Weekly Progress Report: Fill & Download for Free

Index:A. QuoraB. RedditC. Youtube ChannelsD. Other websitesE. Blogs for MBA studentsF. Various interestsG. Short StoriesH. Wikipedia articlesA. Quora(Each link is a separate answer)Best questions on QuoraBest answers of 2015Best answers of 2014TechnologyMoviesEntrepreneurshipLiteratureBooksBook RecommendationsWritingComicsHinduismTravelCookingGoogleMarketingMilitaryHarry PotterB. RedditI. Have a question?AskReddit : The mother of all "ask" multi-reddits. Any question you have, shoot it to this 20 mn + community.AskScience : For questions pertaining to science. No bullshit tolerated. Answers generally contain authentic and credible sourcesAskScienceFiction : How can Superman fly at speed > c? Feel a disturbance in the force? Wanna become Batman? What about some Wizarding world's natural rules? A host of intriguing questions and equally incredible answers.AskAcademia : For academical pursuitsAskEngineers : For when you need stuff to get repaired. Or broken completely.AskHistorians : To take a look back in timeHomeworkHelp : When you are too lazy.ask_gender : For the socially awkwardtipofmytongue : Ever been confounded by something that you know but can't remember the name? May be a movie you saw when young? Or that song they played at the pub yesterday?what_is_this___ : Click a photograph. And the community will let you know what it isII. Wanna learn something?Explain Like I'm Five : A simple, layman explanation of even the most intriguing questions.Today I Learned (TIL) : A compendium of things/facts people stumble across on a daily basis.Life Pro Tips (LPT) : Stuff they don't teach you in school or collegeLifeHacks : Stuff they don't teach you in school or college. Part 2You Should Know (YSK) : Sort of like TIL but with a purpose. Stuff that you should know to lead a better life.HowTo : Learn how to do simple stuffDIY (Do It Yourself) : Learn how to build simple stuffUniversityofReddit : Probably an underrated sub. People actually take classes here. Sort of like Reddit Coursera.IWantToLearn : Wanna learn something? Ask. And someone will come along and teach you the same.III. Some really good, intense or offbeat stuff here:DepthHub : A collection of some of the best, in-depth conversations on Reddit.RedditThroughHistory : If Reddit existed way back, what kind of posts would the front page have.Futurology : The pseudo-counterpart to RedditThroughHistory. Discussions on upcoming technologies and the evolution and future of mankind.Foodforthought : Something to stimulate and excite your neurons. Things to ponder on.TrueReddit : Started off by some users when they saw that the quality of posts on reddit was declining. Almost all upvoted submissions are of wonderful quality.IAmA : The flagship community of reddit. Celebrities and unusual people come and field questions from the community. People like Obama, Bill Gates, Buzz Aldrin, Neil DeGrasse Tyson etc have done one.Here's the Google Calendar they use to track and notify users of upcoming AMAs:IAmA Scheduleblowit : Space for people to share stuff that is "mind-blowing" in a sentence of two.trees : for Marijuana lovers.UpliftingNews : Who doesn't need a dose of some good news in these times of distress. Witness people doing wonderful stuff, businessmen giving back to society, people reaching out to each other etc. A must-read for when you are feeling down.IV. Need some fun?Today I Fucked Up (TIFU) : People doing stupid shitShowerthoughts : People thinking stupid shit while showering.FanTheories : A place to speculate about stuff from books, movies, TV shows, anime etc. The reasoning and logical construction of some is brilliant.nottheonion : A collection of news that look like they belong to The Onion but are actually true.ExplainLikeImCalvin : The parodied version of Explain Like I'm Five. If you had a kid like Calvin, and he asked you a question, how would you tackle it.V. Can't sleep at night?All Things Horror: The umbrella sub.NoSleep : People posting original, long, detailed stories. Posted as "true" accounts and treated as the same.cryosleep: The sci-fi version of NoSleep.shortscarystories : The shorter version of NoSleep. Stories in less than 275 words.creepy : All things creepy - pics, stories, videos.creepypasta : A sub dedicated to the Creepypasta culture.Glitch_in_the_Matrix : Stories about stuff that you can't explain. Things that appear out of nowhere, or where they shouldn't be. Assuming out world is a matrix simulation, these phenomena are called glitches.LetsNotMeet : True accounts of people experiencing something terrifying - stalkers, strange noises etc.UnresolvedMysteries : self-explanatoryVI. Missed out on the news?worldnews : For all news except USnews: For all news (primarily US-centric)VII. For gamersgaming : The umbrella sub.A list of all gaming-related subreddits: Top Ten Video Game SubredditsVIII. For audiophilesI would recommend only two:/r/music : The mother reddit for all things music. Fridays are for in-depth discussions, Saturdays for fresh music.ListenToThis : For music recommendations.If you really want to get in-depth, a really comprehensive list of genre and interest based sub-reddits has been compiled by /r/music can be found here: musicsubreddits.IX. For comic loverscomics : For all web + print comics. Comics usually are strips posted by users or the artists themselves.comicbooks : Only for print. Interesting scenes, tid-bits, piece of history from the 2 major publication houses.manga : For all things manga.Webcomics : Only for webcomics.X. For the librocubicularistsbooks : The umbrella reddit. A wonderful sub with book-discussions, AMAs by popular authors, recommendations etc.A list of related sub-reddits here: relatedsubreddits - booksFor specific books and/or series.asoiaf : A Song of Ice and FireHunger GamesThe HobbitLord Of The RingsTheDarkTowerharrypotterThe Kingkiller ChronicleTheMortalInstrumentsXI. For the lovers of the visual mediummovies : For all stuff movies - trailers, discussions, articles, fan artstelevision : For all stuff TV.The top bar of the sub-reddit also lists specific sub-reddits for specific TV series sorted by genre.The Reddit Cinema Arts Feed : Feed curated using content from 26 movie related subreddits. Worth bookmarkingFor specific movies and TV seriesGame of ThronesTrueDetectiveTheWalkingDeadStar WarsArrested Developmenthow i met your motherBig Bang TheoryFamily GuyBreaking BadGothamHannibalHomelandHouse of CardsOrange is the New BlackDoctor WhoSupernaturalXII. For geeksTechnology : 5mn+ subscribers. A brilliant sub for all things tech.geek : Not a very social placeReddit Fantasy : For the fantasy genreMinecraft : duh!wowthissubexists : A sub-reddit discovery sub-reddit. People post about obscure subs that exist and might be of use to others.XIII. For the shutterbugsPhotography : The umbrella sub.I Took a Picture (ITAP) : People share personal clicks and others give feedback for appreciation and improvement.Photo Critique : Similar to ITAP.photomarket : For people to sell and buy photos.A list of related subreddits: metareddit - PhotographyXIV. For budding writerswriting : Discusses everything related to writing - techniques, advice, news etc. Has a weekly critique thread where people post their snippets for a good critique.worldbuilding : For people wanting to get into Fantasy writing. Focuses on developing the ability to conceptualize, create and develop fantasy worlds and back-stories before writing the actual thingScreenwriting : For budding screenwritersshutupandwrite : A self-help club where people push themselves and others to get thinking done and start writing.A list of all writing-related sub-reddits is compiled by the folks at WritingHub and is on their sidebar.XV. Reading/r/respectthreads - For anyone who loves comics, video games, anime, and manga (mostly).The people over at /r/respectthreads do exhaustive compilations (with proof) of the powers and feats of characters from different mediums. And I am serious when I say exhaustive.So, if you are new to comics (say) and want to how powerful or impressive a character is, head over there.E.g. Sentry respect thread, Dr. Strange respect thread, Green Lantern (Alan Scott) respect thread/r/tldr - A daily summary of the top posts on Reddit./r/hardscience - For the academically inclined, a collection of actual scientific papers, not pop-culture science./r/100yearsago - Catch up on history by reading what happened today, 100 years ago.XVI. Learning/r/learnuselesstalents - Things they don't teach you in school (or anywhere for that matter). Impress people by learning utterly useless stuff./r/UniversityofReddit - A group of learning enthusiasts who like to create and attend informal courses (the inspiration for my blog UoQ).XVII. Listening/r/treemusic - A never-ending playlist for when you are high.The sub-reddit player: radd.it!XVIII. Watching/r/mealtimevideos - Interesting videos for when you are eating. Not too short, not too long./r/EducativeVideos - Learn while you watch./r/ArtisanVideos - Watch the masters of various arts at work./r/fullmoviesonyoutube - Need I say more?/r/fullcartoonsonyoutube - Like above, but for cartoons.XIX. Related to Reddit/r/OutOfTheLoop - Do you ever feel left out on some hot or trending topic? Too afraid to ask people in case you come off as stupid? Worry not; get updated on anything you have been missing out on./r/wowthissubexists - A sort of meta sub to discover obscure subreddits on interesting, weird, and seemingly insignificant topics./r/subredditoftheday - Similar to WTSE, SROTD nominates one official sub-reddit each day. Kind of similar to the Quoran of the Day blog here on Quora./r/SubredditDrama - All the high-school type drama that goes on on Reddit, in one place. They have popcorn too.XX. Light reads/r/DogShowerThoughts - What is your dog thinking? Akin to the /r/showerthoughts sub (which has recently become full of inane and duplicate "thoughts"), but from a fresh perspective./r/explainlikeimcalvin - For parents with highly inquisitive kids./r/AnimalsBeingBros - To all bros on Quora. And all animals too./r/chemicalreactiongifs - Watch fascinating gifs of chemical reactions without risking burning down the lab./r/PerfectTiming - Every photographer's deepest desire is to click the perfectly-timed picture. Here, you can view everyone's lucky stroke.C. Youtube ChannelsHere's a list of 86 channels you should subscribe to, sorted according to interests.Index:Serious learning (including official college courses and other MOOCs)Science and mathematicsNatureSpaceHistoryTechnologyLiteratureReal newsVaried interests (Channels that create content spread over multiple topics)Niche interests (Arts, Finance, Philosophy, Travel, Food, Magic, Farming)Fun while learning (Videos that are informative as well as fun to watch)A. Serious learningA.1. College coursesYale Courses - The official channel of Yale offers full length lectures on various topics, by some of the world's leading and most-respected experts.The lectures are beautifully arranged and sorted as classes.To start, you can check out the series on Financial markets by Robert J. Shiller - a 2013 Nobel prize winner in Economics for his work on "empirical analysis of asset prices".MIT OpenCourseWare - Similar to Yale Courses, here's the official channel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.GreshamCollege - A collection of full video lectures and some interesting shorts by Gresham College, uploaded so that everyone can learn for free.A.2. Other official coursesKhan Academy - The official channel of the first true online educator, Salman Khan, that started off as simple videos for his niece.(*Subject-wise assorted playlists*)A.3. Everything elseBIO - A collection of biographies of some of the most famous people from all spheres of life.(*Sorted playlists - Olympic medalists, Oscar winners, actors, politicians, athletes et al*)DOCUMENTARY TUBE - A collection of full-length documentaries.Big Think - showcasing content that is actually relevant, analyzing the same, and featuring some of the most well-known thinkers of our time - Bill Nye, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Stephen Fry.B. Science and MathematicsApplied Science - Focusing more on the practical application of science rather than the theoretical, Applied Science does some really quirky videos like building an LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) or the electron microscope image of a vinyl LP.Minute Physics - Explaining some basic concepts as well as some of the most FAQs related to science with the help of hand drawn animation, in videos of less than 4-5 mins. Perfect for the less patient ones.They also provide some definitive Quora-type answers. For example, this video that proves that running in the rain is better than walking if you can find a shelter before the rain stops. Else, both are the same.SciShow - Keeping you abreast of what is happening in Science, SciShow does a good job of combining news, theories, and random facts.Naked Science - Don't go by the name; it is a perfectly SFW channel. It is named so because it tries to unravel some of the mysteries and secrets of science.ASAP Science - Similar to Minute Physics in almost all respects. The only difference being that their horizon is broader and includes biology, philosophy, neurology and other fields.MinuteEarth - Part of the same family as MinutePhysics, MinuteEarth does a similar style of videos, but this time focusing on everything related to nature - biology, ecology, genetics etc.Sixty Symbols - A collection of random, fun videos about mostly Physics and Astronomy.StarTalk Radio - Neil deGrasse Tyson talks about everything science.Veritasium - A play on the word, Veritaserum (or the Truth Serum) from the Harry Potter series, Veritasium tries to bring the truth and dispel myths about science in the public.For example, the infamous myth that no person can stay in a perfect Anechoic chamber for more than 45 minutes, was disproved, when the creator Derek Muller stayed in one himself for more than an hour.NumberphileVideos about numbers - it's that simple.Reactions - The best Chemistry channel out there, bringing to you the chemical reactions behind some of the daily phenomenon you encounter, be it your morning coffee, or your dog sniffing another's butt.(*I especially love their Superhero series*)C. NatureAnimal PlanetBBC EarthNatGeoWildDiscoveryThe 4 biggest nature channels on TV offer some interesting content for nature lovers.This Place - "This place" is a veiled reference to the fact that we have only one planet. The channel tried to bring to notice some of the biggest issues with nature - viz-a-viz ecological preservation, and ties it to some of the basic theories of psychology and game theory.D. SpaceNASA - Stay updated on the latest events in Space exploration. And also on what is going behind the curtains with this playlist, updated weekly to offer a glimpse of life at NASA.(*This Week @NASA*)Scientific American Space Lab - Offering videos from the Space section of one of the most popular Science magazines.(Recommended: The *It Happened In Space* playlist.)VideoFromSpace - Space.com's Youtube channel. Get a glimpse of life in space, especially from their videos featuring astronaut, Chris Hadfield.(*Astronauts, Cosmonauts, and Taikonauts*)E. HistoryIt's History - (Already featured on the blog)With an aim to cover every major event in recent human history - from the Industrial Revolution, to the numerous wars fought, the channel is a perfect one-lecture crash course for each topic.The Great War - A brilliant channel where the host, Indiana Neidell, aka Indy, aims to cover the entire World War 1 in real-time, with a lag of 100 years.It is a very ambitious project that will take 4 years to complete (2014-18).'The Great War' shows you the history of the First World War in the four years from 1914 to 1918, exactly 100 years ago. Our host Indy takes you back week by week and shows you what was going on in the past. Learn more about the Allies and the Central Powers, emperors, Winston Churchill, Wilhelm II, soldiers, battles and of the life aside the battlefield. Subscribe to our channel to watch a new video every Monday & Thursday!Using a combination of an impressive narrative voice, actual pictures and footage from the war, maps, sketches, and an apt setting for discussing a 100-year old war, Indy manages to present one of the biggest events in human history in a lucid and engaging manner.(I highly recommend saving the official playlist that is updated regularly.*THIS WEEK 100 YEARS AGO - The Great War*)HISTORY - The official channel of the History (US TV network).Smithsonian - The official channel of the Smithsonian group of museums.F. TechnologyCodebabes - While the premise of the channel (women slowly taking off their clothes as the video tutorial progresses) is sexist and promotes the objectification of women (and is inspired from Naked News), the content however is really good, especially for beginners.Eli, the Computer Guy - For the ones who would love to get started with everything computers (Linux, basics of networking including DNS, TCP/IP, VoIP, basic Windows troubleshooting etc)LinusTechTips - Working for a Canadian software/hardware store as a product reviewer, Linus Sebastian soon started his own channel, which now has over 1.8 million subscribers.He reviews most of the incoming tech products, from gaming consoles, to unmanned drones.Also, check out his story on How I Became.G. LiteratureThe Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows - The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows is a website that creates new words; especially tailored to oddly-specific human emotions and experiences. Now they convert the same into beautiful videos.Just for starters,ambedon. a kind of melancholic trance in which you become completely absorbed in vivid sensory details—raindrops skittering down a window, tall trees leaning in the wind, clouds of cream swirling in your coffee—briefly soaking in the experience of being alive, an act that is done purely for its own sake.SpokenVerse - Some of the most important and influential poems of all time, narrated by creator Tom O'Bedlam.(*All of them wonderfully sorted by author*)wordsoftheworld -Ever wondered where a particular word originated? Not anymore.H. Real newsPulitzer Center - The official channel of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, the channel features stories from journalists around the world. Stories that need to be heard.Start with their featured stories collection.Test Tube News - News that actually matters, but is not TRP-worthy enough for channelsVICE -VICE specializes in exploring uncomfortable truths and going to places we don't belong. Herein you will find people talking frankly about their hatred and love for various things, general heresy, the only culture, travel and news documentaries you'll want to watch, tons of exclusive new stuff, and probably not a lot of cats.I. Across varied topicsTed Ed(uation) - The TED Ed channel focuses on disseminating knowledge across a wide variety of interest fields (superheroes, climate change, decoding the human mind, governments and politics, language, mathematics, writing etc.).(Check out their *curated playlists here.*)TEDx Talks - TED Talks are great. But there are a lot of underappreciated ones, that take place during those independently organized events (called TEDx) that go unnoticed.That is until now. The TEDx Talks channel brings you all such talks from all over the world.CrashCourse - Already featured on the blog twice (here and here), CrashCourse is a channel run by the Green brothers - John and Hank. John Green (author) is the reknowned author of multiple best-sellers including Looking for Alaska and The fault in our stars.It is the single best resource on Youtube for learning anything from World History, to US Politics, from Ecology to Astronomy.Start here with this fantastic series by Phil Plait, aka The Bad Astronomer.(Full playlist: *Astronomy - Crash Course*)In a Nutshell – Kurzgesagt - (Already featured on the blog)This isn't exactly a course, but more like a meta course, where you get an erratic Professor who rambles on about dark matter and energy one day and insists on debating the age old question of "are we alone" the next.The best part about Kurzgesagt's videos is that they are beautifully animated. Using both Adobe Illustrator and After Effects, they come up with some stunning visuals which obviously takes a lot of time and effort, one of the primary reasons they only upload 1 or 2 videos per month.Start right here with the first (of two) videos on the Fermi paradox.VSauce - A what-if (XKCD) style collection of videos that seek to answer some of the most common hypothetical questions asked by people.CGP Grey - Educational videos spanning politics, British history, economics and geography.(*Sorted playlists*)#Education - An auto-generated Youtube channel featuring educational content from all the educational channels.Tell me why - Why does stuff happen the way it does? Know through this series of animated shorts.J. Niche InterestsJ.1. ArtsBFI (British Film Institute) - The official Youtube channel of British Film Institute, who maintain the world's largest film archive.J.2. FinanceeHow Finance - Sort of like the ELI5 version of the most common questions people have wrt Finance. eHow Finance does short videos trying to explain the myriad, basic concepts of stock markets, trading, insurance, personal finance etc.J.3. Philosophy, spirituality, metaphysicsRichard Dawkins Foundation for Reason & Science - The official channel of the foundation of the same name by Mr Dawkings. They have videos, interview clips, debates etc of Dawkins and a bunch of his contemporaries on the subject of God, the Universe, human consciousness and so forth.QualiaSoup - Animated videos to help facilitate discussions regarding phislosophy, theism vs atheism, and the science of morality.Spirit Science - Focusing on the spiritual side of the human world.J.4. TraveltravelfilmarchiveThe Travel Film Archive is a collection of travelogues and educational and industrial films -- many of them in color - that show the world the way it was between 1900 and 1970. Our holdings include archives of the renowned travel filmmakers Burton Holmes, Andre de la Varre, and James A. FitzPatrick, as well as footage shot by many other intinerant cameramen.J.5. Culinary ArtsFood Wishes - From Allrecipes.com and FoodWishes.com, the channel features 100s of recipes to help you get started on cooking.(*All recipes sorted by cuisine and occasion*)J.6. MagicDisturb Reality - Learn a few basic magic tricks to amaze your friendsJ.7. Lifehacksexpertvillage - Learn some of the most basic life skills.J.8. FarmingHow Farms Work - Farming is a profession slowly losing its charm. But if you aspire to have one, and have no idea where to start, this channel is for you.K. Fun while learningWatchMojo.com - Uploading 4-6 videos every day, WM is one of the best channels on YT if you simply want to relax and also learn something at the same time.They have a top 10 list on almost every topic - but majorly focusing on movies, music, TV shows, books, and comics.list25 - Same as WM, but with 25 items per list, and a little Buzzfeed styled content.Vi Hart - Vi Hart is a scribbling, fast-talking, restless piece of soul. Her videos are fast-paced, quirky, and at the same time informative. Don't believe me? Check her making hexaflexagons.Mental Floss - Official channel of MentalFloss.com, the channel is perfect for a laid back evening.Smarter Everyday - 140 videos, covering a wide variety of topics, uncovering some of the obscure aspects of science, religion, tradition, nature etc. Learn something new everyday for the next 4 months.Stuff You Should Know - HowStuffWorks - Know the logic that will help you make better informed decisions.TheBackyardScientist - Learn stuff by doing.Hybrid LibrarianIt's Okay To Be SmartLife Noggin3 channels to help you satisfy your daily need of information trivia.D. Other websitesLiterature and readingLetters of Note : Collecting letters, postcards, and all things not found in books by some of the most influential people in the world.Archive.org : Providing free and open access to countless books, websites, songs, movies, and almost everything digital.Project Gutenberg : Thousands of free e-books.Brain Pickings : The best review/recommendation blog for your daily reading needs.Futility Closet : A collection of all oddities in literature and art.CliffsNotes : Helping you understand the plot, the conventions, the themes, the motifs, and character motivations from books.MOOCs: Helping you learn from the comfort of your roomKhan AcademyCourseraedXUdemyiversityUdacityFutureLearnMIT Open CourseWareOpen Learning at HarvardOpen Yale CoursesCMU - Open Learning InitiativeNPTELLearningDuolingo : A new languageCodeacademy : CodingChesscademy : Playing chessJustin Guitar : Playing the guitarLizard Point: GeographyTED : Great talks on various subjectsLifehacker : Tips and tricks for everyday lifeAddictiveTips : Tips and tricks for the techiesInstructables : Make it yourselfTop Documentary Films : Hundreds of free documentariesAlso, Documentary HavenMultiple StackExchange forums (depending on interest)The complete list can be found here: http://stackexchange.com/sites#Multiple subreddits (again, depending on interest)Sub-reddit starter packBooster packOthersSnopes.com : Debunking myths. One at a time.TV Tropes : Breaking down the conventions used in all forms of art.Atlas Obscura : Exploring the unknowns of the world.Listverse : Lists, lists, and more lists.Neatorama : The alternative 'front page of the internet' - curating the most interesting things from the web.The Needle Drop : Music reviewsThe Art Of Manliness : Helping you become the perfect "man".Blogs for MBA aspirants (in the domains of Finance, Marketing, Economics, Leadership, and Entrepreneurship)Deepak Mehta (दीपक मेहता)'s answer to Which are the must read sites and blogs for an MBA student specifically for, e.g., finance, marketing, startups, technology, et cetera?E. Blogs for MBA studentsI. FinanceProf. Jayanth R. Varma's Financial Markets Blog: Prof Jayant Verma is a Professor of Finance (mainly Financial markets) at IIMA. He is one of the most impressive teachers I have ever met. He was one of the first members of SEBI and is on the board of multiple big companies including Infosys and Axis Bank. His blog, which has been up since 2005, is a brilliant resource on understanding the nuances of the financial markets.Dealbook (NYT): Dealbook is the news aggregator section of NYTimes to keep you updated on the current state of affairs of the Fin industry.Mergers & Inquisitions: Everything you need to know about every aspect of the Financial world - from big investment banks to boutique firms, from Private Equity to Hedge Funds and AM/WM firms.Investment Banking Blog: The holy mecca for preparation of i-Banking interviews, the IB Blog offers everything from bootcamps and interview prep courses (paid) to free resources like basic interview questions, overview of the industry etc.Wall Street Oasis: Similar to #2 above, but with more functionality to read the best articles of the month/week/day etc.FT Alphaville: Another news aggregator that will make sure you do not have any time left in your day (courtesy it's exhaustive coverage of current affairs)II. EntrepreneurshipEntrepreneur: Your companion on the entrepreneurial journey. The site will keep you updated with the start-up world, help you work on various aspects of your professional self, and also provide the much needed pep-talk when you are feeling down/exhausted/defeated.AVC: The chronicles of Fred Wilson ( a Venture Capitalist for the past 30 years) with some incredible credentials to his name (including investments in Twitter, Tumble, Zynga, Foursuare etc). AVC is probably the most widely-read VC blog in the world.III. MarketingMad Over Marketing: MoM is a fun blog. They capture everything from brand wars on twitter, to collection of some of the best and most important marketing campaigns. The blog is a very easy read and will help you broaden your horizon when it comes to thinking of how you can ante up your marketing/advertising game.Duct Tape Marketing: Duct Tape Marketing focuses on small businesses and startups. They take into account that small businesses do not have the funds that large corporations do. So their marketing tactics need to be tailored to their financial capacity.aimClear: aimClear wants to be the single resource when it comes to your personal as well as company brand by using every possible tool in the marketer's kitty - from social media to SEO, from conclaves to data management using basic tools like Excel.Bufferapp social: Bufferapp is an exhaustive resource to help you manage, grow, and track your social media persona.HubSpot Blog: A collection of 3 secondary blogs - focusing on sales, marketing, and your agency. This trio will help you streamline your sales activity, boost your pre-sales capabilities, help you traverse the maze of sales-killer questions like, "This is too costly", and also help you manage your time and productivity in a better manner.Marketing Land: The Dealbook of marketing, ML is the one-stop solution for your marketing trends news requirement.Startup Marketing | Ryan Gum: Ryan Gum is a growth hacker who helps create marketing plans for startups and small businesses starting from creating your initial pitch, attracting your first customer, and an exhaustive list of Startup Marketing Resources.The SumAll Blog: The SumAll blog is like the child of Buzzfeed and Medium (and not in a negative sense). They post content which is useful and is also written in a fun manner. The articles are often crisp and under a 5-min read.IV. EconomicsFreakonomics: The uthors of the best-selling economics-infused-with-pop-culture book have more to say and share than the 2 books. The blog is usually a collection of podcasts that aim to explore the "hidden side of economics" and highlight outliers, which although rare, are extremely critical.Why Nations Fail: On the same line as Freakonomics, the blog by Daren Acemoglu is a follow-up on his book of the same name and explores similar obscure events that shaped the rise and fall of nations and civilizations.Economixcomix: The companion blog for the graphic novel of the same name by Michael Goodwin, Economixcomix explains the basic tenets of Economics in a simple way, along with illustrations to make understanding easier.The Grumpy Economist: The perennial pessimist, the one who finds faults in everything, the dad who bores his kid during dinner with his constant rants and criticisms, John Cochrane provides an unabashed, and hard-hitting critique that exposes the not-so-sunny side of the world economy.Investing and Economics Blog: The Curios Cat blogs is for us. The laymen. The dabblers. It focuses heaving on personal finance, economics, financial literacy, tax planning, credit management et al; stuff that affects the majority of the populace on a regular basis.The Upshot: The NYT economics companion to its financial section, Dealbook, The Upshot is all you need to read to be perfectly updated of what is happening, why it is happening, what would be the consequences, and what could have been done better.Economist's View: A collection of self-posts and the hottest posts from other economics blogs.The Money Illusion: TMI focuses on the money and capital markets and provides wonderful commentary on financial crises, international economics, foreign reserve dynamics, monetary and fiscal policies, labor markets etc.V. LeadershipGuy Kawasaki: Guy is one of the most well known figures in Silicon Valley, and among the first "tech evangelist".All Things Workplace: As the name suggests, this is a blog for managers, bosses, and professionals and aims to cover all aspects of workplace management including effective communication, employee engagement, conflict management, incorporating cultural diversity and differences, various facets of leadership, boosting creativity, and so on.Seth's Blog: Seth is a funny guy. The funniest of all in this list. Although he calls his blog a marketing blog, it's more generic in nature and oft has funny quips and clever observations interspersed with longform articles.Lean In: Everyone knows the book by Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook. The blog aims to continue the story and encourage and empower women to face challenges, voice their opinions, and grow themselves in the workplace.Switch & Shift: S&S aims at helping business transition from the traditional workplace model to the current, more information driven, globally-diverse-yet-connected workplace.Hot Momma's Project: Don't go by the sexist-sounding name, HMP is sort of a companion to LeanIn and strives to help women claim their rightful place in the corporate world.Culture University: In a globally inter-connected world, understanding, accepting, and imbibing cultural diversity is an important trait for organizations to sustain themselves and grow.Big Think: Having Bill Nye, TheScienceGuy, on board is a big achievement for Big Think which aims to be an idea hub, an "Youtube for ideas" as its founders put it.VI. OthersBob Sutton: Bob, a Professor of Management Science at Stanford, writes on everything including, but not limited to, workplace culture, book reviews, team management, employee management etc.Harvard Business Review: HBR is the most popular published management magazine that covers almost everything relevant to an MBA degree. If there has to be a starting point for an MBA student/aspirant, this is it.F. Various interestsDetailed posts to help you with the resources and recommendations to start learning new things. All posts first appeared on UoQGetting Started#1: Finance#2: Economics#3: Marketing#4: Philosophy#5: Game DevelopmentResources#1: 2 free courses on MS Excel (Basics, Macros)#2: For MBA aspirants#3: Best Youtube channels for learning#4: Everything on startups and entrepreneurship#5: The Android Classroom#6: A few more educational Youtube channels#7: Indian podcasts#8: 200+ Programming/Computer Science MOOCsInformal Courses#1: The Great War - Indiana Neidell#2: Crash Course - World History - John Green#3: Crash Course - Astronomy - Phil Plait (The Bad Astronomer)#4: In a nutshell - Kurzgesagt#5: The basics of animation - Ted-ed#6: Crash Course - Ecology - Hank Green#7: Managing your money - An introductory guide to Personal FinanceG. Short StoriesBelow is the list of 72 wonderful short stories that can be found online for free. (Click on the title to go to the story page.)So can you take a couple of days off from your busy schedule?Science fiction#1: All you zombies - Robert A. Heinlein (4.5 stars)Probably the most convoluted and complex of all time travel stories, All you zombies is a masterpiece that has been lauded for its originality and the sheer mind boggling complexity of its plot.#2: The last question - Isaac Asimov (5 stars)The best work of the best sci-fi writer that ever lived.The last question was asked for the first time, half in jest, on May 21, 2061, at a time when humanity first stepped into the light. The question came about as a result of a five dollar bet over highballsAsimov takes one simple, fundamental question and weaves a story around it - as story spanning billions of years, the vastness of the universe and the hyperspace. The narrative is captivating, enchanting and fast paced. There is a continued sense of awe throughout as the story nears completion. And then, in a single closing statement, Asimov pulls offs a stunner.*Since "The last question" is rated 5 stars, no other story will be.#3: A sound of thunder - Ray Bradbury (3.5 stars)2055. Time machines. Safaris to the past - humans going back millions of years to hunt exotic animals including dinosaurs. Every moment is carefully planned to avoid making even the slightest change to the future. Or is it?Butterfly effect!#4: They are made out of meat - Terry Bisson (3.5 stars)We are not alone. But we might never know that. And there's a reason why.#5: 2BR02B - Kurt Vonnegut (4 stars)The story of a utopia. Of mankind's most lusted after ambitions come true. And mankind's most dreaded horrors too. A painter, a father, a doctor, triplets, a woman with a strange job, drupelets and the Happy Hooligan.Vonnegut's dark "paradise" leaves much to be desired and pondered and answered.#6: The Nothing Equation - Tom Godwin (4 stars)The space ships were miracles of power and precision; the men who manned them, rich in endurance and courage. Every detail had been checked and double checked; every detail except—THE NOTHING EQUATION.An observation bubble at the edge of our galaxy. One man to oversee it surrounded by vast legions of nothingness. The first commits suicide, the second goes insane. Now there is a third.#7: I have no mouth, and I must scream - Harlan Ellison (4.5 stars)What begins off as another post-apocalyptic world story, where a sentient, all-powerful machine has annihilated humanity, gradually builds up to be a terrifying, what-if tale. 5 survivors of the end of humanity must endure against an immensely powerful and vengeful machine. And there's no way out. There is just the 5 of them and an eternity of pain and torture.#8: As long as you wish - John O'Keefe (3 stars)A coin with a paradoxical statement on both sides: THE STATEMENT ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THIS COIN IS FALSE.A Professor of Philosophy.A strange discovery.A hidden message.#9: No moving parts - Murray F. Yaco (3.5 stars)The story of a time far ahead in the future where everything works perfectly. Human intervention is no longer needed to maintain or fix things. But everything's changing now.That light will be flashing with more and more frequency in the months to come. But not just to signal trouble in space. If I were a superstitious man, I’d think that the age of the perfect machine is about to be superseded by the age of the perfect failure—mechanical failures that can’t be explained on any level.I really believe, childishly, that the mechanics and motions of the galaxy may turn themselves upside down just to snap man out of his apathy and give him some work to do.”#10: The Veldt - Ray Bradbury (3.5 stars)A wonderful story of a utopia. Of a happy family. Of a time when the human civilization has advanced so much that everything you want is done by machines at the slightest thought. A story that explores the question of "How far can you go mechanizing things before you are redundant?"#11: The nine billion names of God - Arthur C. Clarke (3 stars)Lamas at a monastery have taken up an ambitious project - to list down all the 9 billion names of God. And they believe that this is what humanity was made to do. And once the 9 billionth name is listed, our purpose would be fulfilled.But what happens after that? If we have no more use for God, what happens to us? Will everything end? Or is it just the religious fantasy of a bunch of devout fanatics?#12: There will come soft rains - Ray Bradbury (3 stars)A mechanized house. A pre-planned schedule. Machines running around frantically, executing every job. But where are the masters?Bradbury's story is more than what it seems - a bleak commentary on the horrors of nuclear wars and their aftermath.#13: The star - Arthur C Clarke (3.5 stars)AD MAIOREM DEI GLORIAM - For the greater glory of GodA scientific voyage to the remnants of a supernova discover one lonely planet encircling the white dwarf. They stumble upon the carefully and intentionally preserved remains of a civilization - advanced, intelligent and in full bloom of its youth - wiped away by the same sun that gave them life.The team makes some calculations to estimate the date of the supernova explosion (it would have been visible on earth) and come across a startling revelation.#14: Harrison Bergeron - Kurt Vonnegut (3.5 stars)THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else.A few years into the future, everyone is equal. Now there are only two ways to achieve that - either uplift and empower everyone to the same level, or drag down everyone else to a lowest common ground. It's not surprising what the human race chose.#15: I don't know, Timmy, being God is a big responsibility - Sam Hughes (3 stars)Tim and Diane (and their team) have successfully built the first quantum computer - a device with infinite processing power and storage capacity. Diane programs a simulation of the Big Bang and creates a model of our universe to study. As she approaches the current day, she makes a startling discovery.#16: The coming of the Ice - Green Peyton (4 stars)Is love something entirely of the flesh, something created by an ironic God merely to propagate His race? Or can there be love without emotion, love without passion—love between two cold intellects?A doctor in the 20th century, has finally solved the age-old problem of immortality. Our hero volunteers to be the first to undergo the procedure. However, immortality comes at a price - emotions. Every emotion, starting from love to hate, fear to rage, joy to sorrow, slowly deserts you, until you are nothing more than an empty shell, a walking automaton, devoid of the joy and beauty in everything.Is the price worth paying?#17: The cold equations - Tom Goodwin (3 stars)What will you do when the only option is to kill someone? (No, this is not a case study on morality) But truly, the only option is to kill. There is no margin for error, no probability, however infinitesimal, that there could be an alternate recourse.Fantasy#1: A very old man with enormous wings - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (3 stars)A normal family with a normal backyard. An unexpected visitor. Is it a bird? Is it a moth? Is it a fairy?#2: Snow, Glass, Apples - Neil Gaiman (3.5 stars)In a retelling of one of the most loved fairy tales of all times, Neil Gaiman provides a starkly different viewpoint on the events that transpire and the conditions that lead to them.#3: Nicholas was - Neil Gaiman (3 stars)A short story, short enough to be reproduced here in its entirety.Nicholas Was...older than sin, and his beard could grow no whiter. He wanted to die.The dwarfish natives of the Arctic caverns did not speak his language, but conversed in their own, twittering tongue, conducted incomprehensible rituals, when they were not actually working in the factories.Once every year they forced him, sobbing and protesting, into Endless Night. During the journey he would stand near every child in the world, leave one of the dwarves' invisible gifts by its bedside. The children slept, frozen into time.He envied Prometheus and Loki, Sisyphus and Judas. His punishment was harsher.Ho.Ho.Ho.Life and Philosophy#1: Signs and symbols - Vladimir Nabokov (3.5 stars)An old couple. A sickly child in the hospital. Referential mania. 3 calls from a wrong number.#2: Lorry Raja - Madhuri Vijay (4 stars)The story of a poor, wretched family, working in the iron mines, told through the eyes of the 2nd son, Lorry Raja is sure to stir up a lot of emotions in the reader. The plot is simple, the characters simpler still. And yet, the feeling it evokes isn't some thing that can be explained easily.#3: The necklace - Guy de Maupassant (4.5 stars)“Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are, "It might have been.” ― Kurt VonnegutA simple couple. A simple life. A wife that yearns for a more exciting life. A party invitation. A borrowed necklace. A wonderful night. A life changed forever. "The necklace" is one of the best stories of love, support, yearnings, strength and regrets. The ending leaves one with an entangle of emotions, most significant of which is a sense of unfairness.#4: Silver Water - Amy Bloom (3 stars)Told from the first person perspective of Violet, Silver Water is a tale of her elder, mentally unstable sister Rose. The story weaves through a, though lightly comic at times, gritty and realistic narrative of having to deal with and adjusting with a family member suffering from acute Schizophrenia.#5: If you were a dinosaur, my love - Rachel Swirsky (3.5 stars)The first person narrative of a woman who wishes her fiancée was a dinosaur and then weaves a fictional world around it - a world of dinosaur operas and weddings. A tale that will leave you chuckling, pondering and going back to re-read the story.#6: The Egg - Andy Weir (4 stars)You were on your way home when you died. It was a card accident. Nothing particularly remarkable, but fatal nonetheless.So begins a tale that spans religion, belief, life, death, afterlife, and reincarnation. Taking a leaf out of Asimov's book, The Egg builds up to a wonderful climax. And delivers.#7: Three questions - Leo Tolstoy (4 stars)In this story, Tolstoy addresses 3 fundamental questions, which since then have been passed down as life lessons and parables.#8: And all the earth a grave - C.C. MacApp (3 stars)There's nothing wrong with dying—it just hasn't ever had the proper sales pitch!You can sell everything if only you know how to. Even death. A brilliant satire on the current media industry and the wave of consumerism that has engulfed the world.#9: The snows of Kilimanjaro - Ernest Hemingway (3.5 stars)A writer. A festering wound. A re-living of regrets, of opportunities passed up, of chances not taken. The slow approach of death, like the night, creeping and inevitable interspersed with a melange of memories, good and bad.#10: To build a fire - Jack London (4 stars)A man and a dog hiking through the snow covered trails of the Yukon in Canada on a day that they shouldn't be. It is "too cold to be travelling along" but the man persists. To defeat the cold, he would need to start a fire. A fire that would be the difference between life and death.#11: The curious case of Benjamin Buttons - F Scott Fitzgerald (4 stars)We have all seen the box office hit starring Brad Pitt in the titular role but there is an eerily, haunting quality to Fitzgerald's writing that makes the experience even more wonderful. The story of a man who starts off as a old man when born and slowly ages backward, turning into a middle aged man, a teenager, a kid, an infant and finally an embryo is fascinating. It is a concept that has always had people wonder and Scott does a great deal of justice to it.#12: The last leaf - O Henry (4 stars)A woman, dying of pneumonia pegs her life to the last leaves on an ivy vine. Bereft of all hope, she plans to take her final breath as the last leaf falls. But will it? Will she?A story about hope. About struggles and finding the strength inside. A story of finding something to live for. We have been told numerous times that appearances can be deceptive. Nothing reinforces the notion more than this masterpiece by O' Henry.#13: An occurrence at Owl Creek bridge - Ambrose Bierce (3.5 stars)The scene opens with a condemned man being hanged on the bridge. Like everyone else on a death sentence, his whole life flashes in front of him. His only wish is to somehow escape the hanging, fall into the river and swim away to safety and his family. That is when the rope snaps.#14: The hunger artist - Franz Kafka (3.5 stars)The story of a man with an unusual occupation - a hunger artist. Someone who fasts for days on end to amuse the world and its spectators. The story is a clever satire on the world where the talented yet trivialized people spend their entire lives in search for a fragment of glory, a single word of appreciation, a small part of the acknowledgment they truly deserve.#15: The one who walks away from Omelas - Ursula K LeGuin (3.5 stars)A city that is the perfect description of a middle-age utopia with its beautiful people, its skilled artists, its bright festivals, its everlasting intellectual orgy of joy. A terrible secret revealed. A compromise that had to be struck. A price that had to be paid.#16: The School - Donald Barthelme (3 stars)30 orange trees planet by 30 kids of a class all dead. Soon followed by the snakes. And the herbs. And the fishes. Death creeps nearer each day. But everything is not as dreaded as you think. There is still hope somewhere out there. Or is it?#17: The yellow wallpaper - Charlotte Perkins Gilman (4 stars)A husband and wife move to a mansion temporarily, something that is grand but suspiciously cheap. The wife believes she is sick and has an eerie feeling about their new home. The husband, however, doesn't. And then there's the room and it's yellow, shabby wallpaper. There is something definitely wrong with it.#18: Hills like white elephants - Ernest Hemingway (4 stars)A couple waiting for a train on a railway station have some beer and a rather intriguing conversation which leaves the reader puzzled and pondering.#19: Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes (4.5 stars)“I don’t know what’s worse: to not know what you are and be happy, or to become what you’ve always wanted to be, and feel alone.”Rarely does a book stir up so many emotions in the reader. Flowers for Algernon is one such. The story is about simple and kind man, Charlie Gordon, with a below average IQ of 65, who undergoes an experimental procedure to triple his intelligence. Told in a narrative, progress report style (Charlie was required to compile a daily diary to monitor his progress), the prose develops in tandem with Charlie's intelligence - starting off as the scribbling of a kid, laced with spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors, and evolving into the publication-worthy musings over Plato's allegory of the cave.Flowers for Algernon is a commentary on human condition, on our schadenfreud-ian tendencies, on the treatment meted out to the mentally challenged, and one man's journey of finding something he never had, and then living through the horror of losing it all over again.#20: Shooting an elephant - George Orwell (3 stars)If you are the conqueror, the master, the dictator, are you really in control? Or are you just a face, just a puppet being manipulated by millions of invisible strings? The strings of the will of the people you oppress?#21: Clean well-lighted place - Ernest Hemingway (4 stars)There is something simple and yet enthralling about Hemingway's words. There's a beauty in those plain sentences. You don't need to exert any efforts. You don't need to read the story. The story reads you. It hooks itself to you and then starts to devour you, but in a pleasant way. And, in a short time, you are completely engulfed. You are now the story.#22: Bullet in the brain - Tobias Wolff (3 stars)A bullet to the brain is surely one of the quickest ways to die. Or is it? To the shot, does the last few milliseconds feel like an eternity?#23: The bet - Anton Chekhov (3.5 stars)A somber gathering of gentlemen soon turns into a passionate discussion about the morality of the death sentence. The ones who advocated it said it was more merciful than life imprisonment - cleaner and quicker. The ones against brought God into the midst of things and stated that the State does not have the right to take someone's life when it itself cannot create life.A young banker agrees with the latter and boldly claims that he would take life imprisonment over death. The host, a rich and pompous banker, bets 2 million in exchange for the young guy living in solitary confinement for 15 years.This was on Nov 14, 1870. Today is Nov 14, 1885.#24: The dream of a ridiculous man - Fyodor Dostoevsky (4 stars)Dreams, as we all know, are very queer things: some parts are presented with appalling vividness, with details worked up with the elaborate finish of jewellery, while others one gallops through, as it were, without noticing them at all, as, for instance, through space and time.Yes they are. In a dream, you can live an eternity but wake up none the older for it. In a dream, you can achieve everything you have ever wanted, every aspired for, ever lusted after, but wake up none the richer for it.Our hero had had such a dream. And he was ridiculed for it. Mocked. Derided. Pronounced senile. Yes, you can call him a madman. But aren't we all?#25: The Happy Prince - Oscar Wilde (4.5 stars)It's astounding, the power of words. How they can sway us, infuriate us, flame our desires, preserve our hopes.This short story by the master is a perfect testament of the power of words in the hands of the wordsmith. A story that was part of the school curriculum, at least in India, and one I revisited after years.In a few thousand words, it encompasses a love story, a tale of sorrow, and a satire on human condition. In a few thousand words, it stirs up emotions of love, joy, sorrow, pain and contempt. In a few thousand words, it is as much the cold winds of the winter, as it is the warmth of the sun on a spring afternoon.#26: Happiness - Guy de Maupassant (3.5 stars)Happiness is relative. And a lot more simpler than it is made out to be.#27: The Sugargun Fairy - Kuzhali Manikavel (3 stars)"Because everyone must keep a box of things they don't understand and can't throw away"A story that is as simple as the daily ramblings of a teenager, and yet brooding and sinister at the same time. One about the fleeting passage of time, and yet the inevitable existence and decay of things.#28: A little cloud - James Joyce (3.5 stars)One of the most wonderful feelings in the world is catching up with an old friend. We might not have a time machine (yet), but an evening of smoky conversations and reminiscence with old pals is good enough. There's anticipation, carefree laughter, a hint of nostalgic fondness, and just the tiniest sliver of jealousy. Especially if the other friend has a life worth being envious of.#29: Across the bridge - Graham Greene (3 stars)Life's a curious case. In the end, does money matter? Or influence? Can one final act of kindness undo (at least in part) a life brimming with sin, theft, lies, and debauchery? What is the source of happiness? Of contentment?In this fast-paced story about a millionaire fraudster evading the law in a quiet, shabby town of Mexico, Graham Greene hopes to find the answer. At least to some of the questions.Horror/Thriller#1: The lottery - Shirley Jackson (4 stars)A village. 300 people. A charged morning. A lottery. A winner. A twist.#2: A face in the dark - Ruskin Bond (3.5 stars)From Mr. Bond, comes another story set in the backdrop of the hills and valleys of Shimla. The story of a boarding school and its brave headmaster. A story that brings out all of your primal fears. A story with the basic elements of horror - the dark of the night, the eeriness of the howling winds, a strange sighting and a twist ending.#3: In the penal colony - Franz Kafka (4 stars)In a fast-paced story that slowly reveals, in the true sense of an actual horror movie, its various twists and turns and its arsenal of fear, Kafka manages to scare the reader and at the same time fill them with a certain amount of sympathy for the devil and bewilderment at the actual happenings in the story.A traveler is invited to be the witness to a sentencing - a seemingly, outdated custom that tortures the guilty for hours before killing them. He must pass a judgement on it. What would it be?#4: Man From the South - Roald Dahl (4 stars)"A fine evening," he said. "They are all evenings fine here in Jamaica."In this brilliantly crafted tale of a bet between an old man and a young one, things suddenly take a turn for the grim. The pacing of the story is fantastic and keeps you hooked till the end. And the ending - another twist in the devil's tale.#5: The tell-tale heart - Edgar Allan Poe (4 stars)From the master of mystery, comes a tale worthy of his praise. The first person confession of a madman who murdered an old man and then describes it to the reader in vivid detail to prove his sanity. The story is eerie - you have the constant feeling of being watched because of the 'unreliable narrative' and the fact that the lunatic addresses the audience directly.#6: A good man is hard to find - Flannery O'Connor (3 stars)A normal family. Mother, father, kids, grandmother. A routine family vacation. A little detour to find something exciting. An accident and a deadly encounter.#7: The face on the wall - E. V. Lucas (3.5 stars)A group of people discussing the supernatural. An outsider with a real narrative. Three extraordinary things about the story.#8: The open window - Hector Hugh Munro (Saki) (3 stars)A man with a nervous condition visits an old lady on the behest of his sister to calm his nerves. While waiting for her, he engages in conversation with her niece and tale goes grim.#9: The most dangerous game - Richard Connell (4 stars)A celebrated hunter and a published author is thrown overboard a ship on a dark night. With every ounce of energy in his body, he manages to swim to safety and arrives on an island, uninhabited by humans except for a game hunter and his looming man-servant.Discussion over dinner soon converges to the one common topic - hunting. And how, for someone who has hunted all his life, most game is boring and no longer a thrill. That is when the hunter reveals a chilling truth - the discovery of an entirely new game that promises to break the monotony of the 'cunning hunter vs the dumb prey' routine.#10: Where are you going, where have you been? - Joyce Carol Oates (4.5 stars)A story that leaves you perplexed and befuddled. One where you are not sure what the story really was about?Over the years, many people have attempted many interpretations of Oates' masterpiece, but every alternative eventually leaves out something. This could be a story told from a delusional victim's standpoint about the advances of her predator. Or it could be an allegorical tale about the corruption of young people by satanic cults. Or it could be on the broader theme of giving in to sins.I don't know. Let me, if you do.Comedy#1: The secret life of Walter Mitty - James Thurber (3 stars)Made into a motion picture starring Ben Stiller, The secret life of Walter Mitty is a comical narrative of a man who's blurred the lines between reality day-dreaming. Weaving through multiple episodes of real life and fantasy, it is a wonderfully paced story that will leave you chuckling at the end.#2: Cookies - Douglas Adams (3.5 stars)A train journey. 2 strangers. And a packet of cookies.#3: The nose - Nikolai Gogol (3.5 stars)A barber wakes up one day and finds a nose in his roll. Another gentleman wakes up and finds his nose gone.However absurd, or improbable, this may seem, it does happen. (Or does it?). Gogol again displays a knack for weaving stories out of the pure bizarre and sprinkle it with his signature flavor of comedy.Romance#1: About love - Anton Chekhov (4 stars)What is love? Is it rational? Can it be defined scientifically or diagnosed medically? Why do people fall in love? Why, sometimes, do they fall for someone who is their exact opposite? What is it about love that leaves even the strongest of people completely hapless?Is it fine to love someone who is already with another person? Is it fine to profess your love to them knowing well that it could disrupt their perfectly peaceful existence?All these and a multitude of other questions are answered in this beautifully crafted tale by the master himself.#2: A girl I knew - JD Salinger (4 stars)I saw a girl standing on it, completely submerged in the pool of autumn twilight. She wasn't doing a thing that I could see, except standing there leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together. The way the profile of her face and body refracted in the soupy twilight made me feel a little drunk.A story that is not as much about love as it is about losing it. The story of aman who flunks college and is sent to Europe to master his trade, is advised against socializing much and falling in love, but who inadvertently manages to do just the opposite. A classic love story of romance, of the first jitters of love, of moving away, of writing letters. A wonderful love piece with a few splotches of some grime here and there.#3: Selkie stories are for losers - Sofia Samatar (3.5 stars)A weird tale of love and loss. With just a pinch of folklore and fantasy. While you are jumping from one narrative to another, you feel like being shaken intensely without being allowed the time to understand what exactly is going on. But once the dust settles, you can see the whole picture.#4: The eyes have it - Ruskin Bond (4 stars)A blind man on a train journey meets a female companion. During their 3 hour conversation, he doesn't let her know that he lacks sight. And then her station arrives and she leaves. (Oh the simplicity of it!)#5: The water that falls on you from nowhere - John Chu (3.5 stars)In the near future water falls from the sky whenever someone lies (either a mist or a torrential flood depending on the intensity of the lie). This makes life difficult for Matt as he maneuvers the marriage question with his lover and how best to “come out” to his traditional Chinese parents.The story of Matt and Gus, a same-sex couple who truly love each other, but do not know it yet is one that upholds the roots of traditional story-telling. There is no embellishments, no forced sub-plots. Everything leads to the next thing in a way that is simple, yet beautiful. The premise of the story is new and straightforward, but the narrative, due to the way it is seamlessly weaved together, lingers with you like the misty air on a December evening.#6: The silence here owns everything - Kirsten Clodfelter (2.5 stars)The perfect companion piece to the previous story by John Chu. It's a story of two girls - Natalie and Kendra. Friends on the surface. Lovers and probable soulmates deep beneath.Throughout the narrative, you can pick up subtle hints that Nat is in love with Kendra, but somehow, every opportunity where she could express it eludes her. The story ends abruptly, as if a teenage girl one day, simply forgot to take out her diary and pen her memoirs. It leaves you with a certain sense of absence, and yet you can feel that it's the ending you really wanted.#7: On seeing the 100% perfect girl one beautiful April morning - Haruki Murakami (3 stars)What do you do when you chance upon your 100% perfect girl? What do you say? Haruki Murakami comes up with the perfect story for such a rare happenstance.#8: A rose for Miss Emily - William Faulkner (4.5 stars)Faces are treacherous things. Behind the serene expressions that people carry lie complex machinations that no human technology or intuition can completely comprehend.And so is love. Love drives us to do great things. It goads us to reach out, extend our arms, and push ourselves to achieve the impossible. But it also pushes us over the cliff once in a while - over the boundaries of sanity, of happiness, of self-preservation.Crime#1: Lamb to the slaughter - Roald Dahl (3 stars)A perfectly happy couple. An expecting mother. A confession. A leg of lamb. And an intricately covered up murder.H. Wikipedia Articles(Total 301 articles spread over 12 categories:Music, Lists, Horror/Creepy/Mysterious, Funny/Humorous, Religion and Mythology, Language and Semantics, Law, Interesting, Mathematics, Paradoxes, puzzles and thought experiments, Badass people, The universe)MusicList of songs considered the bestPearl JamThe BeatlesJohn LennonAlice in ChainsLed ZeppelinPink FloydMetallicaThe Rolling StonesU2NirvanaRadioheadMichael JacksonAC/DCDavid BowieElvis PresleyBob DylanThe Smashing PumpkinsDeath of Jimi HendrixJimi HendrixEminemListsList of lists of listsWikipedia:Unusual articles (an articles linking to possibly thousands of other articles. Basically a goldmine)Wikipedia:Silly ThingsList of animals with fraudulent diplomasList of unusual deathsList of inventors killed by their own inventionsList of common misconceptionsList of Latin phrases (full)List of people who disappeared mysteriouslyList of military tacticsList of events named massacresList of extremely hazardous substancesList of treesLargest artificial non-nuclear explosionsList of paradoxesList of memory biasesList of fallaciesList of poisoningsList of explorersList of fictional demonsList of most massive starsTraffic-light signalling and operationList of most expensive photographsList of mythological placesList of recurring Mario franchise enemiesList of largest monoliths in the worldList of phobiasList of paraphiliasList of technical terms for nonparaphilic sexual interestsHorror/Creepy/MysteriousAlbert FishHinterkaifeckKilling of Tim McLeanUnit 731Armin MeiwesDyatlov Pass incidentLocked-in syndromeBoston Molasses DisasterCluster headacheMurder of James BulgerIssei SagawaBunny ManBubbly CreekMad Gasser of MattoonTanganyika laughter epidemicMurder of Junko FurutaOriginal Spanish KitchenSedlec OssuaryVisual release hallucinationsVoynich manuscriptAlien hand syndromeCapgras delusionBrain transplantPolywaterHead transplantLost Dutchman's Gold MinePope Lick MonsterJames Dallas Egbert IIIBermuda TriangleSpring-heeled JackGoatman (Maryland)Who put Bella in the Wych Elm?Adam (murder victim)Original Night StalkerDisappearance of Frederick ValentichThe Licked HandGefJohn Murray SpearTunguska eventAtukAokigaharaRaymond Robinson (Green Man)Belchen TunnelMoberly–Jourdain incidentRosenheim PoltergeistBachelor's Grove CemeteryKate MorganPremature burialZombieMercy Brown vampire incidentClapham Wood MysteryBlack dog (ghost)Thomas Lyon-Bowes (heir to Lord Glamis, born 1821)Princes in the TowerBloopDevil's FootprintsThe Great ThunderstormJersey DevilThe Devil's Chair (urban legend)Devil's Tramping GroundFunny/HumorousFlorence Foster JenkinsList of names for turkeysList of animals with fraudulent diplomasList of nicknames used by George W. BushList of sandwichesList of premature obituariesWikipedia:List of really, really, really stupid article ideas that you really, really, really should not createReligion and MythologyEmpusaBook of LifeCthulhu Mythos in popular cultureLanguage and semanticsList of linguistic example sentencesColorless green ideas sleep furiouslyBuffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffaloSemantic satiationEats, Shoots & LeavesThat that is is that that is not is not is that it it isLion-Eating Poet in the Stone DenJames while John had had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacherHomophonic puns in Mandarin ChineseOne-syllable articleLawBreach of duty in English lawPerson having ordinary skill in the artThe man on the Clapham omnibusReasonable personMan on the Bondi tramContractual termInteresting/InformativeTimeline of the far futureTimeline of the near future3rd millenniumList of millenniaGeorge Mason University's historical hoaxesControversial Reddit communitiesTower of BabelSynesthesiaConstructed languageAs Slow as PossibleLibrary of AlexandriaDeath of Ludwig van BeethovenAthletics at the 1904 Summer Olympics – Men's marathonSemantic satiationList of linguistic example sentencesBuffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffaloColorless green ideas sleep furiouslyEats, Shoots & LeavesLion-Eating Poet in the Stone DenThat that is is that that is not is not is that it it isEmerging technologiesFloating timelineMad scientistAutomatic writingAncient astronaut hypothesisDendera lightPhantom islandOut-of-place artifactShakespeare ApocryphaSigil (magic)Anthropodermic bibliopegyNecronomiconRongorongoLost cityBlue PeacockMojave phone boothPrometheus (tree)Emperor NortonJoseph JaggerJust-world hypothesisHumanzeeEtaoin shrdluAlexamenos graffitoHomunculusMathematicsSigned zero0.999...2 + 2 = 5Mathematical fallacyAsch conformity experimentsErdős–Bacon numberGraham's numberHyperoperationAckermann functionKruskal's tree theoremGoodstein's theoremRamsey's theoremHappy numberIllegal primeInfinite monkey theoremMonty Hall problemNarcissistic numberNothing up my sleeve numberMinkowski's question mark functionUlam spiralVampire numberWill Rogers phenomenonParadoxes, puzzles and thought experimentsInteresting number paradoxBoy or Girl paradoxSleeping Beauty problemTwo envelopes problemSt. Petersburg paradoxNewcomb's paradoxEllsberg paradoxGambler's ruinExponential growthKelly criterionPascal's muggingZeno's paradoxesAllais paradoxGambler's conceitInverse gambler's fallacyRoss–Littlewood paradoxWhat the Tortoise Said to AchillesThomson's lampHilbert's paradox of the Grand HotelShip of TheseusFalse positive paradoxBanach–Tarski paradoxCoastline paradoxArcher's paradoxFermi paradoxHeat death paradoxEPR paradoxExtinction paradoxBootstrap paradoxTemporal paradoxGrandfather paradoxThe Lady, or the Tiger?Kavka's toxin puzzleLaplace's demonPascal's WagerRetrocausalityMartian scientistDemon (thought experiment)Ideological Turing TestVanishing Sun modelSphere-worldSimulated realityBadass peopleHugh GlassJuliane KoepckeLeonid RogozovMichael MalloyChing ShihKhutulunSimo HäyhäJack ChurchillSubutaiSamuel WhittemoreTank ManRoy BenavidezBoudicaAlbert JackaAgrippina the YoungerRonald SpeirsYogendra Singh YadavChesty PullerMiyamoto MusashiBlackbeardAdrian Carton de WiartAlvin C. YorkGenghis KhanAudie MurphyBrian BlessedWitold PileckiThomas Baker (Medal of Honor)Joan Pujol GarciaThe UniverseBig BangGraphical timeline of the Big BangChronology of the universeCosmic CalendarDark energyDark-energy-dominated eraUltimate fate of the universeHeat death of the universeFuture of an expanding universeGraphical timeline from Big Bang to Heat DeathBig RipBig CrunchBig BounceCyclic modelEntropy (arrow of time)Galaxy formation and evolutionStellar evolutionFormation and evolution of the Solar SystemHistory of the EarthAge of the EarthHistory of Mars observationDyson's eternal intelligenceList of Deep FieldsList of minor planetsList of notable asteroids90377 Sedna243 IdaList of geological features on 243 Ida and DactylList of potentially habitable exoplanetsList of nearest terrestrial exoplanet candidatesAsteroid beltAsteroid miningAries (constellation)Hubble Deep FieldOort cloudSupernovaRings of Neptune

Hey!Here’s a detailed overview of what daily construction reports are, what the purpose is of daily reports, what goes in them and how to make them admissible for court and some best practices.Construction daily reports document all on-site work done for a construction project in a given day.They typically include:Weather conditionsNumber of working hoursType of work performedSafety observationsPotential delaysCompleted tasksWhat’s the purpose of a construction daily report?By documenting the construction project activities, reports provide transparency, reduce communication issues and safety risks, and protect you during lawsuits.Here are the benefits in more detail:They reduce delays and other issuesMost of the time, construction projects fail because of bad communication and collaboration. Since many people and companies are involved in projects, there’s a constant risk of misunderstandings, mistakes, and delays.Daily construction reports can reduce these by documenting and sharing observations made during site visits. Not only do they help stakeholders understand what needs to get done, they also allow you to catch small issues before they grow bigger.They improve customer relationsWhen it comes to your client, daily reports help you in several ways:They create transparency for your actions.They allow you to demonstrate your progress.They help the client understand your process.Your client, for example, may ask you why HVAC is taking so long to install. Daily reports would give them a window into the duration of each individual step, causing them to increase their patience.If you send daily or weekly reports that demonstrate what you’ve been doing (including materials used, hours spent, etc.), the customer will also feel confident you’re doing a good job.Translation: They’ll be happy to quickly pay whatever invoices you send their way.They help you manage your timeAs with any kind of reporting, construction progress reports allow you to get a better general view on your project and its progress, issues, risks, evolution, etc.If you’re not creating regular site reports, you’re driving blind — and won’t know if you’re heading in the right direction (let alone whether you’ll arrive on time!).They can settle disputesIf a client or general contractor disputes an invoice, your daily construction documentation will be invaluable. It could verify the number of hours worked, the materials used, supplier delays, or weather conditions.That’s why you should always strive to include detailed documentation, photos, and client signatures on every report. If need be, you might even be able to use them in court (more on that below).Even if you have a great relationship with your customer, don’t assume disputes and court claims are out of the realm of possibility. Your team could change, your customer’s management could change — and at that point, any verbal agreements will be moot. Without daily reports, new team members won’t know what was agreed upon or discussed, which could lead to conflicts.In the end, daily construction reports are all about maintaining quality and managing risk. When you make daily reporting a priority, you’ll reduce unplanned costs, lower safety risks, and keep your project on the right track.What goes into a daily report?Since they only include what you need, daily reports all contain different building blocks. Here are the most common elements:Project information: The project name and number, address, report date and author, etc. Adding this information helps managers, customers, and other parties immediately see which project goes with which report. It’ll also help when you need to look up an old report in your archive.Weather conditions: Changes to the weather, such as rain, snow, or intense sun, can cause delays (e.g. when pouring concrete slabs), impact worker efficiency, and increase the potential for accidents.Labor time spent: The workers on site, the number of hours they worked, and what they did.Equipment used and received: Which major materials were used or received, and which weren’t received (and are causing delays).Tasks in progress and tasks completed: Which tasks are in progress (e.g. slab pouring 70% complete) and which tasks are done (and can be documented with photos).Potential risks, issues, delays: Anything worth noting, plus areas where managers or the customer could intervene (e.g. a delay of another contractor that prevents you from starting your portion). Don’t forget to include photos so everyone can see the exact issue.Safety observations and accidents: All safety risks and observations, again with photos. (When accidents happen, the daily report can protect you from litigation.) In the case of accidents, record who was involved, when and where it occurred, how it impacted the work, and any photos of the event.How to make your daily report admissible for courtAs noted above, daily construction reports are often the most important piece of evidence used in court during a contract dispute. But the problem is they’re not always admissible.In addition to having your daily reports signed by the client, you should also follow this advice from Corwin & Corwin law firm:“The most common ground for admissibility of job reports (often the only ground) is that the reports are regularly kept business records of the party who offers them as evidence… To avoid tripping on any of these evidentiary requirements at trial, assign a supervisor or foreman who is on site to fill in the report form each day.At the end of each week (or at regular intervals) collect the reports from each foreman and file them by project at your office. Make sure there is a report for each day you were on site, and that all are complete and accurate. If there are questions or gaps, address them immediately.”Best practices for creating daily construction reportsWhether you’re using an old-school notebook or a nifty new app, there are certain best practices you should follow for your daily construction reports:Provide sufficient detail: Too often, daily reports are drafted noting the date, the weather, and a broad description of the work being performed. This isn’t sufficient for properly communicating with other parties, or for disputes or court claims. Don’t forget that progress reports are supposed to document what happens on the project every day — and not only when problems arise.File reports as early as possible: Memories fade quickly. The shorter the time between events and notation, the more accurate the reports will be. By using an app, you’ll be able to document observations as soon as you make them.Report delays in detail: Record when activities get delayed or stopped, plus the reasons why (e.g. due to weather or an accident). Make sure you record each day of the delay; if you only note a delay’s start date, it’ll look like it only lasted one day.Get it signed: Getting construction site reports signed by a client, manager, or other responsible party increases their value. To preserve the integrity of the reporting, don’t make any changes once it’s signed.Use a checklist: Checklists reduce the risk of mistakes, increase the likelihood everything will get documented, and free up your mental RAM. So use your app’s checklist feature to make a list of what should be in each daily report.Keep it simple: Make sure your report is readable by using common language and including ample pictures. Don’t use specialist terms; just stick to a concise and clear description that anyone can understand.How to use reports to improve your servicesJust like in any other industry, one of the goals of reporting is to understand how your company or project is doing — and to use that information to boost future performance.You might, for example, include manpower details — like trades and hours — into your daily report. Then, along with progress data, you could use this information to track the performance of your team.By keeping daily records of work progress, you’ll gain clearer insight on ongoing projects as well as improve future processes.Daily report example and templateReady to see a construction daily report in action?We created a simple checklist in ArchiSnapper that has an overview of the items to review:FYI: You can download this daily report template here and upload it into your ArchiSnapper account from here.Using this checklist, project managers, foremen, or superintendents can use their mobile device to create a comprehensive site report, even adding pictures and sketches, assignees, dates, PDF annotations, etc.When they finish, the daily report could look like this:Click here if you’d like to see a video of how we used the ArchiSnapper app to create this report.If you’re not yet ready to use an app like ArchiSnapper for your daily reports, we’ve also drafted a construction daily report template (Excel) you can download instead.Whether you use an app, a notebook, or an Excel document, the important thing is to always create construction daily reports. So you can reduce delays, keep your customer informed, settle disputes …I hope this information is useful!Jerry

160+ Free Online Marketing Tools For Small Business OwnersA Quick Overview Of What You’ll LearnHow to save hundreds of dollars on the tools you needHow to save up to 10 hours each week with these toolsThe combination of tools that we use to grow our business and drive sales for our clientsHow to compete with the largest companies in your industry at a fraction of the costThe free tools that your business can use no matter the project or needs…The Best Marketing Tools For Your Small BusinessYou are a small business owner, and you are pursuing your dreams to develop the best products and services for your customers. As you continue to pursue your dreams, you likely know the importance of saving time and money to accomplish your business goals.This means that you need to best marketing tools for small business while also saving time from testing a bunch of options or wasting money in the process.Online marketing tools for small business are hit or miss. These tools are exciting because they provide your business solutions to your needs and all at a great price of free! However, over time you will begin to notice that many marketing tools for small business can be a waste of time.This is why we put together this comprehensive list of free online marketing tools for your small business. These are all tools that we have either used or have partners who have used these products, so we know they are great to use and will help you reach your goals.Quick Disclaimer: While we have used most of these tools for ourselves, some of them were recommended to us. You should do your own research on these products to ensure their security prior to using these tools. StrategyBeam cannot be responsible for any damages caused if your business from these tools and services.Business & Project Name GeneratorsWebsite BuildersBranding & Logo GeneratorsInvoice Creation SolutionsLegal Documents & AgreementIdea Management ProgramsBusiness Blogging SolutionsTrending Content DiscoveryResearch & Website AnalyzersImage Optimization ToolsCreative Assets & MockupsImage Editing SoftwareStock PhotographyEmail MarketingSocial Media ManagementOnline Surveys & FormsMiscellaneous ToolsBusiness & Project Name GeneratorsMany small business owners have great ideas for products and services, but struggle to come up with a compelling name for their business. Instead of wasting time being frustrated then you should consider using one of these online marketing tools for your small business.These naming services offer different types of benefits, but you will thank yourself for using one (or more) of these generators instead of wasting valuable time trying to think of names for your small business on your own.NameStation: Coming up with a name for your startup or small business can be difficult, time-consuming, and frustrating. Instead of wasting hours trying to find a name that is available and has a corresponding domain name, you can use this community to find the perfect name in no time.There is an option to host a competition for about $35, and this is an excellent option if you have a few dollars, but you can also look at past contests to find names that were not chosen by the hosts.The Name App: Can’t think of the best name for your app? No problem- just use this free and easy to use tool to choose the best name for your next big idea.Naminum: Start with a base idea for your business name, and Naminum will do the rest for you. Once you put in the starting point of your business name this generator will return a list of potential names that you could choose from.However, remember these names are not verified to have domains so you could find a few great names but they are not available.Short Domain Search: One of the best ways to keep your branding consistent at all levels of your online business is to have a branded short URL. This tool will help you find a shortened URL that you can use for anything from Twitter posts to putting on your printed business cards.Wordoid: If you want to generate a business name based on fake or shortened existing words then this tool is for you. Just be careful because this tool often removes vowels, so it could be difficult to distinguish your business name if you choose one of the options listed in the tool.Hipster Business Name: While it is a basic name generator that is based on refreshing a set list of names, this name generator could be the perfect solution if you have a mental block in choosing a business name. Probably not the answer you will need for your startup or small business, but who knows- it could help you on your journey!Impossibility: One of the best domain name generators available. Choose from a list of options and work from a base keyword that you want to use in your domain.This tool makes finding a great domain name smooth and efficient, without having to juggle between multiple devices or websites.Lean Domain Search: Enter a specific word that you want to include in your domain name and hit ‘Search.’ This domain name generator was made for entrepreneurs who wish a domain name without all the bells and whistles that can cost them time or energy.Domainr: Another domain name generator that delivers domain name ideas based on keywords. The only difference with this option is that you can find shortened domain names in a range of possibilities and TLDs.This means you know which domains are available and can even see shortened domain names associated with your primary domain name!Like These? Share These Copywriting Tips...[easy-social-share buttons="facebook,twitter,linkedin" counters=0 style="button" template="24" column="yes" columns="3" flex="yes" text="Find answers from a professional copywriter on the easiest ways to grow your online presence today!" twitter_user="CJGiarratana" twitter_hashtags="#SmallBusiness #Marketing #Copywriting" twitter_tweet="Find answers from a professional copywriter on the easiest ways to grow your online presence today!" point_type="simple"]Website BuildersWhether your small business is just getting started or you have been in business for a while, you need a strong online presence. Often small business owners lack the knowledge or time to develop a website that will help them stand out from their competition.This is why your small business can use these marketing tools to design and launch a fantastic site in almost no time for free! You can use these tools to focus on writing amazing content for your website instead of worrying about coding or other aspects of building a great online presence.HTML5 UP: Responsive HTML5 and CSS3 site templates. Great option if you want a simple HTML 5 website- free templates do quick work for setting up your business website.If you are not web savvy or have the time to learn how to set up an HTML5 site from scratch, then you should consider using a service like WordPress.com: Create a Free Website or Blog or another option.Bootswatch: Free themes for Bootstrap. Whether you are building an app or interactive Bootstrap site, Simply download a CSS file and replace the one Bootstrap. No messing around with hex values.Templated: A collection of 866 free CSS & HTML5 site templates. Built by a team of dedicated designers and coders, all of these beautiful designed CSS & HTML5 templates are released under the Creative Commons, so your startup or business is free to use them as you need.WordPress: Create your new website for free. WordPress is the most used CMS for all types of sites, and it is an excellent choice no matter what industry your startup or business is in.While it is easy to use and quick to get set up, you might need a professional to help with some of the more excellent details.Strikingly: Free, unlimited mobile-optimized websites for striking domains. This is also a great tool to conduct A/B tests on landing pages quickly.While it is not a go-to solution for landing page testing, Strikingly can be an excellent choice for testing ideas to improve conversions.Layers: If you choose to go with WordPress for your website, Layers could be the builder of your dreams. This free WordPress builder will allow your business to build a great looking website in no time.Bootstrap Zero: A great collection of free and premium themes for your Bootstrap needs. This site contains everything from full ideas to mockups and icon images.Like These? Share These Copywriting Tips...[easy-social-share buttons="facebook,twitter,linkedin" counters=0 style="button" template="24" column="yes" columns="3" flex="yes" text="Find answers from a professional copywriter on the easiest ways to grow your online presence today!" twitter_user="CJGiarratana" twitter_hashtags="#SmallBusiness #Marketing #Copywriting" twitter_tweet="Find answers from a professional copywriter on the easiest ways to grow your online presence today!" point_type="simple"]Branding & Logo GeneratorsYour small business exists to deliver amazing products and services to your customers and help them reach their goals. However, if your customers can’t identify you online with a distinctive brand and/or logo, then your small business will fade away.These small business marketing tools are easy to use and free options to help you develop a logo and branding if you are in a hurry. While you should not rely on these tools for a long-term logo, you can use these free online marketing tools to develop content to get your business started in the right direction.Logogenie: This amazing logo generator is one of the easiest to use and intuitive tool on the market. While it is not free, at only $19.95 this tool can help you find the perfect logo at a fraction of the cost that you could spend with other solutions.DesignEvo: DesignEvo is a free online logo maker with 5000+ templates that anyone can use to bring to life a compelling, unique logo in minutes.Logaster: There are several free logo creators out there, and Logaster is one of the best ones on the market. Offering a fast and straightforward process to create great looking logos, just have to type in the name of your business and the type of industry you serve.Hipster Logo Generator: This logo generator moves to a different beat, and you can generate a logo in no time that will stand out then you should check out Hipster Logo Generator.Squarespace Free Logo: While not the easiest to use, this logo generator allows you to preview how your logo could look on a variety of mediums like shirts and coffee mugs.Like These? Share These Copywriting Tips...[easy-social-share buttons="facebook,twitter,linkedin" counters=0 style="button" template="24" column="yes" columns="3" flex="yes" text="Find answers from a professional copywriter on the easiest ways to grow your online presence today!" twitter_user="CJGiarratana" twitter_hashtags="#SmallBusiness #Marketing #Copywriting" twitter_tweet="Find answers from a professional copywriter on the easiest ways to grow your online presence today!" point_type="simple"]Invoice Creation SolutionsYou work hard to run your small business, but you should not have to work hard to collect money from your customers. Depending on the needs of your business, you can use these free marketing tools to generate free invoices.The small business invoicing tools are a great addition to any small business marketing toolkit because they are a quick and easy way to create professional invoices to send your clients.Invoicely: If your startup or small business is in a pinch to generate a professional looking invoice, then you can’t go wrong with Invoice to me. While not the most feature-rich option available, this invoice generator is free and will get the job done.Free Invoice Generator: Your alternative invoice generator uses a simple and straightforward interface so you can create business invoices in no time flat.Slimvoice: Straightforward invoice processing tool that your business can use on an ongoing basis. The paid version allows you to track invoices and provides a holistic SaaS model service for your business.Wave: Wave is an excellent alternative to more extensive invoicing systems like Freshbooks. While the free version is a bit limiting, the overall service should be able to meet the needs of your business or startup.Invoice.to: No bells or whistles here- just a simple, easy to use interface to generate quick invoices. If you only need to make an invoice to send to a client, then this could be the option you are looking for.Just be careful- not many options means no saving or tracking like is available in other tools.Like These? Share These Copywriting Tips...[easy-social-share buttons="facebook,twitter,linkedin" counters=0 style="button" template="24" column="yes" columns="3" flex="yes" text="Find answers from a professional copywriter on the easiest ways to grow your online presence today!" twitter_user="CJGiarratana" twitter_hashtags="#SmallBusiness #Marketing #Copywriting" twitter_tweet="Find answers from a professional copywriter on the easiest ways to grow your online presence today!" point_type="simple"]Legal Documents & AgreementsOne of the most critical aspects of a small business that is often overlooked are legal documentation and agreements. Many small business owners are excited to engage with their customers but forget about the legal side of their endeavors.Neglecting legal documents and contracts can cause serious issues for your business, and this is why you should check out these small business marketing tools to help you ensure your legal standing before committing to anything in your business.Kiss: Your startup or small business might not have the budget for an attorney to draft simple notes or other documents for you. The KISS docs are short and sweet “open source” documents prepared after multiple discussions with some Silicon Valley law firms and early-stage investors.Democracy: No matter the type of agreement you are looking for, Democracy likely has you covered. Everything from parking agreements to specific contracts with designers, you can find what you need in this easy to navigate community.Just be careful- there are trolls in the forums and always make sure the agreements work for your situation.Shake: Sending legal documents can be a pain, but Shake makes the process more comfortable and less complicated than ever before.The only thing to keep in mind is the free version is a trial, but if you are at the point in your startup or business where you need secured communication, then you should be able to invest in a tool like this.Like These? Share These Copywriting Tips...[easy-social-share buttons="facebook,twitter,linkedin" counters=0 style="button" template="24" column="yes" columns="3" flex="yes" text="Find answers from a professional copywriter on the easiest ways to grow your online presence today!" twitter_user="CJGiarratana" twitter_hashtags="#SmallBusiness #Marketing #Copywriting" twitter_tweet="Find answers from a professional copywriter on the easiest ways to grow your online presence today!" point_type="simple"]Idea Management ProgramsAre you struggling to come up or validate new ideas for upcoming products or services? These online marketing tools for small business can help you generate and validate your ideas quickly so you will waste less time and resources in the process.Whether you are working by yourself or with a team, these free small business marketing tools will help you bring your concepts to market quicker!Xtensio: Thousands of entrepreneurs reduce design-related costs, improve the quality of their business collateral and save time with Xtensio. You can create anything with Xtensio: Reports, pitches, proposals, landing pages…whatever your business needs.Experiment Board: Many startups fail because they fail to identify the core problems of their audience and build their solutions around their market. Javelin offers a free option to find your customers’ issues, create a landing page, and test your assumptions without investing large amounts of money or resources.This is a great tool that all startups and small business should use before launching new products or services.Germ.io: While there are many collaboration tools on the market, germ.io: capture ideas, brainstorm and turn them into actionable project plans is an excellent choice if your startup or small business relies on a core team of developers and strategists.You can use this tool to keep all your ideas in one place and track how the team is contributing to your goal from a holistic perspective.Skitch: This annotation tool used to be part of the broader Evernote ecosystem, but since it’s creation Skitch has become a stand-alone tool. Taking screenshots and making quick notes has never been easier.This is a great tool to use when sharing ideas about your startup or business online resources.Like These? Share These Copywriting Tips...[easy-social-share buttons="facebook,twitter,linkedin" counters=0 style="button" template="24" column="yes" columns="3" flex="yes" text="Find answers from a professional copywriter on the easiest ways to grow your online presence today!" twitter_user="CJGiarratana" twitter_hashtags="#SmallBusiness #Marketing #Copywriting" twitter_tweet="Find answers from a professional copywriter on the easiest ways to grow your online presence today!" point_type="simple"]Business Blogging SolutionsIf you want your small business to grow, then you need to check out these free blogging tools for your small business. Business blogging can have a significant impact on your online marketing strategy, and developing great content has never been easier than with these small business marketing tools.Some of the free marketing tools will help you publish your content quickly and efficiently, while others offer platforms to share your ideas and build trust with your audience. This means that you can produce engaging content for your blog that will attract more readers and establish yourself as a thought-leader.Hemingway: This is one of my go-to apps when I am writing blog posts for myself or my clients. Hemingway App helps writers at all levels rid their writing of run-on sentences, needless adverbs, passive voice, and opaque words.Grammarly: If you use only one app on a daily basis, then be sure to use Grammarly. Not only will this free tool save you a lot of time editing your online content, but it will also help protect you from the embarrassment of simple typos and grammatical mistakes.Be sure to install this app and use it whenever you are writing an email or drafting an invoice to a client!Medium: If you are just starting up your business then you might want to consider using Medium to track your initial progress. This is a community-focused content generation platform that can help you connect with others in your field.Just be sure to look at writing for your website so you can capture SEO value as your business grows, but Medium could provide the boost you need in the early stages.ZenPen: Do you get distracted quickly with all the options Microsoft Word or Google Docs have in them when you write online? ZenPen is the most simple and straightforward writing platform that you will find online.Start up this program, and you will have nothing to look at except for the words you are writing!Editorial Calendar: If you want your online marketing to take off quickly then you and your business team will need an editorial calendar.Sure, you could keep an Excel file with all the content plans in it, but you can also use a simple and free WordPress plugin like Editorial Calendar to do all the heavy lifting for you.WP Hide Post: Creating and maintaining a business blog on WordPress is simple, but it can be difficult to have full control over how your content displays if you don’t know how to code.This free WordPress plugin makes it easy to alter the default layout of your posts on your WordPress site without ever having to write a single line of code.Social Locker: Do you have a fantastic piece of content that you know your customers will want to have? You can use a free WordPress plugin like Social Locker to entice your readers to share your content with their friends to gain access to your most valuable content.Just take into consideration that social shares are not as valuable as your customer’s email address for your business and that the content you have behind this paywall needs to be high-quality if you want to retain your readership.Egg Timer: This is an excellent tool if you want to improve productivity. You can set countdown times right from your web browser, and keep yourself accountable to focus on a single task for a fixed amount of time.CoSchedule: Don’t hit publish until you know your headline is fantastic because the success of your content often relies on the quality of your headlines.Use this free tool to analyze the headline of your content, and receive an easy to understand overview of your content headline. Plus, you will learn how you can improve your content headline to increase engagement.A5.gg: Use this minimalist and easy to use typing tool to record notes or write entire blog posts.Free Summarizer: Do you have several long documents that you need to read, but don’t have the time to read everything? This free summarizing tool will help pull the most critical points of a document and display in an easy to understand format.Just be sure you test this before using with any critical information- the results can vary, and you don’t want to miss a great opportunity because Free Summarizer didn’t capture everything that you needed to know!Like These? Share These Copywriting Tips...[easy-social-share buttons="facebook,twitter,linkedin" counters=0 style="button" template="24" column="yes" columns="3" flex="yes" text="Find answers from a professional copywriter on the easiest ways to grow your online presence today!" twitter_user="CJGiarratana" twitter_hashtags="#SmallBusiness #Marketing #Copywriting" twitter_tweet="Find answers from a professional copywriter on the easiest ways to grow your online presence today!" point_type="simple"]Trending Content DiscoveryThe success of your small business marketing strategy depends on producing relevant content that is valuable to your audience. One of the hardest parts of marketing your business is to understand what your customers want, and one way to accomplish this is by looking at trending topics.Take a look at these free marketing tools for small business to help you understand what concepts matter most to your audience so you can start creating content to engage with your customers today!Google Trends: As you begin researching different topics to write about or find new markets to serve you will want to use Google Trends. This free tool helps identify various topics in the market and determine the popularity of content and topics based on monthly searches.Buzzsumo: This is one of the best platforms to analyze content and ideas that are shared in general or do some spying on your competitors.Use this tool before writing a blog post or engaging with your brand online to be sure you are spending your time and resources on the topics that matter most to your audience.Hubspot Blog Topic Generator: If you are struggling to come up with great blog post ideas and titles then this tool is for you.The results are pretty necessary, but if you want to get some ideas to get started then you can’t do much better than this tool!Content Gems: Content Gems is one of the best curation tools on the market to find the most popular stories for a set of keywords. Whether you are looking for topics to write about or want a comfortable place to discover content for your social media accounts, you can’t go wrong with Content Gems.The free dashboard allows for one panel with up to five keywords, so you are sure to find the content and ideas you need.Like These? Share These Copywriting Tips...[easy-social-share buttons="facebook,twitter,linkedin" counters=0 style="button" template="24" column="yes" columns="3" flex="yes" text="Find answers from a professional copywriter on the easiest ways to grow your online presence today!" twitter_user="CJGiarratana" twitter_hashtags="#SmallBusiness #Marketing #Copywriting" twitter_tweet="Find answers from a professional copywriter on the easiest ways to grow your online presence today!" point_type="simple"]Research & Website AnalyzersSEO can be an overwhelming aspect for many small business owners, but you can help remove much of the guesswork, so you have accurate data. These free online marketing tools for small business will offer you insight and data that you can use to develop compelling content to drive qualified leads to your website.Writing content that your audience wants to read while also marketing search engines isn’t easy. This is why you should use the best tool on the market to help your business grow.Many of these online marketing tools offer different benefits that your small business can use, so be sure to test out each one depending on your needs.Socialinsider: Socialinsider is a social media analytics tool which shows you a full view of a competitor’s digital strategy for Facebook, Instagram & Twitter. You can use this tool to compare side by side social profiles and create benchmarks for your industry. Plus, Socialinsider lets you create white-label reports with aggregate data and statistics about your social media performance.Wondersearch: Wondersearch is a powerful keyword research tool that scrapes Google based on specific keywords. Unlike other keyword research tools, Wondersearch focuses attention for people also search for, people also ask, and by the end of today, the brand new, topics they write about (for authors and publications). The tool also displays metrics like fresh average monthly search volume, average CPC, and PPC difficulty.Open Site Explorer: Developed by Moz, Open Site Explorer is an excellent tool for startups and businesses that want to research backlinks and find new opportunities to grow online.You can search your site or a competitor site to understand your market in a new light.SEMrush: Essentially an all-in-one marketing tool, this go-to tool provides startups and small businesses with valuable information about their competition and to find great opportunities in their market.The free version of SEMrush is capable of handling your needs to find right keywords while also doing some recon on your competition.QuickSprout: From time to time you should analyze your website to find areas that can be improved to grow your online presence.Once you put your URL into Quick Sprout, you will be given actionable advice to make changes to your site that can have a significant impact on your online rankings.WordPress SEO by Yoast: If you are using WordPress to run your website then you should consider using this free WordPress plugin.Not only does Yoast help you focus on the things that matter in your content to get you ranking in Google, but this plugin also handles the tedious tasks of online marketing like ensuring your meta information is correct. A big time saver and the best SEO WordPress plugin available.SEO Site Checkup: Whether you are just starting your business or your startup is the few years old, the chances are that your website can be improved.SEO SiteCheckup provides an overview of how your website is performing on a technical level so you can optimize your site to perform better and rank higher in Google.Hubspot Marketing Grader: Another free website evaluation tool, Hubspot’s online tool gives deep insight into the performance of your website.Just enter your URL and email address, and you will see an overview of your website’s health on everything from Mobile, Security, and general SEO issues. This tool is excellent to use as you grow your website or make changes to ensure the integrity of your site.SimilarWeb: As you build you’re your content strategy you will want to find sites similar to yours. This information can help you develop a great marketing plan, improve your content, or identify competitors to look at their backlink library.OpenLinkProfiler: Backlinks are one of the best ways to get your business ranking on Google, and you should use every tool you can find to understand the backlink profile of your competition.Just enter a competitor’s domain name into this free tool and find a list of sites linking to your them. You can use this information to reach out to these sites and build relationships to grow your backlink profile!Keywordtool.io: There are a lot of tools out there to help you build keyword lists for SEO, but few compare to Keyword Tool. Enter in a primary keyword, choose your country and language and let this tool do the rest.While some of the results are not relevant, you can also use this tool to find negative keywords if you run PPC advertising campaigns.LSI Graph: Google’s algorithm is constantly changing, and many SEO experts agree that LSI keywords are becoming essential to help sites rank. You can use LSI Graph to find associated keywords to your primary keywords.This improves your keyword footprint so your site will show up for a broader range of words while helping Google and your readers understand your content better.Google Analytics: If you have a website, then you need to be tracking your customers to determine what content is valuable and how you can expand your online presence.Google Analytics is the most used analytics tool for business owners of all sizes, and if you have a website, then you should have GA installed.Broken Links: Broken links can have a negative impact on the SEO performance of your site. If your startup has developed an extensive content library, then you should consider checking the health of your on-site links.This free tool provides a comprehensive overview of active and broken links on your site so you can clean up broken links to improve your online presence.Google Pagespeed Insights: As you grow your startup you will need to focus on a lot of things like finances and marketing. If the technical side of online marketing is not your strength, then you should use a tool like Google Pagespeed Insights to see if your website is ranking low due to on-page issues.While this tool is not perfect, it does provide great insight on what you should focus your attention on to improve your site performance.Pingdom: Another great free tool to help evaluate the speed and performance of your site from a technical perspective. Just enter your URL, and this tool will provide deep insight into the load speed and other functional elements of your site.This information can help you optimize the code and other on-page features to improve user experience and rank higher in Google.GTMetrix: Quickly and easily analyze your URL to learn about potential performance issues. The results are laid out in a format that is easy to read and provides actionable tips to improve your site.This is a great tool to use in conjunction with the other URL analyzer tools because it allows for a different perspective and evaluates additional aspects of your site.Moz Local: Local SEO is one of the most important aspects of SEO. Whether you have an online business or a brick and mortar store, you need to have a solid Local SEO strategy if you want to reach your target audience.While this tool won’t help you build citations, it can help you determine your current standings and guide you in the best direction to improve your Local SEO rankings.Shopify E-commerce Report: You can find a wide range of resources here, tailored perfectly for your small business or startup. Use these tools to help design a logo, generate terms and agreements, and even create barcodes.You will need to look around at all the resources since there are many choices to choose from based on your business needs.Majestic SEO: If you are building backlinks for your business then you need to be sure that these links are quality before you agree to have them point to your site. This is because spammy backlinks can cause a drop in your online presence and even cause Google to drop your website from their search engine altogether.Majestic SEO is a great tool to help you find the true value of sites linking back to you and this tool can help save your business from the stress and lost sales of getting a Google Penalty.Like These? Share These Copywriting Tips...[easy-social-share buttons="facebook,twitter,linkedin" counters=0 style="button" template="24" column="yes" columns="3" flex="yes" text="Find answers from a professional copywriter on the easiest ways to grow your online presence today!" twitter_user="CJGiarratana" twitter_hashtags="#SmallBusiness #Marketing #Copywriting" twitter_tweet="Find answers from a professional copywriter on the easiest ways to grow your online presence today!" point_type="simple"]Image Optimization ToolsIf your small business relies on images to show your products or services, then you likely have lots of images on your site. If you are not careful then your website can become slow and not only will this hurt your rankings in Google, a slow site will also drive your customers away.You can use these free marketing tools for your small business to optimize your online images to ensure the speed and usability of your site.TinyJPG | TinyPNG: The speed of your site can have a significant impact on your online rankings and SEO. Since images can take a long time to load, you can use this free tool to compress images before you upload them to your site.There is also an option to install a free (and paid option) WordPress plugin that will automatically optimize and compress any image you add to your site. This is an excellent addition to any startup toolkit since it will help your website rank in Google and improve the user experience.Compressor.io: Compressor.io - optimize and compress JPEG photos and PNG images is a powerful online tool for drastically reducing the dimensions of your pictures and photos while maintaining a high quality with practically no visual difference between the image before and after you upload.Smush.it: Another great free WordPress plugin that allows you to resize images when you upload media to your site automatically. This plugin can also resize your images automatically for thumbnails, and other common usages for your WordPress theme.This is one of the go-to tools for startups looking to ensure that their website is as fast as possible.Dunnnk: Quickly and easily create amazing mockups that include your logo or app in stock images. This is an excellent solution if you need to create assets to help sell your products or build out an information page on your website.If you are a tech startup creating an app, then you should consider using this free mockup generator today!Like These? Share These Copywriting Tips...[easy-social-share buttons="facebook,twitter,linkedin" counters=0 style="button" template="24" column="yes" columns="3" flex="yes" text="Find answers from a professional copywriter on the easiest ways to grow your online presence today!" twitter_user="CJGiarratana" twitter_hashtags="#SmallBusiness #Marketing #Copywriting" twitter_tweet="Find answers from a professional copywriter on the easiest ways to grow your online presence today!" point_type="simple"]Creative Assets & MockupsCreating customized assets for your small business can take a lot of time, and hiring a designer can be expensive. There are some high-quality small business marketing tools that your company can use to leverage a library of pre-made creative assets that are distributed for free by a community of skilled designers.These online marketing tools provide your business with great ways to look professional at a fraction of the cost.Freebbble: No matter what your startup is looking to build, your marketing efforts can be improved by searching Freebbble for free assets. This is a great location to find a variety of free digital assets to include in your marketing and outreach efforts.Find items like header images, landing page mockups, and other engaging content to help save your startup time and money!Dribbble: Dribbble is a great place to find high-quality assets for your startup. Things get even better when you search for “Freebies” in Dribble and here you can find an assortment of high-quality digital assets to meet any need that your startup might have.You can use these assets to build out unique landing pages, apps, or other projects.Graphic Burger: This is a great website to find fabulous mockups, PSD files, and other even t-shirt designs. Your startups are sure to find digital assets on this site to meet your needs, no matter your project!Pixel Buddha: Your startup can find some of a unique assortment of free digital assets at Pixel Buddha. Find everything from Vector images, templates, and other mockups.Premium Pixels: While Premium Pixels has a great selection of all types of assets, you will find a wide range of icons and other assets for mobile app development. Be sure to check back often because the site is updated with free assets frequently.Fribbble: This is one of the best sources for patterns and textures to help your startup personalize your online presence. If your startup wants to have a brand that stands out, then this is the place for you.Freebiesbug: While many other websites host textures and patterns to be by designers, Freebiesburg specializes in digital assets for mobile app developers. You can make your app, and other projects look professional without wasting time and energy.365 Psd: There are so many icons, templates, and UI kits on 365 PSD that it is hard to think about what you can’t find on this site. Be sure to check out the Free PSD and Free Vector menus to discover professional assets that are not featured on the homepage.Dbf: Stock images, typeface, and mockups are a must have for all startups looking to cut their production time in half. DBF is an excellent source to check out if you want to ensure your online presence has a polished look.UI Space: Where do professional designers go to share their scripts, mockups, and icons for free? You won’t be disappointed if you choose any of the freebies from UI Space.Freepik: Choose from a wide selection of free PSD files, Vector images and stock photos for any season or occasion. One of the best things about Freepik is the ease of use and variety of choices. This means that your startup can develop a comprehensive marketing strategy.Tethr: Is your startup developing an app or game for iOS? If so, then Tethr could be the resource you have been waiting for. Not only is Tethr the best design kit for iOS, but it also happens to be free!Like These? Share These Copywriting Tips...[easy-social-share buttons="facebook,twitter,linkedin" counters=0 style="button" template="24" column="yes" columns="3" flex="yes" text="Find answers from a professional copywriter on the easiest ways to grow your online presence today!" twitter_user="CJGiarratana" twitter_hashtags="#SmallBusiness #Marketing #Copywriting" twitter_tweet="Find answers from a professional copywriter on the easiest ways to grow your online presence today!" point_type="simple"]Image Editing SoftwareAs your marketing strategy develops, your small business will need to use the best marketing tools to help you edit images for your website, social media, and other areas.These free online marketing tools for small business will help you make quick edits to your images while saving money on the expensive photo editing software that your company likely doesn’t need.Piktochart: As your start continues to grow, your content strategy will likely begin to incorporate infographics and other visuals to engage with your readers on social media. Piktochart is one of the best free infographic design programs on the market.Get your free account set up and you can start designing beautiful infographics to drive traffic and earn backlinks for your startup.Pixlr: If you need to edit an image then Pixlr is the best free image editing program available. While this image editor is not as robust as Adobe Photoshop, you can upload and manipulate images in no time.Great for startups who don’t want to worry about licenses or expensive programs, because Pixlr is entirely web-based.Canva: Canva is another free infographic generator, but the real power of Canva is the ability to create stunning images for social media quickly. This tool helps you create images for the specific dimensions that various social networks require.This means that your startup can create and publish high content for your social media followers without wasting time and energy!Easel.ly: This is one of the most straightforward infographic generator tools on the market, and create and share visual ideas using infographics has an extensive library of templates to choose from. Like other tools, your startup can quickly create stunning infographics that you can share with your audience.Social Image Resizer Tool: As your startup begins to generate impressive images to share on social media, you want to make sure that these images are sized correctly. Otherwise, you risk losing the first impression- even if you have great visuals.This free tool allows you to upload your pictures and then resize them depending on the social network you want to share on. Great for saving time and building a robust online following to grow your startup marketing strategy!Placeit: Even if your startup just launched, you need to ensure that your online presence has a strong presence. You can create a great impression by including great looking mockups of people using your product.Not only is this a great way to build trust with your audience, creating mockup material of people using your app or product can help drive sales once you attract qualified customers to your site!Meme Generator: Memes are not only funny, but they can also be a great way to make a statement about your startup. Instead of struggling with advanced image editors, you can create great memes with this easy to use meme generator.Pablo: Engage with your social media followers by using this quick and easy image generation tool. Each image that you create will be correctly sized based on the social network of your choice.Like These? Share These Copywriting Tips...[easy-social-share buttons="facebook,twitter,linkedin" counters=0 style="button" template="24" column="yes" columns="3" flex="yes" text="Find answers from a professional copywriter on the easiest ways to grow your online presence today!" twitter_user="CJGiarratana" twitter_hashtags="#SmallBusiness #Marketing #Copywriting" twitter_tweet="Find answers from a professional copywriter on the easiest ways to grow your online presence today!" point_type="simple"]Stock PhotographyWhether you are using them for your website, blog posts, or other marketing materials, images play a crucial part in the overall success of your marketing strategy. Instead of spending lots of money on expensive photos, you can use some of the best free online marketing tools for small business owners to find photos that free to use.Stock Up: One of the largest and most complete free photos for your website or blog in one place. The images tend to have a traditional approach, and many of the images don’t have filters, so you can adjust as needed.Pexels: Pexels is one of my favorite sources to find photos because they have an artistic twist to them. Find thought-provoking images to feature on your blog or website.All The Free Stock: Powerful source for free photos, icons, mockups, and videos. One of the best things about this resource is that you can search some photo sites without having to jump around to different sites!Unsplash: Find engaging and high-quality photos for free. This means that you can use photos on this site for anything- from developing your website or app to email marketing campaigns and blog posts.Startup Stock Photos: If your startup wants to show your unique qualities with images then you can’t go wrong with using some photos from Startup Stock Photography. All of the photos on this site feature startup environments.Jay Mantri: You can find a wide range of artistic photos on this site, and one of the best things is that you can use the images for anything. This is an excellent source of photos that feature cities, people in action, and unusual perspectives.Travel Coffee Book: Beautiful images from various travel photographers. These photos are sure to satisfy your need for exotic or rarely seen locations. These are great for in-post images or other assets to build a message to appeal to your audience.Designers Pics: Free photographs for personal and commercial use that don’t require attribution are difficult to come by. However, Designers Pics offers high-resolution images that your startup can use without having to worry about attribution!Death to the Stock Photo: This stock photo resource is slightly different from other similar services because Death to Stock sends a small set of stock photos to your email each month. There are not as many photos to choose from at this site, but the quality of each photo can’t be matched.Foodie’s Feed: This is a beautiful selection of minimalistic lifestyle images to use on your website or blog.Mazwai: Large selection of free Creative Commons videos and video clips to use for your marketing campaigns.Pixabay: Free, high-quality images that you can use in your online marketing campaigns like website development and blogging. You can also find free Vector images on this site along with real-life photography.Biography: Free, high-quality lifestyle images that you can use to showcase off your startup in all aspects of your online marketing strategy.Splitshire: Find exciting photos and videos that you are free to use in your online marketing campaigns. Be sure to check the attribution requirements for content.New Old Stock: Specializing in vintage photography, your startup is sure to find all the old school looking photos to meet any need that you might have.Picjumbo: free images that feature artistic photos and visually attractive filters that you can use in your blogging strategy.Life of Pix: Discover free photos from around the world. The cool thing about this photo resource is that the images cover a range of concepts and topics and all the images have an interesting angle.Getrefe: Find fantastic real-world images to showcase your startup’s brand in your online marketing content.IM Free: Find all the content you need to build your online presence with IM Free. All of the images that you can find on this site are categorized by different types of Technology, Startups, and icons.The Pattern Library Find free patterns for your website or other online projects.ISO Republic: This is a cool resource for lifestyle images, along with exciting perspectives in each image.Function: The author of this website has handpicked their favorite free images so you can skip the manual work of finding the high-quality pictures that you are looking for. Be sure also to check out the free brushes and other helpful tools to ensure the success of your startup marketing campaigns.Raumrot: This site draws on free photography assets from various free photo sites. Reduce the time and effort it takes to find the perfect image for your online marketing efforts.Like These? Share These Copywriting Tips...[easy-social-share buttons="facebook,twitter,linkedin" counters=0 style="button" template="24" column="yes" columns="3" flex="yes" text="Find answers from a professional copywriter on the easiest ways to grow your online presence today!" twitter_user="CJGiarratana" twitter_hashtags="#SmallBusiness #Marketing #Copywriting" twitter_tweet="Find answers from a professional copywriter on the easiest ways to grow your online presence today!" point_type="simple"]Email MarketingEmail marketing is one of the best marketing channels if you want to increase sales and build customer trust. However, it can be challenging to collect and leverage your email marketing list. Here are the best online marketing tools for small business if you want to send personalized messages to your entire email list while also saving money.NEWOLDSTAMP: If you are looking for an innovative, easy to use, and powerful marketing tool then you will love NEWOLDSTAMP. This tool has a free and paid version so you can create an email signature for you and your team regardless of the email client that you use. You can grab this powerful marketing tool to help expand your reach and drive qualified traffic to your site with professional email signatures!Contact Form 7: If you are using WordPress to power your startup website then you should be using Contact For 7. This easy to use contact form plugin allows your audience to send you emails and submit requests straight from your website. The best part is that you can customize the CSS, form content, and other settings like email recipients and confirmation message.MailChimp: One of the largest Email Sending Providers (ESP), MailChimp has built their business on working with small business owners. You can register for an account, adjust some settings, and place an email signup form on your website in a matter of minutes.ManyContactsBar: You can save time and gain valuable information about people who send you an email from your website using this free script. After someone sends you an email from a contact form on your site, you will receive an email with enriched data. This can help you customize you’re follow up the message and save you time from doing manual research on your own.Hello Bar: If your startup is looking to grow your email list then you can’t miss checking out the Hello Bar. This tool puts a simple bar at the top of your website to engage your audience and lets you test different CTAs and wording. This means that you can feature special offers or other enticing giveaways to get your audience to become qualified leads.Sumo List Builder: If you are looking for a complete package one-stop package to power your lead generation efforts than this tool is for you. Everything from popups to subscribe boxes can help you convert prospects into qualified leads. The free version allows for up to 500 subscribers, but this should be a good starting point as you ramp up your startup marketing strategy.Scroll Triggered Box: One way to qualify your audience before trying to gather their email address is to know if they are engaged with your content. This free WordPress plugin will show an email subscribe message on your site only after your readers have scrolled a satisfied percent down your page. This means you can customize your message and trigger the CTA to appear for only people who have read to a specific point of your content.Sumome Scroll Box: Scroll Box provides a polite way to ask your customers to get their email address as they finish reading your latest blog article or learning about your goods. This means that you can customize the experience of each user based on their engagement with your content. This approach has shown to be successful compared to showing a signup form at the beginning of your content.Mailgun: If you are knowledgeable about coding and customizing APIs then Mailgun is an excellent choice to track and analyze emails in real-time. This program can help your startup understand engagement and other analytics about your email marketing program.Sendgrid: Similar to other free ESPs, but this one offers a few more advanced API features out of the box. A good solution if you are trying to save some money while also sending great content to your customers.Sendinblue: Another tremendous free ESP- but this one allows you to send up to 9,000 emails a month (compared to the 2,000 cap on many other platforms). This is one of the most simple interfaces, so your startup can send great looking emails without having to worry about wasting time or energy in the process.Mailtrack: Whether for your personal Gmail account or your business Google account, it can be tricky to know if your recipients received and viewed an email that you sent them. However, this free add-on allows you to see who opened and read your email in real-time. No more guessing (or excuses) if your recipients received and read your emails!Canned Emails: Are you having trouble thinking about how to phrase an email. This free tool provides pre-written email templates that you can use for a variety of interactions. Just keep in mind that these templates are pretty generic, so you will want to add some customizations and alter the wording based on your needs.Like These? Share These Copywriting Tips...[easy-social-share buttons="facebook,twitter,linkedin" counters=0 style="button" template="24" column="yes" columns="3" flex="yes" text="Find answers from a professional copywriter on the easiest ways to grow your online presence today!" twitter_user="CJGiarratana" twitter_hashtags="#SmallBusiness #Marketing #Copywriting" twitter_tweet="Find answers from a professional copywriter on the easiest ways to grow your online presence today!" point_type="simple"]Social Media ManagementSocial media marketing is a great way to build trust with your customers and connect with your audience. However, social media marketing is also a very manual process that requires you to invest lots of time into if you want to see any results. Over the years we have used many social media marketing tools, and we have found the best online marketing tools for small business social media that you can use today to save time and reach your goals!Writeback: Even when Twitter increased the characters available in each Tweet, many Twitter users need more room to express themselves. This is where Tweetstorms come into play- the group of Tweets from a user to express themselves. However, this can often come off as disjointed, so WriteRack helps organize your thoughts in Tweetstorms by numbering each Tweet, so your audience knows the order and makes interacting with your Tweetstorm more manageable and less cumbersome.Click To Tweet: One of the best ways to increase social engagement and improve the reach of your content is to make it easy to share your content on social media. Click To Tweet is a simple to use and efficient way to encourage your readers to share your content on their social networks. There is a WordPress plugin that makes this easier than ever.Latergram: Instagram is a great social platform to grow your startup, but the manual labor and work it takes to build an Instagram page can be tiresome. Latergram is a free tool to help you schedule and organize your Instagram content ahead of time so you can focus on engaging with your Instagram audience.How Many Shares: Have you ever wondered how many times a piece of content or webpage was shared across various social media accounts? You can use How Many Shares to discover the popularity of your online content quickly or do some competitive research to find out how popular content is from your competition.SocialRank: As Twitter and Instagram continue to grow, it can be challenging to organize, identify, and manage your followers on these platforms. SocialRank is a great tool to help you optimize your social media networks while also saving valuable time.Klout: This is a great tool to understand who your followers are, discover new thought-leaders, and improve your online presence. You can also use your Klout score to know how your content ranks in your industry in a quick and easy format. Plus, Klout is a great tool to find trending content online without having to search for endless blog posts or social media posts.Ritetag: Do you want to find the perfect hashtag for your social media post? Or, do you want to discover the best hashtags to rank for on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook? If so then this free hashtag discovery tool is your perfect solution.Buffer Free Plan: Buffer is the best social media planning and scheduling tool on the market. Not only does Buffer allow you to schedule your social content in advance for a wide range of networks, but it also helps you understand how your content is performing with easy to follow analytics. If you choose a social media scheduling tool for your startup, then you should consider using Buffer.Bitly: The length of your content matters on social media, and this is even more important on social networks like Twitter. For times when you want to track and analyze engagement on your content, you should think about a tracking tool like Bitly. Just keep in mind that shortened links are starting to show less commitment than naked links, but Bitly is the most trusted link shortening application on the market, so if you choose to shorten your links then you should consider using Bitly.Addthis: Making it easy to share your online content is critical if you want your startup to grow. Using an app like Addthis can make it easier than ever for your audience to share your startup information with their network. Simply install this app on your site and let the shares start to grow! Even easier, Addthis has a free WordPress plugin so that you can integrate the fantastic features of your site with almost no effort!SumoMe Share: Just as the name suggestions, SumoMe Share is a simple and easy add-on for your startup website that allows your audience to share your content with ease. The great thing about Sumome Share is that the share buttons come in a variety of options and layouts so you can customize how the buttons look depending on the style of your website or blog.Disqus: There are several commenting systems that you can add to your site, but Disqus is one of the best solutions on the market. Not only is Disqus a feature-rich solution, but it is also optimized for SEO purposes. If you want to grow your online community and ensure that Google sees your post with improved interaction, then you should consider installing Disqus on your website or WordPress blog.Free Survey Creator: Knowing what your audience wants and customizing your content around the needs of your users is critical if you’re going to grow your startup or small business. Free Survey Creator makes it a breeze to generate customized surveys so you can hear feedback from your customers and improve your products or services. The best thing about this program is that you can choose from some ways to implement the surveys on your site- from embedding or links.Like These? Share These Copywriting Tips...[easy-social-share buttons="facebook,twitter,linkedin" counters=0 style="button" template="24" column="yes" columns="3" flex="yes" text="Find answers from a professional copywriter on the easiest ways to grow your online presence today!" twitter_user="CJGiarratana" twitter_hashtags="#SmallBusiness #Marketing #Copywriting" twitter_tweet="Find answers from a professional copywriter on the easiest ways to grow your online presence today!" point_type="simple"]Online Surveys & FormsOne of the best ways to improve your products or services is to hear what your customers think about what you offer. This feedback is valuable because you can use it to guide improvements and optimize your core business offerings. Finding ways to gather customer input can be complicated, but there are plenty of easy to use online marketing tools for your small business.Typeform: Typeform is one of the most straightforward survey tools to use, and the minimalist design makes it a breeze for your recipients to share their thoughts with you. Along with looking great, Typeform also allows you to create customized forms to meet your needs.SurveyMonkey: SurveyMonkey is the go-to standard for free survey tools. The free version of this tool makes it easy for your startup to create informative surveys with a range of question options. While the free version allows for only ten questions, your startup should be able to gather the information you need with that limitation without an issue.Google Forms: If you are looking for a simple survey tool, then you can’t go wrong with Google Forms. Not only are the surveys intuitive, but you are also able to embed the poll on your website or send a link to your recipients. While Google Forms is part of the larger Google Suite, so it is very convenient, the form options can be restrictive so you will need to ensure your needs are met.Batch: If your startup is developing a mobile application, then Batch could be the best solution for your feedback needs. Unlike many of the other options on this list, Batch is built around mobile notifications that can be pushed to users of your app. This is an excellent choice if you are looking for a simple to use and intuitive survey system to use with your mobile app.Helprace: This service stands out from the other options on this list because Helprace is more than just a stand-alone survey tool. While Helprace features a customer survey builder, it also included a more extensive system to help you track your questions, answers, and other information. Think of it as a CRM system that focuses on the question/answer feedback loop. This the perfect tool if your startup is looking to expand into a new market or offer additional products/services so you can understand what your customers want before you invest time and resources.Like These? Share These Copywriting Tips...[easy-social-share buttons="facebook,twitter,linkedin" counters=0 style="button" template="24" column="yes" columns="3" flex="yes" text="Find answers from a professional copywriter on the easiest ways to grow your online presence today!" twitter_user="CJGiarratana" twitter_hashtags="#SmallBusiness #Marketing #Copywriting" twitter_tweet="Find answers from a professional copywriter on the easiest ways to grow your online presence today!" point_type="simple"]Miscellaneous ToolsIt can be hard to find the best tools to meet the specific needs of your small business, but there are active communities of entrepreneurs who share their finds and Beta test tools. You can use these small business marketing communities to find the best tools and see reviews on marketing tools that are open source and free to use today!Omnisend: Onmisend is not a free tool, but I was so impressed with it that I knew I had to include it on the list. Not your parent’s ESP, Omnisend is the all-in-one marketing automation platform you probably didn’t know you needed. This platform allows you to create omnichannel automation workflows where you can add in several channels to the same workflow like email, SMS, web push notifications, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Viber, and more. Even if you only need email marketing right now, Omnisend makes it super easy to scale, offering email marketing on the free tier, and then having the Standard Plan at just $16 per month.Product Hunt: If you want to find cutting-edge tools to help your startup grow then Product Hunt is the place for you. This active community shares, comments, and grades new and innovative programs that can help your startup grow. Many of the products featured on Product Hunt are opensource and free to use.Angellist: Looking to recruit, invest, or find investors for your startup? Angellist is a great resource to have in your toolkit.MyPresences: If you have been in business for any length of time then you know how important it is to have your business listed across the Web. However, being listed isn’t enough so you need to make sure that your citations are accurate and consistent. MyPresence can help you accomplish this and ensure that each of those presences is compelling enough that your customers would choose you over your competitors.Beta List: Receiving unbiased feedback on your product or service is one of the hardest tasks to accomplish for many startups. Beta List is a passionate community where startups go to share ideas and receive feedback from other entrepreneurs. You can use Beta List to validate your ideas before wasting time or money on an initiative that could fail in the long run.Startups List: Many startups feel isolated and can lose focus. This list outlines many startups that are based in a city near you!Erli Bird: Gain access to a community of 100,000 real-world members who love testing applications. You can submit your startup’s application or program to receive unbiased feedback. This is a must-have tool for your startup if you are developing a mobile app or online resource!