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Literally stumbling upon new online friends
To most people, the activity of making new friends is a largely "offline" one. Up to now, the overwhelming majority of relationship web services try their best to match compatible people together.
It’s a process, which you probably know pretty well, where every effort is made to relegate effective selection and screening power to the user.
It was only a matter of time before web developers, somewhere, would think up a system where the selection of a new friend doesn’t happen based on the usual criterias, like revenue, social status, looks, age, gender and nationality.
The new online service dubbed Fo.rtuito.us works for you, as long as you’re ready to put some effort back into it. Technically, as soon as you’re signed up, the services proposes a new randomly selected friendship which you’re invited to pursue by sending an e-mail — this may prove a little awkward, though.
Once the other person gets your message, they can evaluate if they want to be friends with you, largely based on what you’ve sent them. Assuming the recipient of your message accepts your invitation to be a friend, you can continue the relationship from there.
Because you’ve succeeded in meeting with a new friend, Fo.rtuito.us will reward you with the introduction of a new friend, up to four days after the previous relationship started.
Contrary to other social networking services, you can’t invite other people and they can’t recommend you to anyone else. Fo.rtuito.us is basically generating endless communications channel silos between perfect strangers which, for some people, is exactly what the doctor ordered.
Fo.rtuito.us’ slogan could be something along the line of "Expect the Unexpected"!
If you want to be part of this service’s beta testing, just go ahead and signup. The process takes less than 30 seconds and you can delete your account at any time if you’re unable to meet new friends (or for any other reason).
Posting a picture is part of the choices when signing-up so you can look your best for all those perfect strangers who are blessed enough to e-stumble upon you!
Easier checkouts using SecureNetShop
Selling online is a rather complex process for many people, especially the small entrepreneurs who are just starting out.
For instance, the store can be nice but it also needs a solid shopping cart and an easy to understand checkout process. Solutions such as PayPal can do wonders for emerging business people who love the fact that it’s free and wildly popular. It can work well for a while but over time, it might lack a bit on the customization front.
Keep in mind that lots of e-consumers like to pay using their credit cards and while PayPal can be an ideal interface in some mom-and-pop shops, nothing looks more professional than a commercial grade shopping cart system closely integrated to your e-store’s look and feel.
If you believe your e-business is ready for an upgrade, it’s time to take a look at a company called SecureNetShop. For a cool $229 per year, you get your very own secure shopping cart system, capable of processing all major credit cards. There are, as always, some small transaction fees but other than that, you’ve got yourself a rock solid setup for a very low price.
Nice features are offered as options to the base package, such as real-time UPS, USPS and FedEx shipping rates, order status manager, unlimited tech support by phone or e-mail and even the possibility to sell digital goods. These add-ons can make a huge difference to the quality of your online B2C retailing.
By helping your customers through a comprehensive checkout process, you’re investing in your future profits because chances are your satisfied customers will come back for more!
Increase your blog revenues with Text Link Ads
Although Google AdSense is still an excellent way to monetize your web sites, new alternatives like TextLinkAds might yield stable, monthly revenues, depending on your web destination’s profile.
Becoming a publisher is free and truly painless. Just submit your web site and voil?†! TextLinkAds will quickly get back to you with their answer as to wether you’re approved or not. Chances are, you’ll be approved so let’s take a quick look at the advertising model.
There’s a nifty little ad space value calculator that is useful to see how much you could get from the different ad spaces on your web site. You can enter web sites like Google but you’ll get a notice such as “More Than You Can Afford”, so it’s better to try smaller web sites, like yours or those you like to surf to.
Simply put, the ads showing up in your web pages will provide you with a flat monthly revenue which varies depending on factors like traffic, theme, ad position, and link popularity. Once the advertiser has purchased his monthly exposure, he can get an unlimited number of clicks without ever being turned off. That’s right, it’s very different from the pay-per-click model.
It’s a relatively new program but it looks interesting. You’re free to signup as a publisher and start making some extra money with your hard online work!
Sharpen your SEO edge using business blogs
Business blogging is a new way to interact with the world and thank goodness, it doesn’t involve showing an ?ºber-costly 30 seconds ad during the SuperBowl.
Most business people, with exciting offers for their customers, don’t have national-TV advertising budgets so looking for an affordable alternative to reach out to potential customers makes perfect sense. Case in point, Search Engine Optimization benefits a lot more from a well maintained business blog than a few seconds on the tube.
It’s common knowledge that effective marketing is all about “a good message” repeated several times over but, in this wired world, the message must be adapted to countless situations.
For many, the almighty business blog is opening up an attractive window of opportunity to post usually short, frequent and chronologically ordered updates about your commercial offerings and how they relate to the world. SEO has everything to do with opportunity so allowing yourself to operate a business blog should turn out to your advantage, especially over the long term.
“Don’t just state that you offer products or services.
Everyone can do that.
You need to add value to become unique.”
The oldest method in the book is to crosslink two “old” ideas for the first time. For instance, say that your “safety products” would’ve helped save lives at a local hospital where a safety problems occured lately. Another example would be a web designer blogging about the news while advertising web development services at the top of every page.
Quality content + smart placement = tangible results.
One line of advice: don’t overdo publicity in your blog. Overselling your offers may turn off lots of visitors so bite the bullet and work hard into building engaging blogging destinations so that, over time, visitors who appreciate your unique, relevant and useful content may be tempted to also enjoy your products or services.
In some ways, it may seem like a long loop from the time you advertise to the time a profit is made but look at the big picture and you’ll see where a good business blogs fits for the ongoing financial health of modern corporations, big, small and microscopic.
Google Trends is awesome!
Up to now, it was possible to know which keyword set was use more often but you needed specialized software to chart trends and even then, it didn’t provide much perspective, especially for multi-year charting. There had to be a better way than to compile mountains of historical data on an individual basis.
To make things worse, if you wanted to compare different keyword sets between one another in a comprehensive way, it got to a point where so much disk space was needed that you had to uninstall you favorite video games, which was, of course, unacceptable!
In comes Google with the single most exciting online trend tool to hit the web, ever. The web service is called Google Trends. If you’re into domain marketing, search engine optimization, search engine marketing or web site promotion, you’ll litterally fall in love with the awesome power of this service.
For instance, let’s say you wanted to know how the following keyword trends look like, just enter them separated by keywords, such as “domain names,seo,sem,site promotion,web marketing” and voil?†! You can view the “Searches” and “News” trends.
Look a little further down on the page and you’ll see the trend charting is accompanied by “Cities”, “Regions” and “Languages” profiling. Is your blood pumping faster already?
Google does put out a word of warning:
“Google Trends aims to provide insights into broad search patterns. It is based upon just a portion of our searches, and several approximations are used when computing your results. Please keep this in mind when using it.”
Okay, whatever! 99.999% of the people using the service can live with that. The trends, shown to everyone who requests them, are impossible to find elsewhere (for free).
Some information is better than no information.
In this case, Google Trends provides abundant information for just about any subject you may think of so unless you’re working for Microsoft or Yahoo!, you’ll agree this new Google tools is “permanent bookmark material”.
For all PayPal merchants who need affiliates
Millions of web merchants have already used PayPal to exchange money online both safely and painlessly.
Now, these PayPal merchants want more sales and ebay alone can’t cover the whole web, especially in local communities. Also, online merchants want to tap into their close business relationship networks to grow their sales. Affiliate marketing is very effective but until now, it’s been somewhat of a drag to fully implement it with PayPal, not to mention the monthly clerical work like actually sending the payments to the affiliates.
In comes PayDotCom, an affordable service that does what it says. It helps merchants setup and manage an affiliate network, based on the PayPal transaction engine.
It couldn’t be easier. You sell a product using a PayPal buy button, then you register that exact product in your account at PayDotCom and share the associated affiliate code with all your online friends who will gleefully spread the word about your product, knowing they’ll be commissioned on every sale, directly in their PayPal account.
Wow, now that’s 21st century e-marketing!
It’s free to signup as an affiliate and make lots of money with every new friend who signs up under you, not to mention the generous commissions you’ll make on every offering you help sell, from their lists.
It’s worth giving it a free try, at the very least.
KnowledgeView launches a hosted publishing service
An online news editing and publishing service designed for regional and local newspapers, Internet and newsletter publishers — at just a fraction of the cost of similar services — is being launched tomorrow (Wednesday).
RAPIDPublish.info already has its first customer, the North West Enquirer, a weekly newspaper based in Manchester.
With RAPIDPublish.info, the user can access and file news items and pictures from selected agencies and set up filters to receive up-to-the-minute reports of breaking news and running stories. The items can be opened and edited on-screen, and then forwarded to colleagues or sent directly to page make-up or to a web page online.
The service is available from just GBP32 (46 euros) a month, making it an ideal and affordable system for smaller publishing groups and newsletter producers.
RAPIDPublish.info has been designed by KnowledgeView Ltd, of London, using its hugely successful RAPID Browser software and integrating Adobe‘s latest publishing software, including InCopy and InDesign. KnowledgeView has also signed up with content providers such as PR Newswire, GNN Government News Network and CCN Matthews to provide news to subscribers immediately at no cost. Users can also subscribe to Dow Jones Newswire and Independent News and Media services. Industry RSS news feeds are also available.
Publishers can sign up to the service online at www.rapidpublish.info and begin to use it immediately using any web browser.
Roberto Minio, Technical Director at KnowledgeView, said: “For editorial efficiency, the RAPIDPublish.info platform is based on a modern concept of newsdesks for multi-channel publishing, so that journalists can easily publish to paper, web or other devices.
“KnowledgeView’s and Adobe’s support for XML tagging makes it easy for journalists to publish a developing story on several platforms. This approach, while helping to increase circulation and advertising revenues, also allows the modern publisher to have a firmer handle on the use of his own content on-line, an issue raised recently by the World Association of Newspapers’ complaint on the ‘unauthorised use’ of its content by web harvesters.”
The North West Enquirer, RAPIDPublish.info’s first customer, is a new weekly newspaper launching in May with a target circulation of 20,000. It will cover Cumbria, Lancashire, Cheshire, Merseyside and Greater Manchester.
Bob Waterhouse, the editor, said the choice of service was made after several systems were tested. RAPIDPublish.info was selected because of its powerful news content management, flexible editorial workflow, multi-publishing capabilities and low cost of ownership.
Copyright (C) 2006 PR Newswire Europe
Built2Go offers turnkey websites
If you’re looking to turn your domain name into an exciting destination for your visitors, you need to setup a nicely designed web site that serves a clear purpose.
As you may have learned over the past few years, even if your web site looks nice, visitors won’t come back unless it’s useful. With the abundance of available web sites, yours has to offer something that connects with your visitors’ needs. Buying templated web site packages is the fast way to get there.
The creative people at Big Resources Inc. appear to understand this very well and as such, they have launched an innovative template web site called Built2Go that really helps domain owners monetize their cyber-properties because each template comes with the necessary PHP code (usually known as “the harder part”).
This comes as a breath of fresh air to the webmasters out there who had to manually code everything behind templates that had no PHP code to support them. The PHP code in the Built2Go templates basically bring them to life, instantly.
It’s a different concept and domain owners are sure to like it!
The value of good domain names
Small and not so small companies alike can benefit from a good domain name for many reasons.
Here are the most important three:
- A good domain can be easily passed on by word-of-mouth, which is important if a company does not have a big -ongoing- budget to promote its site and online activities;
- A good domain name is easy to promote on television, in radio commercials and in print advertising. In offline media such as these, it’s important for the name to be memorable. Why? Because the web site isn’t immediately clickable.
- A good domain name may give the site a greater chance at being found in some search engines, which is still the way many internet users find out about new sites. It’s always tricky to predict if and in what order a site will be categorized in the major search engines but having a good domain name that describes what the site does is an excellent start.
Develop great web destinations associated with your “good domain names” and you’re probably heading for a lasting success.
Blogger secrets to keep in mind
There are many ways to start your own weblog but one of the easiest is with a free service called Blogger. Owned by Google, it’s a feature-rich service that makes it simple to start a blog of your own.
If you think blogging is just about typing text, think again. There are many fun things you can do once you’re up and running with your very own blog.
- Photo Blogging:
Post photos to your weblog with this free software called “Hello.” Get it at Hello.com. It makes it easy to upload photos to your blog. - Audio Blogging:
Post to your blog by phone. Once registered, you’ll receive a special number. Call it, leave a message and it’s immediately posted to your website as an MP3 audio file. To sign up, go to AudioBlogger.com. - Email Posting:
Post to your blog by sending an email from any email application. To set it up, you’ll need to log into your blogger account and go to “settings” then “email.” You must specify if you want your posts to publish automatically or be saved as drafts for later publishing. The subject of your email will be the title of your blog post, with the email body making up the rest of it. - Team Blogs:
This allows groups of people to contribute to one blog. One person must create the blog, then invite others to join in. - Templates:
Blogger has over 30 templates to choose from. Make sure you back up your blog before attempting any changes. There are also third party template providers you can choose designs from. See: - Blogger Toolbars:
Google has one built into its toolbar that makes it a snap to post to your site while visiting any webpage you might want to comment on. Firefox also has a toolbar of its own with blogging components. See it at FireFoxToolbar.com or Google’s at Toolbar.Google.com. - Feeds:
Blogger users can syndicate their content via an Atom Feed. Former Blogger Pro suscribers can choose between Atom and RSS formats. You can find this feature in your Blogging account under “settings,” then “site feed.” If you’d rather syndicate in RSS, your only choice is to use an outside service like FeedBurner.com. - Comments:
If you’d like your readers to participate on your Blog, you’ll want to turn on “comments.” Found under “settings,” you can choose from preferences like allowing anyone to post a comment, allowing only regular users to post comments, or allowing only members of the blog to post (if it’s a team blog). - TagBoards:
Different from comments, TagBoards also allow your blog readers to post comments. These act more like a discussion board or chat room for your blog. However, they’re not aimed at individual posts but attached to your entire site. You’ll find free providers of this service at:This is a great way to add a feeling of community.
- PhotoBlogs: If you’d like to share a lot of photos with your readers on a regular basis you may want to add a “photo album.” You’ll find many sites that offer this free service such as:
- Polls:
Do you know what your readers think? Running polls on your site is a great way to get inside your readers minds and get them involved with your blog. A few free poll service providers are: - Advertising:
If you’d like to run ads on your blog and get paid per click, you’ll want to look at Google Adsense. Since Google owns Blogger too, they make it simple to add their advertising to your site. - Camera Phones:
If you have a SprintPCS cellphone with a built-in camera you can send your pictures directly to Blogger. You’ll need to set up an “email address” to post to. For instructions, see Blogger’s Help section on “posting via email”.On your phone it works like this: you snap a picture, select “share,” pick your specific blogging email address, then ok. Your picture is uploaded.
- Keyboard Shortcuts:
Blogger has many different keyboard shortcuts you can use while making a post.- cntrl + B= Bold
- cntrl + I= Italics
- cntrl + shift + A= Link
- cntrl + d= Save as draft
- cntrl + s= Publish Post
- cntrl + shift + P = Preview
- FTP:
You can host your blog on Blogger’s server, or host it on your own via FTP access. You’ll find this option under “settings”, then “publishing”. - Email Posts to a Friend:
If you’d like to allow your visitors to email your interesting posts to their friends you can enable this feature under “settings,” basic tab, then where it says “show email post links?” say yes.
If you’d like to watch some free tutorials on “Learning Blogger,” see these by Molly Holzschlng at MovieLibrary.Lynda.com.
So what are you waiting for? Now that you know all of the really cool things you can do with Blogger, why not experiment. Who knows, maybe there’s been a “born Blogger” hiding inside of you all along. Blog away my friend; the world is waiting.
About the author
Merle of WebSiteTrafficPlan.com offers a F-r-e-e ebook and an e-course that will teach you how to promote and market your website. Grab your copy now at WebSiteTrafficPlan.com.
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