SEO Articles & Newsletters

Kejujuran Berbuah Bidadari | Artikel Islam, Berita Islam, Tanya Jawab Islam, Dakwah & Konsultasi Keluarga Islam

2011-08-28T08:10:00.000+07:00

Kejujuran Berbuah Bidadari | Artikel Islam, Berita Islam, Tanya Jawab Islam, Dakwah & Konsultasi Keluarga Islam

How Social Search is Changing SEO

2011-06-23T12:20:00.002+07:00

Facebook and Bing jointly announced an agreement that would allow Microsoft’s search engine to return results based on the Facebook “Likes” of the searcher’s friends. Additionally, Google recently began including Twitter updates in search results. It’s a natural innovation that fits into the business models of both companies and takes the trend of individualized search results to the next logical level: results tailored to the searcher’s existing social footprint.
SEO insiders have wondered whether this new search innovation would affect placement strategies, and the simple answer is yes. Yes, there will be changes to the way SEO professionals run their clients’ campaigns. Yes, this will affect the industry as a whole. And yes, we believe SEO professionals will have to adapt to meet ever-evolving needs.

Changing the Method, Not the Mission
To think that this development is rocking the SEO world however is to misunderstand the realities of the industry. In roughly 15 years of existence, SEO has grown from being a small wildcat operation run by webmasters and content services to being one of the most dynamic, fast-growing sectors of the tech market. The reason for this rapid growth is because — not in spite –- of the constantly evolving nature of search engines.

While the Bing-Facebook agreement and the recent updates to Google will change elements of how we do our business, the fundamentals will remain the same. As much as innovation shapes the day-to-day processes of optimization, the core foundations of the industry remain unchanged. The goal still is placing clients at the top of results pages, whether this is through organic search, paid search or social media.
Social media is nothing new in the world of online marketing. Facebook alone has 500 million users and Twitter feeds are already making their way into search results. Before long, results may integrate other social networking sites that don’t even exist yet. What the Bing-Facebook agreement is indicative of is the many changes that have taken SEO from a small-time game to a major, innovative industry. SEO is not about counter-punching, and it’s not about simply reacting to the changing search-engine landscape. Instead, it is about growing and evolving alongside search engines.

How Twitter Can Help B2C Companies
Most people think social media marketing just means Facebook marketing. As the 800 pound gorilla of the social networking space, it’s understandable that so many companies have turned Facebook into the hub of their social media marketing campaign. Both B2C and B2B companies have found great success with Facebook, seeing an increase in brand recognition, consumer engagement and more. But Facebook isn’t the only social player on the block that B2C companies would be wise to invest their time in. Twitter helps you connect with your audience in a whole new way and add another level to any social media marketing campaign.

Research indicates that Twitter is a favorite social networking platform among early adopters and influencers. It’s no secret that a small percentage of Twitter users are the authors behind a vast majority of the Tweets. But these are the kinds of consumers a B2C company should want to connect with, as they are more likely to become brand loyal.

Here are some practice ways a B2C company can utilize Twitter:

1. Get more connected with your customers
Recent research has shown that Twitter is the preferred social network among consumers for learning about new product updates. The constant, real time stream of information that fuels Twitter makes it the perfect place to share information about things like software updates and product launches. Most consumers look to a company’s Facebook page as a way to learn about discounts and sign up for promotions. Twitter, on the other hand, is often viewed as a direct line of communication with the company, making it the perfect platform for staying connected with favorite B2C brands.

2. Twitter is mobile
As the amount of smart phones in the market grows, mobile marketing becomes an increasingly important component of any marketing strategy. Twitter may be one of the more simple social networks (it doesn’t get much more basic than a 140 character cap), but that is exactly why it is so mobile friendly. Whether someone is looking at Twitter on a computer or on their phone, the format is very similar—a scrolling list of Tweets. B2C companies don’t have to develop a mobile version of their Twitter account to make sure it is easily accessible/readable by mobile devices. Read more at SearchTerms.com...

Google Points to Guidelines, Improved Communication

2011-04-13T07:29:00.001+07:00

Since Google launched the controversial Panda update in February, anxious webmasters and publishers have been waiting for the day when it would go from just a U.S. change to a global change. That day came this week, as Google announced it had expanded the "search quality" algorithm worldwide for English language users.

Many sites were reported to have lost major traffic and search rankings as a result of the U.S. roll-out. We've expected these sites to be further devastated as Panda made its way to more countries.

Side note: just in case there is any confusion (there has been in the past) since Google didn't use the word "panda" in the latest announcement, Matt Cutts did call it that:

Believe it or not, not everyone's quick to comment on how their traffic has been impacted. EzineArticles was one of the sites that was hit hard, and quickly began making changes to its content approach following the U.S. update. They talked about this on the company blog. No new blog post yet.

The last time I reached out to CEO Chris Knight for comment on the site's traffic post-Panda, he didn't want to offer any - although he did provide another update on the blog in March.

Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis, who had to resort to layoffs because of the Panda update did comment on the situation. "We were impacted starting on February 24th and haven't seen a significant change up or down since then," he tells us. "We support Google's effort to make better search results and continue to build only expert-driven content. This means any videos and text we make has a credentialed expert with seven years or 10,000 hours of experience (a la Malcolm Gladwell)."

He pointed to the following examples:

http://www.mahalo.com/learn-to-play-guitar-beginner-course/

http://www.mahalo.com/how-to-make-profiteroles/

"Everything we're doing is now expert driven. Period," Calacanis says. "Google's Panda update has ended the age of casual, non-expert-driven content. We're hopeful that as Google continues to tweak their algorithm our experts and their content will be rewarded."

Morris Rosenthal of Foner Books (a Panda victim whose story we looked at here and here) tells us, "As far as the algo goes, I think my initial take was 100% on. It's just brand names and social sites now. I'm even seeing Google Answers ranking for many queries, despite the fact they shut Answers down in 2002! But it was 'social.'"

Last week, we looked at a report from marketing firm iCrossing, which seemed to indicate benefits for big brands as well.

We've reached out to Suite101, and Demand Media for comment on the update, and have nothing so far.

Google's Amit Singhal told webmasters, "Based on our testing, we've found the algorithm is very accurate at detecting site quality. If you believe your site is high-quality and has been impacted by this change, we encourage you to evaluate the different aspects of your site extensively. Google's quality guidelines provide helpful information about how to improve your site. As sites change, our algorithmic rankings will update to reflect that. In addition, you're welcome to post in our Webmaster Help Forums. While we aren't making any manual exceptions, we will consider this feedback as we continue to refine our algorithms."

Following the initial launch of the Panda update, we looked at some things that are known and some things that are possible, with regards to what publishers and webmasters should take into account. Given Google's specific reference to their quality guidelines in the latest announcement, this seems like the best place to start. Here's Google's list of "specific guidelines":

About the Author:
Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Follow WebProNews on Facebook or Twitter. Twitter: @CCrum237

Surgery Squad lifts CTR and enhances revenue with a simple optimization procedure

2011-04-13T07:22:00.001+07:00

Surgery Squad adds a third ad unit to its pages to boost performance and AdSense earnings by 200%.

SurgerySquad.com educates patients about what takes place during surgical procedures through interactive, virtual surgery modules. Creator Eric Bort recently spoke with us to describe how he’s optimized Surgery Squad’s AdSense performance and revenue by simply adding a third ad unit to his pages.

Inside AdSense: Can you tell us a little about how Surgery Squad got started?
Eric Bort: I launched Surgery Squad in August 2010 after having spent more than a decade developing corporate training and e-learning programs. As part of these programs, I’d created some virtual surgeries which were well-received, so I decided to make a website devoted to this topic. People have lots of questions about surgeries. They want to know, “What happens to my body while I’m asleep on the operating table?” It’s a very intriguing topic from a human perspective.

IA: What role does AdSense play in your business?
EB: We’ve used AdSense on Surgery Squad since its launch, because we’ve previously seen a lot of success with AdSense on some of our other sites. AdSense is currently responsible for all of Surgery Squad’s revenue. It was really quick to set up – once our account was approved, we were up and running within 10 minutes. And with the breadth of advertisers in the network, I know that AdSense will always have high quality ads to display.

IA: Why did you decide to add another ad unit to your pages?
EB: I received an optimization tip from the AdSense team suggesting I maximize revenue by adding an additional ad unit to my pages. Initially, I was wary of overwhelming visitors with ads, because it’s very important to me to create a good user experience. But I decided to give it a try because I know how important it is to test new strategies and see what works best. So, I added a third ad unit to all my pages, toward the bottom of each page.

IA: What were the results? Would you recommend this strategy to other publishers?
EB: I was surprised to see the new ad unit performing just as well, if not better, than the other two ad units. I think it’s due to visitors who scroll down to the bottom of the page to add comments, and then find ads they want in addition to our content. Our clickthrough rate has increased substantially. It’s amazing. Our eCPM has also increased 168 percent and our overall revenue earnings have grown by more than 200 percent. With this additional revenue from AdSense, we’re able to cover our costs and sustain our business. To know these costs are covered is hugely important when you’re running a small business.

I’d recommend that other publishers consider optimizing revenue by adding new ad units. If presented in the right way, ads can enhance the user experience. But it’s really important to test and see what works best with your content, format, and user behavior. Have the patience to wait and see what works and what doesn’t.

If you want to add an additional ad unit like Surgery Squad, sign in to your account today.

Posted by Meredith Blackwell - Inside AdSense team

[Inside Adsense] Great speeches, great people, great atmosphere: AdSense in Zurich

2011-04-12T19:28:00.001+07:00

Two weeks ago, we had the pleasure of welcoming 120 of our publishers from Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, and France at an AdSense publisher event in our Google office in Zurich.

The agenda of the day included seminars and presentations about:

Trends in the online advertising market and how to use them for your site
Our best tips to optimize your AdSense earnings
Using DFP Small Business to get more out of AdSense
Website usability
The truth about common SEO myths

We also offered attendees 1-on-1 site consultations with a Google AdSense optimization specialist and ended the day by kicking back with pizza and beer to get to know one another a little better!

It was great to meet you in person to learn more about your businesses and experience with AdSense. We were thrilled to hear positive feedback from the attendees on the event and hope to offer a similar opportunity in a city near you soon!

Interested in attending future Google AdSense events? Check your Account settings and make sure you’re opted in to our mailings so we can inform you about our upcoming events!

Posted by Marcel Puppik and Sophie Emmerich - AdSense Optimisation Specialists

Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 4/11/2011 08:26:00 AM

[Inside AdSense] Western Union now in Mexico

2011-04-10T02:13:00.002+07:00

We constantly strive to provide more payment options to our publishers around the world so you can receive your earnings as safely and quickly as possible. As part of this effort, we're very excited to announce the arrival of Western Union Quick Cash® payments for Mexico!

For those of you who aren't familiar with this form of payment, Western Union Quick Cash payments are free and will reach you faster than checks. Payments will continue to follow our normal payment schedule and are available for pickup in your local currency at your local Western Union agent the day after they're issued.

A couple of things to note: We can send Western Union payments only to publishers that have an individual account at this time. Also, the payee name on your account must exactly match the government-issued ID card that you'll use when picking up your payments. For more information on how to sign up for and pick up Western Union payments, please visit our Help Center.

We know that many of you are still waiting for new forms of payment and new delivery options for your country, and we’re working hard to make this possible. Stay tuned to the blog as we work to improve the payments experience for publishers around the world!

To read this article in Spanish, click here.

Posted by Julia Peppiatt - AdSense Payments team

--

Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 4/08/2011 08:30:00 AM

--

Unable to view the links or images in the message above? Want to comment on this post? Visit http://adsense.blogspot.com/ .

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Inside AdSense" group.

To unsubscribe from this group, send email to Inside-AdSense-unsubscribe@googlegroups.com

For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/Inside-AdSense

Reviews Can Help You Rank

2011-04-09T21:58:00.000+07:00

By Aliza Earnshaw (c) 2011
If you're running a business that depends on local traffic, you probably know that good reviews can bring more customers through the door.

But did you know that getting reviews - and not necessarily just good ones - can help your business rank better in search results?

If you're running a business that depends on local traffic, you
probably know that good reviews can bring more customers through
the door.

But did you know that getting reviews - and not necessarily just
good ones - can help your business rank better in search results?

It's true. Getting customers to review your company on your
Google
Places listing, in Yahoo! Local, Bing, CitySearch, Yelp
and other review sites helps you in a couple of ways:

- Ninety percent of consumers consult the Web before they head out
of the house to make a local purchase. Yes, you read that right -
90 percent, according to digital marketing analysis firm eMarketer
Inc. If your business has plenty of reviews for people to
read - and most are enthusiastic, or at least positive - you're
likely to get some new customers. That's because 70 percent of
people believe in the validity of reviews written by strangers,
according to The Nielsen Co.

- Having reviews of your business in several places - including
your website - can improve your search engine optimization
(SEO)
and help you rank higher in search results. That's because
search engines now look at reviews as an indication that a
business matters. And if you've got plenty of reviews, you may be
able to occupy more than one place on a page of search results.

Take a look at how much "real estate" Voodoo Doughnuts takes up on this search engine
results page, called a SERP in SEO-speak. The company has hit gold
with the top three spots. Voodoo also has the top spot in local
results - the list headed "Places for donuts near Portland, OR" -
and yet another spot lower down in local results.

Note that Voodoo Doughnuts' place page shows 3,015 reviews. That's a
lot of reviews, and they're clearly helping this already-popular shop
get noticed by anyone searching for donuts in Portland, Oregon.

I'm Not a Doughnut Rockstar. How Do I Get Reviews?

The good news is, it's not that hard to get more of your customers
to review you. Adopting just a few practices recommended by
local-search guru Mike Blumenthal can
help your company's website, Google Places page and other
listings appear higher in searches - and win you more business.

A quick summary of how to get more reviews:

   1) Get your company listed everywhere on the Web it makes
sense for your business.

   2) Ask for reviews - see suggestions below.

   3) Deliver great customer service so people will want to
review you, and so the reviews will be mostly good.

First, Stake Your Claim

There have always been directories and listing sites on the Web,
though the ones most in favor with searchers tend to change over
time.

Some good places to get listed:

GetListed.org offers free
help for getting your business listed at top sites on the Web,
including Google Places,
Yahoo Local,
InsiderPages.com and others.
GetListed tells you which listing sites are free,
which cost money, and advises you which paid sites might make
sense for your business. The site also offers a tool called Local
Dashboard that helps you track your online listings.

Yelp.com - Yelp is famous for
its reviews of restaurants and other retail and service businesses.
Local search expert David Mimh, who runs GetListed.org,
says the site is essential for any bar or restaurant to list on Yelp.

CitySearch.com - It's not
as popular as it was a few years ago, but CitySearch is still
where many people go to choose a restaurant or other local business.

Use any site where you know your customers are. Mike
Blumenthal suggests choosing the sites that your customers favor.
How would you know that? Well, you could Google your direct
competitors to see where they've been reviewed, and make sure you
have listings on those sites. If you own a pet supply business,
and you know of sites where pet owners exchange news and tips -
and you can list your business there - do it.

AboutUs.org has a page
about virtually every site on the Web. Each website profile has
editable fields where you can add your contact information, a
short summary about your site and your logo. There's also a
wiki section where you can write as much as you like about
your site and your business, and include links back to your
site on keywords that matter for your business. Under the

AboutUs DoFollow policy,
those links can become follow links, and add some SEO
value for your site.

How To Get Reviews: Make it Easy

Mike Blumenthal says you must make it very easy for people to
review your business. One great strategy is to create a special
page for reviews on your website - for example,
'''http://www.MyLocalBusiness.com/reviews''' - so people can leave
their comments easily on your site. You can put the URL for that
page on your business card, and hand it out to everybody. You could
even print up a special thank you card with the reviews page
printed on it, and slip it in with your customers' purchases when
you bag them.

Mike also suggests creating a QR code for your reviews page, and
having it printed up fairly large, to display in your storefront
window. A customer can then scan the QR code with her phone, and
maybe even write a review of your business right then and there.
Or have the QR code link to your Google Places profile.

Once you've listed your business at the sites mentioned in the
section above, you can also print the URLs for those listings on
a card, or use QR codes, to make it easy for people to get to your
review sites. One caution: You can't directly ask people to review
you on Yelp - that can get you banned from the site. Nonetheless,
lots of people know and use Yelp, so it's still a good idea to be
listed there.

How To Get Good Reviews

It may sound simple, but the best way to get reviews is to deliver
a good experience. Treat customers with courtesy and respect, provide
a good product or professional-level service, and most of your
reviews will be good.

Another easy way: Ask for reviews. When someone tells you how
pleased they are with your company, ask them if they'd be willing
to put it in writing. Guide them to the location where you'd most
like the review to appear. Making it easy for them makes it more
likely they'll do it.

Anticipate that things will sometimes go wrong, and give people
a way to let you know what's gone wrong, so you can put it right
immediately. Display your phone number prominently on every page
of your website, so people can call you. If the phone isn't the
best option, or you want to give more options, put a big "Contact
Us" button on every page, and provide full contact options on the
page it links to. It goes without saying that when people contact
you with a problem, you must help them quickly and graciously.

Providing quick and easy ways to contact you engenders trust in
people who come to your website. If you're willing to be contacted
that easily, you must be trustworthy - the exact opposite of those
shady sites that provide no contact information at all.

Another big benefit: Helping a dissatisfied or perplexed customer
can earn you an enthusiastic fan who's more than willing to give
you a good review. And that review is one more building block for
growing your online presence.

About The Author
Check out how your home page looks to search engines and people
with the free Home Page Analysis. Want a deeper look at all your
site's pages? Try an AboutUs Site Report.

This article was contributed by Aliza Earnshaw
of AboutUs.org.

Aliza is the editor-in-chief at AboutUs. She works with the content
on our website, and the people who create it. @AlizaEarnshaw

Marketing Firm Shows Data of Big Brands Winning

2011-04-09T21:52:00.000+07:00

iCrossing does online marketing for numerous big brands, and says it has noticed some trends in which some of these brands have either risen in rankings or remained flat since the Google's Panda Update, for keywords where other sites dropped off the grid.

Do you think Google got it right with Panda? Tell us what you think.

iCrossing counts plenty of big brands among their clients. Among them are: AAA, Auto Trader, BMW, Chevron, Coca-Cola, EA Games, eBay, FedEx, Hyundai, Kia, Marie Claire, Mary Kay, MasterCard, Mazda, Nokia, Porsche, LEGO, and Toyota, to name a few.

Collin Cornwell, VP of natural search at iCrossing, has shared some data looking at a couple examples of big brands that have followed the trend. He would not get into names, but calls them a "premier travel and hospitality client," and a "big-time banker."

It's worth noting that these companies also saw no changes in Bing or Yahoo, and tha we don't know what the content for the pages in question actually looks like - a key piece of the puzzle, obviously.

Here's some data from the travel site:

According to iCrossing, Page 1 ranking increased 18% from the big brand from the beginning of the year, and 6.3% from when Panda was released, while brands like Suite101 and CheaperThanHotels.com saw 96% and 95% drops for the same keywords.

And some from the Bank:

The bank saw an increase of 45% for all non-branded keywords from the beginning of the year, and 10% increase in Page 1 placements since Panda. Smaller brands saw 94% - 84% drops.

"Google has been favoring big brands for years – starting with its 'Vince Update' back in 2009 and then again in 2010 when Google decided to include BRANDS in related searches," said Cornwell.

"While the Panda update wasn't meant to affect large brands directly, the change(s) seem to have had an indirect impact as the 'lower quality' sites continue to slip down in the search engine results pages," he added.

By nature, big brands tend to get more links, more sharing, and more engagement. They also generally have more resources to apply to marketing tactics, web development, and design - all of which can play directly into how their content is viewed in Google.

The question is whether or not this approach works. Is content quality synonymous with brand recognition? No, but it is related. Brand recognition is directly related to trust, but not all big brands are well-liked or trusted by everybody. This is why Google's domain-blocking features and the +1 button are perhaps two of the most important updates to Google's search quality practices we've seen in a long time.

Quality is in the eye of the beholder, and these features give more say to the people. That said, there is a great potential for both of these to be abused by users. Google recently said, "as with any new ranking signal, we'll be starting carefully and learning how those signals affect search quality over time," regarding the +1 button.

Here's what Google's Matt Cutts had to say about big brands ranking in Google a couple years ago:

He said he disagrees that big brands always do well, and that Google often hears complaints from big brands who don't think they're doing as well as they should.

About the Author:

Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Follow WebProNews on Facebook or Twitter. Twitter: @CCrum237

[Adsense] +1’s: the right recommendations right when you want them—in your search results

2011-03-31T19:43:00.000+07:00

Our goal at Google is to get you the most relevant results as quickly as possible. But relevance is about relationships as well as words on webpages. That’s why we recently started to include more information from people you know—stuff they’ve shared on Twitter, Flickr and other sites—in Google search results.

3/30/2011 11:07:00 AM

Today we’re taking that a step further, enabling you to share recommendations with the world right in Google’s search results. It’s called +1—the digital shorthand for “this is pretty cool.” To recommend something, all you have to do is click +1 on a webpage or ad you find useful. These +1’s will then start appearing in Google’s search results.

The +1 button will appear next to each search result

After pressing the +1 button, you have the option to undo the action immediately

Say, for example, you’re planning a winter trip to Tahoe, Calif. When you do a search, you may now see a +1 from your slalom-skiing aunt next to the result for a lodge in the area. Or if you’re looking for a new pasta recipe, we’ll show you +1’s from your culinary genius college roommate. And even if none of your friends are baristas or caffeine addicts, we may still show you how many people across the web have +1’d your local coffee shop.

The beauty of +1’s is their relevance—you get the right recommendations (because they come from people who matter to you), at the right time (when you are actually looking for information about that topic) and in the right format (your search results). For more information about +1, watch this video:

So how do we know which +1’s to show you? Like social search, we use many signals to identify the most useful recommendations, including things like the people you are already connected to through Google (your chat buddies and contacts, for example). Soon we may also incorporate other signals, such as your connections on sites like Twitter, to ensure your recommendations are as relevant as possible. If you want to know who you're connected to, and how, visit the “Social Circle and Content” section of the Google Dashboard.

To get started +1’ing the stuff you like, you’ll need to create a Google profile—or if you already have one, upgrade it. You can use your profile to see all of your +1’s in one place, and delete those you no longer want to recommend. To see +1’s in your Google search results you’ll need to be logged into your Google Account.

We’ll be slowly rolling out +1’s, starting in English on Google.com. If you can’t wait to start seeing +1’s, we’ll soon let you opt-in to the launch by visiting our experimental search site. Initially, +1’s will appear alongside search results and ads, but in the weeks ahead they’ll appear in many more places (including other Google products and sites across the web). If you’re an advertiser and want to learn more about how the +1 button works on search ads and websites, visit our AdWords blog.

We’re confident that +1, combined with all of the social content we’re now including in search, will mean even better, more relevant results than you get today.

Posted by Rob Spiro, Product Manager

2010 SEO Predictions That Came True

2011-03-31T00:36:00.000+07:00

A SPN Exclusive Article By Warner Carter (c) 2011
Each time a year ends, we encounter countless bloggers and writers who share their thoughts about the incoming year. Some predictions are theoretically supported and some are just plain wild guesses. Predicting what's in store for the next year is almost a tradition for writers, even those not involved in SEO and Internet marketing. Sports writers, business analysts, music critics, and amateur writers - they all follow this unsung tradition. Many think that this tradition is worth following because nailing a wild guess or a well-researched fact means only one thing: respect from your readers.

It's only the third month of the year but some predictions from last year have become realities. People didn't ever expect that the realization would be this quick, but, unbelievably, many predictions are coming true right now.

The Power of Content Length

This was a common prediction that was heavily criticized. I read on some blogs last year that Google would be considering a site's content length as a determining factor for site ranking. Experts and SEO veterans commented that this was an amateur's prediction, but they all ended up wrong. As a result of this latest algorithm update, many guest blogging sites have increased their minimum article length to 450 words, and some are requiring even lengthier articles. Perhaps this recent update caused content-related terrors to some SEO geeks. They'll just have to remember that quality is still better than quantity.

Mobile Search Growth

Both local and global search benefited from the rise of high-tech phones which provide consumers mobile Web browsing. The growing rate of free Wi-Fi zones over the country also made browsing even more accessible to mobile phone users. Mobile browsing changed the way people use the Internet. Browsing the Web has become a daily part of people's lives - not only Americans and Europeans but also people from highly developed Middle Eastern and Asian countries like Singapore, South Korea, Japan, Qatar and Dubai.

Social Media Expansion

2010 was the year of Facebook and Twitter. Countless companies vied for the most numbers of "likes" and "followers", not only for branding and popularity purposes but for online presence strength as well. These two social media giants have become major advertising tools. No SEO campaign would be complete without social media and no advertising method would be fruitful without Facebook and Twitter accounts. Social media expansion is an advertising basic for many businesses.

Although confirmed as a hoax, the rumor of Facebook closure struck many businesses. It isn't easy to find a social networking site as powerful and effective as Facebook. The shocked Tweets from many businesses owners that day prove that advertising and SEO without social media is impossible. A business' online presence is major determining factor of success.

Website Speed

It took a year for all SEO practitioners to understand the value of site speed in SEO. Google first announced that site speed would be part of their algorithm in 2009, but it wasn't until late 2010 that a majority of website owners seriously incorporated it in their SEO strategies. It's not a surprise that many site owners are now aware of site speed's importance. There are reports that many businesses suffered a major decline in rankings because they took site speed for granted.

Site speed can be a determining factor for website traffic. With the millions of websites available today, a slow-loading website can force a viewer to transfer to a faster site that can provide them the information they need.

Other Search Engines

Google is still the leading and most reliable search engine today and the main reason we obsess about search algorithms and rankings. Some business owners pay large sums of money just to get their sites to the top of Google's search results. Google has set the yardstick in Web search and brought balance and fairness to the competition for rankings, so that anyone can now get first page search result placement. But, there are still other search engines we can focus on. Not all Web users rely on Google to find what they need. There is still a significant percentage of users who prefer other search engines that you too should consider when doing your SEO. Yahoo! was once the leader of the search game, and it's realistic to think that there are remaining Yahoo! loyalists out there who put less importance on Google results. Then there is Bing, the Microsoft search engine that draws yóung Web users because of its homepage and features.

Bing and Yahoo! are continually improving their search algorithms because they know they have a large following and an increasing number of users. It's fairly certain that these two search giants are making plans to erode Google's current standing as the Web's dominant search engine.

The Reincarnation of Blogs

Blogs didn't ever really go out of style. Business owners use blogs to reach a wider sector of their target market and audience. Many have invested time in establishing domain authority and positive online reputation management, temporarily putting link building aside. Some articles previously stated that "link building is dead", making SEO practitioners abandon the method and focus on other SEO strategies. However, many experts have reinstated and proved link building's ability to provide traffic and rankings. Link building is becoming popular again, and we all know that the best way to practice effective link building is through blogging.

In addition, local search's popularity has made blogging more appealing to a local audience. There are blogs today that specifically cater to a locality. Blogs, treated as micro websites, have proved their worth to local businesses, making blogging the most effective way of building links and networks.

Local Search Dominance

Global search has become popular over the past few years, but many people choose to concentrate on local search to get more specific results. As local search continues to escalate its way to dominance, the strength of the American local market today can be attributed to the growing number of local search users and the improvement of local SEO methods. The strength of site authority, anchor texts, and traditional link building is evident this year. Behind this strength are the ever-growing Local Listing (e.g. Google Maps Optimization) and SEO Resellers that focus solely on providing and introducing SEO to the local business scene.

About The Author
Warner writes about SEO, Blogging, and Web Development and works with Endless Rise. Endless Rise provides SEO services to SEO Resellers Only. You can become an become an seo reseller today with no cóst or obligation.

Google Has To Bring Together Its Many Assets in New, Meaningful Way

2011-03-31T00:30:00.001+07:00

Even before all of this Google "social layer" talk started, we talked about how Google already had many of the components of a powerful social network - just spread out across different products. Basically, there just hasn't been an effective way of bringing it all together for users.

How would you like to see Google bring it all together? Share your thoughts.

Putting The Pieces Together

It looks like Google is trying to correct that, as various hints have been revealed over the last few months - the navigation bar, the updated profile, and the Google accounts for YouTube users are a few that come quickly to mind.

It appears that Google is more adamantly promoting (or inserting, rather) the Google Profile in more of its services.

MG Siegler points to a note left on the Google Groups message board, saying, "Google Groups-specific profiles will no longer be supported. Instead, you will be able to use the new Google Groups to (optionally) link your new and improved Google profile with your groups. Starting July 1st 2011, you will not be able to make changes to your Groups profile. Your profile information will be available for export from your profile page until November 1st 2011. This change will not affect the nicknames you might have chosen for yourself to participate in groups. It will only affect the custom profile fields, such as your photo, location, and occupation.

One more example of things being more tied together.

Going Public

He also points to the following message in the Google Profiles Help Center, as previously pointed out by The Next Web:

The purpose of Google Profiles is to enable you to manage your online identity. Today, nearly all Google Profiles are public. We believe that using Google Profiles to help people find and connect with you online is how the product is best used. Private profiles don't allow this, so we have decided to require all profiles to be public.

Improving Search?

That's a very significant factor of all of this as well. We have to wonder if this won't backfire in some Google Buzz-like privacy backlash, but it will certainly ensure that content there will be discoverable - by users, and perhaps more importantly to Google - by its search index.

You know how Google won't do much in the way of connecting with your Facebook account? That hurts it in search (one area where Bing has an edge and Facebook itself could become a dangerous threat). Remember when Google CEO Eric Schmidt said they'd find other ways to get that data? This may have been at least part of what he was referring to. Of course that involves people using the profiles, but we'll see how that goes.

Google's Profile Message continues:

Keep in mind that your full name is the only required information that will be displayed on your profile; you'll be able to edit or remove any other information that you don't want to share.

If you currently have a private profile but you do not wish to make your profile public, you can delete your profile. Or, you can simply do nothing. All private profiles will be deleted after July 31, 2011.

The Components of a Good Social Network

So let's look at some of the components that when brought together would give Google more of a social network-like experience:

1. Google Buzz - The Newsfeed
2. Google Profiles - The Wall
3. Picasa Web Albums - Photos
4. YouTube - Videos
5. Google Music (pending) - Music
6. Android/The Android Maket - The platform and means to obtain apps usage (including games)
7. Chrome/Chrome OS/Chrome Extensions Gallery/Chrome Web Store - Same as Above
8. Google Latitude - Location-based service/Check-Ins
9. Blogger - Blogs (More open version of Facebook Notes)
10. Gmail - Email, Chat, Video Chat
11. Google Calendar - Event organization
12. Search - important to any social network
13. Google Docs and Google Wave (tech still could appear in other services) - Group collaboration
14. Google Apps - Getting it used internally at businesses and schools
15. Aardvark - Q&A
16. Google Reader - Easily Follow news sources and share links
17. Knol - Wiki-like content to provide information pages about subjects (note: not wiki-exactly, but certainly a competitor to the information pages on Facebook)

The list goes on...

All of this can be expanded upon and promoted in Google's most powerful product - search. Google also continues to rapidly acquire new companies, which will no doubt fuel the strategy even more.

The bringing together of all of these assets in a thoughtful and useful way will be critical, which is probably why it's taking so long. Google's not rushing this, because it could have a huge impact on the company's whole future going forward. Much of it is about staying on the cutting edge of web technology - the biggest area where Google has to compete with Facebook. Facebook is taking away a great deal of engineering talent that might have once gone to Google instead (or in many cases actually came from Google) - much how Google was doing to Microsoft a decade ago.

Google has been criticized for its social efforts a lot over the years. With Larry Page taking the helm again, and reportedly looking to get back to the more startup-like atmosphere that Google had in its early days, there is another fascinating element of which we just don't know the pending impact.

About the Author:
Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Follow WebProNews on Facebook or Twitter. Twitter: @CCrum237

[AdSense] The ads you’ve been searching for: Introducing AdSense Custom Search Ads

2011-03-28T23:55:00.000+07:00

Here at Google we’ve put a lot of work into displaying the best ads on search results pages, and we want your results pages to benefit too. If your site is search-focused -- for example, if your users are looking for jobs, travel, products, or local businesses -- the ads you display can now be targeted to the same search query you use to return results. This means more relevant ads for users, more revenue for publishers, and better value to advertisers. Today we’re excited to share our latest AdSense for search product: Custom Search Ads.

In addition to great targeting, Custom Search Ads are designed to fit your existing search results’ look and feel. Instead of pre-defined sizes, you can specify the precise width of each ad unit along with the number of individual ads to display, the ad layout, font size, font face, and much more. You can take a look at how some of our first publishers are using these today on LemonFree.com or eCrater.com.

With Custom Search Ads, we can rapidly develop and launch new search ad formats and extensions without requiring you to update your search code. For example, on Google’s results pages we’ve been busy testing new search ad extensions to provide users with information like locations, product images, page links, and merchant information. Two of these new formats are available today in Custom Search Ads: Ad Sitelinks and Seller Ratings. Ad Sitelinks extend the value of ads by showcasing up to 4 additional links to specific, relevant content within an advertiser’s site. Seller ratings add star ratings below a merchant’s ad aggregated from review sites across the web. These help highlight ads for merchants highly recommended by online shoppers. As new formats are developed in the future, we’ll continue to bring them to Custom Search Ads so you benefit automatically.

To get started with Custom Search Ads, sign up today! We’re currently only able to accept and support a limited number of publishers, but we’re excited to review your application and expand this program in the future.

Posted by Ben Lisbakken, Software Engineer and Michael Brandell, Product Specialist
Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 3/28/2011 08:30:00 AM

[dremi.INFO] Interactive Ajax Data Management with Codeigniter

2011-03-26T00:25:00.005+07:00

Hi there! this is super fast tutorial, when I was take a rest at the room. Oh god, where is my cofee and PUNK music. Aha!

This tutorial will show to you, how to create Interactive and very fast data management on one page together, without refreshing any page. One thing make this better “You are in codeigniter class of dr.emi” So, enjoy this tutorial.

[Google Adsense] New Interface Wednesdays: Bulk edit

2011-03-26T00:16:00.004+07:00

You might have read in a previous AdSense blog post that opting in to both text and image ads increases the pool of advertisers bidding for your site inventory -- which can in turn increase the amount of revenue you make from AdSense. In the past, changing all your ad units to accept both text and image ads might have taken a lot of time. But now, the new interface allows you to easily find and edit all or some of your ad units with just a few clicks.

Simply go to the 'My ads' tab in the new interface and under 'Content,' choose the 'Ad units' page. Using the checkboxes, select the ad units you’d like to edit, or simply select the checkbox at the top of the list to select all of your ad units. Using the 'Actions' dropdown, select 'Edit ad type.' Choose 'Text & image/rich media ads' and then click 'apply ad type.' Now any ad units that can be opted into both text and image will have this set as their ad type.

We recommend opting your ad units into both text and image to increase auction pressure, ensuring you will get the highest RPM possible. Keep in mind that some units such as link units and certain ad sizes cannot contain image ads, so you will not be able to modify these ad types.

Try it now! Navigate to the new interface and click on the My ads tab, and then 'Content,' followed by 'Ad units.'

Posted by Alex Benton - AdSense Engineer

Top 10 Tips for Using Twitter

2010-05-19T13:05:00.000+07:00

When it comes to social media, no one "gets it" as well as Twitter. According to Econsultancy, as of Jan 2010, Twitter has 75 million user accounts, with about 15 million of that total being active users. See "20+ Mind-Blowing Social Media Statistics Revisited". That's a lot of people sending a lot of Tweets. This micro-blogging service makes it easy for small businesses and entrepreneurs to stay in touch with those who choose to follow them, and stay updated on new products, services, specíal offers, industry news and more. It's a win-win for both the Tweeter, and their followers.

When it comes to using Twitter, there's a right way and a wrong way to use it. Your messages must be kept short, under 140 characters, and they need to be helpful or informative. Don't carry on about what you ate for breakfast, or the fact that you just brushed your teeth. People will unfollow you faster than they can hit the button, even if you do have good oral habits.

I've been using Twitter for a long time now and here's what I've found works best when participating in this close knit community of few words.

1) Regular Postings: Now I'm not saying you need to post every day, although that would be nice. You do need to make an appearance on a regular basis. It's like school - you need to show up to pass. Be a contributor that your followers get to really know and look forward to your Tweets. If you're the type of person who needs to plan ahead, you can always use a service that allows you to schedule tweets in advance, such as Socialoomph.com

2) Retweet: If you see Tweets posted by other users that you think your followers would like, then retweet them. It only takes one click, and you'll also be creating goodwill with other Twitter users at the same time. If you'd like, you can add a personal thought or comment before sending it. Also, make it easy for others to retweet your posts by adding RT buttons to your website or blog. It's easy with the TweetMeme Retweet Button.

3) Be Helpful: Keep in mind Twitter is a form of social Media, so social interaction is key. It's not all about you. Whenever a chance arises to answer a question, participate in a survey, or help solve a problem, do so. In this way you're participating in the community. This also will help your brand and image when others know they can count on you for support or feedback.

4) Don't Be A Follow CopyCat: Don't follow everybody who follows you. This is probably my biggest pet peeve when it comes to Twitter. So many people turn this feature on to auto follow those who follow them. Why would you want to do this? I'd prefer that those I follow are people and topics I've hand-selected that interest me, and not a mish-mash of followers who may be ranting about things I have no interest in. Be selective in who you follow or your Twitter stream could quickly fill up with junk or spam. For quality people to follow, see - FollowOnTwitterLists.com.

5) What to Tweet: Make sure that the tweets you post are helpful and/or informative. Late breaking news pertaining to your industry, as well as any specials or sales you may have going on are always good topics. If you find something you think your followers would like, especially if it's free or a bargain, share the love. Plus, if your tweets are good, it will encourage others to retweet them. For ideas see - ArtBizBlog.com

6) Comment: Particpate in the community by commenting on other people's tweets. If you can answer a question, do so. It doesn't hurt and people really will appreciate it when you take the time to comment on what they have to say. It lets them know that others are actually listening to what they have to say in the "Twitterverse".

7) Say Thank You: When someone takes the time to retweet one of your tweets, make sure to reply to them with a "thank you". Manners rule online as well as off, and they'll like the fact that you noticed the retweet and took the time to show some gratitude. It may even inspire them to retweet more of your tweets in the future.

8) Be Personal: Again, I don't need to know what you ate for dinner, but every now and then you should show your human side with a creative thought, quote, or other statement. Let people know you're "real" and not just a lean mean business machine. You want to tread lightly in this area. Too personal is overkill, but a little can help in establishing a connection with your followers.

9) Post Pictures/Video: Remember, Twitter is not just for text. It's easy to post short videos, and pictures too. It's nice to mix it up a little and share content in other formats as well. Here are some resources - Video Sharing Websites for Twitter.

10) Talk About More Than Yourself: It's not all about you, so please don't make all your tweets one big marketing message, such as only tweeting about your latest press release, blog posting, or article that was published. No one will want to follow you if you're one big commercial. Yes, some of this is fine in moderation, but you need to walk a fine line and mix it up with other helpful, interesting topics.

Now it's time to start putting these tips into action. Social media is all about participating and listening to what others have to say. It's all about creating and sharing information and becoming part of the community. If you approach Twitter in this fashion, you'll not only have a lot more fun, but your followers will like and respect you - and if that doesn't strengthen your brand, nothing will.

About The Author
Merle's Mission Blog - "Rants, Raves and Random Acts of Kindness". A self-proclaimed "Internet Junkie" with a passion for net marketing, affiliate marketing, and social networking. An avid Blogger and writer with several niche sites. Find out more at merlesworld.blogspot.com . Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/msmerle

Ten Top Tips for Video Marketing Your Online Business

2010-03-04T01:35:00.001+07:00

Nearly all internet marketing professionals use video as one of the core methods for marketing their business. These ten tips aim to help you get started creating short, attractive, effective videos based on solid keywords that convert and that stand the test of time.

Video grabs people's attention far more quickly and effectively than text, audio or photographs. Making a short video can capture a thousand words and pictures and helps to get across your personal brand and lifestyle.

It's important to stand out in the crowd on video channels and search engines. Aim your headlines at capturing the imagination regarding your topic. So don't be dull - test out curiosity, shock or fun tactics for getting those download clícks.
First of all, get set up.

When you're starting out, it's ok to just use your webcam. It will give you the chance to practice while you're honing your presentation skills before you fork out for a camcorder. When you're ready, you can purchase an inexpensive digital video recorder, like say the Flip and a tripod.

Make sure you take your videos in well-lit conditions. Inside your office you'll need decent lighting, or you can whip out your camera when you're out and about. It makes for a much more interesting back drop.

OK. So now let's go through each of my TOP 10 TIPS for creating and using videos to market your business.

#1: Keep Your Videos Short

Whether you're loading videos on YouTube or just putting them up on your website or blog, it's really important to keep to just 5 or 6 minutes.

If needed, you can of course break longer topics up into a series of smaller videos, which you could market as a series (see tip 10).

#2: Post Videos on Your Sales PagesM

You can use video on your sales page to introduce the main benefits of your product or business opportuníty. How about placing a video on your sales page or sign up pages.

This helps to orientate visitors and to highlight the main points of your regular, written sales letter.

#3: Choose Your Keywords Carefully

This is really an important tip, because it will affect how your video gets picked up by the search engines and other internet 'bots' that seek out content.

Research your top keyword phrases. Pick keywords that will attract the right kind of traffic and leads - research like crazy to find out what your prospects are looking for - and be sure to include your keywords in headings and tags and description boxes.

Doing this research and tracking clíck thrus (CTR) and conversions will help you secure your most cost-effective keywords and keyword phrases.

#4: Have a Clear Purpose & Structure

Your keywords will help make sure you target your video on the right purpose before you start. Does your video answer the questions your visitors have in their heads when they're searching for solutions. Make things crystal clear.

Stay on topic and give added value - unique value if possible - and your videos will convert much better for you. Write down a structure - a set of headings - for what you're going to cover. Have a script if necessary.

You can mention any links that you have to another video specifically on that related topic.

#5: Look at the Camera

The aim here is to connect with your audience, both in the topic you choose and the content as well as in your communication style. Remember you are talking to people - real live people. What are their needs and wants, hopes and fears.

With regards to presentation, stick your líst of headings right next to the camera so you stay looking in the camera at all times, rather than looking away at a screen or down at your notes.

An authentic and honest video is far more valuable than a glossy TV like broadcast. So don't worry if you're not up to TV presenter standards. Just be yourself and enjoy the opportuníty to reach out to people in a different way than using text copy.

#6: Create a Clear Call to Action

You should create one very clear service and call to action. It's very important that people know exactly what to do as a result of watching your video.

What is your most wanted response (MWR)? Don't confuse visitors with lots of options and different offers. Focus on the single most wanted response.

Alternatively, you can put your video up next to a sign up box - linked to your emaíl marketing - and clearly ask them to opt ín, more than once. Provide an incentive, such as a free report or further video coaching resources.

#7: Encourage Comments on Your Video

One of the best things about video is that it's a very personal, social medium. The more people that are talking about your video and passing it on, the more buzz you'll create.

Visitors may return to your page to see who has commented since their last comment. There may accumulate a whole líst of tips that have been created by your niche community, prompted by your initial video post.

About The Author
Jay Allyson escaped the job rat race. She is Mum to two wonderful children and has run a business from home since 2004. She is an Internet marketing coach and wealth consultant, teaching people to make significant revenue in 12 months, part-time or full-time. Find out more at: http://www.JayAllyson.com and http://GetRichLifestyle.com

Social Media and Conan O'Brien

2010-02-28T16:29:00.000+07:00

The way I see it, NBC has little chance of survival in the next ten years. They've proven themselves so caught up in the normal TV schedule way of thinking that they fail to understand their audience, what little of it is left.

Their lack of knowledge about social media, how it's formed and how it can control the conversation is part of their failure in this situation and may very well be part of their failure as an organization.

Conan O'Brien on the other hand was able to harness the internet and social media to make a stand and, in the end, become more famous than he ever was before.

I'm going to explain this slowly, for the folks at NBC, if they are reading this. Let's think of Conan O'Brien & Jay Leno as a brand, and that the internet is the next big media thing, where there will be millions and millions of Americans making decisions about their life based on what they read on the internet. When people run a search on this website called GOOGLE, they get thousands of pages of choices that they can read about the topic in which they are interested. That perhaps in the future, someday, consumers and people who watch television (aren't they the same?) will be able to type in "Conan vs Jay" and get real time results that help shape their thinking about the subject, and therefore create brand identification and/or brand alienation depending on what happens.

Now for the rest of us, who understand Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization and a bunch of other three word phrases with Affiliate, Marketing, Search and Interactive in them, here is some more high level explaining.

NBC, as a company, is still very much focused on Television being the predominant source of entertainment in the next ten years and hasn't done much thinking beyond that. Despite paying people like Jay & Conan ridiculous amounts of money, their audience base plummeted each year as more and more people turned to independent internet entertainment. So they did not consided exactly what might happen, if they started to make changes in their schedule, move Jay Leno back to his previous slot and basically kick Conan to the curb.

Jay Leno, as funny as he might have been, isn't exactly a representative of a modern, fast-paced, growing generation. He might get some people to stay up and watch the news before falling asleep during his monologue - but on the whole, no one can say he has his finger on the pulse of... well... anything.

You say, and perhaps the executives of NBC say, "we need to prop up our affiliates and their news shows, before we lose them." So what? Television as a medium is on the way out, or at least changing. I don't know anyone who actually watches the news at 11, let alone cares that Jay or Conan are right after it. The news has no relevance, since most of us have already learned about it 6 hours earlier from some blog or websites. As for humor and jokes, we've already spent most of the day on YouTube instead of doing our job, watching some kid falling down five flights of steps while eating a cheeseburger. Jay Leno isn't going to keep our attention for more than one minute, while we wonder what his chin would like in 3-D.

So, what does this have to do with marketing? First of all, Conan O'Brien has managed to come out looking cleaner than a toothbrush at a Palin family reunion. When you google results regarding his dispute with Leno, you find tons of commentary and articles supporting him, putting him out there as the champion of the people, the underdog, the teabagger of comics.

While it's more than likely he will just appear on another network, there is also a chance that he will take this momentum and create something completely unique on the internet. Anything he does on the internet will immediately be covered with millions of links, tweets and AIMs - all pointing to his new project. With the NBC money that he is walking away with, he could easily just make his own website, his own comedy channel, his own comedy network and become very wealthy on just the buzz surrounding his name.

I sincerely believe that Conan knew exactly what was going to happen, and used the internet to his advantage. Many of his writers and publicity team are very modern, having grown up on the internet. They knew that if they needed good publicity they would only have to turn to the internet in order to get the point across.

They used social media to covertly create "I'm with CoCo" groups while at the same time constantly making sure there was new "buzz" to pass around on twitter. From posts on Craigslist of Conan selling himself to the highest bidder for favors to late night tweets from the writing staff to their fan base, they knew that they could always win the war with an audience - that frankly is a lot more internet savvy than the Leno fan base.

Anyone engaged in social media marketing, needs to look closely at how Conan did this, how he made it seem to be organic and natural and then allowed it to seemingly take its own course. He knew how to create buzz, but more importantly content for internet buzz fodder. He knew that the one-liners that could be posted on Twitter were a thousand times more powerful than any ten minute monologue that could be spoken by ...urhmm... that other guy.

About The Author
In perhaps the fastest growing industry ever, one person has made a name for himself as a leader and innovator. Pace Lattin, the publisher of the top newsletters in new media and online advertising, is one of the inventors of many of the technologies and methods that have become standards in the industry. He has been called many things, including a rabble-rouser, a guru, an innovator and a watchdog -- but one thing stays the same: he is one of the most interesting leaders and commentators in the online advertising industry. Marketing Sherpa, a leading marketing research publication called him the most influential journalist in online media for a reason. IndustryPace.com

Website Traffic Generation Planning and Methodologies

2009-12-10T18:03:00.001+07:00

By Duncan Wierman (c) 2009
Real Estate internet marketing is like any other kind of marketing, you're trying to reach a niche market and must plan accordingly. You have to start by identifying your target market in order to develop your message conveying exactly the kind of high value business proposition which your niche will respond to.

The first steps are to:

1) Identify your target market; start with geo targeting and work with the demographics from there.

2) Decide how you want to be perceived by this target market and decide how you'll foster this
perception.

3) Identify and refine your value proposition.

Does Your Site Stand Out or Stand Still!

Once you've done this, the next step is to develop and distribute your value proposition, making sure that your value proposition is perceived by your target market exactly as intended. In marketing, shaping consumer perception isn't just the most important thing: it's everything.

You have to start by positioning yourself to be perceived in a specific way; from here, you'll need to maintain, develop, grow or alter this market position as you deem necessary.

The real challenge is putting these principles into action:

Driving Traffic

There are some important principles of traffic generation you need to understand in order to be successful at bringing visitors into your website.

There are both principles and rules of traffic generation; principles have to do with your approach to the task and the rules are the practical nuts and bolts of driving traffic. You need to have an understanding of the larger picture before you can successfully put the practical techniques into action.

What you'll usually see a lot of is the techniques alone. While this is still valuable information, you probably won't get far with these techniques if you aren't versed in the underlying principles of traffic generation.

These are the most important principles of traffic generation:

• Traffic generation isn't a black art - it's something which largely relies on common sense and methods which can be replicated with consistent results.

• The reason people usually fail in their traffic generation efforts is that they don't truly commit to making traffic generation techniques a fully integrated part of their business strategy.

• You need to create a plan for driving traffic. Think of it as a road map; follow it, but remember that it's not carved in stone. Your plan can and should evolve to reflect your real life experience and results.

[Get 1,000 Visitors for $9.99!]

• Continually test and track the results of your traffic generation efforts - and adjust your plan accordingly.

• Set goals for yourself and as you meet them, raise the bar; traffic generation is a process, not a single objective.

• Don't be discouraged if you don't see results immediately.

• Remember that driving traffic begins with building your site - Why is this? Because your site should be built from the ground up with visitors in mind. Look at other sites in your industry to gain an understanding of patterns of visitor behavior.

See what these other sites are doing; don't hesitate to take a page from your competition's playbook if you see something which is working for them.

This is where things can become challenging; it's something like standing in Grand Central Station at rush hour with a megaphone, trying to be heard above the noise of the crowd. The goal here is to get the attention of your target market and get them to come to your site.

All business is arbitrage. You're taking something which is cheap (to you, at least) and exchanging it for something of higher value - buy low, sell high.

[Video: Your Website on Google's First Result Page!]

For example, SEO and other free traffic generation strategies essentially trade your time for traffic which is of higher value to you; this value may be measured directly in monetary terms or in other means (for instance, as signups to a list). The same is true of paid methods of driving traffic like PPC advertising; you're paying what you deem to be a small amount for something else which you see as more valuable.

If you've been reading carefully so far, you may have noticed that I haven't said a word about being indexed by the search engines; that's because this falls under the heading of techniques, not the principles of traffic generation. While you do of course want to be indexed, this isn't your primary objective - and it's something which will happen naturally as you work to drive traffic using other strategies.

Don't lose sleep over the search engine crawlers; they will come sooner or later. Remember that even once your site is indexed, there's no assurance that visitors will follow. Focusing on being indexed is losing sight of the forest for the trees. This will happen anyway as a side effect of using other traffic generation methods. What you should be focused on is getting targeted traffíc to your site. For instance, if you exchange links with another site (or even a directory) relevant to your industry, the search engine crawlers will follow these links when indexing this other site and voila! Your site will be indexed.

What you need to do is to let the web know that your site is there while simultaneously driving targeted traffíc. The best way to do so is to create links to your site from other sites; not only do these result in your site being indexed, but back links are great SEO and of course, they can generate traffic directly through visitor clicks.

Read the rest of Duncan's article at SiteProNews.com
"Website Traffic Generation Planning and Methodologies"

About The Author
Duncan Wierman is an Ex Software company CEO turned Real Estate Investor and Marketer. Discover how to outsmart your competitor, ethically dominate the search engines, and legally siphon off tons of cash in hand buyers from your website! Get a customized Free report on what is wrong with your website! InternetMarketingConsultingGroup.com

40+ Absolutely Stylish & Creative Hand-picked Wallpapers

2009-12-09T17:22:00.001+07:00

Wallpapers can be creative, inspiring and elegant. If you are looking to add some creativity and inspiration to your life, you probably need a desktop wallpaper that inspires you to create something creative and original. Today we present 40 stunning wallpapers created by some hard-working and dedicated designers. In this post we present creative desktop wallpapers related to art, photoshop, wallpapers-illustrations, abstract design and other great types of wallpapers including nature and amazing Video Game Remake Wallpapers. They are definitely worth a look.

- Aurora Borealis

- Bokeh

- In A Whisper

- Earth 2049 – The End

- Aurora Aquantic Wallpaper

- Growing Aurora Wallpaper Pack1

8 wallpapers on three differente resolutions: 1920×1200, 1600×1200 and 1280×1024.

- Tropical Moon

- Frozen Galaxy

- My wallpaper.

- twitter is not a chat wallpaper

- Windows Seven … 7

- April Wallpaper

- Cat fojofijo

- Antarctic Iceberg

- Loading

- Studio83® Hope Wallpaper

- White letter Mess

- Good Vibrations

- DSGN for Desktopography 3

- Fantasy Art Scenery

- Puss In Boots

- by National Geographic

- blue

- robert

- Destiny

- ace Lighthouse

- 3D Wooden Wall

- Amazing Lego Wallpaper

- Mario World

- Chip

Worth Checking Wallpaper Roundups

- A collection of High quality Wallpapers

- 35 gorgeous black wallpapers

- Desktop Wallpaper Calendar: April 2009

Author: http://www.noupe.com/wallpaper/40-creative-wallpapers.html

40+ Extremely Beautiful Icon Sets Hand-picked from deviantART

2009-12-09T17:20:00.000+07:00

The web is rich with creative and amazing icon sets, and one of the most unusual source of amazing Icons Sets are those you can find on deviantART icons gallery. Today we would like to present 40 incredible icon sets which you can use for your web designs or your desktop. Let’s take a close look at some of the most beautiful icon sets we’ve found on deviantART. Some amazing Icon Sets are missing? Let us know!

1) Realistic Icons - 3 Icons in PNG + ICO format.

2) Onibari light - Formats are Png’s,Ico’s and Icns’s…

3) Leopar’d IconPackager - An IconPackage for Apple’s new Leopard theme.

4) Adobe CS 2.0 Grande Icon Set- This is the large set of Adobe Creative Suite Icons.

5) Glossy Member Icons - Glossy Member Icons…4 PNG Files…Easy to change colors…

6) Oxygen- Are as light and airy as their name suggests. Beautiful transparency effects make these icons stylish, graceful, and especially gorgeous set against a dark background.

7) iPhone Pack- iPhone icon pack (

Phone, Text, Chat, iPod, Notes, System)

8 ) isabi - Includes icons for most Adobe applications, Microsoft Office 2008 as well as a few extras in 16, 32, 48, 128, 256 and 512 pixel sizes.

9) Helix icons

10) Prostor_icons

11) Shopping Basket Icons 3D

12) TextEdit - A replacement icon for TextEdit, Notepad.

13) Paper Clip - icon size 512×512px in png

14) Icon for Transformers

15) Aeon

16) ALL ICONS pack “limewire…”- 500*500 PIXELS – LEOPARD AND VISTA

17) Adobe CS3 full pack- 256×256 png. & ico.

18) AccBox

19) Apple Mail Icons

20) Windows Icons V1 - Custom Windows XP / Vista Icon pack.

21) HP Dock Icon Set- Light Icons Set. Simple and clean for the websites.

22) iConPack

23) Puck Icons Pack II

24) Eternal Black

25) Yeti Box 2

26) Grzanka’s Icons- Icons 128×128 – made in Photoshop – completly in Vector Masks with Layer Style Effects

27) ICON: EverGreen

28) Drop Box Icon

29) Address Book Moded Icon

30) Documents Icon

31) Ferrari Gauge

32) KIDAUBIS CHINESE WIND ICON

33) Light Icons- Light Icons Set. Simple and clean for the websites.

34) iVaizard

35) iLeopard Icon Pack SE

36) Yoritsuki icons

37) Mailbox Icon - Includes both icon and png format in 512px size.

38) iTunes Dock Icons- 512×512 px.

39) D-Squared 2008

40) Site Works

Author: http://www.noupe.com/wallpaper/40-creative-wallpapers.html

Discussing PHP Frameworks: What, When, Why and Which?

2009-12-09T17:17:00.000+07:00

What is a PHP Framework?

PHP is the world’s most popular scripting language for many different reasons – flexibility, ease-of-use, among others – but often times coding in PHP, or any language for that matter, can get rather monotonous and repetitive. That’s where a PHP framework can help.

What is a PHP Framework?

PHP is the world’s most popular scripting language for many different reasons – flexibility, ease-of-use, among others – but often times coding in PHP, or any language for that matter, can get rather monotonous and repetitive. That’s where a PHP framework can help.

PHP frameworks streamline the the development of web applications written in PHP by providing a basic structure for which to build the web applications. In other words, PHP frameworks help to promote rapid application development (RAD), which saves you time, helps build more stable applications, and reduces the amount of repetitive coding for developers. Frameworks can also help beginners to build more stable apps by ensuring proper database interaction and coding on the presentation layer. This allows you to spend more time creating the actual web application, instead of spending time writing repetitive code.

The general idea behind the workings of a PHP framework is referred to as Model View Controller (MVC). MVC is an architectural pattern in programming that isolates business logic from the UI, allowing one to be modified separately from the other (also known as separation of concerns). With MVC, Model refers to data, View refers to the presentation layer, and Controller to the application or business logic. Basically, MVC breaks up the development process of an application, so you can work on individual elements while others are unaffected. Essentially, this makes coding in PHP faster and less complicated.

Why Should we use a PHP Framework?

Developers should utilize PHP frameworks for various reasons, but the number one reason is for speeding up the development process. Reusing code across similar projects will save the developer a substantial amount of time and effort. A framework offers pre-built modules for performing tedious coding tasks, so the developer can spend their time on developing the actual application rather than re-building the foundation with each and every project.

Stability is another big reason developers are utilizing frameworks. While simplicity is one of PHP’s greatest assets, and the reason many people prefer to use this scripting language, it can also be one of its biggest downfalls. It’s fairly easy, especially for beginners, to write bad code and not even realize it. With PHP the application will often times still work, but unknowingly you may have opened up a large security hole in your coding that may be susceptible to attacks. It’s important to remember that PHP is a very forgiving language, so it’s even more important to make sure to tie up any loose ends in your coding – even if the application seems to be working properly.

Finally, the availability of PHP frameworks is extensive, and there are many different frameworks to choose from. You can even create your own, although many developers elect to choose from any of the most well-known frameworks due to their popularity, large support teams, and their forums/communities that allow you to interact with other developers who utilize the same framework. As a side note, you should always examine your project to first decide if you should even use a framework or not. Some questions you should ask yourself are: Will it save you, and anyone else who may use it, time and effort? Will the app perform better? Will it improve stability? If you can answer yes to any of these questions, a PHP framework may be the right answer for that particular project.

When to use a PHP Framework?

This is a common question amongst experienced and beginner developers alike, and there’s really no direct answer to the question. For many beginners, a framework will offer greater simplicity as well stability, so it may be a good idea to use PHP frameworks whenever possible. It will help reduce or eliminate bad coding and speed up the build process.

On the other hand, many experienced PHP programmers see frameworks as tools for “weak” programmers that don’t understand how to write good, clean code. Whether this is true or not is up for debate, but the fact of the matter is that PHP frameworks are a tool that can be used to save time and tighten up one’s coding.

When working on a project with tight deadlines, utilizing a PHP framework is a huge benefit that can greatly speed up the coding process. So if you’re in a time crunch, PHP frameworks can be very beneficial to you. Another instance when PHP frameworks should be a consideration is when you’re working on projects with substantial amounts of monotonous coding, because it will help make the job much less tedious.

What to Look for in a PHP Framework?

There’s plenty of options available to anyone who may be searching for PHP frameworks, and there’s even the option of creating your own, although that’s only recommended for PHP experts. When searching for the the PHP framework best suited for your needs, it’s important to keep in mind who will be using and/or modifying your applications from top to bottom. If there are many people who will be using the application, it may be best use a popular PHP framework that many developers are familiar with. On the other hand, if you wish to build web applications for your own personal use, you are better off choosing any PHP framework that you’re comfortable with – whether it’s popular amongst the developer community or not.

Various factors to search for in a PHP framework include: easy of use, rapid development/performance, popularity amongst other developers, strong features, and support/forums. It’s recommended to try out several PHP frameworks when you’re first starting out in order to find one that suits your needs the best. All frameworks are slightly different and have varying strengths and weaknesses, for instance Zend Framework has been around since V3 and is full of features plus has an extensive support system in place since it has been around for so long. On the contrary, CakePHP is another PHP framework which is younger than Zend Framework and has slightly less of a support system in place (although support for this framework is growing rapidly), but is much more user-friendly and easy to use.

As you can see, each type of PHP framework has its own advantages, so it’s best to use a bit of trial and error to figure out which one will work the best for your needs. Another excellent way of choosing a framework is to consult your colleagues in the development community to see which ones they prefer. Those who have actually used a specific framework will be able to inform you of the ease-of-use, features, support availability, scope of the community surrounding the framework, and possible shortfalls.

Most Common Mistakes When Using a PHP Framework

Mistakes are possible in any type of programming, but PHP frameworks help to limit these mistakes greatly by providing good quality code that is tried and true from the start of the development process. Repetitive coding seems to promote mistakes now and then, and frameworks all but eliminate that problem.

That being said, there are still things to be careful of when utilizing any PHP framework. For instance, unless you are an expert in PHP programming, you should always opt for using a popular framework with plenty of support and an active user base (see below for examples of popular PHP frameworks). There are many frameworks out there that have little or no support, and/or they were created by individuals with limited knowledge of PHP. These types of frameworks can cause your applications to not function properly, and worse case scenario, could cause catastrophic security issues with your website.

Another somewhat common mistake is not ensuring your database and web server is compatible with the particular framework. For example, Seagull PHP Framework recommends the following configuration:

PHP: PHP 4.3.0 is the minimum, later versions work fine, as do versions PHP 5.1.1 and above. Avoid anything in the 5.0.x series

MySQL: MySQL 4.0.x, 4.1.x and 5.0.x are all supported. You can also use 3.23.x.

Apache: Seagull works fine with 1.3.x and 2.x series of Apache

If you don’t meet these requirements, you won’t be observing the best performance possible from your chosen framework. Even if you are an expert in PHP, you should always go over the documentation of the framework to confirm compatibility before trying it out.

Similar to the previously mentioned common mistake, not following the recommended installation process of your PHP framework can also give you some headaches. Take Seagull as an example again – the Seagull wiki has a detailed rundown of the framework’s installation process that has several key steps that are sometimes easily overlooked by careless or unsuspecting developers. The key is to take your time setting up the framework and follow the installation instructions to the “T” – The time you’ll save actually developing applications later will more than make up for the few extra minutes spent installing the framework correctly the first time.

What are the Best PHP Frameworks Available?

Within the past few years as PHP has evolved as the scripting language of choice by most developers, there have been an explosion of PHP frameworks to hit the scene. There is a great debate about what the best PHP frameworks are, because the simple fact is that not every framework is built for everyone. Here’s a quick rundown of five of the best and most popular choices right now:

The Zend Framework

The Zend Framework has a massive following amongst the development community and is focused on web 2.0 style applications. Because of their massive following, extensive support and active user base, Zend is referred to as “The PHP Company”. Zend is one of, if not, the most popular PHP frameworks available today. It has robust features that are built for corporate-level development, and it requires an extensive knowledge of PHP.

CakePHP

CakePHP is a great choice for beginners to advanced PHP developers. It’s based on the same principles that Ruby on Rails is designed around, and it’s heavily focused on rapid development – making it a great framework to be used for rapid application development. Its rapidly growing support system, simplicity, and scalability make CakePHP one of the most popular PHP frameworks available today.

Symfony

Symfony is aimed more at advanced developers who’s main objective is to create enterprise-level applications – most notably Askeet and Yahoo! Bookmarks. This open source PHP framework is full of features and can do it all, but it’s main downfall is that it is a bit slower than other frameworks.

Codelgniter

Codelgniter is well-known for its ease-of-use, performance and speed. Unlike Symfony, this PHP framework is ideal for shared hosting accounts or for when you want a framework with a small footprint. It offers simple solutions, and has an extensive library of video tutorials, forums, a user guide and wiki available for support. Beginners should consider using Codelgniter.

Seagull

Seagull is a well-established PHP framework used for building web, command line and GUI apps. It is an extremely easy to use framework that is ideal for beginners to advanced coders. For beginners, Seagull features a library of sample applications that can be customized to fit your needs, and for experts, Seagull offers a host of options – including best practices, standards, and modular codebase – for building web applications quickly and easily. Seagull has an active developer community and plenty of support documentation in place as well.

Summary

PHP frameworks are a great way for developers of all skill levels to reduce the need for repetitive coding, speed up the development process, and to ensure proper coding when creating web applications. This not only speeds up the development of rich applications, but it also tightens up PHP security by reducing the risk of security holes in your coding.

While some expert PHP coders do not feel the need to use frameworks to develop web apps, they can still be an advantage in situations where rapid development is necessary, such as under tight deadlines. And for beginner to intermediate developers, frameworks can enhance the PHP learning process while promoting good coding practices and reducing bad coding, which is common in PHP due to its “forgiving” nature.

There are many PHP frameworks available today, and thus developers are sure to find a framework that fits there needs in terms of features, support, speed, scalability and more. Some of the top PHP frameworks used by developers today include: The Zend Framework, CakePHP, Symfony, Codelgniter, and Seagull.

Author: Joel Reyes

Joel Reyes Has been designing and coding web sites for several years, this has lead him to be the creative mind behind Looney Designer a design resource and portfolio site that revolves around web and graphic design.

Write for Us! We are looking for exciting and creative articles, if you want to contribute, just send us an email.

Ten Simple Rules for Choosing the Perfect CMS + Excellent Options

2009-12-09T17:16:00.000+07:00

The content management system you choose can really make a huge difference in how much time you (or your clients) spend keeping a site updated and maintained. There’s a huge variety out there—some estimates put the number at around 1700 different options. Some are great…some, not so much.

Below are ten useful guidelines to consider when choosing a CMS, followed by rundowns on ten great CMS options available and how they stack up based on the guidelines.

Ten Simple Guidelines for Choosing the Perfect CMS

1. The CMS you choose should be really good at whatever the main function of your website is.

What do you want your website to do? Is it going to be primarily a static website, like an online brochure? Or is it going to be a fully-functioning ecommerce site? Or maybe it’s going to be really media-heavy with tons of videos, photos, and audio files. Or is a blog going to be the primary focus?

Whatever your site’s primary function is going to be, you need to define it and then find a CMS that does that particular thing really, really well. If blogging is the main focus of the site, then use a blog platform. If images and video are the main focus, then you need to find a CMS that either has great support for media built-in or has great plugins for enabling those functions. If your site is going to focus on an online store, then the platform you choose needs to be able to seamlessly integrate that online store without a ton of extra work.

2. A CMS needs to work intuitively.

When you average user opens up the backend of the site, they should be able to figure out how to do basic functions without too much instruction. Different elements of the site should be clearly labeled. The basics of posting a new page, editing a page, and even changing themes or sidebar elements should all be relatively simple to figure out for the average computer user.

3. The backend needs to be standardized.

Things should all work basically the same way in the backend of the site. A good CMS should have a standardized format for each section of the backend. If one section uses a drop-down menu for selecting something, then all of the other sections should use the same type of menu for similar options—not radio buttons or some other selector.

The same goes for the way things are named or otherwise referred to. If something is called a “page” in one place and a “post” in another, that’s going to get confusing (plus, most people consider those two different things). If it’s a “sidebar” in one place and a “second column” somewhere else, that’s going to confuse your average user.

4. The backend needs to be logical and well-organized.

Things should be laid out logically in the backend. This means that all of the functions related to editing, or sidebars, or themes, or creating new content, should be grouped somehow or otherwise function the same. Alternatively, some CMSs put all of the things related to pages in one place, sidebars in another, plugins in another, etc. Either way, they’re laid out logically and once you know the basic architecture, it’s easy enough to figure out where things are supposed to be.

5. The right CMS shouldn’t have a ton of extra functionality you’ll never use.

This is a completely personal choice. Some sites will make use of tons of advanced functionality. Other sites won’t. If you’re never going to have an online store, why do you need a CMS that focuses on ecommerce? If you never plan to do anything beyond posting photos to your site, why have a CMS that does that plus a hundred other things? Instead, find a CMS that does the one thing you want to do really well and forget about the other features.

6. The right CMS should be easy for non-geeks to use.

Web designers and developers are very good at using web-based applications and pretty much anything else computer-related. A lot of their clients, on the other hand, probably aren’t. While most of the end-users of any CMS are going to have at least basic computer knowledge, they’re probably not super tech savvy. While you might love a particular CMS and think it’s the best thing since solid-state hard drives, your clients might find it confusing, hard to use, and overly complicated.

The question I always ask myself when considering this is, “Could my mother use this?” My mother is your typical business computer user. She can do spreadsheets, word processing, and email, but she’s definitely not a techy. If I’m confident that I could easily explain a CMS to her and she’d then be able to use it with a minimum of later support, then I know it’s going to be appropriate for 90% of other likely users.

7. It needs to include a WYSIWYG editor.

WYSIWYG editors make life easier for your clients. Most clients don’t know HTML and don’t care to learn. But they want to be able to use bold or italic text or use header tags to create sections within their pages. A WYSIWYG editor makes that all possible for non-tech-savvy users.

8. The pages it creates should be fast-loading and have simple code.

One of the major advantages of a CMS is that it simplifies the updating and management of a website. So the pages it produces should also be simple. There shouldn’t be a lot of extra code or provisions for unused functionality in the final page code. All that serves to do is slow the load times for the page and increase the likelihood that something will render wrong or throw an error.

9. The template engine should allow you complete creative control.

Some CMSs have very set ideas about what a website should look like. There needs to be a sidebar for navigation. You shouldn’t use navigation dropdowns. The content has to be arranged in nice, neat columns. Who’s the designer here? Whatever CMS you choose should let you design pages the way you want and should work around your needs.

10. The right CMS should have adequate support and documentation.

In all likelihood, you’re going to run into some sort of problems with any CMS you choose. Whether this is caused by add-ons or in the course of customizing some bit of code, or whether the CMs is doing something unexpected, having somewhere you can turn to to get advice on how to fix the problem is invaluable.

This doesn’t necessarily have to be some expensive tech support phone number or other paid support. Sometimes you can get quicker and better responses from a user community. Does the CMS you’re considering have support forums frequented both by other users and by those involved in the project? Are there other, off-site forums dedicated to that particular CMS? The people who visit these forums can be a wealth of information for doing just about anything with your CMS of choice.

Thorough documentation for the CMS is also valuable. It should provide information on everything from basic use of the CMS to customizations and advanced functionality. In addition to being complete, it should also be easy to understand and accurate (which can be hard to determine until you actually delve into doing some of what it suggests).

Ten Excellent CMS Options

1. WordPress

WordPress has morphed from a basic blogging platform into a fully-functioning CMS. WordPress’ primary functionality is still blogging, though with plugins it’s capable of doing everything from brochure sites to portfolio and gallery sites to fully-featured ecommerce sites. For the most part, WordPress’ backend is intuitive to use, with different functions laid out based on different sections of the site (appearance, posts, pages, etc.) The way things work in the backed, though, is very standardized and once you’re used to doing things in one section, it’s easy enough to figure them out in every other section. Likewise, it’s also well organized and finding where to perform different functions is very straight-forward in most cases. The WYSIWYG editor provides all the basic functions you could need, including inserting images, video, and other media, and makes it easy to toggle back and forth between HTML and Visual mode.

Because a lot of WP’s functionality comes from plugins, the basic platform is pretty simple, with support for pages, posts, and other standard content that will be used on the vast majority of sites. You only need to add plugins as you need their functionality, meaning there isn’t a whole lot of unused “stuff” in the core installation. WP is also simple enough to use for non-geeks (my mother has no problem with it and she’s running a complete ecommerce site with WP) and the different user permissions means it’s harder for users to break things (just limit their access to things like themes and plugins).

WP is also completely standards-compliant. The pages it creates are simple and quick-loading. Of course, some plugins create not-so-small pages, especially those that put JavaScript and CSS right into the page instead of in separate files. Just be aware of this when checking out plugins.

WP really makes it possible to design pages however you see fit. From galleries to text-heavy sites and pretty much anything in between, WP can do it through the use of custom themes and page templates.

Where WP really shines, though, is in it’s documentation. The WordPress Codex is massive, covering everything from basic instructions for use to creating your own plugins and working with advanced features. WP also has active forums where you can generally find fixes for any problems you might encounter from other users.

2. Radiant CMS

Radiant is built on Ruby on Rails. It’s really good at building basic sites with an unlimited number of pages. Blogging and gallery functionality can be added through extensions. The backend is simple and logically laid out, with pages, snippets, and layouts as the primary sections. Functions work pretty much the same no matter which section you’re in.

Currently, Radiant is rather limited in its functionality, so it’s unlikely you’ll end up with any unneeded functions. Extensions can be built in Ruby On Rails, though, opening up huge possibilities for future functionality. The WYSIWYG editor is basic but allows users to perform all of the basic functions.

Radiant has an extremely easy-to-use backend. Basic functions like updating and add pages are really no more complicated than sending an email. This makes it a great solution for clients who aren’t at all tech-savvy. The code Radiant produces is simple and clean.

Pages can be built to look pretty much however you want based on a combination of snippets you create. There also appears to be an active developer community with extensive documentation for developers. End-user documentation is a bit light, but it’s such simple to use CMS that it’s not really a big issue.

3. SilverStripe

SilverStripe is a full-featured CMS that’s capable of just about anything you want it to do. It’s built in PHP on the Sapphire framework, making it more customizable. One of SilverStripe’s most interesting features is that designers can customize the backend for each of their clients, only showing content fields the clients actually need to access. This makes it potentially one of the easiest-to-use CMSs for geeks and non-geeks alike. And of course it includes a WYSIWYG editor.

SilverStripe is probably overkill for most very basic websites, but because of its ability to be customized, it’s appropriate for most other sites. SilverStripe also provides tons of great, free support, including documentation for both developers and end-users, forums and an IRC channel. SilverStripe makes a point to stay out of the HTML/CSS portion of your site, making it possible to design pages to look however you want.

4. Joomla!

Joomla is widely considered to be the most popular open-source CMS currently available. It runs on PHP and MySQL. The backend is relatively simple and straightforward, with sections for managing articles, the front page, menus, media, and other content. There’s also a link to create a new article to save time. Drop-down menus also give more options for those and other sections (including extensions). Joomla’s WYSIWYG editor includes tons of formatting options—even emoticons.

Joomla is pretty powerful, so it’s another CMS probably not well-suited to very simple sites, where it would have a lot of excess functionality. It includes a number of provisions to make pages load faster, including caching and GZIP page compression. Joomla also has a huge list of plugins available to extend its functionality, making it appropriate for just about any kind of site requiring advanced functionality. One of the biggest drawbacks of Joomla, though, is it’s use of tables for layout. While there are workarounds to replace the tables with CSS, it might not be worth the effort considering how many other CMSs don’t use tables to begin with.

5. TYPOlight

TYPOlight uses PHP5 and Ajax and includes functionality for static pages, blogs, newsletters, and calendars, among other sections. The backend is intuitive while still offering a ton of functionality. There are shortcuts for doing everything from creating forms to including Flash content. Content is displayed within modules, which can be styled with CSS. The output is accessible XHTML Strict. It also offers mootools and GZip support.

TYPOlight may be a bit overwhelming for those who aren’t at least a little bit tech-savvy. It’s not that it’s complicated; just that there’s a lot of options and a lot of different ways to customize it. It does include a complete WYSIWYG editor and other tools to make publishing content simple. The interface is intuitive if you take a minute to look over what’s there and everything is laid out logically. Again, it’s just that there’s a lot of information in there!

TYPOlight does include some nice developer tools, including a built-in CSS generator and a form generator. There’s plenty of documentation on the site for both developers and end-users. There are screencasts, forums, and a wiki for support. There are also options for paid support through TYPOlight partners in case you (or your clients) really need advanced help.

6. Frog

Frog is basically a PHP-based version of Radiant CMS (mentioned above). Frog has a simplified UI that’s very intuitive. It allows for an unlimited hierarchy of pages and allows you to customize templates on a per-page basis. It includes the requisite WYSIWYG editor, simplified and more like WP’s than some of the more complex editors. It also features reusable snippets for regularly-used bits of content.

The backend provides a very coherent and well-organized structure that’s user-friendly while also being quite powerful. The basic functionality is aimed at a site with an unlimited number of pages, but there are plenty of plugins to extend that functionality. There are currently plugins for both admin functions and front-end improvements (including a number for image galleries). The code Frog creates is clean and semantic.

Frog has decent documentation, with plenty of how-to articles for both basic functions and development. There’s also an IRC channel to get answers to any questions you might have.

7. Textpattern

Textpattern uses a tabbed UI on the backend, which is surprisingly intuitive. It automatically brings you to the content editor to add a new page when you login, a great feature for sites that add new content regularly. The biggest drawback to Textpattern is its lack of a WYSIWYG editor. It does use Textile, though, for content editing, which is easy enough for a new user to learn.

The pages output by Textpattern are very lightweight and quick-loading, so no issues there. The thing I like most about Textpattern is that it feels like a real alternative type of CMS. The rest of the options out there are all, to some extent at least, kind of the same. The basic functionality of the CMS is very simple, without a ton of added features you’re unlikely to ever use. There’s support for images, categories, and articles, and not a whole lot else. But there are a ton of different plugins available to extend its functionality, including plugins for everything from media and gallery support to advanced navigation options and stats. There are even a couple of different ecommerce plugins available.

There’s a large community built around Textpattern, so documentation and support are surprisingly good. There’s at least one book available, plus a support forum, developers’ weblog, and TextBook (a community-powered user manual).

8. ExpressionEngine

Expression Engine is one of the more powerful CMSs out there. EE has support for just about every function you could ever need or want, either in the core package or through plugins. The backend is very simple and intuitive (the first time I used it I was able to figure out the backend within a couple of minutes). It’s probably overkill for very basic websites, but appropriate for pretty much anything else. Modules are available for everything from statistics to user forums. The built-in WYSIWYG editor is pretty standard and works well.

The pages created by EE are a bit bulkier than many of the other CMSs featured here, but still appear to be reasonably clean, with the exception of some JavaScript plugins. Some of the plugins available (or at least some of those used on sites powered by EE) either stick the JavaScript in the header of the page or, worse, right in the middle of the page’s code. But there have to be some tradeoffs when working with a CMS with this much built-in functionality.

EE’s biggest drawback is that, except in certain circumstances, it’s quite expensive. A personal license is $99.95 and a commercial license is $249.95. You can use the free Core Version, but only on personal, non-commercial or non-profit sites.

9. Drupal

Drupal is another very powerful CMS that can be used for everything from corporate sites to ecommerce sites to social networking sites. The backend of Drupal is incredibly simple, with logically organized links to create new content, manage accounts, and edit existing content. One of Drupal’s nicest features is their “Book Page” content type. These pages can be grouped into collections, referred to as books, which are automatically linked together. This is a huge advantage if working with this kind of content. Drupal doesn’t have a WYSIWYG editor in the core installation, but there is a module to add the functionality.

The amount of functionality available in the backend is astounding, especially considering how easy it is to access it all. Drupal has tons of modules available, too, to add functionality beyond basic content management. There really are plugins to be able to do just about anything you could think of. The code output by Drupal is a bit more complex than some simpler CMSs, but still relatively semantic and easy to decipher.

Drupal has a huge user community with forums both on the main development site and elsewhere. There’s also extensive documentation for end-users and developers.

10. CMS Made Simple

When they say “Made Simple,” they really mean it. CMS Made Simple was the first CMS I ever used. I literally set up my first CMS-powered website in the course of a single evening (with a customized but out-of-the-box template). It includes complete template support, an incredibly easy-to-use backend, and an unlimited content hierarchy. There’s support for “global content blocks” (called snippets in a lot of other CMSs) and plenty of options for site layout. There’s also access to help files right from the backend, including the wiki, IRC and forums. This is another CMS with no built-in WYSIWYG editor, but there is a plugin to add that functionality.

The pages output by CMS Made Simple are all XHTML and CSS compliant in addition to being clean and quick-loading. The core installation has all the basic content functionality you’d need, with plugins available to add most other functionality, with one exception: there doesn’t currently appear to be an ecommerce plugin for the platform.

There’s good documentation available for CMSMS. There’s also extensive support options, including IRC and forums.

Author: Cameron Chapman

Cameron Chapman is a writer, blogger, copyeditor, and social media addict. She’s been designing for more than six years and writing her whole life. If you’d like to connect with her, you can follow her on Twitter or at her Personal Website.

Write for Us! We are looking for exciting and creative articles, if you want to contribute, just send us an email.

57+ Free Image Gallery, Slideshow And Lightbox Solutions

2009-12-09T17:10:00.001+07:00

Actually at first I wanted simple image gallery solution for web design project, but when I started to search I changed my mind and thought how great would be to create article about all the best image gallery solutions available on the Internet. So here it is – this list is separated in 3 big categories like Ajax, JavaScript and Lightbox based galleries, CSS based galleries and FLASH based galleries, so You can easy switch to category You got interest in. I think here You’ll find gallery for every needs, should be enough to choose from!

Ajax, JavaScript ( jQuery, MooTools), Lightbox based galleries

1. JonDesign’s SmoothGallery

Using MooTools v1.11, this JavaScript gallery and slideshow system allows you to have simple and smooth (cross-fading…) image galleries, slideshows, showcases and other cool stuff on your website. Together there are 7 different gallery demos, You can download and test for free.

Unlike other systems out there, JonDesign’s SmoothGallery is designed from the ground up to be standard compliant: You can feed it from any document, using custom CSS selectors. And even better, this solutions is very lightweight: The JavaScript file is only 24kb.

2. MiniShowcase Gallery

Minishowcase is a small and simple PHP/JavaScript online photo gallery, powered by AJAX that allows you to easily show your images online, without complex databases or coding, allowing to have an up-and-running gallery in a few minutes.

3. jQuery SlideViewer

SlideViewer is a lightweight (1.5Kb) jQuery plugin which allows to instantly create an image gallery by writing just few lines of HTML. SlideViewer checks for the number of images within your list, and dynamically creates a set of links to command (slide) you pictures. Also, clicking on each image will make the gallery slide to the next picture.

4. DevKick Galleria

Galleria is a JavaScript image gallery written in jQuery. It loads the images one by one from an unordered list and displays thumbnails when each image is loaded. It will create thumbnails for you if you choose so, scaled or unscaled, centered and cropped inside a fixed thumbnail box defined by CSS.

5. ZenPhoto

Zenphoto is an answer to lots of calls for an online gallery solution that just makes sense. After years of bloated software that does everything and your dishes, zenphoto just shows your photos, simply. We hope you agree with our philosophy: simpler is better. Don’t get us wrong though – zenphoto really does have everything you need for your online gallery, and you’ll even stare in awe at some of the innovative innovations we innovated upon.

Check out their feature list – it was too long to long to post here!

6. Lightbox 2

Lightbox is a simple, unobtrusive script used to overlay images on the current page. It’s a snap to setup and works on all modern browsers

7. Visual Lightbox

VisualLightBox is a free wizard program that helps you easily generate web photo galleries, based on famous LightBox2 script, in a few clicks without writing a single line of code.

8. Photo Gallery with MooTools

Fully explained tutorial and also spectacular photo gallery to comfortably display many images.

9. GreyBox

GreyBox can be used to display websites, images and other content in a beautiful way. It is very easy to use full-screen website, image gallery, which doesn’t conflict with pop-up blockers and it’s only 22 kb size!

10. TripTracker

The TripTracker slideshow is a lightweight JavaScript image viewer with an animated slideshow feature.

11. qGallery

qGallery is a simple to use prototype based gallery script. All image processing is done by the script so you don’t have to worry about the images you upload on the server. All images for the skimmer graphics and the fullsize view will be created on the fly and stored in a cache directory on the server to save processing power on the server.

12. jFlow gallery

Tutorial and documentation, how to use jFlow plugin to create Your own gallery.

13. NoobSlide

8 different examples how to view Your images using MooTools, unfortunately there isn’t any documentation, but very easy to use gallery.

14. Spacegallery -jQuery plugin

Yet another way how to display Your images.

15. JQuery Cycle Plugin

The jQuery Cycle Plugin is a lightweight slideshow plugin.It supports pause-on-hover, auto-stop, auto-fit, before/after callbacks, click triggers and many transition effects. It also supports, but does not require, the Metadata Plugin and the Easing Plugin.

16. Slider Gallery

This ‘product slider’ is similar to a straight forward gallery, except that there is a slider to navigate the items, i.e. the bit the user controls to view the items. Simple stuff using jQuery plugins.

17. PrettyPhoto

jQuery Lightbox clone, pretty similar to original Lightbox with few another features and full documentation.

18. PrettyGallery

One more way how to display Your photos using jQuery.

19. FrogJS

FrogJS is a simple, unobtrusive JavaScript gallery. It’s not a replacement for other thumbnail galleries like Lightbox JS, but a different way of showcasing galleries. This type of gallery is best used when a page-by-page gallery is needed, as is the case with photo stories.

20. Galleriffic

A jQuery plugin for rendering fast-performing photo galleries. Galleriffic was inspired by Mike Alsup’s Cycle plugin, but with performance in mind for delivering a high volume of photos.

21. Pirobox jQuery Lightbox

Lightbox scripts have become a very popular way of displaying images online in recent months. There are a huge number of them available, using a variety of different frameworks and languages. DesignShack offers a new jQuery Lightbox script It has been designed and created by Diego Valobra.

22. Slideshow 2

Slideshow 2! is a JavaScript class for Mootools 1.2 to stream and animate the presentation of images on your website. This page features some examples of how Slideshow might be used to enhance the presentation of images on your website. Please view the source of this page for usage information.

23. JQuery flickrGallery

FlickrGallery is a jQuery plugin for embedding flickr photos into a webpage. Plugin considers a Gallery to be a list of Albums (similar to Flickr’s Collections). Albums are considered to be photo sets.

24. Auto Generating Gallery

Words – “Auto Generating” don’t mean that that it takes the pictures for you. This gallery won’t even create the thumbnails for you. What it DOES, is build itself dynamically from your directory of images. So when you want to add new photos, you simply drop the new photo and thumbnail in the directory and you are done! Removing photos just means removing the photos from the image directory. Gallery use PHP for this web wizardry.

25. Photo Slider

Tutorial teaching how to create photo slider gallery with play/pause slideshow settings and interesting thumbnail effect using jQuery.

26. JavaScript TinySlideshow

This dynamic JavaScript slideshow is a lightweight (5kb) and free image gallery / slideshow script.

You can easily set it to auto-display the images, set the scroll speed, thumbnail opacity or to disable thumbnail slider.

27. S3Slider jQuery plugin

JQuery Slideshow with three different features and displaying sides, fully customizable sizes, delay speed and with good documentation.

28. Ajax Photo Gallery

The AJAX version of AgileGallery is a free AJAX photo gallery that rips through the XML output from Picasa (a free download from Google) and generates DHTML for the paging and thumbnails and displays the full sized photos along with any description entered in Picasa. Since this photo gallery uses AJAX technology, it eliminates the need for any page refresh as the user pages through the photos.

29. Suckerfish HoverLightbox Redux

Handy JavaScript, CSS based image gallery with another version of Lightbox included.

30. PhatFusion Slideshow

Slideshow using JavaScript MooTools with features like:

Fade, Slide and Wipe transitions

Loops

Play, Stop, Next and Previous controls

Inits from array of image src’s, a list of images on the page or using the href of an a tag like the Lightbox.

31. HighSlide JS

Highslide JS is an open source JavaScript software, offering a Web 2.0 approach to popup windows. It streamlines the use of thumbnail images and HTML popup’s on web pages.

32. SlideFlow Ajax Image Gallery

Use slideflow to show elegantly Your images, also fullscreen mode is available.

Technical background: The photos and titles are read from an XML file, and the thumbnails are pre-generated using Photoshop actions (included)

33. Barack Slideshow 0.2

An elegant, lightweight slideshow JavaScript script.

34. jQZoom Evolution

JQZoom is a JavaScript image magnifier built at the top of the popular jQuery JavaScript framework. jQzoom is a great and a really easy to use script to magnify what you want.

35. jQuery Multimedia Portfolio

This plugin for jQuery will automatically detect the extension of each media and apply the adapted player.

36. jQuery spherical panorama viewer

A JavaScript viewer for displaying spherical panoramas. An alternative to Java and QuickTime technology.

I didn’t include screenshot here because demonstration can be seen only by clicking and dragging on the picture getting that 3D look.

37. JQuery Virtual Tour

This is an extension to the simple panorama viewer that allows you to play a little bit more with jQuery by adding interactivity to transform some panoramic views into a virtual tour !

38. MooSlideBox

The mooSlideBox v3 is a small and slim Ajax based extension or replacement of the common “Lightbox” that can be found on nearly every page. This Lightbox clone works in IE 6/7, Opera and Firefox. It is based on the MooTools framework version 1.11.

39. jqGalScroll

jQuery Gallery Scroller (jqGalScroll) takes list of images and creates a smooth scrolling photo gallery scrolling vertically, horizontally, or diagonally. The plugin will also create pagination to allow you to flow through your photos

40. Featured Content Slider

Tutorial, how to create a slick auto-playing featured content slider.

41. Easy Slider jQuery Plugin

Easy Slider enables images or any content to slide horizontally or vertically on click. It is configurable with CSS alone. So, basically you link to plugin file, set the content up and style it with CSS.

42. Dynamic Image Gallery and Slideshow

This extremely lightweight JavaScript image gallery and slideshow script clocks in under 3kb packed and includes a number of cool features.

CSS Based Galleries

43. HoverBox Image Gallery

Basically, it’s a super light-weight (8kb) roll-over photo gallery that uses nothing but CSS, free to use for Your own projects.

44. Sliding Photograph Galleries

This gallery is my simplest yet. It is just an unordered list of images that are normally compressed vertically (reduction 8:1). When you hover over one of these compressed images it expands to full size. It is based on my sliding menu system and adapted to use images. No thumbnails are required and all the images are ‘pre-loaded’.This method can be used either vertically, as shown, or horizontally.

45. CSS Image Gallery

This is a purely CSS based image gallery that displays larger versions of thumbnail images dynamically when the mouse hovers over them. A rich HTML caption can be added to the enlarged image, and every aspect of the Image Gallery exists as plain HTML on the page. The gallery works in IE6+, Firefox, Opera 8+.

46. Cross browser CSS Slideshow

Nasty CSS Slideshow producing a slide show or photogallery using a mixture of portrait and landscape images.

47. Cross Browser Multi-Page Photograph Gallery

Based on the look of Suckerfish HoverLightbox, this one uses my multi-page layout system but includes images instead of text.Unlike the Suckerfish HoverLightbox this version does not use JavaScript but is pure CSS and still works in IE.

Tested in IE5.5, IE6, IE7, Opera, Firefox, Safari (PC).

48. CSS Decorative Gallery

Nice CSS Decorative Gallery and tutorial, how to decorate your images and photo galleries without editing the source images.

Flash Based Galleries

49. Flash Parallax Gallery

Parallax scrolling is frequently used in most 2D animation and games, where the background images and foreground images scroll at different rate of speed. This will create an illusion of depth as the background images are moving slower than the foreground images. Awesome tutorial and also great idea how to display Your portfolio or create unique web design. Must see!

50. Flash Gallery

Flash Gallery is a free application that allows you to create a slideshow on your website easy and fast. You won’t need any programming skills to install or use it. Just embed it into your website and script will automatically form a slideshow from a specified folder or from Flickr photostream.

51. SimpleViewer

SimpleViewer is a free, customizable Flash image viewing application.

52. 3D Curve Wall

Unique Flash based 3D curve wall similar to Flashloaded version, but this one is free.

53. dfGallery

As stated on many other articles on DezinerFolio site, dfGallery is one of the coolest flash galleries currently on the Web.

54. Spiral Carrousel XML

55. Polaroid Gallery

Polaroid Gallery is a free, opensource flash gallery, the script loads images and image titles dynamically from an external XML file or a flickr RSS feed. Then the script processes the data and creates an interactive flash gallery.

56. TiltViewer

TiltViewer is a free, customizable 3D Flash image viewing application.

Other

57+. DynamicDrive

And finally if You still haven’t got enough galleries or one for Your taste You can check this huge collection of many different image galleries from DynamicDrive.com

If You know some more resources I missed here, feel free to add in comments and if You enjoy this article, let others know about it! Spread the word!

Saved from: http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/resources/57-free-image-gallery-slideshow-and-lightbox-solutions/

My Top 14 jQuery Photo Slideshow / Gallery Plugins

2009-12-09T16:59:00.003+07:00

jQuery is becoming present in more Web 2.0 sites. jQuery slideshows or galleries take a grouping of images and turn it into an flash-like image/photo gallery. Here is a list of top options available for your website’s photo gallery.

Galleria - Galleria is javascript image gallery written as a plugin of jQuery. It uses simple html list to load the images on by one into a larger canvas. The best thing of galleria is that, it can create thumbnails for you. It is very user friendly and can be implemented easily without much knowledge of scripting. Checkout a Galleria Demo

jQuery Multimedia Portfolio - Display your portfolio items in a horizontal gallery view. A very cool jquery plugin. It is Non obstrusive and accessible portfolio supporting multiple media. It supports photos, multimedia content like flv, audio mp3 etc. It can automatically detect extension and display images/snapshots according to it. Here is a quick screen shot. Click on it for demo and download.

Space Gallery - Animate your images and display them as a gallery in space effect much like Apples time machine. These images will look like if they are in 3d space.

jQuery Slider Gallery - Rotate your images in similar effect as on Apple’s website. You can rotate images, product pictures or anything you like.

jQuery jsGallscroll Plugin - jQuery Gallery Scroller (jqGalScroll) takes list of images and creates a smooth scrolling photo gallery scrolling vertically, horizontally, or diagonally. The plugin will also create pagination to allow you to flow through your photos.

jQuery Cycle Plugin - The jQuery Cycle Plugin is a lightweight slideshow plugin. Its implementation is based on the InnerFade Plugin by Torsten Baldes, the Slideshow Plugin by Matt Oakes, and the jqShuffle Plugin by Benjamin Sterling. It supports pause-on-hover, auto-stop, auto-fit, before/after callbacks, click triggers and many transition effects. It also supports, but does not require, the Metadata Plugin and the Easing Plugin.

EO Gallery - EOGallery is a web animated slideshow gallery maid with jQuery. It only uses basic jQuery functions and Cody Lindley’s Thickbox to display larger pictures. By the way, EOGallery is XHTML 1.0 strict valid and almost CSS valid, it has been tested on Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer 6 and works even with non-javascript and/or non-css browsers.

slideViewer - slideViewer checks for the number of images within your list, and dinamically creates a set of links to command (slide) you pictures.

jQuery lightbox plugin - jQuery lightBox plugin is simple, elegant, unobtrusive, no need extra markup and is used to overlay images on the current page through the power and flexibility of jQuery´s selector. LightBox is a plugin for jQuery. It was inspired in Lightbox JS by Lokesh Dhakar.

Galleriffic - A jQuery plugin for rendering fast-performing photo galleries

pirobox -Pirobox is another JS gallery script with the difference hatwrite by Diego Valobra.Take a look at his script,you can see that he used a few tricks to get his goal to create a good looking jQuery gallery.

jQuery Popeye - Popeye generates an inline image gallery from an unordered list of images. The gallery features clever inline image enlargement, i.e. the enlarged image stretches out over the site content without adding a visual overlay of the whole site. It stays fixed with one edge to its original coordinates, so that a sense of cohesiveness is created in the user interface and interaction. Demo

zoomimage - Present you images in stylish way. The links are unobtrusively highjacked to open the images in an inpage popup with drop shadow and border. Demo

Dynamic Image Gallery and Slideshow - This extremely lightweight JavaScript image gallery and slideshow script clocks in under 3kb packed and includes a number of cool features. Demo

GalleryView - display a photo gallery with slideshow functionality. Clicking on a frame will jump to that photo, and the overlay caption for each photo contains links to the full image. Demo

NotesForLightBox - a simple, unobtrusive script used to overlay images on the current page. It’s a snap to setup and works on all modern browsers.

The current functionalities are:

• Rounded corners light box

• Navigation with buttons

• Real slide show with progress bar

GallerificPlus – inspired by Trent Foley’s Gallerific plugin, and Leandro Vieira Pinho’s jQuery LightBox plugin. The concept from the plugin originated from a client project that required a smooth jQuery gallery with lightbox functionality.

We forgot the one on our own chicago website design page. Do you have any plugins to add? Leave your recommendations in the comments below.

Save from: http://blueprintds.com/2009/01/20/top-14-jquery-photo-slideshow-gallery-plugins/

Digg's New API Allows Digging of Stories and Comments

2009-12-09T16:44:00.002+07:00

By Chris Crum
Digg released a new version of the Digg API today, which lets developers write and contribute data via OAuth. This API supports the digging and burying of both stories and comments.

"In addition to the revamped API, we focused extensively on usability and have included an updated API documentation section on Digg with more detail on each API method including code and response examples," says Digg's Jeff Hodsdon. "Today’s changes, as well as our updates this summer to the API license, give developers much more freedom to create (and profit from) great new applications off the Digg platform."

"To help showcase some of the new functionality, we’ve created a reference app off the new API, a streamlined version of the Digg site called DiggLite, which can serve as a blueprint for any basic Digg-based application," Hodsdon adds. "It includes a river of the most recently popular stories, which can be Dugg and buried remotely, and the means of breaking things down by top-level topics. You can find it at digglite.com or download the source code on Github."

Developers interested in keeping updated on happenings with the Digg API can follow @diggapi on Twitter. Digg says it will communicate any API-related issues and downtime information through the Twitter account.

At first, only a limited number of beta testers will be able to create apps that can write data, using the new API. Digg is requiring developers interested in creating apps to send a brief description (along with their Digg username) to api@digg.com.

About the author:

Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003.

Twitter: @CCrum237

FTC Guidelines Raise Big Blogging Questions

2009-12-09T16:42:00.003+07:00

By Chris Crum

Update 3: The new FTC Guidelines went into effect this week. A recent WebProNews interview with Wendy Piersall, Founder of the Woo! Jr. Network, looks at some interesting points about them that you may not have considered - some "gray areas" if you will.

Update 2: Now Cleland says, "If people think that the FTC is going to issue them a citation for $11,000 because they failed to disclose that they got a free box of Pampers, that's not true. That's not going to happen today, not ever." (via)

Update: The FTC is now saying that the $11,000 fine is not accurate, at least for the first violation. Fast company got some responses from Richard Cleland, assistant director, division of advertising practices at the FTC, who says:

“That $11,000 fine is not true. Worst-case scenario, someone receives a warning, refuses to comply, followed by a serious product defect; we would institute a proceeding with a cease-and-desist order and mandate compliance with the law. To the extent that I have seen and heard, people are not objecting to the disclosure requirements but to the fear of penalty if they inadvertently make a mistake. That’s the thing I don’t think people need to be concerned about. There’s no monetary penalty, in terms of the first violation, even in the worst case. Our approach is going to be educational, particularly with bloggers. We’re focusing on the advertisers: What kind of education are you providing them, are you monitoring the bloggers and whether what they’re saying is true?” [empahsis added]

Cleland addresses more of the concerns here.

Original Article: The Federal Trade Commission has released its revised guidelines concerning the use of endorsements and testimonials in advertising. The revisions include a focus on "bloggers" and social media users, requiring them to properly disclose when they have received payment in the form of either money or product from a company or organization and produce content regarding said company or organization. The word is that bloggers can be fined up to $11,000 per post for not disclosing.

Have you ever mentioned a free product you received online and not disclosed it? Comment here.

The reasoning behind the guidelines seems noble enough - provide transparency and keep consumers safe from hokey information. However, the concept of the government dictating how this happens does not sit well with a lot of people. The revisions (which can be found in this 81 page document [pdf], should you care to peruse them [they start around page 55]) have ruffled quite a few feathers and the conversation has become one about free speech.

Well-known author/editor/publisher Jeff Jarvis makes a really good point. He says the FTC assumes that the Internet is a medium. "It’s not. It’s a place where people talk. Most people who blog, as Pew found in a survey a few years ago, don’t think they are doing anything remotely connected to journalism. I imagine that virtually no one on Facebook thinks they’re making media. They’re connecting. They’re talking," he says. "So for the FTC to go after bloggers and social media – as they explicitly do – is the same as sending a government goon into Denny’s to listen to the conversations in the corner booth and demand that you disclose that your Uncle Vinnie owns the pizzeria whose product you just endorsed."

It's not hard to find echoes of Jarvis's sentiment all over the web. Although, I don't believe I've seen it as eloquently put as with the Denny's analogy. Still, not everyone sees the FTC regulations as a bad thing. In fact, Google's Matt Cutts stepped into the conversation with Jeff Jarvis, expressing a bit more enthusiasm for the guidelines.

"As a Google engineer who has seen the damage done by fake blogs, sock puppets, and endless scams on the internet, I’m happy to take the opposite position: I think the FTC guidelines will make the web more useful and more trustworthy for consumers," he says. "Consumers don’t want to be shilled and they don’t want payola; they want a web that they can trust. The FTC guidelines just say that material connections should be disclosed. From having dealt with these issues over several years, I believe that will be a good thing for the web."

Commenters essentially tell Matt the whole thing would smell a lot better if he were the one regulating it. The reasoning for this is that Matt is involved with the industry. He is not a government worker that has been one his whole life. He's been in the field. He knows the score. The argument coming from most of the opposition is not about the fundamental principle of making content more trustworthy for consumers. At the root of it, it appears that people are much more concerned about a government body of regulators who aren't necessarily involved with online content production telling them how it is, when there are many, many questions about what falls under the criteria.

A number of these questions are nicely placed in an "open letter to the FTC" from Ron Hogan at MediaBistro's GalleyCat. Here are a few of them:

- If an unpaid blogger at the Huffington Post "endorses" a consumer product without meeting the FTC guidelines for disclosure of "material connections" to the makers of that consumer product, who's liable: the blogger or the Huffington Post?

- If a blogger prints out a series of blog posts and distributes those printed copies, is he now the publisher of a newspaper or magazine? If so, the Village Voice is distributed for free, so can a blogger/publisher distribute his newspaper or magazine for free, too?

- What if a blogger confines herself to stating demonstrably proven facts about a book, its author, its contents, and the matter of its publication? Does the FTC consider that an endorsement? What if she confines herself to stating such facts and includes links to an ecommerce site? Has her writing somehow been transformed from a statement of fact to an endorsement?

There are plenty more where that came from. The list goes on. You can probably think of a few yourself. It may be hard for the guidelines to be enforced. The FTC does acknowledge that its guidelines aren't exactly the law themselves. The FTC says:

The Guides are administrative interpretations of the law intended to help advertisers comply with the Federal Trade Commission Act; they are not binding law themselves. In any law enforcement action challenging the allegedly deceptive use of testimonials or endorsements, the Commission would have the burden of proving that the challenged conduct violates the FTC Act.

It should also be noted that the rules presumably apply to publications beyond bloggers and social media users, but for some reason it appears that "bloggers" are the ones with whom the FTC had on its collective mind when drafting these guidelines. You have to wonder if they are able to come up with a definition for "blogging" (others have had trouble in the past. Even those directly involved in the online content industry). The rules are scheduled to take effect on December 1st.
About the author:

Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003.

Twitter: @CCrum237

Google Offers Some Disturbing Suggestions

2009-12-09T16:41:00.009+07:00

By Chris Crum
Update: Google appears to have removed the "little kids" suggestions.
Original Article: Google's "suggest" feature can be quite useful. It can save you time when typing your query if you happen to be searching for something that a lot of others have searched for before you. The feature is even useful for Google itself, because a while back, they began incorporating ads into it.

Google Suggest has some problems though. This is nothing new. People have discovered some strange suggestions from time to time. One that has been discussed around the web frequently this year for example, is Google's suggestion of "Why wont my parakeet eat my diarrhea" when a user begins a query with "why won't". This one has even repeatedly made it onto the Google Hot Trends list.

That one was kind of funny (if that's your sense of humor), but Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable is pointing to a more disturbing set of suggestions from the search engine. When a user begins a query with "little kids," the very first suggestion is "little kids having sexs". Among the other suggestions on the list are "little kids dancing nasty," and "little kids grinding."

Schwartz also pointed to another suggestion from Google saying "I am Extremely Terrified of Chinese People" that a user is presented with when beginning a query with "I am".

Schwartz notes that Google's suggestions are purely algorithmic. It's not as though Google's staff is actually encouraging searches like these, but the suggestions do highlight the need for some adjustments and/or human intervention.

In the case of the "little kids" suggestions, Schwartz says a Google employee responded to his report by saying, "Thanks for reporting this to me -- I'll take a look." However, at the time of this writing, each of the aforementioned suggestions are still in place.

About the author:

Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003.

Twitter: @CCrum237

Google Puts More Images (And One Big Pic) On Results Pages

2009-12-09T16:41:00.008+07:00

By Doug Caverly

The PageZoom, NoSquint, and Image Zoom add-ons for Firefox have been downloaded over 5 million times, all together, so obviously, there are a significant number of people for whom default sizes don't cut it. And now Google's trying to help them out by adjusting the way in which it displays image results.

A post on the Official Google Blog announced late yesterday, "[W]e're rolling out a new format for image universal results. When we're confident that we have great image results, we'll now show a larger image and additional smaller images alongside."

The post then continued, "With this new layout we're able to show you more pictures than before, so you have more to choose from. As always, you can click on an image to see it full size in the original webpage."

A sample results page is visible below.

This change should serve to make Google's standard results pages more visually appealing. It may save a few folks an extra click, too, if they no longer find it necessary to switch from the standard results to image results.

As for timing and availability, the rollout is supposed to be completed today.

About the author:

Doug is a staff writer for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest eBusiness news.

Google Earth Users Get a Way to Build Architecture

2009-12-09T16:39:00.003+07:00

By Chris Crum

Update 2: Google has announced the addition of more cities:

• Stockholm, Sweden
• Nuremberg, Germany
• Hiroshima, Japan
• Saitama, Japan
• Miami Beach, FL USA
• Orlando, FL USA

Update: Google has announced that eight new cities can now be modeled with Building Maker: Brussels, Rotterdam, Cologne, Dortmund, Boston, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and San Jose.

"We've also made some useful improvements to the product, including: the option of a Google Earth-view when you're choosing a location to model, the ability to save models as drafts before submitting them for review, and a new tool for tracing buildings," the company says.

Original Article: Google has launched a new tool for creating buildings for Google Earth, called Google Building Maker. The company thinks of this tool as a cross between Google Maps and a "gigantic bin of building blocks."

Users can use the tool to pick a building and construct a model of it using aerial photos and simple 3D shapes, provided by Google. Google will then take your model and add it to the 3D Buildings layer in Google Earth if they think it looks right and there isn't already a better one for the same building. Google says you can make a whole building in just a few minutes.

Currently, users can choose to make buildings in one of nearly 50 cities. "We'll keep adding more cities, but don't feel left out if we don't have your hometown yet — modeling in a place you've never been is a fantastic way to discover more about it," says Google. "Teachers might find that Building Maker is a great way to get students interested in geography. Armchair tourists can not only visit an unfamiliar city; they can engage with it. It's amazing what you learn when you look at something really closely."

Google Building Maker runs completely in the web browser, and is supported by Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer, etc. Users have to sign in to a Google account to use it. It's available in 14 languages.

Models reside in the Google 3D Warehouse. Users can use Google SketchUp to edit or modify anything they make with Building Maker. Google says to make sure you have the latest version of Google Earth installed on your computer, and that if you're using a Mac, you'll need to download the Google Earth plug-in directly.

Author: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2009/10/13/google-gives-users-a-way-to-build-architecture

About the author:

Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003.

Twitter: @CCrum237

New Google Feature Could Steal Some of Bing's Travel Thunder

2009-12-09T16:37:00.002+07:00

By Chris Crum

Google has launched a new "Translated Search" tool as one of the search engines search options. Google's search options can currently be accessed by clicking "show options" on any results page, once a search has been performed (although you may not even have to do that soon). The idea is that searchers can more easily find and read content written in other languages.

Google has offered a similar feature in Google Translate, for quite some time, but this brings it right to the searcher's realm of familiarity. Let's face it. Most Google users probably don't even know Google Translate exists, and if they do, it may not occur to them to use it as a means for searching for content.

"Now, when you search on Google for something in your own language, you can use this tool to search the web in another language," says Google. "Click 'Show Options' at the top of the search results page and select 'Translated search' to try it out. We'll algorithmically select the best language(s) to translate your search query into and then return you translated results from those pages. We'll even display results from multiple languages."

"For example, if you search for [restaurant reviews antwerp] while on vacation in Belgium and want to find more reviews or review sites beyond those that are just available in English, select "Translate search" in the 'Show Options' panel," the company adds. "We'll automatically select French and Dutch (the languages spoken in Belgium), translate your query into these languages and then translate the results back into English for you to read. If you’d like to search specific languages, just modify the languages in the panel above the results. You can display results for up to five languages at once and select from 51 languages to search."

If Google moves forward with the SERP redesign that it has been testing, this feature could have an impact on Bing usage for all things travel. The Translated Search feature obviously has purpose for other kinds of searches, but the example above makes a really good case for using it while traveling to other countries.

Google is in the process of rolling the feature out, so it is possible that you do not have it available yet, but you should very soon from the sound of it.

Author: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2009/12/04/new-google-feature-could-steal-some-of-bings-travel-thunder

Yahoo Releases Top 10 Mobile Searches Of 2009

2009-12-09T16:36:00.002+07:00

By Mike Sachoff

Yahoo has released its top 10 mobile searches for 2009 and interestingly only two of the top searches match what people were searching for on their PCs.

While Michael Jackson topped Yahoo's overall searches for 2009, actress Megan Fox landed in the top spot of mobile searches. Those were the only search terms to make it into both the top 10 mobile and PC searches.

The NFL was the most popular sport search term for 2009, outpacing both the NBA and NASCAR.

Here are the top 10 mobile searches and overall searches according to Yahoo:

1. Megan Fox
2. Mobile Games
3. Michael Jackson
4. Movies
5. Rihanna
6. Mail
7. Lady Gaga
8. NFL
9. Ringtones
10. iPhone

Here are the top 10 overall searches for 2009:

1. Michael Jackson
2. Twilight
3. WWE
4. Megan Fox
5. Britney Spears
6. Naruto
7. American Idol
8. Kim Kardashian
9. NASCAR
10. Runescape

Author: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2009/12/04/yahoo-releases-top-10-mobile-searches-of-2009

Twittering As a Full-Time Job

2009-12-09T16:35:00.000+07:00

By Chris Crum

Update: Pizza Hut announced today that its former "Twintern" now has the official title of "Tweetologist," and now holds a full-time position. From the announcement:

For more than a month, Alexa Robinson - Pizza Hut's former summer "Twintern" who was hired as an intern to keep up with Pizza Hut fans through @pizzahut on Twitter - has been working without a job title. After extending a full-time job offer to Alexa, Pizza Hut turned to its Twitter fan base for creative suggestions for her new title. Now, thanks to the help of the loyal followers of @pizzahut, Alexa is finally ready to order her new business cards.

"As the new Tweetologist, I want to thank everyone who I have met through Twitter," said Alexa. "It was a lot of fun to see our fans and followers think outside the box, and I can't wait to display my new title on my business card, loud and proud."

Original Article: Pizza and social media seem to have a relationship destined for headlines lately. You've probably read about the Domino's YouTube video fiasco. Now on a more positive note, it's Pizza Hut and Twitter.

Pizza Hut is looking to hire an intern specifically for Twittering. This is news because - how many mainstream companies have you heard of hiring someone specifically for Twittering - not even social media in general - just Twittering.

Stephanie Clifford at the New York Times describes the purpose of the "Twintern" (intern using Twitter...I don't claim responsibility for the term) job:

To attend advertising shoots, product meetings and other corporate events. “They’ll be our social media journalist, chronicling in 140 characters or less what’s going on at Pizza Hut,” said Bob Kraut, the vice president for marketing communications at the company. The Twintern must also play social-media defense, monitoring Twitter for any mentions of the brand and alerting superiors whenever anything negative about the Hut is being said.

There is a full description on Yum's (Pizza Hut's parent company) site. According to that, the twinternship allows for many hands-on opportunities like:

- Collect and share insights and experiences while working for Pizza Hut through social and interactive media: Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, New and emerging media

- Twintern will be given unprecedented access to marketing meetings, brainstorm sessions, ad shoots and special events

- Monitor social media for pop culture news, off-the-wall stories or anything else quirky and fun that he or she thinks would be of interest to loyal Pizza Hut fans.

- Chronicle experience through video; edit and post to selected media

- Conduct media outreach for PR programs

- Assist with execution of national PR programs

It is unclear whether or not Yum has similar intentions for brands like Long John Silver's, A&W, Taco Bell, etc. The fact that pizza is commonly ordered online (and the Domino's incident no doubt) probably plays a direct role in why Pizza Hut is doing this.

"The major pizza chains now do 20% to 30% of their business online, but they want that figure to climb a lot higher, to 50%," says Emily Bryson York with AdAge. "Getting there will take some doing, but the journey offers lessons for other marketers also seeking to build their business online: Know your customers, make it easy and offer incentives."

Very true. Twitter can prove to be a remarkable tool for online reputation management. And as we've discussed at WebProNews repeatedly, there are tons of opportunities for marketers. Though keeping on the ethical side of online marketing is likely to be in the best interest of your business and your online reputation.

Author: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2009/04/20/pizza-hut-looking-to-fill-new-twittering-position

Google Shares Search Predictions

2009-12-09T16:32:00.001+07:00

By Chris Crum

This time of year everybody likes to start making predictions about where industries are heading. This is especially true in the search industry. My guess is that we will see quite a few pieces this month regarding where search is going in 2010. These can make for entertaining reads and get the mind going with regards to how we are going to have to plan for an ever-changing future of search engine marketing.

When Google itself comes out with predictions for where search is headed, things get even more interesting. This is obviously because Google is such a huge and critical part of the search landscape. Google's Matt Cutts discussed some of his own predictions for search in a recent upload to Google's Webmaster Central YouTube channel.

One thing Matt stressed is that Google is always looking for new types of data to search. He gave examples of searching email with Gmail, books with Google Book Search, and patents with Google Patent search. He predicts Google will continue this trend and find more data sources to provide search functionality for.

Another prediction he gave was that Google will continue to improve search over harder problems. Specifically, he noted things like determining what is really going on with the words in documents and in queries - semantic search if you will.

"A lot of people think that if you type in 'A B C,' all Google does is crawl the web and return pages that match 'A,' 'B,' and 'C'. And that's not it," says Cutts. "We do a lot of sophisticated stuff. Think about synonyms, morphology...all sorts of ways where we can kind of find out, 'oh, this is really related to them conceptually.' Whether you want to call it semantic stuff or statistical processing, we do a lot of stuff to try and return relevant documents."

As part of this prediction, Cutts says Google will continue trying to find new ways to extract "good data" from the web. He mentions Google Squared (which is still in an experimental stage) as an example of doing so. Google Squared, in Google's words, takes a category and creates a starter 'square' of information, automatically fetching and organizing facts from across the web.

Cutts also predicts that people will get more comfortable with storing their data in the cloud. He expects more people will migrate their data from their hard drives to different cloud services, and that this will make it easier and better for search, and contribute to the delivery of more relevant results.

He also mentions real-time and mobile as playing significant roles in the future or search. No surprise there.

"It's going to be a lot of fun. Search is nowhere near done, and every time we make search better, people ask us harder and harder questions, " he says. "So the nice thing is knowing that we'll pretty much always have more to do to make search better."

Cutts recently discussed the possibility that page speed could play a role in search engine rankings. He made no mention of this in this set of predictions, but that is another thing to consider as we get ready to move into 2010.

Author: http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2009/12/05/google-shares-search-predictions

Inspiration in Spectrum: The FYC Edition From Fuel Your Creativity

2009-12-09T16:27:00.000+07:00

After taking last week off because of the holiday, we are back this week with the final installment of our colorful inspirational inquisitions here on FYC. That is right, the road draws to a close and we end with a unique take on the series. All along we have been attempting to test the waters to determine if the source that feeds our inspiration, if it tends towards a singular color, can tend to aim our creative output in the same direction as elements associated with that color. Last week we rolled out Inspiration in Neutral : The FYC Edition, but here in the final edition, we take the focus off a single color and focus on the lot.

So welcome back to the final FYC edition of the popular Inspiration in Color series. Putting a twist in the post mission, we pull out all the stops here in the last post with a turn towards the entire spectrum. Inspiration in Spectrum : The FYC Edition, features another awesome collection of imaginative and emotive works from all around the design world that we hope you will be inspired by. Who knows where this inspiration will take you, but you will be the only one that can tell…

Graphic Design

Branding, Print & Packaging Design

Fashion and Make-up Design

Web Design

Photography

Wallpapers

That’s a Wrap!

That wraps up the series. So now the ball is in your court. If you have found yourself inspired by this series then by all means, please submit the end results of those inspirations to the FYC Flickr Group, and simply tag them ‘fycincolor’. Regardless of if you want to show us the work you created, we would love to hear your thoughts on this experimental inspirational process, so let your thoughts flow in the comment section below.

Download 9 Proven Techniques to Double Your Sales

2009-12-09T16:24:00.002+07:00

If you've been in business very long, you probably know a few "truths."

* Growing AND managing your company is challenging.
* There always seems to be a better way to do things.
* Success is not easy to come by, but is worth the struggle!

If you've ever felt like your company was sitting on the edge of a breakthrough, if you've ever felt like success was just out of your grasp, if you've ever wanted to take your business to "the next level", then, "The Edge of Success: 9 Building Blocks to Double Your Sales" is the book for you!

Inside, you'll discover the ultimate "SECRET" small business owners must know. Plus, you'll learn:

* Proven techniques for converting prospects into customers, and customers into raving fans
* How to systemize and simplify your business
* The true art of effective follow-up
* The one "secret" every small business owner must know
* And so much more!!!

Ultimately, this revolutionary ebook reveals the techniques you need to simplify your business and Double Your Sales! To download your FREE copy of "The Edge," simply fill out the form below.

Killer Campaigns Volume 2: Making Emotional Connections

2009-12-09T16:20:00.002+07:00

By Jerry Bader (c) 2009
We live in an age of clones: somebody makes a very profitable movie about vampires, and the next thing you know we're all inundated with movies, television shows, books, blogs, websites, and every form of blood-sucking permutation you can imagine.

CSI begets CSI Miami, which begets CSI New York, which begets NCIS, which begets NCIS Los Angeles, which is just about as much as anyone can take. If something is successful, you can be sure more of the same will follow.

Despite the occasional success story, most clones either fail completely, or never live up to the success of their groundbreaking predecessors.

Most of the copycats fail because the clone-masters behind them don't understand why the original worked, and as a consequence, they clone all the wrong elements. This is as true of commercial presentations as it is with broadcast programming.

Cloning a successful format is not the same as Slipstreaming. Clone marketing is just rote copying of technical elements without any reference to why the original worked, whereas Slipstream marketing takes a familiar idea and plays off it like a great jazz musician reinterprets an old standard.

Kleenex "Let It Out" Campaign: Recognizing The Emotional Value Proposition

What is more generic than facial tissue? A consumable paper product that you use once and discard; it is the very definition of a commodity, and as we all know commodity-sales are primarily based on price. Enter Kimberly Clark, one company that has managed to turn their commodity product into the industry standard to the extent that the commodity itself has become known by Kimberly Clark's designated brand name - Kleenex.

The Kleenex, "Let It Out" campaign is just one example of a company that recognizes that in order to turn their commodity product into something of higher value, they have to link it to what we refer to as "an emotional value proposition:" the implied psychological or emotional connection between the product and the consumer.

The original series of Web videos was housed on a dedicated video microsite. The series of videos showed a casually dressed interviewer with an engaging personality asking people to sit down on a couch in the middle of a busy street to chat about some significant emotional moment in their lives. Some people talked about their children; one woman even discussed Katrina and the impact it had on her. People cried, and people laughed, until tears came to their eyes, at which point, the interviewer handed each person a Kleenex: Kleenex and emotions go hand-in-hand. Let It Out, the concept was brilliant.

The following version was created for television; it is a compendium of clips from various videos, and as good as it is, it doesn't have the same emotional power of the Web video versions that concentrated on each person's emotional response to the interviewer's questions. It's good, but not as good, but it does serve to illustrate the point. Unfortunately the individual videos are no longer available.

Everything in the commercial works: the interviewer's manner and personality, the visual imagery of the couch in the street, and the memorable music message. It's all good, very, very good.

On The Other Hand...

Rogers Communication Inc. is a large Canadian communication company that provides digital cable TV, high speed Internet, and mobile phone services. Their primary competition would be Bell Canada.

In order to promote their new Home Phone service Rogers initiated a series of commercials featuring a man on the street interviewing people passing by, asking them to compare their phone service to their competitors. They used a red and blue couch in the street with the red side of the couch representing Rogers and the blue side representing Bell. They handed each person a blue phone and asked them to call a friend or relative; then they handed the person a red phone representing Rogers, and asked them to call the same person. Then the interviewer asked them to compare the service, which according to the commercial was the same. The difference of course was in the price.

Anyone who has seen both campaigns could come to only one conclusion, and that is the Roger's commercials were patterned after the Kleenex, "Let It Out" campaign. Did it work? Take a look.

On a very superficial level, the commercials are eerily the same, both have a couch in the street, an interviewer, and a passerby; but on an emotional and psychological level, they are as far apart as you can get.

Kleenex tied the use of their product to people's most personal feelings, their response to emotional reminiscence, while Rogers relied on price only. Their service isn't better, it's the same; it's just cheaper so the ad says. The Kleenex interviewer is courteous, interested, and responsive, while the Rogers representative is glib, and a bit smarmy.

The Technique and Why It Worked

The Kleenex campaign works for all kinds of reasons, the most important of which is that it engages the audience with an intriguing visual presentation that resonates on a psychological level by providing an emotional value proposition associated with their brand. On the other hand, Roger's value proposition is price.

You may say, price is important, but pricing tactics are a dangerous game. Competitors aren't just going to sit back and let you drive them out of business. If you fire a price missile across your competitor's bow, you can bet they'll respond, and that's exactly what Bell did.

Whoops!

By not understanding what Kleenex had done in their campaign, and not following Kleenex's precedent by associating their brand with an emotionally resonant value proposition, they laid themselves wide open to a slipstreamed response by their competitors, who created a campaign that riffed on their imagery, and one-upped them with an alternate price comparison.

Conclusion

If a commodity product like facial tissue can become a major
brand by employing marketing strategies that emphasize their
emotional value proposition, then so can your product or
service. Delivering a marketing message based on it's
underlying emotional value is a better strategy than price and
feature selling, a tactic guaranteed to be short-lived. Features
are forever being added and prices are continually under
competitive pressure, but emotional relevance is sustainable.

For many companies, it is very difficult for them to see the
emotional value their offering brings to the table, but the
conceptual basis of any effective marketing campaign starts with
discovering that underlying human connection your product or
service has with its audience.

About The Author

Jerry Bader is Senior Partner at MRPwebmedia, a website design and marketing firm
that specializes in Web-video Marketing Campaigns and Video Websites. Visit
www.mrpwebmedia.com,
www.136words.com, and
www.sonicpersonality.com. Contact at
info@mrpwebmedia.com or telephone (905) 764-1246.

7 New Features in Your Google Analytics Account

2009-12-09T16:18:00.000+07:00

Hello Google Analytics user,

We recently added powerful new features to your Google Analytics account. With these seven new features you'll be able to get quicker insights, create deeper customizations, do more advanced analysis and track more mobile marketing!

Read on to learn more and then sign in to your account to try these features.

Analytics Intelligence with Custom Alerts

Using an algorithmic driven Intelligence engine, Analytics Intelligence monitors data patterns over daily, weekly and monthly periods. Significant changes in data trends and insights you may not have noticed are surfaced directly in your account. You can also create your own Custom Alerts that monitor your selection of dimensions and metrics that can be sent by email or displayed in the Intelligence reports.

Expanded Goals and New Engagement Goals

You can now track even more conversions by creating up to 20 goals per profile. Measure user engagement and branding success on your site with Time on Site and Pages per Visit goals. Set up your first Engagement goal in minutes.

Expanded Mobile Reporting

Google Analytics has expanded support for mobile websites and tracking for iPhone and Android mobile applications tracking. Adding server side code to your PHP, JSP, PERL, or ASPX mobile websites enables you to track non-Java-Script enabled phones. For mobile application developers, access the SDK and technical implementation details here. You'll also be able to see breakout data on mobile devices and carriers in the new Mobile reports in the Visitors section.

Unique Visitors Metric
Include the Unique Visitors metric in your Custom Report or Advanced Segments to see how many actual visitors (unique cookies) visit your website. You can select Unique Visitors as a metric against any dimensions in Google Analytics.

Advanced Analysis Features

Dive deeper into your data with Pivoting, Secondary Dimensions, and Advanced Table Filtering. These combined features enable you to perform in-depth, on the fly data analysis within your account.

Share Advanced Segments and Custom Report Templates
Share the URL link for an Advanced Segment or Custom Report with anyone who has an Analytics account. Sharing the link will automatically import the pre-formatted template into the person's account. Also available now is the ability to share or hide your Advanced Segments and Custom Reports by profile.

Multiple Custom Variables

Custom variables provide the power and flexibility to customize Google Analytics to collect the unique site usage data most important to your business. Define and track visitors according to visitor attributes (member vs. non-member), session attributes (signed in or signed out), and by page-level attributes (viewed Sports section). Use custom variables to classify any number of interactions and behaviors on your site.
Start learning more about them now.

Sign in to your account to try the new features.

Happy analyzing,
Google Analytics Team

[Inside AdSense] A deeper look at channels: Targetable channels Part III

2009-12-09T16:16:00.000+07:00

During the past 2 weeks, we walked you through the basics of URL and custom channels. In the final episode, Laurence Moore talks about the two ways in which advertisers can target your website: contextual and placement targeting. You'll also learn how to make your channels targetable by advertisers and label them with information such as size, location, and audience so the advertiser can easily find your channels and make an informed decision when choosing to target your site.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-W8liKWj1k0&feature=channel

Thank you for watching the videos in our channels series, we hope you found them useful. If you'd like to watch more videos from the AdSense team, visit our official channel on YouTube.

Posted by Dia Muthana - Inside AdSense Team

--
Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 12/03/2009 01:43:00 PM

--
Unable to view the links or images in the message above? Want to comment on this post? Visit http://adsense.blogspot.com/ .

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Inside AdSense" group.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to Inside-AdSense-unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/Inside-AdSense

Increase Search Traffic with Horizontal Content

2009-12-09T16:13:00.000+07:00

Making Money with Content By Covering More Ground
Those new to blogging or article writing have often been told to focus on one very niche topic. One narrow vertical. That has commonly been considered the way to gain credibility, readers, links, and ultimately traffic, which assuming the blog/site itself isn't your primary source of income, could lead to sales of your products/services. But is keeping it narrow really the best way to go?

For some, it is. Another way to go would be to cover as much ground as you possibly can. Throw a wide net out there and see what you catch. Once you see what you've caught, maybe you can catch more in the same area. The thinking is that the more ground you cover, the more people you are potentially exposing your work to. It's going horizontal, rather than vertical.

Mike McDonald of WebProNews had an interesting discussion about horizontal content sites with Lawrence Coburn, president of RateItAll. As its name suggests, RateItAll covers a variety of topics by offering reviews (along with some social elements) for each vertical. They cover a lot of ground: pets, movies, music, television, beauty, travel, gadgets, video games, sports, Internet, auto, politics, celebrities, books, companies, camera/video, fashion, food, drink, health, and baby.

The Rise of Horizontal Content Sites

Demand Media, as Coburn says, is kind of the poster-boy site for horizontal content. They have an algorithm that helps them determine the content to produce. It has now been revealed that AOL is going down a very similar path.

The more resources you have, the better off you will be, of course. That is why big companies with deep pockets find the horizontal content angle so attractive. They can afford to pay to have a lot of people create content. In paid search, they can afford to bid on keywords across the board.

But just because it's easier for a big company to go horizontal, that doesn't mean a small business or a blogger/writer can't keep the same principle in mind. Small businesses can find success in e-commerce, despite the fact that Amazon and Walmart are only a click away. The same goes for horizontal content sites.

If you're going to go the route of trying to cover as much ground a possible, it doesn't mean that quality should be sacrificed. It's not about quantity over quality. Search engines like quality, and more importantly, so do users (who also like to share quality content via social networks). Search engines like Google want to deliver the highest quality results possible to the user, and they're getting better and better at doing this as time progresses.

You may not be an expert in everything. Who is? There are different ways to construct quality content in areas you are less familiar with. For one, obviously, you can get experts to write content for you in any given niche. You can also perform thorough research before tackling a specific topic. The more you learn along the way, the more knowledgeable you will be anyway, and what is an expert if not someone that has a thorough understanding of a subject?

If you can cover more ground, you can attract a wider audience, which means more traffic, which means more eyeballs, which means more advertising dollars. AOL knows this, and is planning on making it a very significant part of its business. But even if you don't have the resources of a company like AOL, it is still a model that can potentially earn you a living.

About the Author:

Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Twitter: @CCrum237

Comparison of Online Project Management Apps

2009-12-03T01:06:00.000+07:00

Whether you are looking to organize your personal life at home or to collaborate on a team project with your coworkers, here are some of the best web-based project management software that can help you stay organized and on top of your work.

All online project management apps discussed here offer introductory free accounts so you can use them at home or school as well without requiring any budget. And since they are online apps, you can successfully manage your projects, tasks and deadlines from virtually any computer.

1. Basecamp | Keep up with what needs to be done on your project

Basecamp from 37Signals attempts to keep you focused on the tasks at hand with its task-centric interface. The main dashboard shows all the upcoming tasks and milestones of all of your projects organized by date.

While creating to-do lists, you can assign individual items to any of the team members or everyone. There’s a message board associated with every project where you can share project updates or even post questions without having to email anyone – it’s just like an online message board but accessible only to your internal team who’s part of that project.

Basecamp offers wiki-style Writeboards for collaborative writing. Project members can additionally chat with the group through Campfire which is like a web-based instant messaging tool that also save a chat transcript for reference later.

Basecamp offers a free account for 1 project with unlimited users but you cannot add documents and other files to the project. For additional projects and features, upgrades are available starting at $12/month. There’s no learning curve involved.

2. Goplan | Know how long you’ve spent on each task

Goplan is a task-orientated project management tool that provides a discussion board, calendar, document storage (with file versioning), timesheets, tasks and tickets (e.g. for bug tracking and resolution).

One of the very unique features of Goplan is that it lets you easily track the time you spend on different tasks. It works like this. When working on a particular task (or a ticket), you can start the timer inside Goplan (the clock icon) and update your status so that everyone in the team is aware of what you are working on. When you stop the timer, this gets recorded automatically in your time sheet.

When creating new tasks and tickets inside Goplan, you can attach documents and other files to the project. And if you have team members who aren’t part of the project, they can still add tickets to the project by simple emailing a note to a specific email address.

Goplan offers more projects with the free plan than most other project management apps. The free plan provides 3 projects for 2 users, and 100Mb of online storage space for your files. Upgrades are available starting at $10/month for additional projects, users, and storage.

3. Soshiku | Manage your school or college assignments

Soshiku is aimed primarily at high school and college students to help them keep track of all pending assignments and other school work.

The home page shows all of the assignments that are due today, as well as upcoming events and assignments for the full week. You can invite partners (or your classmates) and collaborate on class assignments within Soshiku itself. You can also attach files up to 50 MB in size with assignments.

Although other project management products can be useful for students, Soshiku is designed specifically for students with no extra features and it’s completely free (supported by ads).

4. Harvest | Track Time and Money spent on projects

With Harvest, you can easily track time spent on a task using the web interface or through dedicated desktop widgets available for Mac and PC. Harvest offers integration with Basecamp, so you can use Harvest’s time tracking features along with the other project management features found in Basecamp.

If you are freelancer who’s using Harvest to track the time spent on a project, you can use the same tool to directly produce invoices for your clients for your time and other expenses. Once an invoice is created, the invoice dashboard keeps track of all open, past due, and recently paid invoices.

Harvest offers a free account for one user with up to 2 projects, 4 clients, and unlimited invoicing, and then offers upgrades with unlimited projects and additional users and features starting at $12/month.

4a. Co-op | Know what team members are doing right now

Co-op helps you track updates from everyone in the team inside a Twitter style interface. Team members can post anything in their status updates and it is visible to the entire team. The best part is that co-op includes built-in time tracking from Harvest (discussed above) so everyone know what you have been working on and for how long.

5. DeskAway | Know how your project is going with graphs and reports

If you want to keep track of your projects with graphs and reports, DeskAway could be a good service for you. DeskAway supports tasks, milestones, calendar, time sheets and file sharing. You can email all members of the project using DeskAway itself and the messages are also archived in a central location.

DeskAway offers detailed reports and graphs showing information about completed, overdue, and upcoming deadlines, as well as graphs showing your overall progress on various projects. You can also create an internal blog with DeskAway for team members.

DeskAway offers a free account for up to 3 active projects, 5 users, and 25MB of file storage but without support for issue tracking. You may upgrade starting at $10/month for accounts with more features including additional users, storage space and deskmail (a feature that lets you manage tasks via email).

6. Zoho Projects | Stay connected in a group project with social networking

There are quite a few things that set Zoho Projects apart from competition. For instance, if you already have your project plan created inside Microsoft Project, you can import the file into Zoho Projects and easily make that switch from desktop to web based apps.

Like most other Zoho services, you can log into Zoho Projects using your existing Google Account or Yahoo! credentials. Zoho Project is integrated with Google Docs so you can attach documents with your projects that are already on Google Docs. And like other online project management apps, Zoho Projects too offers an iCal feed of the project calendar so you can track milestones, tasks, etc. in Google Calendar or even Outlook.

With Zoho Projects, you can add tasks and milestones to a project, and communicate with your team through wikis, built-in chat, and forums (or message board). Each forum has a unique email address so you can post replies to forums posts via a simple email message.

The free version of Zoho Projects will let you create a single project with 1 wiki and 100 MB of file storage. The premium version of Zoho Projects offers support for timesheets, invoices and additional projects at $12/month.

CommonJS effort sets JavaScript on path for world domination

2009-12-03T01:02:00.003+07:00

This has been a big year for JavaScript. New, fast engines have tested their legs. Libraries have matured. With the ECMAScript 5 draft proposal, the language is growing. However, the language remains largely in exile, to only be used in Web browsers. This year has marked a resurgence of efforts to make JavaScript useful outside the browser. This was patently obvious at this year's first European JavaScript conference, jsconf.eu.

There have been a variety of JavaScript platforms for programming outside the browser since 1996, starting with Netscape's server-side offerings. A system called Helma (best known in Austria) has been around almost as long. In 2007, AppJet provided a service (now discontinued) for creating and hosting server-side JavaScript applications. Aptana offers an IDE for front-to-back JavaScript Web applications called Jaxer. Through each generation of Web development, JavaScript did not measure up against Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, Java, or other alternatives for general-purpose programming.

Several things have changed. The creation, proliferation, and discovery of JavaScript-driven HTTP requests gave rise to highly interactive websites and applications. This drove the need for faster JavaScript engines, which have since become available to every serious denizen of the Web and most of their unsuspecting extended family. Furthermore, these highly-interactive applications usually require significant programming both on the client and the server, much of which now overlaps. Particularly, the technique of Progressive Enhancement often requires a feature to be implemented both on the server—for initial rendering and the baseline user-experience—and on the client, for an enhanced experience.

JavaScript has a couple more things going for it. JavaScript is the only programming language that has ever shipped on every consumer computer, and it has done so for the last 10 years. In these post-QBasic times, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript have become for every ungainly, bespectacled troglodyte the gateway from social exile to deeper social exile. More noteworthy is that a growing number of graphic designers who would never confess that they knew how to program will readily hack with jQuery. There are a lot of JavaScript programmers. Also, despite its deplorable shortcomings, JavaScript is cool and people like it.

So, what is holding JavaScript back from world domination?

JavaScript has no module system. To compose JavaScript scripts, they must be either managed in HTML, concatenated, injected, or manually fetched and evaluated. There is no native facility for scope isolation or dependency management.

JavaScript has no standard library. It has a browser API, dates, and math, but no file system API, much less an IO stream API or primordial types for binary data.

JavaScript has no standard interfaces for things like Web servers or databases.

JavaScript has no package management system that manages dependencies and automatically installs them, except JSAN (not to be confused with JSON), which falls short for scope isolation.

CommonJS (née ServerJS) is an initiative that began in January with a post by Kevin Dangoor to his blog and the founding of a mailing list. In his blog, Kevin outlined the above problems and called for server-side JavaScript aficionados to band together, write some specs, and support interoperability on their respective platforms.

"[This] is not a technical problem," he wrote. "It's a matter of people getting together and making a decision to step forward and start building up something bigger and cooler together."

The call was answered.

One week later, with 224 members, and 653 messages posted, we knew Kevin had struck a nerve. It probably helped that Kevin was already known for creating the Python Turbo Gears framework, Paver, and is presently working on Mozilla's Bespin. The people behind Helma, Hannes Wallnofer and Chris Zumbrunn, showed up. Kris Zyp, of JSON extension fame, showed up with his JavaScript persistent-object store project, Persevere. Ondrej Zara brought v8cgi to the drawing board. Ihab Awad brought Google's Caja. Wes Garland brought a Mozilla SpiderMonkey-based implementation to the table.

One month later, we had converged on a specification for module systems and interoperable modules. Now, there are over a dozen compliant implementations of CommonJS module loaders, and hundreds of compliant modules.

CommonJS is a growing collection of standards, including

Modules

Binary strings and buffers

Charset encodings

Binary, buffered, and textual input and output (io) streams

System process arguments, environment, and streams

File system interface

Socket streams

Unit test assertions, running, and reporting

Web server gateway interface, JSGI

Local and remote packages and package management

So far, CommonJS has converged on specifications for modules (1.1), a system module (1.0), and a unit testing API (1.0). The intent is to drive for a binary API next; both ECMA TC39 (the technical committee responsible for ECMAScript) and the W3C (the standards body responsible for browser standards) are considering a joint pursuit.

Modules are a big deal. CommonJS modules represent the first time a JavaScript community has converged on a module system that is as good as (if not better than) the best of Python and Ruby's—supporting not only dependency management, but also scope isolation and relative module identifiers. Module systems supporting CommonJS can be written for servers, browsers, desktop applications, and secure sandboxes. Browser deployments can vary from XHR+eval (for easy debugging) to script injection (for production or debugging) either with a build step or dynamic, server-side support. This means that modules targeting CommonJS compliance are truly interoperable. The CommonJS module standard separates the concern of how your module system works from how modules should be written.

And the best part is that it's real. At jsconf.eu, several the CommonJS founder projects showcased CommonJS compliant module systems, a couple projects announced they were using CommonJS, and many others expressed interest in bringing CommonJS to their platforms.

NodeJS, a server-side JavaScript platform built on Google's lightening-fast V8 engine by Ryan Dahl, showcases purely asynchronous IO and event loop concurrency. Dahl spoke passionately about the pitfalls of threading and synchronous IO. "Threaded concurrency is a leaky abstraction," he claimed, and further, "Doing the right thing should be easy; doing the wrong thing should be hard." In most programming contexts, there are pervasive synchronous IO libraries and system routines. It can be hard to know whether an API will block, which makes it impossible to reliably write non-blocking code. Anyone who has tried to write a concurrent socket server knows that the road is littered with the bones of those who came before. Dahl's talk won him a standing ovation. Node is targeting a degree of CommonJS interoperability and presently supports the CommonJS module system.

Narwhal is a cross-platform, multi-engine general purpose JavaScript platform brought to you by Tom Robinson and 280 North, the makers of Cappuccino, Objective-J, 280 Slides, and 280 Atlas. Narwhal presently supports Mozilla's Rhino, V8, Apple's JavaScriptCore, and desktop applications in Mozilla's XULRunner. Narwhal can also host its modules for use in webpages.

Narwhal supports CommonJS modules and has prototype implementations of IO, file-system support, and binary data. Narwhal also comes with a wealth of standard library modules collected and ported from every end of the Web for everything from command line option parsing to secure hashing. Narwhal works out of the box and includes a package manager, "tusk," that gives you instant access to literally dozens of installable packages. In all seriousness, the catalog is growing quickly because making a package is as simple as adding a package.json file to the root of a project on Github and as flexible as putting a Zip archive with a package.json anywhere on the Web.

Tom Robinson also ported Ruby's Rack Web application gateway and middleware framework to Narwhal, dubbing it Jack. Jack tracks the CommonJS JSGI specification. Jack applications can be run locally on Rhino with the Java Simple framework or Jetty, on JavaScriptCore with Tom's own Jill framework (comes with the narwhal-jsc package), and can be deployed on Google's AppEngine.

Francisco Tolmasky from 280 North also presented on 280 Atlas and Cappuccino, a Web application IDE and framework modeled after Apple's developer tools. 280 Atlas and the Cappuccino build tools are built on Narwhal with its JavaScriptCore engine adapters. Particularly, Francisco ported Ruby's Rake to Narwhal, dubbing it Jake. Jake can be installed by running tusk install jake.

Julian Viereck and Ajaxian's very own Dion Almear gave a presentation on Bespin. The experimental Web-based IDE is in the midst of a refactor that will make it much easier to develop plugins, and will include server-side JavaScript components built on SproutCore, a server-side JavaScript framework that supports CommonJS modules.

Wakanda is an "end-to-end" JavaScript platform based on the SquirrelFish JavaScript engine that provides an impressive REST API for server-side JavaScript object persistence and a client-side object browser. Alexandre Morgaut's slides are on Slideshare.net.

Not everyone made it to jsconf.eu, and some that did make it did not present their projects. I got a chance to speak with Hannes Wallnofer about Helma NG, which supports CommonJS modules and the JSGI specification. Kris Zyp from SitePen's Persevere platform, like Wakanda, is an end-to-end JavaScript object persistence store with a JSON and REST API and a client-side object browser built on Dojo. Flusspferd is a collection of JavaScript to C++ bindings built on Mozilla SpiderMonkey, pioneered by Aristid Breitkreuz. Flusspferd supports CommonJS modules and the File-system Base proposal. Through an extension called JuiceJS by Ash Berlin, Flusspferd supports CommonJS's JSGI specification.

And there's more…so much more to come.

Square: Twitter Co-Founder Launches New Mobile Payment System

2009-12-03T00:37:00.002+07:00

Square, a new mobile phone payment system founded by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, just launched its private beta today. Square will give anybody the ability to accept payment cards without having to go through a costly credit card processing service. Instead, Square will give its users the ability to use their mobile phones, laptops or desktop computers to accept payment cards and swipe them with the help of a small dongle that will plug into the computer's or phone's audio jack.

Square is backed by Khosla Ventures and a team of angel investors. Square's team of advisors includes actress Alyssa Milano, Susan Wu, Ryan Gilbert, Ted Wang and Gregg Kid (who was also an angel investor in Twitter).

According to the information on Square's website, users won't have to sign any contracts and there won't be any monthly fees or hidden costs. Square is currently only working with a select group of companies but plans to expand widely in 2010. In its current iteration, Square works on the iPhone and iPod touch. It's not clear how much the dongle will cost, but chances are that it will be cheap, as the company plans to focus on the service and not the hardware.

Disrupting the Credit Card Processing Business

Credit card processors (the people behind the card swiping machines at your local coffee shop, restaurant or corner store) typically take a hefty cut from every transaction and charge monthly fees.

Square want to be a cheaper, more modern alternative to these systems. Square will email receipts to a payer's phone, for example, and allow merchants to track frequent customers and offer them discounts. In addition, Square will also donate one penny for every transaction to a cause of the user's choice.

Thanks to Square, every stand at a local farmers' market and every small coffee cart or hot dog vendor on the street will soon be able to accept credit cards without having to go through one of the major credit card processing services.

Competition

It's worth noting that other services like ePAY and Obopay also offer solutions that allow anybody to accept credit cards, though Square's service looks to be far more elegant than any of the current solutions we have seen.

See the next page for additional screenshots

The SEO's Toolkit Part Two of Three: Tools

2009-12-03T00:26:00.004+07:00

By Dave Davies (c) 2009

Welcome to part two of this three part series on SEO tools and resources. In the last article we discussed the variety of Firefox extensions used for SEO. In this article we'll discuss some of the free and affordable tools you can use to better your organic optimization efforts. By affordable I mean for virtually everybody so I'm going to set the bar at $100/yr or ownership. Admittedly, we use tools that cost more than this but many of those tools will be out of some people's price range.

Here are some of the key tools you need to use to help insure the successful optimization of your website.

Google Keyword Tool

Many of you are likely familiar with Google's keyword tool, but it needs to be noted. This is a great resource for researching keywords. As with all keyword tools, it has its limitations and most would agree that it seems to overestimate search volume but nonetheless it is probably the best of the keyword tools out there, especially at the price.

Keyword Discovery

No individual set of data is perfect and no stage of the SEO process is more important than keyword research and selection. Keyword Discovery is a great tool to compare with the Google keyword data. Where you find commonalities you know that 2
independent sets of data agree. With a free tríal that may itself work for many - it's certainly worth looking into.

Keyword Spy

While the paid version of this tool is more than the $100/yr. max I noted previously - the free version provides some great data. Simply enter a competitor URL and you'll find out some valuable data about the keywords they rank for both organically
and in AdWords. This is great for competitor analysis as well as for finding keywords you might not have thought of.

Xenu Link Sleuth

A fantastic free tool that crawls websites, reporting back all the broken links. Over time, almost all sites get broken links. Running this tool periodically will help you find them so you can fix them.

Google Webmaster Tools

Arguably one of the most important of the SEO tools. Google Webmaster Tools allows webmasters (and SEO's of course) to see their website the way Google does. With this tool you'll get to see what your site is appearing for in the results, what pages on your site are linked to but don't exist, and a wide array of errors and statistics.

With this information you can repair a number of issues. If your site is appearing for phrases that you're not getting traffic from, you can review your titles and descriptions to see if you can improve your clickthrough rate. Xenu won't show you the links from other sites that are pointing to pages that don't exist - Google Webmaster Tools will. You'll also find good backlink information for your site as well as a lot more.

Page Prowler

Page Prowler is a backlink research tool that allows the user to collect large amounts of potential backlink information, sort that data by site strength, and then proceed to pursue those backlinks. The value of this tool is primarily in the time it saves. It has no function that could not be done manually, but it can compile data that would otherwise take a person hours or days to collect quickly and easily.

Full disclosure – Shawn (the developer) asked me to advise on the development of this link building tool and I'm also assisting in it's marketing. I was extremely impressed with Shawn's first version of PR Prowler which includes some great functions and information. I felt the need to note this, but I'll also note that we at Beanstalk use this tool regularly.

I would not include it here if it didn't deserve to be and I'd include it here if I had nothing to do with it other than my using it.

Advanced Web Ranking

Advanced Web Ranking is probably the most affordable of the better rank checking software programs. It has a ton of great features including scheduling and auto-report generation. You can set the searches to take place slowly to reduce the impact on the search engines. I still recommend to run it in the evening to further minimize your impact during high-volume search periods.

Multiple Keyword Rack-Checking Tool

This is probably one of the most popular tools on the Beanstalk site. One of the pet peeves I always had with online rank checking tools was checking rankings one-at-a-time. This tool allows you to check your rankings on Google ten at a time.
Apparently others agree as it's the most used tool of our set.

136 SEO Tools

While we've tried to include a solid set of very affordable tools in this article, you might find value in tools we don't use. The "136 SEO Tools" page is regularly updated and includes some very interesting (though not part of my daily arsenal)
tools. Highly recommended to visit at least once. I have it in my bookmarks and check back every couple months to see what new tools have been added.

Next Week

In part three of this article series we'll be taking a look at a slew of invaluable SEO resources that you need to visit regularly to keep up-to-date on this ever-changing industry. While there are more than can be listed in a single article,
I'll be covering my first points of access when I'm looking for news or others' opinions on SEO and search engine events.

About The Author

Dave Davies is the CEO for Beanstalk Search Engine Optimization, Inc. Beanstalk offers organic SEO services, consulting, link building and SEO copywriting services. While they provide their SEO from Victoria, BC they are proud to serve the world.

Google Caffeine And The New Ranking Factors

2009-12-03T00:18:00.006+07:00

Google Caffeine is the name given to Google's "Next Generation" search engine, which it will use to rank and index all the pages on the wonderful world wide web. According to all indications, this is not just another one of Google's infamous Updates, but a major "Overhaul" of its index and algorithm, the complex formula and calculations Google uses to rank all web pages, including yours.
If that doesn't sound ominous enough, according to Matt Cutts (Google Spokesperson) one database is already showing Google Caffeine, and the full blown version will be released after the holidays. The reasoning behind this, Google doesn't want to upset webmasters and site owners during the lucrative holiday buying season. In the past, other major Google Updates have come around this time of the year, most notably the "Florida Update" which severely affected many web sites and webmasters.

Recently, Google has been more aware and much more generous to webmasters by being more open and forthcoming in regards to how it indexes its pages. This time around, webmasters were even given access to a beta version of Caffeine which Google released last summer ('09) where webmasters could check to see how well their keywords and site would fare in this new search index. This beta site (www2.sandbox.google.com) has now been taken down by Google.

Like any professional search engine marketer who works online, I was constantly checking my sites and keywords in Google's new search engine. I have drawn some conclusions from what I have observed, but please be aware it is often very foolish to draw conclusions and make predictions from your own small sampling of results. You can end up with egg on your face very quickly, especially when you consider Google is probably still making adjustments and refinements on Caffeine as it analyzes the results.

However, there are certain ranking factors that even Google is telling us about, mainly "Site Speed" or how fast your site loads will play a part in how it's ranked. We have also heard a lot about "Broken Links" and if your page or site has them, then it will probably be ranked lower. Of course, linking out to "Bad Neighborhoods" will probably still not be a good practice if you want higher rankings within Google.

It should not come as a shock or a surprise, that "Over-All Page Quality" will play a greater role in how well your page ranks. Keep in mind, Google is like any other company putting out a product, if that product doesn't have a high standard of quality, it reflects badly back on everyone concerned. Google's SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) is the key to all their online revenue, they must do everything in their power to keep that product fast, relevant, current and above all, something of high quality.

Therefore, expect "OnPage Factors" to play a much greater role in Google Caffeine. Quality unique content, page design, good navigation, title, meta tags, description, keyword density, alt tags, page views, bounce rate, traffic numbers, time spent on page, and the number of social bookmarks may play an increased role in achieving high rankings. A perfectly optimized keyworded page, with the keyword in the title, description, meta tags, alt tags, on the page... will probably get you ranked higher in Caffeine, as well as most search engines on the web.

Recently, Google has been more aware and much more generous to webmasters by being more open and forthcoming in regards to how it indexes its pages. This time around, webmasters were even given access to a beta version of Caffeine which Google released last summer ('09) where webmasters could check to see how well their keywords and site would fare in this new search index. This beta site (www2.sandbox.google.com) has now been taken down by Google.

Like any professional search engine marketer who works online, I was constantly checking my sites and keywords in Google's new search engine. I have drawn some conclusions from what I have observed, but please be aware it is often very foolish to draw conclusions and make predictions from your own small sampling of results. You can end up with egg on your face very quickly, especially when you consider Google is probably still making adjustments and refinements on Caffeine as it analyzes the results.

However, there are certain ranking factors that even Google is telling us about, mainly "Site Speed" or how fast your site loads will play a part in how it's ranked. We have also heard a lot about "Broken Links" and if your page or site has them, then it will probably be ranked lower. Of course, linking out to "Bad Neighborhoods" will probably still not be a good practice if you want higher rankings within Google.

It should not come as a shock or a surprise, that "Over-All Page Quality" will play a greater role in how well your page ranks. Keep in mind, Google is like any other company putting out a product, if that product doesn't have a high standard of quality, it reflects badly back on everyone concerned. Google's SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) is the key to all their online revenue, they must do everything in their power to keep that product fast, relevant, current and above all, something of high quality.

Therefore, expect "OnPage Factors" to play a much greater role in Google Caffeine. Quality unique content, page design, good navigation, title, meta tags, description, keyword density, alt tags, page views, bounce rate, traffic numbers, time spent on page, and the number of social bookmarks may play an increased role in achieving high rankings. A perfectly optimized keyworded page, with the keyword in the title, description, meta tags, alt tags, on the page... will probably get you ranked higher in Caffeine, as well as most search engines on the web.

This may be pure speculation on my part, but one of the areas Caffeine will be addressing or incorporating is "Social BookMarking", that is the number of social bookmarks a page receives will determine how high it is ranked. I also believe one of the major reasons these bookmarks will become much more important has to do with the whole nasty issue of link buying.

Now, the integrity of Google's index is not in question, but any savvy marketer or webmaster knows any individual or company with deep pockets and huge resources can buy their way into the top spot. Despite Google's attempt to stop it, link buying and keyword positioning is a thriving industry on the web. Rightly or wrongly, money and unlimited resources will get you or your company to the top in organic search, regardless of which search engine you're targeting.

All moral and ethnical issues aside, the small webmaster and/or online marketer is stuck right in the middle, with Google on one side and these major multinational competitors on the other. Looming on the horizon is Google Caffeine, a new sheriff in town!

What new rules will this sheriff bring?

The major question here is this: has the importance of backlinking been downplayed in this new index in favor of the keyworded domain and onsite content and optimization? Has there been a major shift to listing more quality content rather than relying on the number of backlinks a site is receiving, even from important related themed sites? The major problem and question to Google is this: if links can be bought, how do you keep your organic results democratic and fair, which was the original intention of Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they started Google in 1998.

One possible solution is social bookmarking.

Will we see an ever growing importance of social bookmarks and links in this new index. It is quite easy to buy 1000 links, but getting 1000 or 10,000 "re-tweets" is a little more difficult, similarly getting two or three thousand "diggs" may be a little harder to pull off. Same goes for Del.icio.us bookmarks, Facebook fans... well you get the picture. Will Google's use of these new social sites make Caffeine faster, more relevant, more current and most importantly of all, can it bring some democracy back into their index?

Of course, nothing in Google's new index will be that cut and dry, that black and white. Other ranking factors such as age of site, past history and reputation, traffic numbers, authority branding... will all play a role in whether your site gets listed on that all important first page. However, on page factors may play a greater role - title, meta tags, description, keyword density, alt tags, page views, bounce rate, time spent on page, and the number of social bookmarks may play an increased role in achieving high rankings. Website speed or how fast your site loads may also be a new ranking factor.

Underlying this whole issue is the fact which many experienced webmasters/marketers already know, Google's SERPs is not a one-trick pony anymore. For very lucrative (monetized) keyword phrases, Google's results are broken up into Five categories... Info listings, Video listings, News Listings, Shopping Listings and Corporate Listings. Forget Caffeine, this is probably the fairest move Google has made in the last few years to make its SERPs more democratic.

Another even more puzzling issue for me concerning Google Caffeine is how much emphasis or ranking power will it place on "Keyworded Domains", domain names which have your keyword or keyword phrase in them. Will these domains be ranked higher? Webmasters and marketers for years have been telling us we should always pick domain names which have our major keywords in them. Just common sense really, someone searching for "brown widgets" will more likely than not find that item at a domain called brownwidgets(dot)com or brownwidget(dot)com. The major SEO reasoning, all your backlinks will inherently have your searched keyword in the URL, thus bringing it up in the rankings.

Against this whole backdrop, everyone has to realize the web itself is evolving, new sites like Twitter, FaceBook... have changed the whole cyber landscape. Likewise, the web user is also changing and becoming more web savvy in how they use the web. Will search engines, not only Google, take a back-seat role in how we find stuff on the web? As major sites are branded into the web user's psyche, will these users go directly to these sites, by-passing the search engines altogether?

As the web evolves, keyworded domains will become more valuable and this value will be reflected in the quality of the site. If you're making thousands or even millions from your keyworded domain, you can afford to invest in quality content and design. Cream rises to the top. Gradually, as these domains become more valuable, they will probably be snapped up by marketers and companies who know just how to exploit them. Thousands upon thousands of keyworded domains will probably be bought up by multi-billion dollar corporations who finally realize what the web has to offer. This new evolved web will probably be much more narrower in scope and very topic specific.

In the "next generation" web the re-direct shall be king!

Will the role of the search engines, whether it be Google or Bing/Yahoo, become less and less important, as savvy web searchers go directly to a site by typing in the keyworded domain to find what they're looking for on the web? Cutting out the middleman may just become a world wide passion as big multinational and fully funded corporations snap up all these valuable and lucrative keyworded domains, will we see these domains grow in importance and the search engines take more of a back-up role? Human nature dictates we always take the fastest route to our destination, and the web will be no exception to this rule.

Have all the smart people at Google figured this out already, and designed the new Google Caffeine to reflect the growing importance of the keyworded domain? Of course, we can only speculate when it comes to just what Google is planning and doing with its next generation search engine, but will onsite factors and your domain name play a greater role in their organic SERPs?

Regardless of what the new sheriff actually does, when the dust finally settles on all these latest developments, the keyworded domain will probably be standing tall, watching the sun rise on a brand new day.

About the Author: Titus Hoskins is a full time online affiliate marketer. His livelihood is derived from & depended upon search engine marketing & daily monitoring of targeted keywords, mainly within Google. He runs numerous sites, including: Free Marketing Tools & Internet Marketing Tools.

The AdSense Product Ideas page: Now accepting your submissions and votes

2009-12-03T00:14:00.001+07:00

This past year, we've been working on building features based on your feedback, and we'd like to offer you the opportunity to tell us what's on your AdSense wishlist for 2010. What features or product updates would you like to see? Whether it's an idea for a brand new feature or just a small tweak that would simplify your workflow, we'd like to hear it.

With that in mind, we've created a Product Ideas page just for AdSense, and invite you to sign in with your Google Account and submit your suggestions during the next two weeks. You can also look through all submitted ideas and vote on the ones you like.

While we aren't able to guarantee that all the ideas on this page will be implemented, we can guarantee that we'll take the top ideas (as voted by you), and bring them to the AdSense Product Management team for review. By submitting an idea, you agree that Google may use the idea to develop and enhance Google's products and services.

This Ideas page will be open until December 15th, so be sure to add your ideas and vote soon!

Posted by Arlene Lee - Inside AdSense Team

Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 12/01/2009 11:54:00 AM

Unable to view the links or images in the message above? Want to comment on this post? Visit http://adsense.blogspot.com/ .

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Inside AdSense" group.

To unsubscribe from this group, send email to Inside-AdSense-unsubscribe@googlegroups.com

For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/Inside-AdSense

Gain Links Or Make Friends - Which is Better Online?

2009-12-02T09:13:00.001+07:00

There's much to be said about the respective values of social media and SEO, both as individual entities and a collective. A cornerstone of search engine optimisation is linking, whilst social media is all about being, well, sociable. But which is better today?

That's very much a question that's open to debate, depending on who you asked, you could expect to hear a whole range of answers. Networking has become ingrained in the Internet marketer's psyche, building relationships whilst interacting with your fellow professionals and consumers. But can it really compete with building an impressive linking infrastructure when it comes to marketing your website online?

Let's start with the positives...

Both techniques work in very different ways. You build links by making requests, payments (only to the right people - directories and the sort) and creating content that causes a stir. Networking can of course help this process. When you get noticed by more people, they may be inclined to link to you; there's no guarantee of course, but social media is a way of raising a profile and showing off your expertise to the world - prime link bait conditions.

There are easy ways to get links and hard ways. Even if you create a fantastic blog, a great new piece of shareware or a stunning design, there's no guarantee that people will find you. Quality links are often those that happen organically, the kind of thing that you can't force. Article submission and press releases will guarantee at least one (sometimes more) link back to your site; whilst the every little helps strategy is a good one, that link can take time to gain and time is precious, particularly when the outcome doesn't quite justify the means.

Of course the main reason most people create an article or release, at least in an SEO capacity, is to get it picked up and syndicated across a number of sites. The dream ticket is a major news agency picking up a story on their newswire and sending it global; this of course is extremely rare. To do this, it needs to be relevant, it needs to be interesting and it needs to offer something new. Regurgitating the same stuff over and over again may save time, but that could well prove to be a false economy.

But once again we're thrust back into the realms of Web 2.0. If you want to get people talking about your content, you may first need to start shouting about it. Herein lies the weakness though of social media.

...Now for the negatives

There is still a cloud of mysticism that hangs over the social side of the Internet. Just how effective is it? If you have the time to dedicate to interact with the wider community day in day out, then the benefits can't be argued. Normal people have become celebrities, whilst the celebrities themselves have been out there growing legions of new fans. All very positive. But what is the value of a follower or a friend? Commenting on blogs, reciprocating tweets and conversing offers a fantastic community spirit; allowing users from all around the world to get involved in a continuous conversation.

What all this won't do, necessarily at least, is improve your site and its strength. You might get traffic, in fact you will almost certainly get traffic, but if this comes from the same basic group of people, none of whom have the slightest interest in using your business or buying your products, is it really worth the investment of time? Friends and followers aren't just an ego trip; it shows a level of influence and provides a wider sphere of influence. A strong linking strategy though goes further.

Every link you earn will join a wider group of inbound pointers. Google likes websites that people like pointing to. Therefore Google likes nothing more than a site with links going to all pages, coming from a variety of sources and in a natural fashion. Whilst there are dangerous links out there, toxic ones that will cause more damage than good, these can be avoided and banished if needs be.

Whether it's on a directory, bolted onto an article or has come from a respected source organically, the power of the link is hard to question. Aside from a permanent new gateway for targeted traffic to find you, it adds vital strength to your website's overall profile. PageRank maybe all but defunct, but that doesn't mean that links are treading the same path.

We would never discourage people from using social media; it has fantastic potential and is evolving all the time. But if website promotion and search engine marketing is what you're looking to do, the tried and trusted link may well prove a more constructive use of your time. It maybe a quieter way of going about things, anti-social even, but links get you seen on search engines and search engines get you seen by consumers.

Your online profile may ebb and flow, your popularity wane, but when you build a strong link profile you create stability and open the door to continued development. They are the foundation to any successful site; so whilst it's always nice to have flighty friends, the stability and long-term benefit of a link is still very much the method of choice for most.

Stephen Logan works as a Copywriter for leading Hampshire-based SEO Agency Impact Media. They offer a full range of search marketing solutions including expert Link Building services.

Author: http://www.site-reference.com/

Owning Page 1 of Google for Your Name

2009-12-02T09:08:00.002+07:00

by Dan Kennedy

Have you ever Googled your own name?

How many of the listings on page 1 are about you?

How many are about someone else that just happens to be blessed with the exact same name as you?

If a potential client or customers is researching you, the first place they will go to (in most cases) is Google. Of course, your website should be there, but what are some other easy ways to own the 1st page with more content about you?

It's actually not terribly hard, and it doesn't require a whole lot of work.

Just create profiles on these social media sites, be somewhat active, and you will rocket to the top within weeks or even days if your name isn't too competitive.

Amazon.com - since we all know "poor people have big televisions and rich people have big Libraries" ...all of us should have a large collection of books. And if you are a big reader, and not using Amazon, you need to start right now.

Amazon lets you to make a profile that includes all your relevant info...and lets you review books (and anything else they sell...which is just about everything). Each review you add links back to your profile and once you get enough links you will start to see it pop up in the search results.

Naymz.com - this is probably the only site on the list you haven't heard of, and I don't really use it at all...but it's on the first page of the search engines for my name. All I did on Naymz was set up an account when a friend sent me an invitation, and then sent invites to my contact list. That was it.

I've gone in maybe 5 times in the last 2 years to manage invite requests. Don't expect to make a lot of valuable connections here, this is just super easy to get set up and see fast results.

Facebook.com - if you aren't highly involved with Facebook already you're missing out. Go ahead and establish your account, then, just like with LinkedIn, upload your contact/client/prospect list. However, don't add more than 500 connections in one day. Once you have enough friends you can set up a vanity url. Then, choose a variation of your name (i.e. facebook.com/brian.horn). If you build a decent sized Friends list, you should see it at the top of the search engines.

Twitter.com - not to beat a dead horse, but Twitter is a must for entrepreneurs.

Side note: I just got back from a speaking engagement at a Social Media Summit in Las Vegas very early this morning (this article is actually being typed 30,000 feet in the air somewhere over Utah), and had a chance to meet Tony Hseish, who is the CEO of Zappos.com. Very cool guy who is extremely active on Twitter.

You need to be interacting with your clients and potential clients in this new media or another person will, but if you need an another excuse, its quite easy to get your Twitter page to rank of the search engine also. Like the others I mentioned, just create a vanity url with your name, and start getting as many connections as possible.

LinkedIn.com - LinkedIn is more of a tool for people in the corporate world, and I reeally don't us it at all. But you can still get it to rank on page 1 of Google. Use a vanity url with your name or company name (whatever you are trying to rank for). Fill it out completely and try to get a few recommendations. You can upload your email list and quickly find out which ones are active members.

You can also upload your client email addresses, or even your prospect list (I highly recommend connecting with everyone...especially now that LinkedIn can automatically receive your Twitter updates...you don't even have to login to LinkedIn to keep fresh content.

Another very cool update that came out a few days ago: all your contacts within LinkedIn will link back to your profile. The more links back to it, the better. Get enough and your profile will start to rank.

Summary

So there you have it...5 social media sites that allow you to create profile that can rank on page 1 of Google for your name.

I didn't spend any time trying to make this happen for myself, it was just a pleasant side result of being active in other social media/social networking sites. Although I have been able to replicate it for some of my clients.

Brian Horn, of HornDog Search Marketing, is recognized by many as the "Glazer-Kennedy Secret Weapon" because of his role in helping not only Dan Kennedy and Bill Glazer with search engine optimization and social media, but also many of the top Information Marketers in the world. He recently released product that walks you through the process of ranking a website on page 1 of Google (http://www.beonpage1ofgoogle.com )

Author:http://www.site-reference.com/

Google hijackers from crackers; check your HTACCESS

2009-12-02T09:01:00.003+07:00

When’s the last time you looked inside your website’s HTACCESS file? It really should become a part of your monthly (ack, weekly? daily?) audit routines. There could be gremlins at play you see…

Ok, here’s the gig, one day a mate comes along as asks me, “You mind Googling Twitter?” and I told him to mind his manners as I didn’t go for that kind of thing. Anyway, obliging him, the mighty Google was consulted and from what I could see, the oracle of the ‘Plex was behaving as normal.

Upon pressing for details as to what exactly he is seeing he sends me this;

As you can see the top results are for an Anti-virus website… NOT for Twitter

Being the curious type, I inquired with a few other folks to see what they were seeing. Sure enough, we were all seeing the proper set of results. Fair enough, it sounds like the hull has been compromised and he’s taking on water.

As we backtracked it seems there was a search result that had a peculiar behavior earlier that day. Upon clicking the top result in Google his AV software had done the jig, (although it may have been the Trojan mimicking to gain access). I went over to the website in question – and nothing.

I then searched the website in Google and clicked on the listing – voila! Sure enough you we’re redirected and a pop-up prompted to do a ‘security scan’ cough cough. This behavior ONLY happened when accessing the site via Google.

The HTACCESS Gremlins

What could this be one wondered. Certainly the mighty Goog’ has not fallen pray to wrong doers have they? After all they say they’ve done it before;

Naw, that couldn’t be it.

Initial suspicions leaned towards the site being hacked, but the site administrator was as confused as a link baiter on truth serum, no hacks could be found. To be on the safe side, a few of those in the know, information retrievers, were consulted and one specializing in rarefied AIR (adversarial information retrieval) had the answer. Check the HTACCESS file; which was an enlightening journey.

You see kind reader, they had gone in and were redirecting ONLY the traffic from Google which then prompted and had caused the computer to be infected. Then, on subsequent searches they were intercepting it and sending back their own (modified) Google results. The sneaky little buggars.

Make it a part of your site audits

You can just imagine the reputation problems that could come from this not to mention its potential for sabotage. While this may not seem like the domain of the SEO, having low search engagement and possibly infecting visitors is sure to have negative effects ultimately. No matter how you look at it, from hacking to put nasty (outbound links) on competitor sites to redirecting incoming SERP requests, this is something SEOs need be aware of.

In the modern world of SEO, close ties with the security and system administrators is key. Everyone needs to be aware of the potential for such attacks and be vigilant. A lot of time and money (into search campaigns) could easily be washed away and replaced with a reputation management problem.

What to watch for - This type of attack is often found when you are using a CMS or WordPress type installation that requires the htaccess to be writable (such as SEF URL creation). To guard against it, be sure to chmod your hataccess so the at it’s not writable until you need to publish something new - then make it writable, create pages and then set it back again.

Author: http://seo.site-reference.com/

How Many Editors Does it Take to Stay Accurate?

2009-12-02T03:28:00.002+07:00

We recently reported on the notion that Wikipedia losing editors could lead to a decline in accuracy. Sue Gardner, Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation, which runs Wikipedia, tells WebProNews growth in editing has slowed, but the number of editors is just flat, and not declining.

Do you think Wikipedia is usually accurate or do you frequently encounter issues? Discuss here

The Wikimedia Foundation raised $3 million in just ten days right in the middle of the recession. This is one reason why Gardner was named the Ultimate Game Changer for media by the Huffington Post. That publication says Gardner changed the game by "taking the people's online encyclopedia to the next level." Gardner answered a few questions for us, and the following is the product of that Q&A.

WebProNews: Can you tell us a little about how the Wikimedia Foundation was able to raise $3 million in just ten days, to cover its operating budget for 2009?

Sue Gardner: Sure. The Wikimedia Foundation's been running an annual fundraising campaign since 2005 and every year, donations have increased. Last year, Jimmy [Wales - co-founder of Wikipedia] wrote a really lovely letter asking for people to help us, which we published on December 23. We immediately had a huge spike in donations, with more than 50,000 coming in over the next eight days -- pushing us past our goal for the year, and enabling us to end the campaign early.

It was fantastic, and really exceeded our expectations. Last winter the global economic outlook was really bad - Lehman Brothers had declared bankruptcy, AIG was getting bailed out, and housing prices were collapsing. For us to push past our goal in that really difficult and uncertain economy was thrilling.

WPN: How has this compared to previous years? Do you expect a similar situation in 2010?

SG: Every year, the number of people donating to the Wikimedia Foundation has increased, and the total dollar amount has increased too. In 2005-06, we brought in about 1.5 million dollars. In 2006-07, we brought in about 2.7 million. In 2007-08, we brought in 5.1 million, and last year we brought in 7.4 million. This year, we plan to raise a total of 10.6 million. We think that's realistic.

WPN: A recent Wall Street Journal article pointed out that the number of editors for Wikipedia is dropping drastically. What do you attribute this to?

SG: Well first, and importantly, the data don't actually show that the number of editors is dropping dramatically. What the data show are that the growth of editing on Wikipedia, which had been increasing exponentially, has slowed. Wikipedia's readership continues to grow, the number of articles continues to grow, and the growth in number of active editors started to slow down several years ago. The number of active editors, which we define as people who make five or more edits in a given month, is now pretty flat: it is neither growing nor shrinking. So, upshot: I think quite a bit of the media coverage has been overly alarmist.

Having said that, it is true that the number of active editors is flat, and that concerns me. Nobody knows what number of active editors is necessary for Wikipedia to stay current and well-maintained. We do know that the easy work is now more-or-less complete: there are good, rich articles on most obvious topics like Barack Obama and the human brain and the House of Commons and COBOL. So it may be that a smaller number of editors is all that is required for the work that remains to us now, which is more related to polishing and updating and improving existing articles, rather than generating lots of new ones. We don't know. Nobody knows, because nothing like Wikipedia has ever existed before.

About the Author:

Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Twitter: @CCrum237

Twitter top word of 2009

2009-12-02T03:20:00.002+07:00

Twitter has had quite a year. Not only has it attracted worldwide attention and millions of new users, "Twitter" has been named the top word in the English language for 2009.

According to the Global Language Monitor, which examines language usage across the world, "Twitter" beat out "Obama," "H1N1," "stimulus," and "vampire" to take the crown. Interestingly, "2.0" came in at sixth place.

"In a year dominated by world-shaking political events, a pandemic, the aftereffects of a financial tsunami, and the death of a revered pop icon, the word 'Twitter' stands above all the other words," Paul JJ Payack, president of Global Language Monitor, said Sunday in a statement. "Twitter represents a new form of social interaction, where all communication is reduced to 140 characters. Being limited to strict formats did wonders for the sonnet and haiku. One wonders where this highly impractical word-limit will lead as the future unfolds."

To compile its data, the Global Language Monitor uses its proprietary algorithm, called the Predictive Quantities Indicator. According to the company, the algorithm "tracks words and phrases in the media and on the Internet." It also monitors blogs and social media. Word frequency, contextual usage, and "appearance in global media outlets" contribute to a word's popularity.

Click here to see a full listing of the top words, phrases, and names of the year--and of the decade.

Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.

Browsera: Test Your Site In Different Browsers

2009-12-02T03:14:00.003+07:00

Ensuring that your new website looks and behaves the same way on different browsers is a task that requires considerable amount of time and effort. Browsera is an online tool that can help you out. It can automatically compare the output of each browser and find inconsistencies in your pages, so that you can quickly fix them.

To test your site in different browsers, sign up for account first, then enter URL of your site and pick testing browsers. Browsera will auto-crawl pages within your site and render the pages in selected browsers. Finally, it will log scripting errors and give you screenshot of each page for your reference.

Free and paid accounts are provided. The free account lets you run detailed tests for up to 25 pages in your website.

Features:

Test Your website in different browsers online.

Automatically handles logging and authentication prior to testing.

Works online no need to download and install.

Free and paid accounts are available.

Free account lets you run detailed tests for up to 25 pages in your website.

Similar tools: BrowserShots and IEtester.

Check out Browsera @ www.browsera.com

Shocker: People complain more online than offline

2009-12-02T03:00:00.005+07:00

This won't come as a surprise to, well, anyone who has spent considerable time on the Web, but a new study found that people act much differently online than offline.

According to eMarketer, which published the report on Monday, "cyberdisinhibition" has caused many Web users to behave much differently online than they would in a typical offline setting. In fact, the market-research firm, which cites findings from Euro RSCG Worldwide, says 43 percent of U.S.-based Web users feel less inhibited online. It also found that "the effect is most prominent among females and users ages 25 to 54."

Of course, being less inhibited online can lead to both positive and negative behaviors. The research firm found that the Web helps 55.6 percent of men and 51.4 percent of women feel more "able to to meet new people." Users are also using the Web to "be empowered to do something they wanted to." The study found that 33.9 percent of male respondents and 29.2 percent of female respondents do things on the Web that they might not otherwise feel able to do offline.

That said, Web users are also more likely to take a company or brand to task online than they would in person. The study found that 24.4 percent of male respondents have "lashed out" at companies on the Internet. Women did it a little less with about 15.8 percent of respondents saying that they had lashed out.

eMarketer's report also highlighted an interesting change in the way people prefer to communicate. A whopping 48.7 percent of respondents said they find electronic communication far more convenient than communicating with others in a face-to-face setting.

From a social perspective, 57.6 percent of respondents said they disagree with the assertion that "online socializing is for sad, antisocial types." Phew. That's how I communicate these days.

The SEO's Toolkit Part One of Three: Firefox

2009-11-30T14:34:00.000+07:00

By Dave Davies (c) 2009
Every SEO uses different tools and resources. Some tools are paid, some are free and some are internally developed tools that we use for ourselves and our clients - but we all use them. Very often I get asked what tools people should use if they're looking to optimize their own sites and what resources they should use to keep up with the latest going's on. While telling people how to optimize their own sites and what the tools we use isn't generally the best of business practices - I just can't help myself. If your budget doesn't allow for the hiring of a professional SEO company - trying it yourself may be the only option. I also try to remember that once-upon-a-time I was optimizing my own sites and was new to SEO and without the open advice of others already involved in the community - I wouldn't be running a successful SEO company today. To this end, it only seems right to provide a list of some of the main tools we use on virtually every site.

When I initially started writing this article I was going to cram a slew of various tools and resources into one article, but the article was going to end up running WAY too long to hold your attention (or mine) so I've cut it into three EZ parts (as opposed to three EZ payments which you'll be familiar with if you too watch late night TV with a laptop in front of you writing things like SEO articles). But let's get to the meat of this article shall we? The series will be divided into three parts:

• Firefox
• Free & Affordable Tools
• Resources

So let's begin with Firefox. Let me first say, I don't know if Firefox is officially the browser of SEO's, but if not - it should be. You can download it at Mozilla.com. And now the extensions that make this browser invaluable to SEO's ...

SEO Quake

If I had to lose all but one of my SEO tools - this would be the one I'd keep which is why it gets listed first. This little tool allows me to quickly look at the top 10 results in the SERPs and within seconds see all the PageRank, indexed page numbers, backlinks to that page, domain backlinks, the age of the site and much, much more.

This tool doesn't provide any revolutionary information in that it's all data that can be accessed directly. However, it reduces the time taken for tasks that would take minutes to seconds. It then provides easy links to more detailed information. A fantastic tool.

Oh, and it also adds a line through all nofollowed links. Very handy when link building.

SEO for Firefox

Aaron Wall over at SEO Book has added a great tool to the mix that duplicates a lot of functions of SEO Quake but which has enough additional features to be very useful. Basically - neither is a replacement for the other.
Top Positions in the Web's Largest Article Directory

Like most tools - it provides information that can be accessed in other ways, BUT with this Tool Aaron allows users to find tons of relevant site and keyword information quickly and painlessly. From keyword traffic to keyword trends, from backlink counts to social media mentions - this tools gives quick access to tons of information.

Admittedly, I prefer the layout of SEO Quake and some of the easier functionality.

SEO Link Analysis

A HUGE thumbs way up (two of them in fact) to Joost de Valk who made all our lives simpler when this tool launched. What this tool does is display the PageRank and anchor text of every link when you perform a backlink check on one of the major engines. I suppose you could visit every single site and get this information yourself and there's value in that to be sure, but when you need a quick analysis of a site's backlinks - this tool is invaluable.

As a sidenote it works VERY well with SEO Quake.

Web Developer

With this tool we're getting a bit more advanced. For those of you who understand coding or are learning (and you should be), this tool is incredible. It allows for quick testing and viewing of a site's structure including, image info, table and cell information, W3C compliance, CSS details and MUCH, MUCH more.

I can't possibly list off all the functions this tool offers and admittedly I don't use them all but I use enough of them regularly for this tool to make my top 10 list.
[Forget Expensive PPC Advertising - There is an Alternative!]

IE Tab

This is an odd tool to add and it's purely a convenience tool but like adding a second monitor to your system - once you have it and realize that it saves you just a few seconds dozens of times per day you quickly realize that your productivity relies on it.

With a simple click of a button, this tool loads Internet Explorer into your Firefox tab so you don't have to go back-and-forth between browsers when testing. I could survive without it, but since you have Firefox anyways...

Search Status

This is another tool with many uses. On the surface it simply displays PageRank, Alexa and Compete rank and mozRank data but with a right-click of the icon you get access to a whole slew of additional information, including fast links to whois, the robots and sitemap files, keyword density information, Archive.org info, and it will even highlight nofollow links.

A lot of these features overlap other tools noted above, but I will say - I have it installed and so should you.

These are the main extensions I have installed for Firefox (read: the ones I use virtually every day). This isn't to say that's all there are, and I can't stress enough the benefits of visiting addons.mozilla.org and looking for more useful extensions specific to your needs (RSS, Twitter, coding, etc.) I have about a dozen more installed than are listed here, but those above are the main Firefox SEO tools I use daily.

In the next article, we'll be taking a look at free and affordable tools that you can use to help improve your website rankings. Be sure to keep your eyes open as there will be many invaluable tools listed there too.

About The Author
Dave Davies is the CEO for Beanstalk Search Engine Optimization, Inc. Beanstalk offers organic SEO services, consulting, link building and SEO copywriting services. While they provide their SEO from Victoria, BC they are proud to serve the world.

[Inside AdSense] Update your tax forms this holiday weekend

2009-11-29T21:08:00.004+07:00

We hope you had a great Thanksgiving. Here in the U.S., we on the AdSense Team are spending the Friday after Thanksgiving enjoying holiday shopping, American football, and leftovers.

On this vacation day, we'd like you to remind you that tax season is approaching quickly, so you may wish to take a moment to review your address information and even re-submit your tax information to make sure it reflects your most current tax standing.

If you haven't entered tax information before, you can choose a form directly or follow our handy tax wizard within your account. If you're updating your tax information, feel free to click the 'change your tax information' link.

In addition, now would be the perfect time for our publishers in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico to verify their bank accounts for Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) payments. If you're eligible for a payment at the end of December, you have until December 15, 2009 to select your bank account for payment, so we hope you give it a try!

Posted by Elizabeth Ferdon - AdSense Payments Team

Posted By Inside AdSense Team to Inside AdSense at 11/27/2009 08:04:00 AM

Unable to view the links or images in the message above? Want to comment on this post? Visit http://adsense.blogspot.com/ .

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Inside AdSense" group.

To unsubscribe from this group, send email to Inside-AdSense-unsubscribe@googlegroups.com

For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/Inside-AdSense

SEO Articles & Newsletters

Kejujuran Berbuah Bidadari | Artikel Islam, Berita Islam, Tanya Jawab Islam, Dakwah & Konsultasi Keluarga Islam

How Social Search is Changing SEO

Google Points to Guidelines, Improved Communication

Surgery Squad lifts CTR and enhances revenue with a simple optimization procedure

[Inside Adsense] Great speeches, great people, great atmosphere: AdSense in Zurich

[Inside AdSense] Western Union now in Mexico

Reviews Can Help You Rank

Marketing Firm Shows Data of Big Brands Winning

[Adsense] +1’s: the right recommendations right when you want them—in your search results

2010 SEO Predictions That Came True

Google Has To Bring Together Its Many Assets in New, Meaningful Way

[AdSense] The ads you’ve been searching for: Introducing AdSense Custom Search Ads

[dremi.INFO] Interactive Ajax Data Management with Codeigniter

[Google Adsense] New Interface Wednesdays: Bulk edit

Top 10 Tips for Using Twitter

Ten Top Tips for Video Marketing Your Online Business

Social Media and Conan O'Brien

Website Traffic Generation Planning and Methodologies

40+ Absolutely Stylish & Creative Hand-picked Wallpapers

See also

- Aurora Borealis

- Bokeh

- In A Whisper

- Earth 2049 – The End

- Aurora Aquantic Wallpaper

- Growing Aurora Wallpaper Pack1

- Tropical Moon

- Frozen Galaxy

- My wallpaper.

- twitter is not a chat wallpaper

- Windows Seven … 7

- April Wallpaper

- Cat fojofijo

- Antarctic Iceberg

- Loading

- Studio83® Hope Wallpaper

- White letter Mess

- Good Vibrations

- DSGN for Desktopography 3

- Fantasy Art Scenery

- Puss In Boots

- by National Geographic

- blue

- robert

- Destiny

- ace Lighthouse

- 3D Wooden Wall

- Amazing Lego Wallpaper

- Mario World

- Chip

Worth Checking Wallpaper Roundups

- A collection of High quality Wallpapers

- 35 gorgeous black wallpapers

- Desktop Wallpaper Calendar: April 2009

40+ Extremely Beautiful Icon Sets Hand-picked from deviantART

Discussing PHP Frameworks: What, When, Why and Which?

What is a PHP Framework?

Why Should we use a PHP Framework?

When to use a PHP Framework?

What to Look for in a PHP Framework?

Most Common Mistakes When Using a PHP Framework

What are the Best PHP Frameworks Available?

The Zend Framework

CakePHP

Symfony

Codelgniter

Seagull

Summary

Author: Joel Reyes

Ten Simple Rules for Choosing the Perfect CMS + Excellent Options

Ten Simple Guidelines for Choosing the Perfect CMS

1. The CMS you choose should be really good at whatever the main function of your website is.

2. A CMS needs to work intuitively.

3. The backend needs to be standardized.

4. The backend needs to be logical and well-organized.

5. The right CMS shouldn’t have a ton of extra functionality you’ll never use.

6. The right CMS should be easy for non-geeks to use.

7. It needs to include a WYSIWYG editor.

8. The pages it creates should be fast-loading and have simple code.