Landing your domains at Parked

Anyone owning many domain names knows the importance of intelligently monetizing them. Landing your domains with the right domain monetizer can greatly influence the monthly payout.

Parked.com, based in Tampa, FL helps domain name owners land their valuable monikers on pages which lead to lucrative pay-per-click links. These paid links are continuously optimized to both properly answer the visitors’ requests and deliver significant payouts to the publisher (in this case, the domain name owner).

Facing stiff competition from market leaders like DomainSponsor and DotzUp, Parked.com makes extensive use of contextual images to convince the visitors that they’re on their way to relevant content. It’s still unclear if adding such images really improves the click-through rate, though.

Parked.com‘s proprietary statistics program is updated hourly and provides the publishers with a detailed view of how each domain name is performing, namely based on the following statistics: (1) number of visitors, (2) total clicks, (3) revenue per thousand visits, (4) click through rate, (5) revenue per click and (6) total revenue.

Publishers can view their own statistics online within their account. They can also be conveniently downloaded as reports in either .csv, .xml or RSS formats.

Moneywise, Parked.com claims to be offering the highest commissions possible and publishers will surely appreciate the fact that accrued revenues are paid every two weeks instead of only once a month.

Overall, there’s nothing complicated about Parked.com. The publisher interface is kept clean and simple so newbies and pros alike can get going quickly.

Click here to see an example of an optimized landing page!

Tags: parked domain names, parked.com, domains, landing pages

Gather gets people talking

Going online to (1) connect with friends and strangers, (2) post your very own content and (3) learn from others’ experiences is nothing new, for most of the savvy webologists out there, like you, who can probably safely argue that you’ve “been there, done that”.

Yet, there comes a time when we just need to vent off about the news or something happening in our lives and the global immaturity level of MySpace being a frustrating turn-off for anything remotely intelligent, we’re left wondering where our smarter musings could find a friendly echo. Such a place exists (fortunately) and it’s appropriately called Gather.

Based in Boston, Thomas A. Gerace has founded a different kind of social networking community where anything that matters can be discussed. Sharing a poem, a recipe, an opinion, a manifesto or even geniune news will likely score you valuable feedback from rather well informed members of this huge community.

This makes the effort of actually posting good messages worthwhile and over time, you’ll be building up a nice library of articles (or images) that others can learn from. Needless to say, get many more chances of learning useful stuff using Gather than most MySpace-type communities.

Gather does a good job at keeping its members busy with ongoing writing contests, trips and money rewards to whoever participates, in the community. Nobody gets to make millions but the little extra pocket change may put a smile on your face.

It’s entirely free to join and use. There appears to be no limit on the amount of data you can post to Gather although quality content will be much better for your karma. While there has been a huge influx of new members lately, Gather’s server farm seems to be taking the load quite gracefully, which adds to the overall user experience.

The best way to start making a name for yourself is to post your first story and wait for the other members to answer you. When they do, request to be friends with them. Also remember to join a few groups and before you know it, you’ll be a happy Gather member too!

Are you curious to see how I’ve used Gather, over the past few months? Just head to my Gather page and request a “friend” link ; )

Tags: gather, social networking, friends, sharing

SugarCRM manages your customers

The open source scene dedicated to customer relationship management (CRM) offerings is fortunate to the SugarCRM team of developers pushing the limits of what a (rather large) PHP-based CRM script can accomplish.

If you’re in business and you still find yourself fighting off the daily onslaught of customer requests with Post-its, perhaps it’s time for you to use your computer for more than just E-mails and web browsing.

If you’re familiar with PHP, MySQL and web hosting accounts, you’re welcome to download SugarCRM’s open source edition and yes, it’s free.

If you prefer to stick to the non-tech part of your work, the nice people at SugarCRM also offer comparitively affordable hosted accounts, called Sugar Professional On-Demand, so you benefit from the features without having to get under the proverbial “hood”.

The instant you enter the huge CRM feature set SugarCRM offers, you know this particular script means business. Fine grained contact management, agendas, projects (including their budgets), E-mail integration and document management for you -and- everybody else in your company make working with SugarCRM quite a blast, mainly because you get so features in one cleanly displayed package, portal-style.

A monkey with a little spare time might find his way through the intelligently layed out screens so there’s no doubt in mind any average user will get productive within the first five minutes of clicking around, in SugarCRM.

Over and above the obvious customer relationship management uses, the collaborative environment should please both the workers -and- the bosses. On the other hand, maybe the bosses don’t really need to know “the secret” behind your sudden productivity hike!

Seriously, this PHP script should impress even the hard-to-impress so make sure to take a picture of that gleeful grin in your face the first time you mouse around this professional CRM offering.

Tags: sugarcrm, crm, customers, management

Joomla! 1.5 beta 2 is red hot

We all knew Joomla!, the open source content management system, was driven by a fine engine but for the second beta release of their upcoming (and much anticipated) 1.5 version, the development team chose to aptly dub it “Red Barchetta” in keeping with the spirit of freedom, power, simplicity and flexibility of their free offering.

Needless to say this beta version is for development purposes only -but- even amateur CMS enthusiasts can quickly whip up their very own web destination, using the extensive administrative features.

The beta 2 release is hyped to be a developer’s and designer’s revolution, mainly because the internal code was optimized and the templating got more flexible. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a revolution but perhaps a nice evolution would feel more appropriate.

Among the newly crafted features, let’s mention the additions in the developer documentation (APIs and How to’s), the developer feedback and API fine-tuning, the improved cachin, the better SEF support, the addition of the somewhat popular Mootools JavaScript framework as well as an accessible “BEEZ” template.

Countless Joomla! fans feel the Release Candidate, which is the final stop before the Final version, is coming into view now that the second beta is out. Featurewise, the upcoming release candidate shouldn’t be anywhere near earth-shattering although security, bugs and compatibility issues should get worked out, which happens to be exactly what the Joomla! community is waiting for.

If you feel like putting the Red Barchetta’s “pedal to the pixel”, head to Joomla’s web download page and get in driver’s seat for the latest Joomla! CMS experience.

Tags: joomla, cms, red barchetta, beta

Newsvine’s new looks

Social bookmarking is getting smarter all the time. From easier access to the information you’re looking for to new ways to share your latest findings, getting social is the new game in town.

Newsvine, based in Seattle WA, takes the daily whirlwind of new information streams very seriously. With over 600,000 members already bookmarking their findings with their free service, they felt it was time for an overhaul.

They worked up their front page to make it easier to get a birds eye view of what’s hot online, at any given moment. With smart use of the usual news categories, such as politics, tech and entertainment, it’s a no brainer to sift through the latest releases from the world over. You’ll even find a collection of live tags for each category.

The local headlines and weather are also easier to gather, which is always nice but the search feature is somewhat sluggish. Then again, considering the amount of newly added data they need to process, that might be inevitable. Because of the nature of social bookmarking, cached data content is less valuable than the latest and greatest.

Add the Newsvine Groups, Newsvine Live and News in Pictures features and it’s easy to see that this social bookmarking service is looking to go places.

The external RSS feeds tool is a convenient to add the news you like to your Newsvine front page. Of course, this is a “member only” feature but since membership is entirely free, it shouldn’t be a problem!

Tags: newsvine, social bookmarking, tech, web services, online

Your very own article directory

Lots of content gets created every day and if you’re looking to make money from this continuous content stream, you can either join the authors who write up valuable posts or join the publishers who market them.

Most web developers know about the authoring part and since it’s a lot of fun, there’s no reason to stop -but- perhaps it would be nice to also open up your very own article directory, namely to make money on that side too.

If you’re familiar with PHP / MySQL and have access to a web hosting account, you’re already halfway there. All you need to make the magic happen is the article directory script which will automate the article submission, presentation and promotion.

The Article Directory Pro script does exactly that and although it’s not free, the selling price shouldn’t be an obstacle. It installs quickly (and flawlessly) and even includes hundreds of private label rights articles to get your directory started.

Once your article directory is setup, you’re free to set your advertising the way you like. Market your new web resource intelligently by using a snappy domain name accompanied by visually appealing visuals. Over time, the content should build up and your revenues will probably be sufficient for you to pay the monthly rent.

Now, here’s the secret tip expert web developers won’t tell you: the real power of such a web script lies in using it for a vertical or, if you prefer, a niche.

For instance, you could use this script to publish only university research papers (or excepts, whichever fits), for sports reviews (hockey, baseball… you name it), for traveler experiences and so on.

There are so many interesting verticals to explore that this approach will likely make your article directory rather unique and therefore, a lot more valuable than just any other “horizontal” article directory. Get a head start with this finely coded script and work your way from there.

Working a vertical with this kind of script really helps build up the interest in that specific field. While it may take a little longer to get the ball rolling, once you’re established as a credible source of “vertical” information, your visitors will come in much higher numbers.

Oh, and another thing (pun to Steve Jobs) – make sure to submit your article directory to the leading sites which market them as this will help you bring in your first serious authors to use your article directory.

Have fun with this nicely positioned script!

Tags: article directory, content, authors, publishers, php script