I run Google Ads professionally and this has also happened to me. I was never unable to fix it directly. One time, I had a Wordpress site that Google Ads claimed was a compromised site. I migrated it to a landing page provider (Unbounce), and Google Ads still insisted the site was compromised even though Google's tools said the said was clean.
What I did to fix this was to migrate my landing pages to a new domain. (I believe migrating my landing pages to a different subdomain on the same domain would also work, but I haven't tested this.)
You don't need to run traffic to your full website. All you need is a marketing website to run traffic to. That marketing website doesn't even need database integration, so you can put that marketing website on a totally different server.
So to fix this issue, I wouldn't try to fix it. I'd just create a marketing website somewhere else and direct traffic to that.
Thanks, I think you're right. I might try a subdomain and if that doesn't work a separate domain altogether, although I would have thought if I link through to the main site surely they'd still block it.. but we'll see
This is actually the plot behind Larry Niven's Ringworld! A gigantic civilization has created a Ringworld (a rotating wheel artificial world), until a superconducting plague (https://news.larryniven.net/concordance/main.asp?alpha=S#sup...) destroys the material that enables room-temperature superconductivity, thus reducing the entire Ringworld to the dark ages...
I work in the bankruptcy niche, and I wanted to tweak your statements...
Chapter 13 bankruptcy is deleted from your credit report seven years from the discharge date, which comes 3 to 5 years after you file (because there's a 3 to 5 year payment plan). So if you measure from the filing date, Chapter 13 takes 7 + 3-to-5 years to come off your credit report, which is 10 to 12 years from the filing date.
Similarly, Chapter 7 bankruptcy is deleted 10 years from the discharge date. In a typical Chapter 7 bankruptcy, the debtor receives a discharge 4 months after filing. So your statement is actually quite close, but to be pedantic, it's 10.33 years from the filing date.
In my experience, most Chapter 7 filers can fully recover after about 2 years, provided they are able to make their payments on-time after the bankruptcy.
This is a lie that needs to die. Bankruptcy might get removed from your credit report, but the public court records never do. Anyone who does a credit check can (and will) search those public records.
Some friends of mine declared bankruptcy a few years after the financial crisis due to their business failing. They eventually lost their home, but were able to save up some money by not paying their mortgage while their case was in processing). They rented a place for a few years, but after some time, like 2 or 3 years they were able to qualify for a new mortgage with apparently a decent enough rate and bought a house. They were also somehow able to decide which loans to declare bankruptcy on, so they kept their car loan for example.
I mean, I don't know that it is perfect, but I think the bankruptcy laws in the US are pretty decent at least.
I'm not saying bankruptcy is bad. It's a necessary escape hatch for the credit industry, and shouldn't have the stigma it does. maunder is absolutely right; the consumer credit industry in the US is nothing but predatory. Good for you if you haven't been bit yet, but their goal is to eat everyone. Whenever I see someone brag about their credit score all I see is a mouse begging for the cat's approval.
More and more you can't even opt out of consumer credit. I have attempted to opt out of it by not holding any credit, except I apparently need good credit to live somewhere, or a credit card to rent a car or do some kinds of money transfers.
Telling people they can file bankruptcy, "reset to 0", and have another chance to redeem themselves is bullshit. The only place it disappears from is your credit report, and implying that covers it is a brazen lie. It really doesn't. Fuck credit scores. What about the ability to get a job, or not live on the street? Having a bankruptcy from 30 years ago can negatively impact your ability to do either of those things.
The credit industry is so deluded that they think your credit report is all that matters, and that's how they want you to think. In reality, it's all that matters to them and they can't wait to get you back in the game.
If you go them and say "I want to make a very unfavorable to myself deal, that will make you lots of money" then they'll say "Yes."
Caveat emptor by default, with specific exclusions for some worse cases, generally governs financial contracts in the US.
In other words, you have the right to agree to whatever you want to agree to. If you choose to use that power to blow your foot off... well, that can happen.
The contrary view is that the state has at least two jobs: to create an environment where you're in a position to turn down bad deals, and to prevent the very worst deals from being offered in the first place.
Really it is about whether the government's job is to forcibly not govern, or to get involved.
The former I'd agree with, the latter I'd question.
Because "very worst" (or even just "bad") deals is a loaded term. Why? For whom? When?
As discussed in this topic, a high-interest rate loan is a bad deal, unless it's the best option you have. Would no loan be better than that loan? Maybe. Should we take away someone's ability to make that decision? I'm not convinced.
At some point, the cost of freedom is freedom to fail. So it's always a balancing act between not making that failure hurt too much or too easy to inadvertently stumble into... and giving people autonomy.
You'd think engineers would understand that you can't optimize for everything at once.
It sounds like you and the CEO both want something, which is often the basis for a reasonable compromise. You want to be let out of the strict non-compete clause, and you want your back-pay and ideally a raise. Meanwhile, the CEO doesn't want his company to fall apart in the wake of your departure. You could approach your CEO, and ask him to deliver a plan to pay down your backpay. During that discussion, you can tell him that since you're underpaid and haven't gotten a raise for years, you'd like to amend your employment contract so that the non-compete and invention clauses only apply to your corporate work (and not your consulting work). You can explain that this would let you do projects on the weekend that would help you make some more money to compensate for the undermarket salary.
Not tying the reason to your desire to be able to get another job easily also helps the CEO from freaking out as much. Also, limiting the non-compete edits to the consulting work helps him feel that his corporate work isn't threatened, while getting you what you want.
Amending your non-compete would also give you flexibility if you choose to leave, so that would be my primary goal here. To increase your leverage, you can also ask for a raise. Assuming he says that giving you more money is impossible, that increases pressure on him to concede on the only term that is non-monetary.
Thank you for the advice. I have tried similar in the past, but I have stopped shy of putting him in a corner.
I have gotten him to agree to let me work on side projects in exchange for the company getting 20%. But I found the hours I need to put into my main job are so long that there is no time left for the side projects (unless I neglect my wife, daughter, and/or my health) so it's an empty promise.
And obviously I can't contract on the side. That would be direct competition.
Taking a step back, it seems like you want to present a perfect solution to your boss that he can just adopt. I mean this in a friendly way, but that's not your job. Your job is to tell your boss what you want. Your boss's job is to figure out how to meet your needs.
Along those lines, I would just tell him politely that you'd like a plan to get your backpay over time, you'd like a raise although you understand that funding may preclude that, and you'd like your non-compete to be altered so at least it doesn't apply to your consulting work, since the scope of the consulting work is so broad that you wouldn't be able to ever get another job. You can mention that given the natural instability of a startup, this fact is stressing you out and making you lose sleep.
I would also ask to "paper" the backpay, so you have more than a verbal commitment on that.
If you talk nicely and respectfully about these issues, it is very likely that he will agree to the one term that doesn't cost him any money. (He will likely stall on all the other terms.)
I took a look at the first ten active loans listed on that profile. Four loans in particular are way behind on payments. If those loans default, you'd be out $160. On $1,000 in principal, that would represent a loss of 16%, instead of breaking even. That's more in line with Zidisha's write-off rate of 18.65%: https://www.zidisha.org/index.php?p=43
Completely accurate, which is why I state "I am basing this entire analysis on a number of large assumptions. Firstly, that my current outstanding loans will be repaid with the same reliability as my completed loans", and a number of other assumptions in addition. Nor do I know the extent to which previous loans, which may now be 100% repaid, may have dipped into default and subsequently recovered, which also incur a marginal cost in terms of opportunity cost of capital etc. My analysis is very much "cash based", which is limited, but this is the data I have available. A quick look through some of the 100% repaid loans suggests that at certain points in the cycle these were also overdue. Perhaps I could obtain the individual repayments versus due dates for each loan and work this out with greater accuracy, but I haven't bothered so far. To what extent are my current loans likely to default at the 18.65% rate you suggest? I have no idea. To what extent did my previous loans default to this extent? I have no idea. This is why I simply take a bird's eye perspective and look at net cash flows. However, as you accurately imply, for me to genuinely do this with precision I should wait until all current loans have been repaid, which either means I have idle funds on the platform, or I have to complicate the analysis by considering my average outstanding balance, which I have assumed for simplicity is $1000, which it has been to date roughly.
However, are you considering the gross interest income I will earn on the loans that don't default over the forthcoming period? This will partially offset some of the defaults, I can't say with precision to what extent. I count only principal outstanding, not interest income due. So, to some extent this will lessen the impact of possible defaults.
Finally, I have done a couple of new bids since my cut-off date of April 6th when I downloaded the data, so the numbers might not add up 100%. Oh, and Jessica is my wife, she started on Zidisha first, before I took over!
At the end of the day I am hesistant to say resolutely that Zidisha is a break-even venture. It has been so far, but subject to certain assumptions which I hope I have stated clearly. 18 months is a decent trial-period, but it's not a perfect analysis. And if I do subsequently lose a few percent on $1000 that is tolerable. Would I put $10.000 on the platform? No. And comments warning that Zidisha needs to tighten delinquency are completely accurate, and to an extent I am gambling on their ability to do just that - progress seems good so far (in 2014). What intrigues me is the innovation in the business model. It is disruptive. It is a first-mover in this space. Does that mean the model is perfectly refined and cannot be improved? I doubt it, and I look forward to seeing how they develop. But I think it is worth giving them a chance, which is what I have done (to a modest extent), and waiting to see what happens. I will update my blog periodically when more data comes in.
I take your point. It's just that if those four loans default, you will be down 16%. If that happens, you will lose your principal and also not earn interest on those defaulted loans. So even though you charged an 8.4% APR, you will only earn interest on 84% of your loan balance. So unless a miracle happens, it doesn't seem likely that you will break even.
It would be awesome if you could "close the loop" between analytics and SERPs!
For instance, say that you return a SERP with 2 results. Using your analytics and some conversion pixels, Swiftype would know that for that search, the first result has an estimated value of $10 and the second result has an estimated value of $20. From using Swiftype on a Wordpress site, I know that you give admins the power to change the order of results on a SERP page manually. Could you also do that automatically?
So for an e-commerce client, you could automatically re-sort the SERP so the $20 link shows up first (and hence gets more clicks). You could even calculate and display the benefit to the customer of doing this, e.g. "You have generated $1,234 in extra revenue this month by using Search Auto-Rejigger".
If I understand what you're suggesting correctly, we already do this. Any analytics we expose in the dashboard are also being leveraged internally as signals for search relevance. Effectively, any search interaction can be used to improve the relevance of subsequent searches.
I think this behavior comes from the webcam, and not Skype. I have actually seen this exact behavior with the Microsoft LifeCam, which often auto-changes the width of the video stream. The larger width will show "people on the sides," and the more narrow width does not.
I believe that the LifeCam looks for movement in the peripheral area. If there is no movement there, the LifeCam will truncate the sides of the image. I have sometimes been able to force the sides to appear by waving my arms off to the side.
When I first noticed this happening, I was surprised that many "people on the side" don't move or talk at all, thus triggering a truncation. But I started looking for this, and most "people on the side" barely move at all.
In my experience, Skype video quality tends to degrade by simply freezing the screen. I have also noticed this behavior when Skype was off entirely, when recording a video of myself. So I'm pretty sure it's the webcam itself auto-controlling the width, and not Skype.
I purposely did not install the drivers, but that's not saying much as the camera, OS, and Skype software are all Microsoft's, so there is no reason to believe Microsoft couldn't run any driver they wanted to in this situation.
If it is indeed the webcam and not Skype, it'd be cool to update the description and/or title accordingly. After all, it's rare to see a MS product given high praise around here - and they certainly seem to deserve it here.
All the famous entrepreneurs mentioned in this story have very light accents. I found YouTube videos with these entrepreneurs speaking, and none of them have "accents so strong that you have to interrupt the conversation to ask what they just said.":
Good luck! In the spirit of your post, here are four reasons that I think the opportunity you are currently pursuing will fail.
First, you are not making something that people want. The primary customer you have to satisfy here are fashion bloggers (as once you get them, you will get access to end consumers). However, I would speculate that the ability to easily create "outfits" is not the #1 pain for fashion bloggers. In general, customers want to solve their #1 pain. If you solve a problem that is NOT your customers' #1 pain, you will find it very hard to get the attention of those customers.
To address this issue, I would call fashion bloggers and ask them what their problems are. I would speculate that "easily making outfits" is not their #1 problem.
Second, fashion bloggers aren't a very profitable customer to pursue, so a business that targets that market will find it hard to make money. By contrast, if you targeted an industry that makes money, your customers would have more revenue to share with you. On a related note, many fashion bloggers are not making enough to make a full-time living, so they don't think of their fashion blogs as a business. Thus, even if you create a product that makes them money, they may still not adopt your product.
To address this issue, I would find a more profitable customer to pursue that makes at least $50,000 a year. Also, I would make sure that those customers consider what they do to be their main source of income. This would exclude hobbyists.
Third, I would be concerned that it's hard to reach fashion bloggers to market your product to them. Yes, you can pitch them by email or Twitter. However, fashion bloggers are innudated with pitches, and often ignore them.
To address this issue, I would target a market that wants to be reached, so you can easily reach them to pitch your product.
Fourth, fashion bloggers aren't used to paying for software. Thus, you would have a harder time convincing them to pay you for your software. Compare this to, say, a salesperson, who is used to paying for a CRM and all sorts of software.
To address this issue, you would have to find a way to make money without directly charging your user (the fashion blogger). One way to do this is to require your product be linked with your third-party affiliate codes, and then do a revenue-share on those affiliate earnings. However, this would be hard for fashion bloggers to accept, and would require policing on your part.
In conclusion, I would urge you to switch your focus to (1) solving the #1 pain for (2) a lucrative market that (3) you can reach easily and (4) that is used to buying software.
One one hand you say fashion bloggers are a small market because there are not a lot of them, and on the other hand you say you have to cater them to get to a bigger market; this does not compute.
To the original poster: I don't think you have to market to fashion bloggers at all. It helps if they see value in what you do and they promote it, but they are not your final customer: pay attention to your end customer's needs instead.
This email was likely unearthed during pre-trial discovery (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_(law)) when Macy's sued Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSLO) for breach of contract when MSLO decided to start selling its formerly-exclusive-to-Macy's products to JCPenney. It was probably found by searching for the keyword "Martha" in the emails of certain top JCPenney executives. That trial has already revealed many important emails about the Martha/JCPenney deal.
What I did to fix this was to migrate my landing pages to a new domain. (I believe migrating my landing pages to a different subdomain on the same domain would also work, but I haven't tested this.)
You don't need to run traffic to your full website. All you need is a marketing website to run traffic to. That marketing website doesn't even need database integration, so you can put that marketing website on a totally different server.
So to fix this issue, I wouldn't try to fix it. I'd just create a marketing website somewhere else and direct traffic to that.