Linkshare, a leading performance marketing network, is now offering partnerships with hundreds of top advertisers.  They have recently developed a tool that will allow you to populate WordPress blogs with ad placements.  All through the easy-install LinkShare RSS DealFeed plugin.

LinkShare RSS DealFeed uses RSS feeds from LinkShare Advertisers to automatically populate your Wordpress blog with deals and other promotional content. You can earn a commission on every sale on an Advertiser site that your blog refers. Just set up the plug-in once, and then your Wordpress site will automatically display the latest promotional information provided by the Advertiser.

You need to be part of the LinkShare network to start with and be approved to the Advertisers Affiliate Program.

Here’s a quick peek at how it is implemented in WordPress blogs:

 

 

I think this is mighty cool of LinkShare to provide an easy widget.  We all know that it’s next to a single click to get widgets working for you.  I remember I once had to work with direct code edits JUST to accommodate a good affiliate program.  Thank Zeus it’s now less of a hassle.

 

 

Seems that Amazon.com is growing their stake in books as they have recently acquired Shelfari (one of the biggest online book community).  While it’s widely known that Amazon has been involved with Shelfari since its early beginnings, it is a natural course to solidify the relationship.

According to the Shelfari blog:

Amazon has been a long supporter of Shelfari. They’ve worked closely with us as we introduced readers, like you, to our global community of book lovers. They’ve been there each step of the way as we brought forth new features, like the cool Facebook application and our virtual bookshelf. And now Shelfari and Amazon will work hand in hand to continue to grow our dynamic community and create innovative new tools around the books you love.

The acquisition terms were not made public but it seems that Amazon is indeed cornering the online book cloud.  This same month it has also acquired yet another massive online book community, AbeBooks.

What are all these you may ask?  My personal opinion in these acquisition series points to the strength of online networks and communities.  It would appear that market studies have added an additional “source of influence” for consumers.  I remembered a good laugh late 2007 when a marketing questionnaire included the question “Would you change your (beauty product) if a person in your online network suggests you should?”.

Back to Shelfari… I would be interested to see what comes out of this news.  While I read that there would be no significant change right now… Amazon must have something up its sleeves. hmmmmm….

 

 

Ahora que las elecciones presidenciales de los Estados Unidos del 2008 comienzan a llegar a su punto mas alto, seria interesante saber que opinion y preferencia tienen los latinos con respecto a John McCain o Barack Obama.

No importa tu pais, ni tu edad, ni tu religion, la encuesta es solo para saber a que candidato prefieren o conocen mas los latinos, ya que queramos o no, estamos anclados a la economia de los Estados Unidos por varios factores socio economicos.

Quiza no conozcas nada al respecto, o cuales son las propuestas de los candidatos, o que piensan acerca de America Latina, asi que aqui te presentamos 2 videos de ambos aspirantes a la presidencia de los Estados Unidos para que conozcas algo de ellos y puedas votar mas facilmente.

Danos tu opinion, solo elige una opcion y oprime el boton “Vote“. La encuesta se cierra el 31 de Octubre del 2008 a las 12:00 de la noche.

Social Networks are getting more niched and this trend is giving new opportunities for Web developers who wish to get a share of the social pie. The logic behind this is simple: people simply wouldn’t appreciate joining or participating in a social network if most of the talk or exchange is nonsense to them. Yes, they could have groups within sites, but it’s not going to help the site itself attract a specific group of users. Simply put, if you’re a general audience site like Yuwie, you’re only going to get general users.

It was inevitable for social networking sites to move into inches in an increasingly competitive business. Niching guarantees a good following, specific targeting, and definite content expectations. Users wouldn’t really think twice on whether to register or not if what they’re looking for is already right in front of them. Senior analyst Debra Aho Williamson, of eMarketer cites the popularity of business social networking sites like LinkedIn. According to her, such business networks will have different purposes, which include customer relations and product development.

Expected to grow along with the niching of social networks is advertising, with spending expected to reach $210 million in 2012. Williamson says marketers will be allotting more money over time to make and grow their own social networks - targeting business customers, partners, suppliers and vendors. Apart from business, social networks have also fenced-in territories in diverse niches that include writing (Writing Room), fitness (LiveStrong), movies (Flixster), and restaurant management (BiteClub).

Social bookmarking site Ma.gnolia.com is opening its doors to the open-source world.  They have announced at Gnomedex 2008 that they would soon distribute their code publicly, akin to how WordPress.com has done for WordPress.org, the latter being a website that the public can download freely the full WordPress code.

This is a much anticipated move for the Ma.gnolia.com team as developments in technology are striding faster than the Ma.gnolia core tech team can handle.  With their move to open-source, we will soon see a much improved service offering.  Ma.gnolia’s Larry Hallf at Gnomedex 2008 says the following:

Some of the things to look forward to in this next version include:

• A new stream view that shows you the freshest bookmarks of people you’re friends with on one single page.
• Support for both OAuth and OpenID, with the latter making it easier for people to sign into hosted builds of Magnolia.
• Sidebar customization
• Theming

El error 404 con el mensaje de “Pagina no encontrada” ahora puede ser personalizado directamente desde tu cuenta de Google WebMaster Tools.

El error 404 “Page not found” puede ser encontrado frecuentemente en internet cuando el documento que buscamos ya no existe o fue removido del sitio web, otras ocasiones aparece cuando los enlaces de nuestra pagina web estan mal escritos u olvidamos actualizarlos o porque un usuario busca algo que no existe en nuestro sitio web.

Google WebMaster Tools nos permitira añadir una caja de busqueda a nuestro sitio y proveer de alternativas adicionales para las paginas web que no fueron encontradas en nuestro servidor, de esta manera ofrecemos una solucion util y elegante al usuario que no encontro algo en nuestro sitio y no lo dejamos sin ninguna alternativa al aver encontrado solo una panatalla con un mensaje de pagina no encontrada y no saber que hacer con el.

Para efectuar este proceso, solo entra a tu cuenta de Google y ve la seccion de Tools o herramientas, alli encontraras el codigo necesario para implementarlo en tu sitio de internet.

Cabe mencionar que esta herramienta es nueva y esta en fase experimental, por lo tanto no siempre proporcionara la mejor alternativa al usuario que no encontro lo que buscaba en nustras paginas web.

Me.dium Applies Social Networking in Search

What’s relevant in search engines is determined by a number of factors depending on the provider, and these already include links, user behavior, and dwell time. It’s really a competitive business and new search engines have to come up with something different in order to get much needed attention from the public.

Me.dium, a social browsing software company, has capitalized on the boom in social networking sites - combining it’s search engine with social tools that essentially allow users to search with their friends and to see what others are popularly searching for. Developers call it the Social Exploration Environment (SEE) with one unique feature being the map of the Internet. It shows where you are in relation to what you and others in your network are typing in the search field.

Users have the option of talking to others viewing the same pages - a feature which may prove to be useful to commercial sites where the positive opinion of others can be valuable for conversion. Me.dium’s integration of social networking in search is seen to make surfing less of a personal thing and eases some privacy issues related to the activity.

Me.dium’s search engine was recognized in last year’s Webware 100.

 

I was talking with a young blogger this morning about writing styles.  He was a little worried that he’ll soon tire out his readers, or himself, if he continued the way he writes.  In honesty, I told him that I too needed coaching because I am in the same situation as he is.  We just found comfort to the fact that “pobody’s nerfect”.  And that asking for help is the first step to knowing where you are and knowing where you’d like to go.

I remember I had this conversation before with a great book writer, Francis.  I asked how he has reached his status as a much sought after speaker and writer.  He responded with just a word… “read”.  He said, “Jim, you cannot possibly give what you do not have.  You have to read, to write well”.  

Words of wisdom I know, but to tell you honestly, that wasn’t a light bulb moment for me.  :)  But because I respected him and what he says, I followed.  Good thing I did.

So going back to my young blogger friend.  I told him to …

1. you guessed it… “read”.  And you know, this morning wasn’t a light bulb moment for him too, but I know time will come and it will be one.  ”Trust me, read”… I know he will.  
2. I told him to write a post to try to get his readers to comment on his writing style.  It doesn’t hurt to ask, and readers are very very honest too.
3. I told him to write a post in three different ways… present each on his blog and get his readers to comment on it.  
4. lastly, I told him to “be original”.  Don’t try to copy how others write, try to develop a style that you’re comfortable with.  Know your audience and know how best to communicate with them.

I admire a lot of blog writers.  Them from CNet, Engadget, DVice and Gizmodo… to name a few.  They write differently but I enjoy them equally with no favorites.  Not a day passes that I do not read these blogs to devour a whole gamut of stuff.  I just read and read these days.  And I do find it really helpful when I begin to write my own sets of posts.

 

 

 

No sabes como bajar videos de youtube a tu iPhone, iPod o al PC? No necesitas programa. Hazlo de manera sencilla en 3 simples pasos.

1. Busca el video en YouTube que te gusta, una ves que lo estas viendo haz click sobre la direccion URL de dicho video para seleccionarla y presiona ctrl-c para copiarla. La direccion URL es esa de arriba en donde tecleas la pagina web que quieres visitar. ej:  www.youtube.com
2. Ahora visita el sitio keepvid.com y pega la direccion URL que acabas de copiar en el espacio que dice “Enter URL of video page here” y haz click sobre la palabra “download”, ahora veras 2 enlaces que te permitiran bajar videos de YouTube a tu pc, tienes un enlace en formato flash FLV (baja calidad) y otro en formato MP4 (alta calidad) guarda el que mas te convenga. La siguiente imagen te muestra las opciones de este paso.



3. Una vez que bajaste el video de YouTube, solo arrastra el archivo a tu folder de iTunes y sincroniza tu iPhone / iPod, o bien disfruta tu video en la PC !!!

Contributing to the success of blogging was the capacity given to users to provide not only their own content, but also the means for others to keep tabs on what they write. WordPress is one blogging platform which gave unprecedented freedom to anyone with hardly any Web development skills to self-publish their own sites and to customize them to their own liking.

It’s no longer a simple case of content provision for blogs anymore. But unlike social networking sites, such personalized corners of the Web are still simply meant to be viewed and commented on, with widgets and other embedded material adding to the interactivity. But as 2008 comes to a close, the blogging world may be poised for a change that will take it to the next level - one that’s closer to social networking.

The availability of juiced up releases of self-publishing platforms like server-based Movable Type, now gives blogs the kind of features that used to be found only in social networking sites. With these, member registration, user-profiles, avatars, forums, friends-building, ratings, chatting, community blogging, and content-sharing are soon to be standards of blogging.

The Movable Type blog says Movable Type 4.2 can “turn any site into a full social publishing platform…” It adds that while the improvements were based on user requests, it’s really part of a vision that the developers have been building on for years since Movable Type was being created and that managing a community online is something people can do themselves, using easy-to-use, open tools.

On the other hand, BuddyPress, a set of WordPress MU specific plugins still under development, is designed to “transform a vanilla installation of WordPress MU into a social network platform,” with key features like extended profiles, personal blog, private messaging, friends, groups, the wire, albums, and status updates. BuddyPress touts itself to have all the features one would expect from WordPress but also allows members to interact socially. Beta modules are released as they are completed with a viewable development roadmap.

With Movable Type and BuddyPress setting new trends, it would be interesting to see what the other blog platforms have up their sleeves to stay competitive.