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Blogs as Modern Art by Tony P

Mon, 19 May 2008 07:13:00 EST

"In order correctly to define art, it is necessary, first of all, to cease to consider it as a means to pleasure and to consider it as one of the conditions of human life. Viewing it in this way we cannot fail to observe that art is one of the means of intercourse between man and man." - Leo Tolstoy. What is art? Art cannot be described as a process which produces beauty as beauty itself cannot be defined objectively. You can only guess what the aim of art is. According to Tolstoy, the aim of art is to provide pleasure, enjoyment, entertainment as well as creating a relationship between the author and the "receiver". So is blogging - art?

History of Blogs

Blogs were first introduced as weblogs that refer to a "server's log file." It was created when web logging hit the virtual market. Since its inception in the mid-1990s, web logging gradually saturated the virtual community making the Internet a viable source of greater information. Origin of the term "weblog" is uncertain. Many point to John Barger in December 1997 when he coined the term on his own blog. 2 years later, Peter Merholz broke "weblog" into a phrase "we blog", thus giving birth to the word "blog". Fortuitously, this play on words eventually took off, and "blog" as a short form not only became a household noun, but also as a verb. With the growth of popularity of weblogs, grew the popularity of the word "blog". Indeed, in March 2003, the Oxford English Dictionary included the terms "weblog," "weblogging" and "weblogger" in its dictionary. Merriam-Webster's Dictionary astonishingly declared "blog" as the word of the year in 2004. (Wikinews,2005) Starting from the mid-1990 the number of blogs at an incredible pace, at the end of 1999, the total number of blogs was estimated to be around fifty; five years later, the estimates range from 2.4 million to 4.1 million. The site Open Diary, while not using the term blog only until recently, had only two thousand diaries by 1999; by, September 2005, it exploded to 400, 000. The Perseus Development Corporation, a consulting firm that studies internet trends, estimates that by 2007 more than 10 million blogs will have been created. (Drezner and Farrell, "Web of Influence." 2004).

Blogs as a way of expressing yourself

People who are into blogging carefully choose their words to describe their feelings, emotions and experiences. Leo Tolstoy says in his essay "What is art?": "Art is a human activity consisting in this, that one man consciously, by means of certain external signs, hands on to others feelings he has lived through, and that other people are infected by these feelings and also experience them." In a way, bloggers are artists. They create a relationship with their readers, as professional writers and painters do. Blog is own space, their canvas, their book, where they can share their thoughts, feeling, ideas with others, where they can give and receive information. As with art, you can write anything you want in a blog, but there are thing needed to be taken into account: • You should make your blog interesting, informative so that it gives rise to readers' thoughts and feelings. • Create something beneficial for the readers. Give your blogs some quality content. • "Simplicity is the final achievement. After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art." Frederic Chopin. Avoid being complicated in your blog. The more complicated the blog is - the less it is art.

Blogs as Modern Art

So what is a blog? Is blogging art? Blog is persons own space in the Internet, his orchestra where he conducts his symphonies, his paper where he writes his essays, his canvas where he paints his masterpieces, in a word - his space where he creates. What is the purpose of the Artist? To create, to communicate the concepts of morality. Unfortunately not every blog can be categorized as art. Blogs must be comprehensible and understandable. If any unintelligible blog or as any incomprehensible expression of though is to be called "art", then the meaning of "art" will be lost. Blogs must have the form and content which is are unity with the feeling and ideas which they represents. Blogs that shallow, unsophisticated, awkward, artificial, exaggerated, ostentatious, or banal are not art. Tolstoy suggests that professionalism kills art; it causes the art to become false and insincere. As long as blogs are kept original, personal and sincere they can be described as art, modern art. "Generally art is a (product of) human activity, made with the intention of stimulating the human senses as well as the human mind; by transmitting emotions and/or ideas"(Wikipedia, 2008). Blog is a great way to implement this activity online. All in all, blogs are modern art, as long as you keep them personal, original, honest and smart. Blogs are your web space and you have all the tools and ideas to create your own masterpiece!

To find out more interesting info about blogging check out my personal blog: http://blog-writing-success.blogspot.com/

About the Author

Tony P - university student and online marketer - Get free information for your eBusiness - http://serge-home-business.com

Web Design Essex, Essex Website Designers & Developers, Ecommerce Web Design Solutions, Web Hosting - Nebulas Website Design.

SEO Advice - Writing Useful Articles That Readers Will Love by Neil Ebsworth

Mon, 19 May 2008 07:05:00 EST

If you think you have come across the title of this article before, it is because you may have. I have purposely copied the title from a Matt Cutts article on article content. I will explain later, but for the beginners out there, Matt Cutts is a Google employee that writes a blog on Google issues and addresses some of the little variances of advice that Google offers on how to better understand their guidelines.

I was a little disappointed by Matts article as it addressed the need to produce original article content by focussing on the niches the article should be aimed at rather than addressing the topic that I thought would be of more importance, namely the quality of content production. The last third of the article was also so stuffed with keywords starting with the keyword SEO that I doubt it would have passed most article submission services requirements that filter out articles that stuff keywords in for the sake of search engine placement...shame on you Matt, I really wouldn't have thought it necessay for you to keyword stuff!

The main objective when it comes to article marketing is the production of quality new content on subjects on or related to, your websites purpose. The aim, if you then distrubute the article through article directories, is to have your article reproduced by other quality sites in your field, effectively gaining reputation, and ultimately a link back to your site from the publishing website which an interested reader may use to discover more about the given subject.

What article writing is not about is getting a thousand article directory links. Whilst you will not be penalised for publishing in a thousand directories, the main benefit of a wide distribution is mainly for the purpose of gaining exposure for your article so that webmasters looking for high quality content will find your article. As with most things internet related, exposure is king, so article distribution services have there place but if you expect an instant SERPs boost from just the links back from the directories themselves, you will find that only a portion of the reproduced copies of your articles will be taken into account. If however your article is subsequently reproduced by a website in your niche that has a good reputation, ( I think Page rank is still considered a measure of value by most people) then your website will gain points for each article copy found on each valued site.

I recently had a discussion on a forum about quality over quantity. The premise of my opponent was, that you can get articles written for you these days for about $5 a time for a 500 word piece. So why should he pay my charges that were, ( and still are) considerably higher. I tried to explain through that well known saying, that, as with most things in life, " You get what you pay for" and that whilst his $5 articles may well be written in perfectly good English and be focussed on the subject in hand, he would find that they failed to meet the one criterea that is most paramount when publishing the content. They had nothing to say.

By this I mean that they were ultimately generic using terms and phrases around the issue of the subject matter, but with no comment or opinion on it. For $5 I would not expect any less. If my premise is correct though, that article content should engage the audience first and foremost, these generic unique pieces are destined to sit at the back of the article directory bus, never to be reproduced or read and therefore ultimately of no value.

Writing good quality copy is a professional skill and one that should not be confused with a fifth grade comprehension exercise. If you want your article and therefore your website to be taken seriously, you should treat your article marketing with the respect that you give to your own reading material. Are you a Times reader or a Sun reader. More importantly, what sort of readers are the people you are ultimately trying to attract to your site?

Finally coming back to the title of this article. I copied the title for the article from Matt Cutts article of the same name for one of the reasons that Matt gave in his piece. he said "any time you look for an answer or some information and can't find it, that should strike you as an opportunity."

As I felt he had failed to address the more important issue in his article I reproduced the title so that searchers may discover the additional information from this piece which hopefully will sit close enough to Matts article in the Search Engine rankings, filling the void of information that Matt so kindly left open, and sending you to my site for more information...or better still..a commission!

About the Author

Neil Ebsworth writes Article Content to commission at OMDN. These include Real Estate Articles and SEO Articles.

Web Design Essex, Essex Website Designers & Developers, Ecommerce Web Design Solutions, Web Hosting - Nebulas Website Design.

An Introduction To Email Marketing by Uchenna Ani-Okoye

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 04:51:00 EST

An Introduction To Email Marketing by Uchenna Ani-Okoye

I once ordered some goods online via an online store and during the process I gave the company the authority to keep in touch with me via email. Now what they decided to do with my email was quite ingenious, every week since I purchased that product they have sent me an email illustrating special offers available only for people who shop on their web store.

As a result, I have spent quite a lot of money with them. I would not have spent half as much as I did if they didn't have an effective marketing campaign in place. The best thing about email marketing is the ability to reach your target audience with almost no costs involved.

So...how can you use emailing marketing for your business? It's not as difficult as it seems and the results can be simply mind-boggling.

Create an Opt in List

Ask your clients for permission to send them frequent emails. It's very important that you only send out emails to clients that make the agreement and make sure you include somewhere in your email, an easy way to unsubscribe from the mailing list. Use a new email address specifically for your email marketing campaign. Do not use your business email address just in case some of your clients mark your emails as spam.

Try to offer something free of charge to people that grant you permission to send emails to them. This doesn't have to be something of great value. This could be something like a free e-book or internet course to the visitors of your website that decide to opt into your mailing list.

Try and run some competitions and make sure the entry form clearly asks for the clients email address along with an opt-out box for people who decide they do not want to receive regular offers and other such material.

You can purchase email lists from disputable companies that have taken the time to make sure all subscribers have consented to receiving special offers and other such marketing material. This can prove to be a pretty cost effective method of building a huge list. It's very important where you purchase your list as you only want to target clients related to the service and/or product that you supply.

If you have an online store, add a link that offers a free product or special deal for customers that subscribe to your mailing list. Make sure you add exclusivity, so that the client feels as though he/she is receiving something of great value.

Persuade your clients to buy

The more you personalize the emails you send out, the better. You have a much higher chance of your clients opening the emails if their name is in the subject header.

Do not give up after your first email send out, keep plugging at it. If you're lucky, some people may decide to purchase something off you right away, but most clients will not purchase anything from you until they've received several emails from you. If you get a response rate of one percent then you are doing extremely well.

The frequency in which you send out emails can greatly affect your campaign. You do not want to send out emails too frequently as you will end up annoying your clients. On the other hand if you leave large intervals between emails you could end up putting off your clients.

About the Author

Uchenna Ani-Okoye is an internet marketing advisor. If you're seeking more information on search engine optimisation then check out my website which is: Free Affiliate Programs Alternatively you can visit: My Web Search

Targeted Website Traffic - Keyword Driven Marketing by Scott Million

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 04:44:00 EST

Targeted Website Traffic - Keyword Driven Marketing by Scott Million

Here are several tips to getting targeted website traffic and boost your site visits.

The first method of getting targeted website traffic is to write keyword targeted articles, just like the one I'm writing here. You'll notice that the phrase "targeted website traffic" appears throughout this article 2-4% of the time.

When writing an article aimed at getting traffic for you website, make sure that the article provides value to your readers. Since you probably searched for "targeted website traffic" to get here then this article should provide value speaking to that keyword phrase.

In order to find these keyword targeted phrases you'll need to use a free keyword suggestion tool like the one Word Tracker offers. Simply type "free keyword research" in Google and it will be the first link on the list.

Start by typing in a broad search term like "traffic" or "football" and see what longer phrases show up. For this article, I simply went to WordTracker's free keyword research tool and typed in "traffic" and then selected several keywords that had 50 or more searches per day and less than 1,000,000 results in Google.

Sound like work? Sure! It's going to take a lot of time for you to get targeted website traffic, no doubt about it; however there's a shortcut you may find useful.

Once your website has some keyword targeted articles, then you're going to want to build links to that specific page so that Google thinks it has a lot of relevancy. To do this, you can try posting on blogs and online forums, and leave a link pointing back to your site.

That can work pretty well if you have a lot of time, but you're probably not going to get very good backlinks, especially since most blogs with high page rank add a "no follow" tag to their links.

So, you'll need to think outside of the box...hmmm...have you ever noticed how software sites always have good Page Rank? What if we submitted software to these sites that we could create in minutes and FORCE them to point back to our site?

That would be pretty cool, huh? But it sounds like a lot of work to create software and then submit it to hundreds of websites.

Nope! You can get over 100 backlinks from Page Rank 5, 6, and 7 sites in just 30 minutes of work. Really!

To conclude, in order to get targeted website traffic we have to write keyword targeted articles and start creating lots of backlinks (links pointing to your site.)

About the Author

So go ahead and write some keyword targeted articles and then start building backlinks. If you're finding that backlink generation is taking a lot of time, check out 30 Minute Backlinks strategy to see how you can get tons of free targeted website traffic.

-Article written by Scott Million

The Many Kinds Of Marketing Using The Internet by Mikael Andersohn

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 04:40:00 EST

The Many Kinds Of Marketing Using The Internet by Mikael Andersohn

The Internet is a very useful tool for communications, as well as business. Business is all about communication, after all. You need to communicate in order to establish contacts. You need to communicate with your customers in order to make them aware of your product offerings.

Such customer-seller communication is called marketing. Marketing involves sending messages to the targeted audience of a business, with the aim to inform them about a certain product that is up for sale. Marketing utilizes various techniques, either offline or online.

The Internet has given marketers an avenue to easily and quick reach their targeted audiences because of its power to link people past several barriers like distance, language, etc. Because of this, marketers have developed or adopted existing marketing techniques to adjust to the Web.

Effective communication is not the only advantage that online marketing offers. Internet marketing is also relatively inexpensive compared to traditional marketing methods.

There are many kinds of online marketing techniques, and include the well-known viral marketing and pay per click marketing techniques. For all their advantages, all these techniques require careful planning and even careful execution in order to harness their power for your business' advantage.

Viral Marketing

Viral marketing has been around ever since the Internet was first introduced. First it involved emails and now, with the Web 2.0 phenomenon, viral marketing has branched out to social networking websites.

So what is viral marketing?

Viral marketing is the technique which takes advantage of the "word of mouth" phenomenon in its campaigns. So, basically, it relies on users passing news about their product offerings in order to gather traffic and potential customers. Because it needs positive opinion to gain attention, a telemarketer needs to tailor its information to make it appealing to Internet users and gain conversions or have visitors turn into customers.

One of the best examples of an effective viral marketing campaign is Hotmail. In the beginning of its inception, Hotmail inserted a link to the bottom of every email sent by its users. In a sense, although they did not intend it, these users were telling the world about Hotmail, and inviting others to sign up for a free account with the service.

Hotmail is now one of the biggest free web-based email providers, and one of the longest running alongside Yahoo! Mail and a few others.

Pay per Click Marketing

Pay per click is another mode of marketing using Internet that has given promising results back to businessmen.

PPC makes use of link advertisements that appear alongside search engine results. These ads are posted by businessmen, who pay for every instance that a user clicks on it and is redirected to the enterprise's website. They are tagged by keywords, which determine when these ads should appear. Thus, they show up when a user makes a search for these keywords and other related terms.

Compared to viral marketing, PPC offers marketers a flexible and affordable way of reaching out to their targeted audienc0es. Because they appear on search engine results, marketers are also assured that only those who are interested in their products see and click their ads.

About the Author

Are you living in the Philippines and wishing to buy or sell something within your area? Business opportunities await you, so come and visit MyMarket.ph.

Beginners Guide to Blogging by Matt Rosario

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 07:14:00 EST

Beginners Guide to Blogging by Matt Rosario

A blog is basically an online journal wherein you can digitally pen down your thoughts, ideas, opinions and practically anything that you want people to read. Blogs come in different styles, formats, and settings, depending on the preference of the user. Many blogging sites, offer built in features such as hyperlink, straight texts, pictures etc. Some blogging sites, even allow you to put video and mp3's on your blogs.

Instead of writing texts, some bloggers choose to make their blogs more audio friendly, by using spoken word entries. This is called audio blogging.

Basically a blog contains these features:

title- which allows you to label your post body- this is the content of your post trackback- other sites can be linked back to your blog permanent link- every article that you write has a URL comments- this allow readers to post comments on your blog.

One of the advantages of blogging, is that it is made of only a few templates. Unlike, other websites that is made up of numerous individual pages. This make it easier for blog users to create new pages, because it already has a fix setting that include: slots for title, body of the post, category, etc.

This is especially useful for first time users, since they can start blogging right away. They can chose from a number of templates that blogging websites provide.

Anyone who wants to start a blog can do so by becoming a member of a blogging website of their choice. Once they've become members, they automatically become a part of that particular blogging community. They can browse through other bloggers pages, and link them back to their own blogs. They can also make comments on other members' blogs.

Blogging is not just limited to personal usage. There are a lot of blogs that follow a theme such as: sports, politics, philosophy, social commentary, etc. These blogs espouse on their specific themes. This way blogging becomes a medium in which people can share their knowledge and opinions about a variety of themes and topics.

Some bloggers even use their blogs as a means to advertise. Some authors advertise their books on their blogs. While other bloggers, use their blogs to shed light to currents issues, events, news and catastrophes.

Nowadays in education, blogs also play an important part. Professors use blogging to document the lessons that they have discussed and taught. This way, students who who have missed classes, can easily catch up with their assignments.

A lot of entrepreneurs benefit from blogging by promoting their businesses on their blogs, with millions and millions of people logging onto the net everyday, blogging has become a lucrative move. Some bloggers who run online businesses promote their merchandise online. While others profit through advertisement.

But by far, the most popular blog type is the one that takes the form of a personal journal. This is the kind that is usually used by first time bloggers. Individuals who want to document the daily struggle of their everyday lives, poems, rants, opinions, find that blogging offers them a medium in which to express themselves.

Bloggers usually communicate within themselves. This is one of the appeals of blogging. It creates a community of people sharing their ideas, thoughts, and comments with each other.

Blogs varying in topics, themes, and set-ups, can be found in blog directories. First time users who want to get an idea of what the blogging world is all about can browse through a number of blogs using these directories. This way they'd get an idea of what these blogging communities are like.

Blogging is popular all over the world. Blog is short for the term weblog. There are no rules when it comes to blogging. Bloggers have the freedom to express themselves how ever way they want, and the best thing about blogging, is that most blogging sites are free.

There are numerous blogging websites to choose from in the net. This give first time users the option of joining a blogging community that appeals to their interests.

Just search any blogging directory and you'd get a listing of a lot of blogging sites that are available on the net. It's easy to search a blogging directory, because it is organized according to category. This way you would get exactly what you are after. Blogging is really for everyone. It is fun, simple and easy.

About the Author

Make $1000 a week with a simple under-used method: http://www.itshelpful.com/brainlessbucks

Or learn how to set up a website with residual, automatic income: http://www.itshelpful.com/adsensebig

And Please. Don't Hate :)

Web Design Essex, Essex Website Designers & Developers, Ecommerce Web Design Solutions, Web Hosting - Nebulas Website Design.

Can a domain name be your company asset? by Olesya Breus

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 07:13:00 EST

Can a domain name be your company asset? by Olesya Breus

Choosing the correct domain

If your company decided to open your site in Internet, first you should do is to register a domain name. Taking decision about the name of your future site is quite a serious process. The main criteria it should sound the same as your company. The properly chosen domain will allow your permanent and potential clients to remember it. When you took a decision make a small test. Call your acquaintances (take about 3 people), those who does not know your company, ask him/her write down the domain name without spelling it. If they manage to write it correctly, it is good for you.

People who proceeded the procedure knows that after registration you owes domain for 1 or 2 years and can open sub domain for branches of your company. Registering your domain name for corporative purposes use only dot com, dot biz or special for your country. The procedure of registration is very simple and takes about 3 minutes. You can use pay pal to register domain or other payment systems. Hosting for domain you can purchase from registrar or from hosting company which can provide you discount domain name registry.

The hoster company will provide you with data of DNS server to place it in your admin panel. I want to predict you from doing a mistake «never ask your host to register domain for your» not all the hosting providers are icann accredited domain name registrar. Better do it yourself to be sure that domain is registered officially and under your company name. Remember domain is your asset. When you invest your money in promoting your web site, be sure it will increase capitalization of your company. If you decide to sell your company, domain name and your web site will be in the package of your assets.
Long run after registration

As for me I like hosting providers who gives you good management panel, where you can manage your files, Content Management System. In this panel you can add and manage you mail accounts. It is very convenient especially for such not professional user like me. My provider has very polite and professional support team, so don't be afraid to be alone in the forest. There is no devil as he is painted. Try to read manuals forums for the topic and doors will be opened for you.

About the Author

Olesya Breus is a business lady with large management and self-emplyed experience. She is a great motivator and leader giving you all the "self" strategies: self development, self motivation, self employment. www.doublewellbeing.com

Web Design Essex, Essex Website Designers & Developers, Ecommerce Web Design Solutions, Web Hosting - Nebulas Website Design.

Totally Free Methods Of Traffic Generation by Art Luff

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 07:13:00 EST

Totally Free Methods Of Traffic Generation by Art Luff

A business start up would of course require a lot of things, first and foremost you'd need a capital. It takes money to make money. Yet, with the versatility the internet offers, there are many ways you could find to do for free, that under normal circumstances would cost you plenty.

Without the necessary resources to jumpstart your traffic, you'll have to rely on other ways to generate traffic. There are alternatives to paying for traffic and in most cases just as effective. While they may take a while longer for you to see the results, they do come. You also must have the drive and perseverance to do hard work and research to generate more traffic for your site.

What a blessing it is to generate traffic for your site without spending a single cent. Actually, just because you haven't spent any of your hard earned dollars on advertising does not mean that this will be poor or less productive traffic. The strategies mentioned below are some of th most effective and productive forms of traffic generation on the web. They will give you traffic and you will get sales.

JOIN AND PARTICIPATE IN ONLINE FORUMS.

The number of these communities has grown by leaps and bounds over the years. If you do a search in Google, you may be overwhelmed by the sheer number of them. Don't be alarmed. just start at the top and work down. Some will be what your looking for and some will not. Bookmark the one's you like and move on.

You can easily determine which boards are specific to your niche. Just read the threads and you'll be able to tell almost instantly. If you find one, go ahead and register. Once you do you'll be able to immediately begin asking or answering questions. When you do you'll be afforded the opportunity to leave a link pointing to your site. This is where your traffic will trickle in from.

Since your questions or posts will eventually go to the bottom of the thread, you will have to make regular contributions to keep your link active. In other words, Post at regular intervals to keep the traffic coming.

PUBLISH A NEWSLETTER/EZINE.

Provide people with a catalog of your products and interesting and entertaining articles. If you make it really interesting and entertaining, more people will sign up for your newsletter and recommend it to other people. The more people who signs up for your newsletter, the more people there will be that will go to your site increasing your traffic.

TRADE LINKS WITH OTHER WEBMASTERS.

Search for and find webmasters whose sites are relevant to yours. This is almost a MUST DO. The search engines will rank your sites importance by the number of relevant backlinks it has. It moves you up the page in search results. As the old saying goes, "The One With The Most Backlinks, WINS"

WRITE ARTICLES.

Try writing articles that will provide tips and guides to other would be business owners or existing one's. Writing articles that provide good service and knowledge to other people would provide the necessary mileage your traffic flow needs. This strategy is by far the Best of the Best. Once you submit them to online directories they become exposed to newsletter publishers and web site owners looking for content for their publications or content for their own sites. The effects can be dramatic.

If you've written good articles, you can alter them slightly and post them to your site. This will become the food that hungry search spyders feed on. Many search engines track down the keywords and keyword phrases your site uses and how they are used. It is not a requirement that your content should be done by a professional content writer. You could do your on but you have to make content for your site that is entertaining as well as informational. It should provide certain requirements as well as great quality.

Generally, internet users use search engines to find what they are looking for. Search engines in return use keyword searching in aiding their search results. With the right keywords, you could get high rankings in search engine results without the costs.

All of these methods and more will drive more traffic to your site for free. All it takes is a bit of effort and extended man hours. Learn all you can about the methods depicted here and you will soon have a site with a great traffic flow without the usual costs that come with it.

About the Author

Discover These 79 Different Traffic Generation Techniques.
Before Your Competition Does!
http://viralurl.com/newspub/17015369

Web Design Essex, Essex Website Designers & Developers, Ecommerce Web Design Solutions, Web Hosting - Nebulas Website Design.

What's this about Web 2.0 anyway? by Dave Collado

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 07:12:00 EST

What's this about Web 2.0 anyway? by Dave Collado

This is the second installment in a two-part discussion designed to introduce you to our new Web 2.0 family of templates. In part one "Introduction to Web 2.0 templates" we introduced you to Web 2.0 templates and discussed how the new look is so synonymous to the Web 2.0 feel. In the second part of this article, we'll help you arrive at a conceptual understanding of Web 2.0. You'll also learn about 4 of the most popular Web 2.0 applications as we examined the useful, the hype and the disenchanted.

So, what's it all about? Authentically, Web 2.0 is a phrase given by O'Reilly Media, referring to the professed notion of second generation of Web based societies and hosted services such as folksonomies and social-networks which aim to allow interaction and sharing between like-minded groups of users across the web. Or at least that's the theory. However, is this actually new technology? What was wrong with our old web, and how does this really work?

Technology infrastructure

Granted, many of the technology components of "Web 2.0" have existed since the early days of the Web, however today we've put it all into practice; social networking, blogging, discussion groups and the like is become a hugely powerful medium and people are just starting to grasp how effective that can be. Moreover there is one major substance, which happens to be the foundation of this concept, and that is "interaction." Interaction or networking simply means that you and I can download and upload various data in hope of enhancing our knowledge.

The online encyclopedia Wikipedia.org is a perfect example of a very large group of people in mutual cooperation who all share a common interest. Likewise the photo sharing services Flickr adopted by Yahoo in mid 2005 provides its users with an opportunity to express and share their creativity with like-minded individuals the world over. And besides these we mustn't forget our plentiful virtual social communities.

Social networking websites

Leading the virtual social experience is, of course, MySpace followed by Facebook which boasts over thirty million active members as the fastest growing social networking website thus far. Facebook is totally free you simply create a profile, give them your email, make up a password, log in and start meeting people. Facebook lets you keep in touch with your friends, schoolmates and or relatives whom you may not otherwise see everyday. Basically users log on and connect with friends by writing a few lines about what they're doing right now or later.

Likewise it's an opportunity make mutual friends with one of your friend's friends or join a group to discuss your views with those who share a similar interests. Most social networking websites feature a number of various ways for users to interact, such as chat, messaging, email, video, voice chat, file sharing, blogging, discussion groups, and this might sound a little clingy, even satellite tracking. Whether you are struggling with diabetes, trying to conceive, drowning in debt or fearful about the future? There's a community for all of these and anything else that may go bump in your head.

From a designer's perspective Facebook is the winner with its clean feel and streamline good looks, which corresponds with our Web 2.0 perception of style earlier mentioned (i.e. central layout, better allocation of text and brighter color surfaces readily attributed to Web 2.0 templates) as opposed to MySpace's inexplicably gauche feel, making Facebook more accessible to people of all ages.

Security awareness

The biggest risk here is privacy and not in the way one might think but from what I like to call "over sharing", some people simply share way more than they need to, too much information, they simply post things about themselves that they would never want to shout out from a street corner. While Facebook, unlike MySpace, does have the ability to limit the availability of your profile to only your friends and other people on your networks, it is still up to the user if he should decide to want to censor himself. Granted it isn't easy for a whole generation of show-offs to remain in secret.

Not that there's anything wrong with the whole idea of interacting and sharing in itself but, the reality is that most of these social-networking sites suffer from a lack of real community. Online communities are not communities in the real sense - they are a slightly more sinuous interpretation of the former. MySpace for example is a complete disgrace and nothing more than a narcissist reservoir where the socializing on offer is not only poor in quality but also impetuous and vain not to insinuate that Facebook is any better or anything, not by a long shot. Notwithstanding, in the real world people know that they will be held accountable for their behavior, in other words while we still have the freedom to exercise our first amendment rights we must do so with respect towards others and in the spirit of up-building our fellow neighbor and not just me, only me, always me and me, me, me, me.

Having said that, Web 2.0 is truly about bonding with the world today through a common base - the Internet - as well as offering genuine solutions. And everyday, online communities, large and small, do just that. Ladies and gentlemen, there's hope and there's reason for hope.

Have an opinion? We'd like to hear from you: http://foamers.net/blogger/archives/82

About the Author

You may distribute this article in its entirety under a Creative Commons Licence. Please attribute the author by name and link (URL)

Dave Collado is the Senior Design Consultant at www.foamers.net who provides quality website templates customization, WEB 2.0 templates, Flash templates customization, CSS templates, web design tutorials, and many other web design and web hosting services.

Web Design Essex, Essex Website Designers & Developers, Ecommerce Web Design Solutions, Web Hosting - Nebulas Website Design.

Web 2.0? Does that Mean I Have to Reinstall My Internet? by Andy Eliason

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 07:12:00 EST

Web 2.0? Does that Mean I Have to Reinstall My Internet? by Andy Eliason

Remember when Virtual Reality was going to be the future of online interaction? Or when the Information Superhighway was the speedy road to success? We've been through Cyberspace, where all the previously-named Virtual [blanks] became Cyber [blanks], and then we landed in the middle of Dot Com. At first it was the Dot Com Industry, and then the Dot Com Craze. And now it's forced to reside in the Land of Failed Business Models as the Dot Com Bubble or Dot Bomb. These were all the best new ways to describe the best new thing. But was it something new, or was it just a new label? Was it a better product or a better buzzword?

Where are we now? We're still getting used to the newest word: Web 2.0. Nothing says "new and improved" like "2.0". Of course, the Internet isn't really "new and improved". No one has sat down and designed a brand new World Wide Web. But the name is perfect. It's perfect for a fresh start and a second chance. Investors get a little twitchy when things like "bubbles" go and "burst". "New and Improved" is the perfect way to get them to come back.

But no one really seems to be sure what Web 2.0 actually applies to. There is no massive, all-encompassing upgrade to the Internet. No change in underlying technology. The phrase seems to apply to those newcomers that involve customer interaction. What are they called? You know, those things that allow users to post their opinions on literally anything they want... and in an environment where users can respond with their own opinions. What are they called? BBSes? No, wait - Homepages? Oh, right. Blogs. That's it. They're blogs now. Of course. Silly me.

And since we haven't been able to clearly define what Web2.0 encompasses, we begin to develop new buzzwords to describe our first buzzwords. It's a vicious cycle. We've created phrases like "social networking," the "semantic web," and - like the cyber- and virtual- days before it - we've started tagging a precious "2.0" to the back of all our other industry titles. When I see an advertisement for Lawn Care 2.0 I'm walking away from my marketing job and never coming back.

There is another problem with this particular buzzword, and that is the question whether or not it actually describes anything new and different at all. Is it really all that impressive that people are using a world wide network to... network?

Sure, we're delivering information at more phenomenal rates than ever before, which allows us to change some of the mediums that carry that information... but other than that, the only thing that seems to have changed is the venture capitalist willingness to throw money and Internet companies again.

And who wouldn't want to? After all, social networking and other web applications have made billions... if, of course, they happen to get purchased by Microsoft, Yahoo, or Google.

I've been a writer for years. I also have the potential to make millions of dollars from a book. After all, a bunch of other authors have done so. I think I'm a pretty good author, and I could probably tell a story that is a lot like those million dollar books. And yet, no one has thrown a lot of venture capitol my way. There must be something wrong with them.

Maybe I just need more buzzwords.

Novel 2.0!

Now the bleeding edge of literature doesn't have to involve paper cuts. And you can be part of it for a mere 100k investment!

Who could refuse? Novels will be the wave of literary future. Surely if J.K. Rowling can sell eight and a half million copies in a single day, surely a book that looks a lot like it but adds a couple new features will make almost as much money?

It's not going to happen. A lot of similar books will hit the shelves, but it will never be the same. Historically, it never works. But history has never had much to do with the prevailing business mentality that people will only buy the same thing over and over again.

But somehow, in the online world, all it takes is a few well placed buzzwords to convince investors that they are worth bucket-fulls of money. Somehow we're sure that a slightly tweaked use of old technology will garner the attention of Microsoft, Yahoo, or Google.

Is it because of the power of the almighty buzzword?

Do you realize that "buzzword" is, in fact, a buzzword? (There's that vicious cycle again.)

Writers can do a lot with buzzwords, and it doesn't matter if the current preference is for Information Superhighways or Dot Coms or Web 2.0s, we can make something of it. Sometimes we can make millions of dollars of it.

During the Dot Com Craze we had convinced ourselves that we were on the cusp of a revolution. People were ready to throw money at Internet businesses rather than business models. Who needs a model when you've got the Internet... and a pocket-full of buzzwords? The Dot Com revolution was going to be amazing. It was going to revolutionize the way we interacted with each other, the way we shopped, the way we advertised, the way we learned, the way we accessed information.

It didn't really happen.

Luckily, now we've got Web 2.0.

Web 2.0 is going to revolutionize the way we interact with each other, the way we shop, the way we advertise, the way we learn, and the way we access information.

Whew. Finally!

So until it's time for the next big thing to describe the same old thing, as writers we'll hold onto our buzzwords like secret, mystical words that, when put in the right order, will create magic. Or, if we're really lucky, money.

But what about the Art? No one chooses writing as a career without at least a little desire to create - a need to make something with a little quality.

Are we ruining that by succumbing to the convenience of the buzzword? Do we sell out just a little bit every time we leverage the synergy of optimized word usage?

Maybe.

But what can we do about it? Wait for the current bubble to burst and then be the first to name the next trend?

Maybe.

It's not exactly Art, but there is definitely an art to it. Shifting Paradigms and Revolutionizing Outside the Box can only be used in certain ways. The right way means a catchy phrase and intellectual influence. A true Masterpiece. The wrong way means a words that are hollow and completely devoid of meaning. The wrong way is a cheap fake... from a dot matrix printer... printed on tattered, sun-faded construction paper.

There's nothing wrong with big, trendy words. In fact, they're usually fun to play around with. We just have to remember to use them for good rather than evil. We can obfuscate or we can enlighten. The choice is ours.

About the Author

Andy Eliason spends his time writing and being generally pessimistic about the state of Internet affairs. You can learn more about Internet marketing at Main10, the company he works for.

Web Design Essex, Essex Website Designers & Developers, Ecommerce Web Design Solutions, Web Hosting - Nebulas Website Design.

The Internet: Is it a Success or a Failure by Brad Johnson

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 07:11:00 EST

The Internet: Is it a Success or a Failure by Brad Johnson

The Internet: Is it a Success or Failure?

Many concerned users of the World Wide Web have expressed their opinions on the Internet's current state. Is it really an information superhighway or just an overpopulated online disaster filled with terrorism, crooks, scams, liars and perverts?

If looked at carefully, people can see that the Internet really mirrors the elements of society. In society, there is violence, disgust, danger, scams, fraud and terrorism. While this is also present on the Internet, it shouldn't be the focus point on accusations leading to a theoretical online downfall. Although a majority of Internet content found online can raise a few eyebrows as to whether this is safe for children to be viewing, it should not be the main focal point of receiving criticism.

To say the Internet is a success or failure would be a subjective statement. There is a bright side to the Internet as the way we communicate with each other has majorly evolved. Many online businesses are bringing in more profit online successfully throughout any location worldwide, online shopping convenience is a thrill for many, the amount of insightful information on practically any topic that can be conjured up is a constant pleasure for students, and those who simply want to learn more about the world they live in.

But of course, with brightness comes the darkness as well. People can abuse the privileges of cyberspace. And as the demand for more websites grow more and more, the Internet's competitive nature becomes ominous for struggling online merchants who are at the brink of failure. For them, it can truly be a battle for survival of the fittest. Pornography is wildly rampant, and sometimes even out of control. Companies are making an inordinate amount of profit based on online videos involving 'hokey' amateur productions that can be filmed literally anywhere with some one's camcorder.

Again, it goes back to the mirror of society. Looking at the Internet is to look at life, how it currently exists and how we as human beings interact within it. So is the Internet a success or failure? It all really depends on how you tend to look on life and reflect back to what you do when you're online. Does the Internet enlighten or disgust you? Answer that question, and you will have the answer to whether the Internet is ingenious or a pure disaster.

About the Author

Brad Johnson is a professional web designer/Internet Marketer who owns PC-Tutorials.com: A resource website that specializes in a vast amount of articles, tutorials and more pertaining to Internet Marketing and Information Technology.

Web Design Essex, Essex Website Designers & Developers, Ecommerce Web Design Solutions, Web Hosting - Nebulas Website Design.

The Evolution and Revolution of Search Engines by Steve Bis

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 07:11:00 EST

The Evolution and Revolution of Search Engines by Steve Bis

Search engines, where would we be without them? Within the past 10-15 years the internet has become a huge part of every day American life. Many people nowadays cannot remember the time prior to having this wonderful information highway we call the internet. The internet has really revolutionized the way people live their lives; for example, you can bank online, buy just about anything you want online, meet new people online, and even find local movie times. However, one of the biggest benefits of the internet is the use of search engines. At any moment in time you may have a question, or an urge to get more information about a certain topic and that information can be easily attained through a search engine. In this article I am going to give you a brief history on the evolution of the search engine, and show you how they truly have revolutionized our lifestyles.

The history of search engines is the story of university students’ projects evolving into commercial enterprises and revolutionizing the field as they went. The first attempt at creating a search engine was called Archie, and it was created in 1990 by Alan Emtage, a student at McGill University. This very primitive search engine did not use any robot technology. All Archie really did was just become a database of archived filenames, which it would try to match with users’ queries.

The next evolutionary step of the search engine was the introduction of “robots.” The first use of robot technology was in the search engine World Wide Web Wanderer. Simply what robots would do is scan the internet for URL’s, starting at one site and using the links in the previous site to find more sites. The problems with these first robots were that if they were not written properly they would cause too many hits on a server decaying the systems performance.

To combat these initial problems Martjin Koster came out with the first web directory called “Aliweb” in October 1993. Web directories are different than search engines because the sites listed in them are not from automated robots, but rather from human editors reviewing sites and placing them in the directory.

However, shortly after, in December 1993, a new robot was born. This was called the “spider.” Spiders added a much further degree of accuracy by indexing the entire text of a webpage. The older robots only indexed the URL and titles of a page, which meant that some pertinent keywords might not be indexed. This greatly improved the relevancy rankings of their results, and thus was the first major step in forming the major search engines that we have all become so used to using today.

Not long after the spider, we saw the emergence of some of the big guns. In 1994, out of Stanford University came the extremely famous Yahoo. The two guys who started Yahoo were students, David Filo and JerryYang. Basically, at first Yahoo was just a list of these guys’ favorite websites. But soon, due to its easy user-friendly interface, became the most popular web directory. Due to the fact that its websites were all human reviewed, Yahoo was only able to index about 1% of the web. At this time, Altavista became the fastest growing search engines using the spider technology and was indexing up to 10 million pages a day.

By this time there are two different types of search engines, “author controlled” such as Altavista and Excite, in which results were ranked by keyword relevancy, and “editor controlled” such as Yahoo, in which humans manually placed websites into their index.

Then in late 1997 out of Stanford University was born the most popular and well-known search engine to date: GOOGLE Google has a different way of ranking its websites. It used a Pagerank system. Simply what they did was list websites higher in their results based on how many links were pointing to a particular site. Of course, the content on the page had to be relevant to the keyword typed into the search box. But basically, Google invented what you could call a system of voting. So a site with numerous backlinks or votes would rank higher. A backlink is just when someone else puts a link on their site that points to another outside site. Jump forward to today and Google has more than 80% of the websites on the internet in their index, which is pretty impressive.

Search engines have had a huge impact on the American lifestyle. They basically will grant you just about any information you want, all you have to do is type into the search box the topic you want to find more information about. Human beings are natural born information junkies, we always want to know more and find out more and search engines have made this urge of ours extremely easy to cure. Just think about it, maybe you need to fix a simple problem you have with your car. By using a search engine to do some research you may very easily figure the problem out, saving you a very costly trip to the car repair shop. They are just great educational tools, before search engines emerged if you really wanted to learn something you would go to your library and check out a book. Now before making that trip you may find out what you wanted by just sitting at your desktop and surfing through Google. The list goes on about the many benefits of this great new technology we call the search engine. I’m sure you can recall a time when you found some very good information by using one. If you’re anything like me and find yourself addicted to this easily accessible information highway then your making uses of them daily.

Search engines by nature were made very easy to use. However, with a little extra knowledge about how they work you can really take advantage of them and find great information very quickly. With the right knowledge of search engines and the use of specialized tools you can literally find anything you want. And when I mean anything, I mean ANYTHING. For me personally I am excited to see what search engines will evolve into in the future. The sky is the limit. Who knows what type of search spiders the future will spawn, but one thing is for sure there will be newer and newer search technology it’s just our human nature to keep trying to top ourselves.

About The Author

Search engine specialist Steve Bis, is the author of the free search secrets newsletter and owns a unique web search tool that will help you find anything on the internet in 60 seconds, eliminating your search frustrations. http://www.ultimatesearchpro.com.

Web Design Essex, Essex Website Designers & Developers, Ecommerce Web Design Solutions, Web Hosting - Nebulas Website Design.

Search: Online Adult Dating by John Waltzer

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 07:10:00 EST

Search: Online Adult Dating by John Waltzer

People look for love and romance on the internet in an online adult dating site. Others look for sex and only sex it may be straight or alternate sex. The search is about people and not peanuts or rugs, hence it is people search.

People come in all shape and size, age and type. Name it and they are their-singles, swinger couples, lesbians, gays; straight, bisexual and heterosexual; interracial, interfaith...all. People with weirdest sexual preference are there on the net looking for someone of the same type to satisfy their sexual urge. An online adult dating site with a large number of listings is split into these very categories for an easy and efficient search. There site dedicated to a specific category, say an online adult site for gay personals, a site for lesbians.

People are into match making to find their life partners, single parents, divorcees, seniors, widows-these portals are called Match Making sites although they may offer many options.

The word dating is prominent in the tile of all the adult dating sites on the web lest they may be taken for porn sites which carry explicit adult content. Unlike porn sites offering amateur and hardcore visuals, online adult dating sites are a friend finder and relation ship building sites The search for a sexual encounters and adult sex personals is the most common on dating sites but they by no means are x rated.

Sex is not a forbidden fruit any more. Couples searching other couples, partner swapping couples, couples looking for singles; singles looking for singles or couples, alternate sex seekers lesbian personals and gay personals looking for their type are common searches on the internet. Seniors have also joined the fray...Thanks to internet they are also rediscovering their sex lives.

Online adult dating sites are user friendly which can be visited from the safe confines of once home. They offer privacy, anonymity and discreet options for those who do not wish to reveal their identities. The chance of meeting your type is an exceptional probability which is not possible in public life. Hence the popularity of these portals is an ever increasing phenomenon.

About the Author

I am john a freelance writer and Web Designer with deep interest in online dating . I have written many articles and published many of them online. I have designed website on dating and online adult dating. I would love to write and design sites.

Web Design Essex, Essex Website Designers & Developers, Ecommerce Web Design Solutions, Web Hosting - Nebulas Website Design.

Planning to Build a Money-Making Website by J.F. Lucero

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 07:10:00 EST

Planning to Build a Money-Making Website by J.F. Lucero

In anything that we do, planning is the most essential element to make everything a success. If you are planning to design and build a site that is designed to make you money, it is very important to know what you are trying to achieve and what course of actions you are planning to take to achieve it.

Any website will surely generate multiple streams of income if it is carefully planned. Invest time in planning and you will surely reap the rewards later. Many of websites today failed to achieve their goal because they are not well-planned and because of lack of visitors. For these same reasons also that the webmasters of these websites gradually loose their interest to update them and they just eventually turn into wasted investment.

The essential part of planning your site is optimizing it for revenue should you want to earn an income from it. Dividing your site into major sections, ordered by themes or topics, and building new pages and subsections within those major sections are so effective if you want to optimize your content. For example, if you are planning to build a health site, you might want to have a "hair care" section, a "skin care" section and a "loose weight" section for your site. You can then write and publish your own article relevant in the respective sections to attract streams of traffic that comes looking for further information.

If you have an extensive, better-defined scope of themes for your website, you can sell ad space on your pages to people interested in advertising on your page. You can also earn joining some publisher programs like Google Adsense and Yahoo! Search Marketing. If you have a relevant content, relevant ads will surely show-up on your web pages and people looking for more information regarding that topic will click on your ads. Themed and relevant pages will also keep your visitors stay longer on your site and you will then have the opportunity to show them more ads from the affiliate programs you are promoting.

Today, Internet is becoming more and more popular. More and more businesses, large and small are getting better results in advertising through online media than offline media. Everyone is turning on the internet for information that they don't seem to get from the offline media. But not all websites are given the opportunity to tap into this great opportunity. Only those who have a carefully planned website, with optimized and relevant contents have the advantage to start utilizing this profitable stream of income right away.

Now, if you are looking for a reliable company to host your money-making website, Profit Builder Club hosting would like to offer you the best and cheap multiple domain web hosting packages for your small business. Visit us now and get your free web hosting for two months.

About the Author

The author of the article is a Filipino web developer and internet marketer. She is also the owner and admin of Profitbuilderclub.com, a Cheap Unix Web Site Hosting provider.

Web Design Essex, Essex Website Designers & Developers, Ecommerce Web Design Solutions, Web Hosting - Nebulas Website Design.

Online Shopping by James Warren

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 07:09:00 EST

Online Shopping by James Warren

I have just brought my first house!

I move in next week!

I'm really looking forward to it and can't wait to get those keys!

Ok so i'm not the first person in the world to be in this situation. But to me it is a new feeling and comes with tremendouse stresses and pressures which I havn't had to deal with before.

In between my day job and dealing with the solicitors and the estate agents, i'm worrying about the mortgage. Is the money going to get here on time? What if the contracts don't get exchanged? I hope I don't get gazzumped!

Finally I stop and have a think, then it hits me....

I havn't actually got anything for my new house! I need a fridge freezer, a washing machine, an oven. And the list goes on! I don't have time to go around the shops and compare prices. Let alone have the means to store everything before I get the house!

What am I going to do?

I know, i'll buy everthing online. Great, problem solved!

So, I get my laptop out and start surfing the Internet looking for the best deals and best prices.

Hours go by and I havn't actually made a purchase! I'm on a budget so I have to watch the pennies.

I find the product I want and think to myself, Can I get it cheaper elsewhere? so I go to another retailers website and start my search again. I do this a few times only to realise that the first place I looked was the cheapest anyway. How frustrating!

After an hour or two goes buy and my shopping list isn't really getting any smaller I think Why can't the High Street be online in one place? Wouldn't it be great if i could search one website with products from all retailers and compare the prices at the same time!

I typed into the Address bar http://www.thehighstreetonline.com to see if it had been done and to my pleasure, it has!

I found a great website which has all the major retailers and brands and even compares the prices.

If only I new about this great service before I wasted all that time!

Anyway, I searched for each of the products on my list and compared all the prices and then went off to the cheapest retailers website and made my purchases. All within 30 minutes.

This was fantastic, I now know that when I move in to my new house next week, I don't have to worry about being without the basic utilities like a fridge freeze, wahing machine etc. It is all being delivered the day after I move in.

All I have to do now is wait and keep my fingers crossed that the house purchase goes through without a hitch!

Please learn from my experiences and make the most of the free services out there, like http://www.thehighstreetonline.com

It really does save you time and money!

About The Author

My name is James Warren. I am an normal guy who has just purchased his first house. I want to share my experiences and let others learn from my mistakes. http://www.thehighsteetonline.com has really helped me save time and money, and it's free to use!

Web Design Essex, Essex Website Designers & Developers, Ecommerce Web Design Solutions, Web Hosting - Nebulas Website Design.

Online Dating Guide for Men: Part One by Dave

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 07:08:00 EST

Online Dating Guide for Men: Part One By Dave

The Rules: A Guide For Men - Part I

You know, maybe you guys will think this arrogant, but I gotta tell ya, now and again I talk to a gal here, and it seems there needs to be a clearing of the air. Some rules...basic 'do's' and 'do nots' that you can use as a little guide. So, as a public service, I thought I'd write a few down. Now, trust me, I am pretty well certain that 95% of women here will agree with 95% of the rules. Not a bad stat, huh? Ladies, if you're in agreement, please back me up on these...I don't think I'm really reaching here, from what I've heard. Oh, and this is just a first kick at the can, so to speak. I'll try to come up with follow-ups as needed.

The Rules:

1. Sending pictures of your c*ck to gals on the site. I debated whether or not I should work up to this rule with a few minor ones, you know, kind of like a warm-up to the main event, but the fact is that there are simply too many of you guys deciding that a glossy, close-up of your meat-pole is one of those time honoured flagships of courtship. It ain't. In case I'm being a little vague, let me rephrase that. Chicks don't want you sending them pictures of your willy. They just don't. I promise. Trust me, as enamoured as you might be with the sight of your little putz, the vast majority of women are not, and here's the thing. It may be that there are a few women that really DO want to see grainy, web-cam photos of the male member, from random samples that the gender has to offer. These women have this cool thing called "google" and if they go to the image area and type in "Morons and their schlongs" they can find all the pictures of guys like you that they could ever want. Seriously. Check the interests in the site and look for how many women have put "uninvited d!ck shots" in there. Found any? There's a reason.

Okay, now we've got past the big one, fellas, and now we're going to go on some minor rules. These are not, by any means 100% certain, but I'm betting you will do well to at least give 'em a try. Still reading? For the probably 40-50% of you who are functionally illiterate (trust me, I'm basing this on anecdotal evidence from females on this site, that's a pretty good estimate) and have a 'spotter' reading for you, make sure they're reading slowly.

2. Pull back on the relationship throttle and ease off the commitment buttons...You've talked to someone a couple of times on line, maybe even managed to beg or extort a woman into actually meeting you for coffee...or have her on the phone after a week or so...don't go suggesting you love them, or want to move in together or for chr!ssakes, want to get married.. Women have a word for that type of clingy, over the top, needy type. It's called...'weirdo'. You see, at this point, she knows you approximately as well as she does the guy who sits four seats ahead of her on the bus most days as she commutes to work, and even if you are certain that she is Cleopatra to your Mark Anthony (note to spotters: explain this is a historical reference and just means that you really dig the chick)...she isn't. You're gonna freak her out. If you want to marry her after talking for two weeks...it means you should wait 2 years before you propose. Seriously. If you want to marry her after talking for one week...you should wait 20 years.

3. Pictures of you flexing half naked. Two words. Independent editor. Some of you guys have a six pack down there that anyone would want to see...hell, I would want to see...but most of you? It's nothing special. So, before you flash that pic of you doing your Hulk imitation in your boxers and not much else, do the ladies a favour and ask a trusted confidante "is this a particularly attractive midriff?" because unless they say, 'f*ck yeah' you're advertising you are vain about a body part you have no business in being vain about. Tee shirt. Trust me.

4. Your occupation. Don't put down that you're a spy. Just don't. Don't leave it blank and at the first conversation make strange hints that you can't talk about your job...and then tell her, in confidence, that you're really an agent with the CIA, FBI or NSA. Here's why. Guys think that's cool...it's like playing cowboys and indians or something...you're a boy, and you are attracted to the idea of pretending you're a big, mysterious, super-spy international agent. Women? They think "F*ck, this means he'll probably be working a lot of weekends." And in the event that you two DO hit it off and walk off into the sunset...yeah, she's thinking "I'm getting stuck with most of the diaper duties and all the times the kids wake up in the night". You see, that's a boy's fantasy for a job. You want to impress a woman with a lie about your work? Tell her you're a chef or an extremely well paid housecleaner (and that you LOVE your work). Oh, and I wouldn't mention this rule unless I had heard about it actually happening...don't put your occupation as 'model' with an obviously pro picture lifted from any magazine site and THEN tell them you 'moonlight for the FBI'. First off, FBI agents don't have second jobs in a business that will have their faces postered everywhere. Secondly, they don't blow their cover on online dating sites.

5. I know, I know...the profile is meant to give you an opportunity to describe yourself and you want to tell 'em how smart you are. You should. It's a good idea. But please...it is spelled "Intelligent". Not..."intellegent". I mention this because the first time I saw it, I chalked it up to chance...the second time an odd coincidence and the third...a very disturbing trend. Listen, I know, typos are part of the online reality, and I give 'em as much slack as anyone, but on THIS ...well, it's kind of important, if you are saying you're intelligent, to at least be able to prove this by spelling the word correctly. If it's too hard to remember, just say you're "smart". It's easier to spell. As an aside, it's easier if you just show them you're smart, rather than say you are and then explain you're sensitive and looking for that special someone by listing your interests as "beer, cars and sex". Oh, and also, if you're saying you're funny...be funny...if you're 'into readin' (and yes, I've seen it put that way), list some of the books you've recently read...even if they are picture books and even if you aren't sure if that makes you sound dorky (it doesn't). Reading was considered 'dorky' my cute girls in grade four, and while that's the reading level many of you guys are still struggling with, most girls aren't going to think less of you because you say you love reading John Irving.

6. If you are older than 19. The letter 'z' is not used, generally speaking, to pluralize words. Don't do that. For those of you who are 18 years old and believe that this rule does not apply to you, I meant 19 months.

7. I know I've mentioned no c*ck shots. Just wanted to reiterate. Don't.

8. Women who list 'sex' in their interests do not mean 'sex with you' or 'sex with every jag off who messages me' or 'I'm easy'. Men who list 'sex' in their interests are wasting their time. Women are all assuming we are interested in that. Unless you list Catholic Priest as an occupation, but given what I've been reading in the news, even that's no guarantee.

9. Women couldn't give a sh!t how much you bench press...how many beers you drank last weekend...what you plan to fix on your car/ATV/lawnmower this weekend...or why your softball team didn't win the game last night. Seriously. They don't. You're intellegent...think of something ELSE to talk about.

10. If you actually like something a girl said in her profile...or if her picture really caught your eye...do not send her a message that starts with or solely consists of "Hey baby", or "You sexy", and I can't actually believe I'm having to say this but anecdotal evidence sometimes speaks volumes..."wanna f*ck?" Try out 'Hi, I just wanted to say hello, and let you know I really enjoyed your profile" or "I'm * and wanted to see if you'd mind talking sometime" or "I read the rules, and I promise no c*ck shots and no marriage proposals...but how about talking?" Trust me. It takes about twenty seconds more and makes a HUGE difference. Oh, and while we're at it, if you just send messages to hundreds of women at a time and are actually typing out 'hey baby' to all of them...save yourself the time, it's called 'cut and paste' you f*cking moron.

There. Ten quick rules...none of them seem that arduous, and if you're a guy sitting there and thinking "well, d'uh...", that's fine...it's not about you. But you'd be surprised... I know more than a few women here will attest to the fact that if every guy followed the above rules, their experiences would be a lot more positive...so we're sort of clearing the air.

Remember...if a woman wants to see a picture of your d!ck, she'll ask. If she wants to move in with you, she'll mention at least that she hates living alone. You're probably NOT as cut as you think you are. Boys think playing 'spy' is cool...girls don't. Intelligent is spelled with an 'I' to start and another 'i' is hidden in the middle. You're not into 'carz' or drinking a ton of 'beerz' this weekend. Cars. Beers. Even if you CAN spell it right, don't talk about cars or beers or bench pressing or your softball team...and they know you like sex. Promise. "Hey baby" is not a message, it's the digital equivalent of honking your horn at a girl walking along the street.

And put your web cam away and your d!ck in your pants, because it's not impressing anyone.

About the Author

Dave is a contributing writer at Online Dating Advice.

Web Design Essex, Essex Website Designers & Developers, Ecommerce Web Design Solutions, Web Hosting - Nebulas Website Design.

Do You Always Find What You Want On The Internet? Five Great Tips To Becoming A Better Searcher by Steve Bis

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 07:06:00 EST

Do You Always Find What You Want On The Internet? Five Great Tips To Becoming A Better Searcher
by Steve Bis

In this article I am going to give you five great tips on how to find what you want easier on the internet, specifically by using search engines. You just wouldn’t believe how many people use the search engines and don’t really find what they set out to. Just using one of these easy tips can greatly improve the quality of information you will find.

1. Using quotations for exact phrase matching.

Simply by placing quotations around the search term you can really narrow down your search. There is one thing though, this tip is only useful if you are using more than one word to search. What the quotations does are only show results from the search engines that have the words you typed in, exactly in the way you typed them in. For example if you typed in dog training techniques as your search term without the quotations you will notice in the search engine results that those three words are scattered all throughout the listing. You can tell easily because your words are bolded. Now if you throw quotations around your search term the only results that you would get back are only ones that have those three words right next to each other as you typed them in, as opposed to being all over the listing. This little trick becomes extremely useful especially when you are being very specific with your search, which brings me to my next tip.

2. Be specific.

The great thing about search engines is that they all have billions of web pages listed into their index, which is their database of web pages. So you must take advantage of this, and by that I mean be as specific as possible with your search. If you are looking for healthy dog food for your new puppy then type in something like healthy food for your new puppy. I can’t stress this enough if you are really searching for something then be specific or you will just get lost. Now if you take this and use the quotations you can find what your looking for really quick. So for example you may have a question in your head such as. What’s the healthiest puppy food? This is getting specific, now go ahead and throw quotations around your question and if the search engine returns any results there you go your question was answered pretty quickly. Now if you just typed in puppy food, and didn’t even use quotations then you’re in for quite a long search.

3. Browse more than one search engine.

This sounds very elementary. However, I see far too many people that have some strict love passion with Google and if they can’t find it there they give up. Now Google is a great search engine I love them, but they don’t have every single web page on the internet in their index. So if your one of those people that loves the big G then go ahead search them first. I find though that to really get the best possible answer for those burning questions that searching through multiple engines is the way too go. I don’t know how many times I went to Google first and didn’t get what I want, so I set off to Yahoo or MSN and find the information right away. All the search engines have different results. Yes some web pages you may find in all of them, but for the most part if you do the same search in three different engines the top ten results will vary greatly. So I urge you please use more than just one, you are much more likely to find what you were looking for.

4. Use the search command allintitle:

This tip is very useful and very easy to use just as the quotations are. When you type in allintitle: (and you need to put the colon) the only results the search engine will return are ones that have your search term in the title of the page. The title is the blue bar at the top of your browser. The reason this is so useful is because anyone who makes web pages puts the topic of their site in the title of their web page. So if you were looking for dog training techniques you would type it in like this,

allintitle: dog training techniques

It really is just that easy all you have to do is type in allintitle: then whatever your looking for and trust me finding web pages that have your search term in the title of the page will be very relevant to what your looking for. If you want to take it one step further use my first tip here and put quotations around your word too, thus not only returning you results that have your words in the title, but they will be found in the title exactly the way you typed them in. Which is very powerful. So that would look like this.

allintitle: “dog training techniques”

Believe me to add these two elements to your search and you will save a lot of time.

5. Search article directories.

This last tip is straying away from the search engines, but I find that there is just so much information to be found in article directories. Just goto any search engine and type in article directories and look through them. There are thousands of them. The reason they are so useful is that every single day authors submit their articles to these directories to get themselves more exposure and recognition. However there are literally thousands of topic categories to look through and they are all labeled. One of the best on the internet is ezinearticles.com, and this directory has a huge abundance of topics to read on and thousands upon thousands of published articles. I find these to be sometimes just as useful to get some of my questions answered then using the search engines.

I hope you found these tips to be useful and more so I hope you use them next time your searching the internet. Trust me even using just one of these tips will help you get better content to search through and it will definitely save you time and we all know how important someone’s time is.

About The Author

Web Design Essex, Essex Website Designers & Developers, Ecommerce Web Design Solutions, Web Hosting - Nebulas Website Design.

Don't Start A Home Business Until You Read This! by Dan Farrell

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 07:05:00 EST

Don't Start A Home Business Until You Read This! by Dan Farrell

How would you would like to make enough money from an online home business to quit the 9-5?But don't have a clue how to start?

Good question and is asked by most so you aren't alone, you see I was there but have since found out what is important and what iisn't...but only after buying $1,000's of ebooks, software, members only subscriptions...ad nauseum and sitting in front of the computer for 10-14 hours everyday, including Sundays, and pulling my hair out and losing my health...ensure to get up and walk around every hour at least or you might find yourself with a DVT and PE (Deep Vein Thrombosis and Pulmonary Embolism, I had both).

Please don't let this happen

Let me explain. I attended a desktop publishing adult ed class. It was cheap and was the only computer course being offered at that time. This shows you how long ago I began my home based business, doesn't it?

After learning how to turn on the mac, yes I learned on a mac at the school, then eventually had to re-learn a pc, I began trying to figure out what kind of website to design and subsequently.

As most of us back then Online Marketing was the sole focus for a market to assail. For crying out loud don't think of it! You'll find yourself swallowed up by 1,000's of whales... as in huge beasts that are called 'guru's or marketing experts. You will find a heap of competition in Internet Marketing and your life will be one of great frustration trying to outdo these guru's. They have the money, savvy and extra help to make superior products and know how to promote them. In addition they conspired with each other in a joint venture, which isn't necessarily a negative thing but many times it is. Aren't you tired of seeing the same email ad from 30 different marketers?

My suggestion is to find an easy to work with program to design a web site. There are free one's out there but they aren't that easy to use. SiteBuildIt! is the finest for anyone just starting out. I used it when it was first offered and found it to be an incredible tool that not only built a great looking page but designed it for the Search Engines, and now easily adds video (which is very hot). Even if you aren't a newbie.

Finally, ensure you pick a market that has some monthly searches and has under one hundred thousand results. You can do this manually or use other tools that might cost a bit. I have a list of these tools on the page below.

Whatever you do, ensure you stay focused and don't get the ONLY money you ever have to spend! or some other b.s.

You do need to spend some bucks, it a home business! and most critical get to work.

If you aren't spending the grocery money, and if not, this work at home will make you wonder why you hadn't started before. Believe me, it will be life changing!

About the Author

Dan Farrell is a full time online marketer and has published 4 ebooks, developed over 100 web sites and has published a newsletter, Build An eBusiness On A Shoestring for 8 years. For his list of essential tools, software and ebooks for any home business to succeed go to: Home Business Start Up

Web Design Essex, Essex Website Designers & Developers, Ecommerce Web Design Solutions, Web Hosting - Nebulas Website Design.

14 Ways to reduce your eBay & PayPal Fees-Non HTML by Trevor Ginn

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 07:04:00 EST

14 Ways to reduce your eBay & PayPal Fees-Non HTML by Trevor Ginn

One of the top complaints against eBay is the level of fees. It is therefore surprising that many large eBay sellers make unnecessary and easily avoidable payments to eBay. This article lists 14 easy-to-implement ways to reduce eBay fees and improve the profitability of your eBay business. Strategies for all eBay Sellers

These fee-saving strategies can be implemented by all eBay sellers, no matter what items they sell or their listing strategy. 1. PayPal Merchant Discount

If you are a volume seller on eBay, then you are probably eligible for a merchant discount on PayPal fees. The merchant fee structure is as follows:

UK PayPal Fees £0.00 to £1,500.00 - 3.4% + £0.20 £1,500.01 to £6,000.00 - 2.9% + £0.20 £6,000.01 to £15,000.00 - 2.4% + £0.20 £15,000.01 to £55,000.00 - 1.9% + £0.20 above £55,000.00 - 1.4% + £0.20

US PayPal fees $0.00 to $3,000 - 2.9% + $0.30 $3,000.01 to $10,000 - 2.5% + $0.30 $10,000.01 USD-$100,000 - 2.2% + $0.30 above $100,000 - 1.9% + $0.30

To receive discounted fees you must log onto your PayPal account and apply. This can be done from PayPal's fees page.

Potential saving - up to 2% (1% on PayPal.com) on all PayPal transactions. 2. Relisting Credits

Insertion Fees are generally non-refundable. However, eBay will automatically credit the Insertion Fee for an unsuccessful auction if:

You relist the item by clicking the "relist your item" button on the item page for the ended listing (or any other relist feature on the website) and the relisted item is sold the first time you relist it.

Potential saving: Up to £2 ($4.80 on eBay.com) per relisted item.

3. Reclaiming Non Paying Bidder Fees If a buyer does not pay for their item, you can claim back the eBay fees via eBay's unpaid item process. An unpaid item can be reported up to 45 days after an item closes.

See http://pages.ebay.com/help/tp/unpaid-item-process.html for more details.

Potential saving: Listing and final value fees on unpaid items. 4. Host Your Own Photos

If you need to use more than one photo to describe your item, eBay will charge per additional picture. However, it is simple to host your own photos, and avoid this extra cost.

If you have an eBay shop, eBay provides 1MB of free picture storage. In addition, there are many free photo hosting services such as http://www.theimagehosting.com or http://www.pictiger.com/

Potential saving: £0.12 ($0.15 on eBay.com) per additional picture. 5. Tweak your Starting Prices

Be careful when you choose your starting price, as a very small difference in price can lead to a large increase in insertion fee, especially if you are selling multiple items. For example, an item with a starting price of £29.99 incurs an insertion fee of £0.75, whereas a starting price of £30 would cost £1.50.

On eBay.com a staring price of $49.99 incurs a fee of $1.20 where as a starting price of $50.00 would cost $2.40.

Potential saving: Up to £0.75 ($1.20 on eBay.com) per listing. 6. Pay for Your eBay Fees Using a Cash Back Credit Card

Several credit cards give cash back on money spent. By using an American express credit card to pay your eBay fees, you can receive a small rebate for your eBay fees. Bear in mind that this only works if you pay your credit card bill in full each month.

Potential saving: Up to 1.5% cash back on eBay fees. 7. Teach Yourself HTML

Many sellers use eBay's listing designer service to improve the look of their listing. If you are listing multiple items, this cost will soon add up. By learning some simple HTML or employing a designer, you can develop your own template and save on the extra listing fee.

Potential saving: £0.07 ($0.10 on eBay.com) per listing. 8. Open an Ecommerce Store

Potentially the best strategy of all is to expand your business beyond eBay. By setting up your own ecommerce store you can upsell to customers you have acquired through eBay, and pay no fees at all. Channel Management software such as eSellerPro, Marketworks and ChannelAdvisor enable eBay sellers to run an ecommerce store off the same inventory as their eBay sales.

Potential saving: You pay no eBay fees on items sold off eBay! Savings Fees on Listings

The following fee-saving tactics involve changes to your eBay listing strategy and should therefore be considered in the light of your business objectives. For each of these tactics, run a limited trial and compare the conversion rates (% of listings that sell), average sales price (sales total/number of items that sold), take rate (% of sales that eBay takes as fees) and margin against your current listing strategy. 9. eBay Shop Listings

Despite the recent rise in shop listing fees, eBay shop fees are still on the whole cheaper than core listings. The best use of shop listings is for upselling commodity items and for unusual items that require a longer listing period. 10. Sell More Expensive Items

eBay has a sliding scale of fees, taking a higher percentage of the sale price (take rate) of less expensive items. By selling more expensive items you can reduce your take rate. For example, the take rate of a £5 item is 9.25%, whilst for £200 item it is 4.55%. 11. Reassess Your Use of Listing Upgrades

Listing upgrades are expensive, and should not be used unless they are improving sell-through rates and average selling prices. eBay research products like eSellerStreet (http://www.esellerstreet.com), Hammertap (http://www.hammertap.com) and Terapeak (http://www.terapeak.com/ ) will allow you to investigate the effectiveness of listing upgrades for products in your categories. You should also conduct your own trials. 12. Second Chance Offers

eBay's Second Chance Offer feature allows more than one item to be sold from a single listing, saving on the listing fee for each additional sale. When using second chance offers, you should be aware that you are making a trade-off between price and sales volume, as second chance offers are inevitably lower than the item's final price.

Potential saving: Up to £2 ($4.80 on eBay.com) per sale. 13. Lower Your Starting Prices

eBay's insertion fees are linked to the starting price of an auction, by lowering your starting price you will encourage bidding and lower your listing fees.

Potential saving: up to £1.85 ($4.60 on eBay.com) per listing. 14. Dutch Auctions

Dutch auctions, like the Second Chance Offer, allow you to sell multiple items off a single listing, saving on multiple listing fees. Potential saving: Up to £2 ($4.80 on eBay.com) per item.

About the Author

Trevor Ginn is Head of Consulting at Auctioning4u eBay Drop-Off Shop(http://www.auctioning4u.co.uk) the UK's leading eBay service provider. We'll Sell your Stuff on eBay, Just bring us your stuff, you get the Cash.

Web Design Essex, Essex Website Designers & Developers, Ecommerce Web Design Solutions, Web Hosting - Nebulas Website Design.

How To Use Online Video To Promote Your Business by Chris Rohrer

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 12:52:00 EST

How To Use Online Video To Promote Your Business by Chris Rohrer

If you've been working online I'm sure you might have heard about sites such as You Tube, and Google Video. It's a well-known fact that the Internet is changing, and so is the way people are starting to promote their business online to new prospects. Now people are using the power of video to showcase their goods.

So how can you become apart of this Internet explosion, and quickly cash in? Well its quite simple actually. You just need a few things to make it all work together as a whole.

1. You need to know the basics of running and working with a computer.

2. You're going to need a webcam, or a digital camcorder for those who have more experience.

3. You will need to know how to work both your webcam and/or digital camcorder so you can record video to your computer.

If you can do those three basic things then you can use the power of online video. Now if you can even go as a far as being able to actually edit your videos and add effects to them like music, text, and graphics, then you'll have a great advantage over the rest of the people using online video.

So how else can you use video to help promote your business?

Here are a few ideas.

1. Use video in your emails. This will give people a face to match whatever it is your trying to sell, and most of the time people buy you not whatever it is you sell online.

2. Put videos on your blogs. Instead of writing a blog post. Try putting a video up there and write a small paragraph or two about what your video is based on.

3. Add videos to your website. People want to know whom they are working with in business, and picture can easily be outdated or completely false. Even audio is losing its effect. Adding a video will give your customers a great understanding of whom they will be working with.

4. Put your videos on Myspace. If you have a Myspace page then you should have a video or two up there that people can watch to see what it is you do to work at home.

The more creative you can become with your videos the better. In this world today when people visit a website they want to be able to interact with it, and feel as if they are apart of it. Those who take this new level of technology and run with it will succeed much greater then those who still use old and outdated tactics.

About the Author

Chris Rohrer has been working online for over 3 years, and has been helping people make extra money working online. To learn more about Chris and how he can help you visit http://www.arbtrader.net

Web Design Essex, Essex Website Designers & Developers, Ecommerce Web Design Solutions, Web Hosting - Nebulas Website Design.