One of the suggestions I received from many of you who took my recent subscriber survey was to include news items from time to time. Say no more. This week’s post shares a few of the things about print or other media that caught my eye. 

1. When do you think the very first female typographer lived & worked? Anyone? I don’t think the incunabulists* among you will be surprised by this: http://bit.ly/1omjtuk.

* from incunabula: from the Encyclopedia Brittanica: “incunabula, singular incunabulum, books printed during the earliest period of typography—i.e., from the invention of the art of typographic printing in Europe in the 1450s to the end of the 15th century (i.e., January 1501).” (Now you can impress your friends with this word. And beat them in word games.)

2. David Carr (brilliant media columnist & author) wrote an insightful piece for the NYT recently about Facebook and its deepening relationship with publishers. http://nyti.ms/1wgK7WI

Two quotes in particular jumped out at me: “…the company has become the No. 1 source of traffic for many digital publishers,” and “In the last few months, more than half the visitors to The New York Times have come via mobile — the figure increases with each passing month — and that percentage is higher for many other publishers.”

3. Wow. Gartner predict 3D printer shipments will double ANNUALLY till 2018. http://zd.net/1pQxlrN. Notable quote from this piece: “According to Gartner, shipments across both consumer and enterprise segment will continue to double until 2018 when 2.3 million 3D printing units will be shipped with a value of $13.4bn.”

I constantly read news about 3D printing, since this is always prominent in my Google Alert for “printing.” To me, it isn’t even printing. Go figure. I can’t help but think that laypeople who also have this Google alert will only think about this technology when someone mentions printing to them.

4. A bounty of interesting data and charts from the smart folks at MarketingSherpa. Lots of useful info about email marketing and content marketing: I read that Tuesday is the best day to send emails. Maybe I ought to switch my delivery date! (I might test this out soon and see if any of my stats change. Consider yourself warned.)

5. Speaking of emails, here’s a highly visual post about truly effective emails – what works best? Great stuff here, but I’m just not sure how to save and refer to it: http://myemma.com/brainiac/stats. One of my favorites: 51% of all emails are opened on a mobile device. So design them accordingly.

6. Talk about an original resume – you’ve never seen one like this. It’s got high-quality design and packaging all wrapped up. I’ll bet he got the job he wanted: http://bit.ly/1zjrKmr

7. Tips from an anonymous print buyer on how to make a sale. This is excellent advice for all you sales reps out there: http://bit.ly/10C9mqJ

8. Finally, I learned from a client about www.powtoon.com. It lets you create animated videos and presentations. And (evidently) it’s free! I just may have to try it.

Thanks for reading. I’ll do another post like this in a few weeks. Keeps things lively.

© 2014 Margie Dana