Which WordPress Theme to choose?

April 30, 2008

WordPress.com 3 Million Blogs The best course of action to take sometimes isn’t clear until you’ve listed and considered your alternatives. The same is when you are choosing WordPress theme. The best platform for blogging, in my opinion, is WordPress. WordPress with its themes can give you professional looking site, and there are so many different free WordPress themes to choose from.

The best way is to choose blogging theme which is frequently updated. That way you are sure your theme will respond to all your requirements. I can say there are few free WordPress themes which are excellent, and you can find decent help. For instance, cutline WordPress theme is very popular, and that is not accident. It’s free, support is strong with even forum, so users can that way change and adjust cutline WordPress theme to own needs. Recently they have released new update.

Continue reading “Which WordPress Theme to choose?” »

Posted by Sloba | Filed Under Blogging | 5 Comments

Widgetized bookmarking tool – speedymarks

April 28, 2008

Speedymarks is one more bookmarking and web 2.0 tool, which I found useful. It enables user to store commonly used web addresses in the form of widgets. It is similar to social bookmarking, but here you are bookmarking site as a widget, which provide a preview of the bookmarked site. Ok, picture is worth more than thousand words:

speedymaks-widgetiezd web 2.0 tool for bookmarking

Should I save speedymarks as a home page? Going once, going twice…SOLD! This gives me just one click (clicking home button in browser) from several different frequently used sites. They are now listed as widgets at my homepage. And Yahoo, which was my homepage until this change, is now one click further. Not so far.

With this web 2.0 tool, probably, you can display as many as you like websites, but I suggest keeping it to 10-15 most used. And here is why. Work of speedymarks is based on browsing cookies history. So, if you delete your cookies, that way you will lose your bookmarked widgets, too. So, I suggest keeping speedymarks standard and stored list of sites in notepad. That way, even if you delete browsing cookies, you will easily get your sites back.

You can find pros and cons here, but speedymarks seems pretty useful bookmarking and web 2.0 tool for me. The point is that you can have most used sites at homepage. So, Thumbs up!

This is update >>> now is possible to login and save widgets that way.

Posted by Sloba | Filed Under Bookmarking, web 2.0 tools | 2 Comments

MySpace Applications vs Facebook Applications

April 24, 2008

Today MySpace has officially opened up its Application Gallery to all users after launching it in beta last March. There has MySpace applications been already over 1,000 applications authorized and added to the gallery. You can find the icon for the Applications on MySpace main page on front panel and a link on control bar panel. If you are Facebook user you know what I am talking…adding games to profile, to-do tools, music players, etc, etc. And I just have added Sudoku application and few more.

After launching casual games earlier this year, this is new boosting for MySpace. Online Casual Games is a market that is growing rapidly ( research are saying 4 times faster than internet itself ), and now adding this Applications (beside privacy , for me that is the reason I much more liked Facebook,) can add fuel to the fire for MySpace.

I much more like to use Facebook, but lets see what this move on MySpace can bring. And here is one neat application I found. Its name is Fuser and it displays your Facebook wall on MySpace. To use it you must already have both accounts.

web 2.0 tools and resources

Posted by Sloba | Filed Under Social Networking | 2 Comments

Casual Gaming is leading the battle!

April 21, 2008

Image via Wikipedia

I am actually a little bit surprised. The popularity of Social Networking is tremendous. And video sites where You Tube is a leader, but there are many other video sharing sites, are also rising rapidly. But this trend with casual gaming is a little bit surprise for me. Even if I play games online and I know their magic, I didn’t expect that casual games are more popular than above mentioned trends.

At developmag online games related site, you can find briefly report from the AdverGame network exposing states that “34 per cent of US Internet households play online games on a weekly basis, compared to the 29 per cent who watch short online videos and 19 per cent who visit social networking sites with the same frequency.“

Only, I am not sure is the same trend outside of the America.

great casual games

Posted by Sloba | Filed Under Online Games | 1 Comment

Can you score buzz with Yahoo?

April 20, 2008

You will not believe, we have a new bookmarking buzz site. Probably every day, there is a new one. Ok, zip it up! Here is it what is all about.

Yahoo has started a new buzz community – Yahoo! Buzz. It is similar to digg, reddit, or other bookmarks. You place a little button “buzz up” at the bottom of your page, just like “sphinn” “bookmark this”, “share this” buttons. With this bookmark visitors can “buzz up” your story and that way get better rankings on yahoo buzz up network. And that is possibility to run more traffic to the blog or site.

You can buzz up a good story on a news site, a great video, or a terrific blog. A story is ranked based on its buzz score. The buzz score is calculated from votes and sharing via email to friends. And lets not forget, the best for publishers is that the best stories will be published on Yahoo! home page, what can be really stimulating.

As a matter of fact Yahoo is gigantic online network and certainly they know to launch such a community, but we need to wait to see will this be a new dynamite. For now the button is great looking .

At the moment they do not accept new publishers, but there is a state that buzz up will be open for new publishers very soon, and it is possible to join mailing list on that.

web 2.0 Tools and Resources

Posted by Sloba | Filed Under Bookmarking | Leave a Comment

Implicating Adsense in the post

April 14, 2008

I found a great video on tubetorial site explaining how to implicate Adsense in the posts, using Adsense Deluxe plugin.

Its a great plugin which enable displaying Google or Yahoo Adsense integrated in text post, instead of sidebar or header.

If your focus is on Adsense advertising this is the excellent way to display ads directly to the posts.

So here is the link to watch short video on tubetorial.

And if you want to find more great plugins, you can read my post more-than-10-great-wordpress-plugins.

Posted by Sloba | Filed Under plugins | 1 Comment

Business Promotion on Craigslist

April 13, 2008

Craigslist has approximately four billion page views each month with ten million people using Craigslist each month. And according to Alexa.com, Craigslist has a traffic rank of 66 worldwide (today when I write this).

One of the most favorite uses of Craigslist is for business advertisement and promotion. Both, large and small businesses can find their place, of the free advertising offered on Craigslist to promote their business and appeal fresh customers. On first glance Cragslist is similar to other advertising websites, but here we have forums and communities.
And the biggest advantage of Craigslist certainly is in its massive traffic.

If we focus on advertising, we all know that we don’t need much time to post the ad. So it will not take much time, and Craigslist traffic can bring potential costumers. But, like any marketing campaign, your advertisements on Craigslist must be intriguing, informative and in a location where you will reach your target audience.

Business owners are free to lay ads in the particular section. This section is split into a list of categories where business possessors can lay their ad in the most adequate position where it is likely to reach the target prospects.

If its done properly, when advertiser research for right place to post ads, advertising on Craigslist can be lucrative. However, while practicing this, precaution should be taken to avoid bringing in posts which will be detected as spam. Placing an advertisement in an adequate section of Craigslist is standard. But, posting the same advertisement in almost every section of Craigslist website for a number of different geographical regions is considered spam.

Also, taking part in the discussion forums and offering useful comments and true answers, and at the same time also placing a link to a business site can help to drive traffic to an ecommerce website.

Posted by Sloba | Filed Under web 2.0 marketing | Leave a Comment

Be aware in Promoting Your Business/Site on MySpace

April 11, 2008

The question how to promote business on MySpace can be debatable. But here I just want go through MySpace Terms of Service. If you are using MySpace in commercial purpose it’s important to read terms carefully, because MySpace is meant to be an un-commercial website (for members) by nature. But there’s a opposite between blatant commercialization and bringing up a product or service you put up and provide a link as a helpful and useful resource to visitors of your site. This post will have a look at the chances to promote a business on MySpace by offering info about whether or not your way of business promotion is allowed on MySpace and information how to push your business without being accused of spamming MySpace.

Lets see what’s in the MySpace Terms of Service!

MySpace Terms of Usage

One of the conditions of the MySpace, what all members can see when opening Myspace account, interprets as follows:

Non-commercial Use by Members. The MySpace servicing are for the personal role only and can not be applied with any commercial strives (take out those that are specifically approved by MySpace.com). Illegal and/or unauthorized use of the MySpace Services, including collecting user names and/or email addresses of Members for the purpose of sending unsolicited email or unauthorized framing of or linking to the MySpace Website is prohibited. Commercial advertisements, affiliate links, and other sorts of allurement may be removed from Member profiles without notice and can result in termination of Member’s account. Appropriate legal action will be taken for any illegal or unauthorized use of the MySpace Services.

So, here we see that MySpace is produced for non-commercial usage unless Myspace has approved the usage of a member’s page for commercialized aims. Thus be aware while designing a MySpace page to assure it will not be viewed as a commercial website by MySpace administrators. Be aware that many MySpace profiles have been deleted by administration.

If you are unsure ask questions.

If you are doubtful of whether or not your MySpace page is considered as commercial website, you should consult with MySpace administrators. Reviewing the terms of usage agreement can supply a lot of fact, but some users could yet be unsure on the possibleness that their site will be fined if administrators view it as commercial in nature.

Contacting MySpace is an easy action. Members can use the, “Contact MySpace” link at the MySpace homepage. There is an option to select a subject and a subtopic. And once this is done MySpace supplies some preliminary information which can be to the point. If these information isn’t of value to the member, they can e-mail an elaborated request to MySpace.

So, Be aware….

If you decide there’s a chance for you to boost your business through MySpace, be assure the promotional material does not pass over the line and go into spam. Spamming is dealt very seriously by the MySpace admin and it may effect in links or message being deleted or even membership may be revoked.

This is important to understand. Links to your ecommerce website structured into your MySpace website is not counted as spamming. Depending on how it’s applied it may not been viewed as advertising, and consequently prohibited.

Still, placing a link to your ecommerce website on each Myspace page you visit would be reckoned as spam. These persons may or may not be interested in the message you send, but even if they’re curious, posting these unsolicited links to many members is often considered to be spam.

You may work really hard to create long list of friends, and one day BOOOOOM, your MySpace profile is gone…..don’t allow that!

Posted by Sloba | Filed Under Social Networking | 1 Comment

Online Games

April 10, 2008

skill games.jpg

This page I have devoted to online fun, and that is online games. Playing online skill games for 15 to 30 minutes daily is really relaxing. I enjoy playing uVme games, and my favorites are Sudoku, Fruit Frenzy and Basketball. Here you can read briefly description of these games.

Play online games and chat with friends via instant messenger The uVme games platform offers a selection of the very best online gaming titles which can be played in one on one challenge or tournaments for cash prizes. These are simple online games of skill, highly enjoyable and rivalry. These games have something for everyone, researches are saying that casual skill games are played equally by men and women.

You can start playing these online games for free, and here are examples:

Board games like draughts, and backgammon
Sports games like pool, darts, golf and basketball
Puzzle games like word games and jigsaws
Arcade games such as shooting games

CLICK HERE TO PLAY GAMES!

You are able to play free arcade games online, a free online multi player games,

but at uVme you will find real challenge playing tournament games for real cash prizes, and at the same time chat with your friends with new uVme Instant Messenger (which is merging contacts from Yahoo, Google Tak, MSN, AOL in one place).

skill games

Posted by Sloba | Filed Under Online Games | 6 Comments

More than 10 Great WordPress Plugins

April 9, 2008

The following article is showing the list of WordPress plugins that will help you have a better experience with your blog. Most of these are must have plugins for WordPress.
Besides Akismet, which is automatically installed on WordPress, here are the plugins I found useful:

All-in-one-seo-pack – Plugin for Search Engine Optimization

Google xml Sitemaps -The Google Sitemap Plugin automagically pings Google, Yahoo!, and MSN Search at regular intervals, notifying them of new content and/or changes to your site.

Optimal Title – optimize your post titles for search engines

Smart ping – Protects you from over pinging. When you edit your post, it prevent pinging so you are proteced from being considered as spammer

Another WordPress meta plugin - This plugin allows you to specify META information, that is keywords and descriptions, for your posts and pages. Additional META keywords are derived from your categories.)

“What Would Seth Godin Do?” – This plugin will definitely help you get more RSS subscribers! It’s called “What Would Seth Godin Do“

WP-Contact Form – Great contact form plugin with security question. Here is an example on my contact page.

Darren’s Related Posts plugin or Wasabi Related Entries – As your blog grows you will certainly like to have one of these plugins which will help you to detain your readers on the blog, by showing related posts at the end of your post.

ADD This- for social bookmarking
Favicon manager – manage favicon image.

For tagging:

UltimteTagWarrior – for tagging

Tag sugest Thing - Tag Suggest Thing uses the Yahoo! term extraction API to find tags to suggest.

Embedded Tag Thing - To display a word in a post as a tag, wrap it in markup (with square brackets!)

For ads:

Adsense-Deluxe – Place Google AdSense ads inside your WordPress Posts

Ad Rotator – Rotate adsense, and any other kind of ad, graphic, etc. wherever you place the code

MaxBlogPress Stripe Ad - displaying a single line of advertising message, a special note or other information right at the top of your blog

For translation:

Global Translator - translates a blog in fourteen different languages. Hmm, its not so accurate translation, but you may want to have this for your blog.

It never hurts to be well informed with the latest on WordPress plugins and you can always explore more in this area, because you want to plug in your blog to higher level!