Finally, Flickr looks to get even “biggr.” The company is expanding storage for your photos, by quite a bit. Flickr is offering 1 terabyte of free storage for every Flickr user. Yahoo made it clear that no other Internet company in the world offers a free terabyte of storage. That’s the equivalent of 537,731 photos. In terms of the UI redesign, the new photostream has a justified format grid layout, complete with a header photo and a Timeline-style profile for users. On the top left, next to the photostream button, you can also click into Favorites and Sets. Most importantly, Flickr has fiddled with the picture page to give a black background and a fullscreen image for every single photo page. The site has been revamped to give easy-click access to the next photo in the set or photostream, even in full-screen mode.

During the past 10 years, psychologists Yaacov Trope, Nira Liberman, and their colleagues have provided a lot of evidence for what they call “construal level theory:” The closer you are to an object or event, the more specifically you think about it. While the more distant you are to that object or event, the more abstractly you think about it. This idea has important implications for your creativity. Read more at 99u.com

Cartoonist Saul Steinberg’s View of the World from 9th Avenue

Illustration: Oscar Ramos Orozco

By dressing mindlessly like this we’re ignoring the large amount of evidence showing the profound effect of clothing on our thinking style, on how we feel, and on the way others perceive us. Starting today, you can use clothing and props to improve your work performance through these simple steps:

• Dress for the task: the “Lab Coat” effect
  
• Be yourself and respect your own style
• Choose your weapons (and accessories) wisely
• Dress to impress
• Consider your audience

The next time you’re getting dressed for work in the morning, be mindful of the psychological impact that clothes can have. Your choice could literally affect your mindset, so try to match your outfit to the type of work you’re planning to do. If interacting with other people is on the cards – consider who they are, the impression you want to make, and especially whether you want to impress them or be one of them. A polished professional look can certainly give you authority. But if you’re collaborating with quirky creatives, or you want to cultivate a friendly atmosphere, you may find it’s advantageous to adopt a more casual, individual style for the day.

Read full article here | Link via 99u.com

Is it just us or does it feel like some companies are giving new meaning to the phrase “stunt marketing” lately?

Within the last week, Andreessen Horowitz, Vice Media, and SugarDaddie have launched headline-grabbing marketing ploys, and while the effectiveness of each stunt is up for debate, at the very least, all three will make you pause and think.

Andreessen Horowitz puts its money where its mouth is. Famed VC’s Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz just used RapGenius, a website that allows users to decipher rap-lyrics and also (ahem) one of their portfolio companies, to analyze the significance behind each line of ex-Groupon CEO Andrew Mason’s amazing “I got fired” memo.

Just so happens, the VC firm dropped $15 million into RapGenius last fall and has been vocal about the site’s use beyond just decoding rap lyrics–Mason’s note, case in point.

Vice Media, Dennis Rodman, and Kim Jong-un–oh my! Vice recently partnered with HBO to produce a video series centered on a show-case basketball game with a few Harlem Globetrotters and former NBA legend Dennis Rodman in North Korea.

But when North Korean ruler Kim Jong-un showed up to the exhibition game, it became an international incident. Photos show Jong-un buddying it up with Rodman. (Apparently, in Rodman’s first interview upon returning to the States, he called Kim Jong-un “a great guy.”)

In marketing terms, the stunt is a win: people are buzzing about the series, which will inevitably air footage of the game on April 5th.

Dating site tries to buy a town’s name. SugarDaddie.com (company tag-line reads: “Where the classy, attractive, and affluent meet”) has propositioned the wealthy, suburban town of Woodside, CA: $11.65 million in exchange for a 10-year commitment to change its name to… SugarDaddie.com.

Other outrageous parts of the offer: “All official government correspondence, selected institutions and street signs changed to reflect the new name” and “a statue near Town Hall must be built of Hugh Hefner or another public figure who best represents the sugar-daddy lifestyle.”

While the changes that Woodside taking the offer are slim to none, SugarDaddie’s stunt has at least earned them a few headlines.

But the stunt is apparently far from over.

“If we can’t get a favorable outcome with the folks in Woodside, California, we’re looking at cities like Sugar Hill, Colorado, and others,” Steven Pasternack, CEO of SugarDaddie.com, told NBC News. 

Link via Inc.com

Design elements and code snippets for Bootstrap HTML/CSS/JS framework. Bootsnipp is an element gallery for web designers and web developers.

As a therapist-turned-entrepreneur (kinda), I have helped lots of people fight myriad mental and emotional setbacks.

Over time, I have learned that the skill set that helps you avoid depression or anxiety is not the same skill set that helps you experience a joyful, meaningful, and connected life. If you want to be truly happy, you need a new playbook.

Here’s a page from that playbook. It contains eight ways that happy people are different than everyone else.

They are resilient. 

Happy people bounce back, often quickly, from setbacks. Rather than see life’s adversities as destructive and rigid roadblocks that they must quash in order to be happy, they see adverse situations as manageable and temporary fixtures in a pretty good life–the price they pay for renting space on the planet.

They are optimistic.  

You know this to be true–most people want to talk about their problems and what’s not going right. Happy people have the same problems that everyone else does, they are just solution-focused and get bored and irritated talking about problems all the time. They have an uncanny skill for finding solutions where there seem to be none. There’s a time and place for venting, but when you’re ready for a solution, ask an optimist.

They experience a wide-range of emotions. 

While happy people have more positive emotions than negative ones–three times as many, in fact–they do experience negative emotions just like everyone else. However, they experience them differently. They don’t squelch negative emotions. They face them head on in order to learn from them. They let negative emotions guide them into changing a behavior, self-examining, or getting out of a bad relationship. They see negative emotions as an internal wake-up call to change course or re-evaluate.

They savor things that most people take for granted or overlook.

Happy people are masters at the art of savoring. They joyfully anticipate events, stay present during events, and reminisce after events. They do this because they tend to keep the end in mind. They know that kids grow up, time passes, and we all die. Happy people live by a carpe diem philosophy, never needing a reason to celebrate.

They seek constant challenge and mastery. 

Happy people continually look for ways to challenge themselves and develop or master a skill. Rarely complacent, they have an idea of what personal success looks like and use healthy doses of self-criticism to achieve their goals. They don’t self-loathe, but they are realistic with themselves and their deficiencies. They seek out people, hobbies, professions, or ideas that challenge them and their stale self-concepts.

They spend lots of time with people they like. 

Happy people know that relationships are essential to living a good life. Humans aren’t meant to live in isolation. When we do, loneliness sets in, depression ensues, and we find ourselves in a downward spiral of negativity and withdrawal. Relationships are critical to happy people. The key is spending time with people you like and want to be with. Not just any warm body will do.

They are quick to forgive.

Forgiving a wrongdoing isn’t easy. It almost feels good to harbor a grudge or pass judgment, producing the mild comfort of self-righteousness. But happy people choose forgiveness. They see the larger context of forgiveness–it allows both the offender and the offended a chance to move on. Happy people know that their inability to forgive someone doesn’t hurt that person or “show them up,” it only hurts them.

They serve a purpose bigger than themselves.

Happy people live out their values in tangible ways. They are eager to connect to something meaningful–a cause, purpose, or belief that is bigger than them. Human existence has two aims: to make a contribution to humanity and to have a purpose for living. Happy people spend a lot of time making sure they get these two right.

Email marketing is one of the most effective ways drive traffic and increase sales. But there are many misconceptions about how to make a great email pitch. Many companies don’t send enough marketing emails–and the ones they do send rarely get opened. Here are some of the myths that could be getting in your way of becoming an amazing email marketer. Link via Inc.com

Myth 1: If you send a lot of emails, you’ll annoy your customers.

In our extensive testing, we have found that as long as your e-mails and subject lines feel fresh, varied, and not spammy-feeling, it is nearly impossible to send too many emails to your clients. Yes, some people may unsubscribe. But the impact you get from sending more emails far outweighs the loss of a few subscribers.Besides, you can reduce the number of unsubscribes by giving customers an option to reduce the number of emails they receive rather than unsubscribing completely. For example, our unsubscribe page helps us retain more than 10 percent of people who wanted to unsubscribe.

Myth 2: You shouldn’t send the same email twice.

We always send the same email twice, but with a twist. Every email that we send is followed 48 hours later by what we call a “remail.” Basically, it’s the same content, but with a different subject line. We send remails only to those customers who didn’t open the first email. We’ve found that remails can often double our results (we see a 60 percent lift, on average). And all without the effort of writing more copy or designing a second email.

Myth 3: Emails should be short and sweet.

Sure, all of your emails should have a primary call to action, which is above the fold and very obvious. However, don’t have the email end there. Some customers want to scroll to learn more or see other content. So give them what they want. Add a row of “best sellers,” new products, client testimonials, or other useful information.

 Myth 4: You should always create fresh copy.

Some of the best performing emails are emails that you have already sent. No point in reinventing the wheel! Routinely go back and look at the best performing emails from 4 to 6 months back. Retool them and send them out. Clients won’t remember, and this is a great way to complement the new copy and creative, with far less effort–or creative juice.

 Myth 5: You need descriptive subject lines.

Actually, unless you are having some sort of outrageous sale that people just can’t resist, descriptive, transaction oriented subject lines don’t usually perform very well. What does perform well? Creative, catchy, eye-catching subject lines. So feel free to be creative, witty, and funny. If you make people smile, they won’t reach for the unsubscribe button.

Myth 6: Companies should send email newsletters.

It’s not so much that the classic monthly newsletter is completely ineffective, but rather that the substantial time generally spent on newsletters is time better spent sending a greater frequency of emails. The fact is, people like tiny nuggets of digestible information, which means your carefully crafted newsletters are getting read far less than you’d like. If you spend that effort on creating more emails with lighter content, you’ll almost always get a higher return.