iPhone Website and Application Simulator
The Apple iPhone has emerged as a successful mobile phone product in recent times. Millions of iPhones have been sold and that means there is a sizable number of web users worldwide who navigate the internet on their iPhone. If you are an iPhone application developer, thinking of becoming one or would just like to see how your web page looks when displayed on an iPhone then the iPhone simulator at TestiPhone.com would come in very useful.
Using Twitter to Enhance and Promote your Website
Twitter is a web 2.0 micro blogging service with a big focus on social networking. Users of the service have the ability to write and receive short messages called “tweets”. You can decide to receive updates from users by following then from their profile page and users wishing to receive your updates can do the same. Updates can be sent and received via the Twitter website or through RSS, email, cellphone messages and a host of third party services.
Twitter was created in 2006 and in recent months have exploded to become a very useful tool for having a presence on the web. Creating a profile for your website and publishing updates related to the content of your site can go a far way to creating relationships with your visitors as well as allowing them an alternative way to acces your website.
TNX.net - Online Text Link Advertising Platform
TNX.net is an online text link advertising platform that’s offers website publishers the opportunity to monetize their websites by placing text links ads on them while at the same time offering a huge marketplace for advertises who wish to place links on TNX.net member sites in order to improve their ranks in search engines and improve traffic to their pages.
Registering for TNX.net is a quick, simple process and registering right now has many bonus benefits as seen here on the digitalpoint forum. Publisher and Advertiser registrations are incorporated into one easy process so once you register for TNX.net you get both advertiser and publisher privileges as seen in the sidebar of all user pages after registering and logging in.
Entrecard - Social Advertising Network for Bloggers
Entrecard is an excellent new blogging service that appeared in the blogosphere in late 2007 and is described as a social advertising network for bloggers. Entrecard allows bloggers to advertise their blogs on any other blog currently registered with entrecard. Blogs are advertised by a single, easy to install widget that allows a 125×125px ad to be displayed. Blog owners have full control of the ads being displayed on their website, the sites they want their ads to appear on and each ad bought using entrecard “points” instead of cash are displayed on 24 hour terms.
Points are gained from dropping your entrecard on other blogs with the widget installed and receiving drops from other service users who visit your blog. The cost of displaying ads on your site and others are dependent on participation on the network – the more cards dropped and received the more points earned and the more expensive it is to advertise on your blog.
Small and Medium Sized Bloggers
Entrecard is primarily aimed at small and medium sized bloggers who are looking for exposure for their blogs and provides the perfect opportunity to snare new readers and repeat visitors from entrecard users stopping by your blog to drop their entrecard.
Not without Problems
Although entrecard is a wonderful traffic generating tool it is not without its problems. Abuse of the system by over exuberant users have resulted in a few overpriced spots are sites who register for the service but remove the widget without notice. It is left up to the creators of entrecard to implement measures to curb abuse of the system.
Caribwebdev.com Entrecard Experiment
Caribwebdev.com has recently started to use entrecard and will be experimenting with the program and reporting on the results in a few weeks.
Every Webmaster should be using Stumbleupon
Stumbleupon is a very popular, award winning, web 2.0 social site that at the time of writing post had over 4 million users world wide. The free service allows web surfers to discover new and interesting websites while recommending sites they have found to be interesting and useful. All users need to do is register and download a free, easy to install toolbar and they can stumbleupon new discoveries while recommending web destinations for their contacts and friends.
The Stumbleupon Toolbar
The stumbleupon toolbar is what makes the service so accessible easy to use. The toolbar is compatible with the two most popular web browsers, Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. While browsing just click the thumbs up icon for a website you like or would like to recommend or click the thumbs down button for a sites you dislike or would not like to recommend. Clicking the general stumbleupon icon would allow you to view a site that fits the interests you entered when registering for the website. An online demo available on the stumbleupon website does well to explain many of the features of the toolbar.
Stumbleupon toolbar with text labels turned off in Mozilla Firefox
Remember to Socialize
To get the best out of stumbleupon you will need to be a participating member of the stumbling community. Fortunately this is not a difficult process as just adding a free existing stumbles to your friends list while and also recommending stumbleupon to you friends does well to build up your stumbling reputation and authority. Actively stumbling or marking websites you like or dislike regularly is quick and easy and pretty soon you friend list will grow automatically.
Why is Stumbleupon Useful?
Apart from being free, easy to use and fun, stumbleupon can be a very important traffic generating tool for web developers. Unlike other social sites like Digg which may be biased to certain topics and offers dismal traffic unless you hit the frontpage, SU is a tool that fits any kind of website covering almost any topic as SU users have already decided what their interests are from their profiles. The web developer’s work should then be spent ensuring that their web pages are “sticky” when stumbled upon so that visitors who discover their pages will return. So if possible be sure to install and use stumbleupon tools and buttons on your webpage, participate the SU community and do your best to trap as much as the traffic send to your website through the Stumbleupon.
Visualscope Studios
Visualscope Studios is a top notch web design and development firm specializes in advanced web development, website design, e-commerce and search engine optimization. The Seattle web design company has many years of experience under its belt and its capable web professionals will help you to maximize the potential of your website by giving and attractive and optimized web presence, which might be the edge you need over your competitors.
Visualscope’s comprehensive list of web design articles coverage topics such as search engine optimization, business and web development just to name a few goes a far way in helping web savvy site owners to get the most of their websites. Although based in Seattle Visualscope’s services are available globally so be sure to visit their webpage to view previous projects and get even more information on how this web development studio can help you.
IZEA’s “RealRank” to be Alternative to Google’s “PageRank”
It’s only been a few weeks since the big pagerank branded stick of Google slapped around thousands of websites who were known to or suspected of selling text links on their webpages without using No Follow. A few days however some of the ranks went back to their regular numbers while others stayed hit and this left many website owners puzzled. Over the past few days however the pagerank issue is once again in the air as it seems that many websites are finding not reduced ranks like a few weeks ago but the loss of their pagerank all together. It’s been pointed out that link selling is again the major culprit with special emphasis on blogs who offer sponsored posts or reviews.
Graphical Representation of PageRank
These bloggers are crying foul as many believe that they are fee to do whatever they want with their own websites as long as these paid posts are disclosed and made clear to be what they are.
In comes RealRank
The parent company, IZEA, of one of the biggest paid post firms, PayPerPost, is busy highlighting the flaws in Google’s PageRank rankings while busy developing their own ranking system called RealRank.
The problem with Google PageRank is that it is both self serving and irrelevant to actual traffic and influence. The arbitrary and unpredictable nature of this ranking system has left both bloggers and advertisers longing for accurate statistical data since long before PayPerPost.
Instead the some what monopolistic nature of Google’s ranking and algorithm RealRank proposes a ranking system more up to date and more useful to websites, primarily blogs. This system ranks websites by traffic and inbound links and is expected to be rolled out in a matter of days.
