We’re all too familiar with the current Web design trends being replicated across many websites these days: much longer-scrolling pages, full-screen background photography (and auto-playing videos), parallax regions, scrolling takeovers, and tons of animations flying in and out. All of these techniques have gotten much easier to implement over the last few years, which has led us where we are today. What has been overlooked along the way, however, is the performance of websites using these techniques. And let me tell you, the Web is slow right now. Go ahead and finish your New York Times crossword while you wait for that home page with its 40-megabyte background video to load. You might as well multitask.

InfluenceHR Vegas is going to be an amazing marketing event that could change the way you look at 2016. We have game-changing speakers, with actionable insights from companies transforming marketing every day, including SAP, salesforce.com, Lumesse, IA-HR, and PageUp. But if you haven’t signed up, you need to soon; the Early Bird discount expires Aug. 11.

As a user of the popular music streaming service Spotify, I learned that they had decided to revamp their color palette to a different shade of green. I discovered this by simply logging in to my computer one day and noticing not everything was quite the way that it was. So they decided to update their color palette. No big deal, right?