InfoMusing Information Technology
Writing & Consulting
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How Twitter Missed the Point
Posted on May 27th, 2009So far this year, both Twitter Inc. and Facebook , the traffic Kings of Web 2.0 social media, made changes that upset their users, and for which, in the end, they apologized and backtracked. Both offered poor examples of how to lead a business.
To review: Earlier this month, Twitter implemented a feature change that removed the ability for Twitter users to view “@replies“ from people they were not following. Instantly, the Twitterstream was in an uproar with tweets and retweets of complaints. There were threats of protesting, petition-signing, and, in general, lots of bashing on Twitter.
Click here to read suggestions on how Twitter should have approached this event.
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Contenture – The Anti-Ad Network
Posted on May 20th, 2009If you want to make money from a blog you have a limited number of options. The most popular approach is to run ads – typically using an ad network like Google’s AdSense. Many bloggers also join affiliate programs and post links and banners for those programs – but to the visitor it is just more ads. You can also charge a subscription fee – but you will have to have some truly unique content to pull that off and also the systems to handle the ecommerce. So your primary options are to run ads and annoy your visitors or collect money from and annoy your visitors.
Next week, Contenture is launching what they call the “anti-ad network.” The basic idea is that you would add a subscription component to your blog/website. You would offer some type of premium benefits to visitors who are signed up with Contenture….
Read the full article at Blogging Tips.
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There are plugins and GREAT WordPress Plugins
Posted on May 12th, 2009One of the core philosophies of WordPress is to keep the code as light and fast as possible but to provide a rich framework for developers to add to the product. This concept is a key reason for the huge and constantly growing universe of WordPress plugins. In talking to WordPress users I’ve discovered that almost universally folks are pleased with the plugins they use. However, there are plugins that work and then there are plugins that go the extra mile.
I started thinking about this because I’ve started making a couple of bucks from blogging and I decided that it was high time I paid back those who helped me get up and running in the blogging world. So I took a bit of a critical look at the plugins I am using and asked myself – what’s the difference between the various plugins I am using?
Check out the full post at Blogging Tips
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Google #1 is About Ego Not Success
Posted on April 28th, 2009
Being number one on Google doesn’t really matter. That said, most everybody has that secret desire to chant “We’re number 1, we’re number 1″ and Google, Yahoo and other search engines have clearly tapped into that part of human nature. Indeed, it never ceases to amaze me how many people will proclaim victory when they are number one on Google.But being number one in a search engine should not be the goal of any blog or website. Your website/blog goal should be to get qualified traffic to your web site and to get those visitors to execute the behavior you want – buy, list, comment, read, sign-up, whatever it is that your site is encouraging.
Read the full article at BloggingTips.com.
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The Thin Line Between Copying & Stealing
Posted on April 27th, 2009Everywhere you turn on the Internet there is a copyright battle. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is fighting against the unauthorized copying and distribution of songs; the Associated Press (AP) is fighting sites that copy its articles without permission; and everybody is fighting sites like Pirate Bay that help distribute copied content.
Today, just as in the early 1700s, we are faced with a moral and a business crisis. As Kathryn Tyranski pointed out on this site a few months back, “…Why’s it okay for us to steal music over the web, but it’s wrong to go into Best Buy and pocket the CD?” I have asked that very question of a number of people and have unfortunately come to the conclusion that society has only respected copyright law because they had to.
Check out the entire blog at Internet Evolution.
