The Castle on Everyone’s Bucket List – Neuschwanstein

This is really beautiful picture.  I , Dustin N Salzano  would love to go this place.

When I was in my early 20s & backpacking around Europe, I had visions of what dreamy landscapes & majestic castles I would see. While Italy and Greece were at the top of my list for countries to explore, one image stood out in my mind as the best of Europe; it was Neuschwanstein Castle. I couldn’t imagine anything more beautiful. Pictures didn’t seem real. I needed to see it for myself. I never made it to Germany on that trip so Neuschwanstein remained on my bucket list for more than a decade… until yesterday! I finally made it to my fantastical castle & it was everything I imaged.

Sitting high above the village of Hohenschwangua near Fussen, Germany is Neuschwanstein Castle. This 1800s Romanesque revival was once the home of introverted King Ludwig II of Bavaria, but after his death it was opened for public tours. More than 60 million people have visited the castle and I’ve always 

wanted to be one of them. Yesterday my bucket list dream became a reality.

We took the bus to the foot of the castle and witnessed its grandeur from Queen Mary’s Bridge. It’s that vantage point that has produced the most famous photos of the castle. I stood in shock. It was massive and much more impressive than any picture could produce. Seven stories of sheer brilliance stood before me.

I wanted to get closer.

During our tour inside, we saw the ornately decorated Singers’ Hall, the largest room in the palace, and the unusual grotto room, set in an artificial cave. (Sorry, no photos were allowed inside and for once I respected the policy.)

With flat lands on the north side of the castle and the Alps in the south, the vistas that surround the castle are equally as impressive as the castle itself. This is what dreams, and Disney movies, are made of.

To complete the fantasy, we rode a horse drawn carriage down the mountain to our vehicle. I figured it was fitting in the magical surroundings, and to say Athena was excited about it would be a gross understatement.

I now see Neuschwanstein Castle with new eyes – my own. Dream about the most amazing and unbelievable things in life because that’s what becomes your reality.

Originally posted on Bucket List Publications 

10 Important Technology Infographics

This time, I’ll be leading you through a more industry specific approach in infographics – technology.

1 – The History of Location Technology

Mashable serves up an interesting historical perspective on the origins of location based technologies. Smoke signals, anyone ?

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2 – State of the Internet

Focus.com has a wonderful visual of the state of the Internet. Wonderful colorful slices of age/gender/and country demographics.

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3 – What People are Doing Online

It is interesting to not only break down online users by age demographic  – clustering by Internet usage is fascinating when you see how it plays out by age:

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4 – The Cost of Technology

Interesting look at how today’s toys size up against gadgets of yesteryear:

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5 – The Rise of Netbooks

GigaOM reports on the rise of netbooks from 2008-2010. This is an important advent in tech history, as it allows the user to have a semi-powerful machine built to access cloud computing:

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6 – What is Cloud Computing?

If you were wondering what cloud computing was from the last infographic’s reference, Wikibon does a good job laying out the basics of Cloud Computing and Software as a Service (SaaS):

Via: What is Cloud Computing?

7 – The History of the Rickroll

No advancement of technology list would be complete without it

history of the rickroll

8 – Online Gaming Stats

One of the best things about the Internet these days is the explosive growth of depth and complexity of online gaming:

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9 – Phishing for Your Money

Unfortunately, the Internet isn’t just fun and games. Lots of phishing attempts are out to get into to your bank account:

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10 – What is HTML5?

With all the news about the Apple iPad not supporting flash in favor of HTML5, I thought it would be useful to end this infographic list with some demystifying of what HTML5 actually is:

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10 Awesome Infographics to Guide Your Marketing Plan for 2014

Infographics seem to be getting more and more popular lately. They’re certainly fun to look at, and they convey useful information in a format that’s fast and easy to digest. One thing to keep in mind with infographics is that they’re generally static—unlike blog posts, they’re rarely updated as new information becomes available.

To help you get your 2014 marketing strategy off to a great start, we’ve rounded up 10 infographics with useful stats, information and suggestions about online marketing.

1. 20 Captivating Marketing Statistics that will Drive 2014

This infographic from WebDAM looks ahead to 2014 to explore the trends and changes we can expect. One statistic that really surprised me was about the growth of internet advertising: by 2015, this will make up almost 25% of the entire ad market.

2. Email Cheatsheet

Marketo‘s email marketing infographic has some really interesting stats, including how the time you send an email affects the open rate. One that jumped out at me was that 75% of smartphone owners say they are highly likely to delete emails they can’t read on their phones.

3. How to Increase LinkedIn Engagement by 386%

This infographic from Quick Sprout has some really handy tips for getting involved in LinkedIn. It includes useful stats like 60% of LinkedIn members are interested in industry insights and posting on weekday mornings will help you to reach more people.

4. Tumblr Numbers: The Rapid Rise of Social Blogging

In case you thought social blogging was dying, this Mashable infographic will clear things up. An interesting point about Tumblr’s userbase is that the demographics are almost evenly split between male and female users.

5. Infographic: The Lifecycle of a Web Page on StumbleUpon

StumbleUpon has been around for a while, but I didn’t know that much about how it worked. This infographic from Column Five Media breaks down the lifecycle of a web page on the service and sheds light on some interesting stats. For instance, 51 pages are added to StumbleUpon every minute. That’s a lot of content.

6. The Ridiculously Exhaustive Social Media Dimensions Blueprint

This infographic from Tent Social is a more practical one which will hopefully come in handy for your marketing efforts in 2014. It includes details on the dimensions recommended (or required) for images and videos on each social network. And it’s being constantly updated, so it’s a good one to save as a reference.

7. Geosocial Universe 3.0

Geosocial isn’t quite on the tips of our tongues these days like it once was, but it’s still a big part of how we use social media—particularly from our mobile devices. This JESS3 infographic explores the Geosocial Universe and looks at what services are popular and growing, and what percentage of their users are on mobile.

Thanks for this great data from the JESS3 team.

8. Social Media Shortcuts

Another practical infographic—this time from the team at quintly. This one includes some handy, time-saving shortcuts for Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google+.

Thanks for this great infographic from the Quintly team.

9. Blogging statistics

Some of the most interesting stats about how the blogosphere operates and more interestingly, how much money the biggest blogs generate every year. Here’re some great tips to get your blogging up to date:

Thanks for this great infographic from IgniteSpot.

10. 25 Awesome Content Marketing Tools To Use In 2014

Looking for the best content marketing tools in 2014? We’ve got you covered! Here’s a terrific list for you to make finding the best tools the easiest with a concise overview of all of them:

Thanks to this terrific resource from the Social Media Strategies Summit.

I hope we haven’t created visual overload for you here today on the blog and some of these infographics can help you make great decisions in 2014. Are there any visuals you’ve discovered recently that you’ve found particularly useful? We’d love to see them in the comments below.

Source - 10 Awesome Infographics to Guide Your Marketing Plan for 2014