Archive for May, 2007

If your up for a good laugh, some friends of mine have a few songs they wrote and performed over at PureVolume that you should definitely check out.

Disclaimer: Don’t listen to these at work, lol.

Web Hosting is definitely one of my many passions and anytime I see something that really peaks my interest I like to give you guys a heads up on what it is. I was contacted by a friend of mine with a new site called WH-D which is a social Web Hosting Directory similiar to digg, but strictly for web hosting related information.

Although you can read the full press-release here I wanted to take an excerpt out that I found sold me on the idea.

WH-D.com allows site visitors to search for web hosting providers serving a multitude of categories, including managed, budget, Linux, Windows, reseller, and VPS hosting. Within each category, visitors are presented with a list of posts for various hosts, and visitors can then vote for posts that they find reliable or helpful. Ultimately, the positioning of each post in the category changes as new votes are submitted, with popular posts quickly reaching the top of the page.

“It’s about empowering our users” is what CEO and Co-Founder, Sohaib Thiab stated about Web 2.0 and he’s absolutely right. When was the last time you saw a successfully Web 2.0 site that didn’t offer anything for the user to manage? This was easily doable in web 1.0 but just isn’t the case anymore.

This Web2.0 Web Hosting Directory is completely free to join and submit stories, and is powered by the Pligg engine for a very simple and familiar look. As always you should check this site out, especially if you’re interested in anything Web Hosting.

Heya,

Sorry for the space between posts, I’m working on a new project so my time and mind have been elsewhere.

I received an e-mail from Scott over at WriteMaps regarding their SiteMap builder so I wanted to show all you readers how building a Site Map will never be easier with this application. Before I begin I do want to say that this application is not a sitemap generator, it’s simply a better way to build sitemaps the right way, the first time, to save you both time and money.

WriteMaps is easy to use with it’s Ajaxy interface and very easy, step-by-step Building process. You create a sitemap by choosing it’s name, and from their you can begin building your sitemap in a couple of different views to help you take the more efficient route. WriteMaps saves as you create so you don’t have to worry about your browser crashing and loosing all of that hard earned work you just put in, and for those of you with large websites you can zoom in and out of your sitemap for easy views and readability.

Of course since it’s still in beta it lacks in some of the features I would like to see, such as an actual way to produce an XML file for my sitemap and I’m unable to associate URL’s with pages as of yet. I’ve also run into some small problems with the Ajax as sometimes loads are continuous and just never end.

The potential in WriteMaps is definitely great and worth the growing pains which everyone has at one point or another. Keep you eye on this as someday down the road it may just save you.

You’ll see icons on almost every web page you visit, that’s because graphics often add a whole new dynamic to a webpage that really keeps people coming back as your site appears more friendly and up to date with the times. More often than not when I’m designing a page I know exactly what type of icon I want to use to represent a specific option or product, but I can never find exactly what I want.

Well now IconFinder is making the search easier then ever with it’s Icon Search Engine. The webpage itself has a simple design with only a search box and a contact link, but once you enter something to search that’s when the real magic happens. Currently the search has 21711 objects indexed, so that leaves plenty of icons to the imagination.

One thing I would like to see is categories on the main page in which I can browse through instead of me already having to know what to look for, browsing through the icons would give me ideas on how I could use specific icons but I’ll definitely be coming back.

Update: As some of you may or may not know I’m a C# .Net programmer, and I’m working on a project for my employer for testing new Applicants. Well, I needed to add some fresh look to the application and low and behold I went here and found exactly what I was looking for. Also, you are able to tag the images that are produced to help produce better more accurate results.

Well it looks like ReviewMe is taking a page out of the PayPerPost book, and all I can say is that it’s about damn time. Most people are familiar with PayPerPost as being the first company that offers advertising opportunities in which publishers (Blog Owners) can be paid for simply making posts on relevant advertising campaigns. This is great for those blogs that aren’t popular (yet!) and need to get started in the reviewing game. Not only with this help you make money easier, but it looks better to other advertisers that you have Sponsored Reviews on your website already.

There was a very large different between PayPerPost and ReviewMe up until today and that is that on PayPerPost the Blogger’s were the one’s applying for available opportunities and on ReviewMe, the advertisers come to you! As of today ReviewMe now offers it’s Blogger’s more opportunities with it’s brand new marketplace where advertisers can post opportunities that Blogger’s can pick up, exactly like PayPerPost but with a better reputation.

I’ve had the opportunity to use both services, as well as SponsoredReviews which I reviewed when they came out. Although ReviewMe has been the hardest to get going for me, it also has been the biggest opportunity for this blog to make a whole lot of money. I’m not entirely sure whether the service is available to anyone yet, in the e-mail I’ve received it states that my blog has already been pre-approved for this new service, so that may mean there is additional requirements to be able to use the Marketplace feature.

As with most Reviewing sites there are certain requirements that need to be following in order for the review to be accepted, and here they are:

Review Guidelines:

1. You must disclose that the post is a paid post in some way. Here are some ideas: “Sponsored Post:”, “The following is a paid review:” “Advertisement:”.

2. Reviews must be at least 200 words. Use whatever length you feel is appropriate aside from the minimum of 200 words.

3. You must use the “Link Text” and “Product URL” at least once in your review exactly as it is listed above. Example:

4. Submit the actual permanent url where the completed review is located in the field below.

All requirements are pretty standard to the reviewing community.

If you haven’t signed up for ReviewMe as of yet, you definitely should and start making money today!

As reported over at TechCrunch, Google is re-branding Google Personalized as iGoogle and will be relaunching the service as early as tomorrow. The main reason for this re-branding is due to Google Personalized Pages lacking the good looks, Ajax, and other functionality that other services such as PageFlakes and Yahoo! already offer.

Not much has been posted or promoted in regards to this new service except for a few bloggers that were called in by Google to take a look at the new iGoogle so that they may spread the word.