Super Des

How can you get the most from your savings in 2010?

2010-01-04T14:11:00.002-06:00

On Wednesday’s programme Paul Lewis and guests will invite your calls on saving and investing.
It has been a poor year for savers with many having to choose between low interest rates or locking their money away in longer term products.
In November the consumer prices index (CPI) rose to 1.9%, up from 1.5 per cent in October, further eroding the value of savings.
If you want to shape up your savings or consider new investments, why not put your question to the team?
Is your account paying the best rate of interest?
Have you taken advantage of your annual ISA allowance?
What about bonds or gilts?
Perhaps you would like to invest a regular amount each month.
Or maybe you are interested in putting some money into the stock market, how do you decide if you are comfortable with the risk that involves?
Whatever your question Paul Lewis will be joined by:
* Graham Hooper, head of marketing, Bestinvest* Clare Francis, site editor, Moneysupermarket* Justin Urquhart Stewart, managing director, Seven Investment Management

Finance Behavior
Payday Loans
Cameroun
Paul Ash
Hair Salon Winnipeg

Link by Link - How to Build Web Site Traffic

2007-05-10T08:26:00.000-05:00

A fundamentally important ingredient used by the search engines is the analysis of incoming links. While the science is quite sophisticated, the basic idea is this - if a web site is important and popular, it will have more links leading to it. The fewer outside links, the less important it is deemed to be - at least for this particular search variable.

The most basic links are those found on the search engines themselves. They will link to content and information on your site based on the keywords and updated information. Most search engines will allow you to submit your site directly to speed up the process and a few will even rank your site in exchange for a small fee. If you're in a rush to get things moving, consider these options, but otherwise stick to the free listings.

As well, there are a number of services available for generating links. A "link exchange" is a membership type program that puts your link on the web sites of other members and vise versa. This builds the number of external links and helps all the members equally. Some of these services will provide the links automatically (something like the Google system) and some will even regularly update and rotate links to enhance the effect. The better services will also allow you to choose links by category in order to keep your external links relevant. There's more details about linking strategies on my web site at http://themoneytreeguide.com You can also find a number of great resources there to help you optimize your link strategy.

Some link services are free and require you to put links on your site, too. Others offer a "one way link" service where you can pay to have others link to your site without having to put them on your own site. Although this is a highly recommended option, it can be a bit pricey, so start small and work your way up once you start generating income. The advantage is that by paying for one way links you get quality site placement, highly ranked sites and relevant links. The bigger search engines now recognize the link exchanges and will discount their impact on your ranking - one way links don't have this problem.

Brian Metcalfe

The Science of Submitting Sites to Directories

2007-05-01T08:29:00.000-05:00

Once very simple (only Yahoo was worth submitting), the science of submitting sites to directories has become increasingly complex. There are numerous softwares, sites and services that take care of (or promise) submitting your site to the millions of directories existing today.

Unfortunately, the promise of "Be listed in 10,000 directories with one click" is blatantly false. If you want to be listed in PageRank Zero directories, an invitation to being banned, go ahead. And do not forget to give them a real email, for them to spam you forever.

Real, valuable directories do not accept automatic submissions for 2 good reasons:

- they need quality data that no software provides or guarantees.

- they need a human with a credit card, to whom sell something

Thus, they all have Humanity Tests, like the annoying captchas, or an email that must be read and acted upon.

The directories use different methods to admit new sites: Some require payment, some request a link exchange, that can equal better search engine (SE) ranking. Some require an easy-to-spam email address. A few accept your data for free without compensation: those who need quality links to improve themselves.

This is a classification of directories, according to their admission requirements:

-Really Free -Paid -Legitimate, but Request link exchange -Cheaters

Cheating Directories

So far, I list 8 types of Cheaters:

1-Says free and is not: After a long form-filling process, they deceitfully demand ransom for your time.

2-Requests link exchange and does not comply: they demand your publishing first, and they promise a reciprocal link that never comes.

In our experience, 70% of those who request a link do not reciprocate after 2 weeks.

3-Home page with high PageRank, indexing pages with zero PageRank: this is not necessary cheating, unless the PageRank is manipulated to flow somewhere else. Most directories start from zero, get PageRank 3 in the home after the first spidering, and do not pass PageRank to their inner directories until they climb to 5-6 in the home page. However, if links to other pages are regularly incorporated in the home page before and more prominently (H1, H2, Bold) than the client listings, the PageRank flows to the privileged pages.

4-Adds no-follow attribute to your links: this is a dirty trick. Check for the code in the source HTML

5. Adds exclusions to the listings in the robots.txt file

6. Gives no or low priority in the Google sitemap (usually, but not always, sitemap.xml). Please notice that Google Sitemap allows sitemaps with other names, and only the webmaster knows which is the good one. So, it .is easy to give low weight to the non-paying links.

7-Insert Javascript in the code that you need to publish: popups, redirects, Trojans

8-Delay 4-5 years publication for no reason: I am talking about Dmoz.org, of course.

The Ideal directories have:

-Fast navigation: fnding the right category is the most time-consuming part of submission to directories.

-No hindrances (some captchas are 10 characters long, have non-letter characters, and are almost illegible because of strange fonts, or low background contrast. What is wrong with only one character?

-Accept triangulation: Reciprocal links are no longer automatically accepted by Google as a sign of quality. Link triangulation or quadrangulation are better.

-Instant publication: ideally, a script checks your link, tests the reciprocal and publishes it.

-SEO-friendly: the directory shall publish your link in a spiderable location, with no restrictions.

-Thematic: there is no more room in the Web for generic directories. Who needs a better Yahoo or Google Directory? Instead, the web will always welcome a new thematic directory, complete and with specific tools for better quality results.

-Good PageRank

-Large number of indexed incoming links

-Listed sites receive some advantage: traffic or better ranking

Good Submission Tools:

The good submission tools, either desktop or web based, should have:

- good directory listing, attending the criteria defined above

- directory selection feature, allowing the site owner to submit only to those directories that fit his/her preferences and budget.

- semi-automated form-filling

- listing detection spider or checker

- tracking and reporting feature

Instructed Operator

An operator able to submit successfully to directories should be aware of the above items, plus have some knowledge of Web editing and FTP. He needs to be realiable, because you will give him access to your site user/password for the link exchange. In some cases, he will need a disposable email account with the same domain as is promoted.

Even with a good submission tool, expect to spend 2 full-time weeks submitting to 1000 selected directories (one every 4 minutes), with link exchanges. If you have cheap offshore labor that could amount to $300, plus $100 for one decent submitting tool.

Provided all these aspects are taken into account, submitting to directories is still the best way to obtain incoming links to any site. Combined with appropriate SEO, (almost) every time it results in better SE ranking.

by Juan Tello

How To Save Money On Your Taxes

2007-04-15T14:27:00.000-05:00

The very thought of getting the paperwork for taxes sends shivers up my spine, and the pain get all the more acute as the deadline of April 15th approaches. Mixed with the financial burden it entails, the month of April has always been a challenging one for me ( and for everyone else ,I suppose).

And in my confused state of mind I tend to forget that I can considerably reduce this tax burden if I keep some things in mind. On the way, I have learnt a few tricks about saving taxes. The most important is the personal money I spend on my business. Due to many reasons, I often meet certain business expenses by paying through my credit card. In the end when I prepare my tax papers, these cards are often taken as revenue. I don't have to tell you, that we have to pay taxes on what we earn. Therefore I end up paying for something, which I have not really earned.

Step one is to calculate all the money you have put into the business and carefully avoid making it a part of gross revenue. If you are running a small business, it is worth your while looking at a Pension Plan. Now, this has a two-fold benefit. One, your employees love it and two it saves tax. If you spend on a Pension Plan for your employees you are entitled for a tax credit of $500. This is quite a lot, when you consider that, the scheme provides for credit on your tax liability and not a deduction from your gross revenues. In effect, you pay $500 less tax. This is what I call eating your cake and having it too!

Each year the government comes out with some welfare scheme or other such program, for contribution to charitable institutions. If you are a regular contributor to any of these, you can claim some tax relief, this will be deductible from your gross income. Have you purchased a SUV during the past financial year? If it is over 6000 pounds you can avail yourself of a $25000 deduction, while on the balance amount you can claim depreciation. If it is non-SUV truck, you are not restricted to $25000 deduction. I am sure you have worked out the savings by now.

There are a host of other tax savings by way of deductions, exemptions and most importantly credit. Some states do not levy income tax, in which case you should try and save through the sales tax route. Costs on discrimination lawsuits can be taken advantage of by those involved in such cases.

It is sometimes tedious to work out all the deductions tempting us give up and pay up. But let me assure you that there are so many ways to save your money when you file your taxes, with so much money to save that it is worth your time. Especially when you consider that almost the same laws are applicable year after year. The first time may be the only time you spend your time, rest of the years you will know when and where to save.

by Andrew Jamaz

10 Ways To Increase Your Targeted Web Site Traffic

2007-03-22T10:38:00.000-05:00

In order to create a successful web site you must have traffic or visitors to your site. Without traffic your perfect site is useless; it might as well not even exist.

Moreover, because traffic is an essential element of any successful site, many novice webmasters make the mistake of believing all traffic is created equal.

Huge mistake.

For if traffic is King; targeted traffic is God. All traffic is good, but there is a great distinction between ordinary traffic and targeted traffic. Someone clicking on a link to your site who is looking for the exact information or product you have displayed is said to be a targeted visitor. These are the kinds of visitors or traffic you must try to obtain in your marketing and link building.

Why?

Because targeted traffic is often the key to building a successful site on the web. Targeted traffic will greatly increase your sales conversions, bring back repeat visitors and help your site gain a prominent online presence.

So here are 10 targeted traffic building steps you can take:

1. Google Is God!

Only half-kidding but at least where targeted traffic is concerned, Google is still the all important being you should be worshipping online. Don't ignore the other two major demigods Yahoo! and MSN, but Google will deliver most of your traffic. Your website stats will point this out to you daily, so you must optimize your site for Google.

As a general rule make your pages Google friendly by only using one topic per page, include your keywords in the title, meta description and url for that page. It would also be helpful to have your main keywords in the first headline on the page and most experienced webmasters try to place their keywords in the first 90 words and in the last 25 words. Sprinkle your keywords and variations throughout the copy but don't keyword spam, just let the engines know this is what your page is about.

2. Target The Right Keywords

You must target the right keywords in order to get useful traffic to your site. You must first check the number of searches and amount of competition for your chosen keywords. You can use software like Keyword Elite or sites like www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/ which will give you the Overture and WordTracker monthly stats to help you pick the right keywords for your site. Instead of picking highly competitive keywords, take the middle road and milk the 'long tail keywords'!

Most webmasters create a master keyword list for their site then branch off into sub-categories from this master list. For example, if you have a site on laptops your sub-keyword categories could be laptop accessories, laptop batteries and so on. Similar, most webmasters only develop their sites in a simple hierarchy with the homepage as the center with their major keywords as separate pages and then sub-categories branching out from these. Your webpages should not be more than three clicks away from your homepage as this will really displease the search engine gods!

3. Have Relevant Content

Perhaps what will appease the SE gods the most is relevant content. Your content has to be relevant to the topic of your site. Keep everything on topic and within the scope of your site.

Relevant, helpful content will also be the biggest magnet for targeted traffic. Surfers are usually looking for information, give them what they want and your site will reap the rewards. Original high quality relevant content will draw in targeted traffic to your site so make sure your have some good content to satisfy your visitors and the search engines.

4. Let The Search Engines Find You

Instead of submitting your site to the search engines, let them find your site. One of the best ways to do this is by placing your links on high traffic/spidered sites: on online forums matching your site's content, on social networks such as MySpace, YouTube, Squidoo... and on articles directories like Ezinearticles, Goarticles, and Ideamarketers. The search engines will follow these links and index your site before you even know it.

5. Use Traffic Modules

One of the most effective ways to bring in targeted traffic is to create traffic modules: whole areas of your site devoted to one sub-topic. For example, if you have a general site on cars, you could develop a whole section on a car-buying guide. Another section could be on car accessories, link all these pages together into a neat traffic cluster on your site. The search engines will love these closely grouped pages and reward you with lots of targeted traffic.

6. Use Articles

Don't forget article marketing, just because it has become extremely popular doesn't mean it has become any less effective. Writing short helpful informative articles on your site's topic is still one of the best ways to get targeted traffic to your site. Place your links with your targeted keyword anchor text in the resource box.

Article marketing is an invaluable source not only of targeted traffic but also one-way links to your site. These links will help increase your rankings, especially in Google which considers each link as a democratic vote for your site and ranks each page with a PageRank PR 0-10.

Articles are also extremely important for pre-selling to your potential customers. These articles warm or soften up your prospective buyers to your sales pitch before they even reach your site.

7. Build Opt-in Lists

Most marketers and webmasters use opt-in lists to bring targeted visitors back to their sites. Instead of just receiving that visitor once, you can get repeat visits by using a simple follow-up system with an autoresponder. Studies have consistently shown it might take 6 or 7 follow-ups before a potential customer buys.

Building a subscriber list will also be helpful in creating a web community around your site. These community members may become your most targeted of all your visitors. Likewise, you should have a bookmark feature on all your pages, any repeat visitor is a targeted visitor!

8. Have Blogs & RSS Feeds

Make sure you have a blog and RSS feed attached to your site. This will not only bring in targeted traffic but your visitors can also subscribe to your RSS feed. This will bring targeted visitors back to your site. Use a free site like Google's own www.blogger.com or better yet create your own blog using free software such as WordPress.

9. Use Social Media

Build links and contacts in all the important social media networks such as MySpace, YouTube and Flickr. These social networks are a great source of very targeted traffic.

10. Use Multimedia

Perhaps the biggest opportunity to build targeted traffic is using video and audio media on your site. These will help personalize your message or content and build trust with your visitors. Video clips also have a great viral potential which will bring in traffic.

Sites such as YouTube, Google Video can help you get your message or content in front of millions of eyes overnight. Savvy marketers are already exploiting the traffic potential of this new multimedia trend overtaking the web, why should they have all the fun? You too, can take advantage of these free media sites and pull in targeted traffic to your site.

Of course, there are many more ways of getting targeted traffic to your site. But just using one or two of these techniques should increase your targeted traffic in the coming months. Appease the traffic gods by putting these steps into practice and see for yourself.

by Titus Hoskins

How To Be Number One With Google

2007-03-22T10:35:00.000-05:00

If you even remotely interested in the search engine optimization industry and want to start up your own blog, website, or another product that may generate revenue for you, now is the time to take initiative to start up your own article, revenue generating website. Many people do it all across the world and you do not have to be the exception. There is one simple step to become the number one spot on Google's search engine, and that step is by submitting articles.

You may ask yourself at this point how it would be possible for one to simply submit articles and get paid for it. That is a very good question and is asked by many people who do not fully understand Google's model for all of its customers yet. There is a process that you must follow, however, in order for your articles to generate revenue for you all day long. That process may come easily for some, although for most people it takes a little bit of effort.

The first thing that you must realize when dealing with Google's Adsense is that your articles are the main focus of the ads that they put on your website. Whether you know it or not, Google generates ads for your website so that more traffic will be attracted to their ads that they place on your website. In a sense, you can think of Google's Adsense as a sort of advertising for Google itself. Yes, once you start your own website and place Google ads all across it, you will be starting to generate revenue once someone starts clicking the ads that Google wants your website to display. However, this is not to say that you should click your own ads; that technique will only get you banned from Google itself and you'll be out all the money that you could have made with the help of Google.

After you have made a website with articles splashed all over it, the next thing that you must do on a weekly, if not daily basis is to add more articles to your website. As mentioned, the articles are the main focus of how Google decides to place ads on your website. What logically follows is that the more articles you have on your website the better. If you have many articles then Google will deem it necessary to place lots of ads on your website. However, the opposite is also true. If you are not very motivated and do not submit that many articles within a day or week, Google won't give you very many ads.

So the key to getting the number one spot on Google is to submit articles on a daily basis. If you cannot do all this work by yourself, you may consider getting a partner or even hiring the work to be done. Both of those things will cost money in the long run and you need to make sure that the costs do not outshine the revenue generated from Google. But that is a whole other story altogether. The absolute rule that you must follow in order to get the number one spot on Google is to submit articles on a daily basis and make sure that they are what Google wants for its ads!

by Jane Scaplen

Create your master feed with Yahoo! Pipes

2007-02-15T09:55:00.000-06:00

feed aggregators are a dime a dozen these days, but Yahoo! Pipes can filter and process feeds in lots of fun and useful ways, no programming required. Today we'll make a master feed of all your online activity using Pipes.

10 tips for new Mac users, switching from Windows…

2007-02-01T21:29:00.000-06:00

Being the sort of guy who likes to use keyboard shortcuts rather than having to reach for the mouse all the time, I felt a bit hostile once I got my new Macbook Pro. I knew how to do task X or Y on Windows with a few keystrokes, but having moved to Mac OS X (read 10 not X, as I made the mistake!), I found myself feeling annoyed that I didn’t know my way around the OS smoothly. So I searched the Internet to find out about some of the more obscure shortcuts. Below I’ve listed and explained some shortcuts that a new Mac user, especially those coming from a Windows environment, may not be aware of. It’s definitely made my life easier, hopefully you’re a new mac user, these will be of use.

1. Forward Delete
On a Windows computer, the Backspace key deletes from right to left, where as the Delete key is used to delete from left to right (i.e. forward delete). But on a mac, there is no delete key (at least not the MBP). So at first I found myself clicking everywhere on emails to delete! So the solution: Fn+Delete. Simple!

2. Expose with F9
I found it annoying that I had to click Fn+F9 to bring Expose up. If I clicked F9, it would change the keyboard light intensity. So, the hardware F9 and the sofware F9 have to be swapped. This is how: Go to System Preferences > Keyboard and Mouse, click the Keyboard tab and check the box that says “Use the F1-F12 keys to control software features”. Now when you press F9, it will bring Expose and when you press Fn+F9 it will change the keyboard light intensity. This is the same for the other keys like volume and display brightness. For example, the volume increase is situated on F5, which is used as the refresh button in browsers in Windows. By ticking the box mentioned above, you can use F5 to refresh you browser now!

3. Right Click

Windows users love their right click button! It just doesn’t make sense to have a computer without it! Well… Macs don’t! They have what is called a contextual menu, and it is evoked by control clicking. Now there’s two things you can do: First one works in Firefox (I couldn’t get it to work in other programs or in Finder). All you do is click and hold and very soon the contextual menu appeares. You can do that anywhere: links, tabs, bookmarks, etc. Other method, which works everywhere is done as follows. First, go to System Preference > Keyboard and Mouse. Go to the Trackpad tab (assuming MBP) and click the “Tap trackpad using two fingers for secondary click”. Now if you two-finger-click on the trackpad, the right click menu appears! So convenient, specially when combined with two finger scrolling.

4. Tab key
Again, whenever I faced a dialog box with buttons, I used the tab key to navigate between the buttons. On a webpage, this was also true. On a mac, you’ll probably get confused, as the tab key doesn’t do that! Again, head over to System Preferences > Keyboard and Mouse, then go to the Keyboard Shortcuts tab and click the radio button at the end saying “All controls”. Now you can use tab to move around just like windows! Still one thing left… say you have the shutdown dialog box and you use the tab key to navigate to Sleep, if you press Enter, it will shutdown, even though the blue highlight is around the Sleep button. You have to press the Spacebar instead! Confusing at first!

5. Shutdown shortcut
Speaking of the shutdown dialog, you can bring it up using Control+eject. In Windows I used Win Key+U, then U again.

6. Maximise button and what it does
So you press the green maximise button, but it doesn’t maximise? Well, the button only maximises as much is neccessary. So, say you are reading a PDF document. If you zoom in on your document and then press maximise, you will see that the window will become large enough to hold the whole document. And if you zoom out and press the green button again, it will shrink to fit it. Again, different to Windows and needs some getting used to!

7. Alternative to minmise
We saw what the maximise button does, what about the minimise button? Well, it “sucks” (as I like to call it) the document to the dock. What is the point of minimising? To clear your screen, to get rid of clutter. So, you can try these two alternatives depending on the need. Either press F11 to see the desktop, or press Command+H to hide the current window, which is what I tend to do.

8. Moving menu bar icons
In Windows you can’t move the task bar icons (or I don’t know how), but on Mac, you can Command click them and move them around. Neat!

9. No Ctrl+Al+Delete ?
I always clicked that well known combination to see my RAM and network usage and see what applications are running. On the Mac, go to Applications > Utilities > Activity Monitor. Also, you can click Option+Command+Esc to bring up the Force Quit menu, if you need to quit any application that is not responding.

10. Cool shortcut combo
To finish off, I’l give a cool (relatively) shortcut combination. Clicking Control+Option+Command+8 will turn the screen in some sort of high contrast mode, but more like an X-ray screen! Try it, it’s fun!

Hopefully, at least there has been one tip that has been useful to you. Please share other tips and tricks that you know in the comments. It is always interesting to learn new things.

Disable Snap Previews on web sites

2007-01-31T13:59:00.000-06:00

We all have our internet pet peeves - those minor annoyances that web sites throw in our faces. One of mine is the Snap Preview, a feature that pulls up a small, in-browser pop-up preview of a linked site when you hover over it. To me they're like the equally obtrusive (and annoying) advertisements that take up half your browser window and cover up content.

Luckily, it's not all that difficult to get rid of them. You just need to go to the Snap website and download a cookie that deactivates all of those preview windows. Install it, refresh any offending sites, and you'll be clear of those irritating little bubbles. It'll only work until you clear your cookies, so keep that in mind.

by Adam Pash

The new 100 most useful sites

2007-01-30T09:16:00.000-06:00

In 2004, the internet was a different place: there was, for example, no YouTube, and most Britons online didn't have broadband. That's changed dramatically: now, more than 75% of users have broadband, and the arrival of Web 2.0 has brought sites where the interaction is as fast as if it were on your machine. So we've revisited the "cream of the crop" that we brought you two years ago.

Some of the crop is brand new; some has stood the test of time. As before, we have 100 sites in 20 categories. That of course means that your favourite might not be here (even if you suggested it on our blog). Email us with your suggestions for the ones we should have included.

Many of the categories here are new since the last crop. Many of the sites from that time still exist, of course - and are still hugely useful.

One category that's missing is mobiles, where data speeds haven't kept up with broadband. Maybe in 2007?

Contributors: Charles Arthur, Kate Bulkley, Michael Cross, Bobbie Johnson, Vic Keegan, Jack Schofield, Keith Stuart

Applications

Why have an application to run in your browser? Because for tasks shared between people at different locations, it makes sense to access password-protected sets of work. 37signals offers Backpack (note the domain is backpackit) for simple tasks and the bigger Basecamp for grown-up projects. Tadalist is simpler, being just to-dos (but isn't that what it's about?), while Google's Documents & Spreadsheets requires a Google account (they're free) and doesn't try to compete with Microsoft Office. Wikicalc is a free online spreadsheet, and developing smartly.

softwaregarden.com/wkcalpha

Blogs: reading

There are millions of blogs out there; you need to pick the best. Step forward RSS (aka web feeds) and blog search engines to simplify things. Technorati is occasionally flaky, but generally a reliable indicator of what's being blogged about. Icerocket runs it close. And you'll need an online aggregator to keep abreast of the feeds you're most interested in: Newsgator and Google Reader are good choices. Bloglines is an excellent alternative feed reader.

Blogs: writing

To do it rather than read it, you need a good set of tools. The open-source and free software project Wordpress has risen to prominence, elbowing aside many rivals with its blog creation, management and (importantly) spam-beating tools. Wordpress.org is the free software; wordpress.com offers paid-for, managed versions of the free package. Blogger is the best of the rest; Vox is neat, easy and free, and plugs into lots of social applications. Statcounter counts, well, statistics for your site; the free Google Analytics (if you can get an account) is good too.

Email

Google's Gmail has become the web-based email system of choice for those who can get access. Its main drawback is that it's still an invitation-only system in the UK. However, Yahoo's free email service is a decent competitor, and Microsoft has Live Mail. Unlike Microsoft's old Hotmail service, none will delete all your old emails if you fail to log on every 30 days. Among the dozens of free alternatives, Bluebottle is a decent option for its focus on spam filtering. The free version offers 250MB of storage and supports the POP3 and SMTP standards, so you can use a proper email program as well as web access. There's also TempInbox, which provides free, temporary, throwaway email accounts with no registration.

tempinbox.com/english

Gaming

There are far too many videogame news sites on the internet today; you need an aggregator like Gametab to filter through to the best. Pocketgamer specialises in handheld games, while Gamasutra is absolutely unmissable. Gamesfaqs has FAQs and walkthroughs (plus cheats, reviews and previews) for loads of games. And the ESRB lets you search by age rating.

esrb.org/ratings/index.jsp

Maps

Maps matter, but once you're past Google's maps and satellite detail, everyone's thrown back on the Ordnance Survey's data, which means there's little to choose between them. Ordnance Survey has improved its site, and can at least now tell you which map to buy for an area; its placename search is nifty. Meanwhile, the New Popular Edition site shows how the country looked in the 1940s. Delightful.

News: mainstream

The BBC marches on, adding more media forms while also letting users add their comments. The New York Times site is vast (though it has shut off some of its content behind a "paywall"). Both sites' (short) RSS feeds can be read on a mobile at bbcriver.com and nytimesriver.com. Google News extends its reach, though the top headline is still whichever site last updated rather than the one which is most accurate. Nowpublic is a US rival to OhMyNews and claims 52,000 (and counting) "mojos" - amateur journalists with mobile phones whose location can be figured out from GPS or phone triangulation.

News: recommendation

One thing that Web 2.0 is really good at is letting lots of people vote on things. It can be (and is) abused, but generally the system works. That's seen the rise of sites which let people vote stories up, or which news stories (and how) bloggers are talking about (at memoerandum).The biggest is Digg, which overtook Slashdot earlier this year. Reddit was recently bought by Wired magazine. Findory is slightly different, learning what you like the more you use it.

Offbeat

Snopes checks out unbelievable tales, scams and urban legends and debunks (or confirms) them. Slightly less useful is the 100-strong webring of Unusual Museums of the Internet. These include the Virtual Toilet Paper Museum, the Old Calculators Web Museum and Signalfan's museum of traffic control signals. You can find links to lots of other offbeat sites via the Weird Site's Other Weird Links page. The Onion is the web's leading satire magazine, though with an American bias. Otherwise, for five minutes of fun, try browsing B3ta. This UK site sends out a weekly newsletter of cool links and runs a message board where people post amusingly manipulated pictures. But be warned: it's often offensive - that's part of the point - and most definitely rated NSFW (Not Safe For Work).

Politics

The MySociety team remains unbeatable for turning Hansard inside out with Theyworkforyou and Publicwhip, but bloggers have begun to expose the unwritten workings of politicians to greater public scrutiny too. Guido Fawkes' blog has the inside gossip from Westminster, while NO2ID agitates on arguably the most important political and technological issue around, while NHS 23 is a wiki outlining the problems with the political, technological and medical drama of the NHS computer- isation programme.

theyworkforyou.com

publicwhip.org.uk

5thnovember.blogspot.com

no2id.net

editthis.info/nhs_it_info

Public action

Now, it's time to bug someone in power. The idea that the web can make a difference is growing; politicians are on the web and there's an online petition site at No.10. Pledgebank and HearfromyourMP are both part of the excellent MySociety (mysociety.org) family of sites enabling citizens to connect to decision-makers - and, one would hope, vice versa. Netaction includes The Virtual Activist, a manual for anyone looking to build and promote a cause online. Those interested in helping out in their area might try Timebank, which finds organisations to which to donate spare time.

Radio

Radio now travels over wires, at least to our homes. The BBC dominates here, but there are thousands of stations to choose from. AOL's Shoutcast is interesting: find whatever's on right now (you can tune in via iTunes or any internet radio-enabled player.) Radio-locator and Live-radio list broadcasters worldwide, so you can find something new to listen to. Reciva does the same, but if you buy its internet radio you can add your own favourites online and they show on the gadget; or just listen online.

Recommendation: music

Another new category: being able to find stuff that's similar to music you like is increasingly important, both to listeners and to record companies trying to profit from niches. Last.fm requires an application that runs on your machine, and shows what other people with the same music like. Pandora says you need a US postcode; so give it one, then enjoy its expert-chosen stations. Liveplasma can search relationships in films as well as music. Tuneglue is a relatively new venture between last.fm and EMI, using data from Amazon and last.fm. Goombah requires a small download and only works on music in an iTunes library, but has been at it for some time.

last.fm

pandora.com

liveplasma.com

audiomap.tuneglue.net

goombah.com

Reference

Wikipedia now dominates the reference side of the web, partly because its pages are ranked so highly in Google. User-written, it's not always reliable, but is usually a good place to start. It competes with the Encyclopedia Britannica, which isn't free. However, another traditional alternative is the HighBeam Encyclopedia, which searches more than 57,000 articles from the Columbia Encyclopedia. Otherwise Jim Martindale's Reference Desk, started in 1994, provides an astonishing collection of links to reference sources. For words, try Onelook, which indexes more than 7.5m words in 931 dictionaries. It also has a reverse lookup to find words from their meanings. Finally, Teldir (on the infobel site) has links to the world's online phone books.

Science

Alphagalileo gives a view of public-facing science in Europe and is a counterpart to eurekalert, the American Association for the Advancement of Science's press announcements forum. Space.com remains fascinating for all things spacey. Nasa contains a wealth of information. The growing importance of climate change makes the RealClimate blog written by climate change scientists important.

Search

Google continues to tighten its grip on our hunt for information (it now gets half of all searches) but that doesn't necessarily mean it's the best. Search can now encompass your hard drive, blogs (a separate category - see above), images, peer-to-peer and even what used to be out there. Blinkx remains unique with its focus on video, while Ask (now without Jeeves) has made great strides recently, though it only gets a tiny portion of searches.

Social software

The browser has grown up: now it's the path to meeting people of similar interests and creating your own personal space online in a shared area. Social networks have become a cliche, but that hasn't stopped MySpace becoming the biggest site online. Bebo is popular, Habbo is more tuned to the kids, while Friendster and LinkedIn will appeal to the older user.

Video

The crowds are all over at YouTube, the poster child of online video (a category too niche to merit mention two years ago; YouTube was founded in February 2005). But it's not the only place to find video. Revver offers a revenue-sharing system (people pay to watch your video, you get some cash). You can also start your own TV station at brightcove and currenttv. And Videojug has demonstrations of how to do lots of possibly useful tasks.

Virtual worlds

The key distinction from social sites like MySpace is that virtual worlds give you an avatar - your representation of yourself in the online world. The advent of broadband allied to faster machines has made them usable. When the BBC held a concert in Second Life, it seemed like an anomaly; then IBM's chief executive got an avatar, and suddenly everyone's there. Habbo Hotel is booming with teens. World of Warcraft has millions of users; Everquest, its own culture. Or you can play the Sims online. Whether an influx of new users will make these worlds more antisocial remains open.

eqplayers.station.sony.com/index.vm

Zeitgeist

It's what everyone's talking about. Some of these sites appear above because they're the places to go to find out whatthe webworld is thinking. Watch them whizz by, but don't forget to breathe. YouTube is the moving picture of the web; Flickr the static one. Google Trends shows what the world's looking for; Digg, what it's found. And Technorati shows what it's writing about. youtube.com flickr.com google.com/trends digg.com technorati.com

source: Guardian Unlimited

Social optimization is the new hot seo technique

2007-01-05T08:37:00.000-06:00

Social optimization is the new hot seo technique, but is it really whithat seo? As usual there is more than one answer to the search engine optimizers question. So I will help clarify each social seo method and tactic.

Blogs and blogging.

Blogs, almost anyone can write blogs. Nearly everyone has a blog. Most use blogs as an extension for their business, an easy way to spread news ideas and updates. Some abuse blogs simply blogging to spam links into the search engines and social networking websites. The absolute worst blog links links and more links. Using automated content and blog writing scripts they pull links from their website and blog them with no other content. With Wordpress blogs this cannot be stopped as each blogs owner has total control of the content. With Google Blogger and Blogspot blogs there is some measure of control. There are many other blogging platforms out available but Blogger and Wordpress make for the mass majority. So I will reference these.

In the event that you are a blatant blackhat seo blogger or search engine blog spammer you will know this already. For the rest of you I will try to fill you in on what would be whitehat blackhat and in between.

A 100% white hat blog will be full of useful or informative content. The majority of the content for the blog will be associated with its main topic or niche. Linking to your own website will be minimal and only where appropriate. Linking to other blogs and websites will be natural and usually in reference to a specific subject such as articles products or work done by the blog or website being linked to.

Blackhat blogs will be full of links may or may not contain relevant content, are generally automated and more times than not tend to be useless. There are many methods used for this. Some use RSS feeds to automate the posting of their blog. Others use software or server based scripts to do the posting. The only real intent of this type of blog is to get search engines to find the links or generate revenue from the blog reader. Many of these blackhat spam blogs will contain nothing but keyword links.

Now in the middle you will find everyone else. Bloggers link to things all the time. Many companies have staff write blogs specifically to link back to products and information that are on their website. Internet marketers use blogs to help generate traffic for affiliate websites and niche websites. In the eyes of search engines this is actually spam. Yet since it tends to be informative or useful it is given a blind eye. So if you are not sure what kind of blogger you are or what type of blog you are reading this has hopefully helped you know.

Pings and Pinging

Pings are notices send to search engines and Social networking site to inform them of new content news or information on a blog or website. This can be done manually through blog pinging services such as Pingoat Pingomatic and the like. It can also be automated from sites such as Autopinger or with automated pinging scripts. These scripts are built in with Word press and can be added to Blogger or Blogspot blogs.

Whitehat pings are for real updates and information changes. Generally are only to blogs and RSS feeds.

Blackhat spam pings are sent out for blogs and websites regardless of updates. Many people will ping a blog or website repeatedly in the hope of getting more traffic. There is a process called Blog and ping or blogging and pinging which is very common practice for spammers in the marketing world and blackhat seo techniques.

So if you make an update to your blog and ping it you have done nothing wrong. This is what the ping services are for and would be considered whitehat. On the other side of the coin pinging just to do it or pings for the same post would be considered spam or blackhat seo.

Tags and Tagging

Tags are special links used in social networking sites to label things. The act of tagging is done socially to group similar websites ideas and blogs for social informative searching. Search engines use tags to determine relevance to topics and help return better search engine results. Social networking site do this very heavily.

Tagging a blog or website is a normal social act. It helps to share your opinion or thought on what you tagged. Later other people can look for something by a tag and may find what you tagged as the topic. This is all natural and considered whitehat seo. It provides natural information and data about topics . Websites and blogs may both be tagged as well as videos music or images.

On the blackhat or spammy side of this. The process is to use large amounts of tags and non relevant tags , again for more traffic. The tag and ping method is very popular for this. Spammers will make a blog post then tag it and ping it. This is done hoping to increase search engine ranking for more traffic.

I hope this has been informative and we will go into more detail on our main seo website. A full Social optimization section is being developed to cover all aspects of blogging pinging and tagging. With data on most of the main social websites. Feel free to post your comments and questions.

by MD Feinx

How To Get Into About.com

2007-01-05T08:24:00.000-06:00

About(dot)com is a very comprehensive index that combines site listings with reviews and editorial content. An editor or guide runs each category, and they are the individuals that you have to appeal to in order for your site to be listed. The easiest way to get their attention is a direct email, as opposed to using the "Feedback" link on the pages. Usually it takes ages for about.com to get back to you as they are looking for bigger sites or sites that are very specific to what the articles on their site are about. One way to get their attention is to give them a link that leads them to your offer as an affiliate program. This is because most of the articles on there are accompanied by index after index of affiliate sites.

Your best plan of attack to getting listed in About (dot)com is to: 1. Pick an "about" category that suits your site. 2. Submit an article that you have written on one of your domain pages. 3. Offer a link back. Put a link to their site even before contacting them and said, "I find your site such a great resource that I've listed you in our links page.

The guides at about.com are also looking for what they call deep links. This may not necessarily be your homepage, but rather an article that you have written from an "expert" point of view. These articles are used to search engine optimize about.com's site. Once your article is added it is reciprocated to the about.com site, which is a monster site in the eyes of the search engines. Even getting just one article published on about.com can boost your search engine rankings substantially. This works because as you will recall, exchanging links with a site that is much bigger than you is a crucial strategic tactic when it comes to following the principles of excellent search engine optimization.

by Chris Angus is a SEO and website promoter

Let Your Blog Be Social

2006-11-16T09:46:00.000-06:00

Social Bookmarking is often used for attract traffic to blogs and the easiest way to get your articles on such services is to invite your visitors to submit their favorite stories directly. Then you should have a bookmark area in your blog, frequently at the foot of each article, and there are many ways to get this.

I think that the most effective way to accomplish bookmarking is simply to link to the submission URL. So, to have a "bookmarking bar" I just added a line linking to the proper URLs in the blog template:

Add to: Service

where Service-URL is the URL to the service you want your visitors to submit the article.

Some URLs

The problem is that already exists a lot of bookmarking services and each one may have its own URL form. Here are what I know so far:

YOUR-ARTICLE-URL is the address that appears in your browser when you're reading the article (i.e. the permanet link or permalink). YOUR-TITLE is the article's title. Notice that some services let you specify an optional description.

You may find URLs for many other services too.

Update: As John said in this comment, you can find an excellent resource here. Thanks John.

Putting it in your template

In blogger there are two template codes that refer to permalink and article title. So, if you don't use blogger beta you have to:

Substitute YOUR-ARTICLE-URL by <$BlogItemPermalinkURL$> and
substitute YOUR-TITLE by <$BlogItemTitle$>

For example. If you want a "Submit to del.icio.us" line you should add this to your template:

Submit to: ;title=<$BlogItemTitle$>" >del.cio.us

I added it just after the posts body (i.e. after <$BlogItemBody$>)

Read the blogger help for more information about editing your blog template and html syntax.

Final note

As I said before, there are many other ways to do this task. Take PopMarks, for instance. It's am awesome tool but it requieres javascript enabled, and some people have this feature disabled in their browsers.

by nongeek
http://nongeeksight.blogspot.com/

301 Redirects

2006-10-30T15:17:00.000-06:00

301 redirects play a major role in search engine optimization. They enter into the equation in many different situations, but the 2 most common situations are:

1. All sites should redirect all URLs associated with their domain which do not start with "www" (i.e. "http://yourdomain.com") to the same pages on your their domain that start with "www" (i.e. "http://www.yourdomain.com"). This is referred to as a canonical redirect. The reason this is important is that search engines are not smart enough to tell if the non-www version of your domain is really a different site, or not, than the www version of your domain. And, if other people link to your site, you can't can't control whether or not they link to your site with a www or not.
2.

You decide to move the content on one or more pages of your site to a new URL. Sometimes you may do this simply because you are improving the site architecture, or you may do it because you are moving to a new domain.

In either of these situations, you should use a 301 redirect. Other redirects are dangerous to use. Both the 302 redirect and the meta-refresh technique for performing redirects are potentially harmful to your site's ranking in the search engines. The 301 redirect is seen as a "permanent move" of the content, and the links to the page, to a new location and the search engine acts accordingly. The 302 redirect and meta refresh are seen as "temporary moves" of the content.

Specifically, when a search engine sees a temporary redirect, the search engine continues to assume that the redirecting URL is the owner of the content. This means that all link credit associated with the redirecting page is associated with the redirecting page, and not the new page. In addition, you may get flagged as being a potential spammer, because in the past, spammers used temporary redirects to other people's sites as a way of stealing traffic from them.

When a search engine sees a permanent (301) redirect, it assumes that all credit for links to the redirecting page actually belong to the new page. This helps search engines transition to indexing the new page very quickly, and does not bear the potential stigma of association with past spammer tactics.

So now that you know that you need to do a 301 redirect when you move content, or to move non-www URLs to www URLs, what is the proper technique? It depends on your OS. Here is how it breaks down:

* Unix and Linux users should use .htaccess files. This is a simple server level technique for handling redirects. You can use "mod rewrite" rules as a powerful method for redirecting many URLs from one location to another. Click here to learn more about mod rewrite. For example, you can redirect all non-www traffic to all www URLs, with the following Mod Rewrite script:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} yourdomain\.com [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.yourdomain\.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*) http://www.yourdomain\.com/$1 [L,R=301]
*
Windows users should use IIS Redirects if at all possible. This is also a server level redirect that is transparent to search engine crawlers. The procedure you should follow is:
o Go to Internet Services Manager and right click on the file or folder you wish to redirect
o Click on the radio button titled "A redirection to a URL"
o Click on the check boxes titled "the exact URL entered above" and "a permanent redirection for this resource"
o Click on "apply"

If you do not have access to your server, or if your host will not take care of this for you, you need to relay on a PHP script (requires that your old page and your new page both be coded in PHP). Here is some sample code for PHP:

Use 301 redirects whenever you are moving content on a permanent basis, in order to preserve your search engine rankings to the best degree possible. For most webmasters, 302 redirects and meta-refreshes should never be used.

One exception to this is if you are unable to setup a 301 redirect (perhaps you can't get access to your .htaccess file because it's on a shared server), you can use a metarefresh set to 0. It appears that search engines are now treating this the same as a 301. But make sure its set to 0. Here is the proper code:

Note that search engines behave differently when processing search engine redirects. All of them will handle the physical redirection of traffic as expected. What becomes more complicated is when you have a page below your home page that has direct external incoming links. If you make drastic changes, such as moving to a new domain, or renaming all the URLs on your site, make sure you redirect all pages from the old URLs to the equivalent new URL. For example, redirect:

http://www.yourolddomain.com/article-317

to

http://www.yournewdomain.com/article-317

Google handles complex redirect situations as this very efficiently and will update its index very smoothly and quickly, and pass on all link credit from the old page to the new page. In our experience, Yahoo can take 6 to 8 months to correctly pass on all link credit for links to the old URL(s) to the new URL(s).

For that reason, you should only move URLs, or domains, when you really need to. Its important to not rely on these techniques unless you have to. But if you do, the 301 redirect is the tool of choice.

by Eric Enge

About the Author
Eric Enge is the President of Stone Temple Consulting.

Why that site with 50 backlinks beats your site with 1000 backlinks.

2006-10-24T13:42:00.000-05:00

All I ever hear is numbers numbers numbers.So and So has this many links, we need this many links, how many links can you get us, buy 100’s of links cheap, get your link on 100 pages, ahhhhhhh. The numbers game died a few years ago. There’s another line of thinking out there that you might not know about….Read.

10 Link Building Tips for Web 2.0

2006-10-12T13:52:00.000-05:00

I expect most of you have heard of Web 2.0. If you haven't, Wikipedia defines it as "a second-generation of Internet-based services that let people collaborate and share information online in previously unavailable ways."

Now, we all know that the Internet is about sharing information, so what's new? And how does Web 2.0 affect your online business?

Web 2.0 is all about the rise of consumer-driven content--social networking sites (My Space and Facebook), Folksomonies (Flickr and Del.icio.us), and Wikis (Wikipedia).

What makes Web 2.0 interesting from an online marketing point of view is that it offers (among other things) more link building opportunities for website owners. And we all know how important links are in the search engine optimization game. If you've forgotten, here's an article on the importance of link building that will refresh your memory.

10 Link Building Techniques for Web 2.0

1. Make your site, and your content worth linking to. This may seem like obvious but you'd be amazed how many times I get link requests from sites that are a total mess. Not just design-wise but poorly thought-out or lacking in relevant, useful content. If you want to attract links from good quality sites make sure your site is of equal quality. Think bricks and mortar: you wouldn't want your upscale retail fashion studio to be associated with a flea market.

2. Write and syndicate industry relevant articles. Oh, the power of a great article. Did you know that article sites like Goarticles, isnare and Ideamarketers.com's pages often rank high in the search engine results? Well, they do. And what's more they can send targeted traffic your way.

Keep on the look-out for news in your industry then write an article on the subject. How-to articles like this on are particularly popular with readers and they're easy to write. You can also submit your articles to social book-marking sites like Digg, Del.icio.us or Technorati. If your article gets elevated to the number one spot on Digg, hundreds of bloggers looking for content will see your site and may link to it.

3. Get the press on your side. Public relations is not only a great way to spread the word about your company news but it can also attract links to your site. Either hire a public relations consultant or write your own press releases and submit them to hundreds of journalists, bloggers and media outlets via PRWeb or PRNewswire. A recent press release we submitted for a client resulted in several links to their site, and an increase in sales.

4. Start your own blog. Yes, you do need one. Whatever it is you sell or whatever service you provide, there are people out there who are interested in what you have to say. Post useful information regularly; make your execution flawless and your grammar and punctuation spot on. You'll be surprised how easy it is to get people to engage in discussions and link back to your site.

5. Create your own directory. Although this is an old method of attracting links, it still works today. Build a directory of sites that relate but don't directly compete with yours. Not only does a directory provide your visitors with useful information, it also builds incoming links.

6. Submit your site to directories. Yahoo, DMOZ and other directories are still worth submitting to. Some directories allow free submissions others require a one-time or yearly fee. Whether they require payment or not, satisfy yourself about the quality of the directory before you submit. Remember: incoming links of low-quality may reflect badly on you.

7. Sponsor or donate to a dot org. When search engines think "authority" websites, chances are they're thinking of charitable organizations. So, a link or two from a few .org domains will help. Consider making a donation to charities or providing products or services free to charities that are relevant to your industry. Many non-profits link to businesses that help them in some way. You'll gain quality links, attract free publicity (you can even write and submit a press release about your charitable tendencies), and best of all, you'll feel good.

8. Network locally. Join your local chamber of commerce and the Better Business Bureau - you'll receive a high-quality link back when they list your company on their sites. Submit to city and government resource sites and develop business relationships with non-competing companies locally - you'll profit online and off.

9. Be Sociable. Many large companies are setting up pages on MySpace, Squidoo and other social networking sites. You can too. Use these sites to create "buzz" and position yourself as an expert in your field, not to aggressively advertise your products or services.

10. Pay-per-click Consider using paid search advertising on Google, Yahoo or MSN to sell your products, build brand awareness, and create a few links from relevant content sites. Of course, the main objective is to sell, but, even if you don't sell much using this channel, people who come to your site through your ads, may like it so much they'll link to you.
by Julia Hyde

Ten Ways To Take Advantage of Web 2.0

2006-10-05T11:26:00.000-05:00

Encourage Social Contributions With Individual Benefit. This is one of the key ingredients for creating good social software and should really common sense when you think about it, yet it is neglected far too often. The social bookmarking service, del.icio.us, however does this perhaps better than anyone else. The idea is that most people will not spend the time to contribute content or enrichment to a web site unless they are getting something out of it. With social bookmarking, it's the fact that your bookmarks are uniquely valuable to you personally, regardless of whether they are socially shared. Never mind the fact that they can provide you even more value through sharing with others via affinity services and other add-ons. The core concept here is to provide personal motivation to the individual to contribute information or get involved in other types of participation that continually improves the entire service for everyone else.
Make Content Editable Whenever Possible. The read/write Web is about making users co-creators of content on a massive scale. Armed with foreknowledge of the effectiveness of the Wisdom of Crowds, you can take advantage of the fact that none of us is as smart as all of us. Wiki sites turn this editable dial all the way to the right for example, and let every page be editable by anyone who is allowed. Far too many sites don't take advantage of the fact that you can give people an ownership stake, and get them immersed in working on improving what you offer, all just by letting them have the ability to change an appropriate level of content. The better wiki software keeps a copy of all versions so that no permanent damage can ever be done and that all information contributed is ultimately shareable. Note that there are still some barriers to fully exploiting this, including preventing mischievious users from causing havoc. But there are ways to limit and control this now emerging as I've written about before.
Encourage Unintended Uses. Too much software assumes beforehand how it will be used. Poor design decisions often severely limit how what you've built can be mashed-up and remixed by others, thus limiting your overall value to the community, commercial or otherwise. Start from the beginning with the assumption that others will find your service or information valuable. Then don't preclude them from using it in their own service because of limiting design decisions, particularly by making things complex. This means identifying and using remix-friendly techniques and technologies. Using REST and XML over HTTP instead of SOAP or WS-*. Using simple XML formats, even microformats, instead of complex schemas and XSD validation. Make your Ajax functionality includable in other sites like Google Maps does. Build simple, atomic, stateless services with straightforward interfaces instead of complex, conversational, or stateful services with byzantine interfaces. Document how your services work and please, please make the pieces and documentation easy to find. And if you must charge for your Web services, be reasonable.
Provide Continuous, Interactive User Experiences. Applications with lots of page loads are so five years ago. People are increasingly busy in their personal and professional lives and they can't spend the 5 or 10 minutes of personal time that page loading can suck up, especially if they use your application daily or weekly. Never mind the frustration that static forms-based software triggers. No autocomplete? Please, we don't have the time. Never mind that native software is also really fast in comparison with simple Web pages. Fortunately, techniques like Ajax, Flash, and Lazslo can do so much better now with the Rich Internet Application (RIA) model. You can deliver an entire application within a single web page and with the latest techniques, it doesn't even break the browser experience with bookmarks or the back button. Of course, you do not have to provide an Ajax user interface to be Web 2.0 compliant, but for many types of applications, it's practically mandatory nowadays.
Make Your Sure Your Site Offers Its Content as Feeds and/or Web services. This might seem obvious to some but you'd be surprised. The Web is increasingly becoming about pure data instead of web pages in HTML. Not sure about this? Think about the Google home page. There is virtually no presentation and the primary service it provides is simple lists of search results, or pure data. Not presentation. You don't go to Google for the looks. Yet Google search is probably the most widespread application in use today (I use it dozens, and often hundreds, of times a day.) Not only that, but just about everything will be an RSS feed in the near future. You may not know what RSS or a feed is yet but chances are you are using them all the time already, though probably through another Web site which is using RSS underneath. Furthermore, users on the Web, particularly the early adopters and influential users, are using browsers less and less, and information aggregators like RSS feed readers more and more. Advice: Make sure your web site offers its content up as feeds or Web services. If you don't offer, you will be an island unto yourself that people have no choice but to route around in favor of those that do.
Let Users Establish and Build On Their Reputations. All great communities are built by groups of people that generally respect each other. As I've written before, this can be as simple as associating a user's actions with their user ID or can be a full blown reputation tracking system like eBay, and there are numerous other approaches. This implies that other users are aware of each other and their actions are visible and transparent. The old adage of don't do anything you wouldn't want the whole world to know about comes into play here. People act more responsible and are far more personally invested in any actions they take if their reputations are on the line. Let your users establish and build on their reputations as they interact with your service. Achieving a good balance between privacy and reputations can often be difficult but the results will be worth it.
Allow Low-Friction Enrichment of Your Information. While the read/write Write has major advantages, the fact is the majority of your users won't have time to responsibly edit or improve your content. So while making content editable is nice, there are other ways of continuously improving it. This is via low-barrier enrichment mechanisms like tagging, ranking, rating, and even comments. Enrichment doesn't alter the original data and it adds useful and informative metadata which is attached to individual chunks of information. Digg is a classic example of this in that news items on Digg can't be edited by anyone, even the submitters, but everyone can "digg" can item, creating a richly annotated content database that identifies the most relevant and interesting submissions.
Give Users the Right To Remix. It doesn't matter if you give people the ability to remix your information and services if your license agreement doesn't let them do it legally. I tried to add Google News to Suprglu and I was stopped because SuprGlu did not have a license to remix from all the underlying content sources. This was a major frustration and essentially prevented me from using their terrific service on a regular basis. And it didn't make me think too highly of Google either. If people are beating a path to your door to remix your service, figure out how to do it. Or they will just go somewhere else. Suggestion: Learn the ins and outs of the Creative Commons license.
Reuse Other Services Aggressively One of the classic problems developers have is the need to reinvent the wheel, never mind that wheels in terms of software are situational things that are hard to reuse in general. Fortunately, the barrier to reuse is rapidly going down with advent of loosely coupled Web services like RSS. But the lightweight programming models of Web 2.0 also lowers the cost of re-implementing functionality so it might be a wash. But recreating information and content is still extremely hard, and so it pays big dividends to reuse the databases of the Google Maps, Craigslists, and EVDBs of the world. In fact, with Web 2.0, most content and functionality will eventually just be wired together instead of created from scratch and that's why capable mash-up skills are going to be an ever hotter employment commodity.
Build Small Pieces, Loosely Joined. Monolothic software is dead. If it was ever alive. This means don't build giant Ajax apps in a single Web page. This means don't build large swiss-army knife services that try to do everything. It means to build functionality one feature at a time, to do one thing well, and move on and create the next new service, or Ajax widget, or web page. Let your content and functionality grow organically. Make it easy to fix thing. Get rid of the ones that don't work, or improve them, all without affecting everything else. Learn how to develop chunks that can be reassembled, rearranged, and extended naturally. You'll find your deliver improvement more quickly and others will reuse your pieces with ease.

Craigslist for power users

2006-10-03T09:41:00.000-05:00

Craigslist is one of the best sites on the web for one very simple reason: it's extremely useful. However, there is more than you can do with Craigslist than that Plain Jane interface would lead you to believe. Keep reading for this week's feature on how to become a Craigslist power user. More...

How To Optimize Your Site For The Search Engine Of Tomorrow

2006-09-30T14:53:00.000-05:00

When it comes to ranking well in the search engines many of us take a "best practices" approach. We focus on the best techniques. We are concerned with what you are suppose to do and how you are suppose to do it. There is, no doubt, great value to knowing what works (after all it works). However, there is a down side to this approach. If we only focus on techniques and never bother to take the time to worry about why those techniques are successful, then we may very well find ourselves "surprised" one-day when all of the sudden what worked yesterday no longer seems to work today. This, indeed, is what many people (unhappily) discovered with Google's Big Daddy update.

The search engines, it turns out, are rather dynamic and they are constantly changing the way in which they determine which sites rank well for any given search term. What this means is that long-term success with the search engines requires us to understand the goals of the major search engines and how that effects their algorithm. It is not sufficient to know what the search engines do today, we also need to get a sense of where the search engines are likely to do tomorrow and to build our optimization campaigns accordingly. If we can learn to think like the search engines, then we can start to build and market the type of sites that they want to rank well. And with billions of dollars of cash and some of the brightest minds that roam this planet, the search engines are getting rather good at ranking highly those sites which they want to rank well. Therefore, the prudent, long-term strategy to ranking well in the search engines is to learn how to both build and market our sites exactly as the search engines want us to.

This leads us to an obvious question, or rather two obvious questions. The first question is what types of websites to the search engines like? The second questions is how do the search engines want us to market our sites? The answer to the first question is that the search engines like relevant websites. That is to say, websites which their customers (i.e., people who search online) find relevant for the search terms that they enter. The answer to the second question is that the search engines like popular websites and as such want us to make our sites popular. Note, though, that by popular we mean real world, natural popularity; not contrived popularity. These are sites people link to because they like the site and find it of value.

What this means is that if you can create a site which both the search engine's customers and other webmasters and web-users find valuable then you have a winning formula for long-term ranking success. And while that may not sound so easy, it's not so hard either. It basically requires you to stay abreast of the type of content that people are looking for as well as the types of websites that people find popular (guess what, they are often times, although not always, the same thing).

Relevant Content In terms of creating relevant content the key is to figure out what sort of information, products or services your customers need (remember, often times your customers started out as the search engine customers). Look around at the types of sites that do well, what kind of content do they provide. Talk to your customers and listen to what they want. The more information you can get about unmet needs the greater the chances you have of providing high-quality, relevant content (the type that search engines like showing and people like linking to). The key is to constantly be on the lookout for ways to create the best site possible for your particular field or industry.

Here are a few ideas to get you started:

Stay up-to-date In any field, there are always new developments, insights, techniques, etc. By staying abreast of these you provide yourself with numerous possibilities for creating meaningful content. You can write about it, apply it, review it, explain it, etc. The new is always interesting. It is also confusing and (perhaps) not yet known. Take advantage of these facts to create interesting, exciting, relevant content.

Play to your strengths Know your area of expertise and take advantage of that to help provide useful, interesting content. If your strength is money, then hire someone to build your content. If you excel at making connections, then perhaps you can encourage other people to build your content. Not everything has to come from you, just something. Figure out what you are best at and act accordingly.

Improve upon existing content Look at what is already successful and see if you can do it better. Look around at all of the different types of content online and see what needs improving upon and then improve upon it.

Real popularity In terms of creating real popularity for your site (and all the links that come with that) the key today is finding those people with the power to influence popularity and then giving them what they want. Blogs, forums, del.icio.us, digg.com, news sites, etc, all of these venues are run by real live people who (if they like your site) have the power to send large numbers of visitors and links to your site. However, they will only do so if you give them what they want. What that means is that in order to create real popularity online you first need to find out what the "powers that be" want and how you can give it to them.

Here are a few examples of what type of content creates popularity online:

Bloggers Bloggers need something to blog about. After all, each and every day they need to supply their readers with new content. So if you can create something that they find of interest then they will gladly write about you and your "creation" (which, of course, will include a link).

News sites News sites need stories and/or articles of interest. Is there something about your site which is newsworthy? If so, then package it as a story and write a press release about it (or contact the press directly if you have any connections). Alternatively, offer to write a column or a special article. At the same time, ask them what subjects they are interested in and see if you can either write or hire someone to write an article about it.

Social Media Sites There are no clear cut rules about what types of content do well at sites like Digg.com and del.icio.us. What does well in one industry may be of little interest to another. It is best to look at the types of content which are popular for your industry on these sites and then to create similar content on your site. With that said, certain types of styles seem to do well (such as lists or how to articles). Figure out which styles work best for your target audience and write your content accordingly.

Content is king So, at the end of the day, high rankings which last revolve around one word, content. But take note, not all content is the same. The search engines may like one type of content, bloggers another, and people on digg.com yet another. The key to long term success online is becoming aware of which content speaks to which audience and then learning how to efficiently give each party what they want. What's nice is that the same content can often times be reworked to appeal to the particular needs of different groups . Either way, content is now king (indeed, it has been for a while). So go out, create lots of it, make sure that it is relevant and of the highest quality, and you and the search engines can live together happily ever after.

by Moshe Morris

5 Quick and Easy Ways To Stop Blog Spam Before It Hits Your Blog

2006-09-29T13:33:00.000-05:00

Unless your Lisa Picarille from Revenue Magazine ( check the trackbacks on this whoper )you know that you would have to be a idiot to automatically approve all comments and trackbacks on your blog right? Well Even that is a pain in the ass so I made a list of ways to stop the spam before it gets that far.

I have come up with the 5 easiest and best ways to fight comment spam. These are ways to stop spam from ever getting to your blog…. btw if you dont know what akismet is then stop right now and set that up first. This is just to help you stop the spam from even getting the that level. The first 2 require editing of the .htaccess. The rest are wordpress plugins.

5) Deny Access to No Referrer Requests

When humans comment on your blog they have read the post and leave a comment. This of course leaves the referal from your blog. One easy way to block spammers is to check for the referal. Simply paste the lines below into your .htaccess file in the root of your webserver.

RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} POST RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} .wp-comments-post\.php* RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !.*shoemoney.com.* [OR] RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^$ RewriteRule (.*) ^http://whereyouwanttosendthem.com/$ [R=301,L]

What you need to edit:

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} .wp-comments-post\.php* - If you are not running a wordpress blog then you will want to change that to the file that gets the post for comments.

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !.*shoemoney.com.* [OR] - obviously you want this to be your domain.

RewriteRule (.*) ^http://whereyouwanttosendthem.com/$ [R=301,L] - this is where you are redirecting them too. This probably does not matter since the automated spambots will not follow redirects.

Done!

4) Kill tor anonymous proxies

Thats cool people want to surf anonymously and all that but being that about 75% of my comments come from tor proxies its much easier just to block them.

simply go here and copy this to your .htaccess to block all the tor servers

3) Stop Comments On Older Posts

Spammers target older posts for 2 reasons.

A) they show up in search engines and thus they know:

search engines value the page pr wise
it could be relavent to the keyword they are trying to spam

B) You wont see it. - since the post is old its unlikely that you would ever notice thus greater chance of sneaking it by you.

You have a few options to fix this-

You can manually disallow comments for posts after x amount of days (ick)

If you have wordpress you can download this plugin
which will automatically close off comments and trackbacks after 21 days.

If you have some h4×0r skills you can setup a cron job (thats a automated task to us ninjas) that will edit your database directly checking for past posts and setting the comments and

2) Blacklist Repeat Offenders:

When some spammers do get in you can blacklist there ips so they wont ever be able to again… this process does suck a bit but its a option.

Again edit your .htaccess file:

order allow,deny
deny from 192.168.1.1
deny from 192.168.1.*
allow from all

Remember * represent wildcards

1) Rename your comment file

The default for wordpress is wp-comments-post.php by simply renaming this file to say… wpc.php then changing your theme to reflect the different location for the comment file you will ward off a TON of spammers. This will kill 100% of the automated spam bots.

Your probably saying to yourself… well so what? How could this effect my revenue! Well the answer is all the hardwork and time you have spent building the reputation of your site can be QUICKLY destroyed by giving these spammers NAKID (no link condom) links. You know what they say… Imagine everyone you link to and who they have linked to and who they have linked to …. eek!

Blogging: A Start-Up Guide

2006-09-27T14:10:00.000-05:00

Blogging is so easy that you probably do not need a start up guide, but for those who have blogaphobia, I am doing this.

1. By reading this you are half way there. This is a blog style post.

2. If you post, you are blogging to an extent.

3. If you take my advice and get a blog, you are a blogger.

4. If you sell anything, or create money trail, you are making money blogging.

Now that I've bored you with a list, you probably want something good. I'll give it to you. If you have never blogged, this little start-up guide is for you. If you have blogged, maybe you just need a refresher course.

Anyway, you probably want to know how to blog. You know what blogging is and you know you can make money with it. What you may not know is how you start.

Well, it's easy. Choose a provider. Make sure it's someone who has the up-to-the minute programming so you don't look ancient.

Create an account -Then, start writing! Alas, you are going to say "exactly HOW do I just pop into the blog and write?"

It's not some horrid thing where you have to have a book next to you figuring out designs and codes. For the most part, there are layouts you choose from and often you can even pick colors of fonts and such. It's like decorating a living room, only this is a living room about 12 million people could possibly visit. So make it look nice!

You don't have to have software usually or anything snazzy. You simply pick a design or layout and create a look or image based upon choices that you'll be prompted to make.

Is it an article, a column? What the heck IS a blog? As mentioned before, in another article -blogs are actually entries. It's like a diary or a journal. You simply write, but note - that whatever you do not want the world to see, do not write. After you write your entry, you will be asked to publish or post it. Once you do that you still can often, go in and edit or delete it. You will usually give your blog a title. You type your entry, which you may call "blog" or "Content" and away you go. You've just blogged.

Sometimes, you allow (or not allow) the public or a select bunch you've invited to make posts or comments to what you have written. This makes for fun if you do allow it but sometimes it can be downright harsh. There is usually no screening on posts unless you specifically in your template and choices make sure no one has potty mouth or gossip mouth. The way to do this is to be a moderator, or to even hire a moderator. This way, all posts first go to an email address (they have no idea) and you or someone with some degree of ethics and standards, will edit, delete or allow the post to go through. That personally is my advice; don't let downers, potty mouths or idiots post on your site unless you are really sure that you will attract only a top-notch crowd. Since blogs are often public places - think of the blog as a public bathroom. Only let the people in who flush and wash their hands. This is an especially nice feature also for control freaks.

Do I have to be youngish? Hip? Can I be a boomer or older than dirt? Anyone can blog. There is no set rule of thumb. It used to be hip kids, journalists and maybe a select other few who did it. Now, you have grandparents who blog and let their kids blog also - and grandkids. It's a great way to keep the family as a unit if you keep everyone together, you know?

Blogs are special. They are unique. They are really nothing more than a public diary or journal - where a web site is all about people going to the site and just staring at it, a blog is all about saying, "Come on in and sit a spell" - which is why you will find that blogs tend to be more upscale, than say, a chat room or chat board. Blogs are the welcome wagon of the internet. Chat rooms are like a seedy bar. Chat boards are like hospital waiting rooms where people sometimes share doom, gloom and gossip. But Blogs are really usually positive. Sure you will have that negative blog here and there - but a decent blog owner will beget decent posters for the most part.

It is a small world. So, when you visit a blog, or when you have a blog - expect people to comment online. It's a diary where people will actually say - "this is cool, and I want to be a part of your life and share this with you" and...they will! If you allow this in the template, you will have comments that agree, disagree or just share. You may have folks promoting themselves, or you may have cheerleaders supporting your blog. Either way, it's a great way to make friends and yes, make money if that's what you wish.

You need to realize that your blog could and very well may be found on the net during someone's search. For instance, if you have certain tag words in your blog, or it's just plain popular, a key word search could turn up your blog. It's the net, and it's public. Blog smart!

Blogging is for you, even if you think it isn't. You may think you are not a writer. So what? First of all, if it is a personal blog meant for only a few folks, and you don't care that you are not a thespian of the paper, then don't worry about it. Also, you don't have to be a super-duper writer at all. Even if you are a writing savant, you certainly at least have an opinion, correct? Voice it through blogging! You also probably have a passion such as gardening, cooking or fixing old cars...that a bajillion people also have, that you could talk to and share with. Again, you can make money. If you like gardening, you may want to think about selling seeds, or dried lavender from your garden, or renting ad space or a few thousand other ways to make money. Maybe an online course where you teach the power of planting? As long as you have passion and ideas, there will always be possible ways to make money that are fun and proactive.

Blogging is absolutely one of the most easy, fun, economical yet possibly financially rewarding hobbies you can start for yourself.
by Claire Brent

Current Trends In Web Design

2006-09-15T10:28:00.000-05:00

I have visited a lot of sites like Adobe, orange, Digg and others, I keep exploring the web on daily basis, so this article covers most of the current design trends which I recognize as high-quality ones.

Read All

Open Source: changing the world and web

2006-09-05T23:48:00.000-05:00

"Let ’s face it, not everyone is a tech junkie at this stage in their life (I know that I am not) but the further one gets in their college career, the closer we get to the corporate realm, and it is important to note one of the most interesting tech issue revolutionizing our world, open source programming."
Read All

GMail Hacks/Tips

2006-09-05T14:51:00.000-05:00

I’ve been using GMail
since 2004 and have always thought it was the best email service. With the large
amount of space it offers, and the amazing features
the possibilities are endless. The filter feature is easily the best feature
of GMail. You can use it for its purpose - to filter spam and other unwanted
emails. Or use it in some unique ways such as bookmarking, and storing recipes.
Here are some nifty hacks/tips that allow you to get the most out of your GMail
account.

GMail based blog

This is an awesome idea to allow you to blog via GMail.
Who needs an SQL database when you can save your posts to GMail?

Encrypt
all GMail traffic

This is just a simple tip allowing you to encrypt your whole
session. When you go to GMail.com only the login is encrypted. When you
go to GMail.com.
At https://gmail.google.com the whole session is encrypted.

Make a GMail
partition

This is a simple yet brilliant idea to make use of that 2.7 gigs
and counting of space GMail allows. This will create a new “partition” in
explorer. You can then save files/folders to your GMail account via the explorer
interface.
Create one simple filter so none of the files clutter up your inbox and you’re
set. I believe this is against the GMail terms of service, but I’ve
been using it for a while with no problems.

Linux on GMail

This awesome hack allows you to have a Linux file system
installed on your GMail account. It will give you basic *nix commands such
as cp mv rm and ls.
This is by far the neatest of all these.

Use GMail as notepad

It’s such a simple yet effective idea. Using GMail’s
ability to save drafts you can edit and save text just like notepad. There
are actually
more advantages to using GMail as a simple notepad such as spell check and
the fact that you can access the documents from anywhere.

GMail skins

Tired of the same old default GMail theme? Not anymore. Use
this simple firefox plugin to change the color and basic layout of your
GMail account.

GMail manager

This firefox plugin allows you to manage multiple GMail accounts
from firefox. It will give you basic stats about all your GMail accounts,
and can check for
new mail at a user defined interval.

GNotify

This one is actually by
Google. It’s a simple yet totally needed plugin.
It tells you when you have mail with a very unobtrusive notify box in the lower
right hand corner of your screen. It also opens a new tab in your browser with
the email and subject already filled out when you click a mailto: link. This
is a must have for people who depend on their email.

for people who depend on their email.

UK Social Networks

2006-09-01T11:32:00.000-05:00

Hitwise just posted their latest stats on the UK social networking scene. The leaders have already been reviewed here: MySpace, Bebo and Piczo.
Read All

Flickr #1 Photography Site in UK

2006-08-31T09:29:00.000-05:00

Flickr has taken the #1 spot in our Photography category and it seems to be down to good SEO (search engine optimisation) for soft porn searches. I'll admit it was a bit of a surprise last week when I looked at our Photography category and noticed that Flickr had moved into the #1 spot.
Read All

Star Wars - "The Last Supper"

2006-08-29T10:47:00.000-05:00

Great painting comissioned for Giant Magazine. I think Vader should be in Jesus' spot - but it's still really cool as it is.
Read All

Create Social Bookmark Chicklets

2006-08-28T09:56:00.000-05:00

Add social bookmark chicklets to your website to increase popularity.
Social Bookmarks Chicklets

The 5 Most Successful People-Powered News Sites - and 30 Failures

2006-08-28T09:20:00.000-05:00

Last week, a review of the top five people-powered or community news websites generated a lot of interest and questions about other players in that space.

Read All

Payday News

At Home DNA Testing

2006-08-20T12:29:00.000-05:00

Used in high-profile criminal investigations and paternity cases, deoxyribonucleic acid, commonly known as DNA, testing has now been popularized to prove relationships between individuals Read all

List of Social Bookmark

2006-08-01T14:22:00.000-05:00

This is a list of social software; selected example social software products and services that facilitate a variety of forms of social human contact.
Social bookmark

2006-08-01T10:03:00.000-05:00

There are over 250 Digg like applications! Without counting the +200 Social Bookmarks! (del.icio.us, RawSugar, Netvouz...)
This list should not requier to be as descriptive as for the Social Bookmarks list as they mainly all have the same basic features: Submiting, commenting and Rating or Voting.

Digg-Style: A - F - M - P - S -Dotnetkicks
Pliggs : A - F - L - P - T
Non English Digg-style: A - F - O
Non English Pliggs: A - G - L - N - T
Misc
→ Social Bookmarks & Annotation
→ Ajax Startpages.
→ Social Bookmarking Tools.
→ Digg Tools.

Digg-Style:

These all have the same basic features: submit, comments voting or rating.

Autospies: NEW! for automibile news, does not have RSS support. [+07/07/06]
Blog Memes: digg-style with publishing and thumshots(with a update thumbshot button) exists also in many languages. (see below) [Engine: Akarru][RSS][Blog/RSS]
Bits of News: for news with images and scores.[RSS]
BlinkBits Multi service, now also has an Digg like button [info] [+13/07/06]
bytemycode: for code snippets. NEW! [+27/07/06]
Care2 News Network: digg-stye about the environment, human rights, animal welfare... an extension to the community website. (Thanks to Michael L.)
Catster: NEW! Submit, comment and rate cats. See also for dogs. [+13/07/06]
CC Hits: for creative common music. A Ning application with comments, voting, music player and more.[info][RSS][Blog/RSS][+31/05/06]
Curious Contraptions Community: A forum.
dealspl.us: NEW! For Shopping and coupons showing item photos. [RSS][+19/07/06]
Daily RSS: digg-style rss news and rating.
Dissect Medicine: for medical news. [RSS][+22/05/06]
Digg: THE DIGG, news with categories. [RSS][Blog/RSS][Links]
Diggers: by grou.ps, a wiki based digg with thumbshots and Ajax. Let's you synchonize with del.icio.us, digg or reddit. [RSS][Blog/RSS]
Diggnews: digg-style for news. [maybe Pligg]
diggtrends: for news, uses a lot of Ajax.[+10/07/06]
dzone: for developers resource. With small zooming thumbshots when hovering. [RSS][blog/RSS][+10/06/06]
Dogster: NEW! Submit, comment and rate dogs. See also for cats. [+13/07/06][blog/RSS]
eatmyhamster: Funny News, Stories and Videos. [Blog/RSS][+18/05/06]
Fanatic Zone Remix: For submitting link and feeds about Sports. [+30/06/06]
Fantacular: Simple text-based digg-style for news...for those who think digg sucks? [RSS]
folkd: NEW! Social network and bookmarks with digg like voting and a news section. [Review][Blog/RSS][+23/07/06]
gibbity: digg-style, rate and review games.[RSS][Blog/RSS]
Getcheatsheet:NEW! for cheatcheets [+26/07/06]
humdigg: news for/by the Indian community.[RSS][Blog/RSS][+21/06/06]
idigporn: for adult content.
IndiaGram : focused on India. Voting has recently been added to their Scuttle engine [+17/07/06]
iTalkNews: Submit, write, rate, comment, add related news and get paid. [RSS]
Jazznoodle: 4 political section: Republicans, Democrats, Greens, Libertarians.[RSS][+30/06/06]
Kepty: NEW! For writing and sub,itting, between Slashdot and digg. Conecept: When user's submitted or written articles is visible user's adsense also show. Has a lot of programming language support. [info][RSS][+10/07/06]
linkfilter digg-style with rating, has a Firefox toolbar and sidebar. [RSS]
livelocker: for videos, music, and photos. [RSS][Blog/RSS]
meme-stream: digg-style for funny and useful links. [RSS]
memigo : Text-based digg-style for articles with no categories. Find alike Users. Option for iframe browsing, user filter...[RSS]
MetaFilter Projects: digg-style for self-linking projects.[RSS]
MOG:(Millions of games) digg-style for games with an 'e-mail this' and a 'play this' button. [RSS]
motorpulse: For cars made using Ruby on Rails and Ajax.[RSS]
muti: reddit like for content of interest to Southern Africans or those interested in Southern Africa.[RSS]
Netscape.com: Now shows digg-style social news using categories and tags...[RSS][+15/06/06]
NewsBump.net and NewsBump.co.uk: digg-style for News with categories.
NewsCloud, previously CommonTimes: for news.[RSS][Blog/RSS]
Newsvine: digg-style community for news with tags and the possibility to create your own columns(write).[RSS]
newsgarbage: digg-style for technology news with up/down voting. [RSS]
NooZ: NEW For MySpace members and MySpace add-on widgets. [Blog/RSS][+19/05/06]
oKs!: digg-style for anything with up/down votes.[RSS][Blog]
OOZM: Search engine with digg like voting. [info][+19/06/06]
Pickstation: NEW! for music podcasts with feedplayer support. [+15/07/06]
Pixelmo: NEW! Video game related.[+18/07/06]
PodcastAlley: for funny podcats. Interface is a bit different but has all the features.
Protolize: NEW! Submit, review and rate web-tools. [+13/07/06]
Polidiggs: digg-style for politics.
qoolsqool: NEW! for educational resource for educators, students, and self-learners around the world. [RSS][+08/07/06]
Quadriot: for funny, strange stories.[+30/06/06]
Questionville: for voting the answers, not the questions. Has live search and sub-categories, does not support links.
Reddit: digg-style with up/down voting and Karma points, exists in 23 sub-reddits have their own domain URL and can all be viewed on all.reddit, Not Safe For Work (Adult content.) is a sub-reddits. Lipstick Blog/RSS] laguages. seems to be a new one.[
Riffs: for anything. a bit different, rating is the main 'BIG' feature with up/down voting, also supports images. [Blog/RSS/Atom]
Scooop.net: digg-style for special news and rewards. Does not have RSS
Scoopity NEW!: for non-stop celebrity news, fashion, and gossip using only tags. [RSS][+08/07/06]
Shoutwire: digg-style rating for news stories. Uses iframe browsing. Their LinkRolls show vote buttons.
Showbloggers NEW! for people that enjoy discussing, speculating or even debating about their favorite television programs. Uses WordPress.
ShutterSeek: digg-style for photographers.
SkimCSS: digg-style for CSS related. (maybe Pligg) [RSS][Blog/RSS]
Spankwire: like shoutwire for adult content. [via] [+22/05/06]
Sperocite: for news [+22/05/06]
Spogger: digg-style for 'digital news' with Categories(Channels), Voting, Themes, Karma points.
SpinSpy: digg-style for any link.[Blog/RSS][+02/01/06]
SportsBlink: for sports. (thanks to comment) [RSS][+22/05/06]
Strikr: for soccer [maybe Pligg][+19/06/06]
the best stuff in the world: a bit like riffs with social bookmarking. [+05/06/06]
thenorp: For adult content. It's classic view is digg-style.(Thanks to this list from an annoymous comment.)
Taghop: digg-style for links.
Tagworld Bookmarks: Part of Tagworld, Social bookmarks with private, network and public bookmarks... also available as TagWorld Blog widget.[+15/07/06]
Tendango: digg-style with community collections/listing and tagging.
Travelscoop: NEW! New Zealand Travel News and Travel Information. [RSS][+08/07/06]
UmmYeah.com: NEW! Ajax-based social video & news aggregation with digg like voting, tags and Karma points. Also supports file upload! [RSS][+08/07/06]
Upwarded: For funny videos, images, games & silliness with an Widget for blogs. By Philipp Lenssen.
Video Bomb: digg-style for videos.
Wizag: For feeds, previously called Diggol [info][+16/06/06]
Web Feeds digg-style rating for links and videos.
Weekendstory: NEW! for weedend stories with kudos instead. [+27/07/06]
Wikio: Private Beta. For news, also listed under search engines with bookmarking. Update: French Wikio has launched.[blog][+03/04/06]
YouPickTheNews: for news with a 'in-page floating div' systeme for rating, without comments but with email notification.
Zapzap NEW! Podcast aggregator in Engliash and Japanese [review][blog][+02/07/06]

The 'Lots of kicks' series, where you can earn with your Google Adsense ID. See here to get dotnet blog buttons.[blog/RSS][+30/03/06]:

dotnetkicks: digg-style for Microsoft development techniques, ASP.NET, C#, VB.NET, C++...
GoogleKicks: for Google related news.[+30/03/06]
kick.ie: Irish News.
javakicks.com: for Java related.
mackicks: Mac related.
mozillakicks.com: Mozilla news.
Sharepointkicks: NEW! for Microsoft SharePoint technologies.[blog/RSS][+07/07/06]
XboxKicks: digg-style for Xbox related.

↑ UP

Pliggs or Menéame Clones

Pligg, originally named Menéame in Spanish, is a free CMS with tags, plugins, templates, icons, vote buttons, language customization, podcast support and advanced user profiles with gravatars...and much more. See about Pligg. [wiki] (Category added thanks to Damian)

ACC12: NEW! MyJoomla and pligg for Atlantic Coast Conference Sports. Has nice voting buttons with a hover effect. [+14/07/06]
AdultSharing: digg-style for Adult content.
adveracio.us: NEW! related to advertising. [+07/07/06]
All Things Dork: fans, collections.[RSS][Blog/RSS][+01/04/06]
answer.net: leisure.[RSS/OMPL]
APBNews: crime news. One of the first to use Pligg. [12/05][RSS]
Appslist: NEW! For software applications.
arm the mob: social, movements. [+04/04/06]
BARKS=BookmARKS: for news. [+19/05/06]
Bitch About Tech Dot Com: for bitching about tech. [+18/05/06]
binarylaw.com: legal, technology. [+02/04/06]
Blog Reporter: blogs. [+22/04/06]
BrainDigg: brain-related topics.[+01/04/06]
bridesinwhite.com: brides, weddings. (was broken)
Bringr: for women's intrests. (Thanks to Davak) [+02/04/06]
business-planet.net: news.
bythemasses.com: New York.
Clicktator.com: for links, ideas or news.
Collectia: ?
Commerce Bucket: for Business. Voting is completely public![+06/07/06]
crankk: for Cycling News. Previously cycleabout.com.
Cruisinaltitude Aviation News: for aviation-related news story.
DealDB.com: for customers and store owners to submit coupon codes.
Digpot: ? for Adult content. Look's a Pligg with no rating.[+22/07/06]
DealSpy: for deals
DigStock: for stocks, stock exchange.
Erotigg.com: for Adult content. (also in Spanish)
Fat Pitch News: for finance, invesment
Flogz: finance, invesment.
freethoughtfilter: for non-believers. (by and thanks to Tom Morris)
Fleshh: for erotic related.
Forums of India: for any news. It's 'article' section uses pligg. [+17/07/06]
fuddle-duddle: for Canadian political news.
Gamerbytes: NEW! For game related stories.[+30/06/06]
GeekCoffee: for Technology.
GoobToob: NEW! for video clips [+27/07/06]
Hitsmit: health.
hollywoodlowdown.com: show biss, movies. (was broken)
Homefinanceplanet: finance
HR salad: NEW! Human Resource related. Pligg.[+17/07/06]
Hugg(BETA): For green news. Pligg (Thanks to elsa)
Inbox News: for news.
Inbreaking(BETA): for links.
indianpad.com: for India news.
Indiefox: For Art Work [+16/06/06]
iseenews.com: for news.
KaBlogs: for blogging related stories.
LinuxFilter: for Linux related.
Marketpicks: finance
Medical Articles and News: for Medical Articles and News.
Meedio Idea: for Meedio.
mootion.com: for video related, colaborative Internet-Video programming guide.
mp3-o-rama: news and resources related to mp3.
musicthump.com: music, DJs.
n.ewradio: alternative music news.
Nabaza.info: for news
nastygrrl: for aldult content (Thanks to mattr)
Network Strike: security.
news.thetrc.net: Music, giggs.
newvoyagenews.com: travels.
Plue Balls: for comedy, viral videos, animations, funny news and the general weirdness of the Internet.
ParrotAddict: parrots
PhetchIt: general.
Pimp me famous: NEW! WordPress and Pligg. To submit videos. [+07/07/06]
Pixel Groovy: Tutorials. Pligg.[RSS][Blog/RSS][+24/06/06]
Podolicious: podcasts
porn.ucopio.us: NEW! for Adult content. [+29/07/06]
Prube: videos, images & games
Relishio: NEW! Automaticaly imports from blog feeds. [+18/07/06]
Save Social: For UK bargains, has also a US bargains version. [+18/07/06]
Scadart: general
Shakk.Us: for Entertainment.
Search Engin Epress: for search engins, seo, internet..,
smarkwire: for pro wrestling but does not have voting.
Seven Surfers: deals, bussiness
Snarf It.org: torrent indexer
socialporn: adult content.
Sportschalk: sports
SportsCast : for sports.
SportsFlip: for sports.
Sportsplugs: NEW! about Sports. [+07/07/06]
SpyMy: for the South East Asia region.
Staralicious: celebrity news.
The Lit List: for fiction stories.
The plugg: for media types. [+20/06/06]
TheNewsTop: NEW! Pligg, for any kind of News. [+13/07/06][Launched:26/06/06][RSS][Blog/RSS]
ToxicCyberDust: games.
Trade Rock Community: for trading and sharing music news.
Tri Hound: for triathlon news. [+18/06/06]
Tutorialism: for tutorials
Tutorialization: for tutorials
uinform: Like digg with categories, tag cloud, spy, blog widget...[+18/06/06]
VideoSift: The Best of Google Video and YouTube.
Virtual Homeschool Group: for homeschoolers.
Wobblog: for blogs with Haloscan support.
Yankidank: general
Zeropaid: for Bittorrent and p2p.

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Other Languages:

.N T.P.Y.: Turkish digg-style for Videos.
@News: Japanese digg-style for news.
17dig.com: Chinese digg-style.
Bagook: German [via] [+18/06/06]
Blog Memes: Spanish, also exists in French, Portugesee, Japanese and English ( listed above).
Brevissime!: NEW! Italian, for news powered by symfony [+29/07/06]
Choix: Japanese digg-style, for any links.
cndigg.com: Chineses digg, same style interface has trackback.
CoRich Newsclip: Japanese digg style, is an extension to corich social bookmark service.
Creabits: Spanish for any news. [+30/06/06]
CSSlook: Korean, Public bookmarking, nice designe for nice designes.
diglog: Chinese digg-style.
dingr: Chinese digg-style.
Douban: Chinese, for books, music and videos. [via]
Ec Navi: Japanese digg-style for news.
eu curti: Brzilian digg-style.
Fresqui(Alpha): Spanish digg-style for technology.
Fuzz: French, digg-style for news.
Gwar: Polish digg-style.
newhots: Chinese digg-style.
newsing: NEW! Japanese, for news with different style voting buttons. [+27/07/06]
ihardware: Spanish digg-stlye for technology and hardware.
Kilasan: NEW! Indonesian, for any news. [blog/RSS][+06/07/06]
Krtica: Croatian digg-style.
LinkPost excite: Japanese digg-style, for any links. By Excite.co.jp portal.
Linkter: Hugarian digg-style.
livedoor Clip: Japanese digg-style, for any link. [+06/07/06]
MarkeZine: Japanese digg-style, for any links.
Mywowo: Chinese digg-stlye.
newhots: Chinese digg-style.
news2.ru: Russian digg-style for news, uses hierachical categories.
NUOUZ: French digg-style for news.
OKNotizie: Italian for news using Ajax. Blog button code here. [+04/06/06]
Oui-News.com: Chinese digg-style.
Populicias.com: Spanish digg-style.
que pasa ?: Digg-style for local news with podcast support. French.
Reddit: For bg, ca (Spanish catalan), de, eo(Esperanto), eu, es, fr, hu, hy, id, it, ja, ko, nl, no, pl, pt, ro, ru, sv, tr, vi and zh!
Scoopeo: French digg-style where you can win prizes.
Tag River: Chinese digg-style.
wapher: Arabe digg-style for news.
YiGG.de: German digg-clone formerly called digg.de
vottie: Chinese digg-style aggregator for videos. [via] [+19/06/06]

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Pligg or Méneame Other Languages:

Acelérame: Spanish, motor.
AllActu.com: French, general.
Astroadictos: Spanish, astronomy. Méneame
BCNtop: Spanish, Catalan. For news about Bercalona.
bifri: NEW! Spanish, [+22/07/06]
chuza.org: Galician, general.
dev.polidiggs.com: Spanish.
Diggar.se: NEW! Swedish
diggba: Chinese.
Digg.lv: Latvia (thank you hellijs)
DoMelhor: Portugesee digg-style for news.
DjSessions: for DJ, music related stories.
Enchilame:NEW! For Mexican politics and technology. [+02/07/06]
Enosotras: Only for Shes. [+02/07/06]
Erotigg.com: sex, Spanish (also in English)
eucurti.com.br: general, Portugesee
Gba-flash: Video Games, Spanish.[+30/06/06]
iFaX!an: Chinese, uses Categories, tags and big thumshots. [+15/06/06]
Ingeniando: Architecture, Spanish.
ihardware: Spanish digg-stlye for technology and hardware.
InterNetMedia.hu: general, Hungarian
joomla.com.es: Joomla, CMS, Spanish.
linkk.com.br: technology, Portugese
linku.com.ar: general, Spanish.
livedigg: Chinese diggstyle for news.[via]
Marchate: Spanish for Travel.
Marketingrama.info: NEW! French for merketing using an Andreasviklund theme. [+17/07/06]
Medigg: Chinese digg.
MENÉAME: Spanish, for blogs. The original source of Pligg.
menearailes.com: RubyonRails, Spanish.
mingaco.com: general, Spanish.
miopinion.com: general, Spanish.
mipcdebolsillo: Mobile, wireless technology. Spanish.
mumor: Humour, Spanish.
Mundo VoIP: VoIP, Spanish.
neodiario.net: tecnología, Spanish.
Noticias.deperros: gods, Spanish.
noticias.fotoadictos.com: photography, Spanish.
Noticias.Kesar.org: general, Spanish.
Open Source: OpenSource, Japanese
Ouvi Dizer: general, Portugesee
paeva.net: general, Estonian
Rauru-block.org: Japanese, for technology where each entry has trackback.
Horno Recetaria: Spanish, cooking, recipies.
rockeame: Spanish, for promoting blogs.
Shaveh.co.il: general, Hebrew.
TapeMoi!: French digg-style for news.
Tùniti: Spanish, for comics, manga.
Tuteame: general, Spanish.
TV adictos: Spanish, for television.
Viadescape: journalism, Spanish.
Votala: general, Spanish.
ygriega.net: Spanish, for leisure.
Zabaldu: Basque, general.

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Misc:

Similar but are or have different voting systemes.

Arena: NEW! for submitting WordPress powered websites, the buttons counts comments, not votes.[+07/07/06]
aworldofhelp: Q&A and link submission, requires to login to see the rating button.
CrispyNews: Allows people to start their own digg, and share revenue. See MotorKen example
DarkEye: 9 star rating system. For nice designed websites with rating, where each website also shows a thumbshot and it's color sheme. [RSS][Blog]
Gather: Is a community with rating for bookmarks and digg-style voting for comments.
Logopond: for creting collections of logos with 5 star rating.[+15/07/06]
Snap Blog: Snap search engine's blog uses digg like voting.[info]
Tagtooga: Public bookmark dirctory with many many features, see here.
PodcastBrowser: is a private pligg.
Userscript: Has submit, comments and star rating.

Silmilar but are not:

Drew Curtis' FARK.com: has no voting/rating system
Slashdot: Is an other kind of famous website not similar but parallel to digg.com. It also has submit and commenting, no digg like voting but karma points. Slashdot sisters: OhMyNews, barrapunto Spanish (Spanish), SlashIndia (India) Slash radio similar to diggnation.
FeedButler: Resembles digg but only for feeds and without comments.
LinkSnarf: Simple social bookmarks with rating and groups, no comments.
Listible!: for listing where voting resorts each item, the most '+voted' links are at the top of the page. List commenting, not each item. Has tags. Listed under Listings
Listerlister: Same kind as Listible!
votelists: Same syteme as listible! with -/+ buttons. [Blog/RSS][+29/07/06]
Plueballs: for podcasts, has comments but no voting. [via]
Pikapet is a VS voting system like Ning's What's cuter?
urbandictionary: Even the urbandictionary has implemented up/down voting!
Yourelevatorpitch: Has 5 big square rateing buttons.: Q&A and link submission, requires to login to see the rating button.

Has shut down:

leve1: digg-style fors news, now redirects to RetroNintendo [-05/06]
180° news: digg-style for news with inpage expand/collapse details. Seems to have shut down.[-06/06]
daily911.info: ???
politicalstuff.com: Politics. Pligg, not active any more.
www.shiiiny.com: Buffy/Angel. Pligg, does not seem active.
iTunesLove.com: music. Pligg, does not seem active.
athiphop.com: music, hip-hop. Pligg, does not seem active.
Funzai: Entetainment. Not pligg, does not seem active.
Qoosa.com: Pligg for open source content management system but is now a browsing tool.[+02/07/06][-15/07/06]
slackah: digg-style rating for slackers and productivity geeks. (maybe pligg)
Zumbalo: Pligg Spanish, for rap, reggae.
nfiltrate: promoting your band, clothing company, etc... Has changed. [-21/07/06]
BiBiLog: Pligg for video, games and funny stuff.[+03/01/06][-25/07/06]

For getting a digg clone yourself, see here

Have I missed any?
If you happen to see an error, see a missing service or that you're going to start a new digg-style service, please leave a comment. Thanks! :)

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PS: I've been trying to collect digg-style developers feeds but a lot of them don't have any blogs...why?

You may also want to see:

Meme, Memetic search: Technique for tagging web pages that allows a better full-text search.
Wikipedia: The Digg Effect
Different kinds of social/meme/news sites: Good explanation by Mark Wilson.
del.icio.us, digg clones and Open Source Social Bookmarking Engines
Startups that Shutdown

Links from the comments:

List of Digg clones
Digg's Friends and Relations by Saurier: Here you can compare some vote buttons.

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hreview:

★★★★★ Digg is a social and democratic news website that combines social bookmarking, blogging and RSS where the users decide which story gets on the front page by voting.

Category: Social Bookmarks List
Tags: digg like Socialbookmark
Lookup: Bookmarking Clones Digg Open Source Reddit Social Social Bookmarking Software web 2.0

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Digg-Style:

Pliggs or Menéame Clones

Other Languages:

Pligg or Méneame Other Languages:

Misc:

Social Web 2.0 News Bookmarking

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