Source Spotlight: SHEfinds Weddings
SHEfinds is an amazing resource for women on the go. They compile the best catches from across the web—the incredible deals, the hottest fashion trends, and more. SHEfinds Weddings, which you can add now on Pulse, provides the same service for brides-to-be. We spoke with Senior Editor Justine Schwartz to get the inside scoop on all things weddings.
A lot of items that I found while planning my own wedding ended up on the site, and our weddings writers are all brides or brides-to-be themselves, so they often cover topics, brands, designers, etc., that they have worked with for their big day. So much of weddings is word of mouth and referrals, so I think speaking from experience is the best service we can provide to readers.
I also read wedding magazines (New York Weddings is a favorite) and am constantly checking my favorite wedding sites (blogs like Style Me Pretty and retailers like Shopbop and Net-A-Porter who have great designer wedding boutiques).
Also, I am a Pinterest fanatic, and like 99% of brides out there, am so inspired by the photos and ideas there. You can tell I spend a lot of time on that site! http://pinterest.com/shefindswedding/
Bridal trends have a much longer shelf life than fashion trends - they don’t change much from season to season (although over time they certainly evolve).
Like fashion trends, bridal trends are cyclical. In the 1980s, high-neck lace dresses were wildly popular, but it took a certain Duchess to bring them back into popularity today. For gowns, “classic” dress silhouettes - lace, strapless, ballgown - are usually more popular and in-demand than the “trendy” ones - high-low hems, one shoulder, color. For decor and bridesmaid dresses, there are certainly “trends,” but in the end, the bride’s personal tastes always trump the trends.
First and foremost, enjoy the engagement. Before you start filling a binder with notes and inspiration images and linen samples, take some time to really enjoy the fact that you got that ring and are about to embark on an incredible journey with your groom!
After that, get organized and trust your gut. Don’t let outside opinions throw you off your game - you probably have an idea of what you want almost every aspect of your wedding to be, so be decisive and don’t second-guess yourself - especially on the small details. For the aspects you don’t REALLY care about, let your mother and mother-in-law take those over. They desperately want to be involved with planning (and by the way, your groom doesn’t, so don’t pester him too much). I, for example, didn’t really care much about the cake, so my mom spearheaded that project completely. She was happy to do the cake tasting for me!
When dress shopping, I always recommend going alone or bringing 1 really close friend to your first fitting — too many cooks in the kitchen will spoil the experience! Bring heels that are roughly the height you want to wear on the big day, and also try on veils with your dresses to get a sense of the overall look.
SHEfinds continues to expand its content areas - even with weddings. While we were once primarily a shopping site, we are now offering tips and advice to brides that go beyond that - everything from how to deal with your in-laws, to how to alleviate day-of stresses and how to be the happiest bride ever! But of course, that still starts with a great dress :)
I am a sucker for celebrity weddings, so I can’t wait to see what Jennifer Aniston wears to hers! I’m also interested in how all the pregnant celebrity brides - Jessica Simpson, Halle Berry, etc - will influence maternity dress trends for bridal. I am also dying to see whether Vera Wang’s black wedding dresses catch on! She’s such an innovator, but this is a trend I’m a little wary of…
Pulse Joins the LinkedIn Family
When we started Pulse in 2010, as a class project at Stanford’s d.school, we never imagined what the future would hold. We were motivated by our own frustrations with mobile news reading: we wanted an effortless experience, with clean design and easy access to all of our favorite sources. As our time in the Launchpad class continued, and as we spent day after day talking to our local community, we realized that this was a shared desire—and we sought to meet their need.
It didn’t take long, however, before Pulse expanded beyond its academic beginnings. Suddenly our app was being used by thousands of people and had shot to the top of the App Store; we spent our days at cafes, answering feedback and building upon what had quickly become a much larger vision. We rode the wave of change as news itself transformed, moving from a few trusted sources to hundreds, from ‘news sites’ to blogs and social media, from broadcast to conversation. As the landscape shifted and our community grew, we imagined better and brighter opportunities for Pulse. Thanks to the support of our passionate readers, we realized we could help foster these conversations, build a more informed society, and truly contribute to the world.
These three years have been exhilarating and inspiring. We’ve learned about ourselves and our industry, grown our amazing team, and developed a community that we cherish. It’s with this past in mind that we’re proud to announce our next step: Pulse is joining the LinkedIn family.
LinkedIn is the perfect partner as we continue our journey. The company shares our passions and values, our belief in the power of knowledge and elevated discussion, particularly for professionals looking for insights to help make them better at what they do. We believe this important step is the key to an even better experience for our community, and we’re excited for what’s to come.
With LinkedIn by our side, our team will continue to make Pulse the best it can be. We’re still working together on the product you love, and will continue to provide an innovative and visual news reading experience. For now, the Pulse apps will remain the same, and our two teams are excited to work together to create cool and useful new offerings.
To celebrate this milestone, we’re happy to offer a brand new LinkedIn Influencer feed on Pulse, filled with posts by luminaries like Richard Branson, Jack Welch, and more. It’s the first of many opportunities ahead, and we can’t wait for you to see what’s next. Join us on this journey, and help us shape the future of news.
Akshay, Ankit, & the Pulse Team
Please read more from the LinkedIn team here.
Download Pulse for iOS and Android.
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Special thanks to Alan Patricof (& Greycroft), Patrick Chung (& NEA), Michael Dearing, Emily Melton and all other advisors who have helped Pulse grow into what it has become. We are forever grateful for your support on this journey.
Another huge thanks to all of our publisher, brand, and agency partners for your ongoing support. We look forward to continuing to innovate together.
New On Pulse: Weddings, Music, MLB, and More
Spring is about more than just the weather. Maybe it signifies the start of baseball season, the influx of wedding invites, or the countdown to your favorite summer festival. We have something for everyone this week, with our special Sports Illustrated MLB feed, brand new Wedding Collection, and more.
Wedding Collection
Image: Scallops: A Little Detail That Goes A Long Way On Wedding Dresses (SHEfinds: Weddings)
Wedding season has begun, and we’re already working on our bouquet-catching skills. Check out top-notch nuptial sources like Loverly, SHEfinds: Weddings, The Knot, and Destination Weddings in our new collection under Lifestyle.
Sports Illustrated MLB
Image: Aces Wild
We have a special offering from that big kahuna of sports publications, Sports Illustrated. Don’t miss their comprehensive coverage of major baseball moments.
AppleInsider
Image: iTunes accounts with credit cards a ‘tremendous asset’ for potential Apple e-wallet
Are you an Apple junkie? Take it to the next level and be a true insider. From apps to iTunes, AppleInsider has the news and analysis for even the biggest fans.
Hypebeast: Music
Image: James Blake featuring RZA – Take a Fall For Me/Everyday I Ran
Get your music news from those arbiters of taste and trends, Hypebeast. They put the same care and curation into their music choices as they do fashion, art, and culture, so rest assured you’re getting the cream of the crop.
Music Festival Junkies
Image: Pitchfork Reveals Full 2013 Lineup
Even if you’re not gearing up for a weekend in the desert, you may still be following the ins and outs of Indio, CA’s Coachella. It marks the beginning of music festival season, so keep your eyes peeled on Music Festival Junkies as the spring and summer go on.
Source Spotlight: Forbes
There are few sources as trusted and revered as Forbes. The publication has been a leader for nearly a century, and it continues to innovate and expand. We spoke with Bruce Upbin, Managing Editor of Forbes, to learn about its history, trajectory, and business trends for 2013.
How has Forbes evolved over the course of its history?
We’ve been at this for 96 years, so I’d say there’s been plenty of evolution, and even some disruption of the news business lately. Forbes started out as a financial column written by B.C. Forbes, a Scottish immigrant. He turned out his first magazine in 1917 but it really took off after the 1950s and 1960s under the late, great editor Jim Michaels. Ever since it has been one of the world’s most widely read business magazines for its sharp, contrarian takes on business movers and shakers, access to the world’s billionaires and sophisticated investing advice. We launched Forbes.com in 1996, quite early in the first dot-com boom and never stopped investing in it when a lot of other news sites pulled back after the early growth stalled. In the last 3 years we have built a whole new publishing platform and network of online contributors working alongside our veteran journalists. We’ve nearly tripled our global online audience since 2010 and now rank ahead of Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal (which have multiple times the number of employed writers) in domestic visitors. What’s amazing to me is that an almost 100-year-old brand can transform itself in a few short years, leading the way as entrepreneurially as the people we write about.
What sets Forbes apart as a leading business publication?
We’ve managed, so far, to find the right balance among the three attributes all publishers need to pursue: quality, quantity and variety. We cover the bread and butter stuff like breaking news, mergers and acquisitions, big product launches and executive hires and fires, but people also love us for our franchise lists of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful people, the highest-paid celebrities, most valuable sports teams, the best VCs in tech (the Midas List) and our city rankings of best and worst places to live or start a company. On top of all that we throw in some of the Web’s best video-game coverage (who knew?), biotech commentary and retirement and tax advice. We serve so many interests with the voices of more experts than can fit in all but the biggest newsrooms of the world.
How do you keep content fresh?
We have a staff of around 50 writers and a network of 1,000 contributors who are motivated and incentivized to post at least weekly if not daily. We look for contributors who are so passionate about their area of expertise that they feel the need to respond anytime some news breaks affecting what they know. We also get out of the way of our better contributors, who don’t have to pass through one or two editors before their posts hit the site. They get to hit publish. We want to eliminate delays between thought and publication. We operate with two gears. The magazine work is carefully edited, factchecked and designed. It could take a week or two weeks to perfect one story once the manuscript is handed in. The Web demands immediacy. We expect our contributors and staffers to get it right the first time, but we also expect there will be some fixing after the fact as corrections and updates demand.
What’s next for Forbes?
Continued push into mobile, which for us includes different approaches to tablets (like our new magazine app) and phones. Our mobile site keeps adding features and new ad formats. No one has gotten mobile right yet. We’re also pushing for more international growth. We get 30% of our traffic from outside the U.S. so we’re looking for more and better contributors in Europe and Asia. This year will also see a continued push for higher quality writers and contributors, and cutting the ones who fall short of our standards. In print, you’ll see bigger and better magazine cover stories, investigative features and sharper photography. One more thing we are working on for 2013 is more passive and active personalization on the site, with tools behind the scenes to surface stories you’ll want to read because they’re being shared and read on social and on Forbes.
Are there any business trends to watch in 2013?
“Crowd is the new cloud” is one of my new slogans. We’re seeing a lot more businesses getting funding and product ideas from customers and crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter and all the new ones that will be sanctioned under the JOBS Act. Data is another big trend. I think this year we’ll hear less about how “big” data is and more about how businesses need to change what they do to take advantage of the insights they can get from all the data flowing in from social, email and the Web. My colleagues and I also get a sense that conflicts between age groups and classes will only get worse in the U.S., with more stories to come about retirees demanding more precious resources despite the protests of younger generations, which despite college degrees, are struggling to find a way up the economic ladder.
Pulse Turns 3!
It’s hard to believe that it’s been three years since the beginning of Pulse. As we celebrate our birthday, we can’t help but reflect on this wild ride—what started as a small class project has become so much more, and we’re thrilled to be a platform for millions of readers to access great content.
Thank you for joining us on this amazing journey—we can’t wait for the next three years!
“I started working at Pulse as a student intern when we were a scrappy desk pod in a shared workspace in Palo Alto. I would bike down from Stanford after my classes and spend the evenings hacking away. I can’t believe how many people we’ve touched in a few short years, how much I’ve grown in the process, and it’s only just the beginning!” - Elliot Babchick, Product Engineer
“I have never met this many smart and passionate people in such a short period of time. It’s the bee’s knees.” - Tim Jurka, Machine Learning Engineer
“In three years, we have gone from an app to a service, from San Francisco to New York. 3 years 3 platforms. The future looks bright.” - Ketaki Deo, Web Developer
“One of the most amazing things about Pulse is that as the team’s grown, we’ve managed to retain a family-like atmosphere in the office.” - Dmitry Shevelenko, Head of Monetization
“There’s a silly saying that “bad things come in threes”. Well, personally, I believe: “Great things come in threes” and Pulse is an example of it. Our first two years were focused on building up a great product and a phenomenal team. Now we’re at year three. In conjunction with growing, I think we’re at a stage where we can gather our learnings and really take Pulse to another level. I am excited to see what’s to come.
At the end of the day, I’m happy to be part of a company that pushes out a product that users love and are passionate about. I will never tire of hearing: “You work for Pulse?! I LOVE Pulse!” :)” - Jessica Chan, Partnerships Manager
“Time flies when you’re working on an amazing product with a great team. The most exciting stuff is yet to come!” - Albert Lai, Lead Android Developer
“Being part of Pulse has been a thrill and a joy. We’ve come so far in such a short time, and I’m so excited to see what’s next. With such a great team, I have faith that anything is possible.” - Katie Carroll, Social Media Manager
“This is an exciting time to join the team! I’m looking forward to the next 3 years of AWESOME.” - Jen White, Community Support Specialist
