishing my workouts and diet plans, I started getting visitors from all over the globe showing up, reading my stuff, and leaving comments below each article.  That's when I was like, 'Holy crap!  If I can get my content in front of millions of people without ever leaving the house?  This could be huge!'" he remembers. By 31, he was making enough to retire from pharmacy; by 33, he was making over seven figures a year — all while blogging by the pool on his MacBook Air. Which brings us to his newest project, The WordPress Millionaire, where he writes about his greatest ah-ha! moments, and shares tips, training, technical advice and hacks to help other aspiring bloggers follow in his footsteps without breaking the bank. You ca n visit his website here: www.TheWPMillionaire.com "One thing I'm really focused on right now is showing others how inexpensive and easy it is to get started blogging," says Campbell. "You'll see me sharing lots of coupon codes and discounts for domain names and web hosting... along with step-by-step tutorials showing you how to get a new blog up and running fast — even if you're a total technophobe and have no startup capital," he adds. "I want my work to inspire others.  I'm just an average dude who refused to settle for the status quo.  In all my years of schooling, I never took a business class.  I've never worked in sales.  And writing is the last thing on Earth I ever thought I'd be doing to make a living.  And yet, here I am — pecking the keyboard and loving life." "It sounds cliché, but if I can do it?  So can you," he says. About The WordPress Millionaire The WordPress Millionaire is a fun, laid-back, digital hot spot for entrepreneurs and business owners who're interested in using blogging to get noticed, then paid.  Learn, laugh, save and succeed by reading the archives here: www.TheWPMillionaire.com/Archives. This news release was issued on behalf of Newswise(TM). For more information, visit http://www.newswise.com.   1 of 2
Source: Introducing: The WordPress Millionaire, From White Collar To Popped Collar

Despite what you might have heard, blogging is not just for angsty teenagers. It's for businesses, too. Not only can blogs help you attract new customers through content marketing, but they can also help you improve your website's presence in search results. If there's one area you should invest more time in online, it's your blog.

If you don't have a blog, they're easy to set up. I always recommend using WordPress because it's affordable and easy to work with for beginners. All you have to do is find a mobile-responsive theme and start writing.

If you already have a blog set up on your website, great. I'm going to walk you through what you need to do to run it successfully and how to create a strategy that will attract a large audience in your area.

I want to stress that there are three types of blog content for you to consider. I'm going to outline how to create each type of content successfully and what percentage of your posts should be from each category.

1. Viral content

Don't let the title of this content fool you — by no means will all of your posts in this category go viral. However, this type of content is the most likely to get big shares and plenty of likes.

What you'll be aiming to do with this content is reach as many people in your service areas as possible. You'll want to assume that your target audience has never heard of you and that this will be their first interaction with your brand. Think of broad topics that you would be likely to click on.

This type should make up about 60 percent of your articles.

Here are some sample topics for an agent based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

10 restaurants in South Florida you must visit

The 5 most popular places to retire in Florida

The happiest cities in South Florida

None of these topics are specific to real estate or are overly specific in location, and they cast a broad net. You want to introduce yourself to as many people as possible with these posts.

One great trick is to message every small business, restaurant or city tourism board you mention on Facebook and tell them that you've included them in your article.

Having just one restaurant share your article on their Facebook page can bring you thousands of visitors.

2. Discovery content

The second type of content you'll want to be creating is discovery content. These are posts that focus in a bit further on real estate and on your local service areas.

Try to write on topics that affect your local community — neighborhood updates, what to look for when buying a property, first-time homebuyer tips. These are all types of content that your potential clients will be searching for when it comes time to buy property.

This type should make up about 20 percent of your articles.

Here are some topics for an agent based in Seattle, Washington.

The safest housing investments in West Seattle

The 5 best public schools in Renton

What to expect from the Seattle housing market in 2016

These topics are all local, more specific than the viral phase and provide valuable insight.

Approximately 20 percent of your posts should focus on discovery content, which leaves 10 percent for our the third type of content we'll be discussing.

3. Consideration content

This is where you present yourself as the local expert. Consideration content leaves room for everything, including client testimonials and new listings you'd like to promote.

Be sure to save room talking about your past successes, what you've learned and anything that you think that a client who knows you would want to read.

You should expect these posts to be read by people who have already worked with you or are very close to working with you and write with that audience in mind.

This type should make up about 10 percent of your articles.

Here are some topic ideas.

Client testimonials

Personal stories (what you've learned)

New listings you'd like to feature

This content should only represent about 10 percent of your blog content, and you should share it sparingly (no more than once per week on social media).

You'll inevitably get much lower views on this content, but remember, it's the bottom of the funnel. Just because there are fewer people reading does not make this type of content less important. If anything, it's the most important part of your blog.

If you've already started a blog — awesome. Tweet me @CaveJustin and let me know where to find your blog, or if you have any questions about your content strategy.

If you don't have a blog, don't fret. Although the best time to start a blog might have been 20 years ago, the second-best time is right now.

Justin Kerby is the co-founder of CAVE Social.

Email Justin Kerby.

Source: 3 types of content that will make your blog better

Is a street preacher the right metaphor for every little blog online?

UPDATE: Since this story was published, both Genius and Hypothesis have moved to undermine abuse via web annotation using their respective products. See more here.

A young woman who blogs about being sexually active with a herpes simplex-1 diagnosis kicked off a conversation on Friday about the point where an idealistic vision of how the Internet could work runs aground upon the disappointing reality of human nature.

Orson Scott Card's novel Ender's Game came out in 1985, a book which managed to be both astoundingly prescient and dead wrong, all at once. It anticipated the Internet, with which Ender's older brother and sister become enormously powerful by writing thoughtful and strategic posts on something that looks a lot like newsgroups or blogs. Their clarity and persuasiveness on important issues earn them the power to move people and global policy. Cartoonist Randall Munroe would later skewer the naive faith the novel placed in well-thought-out ideas expressed clearly with this XKCD comic strip.

The dream of the Internet was that it would bring humanity together, that it would sift and winnow ideas and make our thinking better, but the real world results have been more mixed. There's Wikipedia, but there's also Reddit. Both sites illustrate the power of the Internet as a force multiplier, to accelerate like-minded people finding each other and acting in concert.

On Friday, Ella Dawson wrote a blog post in which she requested that Genius disable its Web Annotator for her site. A social media manager by day whose personal writing makes many people uncomfortable, she wrote, "My experience with comments has led me to make two choices: to write more often on my blog, where I have full editorial control, and to not allow comments to go live without my approval."

Yet Genius' annotator makes it possible for a user to highlight almost any sentence of text on the Internet and leave any comment they want alongside it.

"Currently, there isn't even a means for Genius users to report abusive annotations, and there is certainly no way for creators to do so," Ms. Dawson wrote in an email to the Observer. "The lack of a report function is a huge red flag."

A person has to take action to see Genius annotations on a page, but, having done so, a user can see that Ms. Dawson's post asking not to be annotated is plastered with annotations.

Ella Dawson's blog with the Genius Web Annotator treatment. Yellow highlights indicate a clickable annotation.

"There is also no understanding of or respect for consent in this context at all. In my post, I begged them to give me my blog back, and instead they annotated every detail," Ms. Dawson wrote. "They heard me, but they did not listen."

A Genius spokesperson wrote the Observer in an email that the ability to shut down annotations on any site would enable publishers to cut off conversations they disagree with, adding, "We've invited Ms. Dawson to meet with us to have a constructive conversation about all of this and we'd still appreciate the opportunity to do so."

Overwhelmingly, the annotations ("tates," in Genius parlance) on her post are editorial—many could be read fairly as dismissive. There are a few that add important information, such as historical context, additional sources or explaining unfamiliar terminology. Some even praise her work, yet do so with a medium she objects to.

Disclosure: I've been a user of the tool from its earliest days, when each user had to be approved by staff. I've used it both as a journalistic tool (such as for this license plate reader story, where I made notes on this Wikileaks file) and to make my own snarky comments.

Prior to the blog post, Ms. Dawson posted her request to block the service on Twitter:

Ella Dawson's tweets about Genius' Web Annotator on March 23, 2016.

Genius declined.

@NewsGenius replies to Ella Dawson's tweets on March 24.

Which is true. Ms. Dawson might not have much chance in court of winning this fight, but that's not a question driving this story (if you're interested, check out another take from freelance writer, Glenn Fleishman). This story is compelled by the ethical question: what should a tech company with a mission to bring hordes of people into the business of making the web work better do when it's service makes regular people less likely to speak up online?

'Don't color in the dark with a yellow crayon and call it criticism'

As the writer Alana Massey said of the Web Annotator in a phone call with the Observer, "The difference between whether it should exist and whether it has a right to exist really gets muddled up." Ms. Massey doesn't want web annotation to go away, but she would like to see it work better.

The plot thickens when we note that the Web Annotator isn't the only product that has quietly added a layer of annotations to Ms. Dawson's post. There are more annotations hidden there, made by the open-source, non-profit site, Hypothesis. It doesn't have Genius' large community, but it has been around longer.

Some believe that the web's natural inclination toward inanity could be held in check by universal annotation. That a layer could drop down over any web page and the digital equivalent of your composition teacher's red pen could descend, circle the nonsense and jot: "Here there be nutcases."

For example, in January, the Wall Street Journal published "The Climate Snow Job," a lengthy op-ed ostensibly debunking historical temperature increases, written by Cato Institute researcher Patrick J. Michaels. Soon after, a crew of seven climate scientists got together online to pick it apart piece by piece. The scientists noted the spin, cherry-picked evidence and mischaracterizations of researchers' work.

It is hard to argue that this isn't annotation at its best. Each note deepens the conversation, leads to additional sources and provides meaningful context.

The scientists found each other through an organization called Climate Feedback, powered by Hypothesis. Only curated members of that community can make annotations, which illustrates a key difference between Hypothesis and Genius. Anyone can install Hypothesis software on their own servers and configure it as they like, limited to specifically chosen people or opening it up to everyone. There could be hundreds of Hypothesis layers one day, some from specific communities and some run by just one individual. A user could know precisely that layer's perspective when selecting any one.

Fast Company broke down this open source or not tension between the two companies and what it might mean for the future of the web.

Genius just has one layer, one overarching thread: its thread. Whether you want to go around providing links to relevant Wikipedia articles or flaming people who liked the Batman v. Superman movie, it all looks the same on Genius (there is a hierarchy to annotations on the site, but this point is a bit more fine than most web users will notice).

In its defense, the Genius community is having an active discussion now about best practices, a Genius spokesperson explained, writing, "The Web Annotator is a new product in active development and we welcome feedback. Its value is determined by how it's used and the people who use it."

Meanwhile, Hypothesis founder and creator Dan Whaley also made a Hypothesis annotation on Ms. Dawson's post about how she didn't want to be annotated that seems to say that annotation is how the world works now, one every writer online just needs to accept.

Dan Whaley's annotation using Hypothesis on Ms. Dawson's News Genius post.

Mr. Whaley told the Observer in a recent phone conversation that he finds the way humans reason to be fundamentally flawed, but that advances in how we organize information could help rectify that. He said, "I believe very strongly that this collaborative layer over knowledge could be a very good first step in that direction."

In other words, for him, it's urgent, and we can't deploy annotation at scale soon enough. The day is probably coming when it will be everywhere. During a recent interview with Ralph Swick, Chief Operating Officer of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the web's standards body, he expressed optimism that a web standard for annotation is coming, which would almost certainly mean that the feature would be built into every major browser.

When and if it does, users might see some sort of flag at the top of their screen showing if any given web page has been annotated. Clicking on that flag might reveal a multitude of layers of communities that have chimed in, perhaps everyone from political parties to 8Chan users.

Mr. Whaley takes it further. He described a futuristic vision called "persistent ambient search," where a web user can always know if anyone anywhere is talking about something he or she is invested in. Like his or her own blog.

Which might be nice for attention hounds, like this reporter, but also might make other people reluctant to say what they want to say online.

For its part, Genius raised a $40 million series B in 2014, and secured the backing of the guy who built the first browser and took a crack at annotating the web, Marc Andreessen. The company and its backers like to talk about how users of its service can get "Talmudic" as they unpack meaning. It is doing a lot to raise the profile of its superusers and increase the credibility of the product, giving an imprimatur of greater legitimacy to discourse that some would argue are really nothing more than typical web comments in a new form.

Or, as Ms. Massey put it, "Don't color in the dark with a yellow crayon and call it criticism."

Ms. Massey is a prominent writer who's collection of essays, All The Lives I Want, is forthcoming from Grand Central. She came into this conversation because Ms. Dawson pointed to one of Ms. Massey's recent pieces as another instance in which a staff member at the company had "concern-trolled" another woman's work, leading to a piling on from the Genius community.

In fact, Ms. Massey only became aware of web annotation this week after one Genius' Twitter identities, @NewsGenius, called her attention to a conversation taking place on one of her latest pieces for the New York Magazine blog, The Cut.

Ms. Massey had written about loneliness and once the Genius community found it, they couldn't leave it alone. Indeed, News Genius' new editor, Leah Finnegan, a New York Times and Gawker alum, took part in the line-by-line nitpicking on this very personal essay.

"I was the first to annotate it," Ms. Finnegan confirmed, via an email from a spokesperson. "My questions on Alana's piece brought a lot of other people to it and spurred a really interesting discussion about mental health on a national website."

Ms. Massey expressed concern about the sort of material News Genius staff direct its community toward. "Of all the things that come out every day, why was this chosen? Why was Ella Dawson chosen?" Ms. Massey asked. "Why isn't David Brooks chosen?"

Follow up: the WordPress plugin that (mostly) beats Genius.

Annotating a piece on major publication's site, written by a writer with a book deal, is very different from doing the same on the personal WordPress blog of a young woman with a day job. Ms. Massey pays her rent baring her soul. She knows what she's gotten herself into. Ms. Dawson, while brave and honest, is still testing those waters.

The default objection to Ms. Dawson's critique of the Web Annotator has been to point out that she's writing in public, and a reasonable person has to expect feedback when they don't password protect their blog.

Is the Internet quite like that, though? Again, not in any legal sense. The law is what people who don't know how to behave themselves turn to in disputes. Grown-ups find ways to get along. It might be legal to talk unbelievably loudly in a public place or to interrupt strangers in the middle of conversations or even to use listening technology to eavesdrop on private talk, but that's all lousy behavior which we police not with laws but by being adults.

The Internet is still new. We are having a hard time working out what good manners are online, but it's something we all need to talk about. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. We are all having a hard time figuring out what the lines are. That said, talking about appropriate ways to interact online isn't the same as censorship, and suggesting it is doesn't help any of us interact better.

The killer app we really need to un-muddle our collective reasoning is widespread civility, which include respecting appropriate boundaries.

I asked Ms. Dawson whether or not she thought services like Climate Feedback changed her opinion about annotation. What if, for example, an annotation web standard let communities like Politifact go out and start policing some of the nonsense that political leaders and corporate officials tell media sources every day, right on the same page where people read it?

"Even if these services are an Internet dream, there are real reasons they fail again and again," Ms. Dawson wrote. "In a 2016 culture of rampant online violence, I don't have much faith in annotation tools playing out the way we would like them to."

Ms. Dawson made two specific requests of Genius.

First, give users a link for reporting posts on each annotation. Twitter and Facebook both have that for every post.

A Genius spokesperson wrote, "Users can currently tag @genius-moderation to report any abusive content. So far, there have been no instances of abuse, but we recognize that this is an entirely valid concern as usage of the tool increases."

Second, let sites opt out of annotation. If that sounds extreme, its worth noting that Google has let sites opt out of appearing in search results for a long time. It is tough to imagine a much more significant layer over the Internet than Google search results.

Genius already expressed its objection to this option in the above, but I submit that if annotation really does catch on, the major media and dominant personalities that need such correction won't fight annotation if it delivers eyeballs.

But writers online who are tentative about their voice and mainly want to find support from others who feel the way they do would appreciate the option to be a bit more circumspect.

Fortunately, it seems like members of the Genius community are bending. One poweruser and editor, DoyleOwl, wrote about the incident on the site and proposed that the community acknowledge that it made a mistake.

He argued that users of Web Annotator should respect a sites ground rules before annotating it. "This does not mean that Genius is being censored. It means that we have the maturity and the wisdom to not attack people's personal and private pages—and by private, I mean one which disables or controls comment sections."

This incident has been instructive for me, as a writer. I tend to treat everything I can see in real life and online as something I can use in reporting. By and large, that's not a horrible way for a journalist to look at the world, and yet as technology puts more and more sensors everywhere, there is just a lot more today that can be seen and a lot more ways to converse but also to overhear.

It's a conversation that will temper my thinking going forward. I can't get a lot more specific than that yet, but it's something for all of us taking up digital real estate to meditate on and discuss.

Source: Genius Web Annotator vs. One Young Woman With a Blog

It's definitely one of the factors affecting the load speed, as all of the content (images, text, video, audio), HTML, CSS, JavaScript (if used) add to the overall weight of the page displayed. All those are affected by how the theme has been designed and what has been included.

Source: A theme is affecting the loading speed of a WordPress website?

Is a street preacher the right metaphor for every little blog online?

A young woman who blogs about being sexually active with a herpes simplex-1 diagnosis kicked off a conversation on Friday about the point where an idealistic vision of how the Internet could work runs aground upon the disappointing reality of human nature.

Orson Scott Card's novel Ender's Game came out in 1985, a book which managed to be both astoundingly prescient and dead wrong, all at once. It anticipated the Internet, with which Ender's older brother and sister become enormously powerful by writing thoughtful and strategic posts on something that looks a lot like newsgroups or blogs. Their clarity and persuasiveness on important issues earn them the power to move people and global policy. Cartoonist Randall Munroe would later skewer the naive faith the novel placed in well-thought-out ideas expressed clearly with this XKCD comic strip.

The dream of the Internet was that it would bring humanity together, that it would sift and winnow ideas and make our thinking better, but the real world results have been more mixed. There's Wikipedia, but there's also Reddit. Both sites illustrate the power of the Internet as a force multiplier, to accelerate like-minded people finding each other and acting in concert.

On Friday, Ella Dawson wrote a blog post in which she requested that Genius disable its Web Annotator for her site. A social media manager by day whose personal writing makes many people uncomfortable, she wrote, "My experience with comments has led me to make two choices: to write more often on my blog, where I have full editorial control, and to not allow comments to go live without my approval."

Yet Genius' annotator makes it possible for a user to highlight almost any sentence of text on the Internet and leave any comment they want alongside it.

"Currently, there isn't even a means for Genius users to report abusive annotations, and there is certainly no way for creators to do so," Ms. Dawson wrote in an email to the Observer. "The lack of a report function is a huge red flag."

A person has to take action to see Genius annotations on a page, but, having done so, a user can see that Ms. Dawson's post asking not to be annotated is plastered with annotations.

Ella Dawson's blog with the Genius Web Annotator treatment. Yellow highlights indicate a clickable annotation.

"There is also no understanding of or respect for consent in this context at all. In my post, I begged them to give me my blog back, and instead they annotated every detail," Ms. Dawson wrote. "They heard me, but they did not listen."

A Genius spokesperson wrote the Observer in an email that the ability to shut down annotations on any site would enable publishers to cut off conversations they disagree with, adding, "We've invited Ms. Dawson to meet with us to have a constructive conversation about all of this and we'd still appreciate the opportunity to do so."

Overwhelmingly, the annotations ("tates," in Genius parlance) on her post are editorial—many could be read fairly as dismissive. There are a few that add important information, such as historical context, additional sources or explaining unfamiliar terminology. Some even praise her work, yet do so with a medium she objects to.

Disclosure: I've been a user of the tool from its earliest days, when each user had to be approved by staff. I've used it both as a journalistic tool (such as for this license plate reader story, where I made notes on this Wikileaks file) and to make my own snarky comments.

Prior to the blog post, Ms. Dawson posted her request to block the service on Twitter:

Ella Dawson's tweets about Genius' Web Annotator on March 23, 2016.

Genius declined.

@NewsGenius replies to Ella Dawson's tweets on March 24.

Which is true. Ms. Dawson might not have much chance in court of winning this fight, but that's not a question driving this story (if you're interested, check out another take from freelance writer, Glenn Fleishman). This story is compelled by the ethical question: what should a tech company with a mission to bring hordes of people into the business of making the web work better do when it's service makes regular people less likely to speak up online?

'Don't color in the dark with a yellow crayon and call it criticism'

As the writer Alana Massey said of the Web Annotator in a phone call with the Observer, "The difference between whether it should exist and whether it has a right to exist really gets muddled up." Ms. Massey doesn't want web annotation to go away, but she would like to see it work better.

The plot thickens when we note that the Web Annotator isn't the only product that has quietly added a layer of annotations to Ms. Dawson's post. There are more annotations hidden there, made by the open-source, non-profit site, Hypothesis. It doesn't have Genius' large community, but it has been around longer.

Some believe that the web's natural inclination toward inanity could be held in check by universal annotation. That a layer could drop down over any web page and the digital equivalent of your composition teacher's red pen could descend, circle the nonsense and jot: "Here there be nutcases."

For example, in January, the Wall Street Journal published "The Climate Snow Job," a lengthy op-ed ostensibly debunking historical temperature increases, written by Cato Institute researcher Patrick J. Michaels. Soon after, a crew of seven climate scientists got together online to pick it apart piece by piece. The scientists noted the spin, cherry-picked evidence and mischaracterizations of researchers' work.

It is hard to argue that this isn't annotation at its best. Each note deepens the conversation, leads to additional sources and provides meaningful context.

The scientists found each other through an organization called Climate Feedback, powered by Hypothesis. Only curated members of that community can make annotations, which illustrates a key difference between Hypothesis and Genius. Anyone can install Hypothesis software on their own servers and configure it as they like, limited to specifically chosen people or opening it up to everyone. There could be hundreds of Hypothesis layers one day, some from specific communities and some run by just one individual. A user could know precisely that layer's perspective when selecting any one.

Fast Company broke down this open source or not tension between the two companies and what it might mean for the future of the web.

Genius just has one layer, one overarching thread: its thread. Whether you want to go around providing links to relevant Wikipedia articles or flaming people who liked the Batman v. Superman movie, it all looks the same on Genius (there is a hierarchy to annotations on the site, but this point is a bit more fine than most web users will notice).

In its defense, the Genius community is having an active discussion now about best practices, a Genius spokesperson explained, writing, "The Web Annotator is a new product in active development and we welcome feedback. Its value is determined by how it's used and the people who use it."

Meanwhile, Hypothesis founder and creator Dan Whaley also made a Hypothesis annotation on Ms. Dawson's post about how she didn't want to be annotated that seems to say that annotation is how the world works now, one every writer online just needs to accept.

Dan Whaley's annotation using Hypothesis on Ms. Dawson's News Genius post.

Mr. Whaley told the Observer in a recent phone conversation that he finds the way humans reason to be fundamentally flawed, but that advances in how we organize information could help rectify that. He said, "I believe very strongly that this collaborative layer over knowledge could be a very good first step in that direction."

In other words, for him, it's urgent, and we can't deploy annotation at scale soon enough. The day is probably coming when it will be everywhere. During a recent interview with Ralph Swick, Chief Operating Officer of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the web's standards body, he expressed optimism that a web standard for annotation is coming, which would almost certainly mean that the feature would be built into every major browser.

When and if it does, users might see some sort of flag at the top of their screen showing if any given web page has been annotated. Clicking on that flag might reveal a multitude of layers of communities that have chimed in, perhaps everyone from political parties to 8Chan users.

Mr. Whaley takes it further. He described a futuristic vision called "persistent ambient search," where a web user can always know if anyone anywhere is talking about something he or she is invested in. Like his or her own blog.

Which might be nice for attention hounds, like this reporter, but also might make other people reluctant to say what they want to say online.

For its part, Genius raised a $40 million series B in 2014, and secured the backing of the guy who built the first browser and took a crack at annotating the web, Marc Andreessen. The company and its backers like to talk about how users of its service can get "Talmudic" as they unpack meaning. It is doing a lot to raise the profile of its superusers and increase the credibility of the product, giving an imprimatur of greater legitimacy to discourse that some would argue are really nothing more than typical web comments in a new form.

Or, as Ms. Massey put it, "Don't color in the dark with a yellow crayon and call it criticism."

Ms. Massey is a prominent writer who's collection of essays, All The Lives I Want, is forthcoming from Grand Central. She came into this conversation because Ms. Dawson pointed to one of Ms. Massey's recent pieces as another instance in which a staff member at the company had "concern-trolled" another woman's work, leading to a piling on from the Genius community.

In fact, Ms. Massey only became aware of web annotation this week after one Genius' Twitter identities, @NewsGenius, called her attention to a conversation taking place on one of her latest pieces for the New York Magazine blog, The Cut.

Ms. Massey had written about loneliness and once the Genius community found it, they couldn't leave it alone. Indeed, News Genius' new editor, Leah Finnegan, a New York Times and Gawker alum, took part in the line-by-line nitpicking on this very personal essay.

"I was the first to annotate it," Ms. Finnegan confirmed, via an email from a spokesperson. "My questions on Alana's piece brought a lot of other people to it and spurred a really interesting discussion about mental health on a national website."

Ms. Massey expressed concern about the sort of material News Genius staff direct its community toward. "Of all the things that come out every day, why was this chosen? Why was Ella Dawson chosen?" Ms. Massey asked. "Why isn't David Brooks chosen?"

Follow up: the WordPress plugin that (mostly) beats Genius.

Annotating a piece on major publication's site, written by a writer with a book deal, is very different from doing the same on the personal WordPress blog of a young woman with a day job. Ms. Massey pays her rent baring her soul. She knows what she's gotten herself into. Ms. Dawson, while brave and honest, is still testing those waters.

The default objection to Ms. Dawson's critique of the Web Annotator has been to point out that she's writing in public, and a reasonable person has to expect feedback when they don't password protect their blog.

Is the Internet quite like that, though? Again, not in any legal sense. The law is what people who don't know how to behave themselves turn to in disputes. Grown-ups find ways to get along. It might be legal to talk unbelievably loudly in a public place or to interrupt strangers in the middle of conversations or even to use listening technology to eavesdrop on private talk, but that's all lousy behavior which we police not with laws but by being adults.

The Internet is still new. We are having a hard time working out what good manners are online, but it's something we all need to talk about. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. We are all having a hard time figuring out what the lines are. That said, talking about appropriate ways to interact online isn't the same as censorship, and suggesting it is doesn't help any of us interact better.

The killer app we really need to un-muddle our collective reasoning is widespread civility, which include respecting appropriate boundaries.

I asked Ms. Dawson whether or not she thought services like Climate Feedback changed her opinion about annotation. What if, for example, an annotation web standard let communities like Politifact go out and start policing some of the nonsense that political leaders and corporate officials tell media sources every day, right on the same page where people read it?

"Even if these services are an Internet dream, there are real reasons they fail again and again," Ms. Dawson wrote. "In a 2016 culture of rampant online violence, I don't have much faith in annotation tools playing out the way we would like them to."

Ms. Dawson made two specific requests of Genius.

First, give users a link for reporting posts on each annotation. Twitter and Facebook both have that for every post.

A Genius spokesperson wrote, "Users can currently tag @genius-moderation to report any abusive content. So far, there have been no instances of abuse, but we recognize that this is an entirely valid concern as usage of the tool increases."

Second, let sites opt out of annotation. If that sounds extreme, its worth noting that Google has let sites opt out of appearing in search results for a long time. It is tough to imagine a much more significant layer over the Internet than Google search results.

Genius already expressed its objection to this option in the above, but I submit that if annotation really does catch on, the major media and dominant personalities that need such correction won't fight annotation if it delivers eyeballs.

But writers online who are tentative about their voice and mainly want to find support from others who feel the way they do would appreciate the option to be a bit more circumspect.

Fortunately, it seems like members of the Genius community are bending. One poweruser and editor, DoyleOwl, wrote about the incident on the site and proposed that the community acknowledge that it made a mistake.

He argued that users of Web Annotator should respect a sites ground rules before annotating it. "This does not mean that Genius is being censored. It means that we have the maturity and the wisdom to not attack people's personal and private pages—and by private, I mean one which disables or controls comment sections."

This incident has been instructive for me, as a writer. I tend to treat everything I can see in real life and online as something I can use in reporting. By and large, that's not a horrible way for a journalist to look at the world, and yet as technology puts more and more sensors everywhere, there is just a lot more today that can be seen and a lot more ways to converse but also to overhear.

It's a conversation that will temper my thinking going forward. I can't get a lot more specific than that yet, but it's something for all of us taking up digital real estate to meditate on and discuss.

Source: Genius Web Annotator vs. One Young Woman With a Blog

HiI just installed Let's Encrypt free SSL for my Wordpress blog, everything is fine except site unable access from Windows XP, I've tested with both Firefox and Chrome latest version.

The error is:

Your connection is not secure

The owner of <site> has configured their website improperly. To protect your information from being stolen, Firefox has not connected to this website.

There is no problem when visit the site from Windows 7,8 or 10. It is also working well from Ubuntu

I think this is the issues made by Windows XP or Let's encrypt problem. But few hours to research, ask everywhere and I unable to solve this error

Do you have any experience with Let's encrypt or known how to fix it? I don't want lost many traffic from Windows XP users

Thanks

Source: Windows XP can't access https Wordpress site

In my previous post, I introduced Custom Post Types (CPT) and how to create one for your WordPress powered website.

We also took a look at how to customize the various UI labels of a custom post type to make it distinct from the native post and page post types. However, we didn't cover how to customize the admin notices generated by them.

In this tutorial, I will be covering how to customize these notices and also how to register new taxonomies to a custom post type.

Customizing CPT Admin Notices

Are you familiar with the alert message that is displayed near the top of admin pages for example when a post is saved as draft, published or even when you save the settings of a plugin? This message is what is referred to as an admin notice.

By default, the admin notices displayed when working on a custom post assumes you are dealing with a post post type and therefore, when for example a book post type is updated, the following notice is displayed: Post updated. View post.

You can change the text of these messages easily by using the post_updated_messages hook like so:

add_filter( 'post_updated_messages', 'book_cpt_messages' ); /** * Book CPT updates messages. * * @param array $messages Existing post update messages. * * @return array Amended book CPT notices */ function book_cpt_messages( $messages ) { $post = get_post(); $post_type = get_post_type( $post ); $post_type_object = get_post_type_object( $post_type ); $messages['book'] = array( 0 => '', // Unused. Messages start at index 1. 1 => __( 'Book updated.', 'textdomain' ), 2 => __( 'Custom field updated.', 'textdomain' ), 3 => __( 'Custom field deleted.', 'textdomain' ), 4 => __( 'Book updated.', 'textdomain' ), 5 => isset( $_GET['revision'] ) ? sprintf( __( 'Book restored to revision from %s', 'textdomain' ), wp_post_revision_title( (int) $_GET['revision'], false ) ) : false, 6 => __( 'Book published.', 'textdomain' ), 7 => __( 'Book saved.', 'textdomain' ), 8 => __( 'Book submitted.', 'textdomain' ), 9 => sprintf( __( 'Book scheduled for: <strong>%1$s</strong>.', 'textdomain' ), date_i18n( __( 'M j, Y @ G:i', 'textdomain' ), strtotime( $post->post_date ) ) ), 10 => __( 'Book draft updated.', 'textdomain' ) ); if ( $post_type_object->publicly_queryable ) { $permalink = get_permalink( $post->ID ); $view_link = sprintf( ' <a href="%s">%s</a>', esc_url( $permalink ), __( 'View book', 'textdomain' ) ); $messages[ $post_type ][1] .= $view_link; $messages[ $post_type ][6] .= $view_link; $messages[ $post_type ][9] .= $view_link; $preview_permalink = add_query_arg( 'preview', 'true', $permalink ); $preview_link = sprintf( ' <a target="_blank" href="%s">%s</a>', esc_url( $preview_permalink ), __( 'Preview book', 'textdomain' ) ); $messages[ $post_type ][8] .= $preview_link; $messages[ $post_type ][10] .= $preview_link; } return $messages; }

Code Explanation: The code above customizes admin notices generated by a book custom post type.

The $messages multi-dimensional array controls the admin notices displayed by any post type.

To customize the messages of a book custom post type, create an index array containing the various messages as the value of $messages['book'].

The if statement checks if the custom post type is publicly query-able. That is, whether the public argument is set to true while registering the custom post type.

If true, a link to view a post belonging to the CPT is added to the admin notice displayed when it is updated, published or scheduled for publication while a link to preview the post is added when it is submitted for review or a draft is updated.

Custom Taxonomies

In WordPress, a taxonomy is mechanism for grouping posts of any type.

Examples of taxonomies include Category for grouping posts that are related to a given category and Tag which is pretty similar to categories but is more free form. More information on taxonomies is available over at the WordPress Codex.

That being said, we are going to cover how to create custom taxonomies. Let us take the example of creating a book post type, categorizing the book entries using the same categories used for blog posts isn't ideal.

A real life example is the Easy Digital Downloads plugin that uses a download custom post type for digital product entries with a download_category taxonomy for product categorization.

To create a custom taxonomy, use the register_taxonomy() function and hook it to the init Action like so:

add_action( 'init', 'book_category_taxonomy' ); function book_category_taxonomy() { register_taxonomy( 'book_category', 'book', array( 'label' => __( 'Book Categories' ), 'rewrite' => array( 'slug' => 'book_category' ), 'hierarchical' => true, ) ); }

If you have a book custom post type already, you should see the category taxonomy added to the admin menu and post edit screen.

You can also use register_post_type() for registering custom post types, the register_taxonomy() function also accepts an array of arguments for customizing labels and configuration of a custom taxonomy.

I won't be explaining the arguments because they are pretty much the same as that of register_post_type() . A list of the arguments and descriptions is available here.

Conclusion

Custom Post Types are a powerful feature of WordPress and useful in grouping data or post entries that don't fit into a post and page type. The icing on the cake is the ability to further categorize the posts of a custom post type by registering a custom taxonomy.

Do you have a question or contribution? Please use the comments to let us know.

Source: WordPress Custom Post Types – Notices and Taxonomies

I seem to receive about three emails a day asking me for advice on how to become a blogger. I try to respond to every email, however in recent months I've begun writing articles on the subject to save myself time and to help anyone else who is intrigued. Ever since my first blog post on 100 things to do before you die, I have been adapting my strategy and experimenting on a constant basis. So have a read through my 10 steps on setting up your own blog.

1) Choosing A Name Once you have chosen, you're stuck with it for life, so put in a good few weeks on this stage. I would recommend loading up a site such as GoDaddy, as well as Twitter and Google+ to test out potential website names and to see if anything already exists. 2) Wireframes OK, you might not need to design a professional looking wireframe (unless you're good at design or feel the urge), however you need a general idea of how you want your site to look. Have a look at competitors to get an idea for style and layout. If you don't have the budget for a developer, you can get a great theme for around £30. You may also find that the competitor site you're admiring is also on WordPress, meaning a quick look into the source code will identify the theme being used. 3) Create A Backlog One of the biggest stumbling blocks people hit when they have a new blog is struggling to consistently produce fresh content. The one thing I have learned throughout the years is that you should build up a backlog of blog posts, so once it all goes live, you can focus on other tasks such as building your social accounts or improving your site, rather than worrying about writing a new article every couple of days. 4) Create A Blog Calendar The first step is to build a keyword analysis of terms you want to target over the next 12 months. I would recommend using a tool such as Searchmetrics or SEMrush to find what terms your competitors or other sites in your industry are ranking for. Having a complete year schedule will offer more guidance over what you should be writing about, as well as helping you to prepare for seasonal topics. It will also remove the time wasted when you are thinking week-by-week what to write about. 5) Tools & Analysis There are some basic areas you need to get setup on as soon as possible. Firstly, set your site up on Google analytics and then workout what you want to be a 'goal', so you can track the conversion rate of each page. Next you will want to setup your site on Webmaster Tools, so you spot issues, as well as submitting an XML sitemap to Google and many other useful tasks. 6) Build Your Social Profiles You can write the greatest content of all time, but if nobody sees it, then it will fall on death ears. Gathering eye-balls to your site will be a continuous progress, as you begin to build a brand, however social will play an important role until organic search becomes a big player. You need to make a decision on which social profiles you want to post on and how many you can handle. So many people setup social profiles and then leave them empty, which can look worse than not even having one. On the other hand, it can be good to gain your brand name on a social profile so nobody else takes it. 7) Record Your Metrics I would recommend setting up an excel sheet containing every metric you want to record, including followers on all your social channels, social shares, weekly visits to your site, email subscribers etc. Recording this on the same day each week will help you to spot what has or hasn't worked, as well as keeping you on track and motivated. 8) Set Brand Guidelines This may seem a bit odd at the moment, but a consistent style will make your site seem a lot more professional. From the size of images being presented in a consistent manner, to your font and paragraph layout, if you don't do it at the start you might have to go back later and fix up your site. So setup as you mean to go forward. 9) Attend Relevant Conferences Whatever industry you're in, there are conferences or events you can attend. If there isn't one in your area, consider setting up one yourself! I'm lucky as there seems to be endless events for travel bloggers, both as a way to network with others and to learn new ways to optimise my site. 10) Plugins If you've gone for WordPress then you will find probably the greatest benefit is the vast range of plugins. The more you search and read on the topic, the more you will want to experiment with different plugins. Some you may want to check out include AMP (accelerated mobile pages, a new mobile speed advancement), Backup (to regularly backup your website), Disqus (commenting system), Leverage browser caching, social widget, WordPress related posts and Yoast. If you are hoping to create a blog and want any advice, please don't hesitate to send me an email with any questions you may have, I'm always happy to help.
Source: 10 Steps To Becoming A Blogger

Canada-based e-commerce solution provider Shopify has launched a plugin for WordPress that allows people and companies operating WordPress websites to add a shopping function.

Shopify announced the new plugin via the company blog. With the Shopify plugin, "you'll still manage all of your pages and posts in WordPress, but you'll have Shopify to manage everything else: payments, secure checkout, shipping and fulfillment, inventory, and taxes—all the hard things about selling online."

The plugin, which can be downloaded for free, allows you to make any WordPress page or post shoppable.

The plugin allows you to drop products with buy buttons into any sidebar, page or blog post. The plugin also includes a pop-out shopping cart, allowing customers to purchase multiple products at once.

The Shopify plugin allows WordPress users to integrate a shopping cart for a range of products or just one product, if necessary. "It's perfect for WordPress site owners looking for a simple way to sell directly to their audience."

Besides the e-commerce functionality, Shopify is also offering three customisable, free wordpress themes. All three themes are free to download for a limited time, and are built for websites using WordPress.org, the self-hosted version of WordPress.

Shopify themes provided by Ultralinx (left), Themezilla (middle), and Themify (right).

Other features of the plugin include:

Facebook shop

Pinterest buyable Pins

Twitter shoppable Tweets

iPad/iPhone POS

Store management app

While the plugin is free to download, to enable the shopping cart you need to subscribe to Shopify Lite.

Source: Shopify Launches WordPress Plugin

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra's community.The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

The science of crowd funding….no, the black magic that goes behind running a successful campaign is something that still eludes us here at Dream Harvest.

You see, we spent 4 months planning and preparing for our campaign and more than a year slowly building up our community around our game, studio and team and yet 3 weeks in we have only managed to raise just over £5000 towards our £30,000 to pay for our art team.  

We actually knew that the campaign would be a failure within the first 48 hours of launching, we made a string of mistakes that lead us to this point and I hope that the following post will act as a guide to those that decide to run their own campaign in the future.

Before I go into the details about what we did right and wrong let me give you a bit of back story about our game.

Failure is a B2P (Buy to Play) online competitive Cyberpunk real time strategy game for PC / Mac / Linux / SteamOS set in a digital metaverse where you don't control your units.

You place buildings that spawn different unit types all completely Ai controlled and whom have different sets of behaviors that designate how they react to a given situation.

You also use special powers to influence their behaviors and abilities.

Before going into a match you must build a "Deck" of these buildings. units and special powers from a wide selection and in level you can upgrade the buildings and units giving them new abilities and increasing the power of existing ones.

It's a complex blend between RTS, CCG, Tower Defense and God Games and describing the gameplay so that people completely grasp it has been incredibly hard to do, in fact, this might have been one of the issues we had with our text heavy campaign, but we'll talk more about that in a second.

So what did we do in the run up to our campaign and why has it fallen short?

Well the first thing we did is talk to as many people as we could who had previously run both successful and unsuccessful campaigns. We tried to get as much insight into why they believed their campaigns went the way they did and took note of pitfalls such as not having a big enough community, holding back tiers until later in the campaign and being as vocal as possible with your backers.

I spent a considerable amount of time pushing numbers around on spreadsheets.

I tried to work out what the minimum we would need to raise in order to get the game to early access.

I played around with different ideas for rewards and how getting a certain number of backers per tier would affect the numbers.

We spent 4 months creating art assets, planning updates, putting together the page and writing and rewriting all the content.

We made sure to use quotes from our peers in the industry; people like Ray Mazza, ex-creative director at Maxis who's been giving us some amazing player feedback over the past few months and Tanya at Kitfox (you should check out their game, Moons Hunters btw, its just come out on Steam).

We worked hard to get some great deals from suppliers so we could offer some really nice physical rewards and we priced our rewards at a level that we felt was right for a narrative driven online rts.

But as we found out, none of this mattered, as the one thing that really caused our Kickstarter to fail was the lack of people that actually visited the page.

Failing to Crowdfund

You see, we made some mistakes and we had some issues.

Firstly, we launched on a weekend, a Saturday to be precise. Launching a campaign on a weekend is never a good idea as many people are nursing their hangovers or are in front of their TV's rather than sitting in front of their computers. There was a reason for this though, we were being featured on the Indie Dev Supershow:

We thought that the extra eyes on the game being played by a well known streamer would convert to backers, but our day one backer total was a measly 17 people (4 of which was our own team).

On day 2, Sunday, we managed another 17 backers bringing our total to £1231 - but over £500 of this was our own team backing the project.

At this point we knew something was wrong, why were the backer numbers so low - we thought it might have something to do with the way we were presenting the information on the page, maybe we weren't showing the cool gifs and images soon enough and people weren't scrolling through. Also only 8% of the people viewing our main Kickstarter video would watch it to the end (Though this has stayed consistent throughout the campaign). People were leaving the page really fast after accessing it as seen in the numbers below:

So in an attempt to alter things I jumped back into the awful. Slow and buggy mess that is the Kickstarter editor to try and rearrange things around only to find that I couldn't save any of my changes.

I was getting a character limit error, an error that we hadn't seen before and what was strange is that I wasn't adding anything to the page, only rearranging elements and yet no matter what I tried I couldn't save my changes.

In a panic I email Kickstarter asking if there was a way for them to fix the issue or remove the character limit.

They got back to me 8 hours later with an answer that neither answered my question nor helped in any way except for giving me a link to a faq page about the character limit. I sent another email explaining again, in detail, what our issue was and that I hadn't added anything to the page and someone completely different emailed me back with the same cut and paste answer.

For 48 hours I emailed back and forth trying to find a solution to the issue. Each time the team at Kickstarter failed to give me a solution or answer my queries in a personal way.

Needless to say, when the support feedback emails came through I was quite frank with them.

I also forgot to mention that we asked Kickstarter to review our page before we went live in which they also seemed to cut and paste their feedback from a generic page from their campaign handbook - if they had taken a proper look at the page they might have seen that we were near the character limit (something that you as a creator have no idea about until you reach and can't save).

Eventually I found a solution - delete all the content from our campaign and painstakingly re-import every image, video and paragraph of text.

NOTE: Text looses it's formatting if copied and pasted from another source such as a google or a word document and requires reformatting after import.

By this point we were on day 5 of the campaign and things were not looking good. The number of backers was very quickly declining and we needed to try something to start bringing the numbers back up and fast.

At the end of week one I decided to create a walkthough video where I played against myself, talking through the basics of the gameplay. This seemed to help some people grasp the basic concept, as shown in the day 10 backers above. But it also wasn't great for showing what we had planned for the game; as I wasted the first half of the video in the mockup menu's explaining the deck building - something that's going to be drastically different in the final game.

Here's the video so you can see for yourselves the issues with the way I presented the information:

Sven and I decided that we should try some paid advertisement via Twitter, Facebook, Google adwords and create a super short trailer (15 seconds) that we could use with Youtube Ads. This unfortunately took us 3 days to get ready due to Sven's other work commitments.

Here's the 15 second ad video:

We spent around £400 - £500 initially, running carefully targeted campaigns which drove a small amount of traffic to the page and saw our conversion rate go up but it wasn't until day 11 that it actually started to trend upwards again followed by a big drop as we ran out of money. Our Google Adwords campaign was costing us over $10 a click!

I also made use of Kickbooster - a platform that gives users a unique link where they earn 10% of every referred pledge. Although we saw about 833 clicks of the links we saw a 0% conversion rate.

The best results came from Facebook where we'd also posted links to the campaign on 15 - 20 gaming and indie dev groups (This was done on day one and then again later in the week and again in week 2 and 3). I made sure to follow up any comments that people made.

Even though the comments were all positive in the most part, the issue of people not understanding the gameplay still came up again and again…..and the name of the game also seemed to be an issue, something that quite a few people mentioned on our Reddit posts:

"[–]Aetrion 7 points 21 days ago 

https://www.reddit.com/r/Unity3D/comments/483fa9/failure_an_rts_made_with_unity_where_you_dont/#" id="form-t1_d0hdh88ce9">

The game seems interesting, but the name is atrocious.

[–]PL_Harpoon 2 points 21 days ago 

https://www.reddit.com/r/Unity3D/comments/483fa9/failure_an_rts_made_with_unity_where_you_dont/#" id="form-t1_d0hurff009">

Please change the name of your game.

[–]pengo 2 points 20 days ago 

https://www.reddit.com/r/Unity3D/comments/483fa9/failure_an_rts_made_with_unity_where_you_dont/#" id="form-t1_d0j3bmzshg">

I like the overall look. But...

... constructs and functions ...

... primary and secondary objectives ...

... abilities called scripts ...

... functions and constructions ...

... which have their own abilities ...

... script types ...

... compiler system ...

... mods and functions ...

... superpowerful fusions ...

[further incoherent pseudo-tech speak without any examples of any of the above]

You really need to give a basic "hello world" example, and then expand from there. Like the viewer is going through a tutorial: The player is trying to achieve something. They have this simple construct available. They try it, it works/doesn't work, but now they have unlocked the fusion compiler mod function system or whatever and let's see what happens with that, and then here's one we prepared earlier that shows all the lego constructed into a giant castle.

Your top down approach of defining a bunch of new concepts in terms of other new concepts isn't really helping explain your game. It's like giving a list of wordpress plugins to someone who doesn't know what a blog is.

And yeah, the name isn't great.

But looks like it could be a cool concept. Best of luck with it."

[–]Crowbox 1 point 21 days ago 

https://www.reddit.com/r/Unity3D/comments/483fa9/failure_an_rts_made_with_unity_where_you_dont/#"; id="form-t1_d0hc1pst3f">

"Failure" reads like a description of the concept which follows. Like "Epic Fail: A FPS without enemies". But I like the idea and will check it out in more detail.

[–]citizen_farqua 1 point 21 days ago 

https://www.reddit.com/r/Unity3D/comments/483fa9/failure_an_rts_made_with_unity_where_you_dont/#" id="form-t1_d0hxx9av1q">

You really need to change the name. Sounds great. Looks great. Bad name.

Also, I am doing a mobile game where you don't really control your units. I'm interested to see how our approaches differ.

[–]jimanjr 1 point 20 days ago 

https://www.reddit.com/r/Unity3D/comments/483fa9/failure_an_rts_made_with_unity_where_you_dont/#" id="form-t1_d0i02xr1e1">

It looks really interesting but it should be obvious that you need to change your name. Even something like F.A.I.L. is better because it doesn't read like a headline. Right now it looks like a conclusion: "Those guys tried making an RPG. The result? Failure." It would really help you to come up with something else.

So as you can see, running a Kickstarter campaign for a game called Failure doesn't exactly exude confidence, even if the game does look super cool and relatively polished in it's early state.

Here's a breakdown of where our backers came from:

 

We made sure to setup Google Analytics but forgot to turn on the E-Commerce section so our data for sales and conversions only starts from half way through the campaign. But here's our conversion rates based on where the backers came from:

And here are our stats from the different social networks we were active on, but ignore the transactions as they don't take into account the first two weeks of the campaign:

It all seems to come down to numbers. If we look at our overall conversion rate based on the total number of page visits we're looking at around 1.45% which isn't actually all that bad, the issue really was the number of users of just a measly 7773.

But in all honesty, our conversion rate should have been a bit better and I think this comes down to our inability to completely explain the game to people.

In addition to all our pushing on social media I also made use of Green Inbox, a service that allows you to send a mass email to all your contacts on Facebook and Linkedin - I really should have done this on day one as, although it didnt work with my Facebook contacts (we saw 0 new pledges), it worked really well with my Linkedin contacts, though it does help that I have over 1200 contacts made up of people in games, entrepenuers and other tech people. We saw around 40 new pledges from them as well as some great email replies wishing us luck and even digging deeper into the gameplay and trying to give us some really in depth feedback - but it was all to little too late.

We really stuggled with Press and although the lovely people at MMOHuts did a nice Interview with us, featured us in their monthly Kickstarter tracker video and are actually still in the process of writing a first impressions piece about the game. We were also interviewed by a small gaming site called Facelessgaming.co.uk and also had a nice article written about us by some other Kickstarter / Crowdfunding specific sites.

We stuggled to get any other major press to cover us. I sent weekly emails to writers that I thought would find the game interesting and who had previously covered Kickstarter campaigns, but we're seeing less and less coverage about Kickstarter projects from the major press outlets at the moment and I see this as a major problem for dicoverability for any Kickstarter. Without the support of major press there is a high liklihood that you'll be unable to drive high enough numbers to fund any major project.

The Game and Team

I've left this section to the end as I didnt want to bog you down with details about hte game and instead focus this blog post about where I think we went wrong with our campaign, but I think explaining a bit more about the game and the team does somewhat corrilate as to why the campaign maybe failed, so here goes:

Matches take place in different levels set with the sectors of the game world, The MetaNet - a vast cyberspace Metaverse. Player progress by upgrading their Decks with new buildings and powers and upgrading existing ones with Mods or combining different buildings and powers together.

As players explore the world they progress through the narrative for their chosen Faction (They can choose to work for one of three; Tesseract, Bit.Crash or Xanctuary) and the outcomes from both singleplayer and multiplayer matches influence the narrative outcomes. The single player and multiplayer experience is intertwined and players can choose to complete missions that are just them against the Ai and other missions that are against other player controlled armies.

The team at Dream Harvest is made up of a mixture of people, some of whom have been working in the industry for quite a while on both AAA and Indie games and others that are new to the industry but who were chosen to be a part of the team due to their solid portfolios and drive to create great gameplay experiences.

I've been working in Audio for games for the past 7 or 8 years having worked at both Side and OMUK, two of the UK's leading recording studios for game dialogue and I also worked on a number of Indie games as both a sound designer and composer and game designer and project manager.

Sven, our lead programmer has worked in the industry on and off for the past 15 years or more having worked on a number of Playstation games in the past and also working on a fair amount of Indie games and big mods. His extensive experience of complex network programming and graphics programming due to his previous and current full time jobs means that pretty much anything we can think up he can code, on top of this he's pretty handy at 3D modeling, film production and audio production and programming. He's a swiss army knife of programming and is fluent in over 15 programming languages.

Milcho our other programmer currently works for a well known, large indie studio on a big space MOBA and previously released several indie games.He's also a pretty good game designer having come up with the original concept for this game and now works on the Ui and gameplay programming for us.

We then have Antony Johnston, the writer of Dead Space, Dead Space Extraction and who has also provided writing for other games such as ZombieU, Lord of the Rings: Shadows of Mordor and Binary Domain among many others as well as being a comic book / graphic novel writer.

Ryan Klaverweide, Ui artist at Bungie on their Destiny team.

Our other two artists are newer to the industry but both do some fantastic work.

Anyway, my point being we have a pretty solid team with some proven experience behind us so I don't believe that this would be an issue in terms of people wanting to back us and trusting whether we will be able to complete the project or not.

The Core team (Sven, Milcho, Leigh and I) have been working on the project part time around our full time jobs - I went full time last July in order to plan for our Steam Greenlight campaign and try to increase the pace we were able to work on the game.

I'd love to get your thoughts and what you think maybe went wrong. The campaign is still up here: www.failuregame.com/kickstarter

So what next?

Well, the team are obviously drained and moral is low, we've had to let Brent and Natalie go and I'm still trying to sort out a deal with Ryan so that he can stay on to continue working on the game. Leigh, our designer has decided to take a break from the team, though this is related to family issues, but I'm sure the fact the campaign being unsuccessful helped with his decision.

The rest of us are determined to move forward and continue development of the game; but we know that we need to improve several things before we do another campaign or even approach investors:

Speak to people that have played the game and ask them to describe it in a paragraph and use these descriptions when explaining the game to others.

Build a larger community over the next few months; be more active on social media, forums and elsewhere and share the game with as many people as possible including Streamers and Youtubers; build a buzz around the game

Get the game in front of people at events whenever we can (though lack of budget does stop us from getting a booth at most)

Create a small game in under a month and release it to the community for free. Tie this mini game to the world of Failure in order to drive interest towards the bigger product.

Change the name of the game - calling a game Failure was a bad idea, both in terms of discoverability in search engines and due to the negative connotations associated with the word.

Get more content into the game, including more of our core systems before launching another campaign.

There are smaller things that we'll be doing over the next few months in order to do our damndest to make sure the game is successful. The experience of running the campaign opened our eyes to how hard it really is to gain traction with a new game idea but we're not going to let any of it stop us in creating what we believe is a really fun experience.

Source: Crowdfunding Failure