In case you missed our e-mail from last week, Kembrel loved the response from our post about them so they’re offering a free VIP card (usually 20 bucks) to all ODOJ readers and $5 in store credit. Sign up here.
On Monday we took a look at Vertive, a company that builds internet properties to help people save money. Today we’re going to look at a company with a similar model of building and buying websites, but a much broader approach. Internet Brands is based in El Segundo, CA and started as CarsDirect.com in 1998. It was a successful brand for them, but in 2005 they realized that the platform they had built could be applied to other verticals. Now Internet Brands operates more than 100 websites that reach over a billion visitors every year. Amazingly, they’ve been able to generate almost all of this traffic organically (without buying advertising). This is all because of the platform that they’ve developed and the ability to share resources across brands. Internet Brands is a case study of how economies of scale can work on the web.
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There’s a reason that web startups with no semblance of a business plan but heaps of traffic continue to get venture capital funding. Consistently driving high quality traffic to a web property is extremely difficult, and almost all businesses need attention to succeed. Quality content is the cornerstone of driving traffic (that’s why I looked for writers when I was hiring interns), and content generation is not a core competency for most businesses. It is for Brafton. They’re a Boston, MA based “online news and content agency that offers integrated content marketing services.” They don’t brag about who their clients are like some other types of agencies (you can request live client samples), which makes sense since clients typically want people to think the content is coming straight from them.
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I have a simple investment strategy: Buy AAPL. I’ve had a few other winners, but Apple is the reason that my portfolio is up over the past 5 years. I’m not much of a trader, so I typically buy a stock and hold it indefinitely. If I took a different approach to investing, I might want to spend time on Benzinga. It’s “an innovative news and analysis service that focuses on global markets” and is intended for developing “actionable trading ideas.” Benzinga has offices in Chicago, IL and Dover, DE, but it’s very clear from their Careers page that everything important happens in the Southfield, MI office… very clear. There’s something about Benzinga’s site that reminds me of a social gaming site, which I guess is appropriate since stock trading is the ultimate social game.
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It often seems that I don’t hear about cool events until after they’ve happened. I’ll spend a Friday night reorganizing my fishing closet, and on Saturday I’ll realize that there’s something really fun that I missed out on. I’m sure you’ve faced the same problem. But how do you keep up with what’s going on in your city? Flavorpill is one answer. They provide an online culture guide, and they will send you personalized e-mails that cover both events and news. I first heard about Flavorpill because one of their writers was interviewing me (the story ended up being published elsewhere), but I think they were a bit more news focused then. They say that they cover “cultural events, art, books, music, and world news,” though it seems that Flavorpill, which is headquartered in New York, NY, now leans very strongly towards the events side.
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In March of 2009 I got an e-mail that looked a lot like the spam you typically see when you’re a webmaster with a publicly listed e-mail address. When someone refers to my site as onedayonejob.com, it gives me the hint that the e-mail was probably automated and that I should send it to my Junk folder. But I was still intrigued by the following sentence: “I am reaching out to see if you will be interested in selling your site and would like to discuss potential acquisition opportunities with us,” so I followed up. Over the next few months I traded e-mails with a guy who works at QuinStreet about potentially selling the site, but we never even made it to the offer stage. The reason that the Foster City, CA based company was interested in One Day One Job is that they’re one of the leaders in vertical marketing and online media. They have tons of online properties, and they use them to market and generate leads for other businesses. They’ve been at it since 1999, so they’ve been around the block a time or two.
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Want to try Hotel Tonight? Use this link to get $25 off your first booking.
I don’t know if it’s just me, but I either book hotel rooms way in advance or the day of. When I reserve a room in advance, I’m usually looking for more than just a place to sleep. Price is still important, but it’s not the most important thing. But when I need a room for tonight, I want a place that meets my minimum standards for the lowest price. As long as I can get a good night’s sleep without being bitten by bedbugs or woken up by a domestic dispute, I’m happy. It’s the latter situation that can be frustrating for bargain hunters. You know that the hotel is at 12% capacity, but they still won’t give you anything better than the AAA rate. As long as they can cover the cost of cleaning the room, they should be willing to take you. Hotel Tonight is a San Francisco, CA based company that is making it easy to get rooms for up to 70% off at the last-minute.
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Last night as I was falling asleep, I kept thinking about chopping wood. It’s something that I really enjoy doing because it’s mentally relaxing, yet physically exhausting. Then I started thinking about these awesome axes that I saw on Gilt Groupe and how I wish I had bought one, but I realized that the fact that I live in downtown Chicago means that I’d be more likely to use the ax for home defense than for chopping wood. This morning I decided to look those axes up, and I ended up on the Best Made Company site. They’re a New York, NY based company that “is dedicated to equipping customers with quality tools and dependable information that they can use and pass down for generations.”
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So far our survey says that you find the job search frustrating. Tell us more so that we can help.
When I was in Ann Arbor, MI last weekend, I noticed that there’s a tremendous amount of interest in the environment there. Maybe it’s because two of the friends I was visiting got Master’s degrees from University of Michigan’s School of Natural Resources and Environment, but it was also the LED street lights and the students who I met who were asking about green careers. That’s why I wouldn’t be surprised if there are a lot of subscribers to Grist in the Ann Arbor area. Grist is a Seattle, WA based magazine that “has been dishing out environmental news and commentary with a wry twist since 1999.” They’re a non-profit organization, so they’re “funded by foundation grants, user contributions, and advertising.”
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The job search is a vulnerable time for most people, and that results in a lot of people trying to take advantage of those who are looking for work. This makes me very angry, which is why I always do my best to stick my neck out for job seekers. I won’t hesitate to turn down sponsors who seem even a little sketchy, and I’ve put a lot of effort into exposing job scams and pushing for employers to pay their interns. I guess you could call these the ethical duties of my job, and I take them extremely seriously. Josephson Institute for Ethics is a Los Angeles, CA based non-profit organization that also takes ethics extremely seriously (in case you couldn’t tell by their name). Their mission is to “improve the ethical quality of society by changing personal and organizational decision making and behavior.”
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Keeping up with fashion isn’t a priority for me, but I still like to dress well. That’s why I trust Bonobos and Gilt Groupe to do the curation for me, and then I just buy what I like from them (it also helps that I’ve accrued a lot of credits from both of them). I know that a lot of people are far more active in keeping up with fashion, which is probably why Refinery29 is growing so quickly. The New York, NY based company is aiming to be “the cornerstone of fashion, beauty, and shopping for a new generation” as they offer “the only 360-degree source for shopping, exclusive deals, trends, beauty news, local hot-spots, and at-home sneak-peeks of fashion’s finest.” That’s ridiculously ambitious, but the results so far indicate that they’re pretty much killing it.
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Life isn’t nearly as exciting with no new Harry Potter books or movies coming out. I’m pretty bummed about it, but probably not nearly as bummed as the people who hang out on MuggleNet. In case you’ve never heard of it, MuggleNet is “the world’s #1 Harry Potter site.” It was started by Emerson Spartz when he was 12 years old, and it quickly started generating a ton of traffic. And with that traffic came some serious revenue opportunities. As MuggleNet turned into a real business, Emerson rolled it into a company called Spartz Media and started launching new entertainment focused sites. Some of the bigger names include OMG Facts, Gives Me Hope, and SmartphOWNED. Spartz Media is located in Chicago, IL (about 3 blocks from me), and they’re reaching more than 8.5 million people every month through their web properties. They’ve been at it since 2009, though MuggleNet has actually been around since 1999.
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Yesterday we told you about Blue Chip Career, so here’s another reminder to check them out. They offer personalized guidance from seasoned executives to help you overcome your biggest job search challenges. Get paired with one of their experts and receive the inside scoop on how to land the job of your dreams.
My girlfriend and I are having a housewarming/birthday party this weekend. We invited people by e-mail, and we’re keeping of track of who is coming through a Google doc. That’s about as simple as it gets in terms of using software for event management. I don’t think our solution would cut it for companies like Verizon, Yahoo!, Walmart, and Oracle. They need something a little more… industrial strength. That’s what Cvent offers. They’re a McLean, VA based company that offers comprehensive event, survey, and eMarketing software solutions–exactly what large companies need to make sure that every little detail is taken care of when they put on an event.
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A lot of people think of gamers as anti-social, but that’s pretty far from the truth. Some of the most vibrant online communities are focused on video games. The great thing about these communities is that they’re much easier to monetize than other communities since gamers are a great group to advertise to. Curse is one of these communities. They’re a company based on San Francisco, CA and Huntsville, AL that “offers editorial features, video, databases, wikis, forums, add-ons, and a desktop applications that helps gamers find and install gaming plug-ins.” They’re yet another Inc. 5000 company, and they’ve seen 839% three-year growth to $5.4 million in revenue. Guess they’ve figured out how to monetize their 14 million monthly unique visitors across the 31 video game related websites that they own.
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A lot of people don’t realize how important being likable is in the job search. Yes, the most important thing is to be able to demonstrate to a company that you have the skills to help them make more money and grow their business, but getting the hiring manager to like you is probably the second most important thing. If they’re going to see your mug every single morning, it better create some sort of positive association. Likeable Media is a company that uses this same premise when they do social media and word of mouth marketing for their clients. Likeable Media (alternate spelling and all) is based in New York, NY with an office in Boston, MA, and they aim “to create more transparent, responsive likeable companies, organizations and governments.” They came in at #118 on the Inc. 5000 and they’ve seen 2,333% three-year revenue growth along with growth from 4 to 28 employees (though their Jobs page says they have a team of 50+).
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A few years ago during the beginning of the recession, I featured a bunch of jobs in the video games industry. All those people who lost their jobs were buying video games, and business was booming. Things have slowed since. I’m not sure if it has to do with the economy, but I do know that gaming on phones and tablets is really biting into video game industry sales. One video game related company that is continuing to grow is Intergi. They’re a Deerfield Beach, FL based company that “partners with the foremost gaming web publishers to provide advertisers with targeted ad placements.” They’re another Inc. 5000 company, and they’ve seen 2,383% three-year growth from $253,818 in revenue to $6.3 million in revenue.
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I like to consider myself an “influential 20-something male consumer,” but maybe I’m wrong. I don’t read Complex.com or visit any of the sites in the Complex Media Network, and they say that they are “the premier online destination for the most influential 20-something male consumers.” They’re getting nearly a million unique visitors a day across their network, so they’re certainly influential, and I have to think their audience is too. Complex, which is based in New York, NY caters to an audience that is “driven by style, sports, music, games, gear and girls,” and they’re experts at creating content for and delivering advertising to this audience. Complex.com is their main property, but the network extends to dozens of sites that zero in on niches within the niches.
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Interested in international relief and development? Take a look at Samaritan’s Purse’s jobs. They’re our sponsor this week, and they have some amazing opportunities for new and recent grads including Japanese Interpreter, Marketing/Metrics Analyst, and Social Media/Marketing Specialist.
There’s a VHS tape that I’ve been trying to get my hands on for a while. It’s my girlfriend’s recruiting video that she sent to colleges when she was in high school (she ended up playing volleyball for Cornell and winning three Ivy League Championships!). It’s the ultimate blackmail material. College athletic recruiting has come a long way since then. Much of the communication between coaches and prospective athletes happens over the Internet, but managing those communications can be a tall task for parents and students that haven’t been through the process before. beRecruited is a site that has been connecting high school athletes with college coaches since 2000. The site has over 1 million registered members, and apparently 68% of college coaches have signed up for the site. beRecruited appears to be located in both Atlanta, GA and San Francisco, CA.
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Samaritan’s Purse is this week’s sponsor. They’re an international aid and development organization that has a bunch of jobs for new and recent grads.
When I was job searching after graduating from college, one of my big projects was getting my finances in order. I opened accounts, closed accounts, cashed out savings bonds, started investing, and made sure that I knew where all my money was. I also started using Mint to track everything. It worked well until my bank updated their online banking software and killed Mint integration. It eventually got fixed, but there was no way to merge my old Mint data with my new Mint data (I essentially had to set up another bank account in Mint). This was pretty minor in terms of banking nightmares, but it was still a huge pain. Otherwise, I’m happy enough with my current bank, but I’d love to have a bank that is focused on delivering a superb online experience. BankSimple (also known as the Simple Finance Technology Corp.) wants to be that bank. They’re based in New York, NY and they’re all about customer service and user experience.
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There’s a lot more to getting a job than being able to provide for essential needs like food, clothing, and shelter, but that’s a pretty big part of it–especially when you’re just starting out. It won’t take a lot in terms of wages to be able to pay for your basic expenses, but chances are that you’ll want to enjoy what you eat, what you wear, and where you live. If you’re all about that, then you should be reading the blogs from Curbed Network. They provide essential reads on how to get maximum enjoyment out of your essential needs. They’re based in New York, NY, and they run the blogs Curbed (real estate), Eater (food), Racked (clothes, style, and fashion), and the completely non-essential Gridskipper (travel). They don’t have a blog about air yet, but I hear that’s coming. The Curbed Network properties are very clearly built for yuppies with disposable incomes (what we all aspire to be, right?). 87% of the Curbed Network audience has a college degree, and 46% of them have a household income over $100k. Those are great stats for selling ads, which is what a business like Curbed Network is built on.
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I’m a complete Apple fanboy. I have been since since I first touched an Apple IIe in 1990. Today is the keynote of Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference, so I’m all sorts of excited. I’ve come to accept that they almost certainly won’t be announcing the iPhone 5 today, but I’m still pumped to hear about all of the software stuff that they’ve been working on. This means that I’ve been anxiously (and irrationally) reading all of the major online tech sites so that I can uselessly speculate about what kind of cool things my phone will be able to do after the next software update. A lot of interesting businesses have been built in the tech news space, which is why we’ve already profiled companies like Engadget, Gawker (Gizmodo), TechCrunch, and gdgt. Today we’re going to look at GigaOm, a San Francisco, CA based company that does the whole tech news thing, but also has a research arm that is growing extremely quickly.
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If you had to think of two industries that were hit hardest by the recession, what would they be? Mine would probably be publishing and real estate. (Finance may have been hit harder, but they bounced back almost immediately.) Since I firmly believe that great opportunity lies in taking on difficult challenges, I’m going to tell you about a company in the real estate publishing industry. Their name is Network Communications, Inc. (which tells you nothing about what they do), and they’re located in Lawrenceville, GA (a suburb of Atlanta). They produce a wide range of publications that focus on three specific areas: Home Sales, Rental & Leasing, and Home Improvement & Design. Some of their titles include The Real Estate Book, Apartment Finder, and Mountain Living. They break things down both by vertical and regional, and they’re just as active on the web as they are with print publications.
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Travel search engines are great. You can find the best rates for a place to stay in almost any location. The only problem is that the results can be a bit overwhelming. You have to do some serious research to make sure that the hotel that you picked isn’t a fleabag (or do we call them bedbug bags now?). And since it’s not uncommon to find a room in a luxury hotel for a price that is comparable to the price of a room in a lower tier chain, you might as well stay somewhere interesting and unique. So why not just limit your search to a curated list of luxury properties? That’s exactly what Tablet Hotels does. They’re a hotel booking site that offers access to great rates at a “tightly edited selection” of hotels. The company is located in New York, NY, and they’ve been around since 2000, so they’re experts when it comes to booking rooms at an affordable rate at some of the nicest hotels in the world.
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There’s a good chance that you’re going to spend some time traveling after you graduate. It’s a pretty common thing to do, especially when the job market isn’t completely rocking. (Just remember not to brag about it in your interviews–the guy who spends half of his 14 vacation days visiting his in-laws in Florida isn’t going to be too psyched about hearing every detail of your 3-month trek through Central America.) One of the best parts about traveling is planning: figuring out where to go, what to do, whom to see, and more. Many people rely on friends for recommendations, while many others scour the Internet for travel review sites. Gogobot is a Menlo Park, CA based company that is bringing those together. The people at Gogobot “believe passionately that planning your trips and sharing your travel experiences should be fun, easy and social.” I completely agree. My only issue is that I don’t like coming off as a braggart. Gogobot seems like the kind of place where it’s ok to show off a little when it comes to travel.
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My two biggest problems in life are figuring out what to wear and where to go. Since we covered the former yesterday, today it’s time to cover the latter. Ok, those aren’t really my two biggest problems in life, but I sometimes get frustrated that I live in a city the size of Chicago and feel like I can’t come up with a good idea of what I should do on a given weekend. There are a million opportunities out there, but figuring out what’s worth your time is difficult. That’s why Metromix was started as a joint-venture between newspaper behemoths Tribune Co. and Gannett Co. Metromix covers 60 different geographic areas (each individually) and offers a “guide to local restaurants, bars and clubs, events, concerts and movies.” While sites like Yelp have been built off the backs of their users, Metromix has an editorial staff generating content for each of their sites along with some user-generated content; however, smaller cities seem to get less original content. I must admit that Metromix isn’t my go to for what’s happening in Chicago, IL (which is where Metromix is located), but they seem to generate a ton of traffic and they have the resources of two major publishing/ad sales businesses behind them.
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I like writing about companies that I find interesting, which isn’t hard because I have very broad interests. However, I occasionally come across a company that I know is interesting, but it just doesn’t resonate with me. That’s definitely the case with Shecky’s. They’re a New York, NY based company that makes it their “mission to create social experiences that empower and reward women to discover and socialize with their girlfriends.” I think you can understand why that doesn’t resonate with me, but you’ll impressed to learn that Shecky’s was actually founded in 1998 by a Wall Street executive named Chris Hoffman. Despite the potentially ambiguous first name, Chris is a man who is apparently very in touch with “what women want.” He started by publishing the 1st Shecky’s Bar, Club & Lounge Guide in 1998, and then moved on to hosting hosts the “1st Girls Night Out” in New York City in 2001. In 2002 Chris found Claudia Chan and made her president after merging her company into Shecky’s. The business has continued to grow with a focus on improving the interactions that women have with their girlfriends, and I’m sure having a woman at the helm who understands the market better than any man ever could is a big reason for that.
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MATCH Public Charter School has been sponsoring One Day, One Job for the past week. They offer amazing entry level opportunities for new grads in Boston, MA, and you should check them out now.
Fast Company’s list of The 2011 Most Innovative Companies has a great mix of familiar and unfamiliar names. One of the companies on the list that I’m only recently familiar with is Opening Ceremony. They call themselves “a multifaceted retail environment comprised of shops, showroom, and private label collection that establishes a new, international creative forum in downtown Manhattan.” I first heard about Opening Ceremony because they’ve been collaborating on a line with Pendleton (a brand that I love). As I’d put it, Opening Ceremony is a New York, NY based fashion retailer/designer/curator. They’re all about bringing together things that are different—new and old, exotic and local. It’s based on the premise behind the original Olympics in 1896—”creatively merging sports, business, and global participation.” But it’s fashion instead of sports.
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99% of the graduating classes from 2004-2010 at MATCH Public Charter School in Boston, MA were accepted to four-year colleges. That’s an astounding result considering most students were performing well below grade level when they started at the school. Find out how you can be part of these success stories as a teacher or tutor.
Since I moved to Chicago in October of 2008, I’ve been getting more and more involved with the local startup scene. I’ve met a lot of cool people ranging from founders of some of the city’s most successful startups to the awesome people at Jelly Chicago (it’s a co-working group, and you should join us). One of the better events that I’ve been to was midVentures Launch. I even got to introduce myself to the guy who makes me feel bad every time I go to the gym because he a) always seems to be there no matter when I go b) is always doing ridiculously difficult workouts. That may seem completely irrelevant, but it turns out that he’s a Project Manager at Sandbox Industries, which is a Chicago, IL based venture capital firm. They have three distinct areas of focus: their incubator, the Sandbox Venture Fund, and the BlueCross BlueShield Venture Fund. As I was doing my daily browsing for interesting opportunities, I came across some postings from Sandbox Industries, so I figured that it was time to take a closer look at them.
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The other day I came across a video from a guy who built a remote control tri-copter strapped with fireworks to hunt hydrogen balloons. I love geeky projects like that—I just wish that I knew how to replicate them. Luckily, there’s a site built for exactly that (though they don’t have the exact how to video that I’m looking for). It’s called Instructables, and they offer a place “where passionate people share what they do and how they do it, and learn from and collaborate with others.” The company got its start at the MIT Media Lab, but has since moved to San Francisco, CA. Instructables covers a range of topics that includes Food, Health, Living, Outside, Play, Solar, Technology, and Workshop, which means that they have a place for basically any kind of how to.
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The world of publishing is a pretty crazy place right now. We hear about prestigious brand names struggling to stay afloat, while relative newcomers like Demand Media are IPO-ing. One of the key takeaways from all of the turmoil is that advertisers want results. That means that publishers need to be able to deliver targeted audiences that will respond to ads, whether it be through traditional outlets like magazines and newspapers or online. The Taunton Press is a publisher that has understood this for a long time. They’re based in Newtown, CT (a lovely town where I’ve done a lot of fishing), and they publish magazines, websites, and books for people who have a passion for creative activities. Their titles include Fine Woodworking, Fine Homebuilding, Fine Cooking, Fine Gardening, Threads, and more. Most of the publications come in both magazine form and an online version, so readers can consume the content however they feel comfortable.
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Since it’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, you may want to check out our post on The King Center from 2009. It also happens to be my anniversary with my girlfriend, which means that we’ll be going to a fancy dinner tonight. I try to stay up on the Chicago food scene as much as I can, and one way that I used to do that was by subscribing to TastingTable (though I must admit that I eventually unsubscribed even though the e-mails are really good). They send “a free daily email that delivers the best of food and drink culture to adventurous eaters everywhere.” The company is based in New York, NY, and beyond their national e-mail list, they also offer e-mail lists for New York City, New York Specials, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Chef’s Recipes with lists for Boston, Philadelphia, and Portland coming soon. In the national e-mail they send “one delicious idea about dining, wine, cocktails, cooking or restaurant personalities” every day, while in their local editions they’ll “alert you to a must-try dish at a forgotten restaurant, a hot new bar that deserves its buzz, under-appreciated cook shops and neighborhood food purveyors who may otherwise go unnoticed.”
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