Subject Lines from Staples Email Newsletters

Do you like how emails try to get your attention in the subject line? Would these subject lines make you click and open their email newsletter? Here’s some recent examples from Staples.com:

• 😉 THANKS: You received a Staples ink promo! – Don’t miss out on all these ways to save!
• 🙂 Hi there! Here are your COUPONS. – Want more savings? Click here!
• 🙂 OPEN ASAP: You’ve acquired an up to 50% discount. – Start saving even more!
• Are you tech savvy? Up to $50 off these gifts! – Start saving even more!
• ATTN: YOUR ink & toner discounts have arrived! – Don’t miss out on all these ways to save!
• Confirmed: Promos are inside. – More unreal deals are waiting inside!
• Don’t miss out. $30 coupons inside. – Shop Staples — save every time. DAILY DEALS STAPLES
• Earned it ✔ You made the list for a COUPON for 15% off! – Want more savings? Click here!
• Here is a 20% COUPON to get your fix. Well done! – Want more savings? Click here!
• It’s yours – $15 ink & toner rewards. – More. More. More ways to save!
• Not kidding! Up to $200 off laptops, happening now. – Want more savings? Click here!
• ONLY HERE! These deals won’t last! – Start saving even more!
• Ready for you: We’ve enclosed your 31% off Daily Deal. – Want more savings? Click here!
• Special thanks! Up to $200 off this tech must have! – More. More. More ways to save!
• THANKS! You’ve received paper for $29.99! – Ready for more savings? Click here!
• Under $30 –– great gift ideas! – Don’t miss out on all these ways to save!
• Up to $250 off — time to upgrade + Last Chance for Cyber Deals! – More unreal deals are waiting inside!
• Up to 50% off –– save on chairs today! – Don’t miss out on all these ways to save!
• You deserve the best –– up to $100 off! – More. More. More ways to save!
• You’ve acquired a $200 discount. It’s confirmed! – Start saving even more!
• You’ve made our list for 15% off ink & toner! – Ready for more savings? Click here!

What’s interesting is where Staples.com places its email subscription form for their daily deals and exclusive offers. It doesn’t look like it’s easy to find on every web page for some reason.

Starbucks’ Success Secret is Branding

2008 article about Taylor Clark’s book about Starbucks from the internet archives~

Not Just Coffee: Starbucks’ Rise to Success

By Maria O’Connell

An average of six new Starbucks cafés open in the world each day. In fifteen years, Starbucks has not only seeped into 37 countries and all 50 states, but has grown from100 stores to 13,000. The chain serves about 40 million customers each week, giving jobs to 25 million coffee farmers. Starbucks infiltrated the American landscape more quickly than any other company in history; it was rated by Interbrand as the fourth-most effective brand in the world, after Apple, Google, and Ikea.

Fascinated by Starbucks’ rise to fame, Taylor Clark, a freelance journalist from Portland, Oregon, recently released his first book–Starbucked: A Double Tall Tale of Caffeine, Commerce, and Culture. In it, he creates a detailed picture of Starbucks’ road to success, explaining how the organization integrated its way into society so effectively and so quickly.

Taylor claims that the secret behind Starbucks’ appeal is the incredible amount of control it exercises over its image. All decisions start and end with the company’s ringleader, Howard Schultz. Everything at Starbucks is planned. It is not just a Starbucks’ coffee that you get when you walk through the café doors; it is a Starbucks’ experience.

It was after careful psychological research that the company first decided to have white cups with green writing, “tall” lattes, natural materials, and round tables. Starbucks interviewed hundreds of coffee drinkers, seeking what it was that they wanted from a coffee shop. The overwhelming consensus actually had nothing to do with coffee; what consumers sought was a place of relaxation, a place of belonging. They sought an atmosphere.

The round tables in a Starbucks store were strategically created in an effort to protect self-esteem for those coffee-drinkers flying solo. After all, there are no “empty” seats at a round table. Service counters are built out of natural materials like warm woods and stone, rather than plastics and metals, to create a homier atmosphere.

Instead of ordering a “short” coffee or tea, one orders a “tall” at Starbucks.  The company intentionally formed their own coffee lingo, which by now could be recorded in a dictionary of coffee terminology. The terms “tall,” “grande,” and “venti” are the size options that Starbucks offers. The company was correct to assume that once their customers learned the lingo, other coffeehouses, where you must choose from a small, medium, or large, would make them feel uncomfortable and out of place. Starbucks’ coffee lingo gives the customer a chance to escape from American monotony and experience a charge of European sophistication.

Not surprisingly, the white and green Starbucks’ coffee cups were deliberately designed as well. These cups were created to be a walking advertisement for the company. Evidenced by more than 2 trillion customers each year, it worked.

Starbucks also has other branding secrets. The company will never discount drinks. Schultz is all about the image. He makes the point that you would never see a “buy one, get one free” deal on a Jaguar. In an effort to create brand prestige, he refuses to allow discounts. In addition, print ads for Starbucks often thank customers for their support of specific humanitarian concerns, such as tsunami relief. Starbucks donates money to many social causes. Thus, people are not only buying coffee or enjoying a relaxing atmosphere, they are also positively contributing to society.

The creation of Starbucks is a true story of success. Its marketing techniques have and will become an example to retail stores around the world. Undoubtedly, the Starbucks brand has been imprinted into history – making it one of those companies that will never disappear.

Starbucks Fact: “Contrary to popular belief, Starbucks actually boosts sales to nearby mom-and-pop coffee shops.”

For more information, please refer to Taylor Clark’s Starbucked: A Double Tall Tale of Caffeine, Commerce, and Culture.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 30th, 2008 at 3:26 pm 
with 1 comment

How to removed linked blogs from wordpress.com

WordPress.com is a most wonderful gift to humanity, powering thousands and maybe millions of blogs and websites for everyday people along with some VIPs too.

One thing that’s a bonus feature in the WordPress admin is to link self-hosted (powered by WordPress.org) blogs to the global dashboard at wordpress.com for all blogs, both the ones at wordpress.com and self-hosted ones, under a section currently known as Linked Blogs. And having one dashboard for all your blogs is nice to view stats and to do other admin things in one place.

A little background for those that like context: how blogs get added to the “Linked Blogs” section of the global dashboard is using the JetPack plugin from the self-hosted blog/site’s admin, and your blog/site gets linked when you click on the “Connect with Jetpack” button.

But, sometimes a domain expires with a self-hosted WordPress blog and you can’t access it no more, or you just want to remove the linked blogs from the global dashboard while you’re here.

Some others have come across this dilemma too, as these search results indicate:

• 2016-10-15 — How can I delete linked blogs from my WordPress.com dashboard?
• 2016-09-10 — Delete linked blogs from my admin page dashboard.
• 2016-07-15 — Please delete Linked Blogs.
• 2016-07-11 — Remove Linked Blogs
• 2016-05-20 — Delete Linked Blogs
• 2016-01-21 — Linked Blogs
• 2015-12-30 — delete linked blogs
• 2015-12-09 — Removing Linked Blogs
• 2015-12-06 — linked blogs
• 2015-10-11 — remove linked blogs

After some intensive searching, found the answer at Disconnect Jetpack Sites, where it says:

You can find step-by-step guides below that will help you remove a self-hosted WordPress site you had previously connected to your WordPress.com account thanks to the Jetpack plugin.

And here’s the answer! Remove an old site that is no longer online from your WordPress.com account. In other words, these are the instructions for how to remove linked blogs from your wordpress.com dashboard.

In case you don’t see the “disconnect site” link on the left-hand side, try selecting that site  (by clicking on blog/site title) & go down under section “Configure” & click on “Settings”. You might see this notification:

That’s ok. Then scroll to the bottom of that page and look for this:

There it is, click on “DISCONNECT SITE”, confirm, and you’re good.

Aside: There are clear instructions for how to delete a wordpress.com site or blog. But be fully-aware that deleting a site permanently removes it and you’ll never be able to re-use its WordPress.com address (such as yourgroovysite.wordpress.com).

 

top 7 services for streaming movies – free or subscription

Yes we know the largest libraries of online streaming videos are Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Instant Video. Plus, you could count Crackle too. (For this post , we’re not counting the pay-per-view streaming movies that could be purchased at online stores at iTunes, Google Play, Vudu, YouTube, and others.)

But there’s more.

Here’s some other online libraries with 1000’s of movies and shows that can be streamed online, either free or for a basic subscription of under $10/month. (cf. Beyond Netflix and Hulu: 4 worthwhile movie streaming services.)

SnagFilms – over 10,000 films, with large selection of documentaries, foreign and independent films for free [aside: SnagFilms changed its logo in June 2013]

Fandor – “In terms of the breadth and depth of the cinematic experience, it would be hard to beat Fandor. For $10 a month, you get access to hundreds of motion pictures, from rare, serious European features to educational shorts and the silliest exploitation flicks.”

Mubi – “Every day our experts introduce you to a film they love and you have a whole month to watch it, so there will always be 30 extraordinary films for you to enjoy.” // if you like their taste in films, they’ll pick ’em for you so you don’t have waste time browsing through 100s and 1000s of average movies to find a great one to watch

[update 12/14/16] Found 2 more: Popcornflix • Tubi TV

  

cf. MPAA’s list of all legal services

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[photo credit: canistream.it]

what’s not allowed on a WordPress.com blog

It’s not the easiest thing to find with mobile devices driving web design and oversimplified user interfaces, but having a blog powered by wordpress.com does come with some basic guidelines and rules for what content is allowed or prohibited at a wordpress.com blog, known as its Terms of Service (https://en.wordpress.com/tos/). And, occasionally the terms are updated and noted in the change log, most recently on October 9, 2016. The content that’s prohibited isn’t unreasonable but they should be made known and easier to find. Thus this blog post.

Here’s a mention of what content is prohibited and not allowed on wordpress.com blogs:

“make sure that none of the prohibited items (like spam, viruses, or serious threats of violence) appear on your website”

… you are entirely responsible for the content of, and any harm resulting from, that Content or your conduct. That is the case regardless of what form the Content takes, which includes, but is not limited to text, photo, video, audio, or code. By using WordPress.com, you represent and warrant that your Content and conduct do not violate these terms or the User Guidelines.

Here’s more details about prohibited content from the WordPress.com User Guidelines—

User Guidelines

To be transparent about what is and isn’t allowed on your site, we’ve put together this set of guidelines. The following activity/material isn’t allowed on WordPress.com.

• Illegal content and conduct.
• Intellectual property infringement.
• Pornography.
• Technologically harmful content.
• Impersonation.
• Directly threatening material.
• Posting private information.
• Advertising.
• Hotlinking to WordPress.com.
• Spam or machine-generated content.

• Bear in mind that these are just guidelines — interpretations are up to us. These guidelines are not exhaustive and are subject to change.

And, WordPress.com is not to be used for archiving of tweets, as noted in a previous post titled WordPress.com is not for archiving. In case your blog gets an “account suspended” notice for an unknown reason, contact the good people at WordPress to inquire, via en.support.wordpress.com/suspended-blogs.

What an encrypted email looks like

What does it look like when you receive an encrypted message via email? Here’s an example of an actual secure email encrypted using a PGP key. This is know you know you’ve received an actual encrypted email and if it used your public key properly, and you have the private key to decrypt it, you’d be able to read this message.

Note that this message has been slightly obscured, so technically it is not possible to decrypt this sample encrypted message. This image is an illustration of how an encrypted email appears.

Someone filing a complaint against you?

I just received this voicemail from ‘someone trying to help me’—

“OK yes my name is Julie Barnett you know what I can I don’t know if the phone bad disconnected are you didn’t hang up so basically I’m going to give you the name and the number of the people that are trying to find us a complaint against you for you did you want if you want to ask any questions or if you have any concerns regarding these ashes are going to be five issue we definitely need to call us immediately the number is 855-412-7708 your case number is 37### if you think this is a scam but is now so we’re just definitely trying to help you get this information if you don’t want it then we’ll go ahead and proceed to the nest and we will be forced to make a decision without your consent not once again if you’re going to go ahead and call that number whenever you can if not that’s fine I _⁠_⁠_ just go ahead and process this complaint against you I will put our hold onto your account to see if you do call and just to see if this is a scam…”