Social Networking and Web 2.0

People are telling you that affiliate marketing is a piece of cake and that it will not cost you a fortune. You just have to promote and every piece of the puzzle will fall into the right place. Nonetheless,…

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When you write to bolster SEO potentials, LSI must not be left behind. This is because through it, you will be able to hit the competition in the eye. Google uses LSI to decipher the relevance of the words…

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Webmasters in online forums have discovered a new Google filter that Google uses to downrank web sites in its result pages. Has this filter been applied to your web site? How can you avoid that Google applies that filter to your site?

Occupational hazards are common to us. Writers get writer's cramp, artists get creative burnouts, and politicians get liar's tongue. In SEO, there is also the so-called Google-eyed. So, what is it? What are the symptoms of said SEO disease?…

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To amateurs in the field, Search Engine Optimization is a scary subject. However, it doesn't have to be. This is because the principles behind SEO are understandable. In fact, it can be summarized into 3 easy ways. 1. Never…

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Before you can start one good search Optimization campaign, it is vital that you pick the right keywords. As a rule, the most common keyword is not always the best. To weigh the worth of each keyword, you must…

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Filed under: Business, Social Software

Everyone is aquiring everyone on this spooky Halloween. Google bought JotSpot, now Condé Nast, the owners of Wired magazine, have bought Reddit. Similiar to Digg, Reddit is a website that lists what the popular news is online, by users voting, and submitting articles. Michael Arrington scooped the news of the deal, and that Reddit employees will be packing up and moving from Boston to the Wired headquarters in San Francisco and merging into Wired Digital. Should be interesting to see how a traditional publishing company will beef up Reddit and aim to make it a Digg killer. If thats in the plan. No news has been released as to other terms of the deal.
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Filed under: Web services, Social Software

GigaOM is running a profile of Medium, a new startup that “thinks it can help make web browsing social by telling you what pages your friends are on at any moment, and where people are congregating on the web at that instant.” The software comes in the form of a Firefox sidebar that displays real-time map of the web with the site you’re currently visiting in the middle and “related” sites–determined by what people with similar browsing habits visit–surrounding it. Below that is a chat area where you can talk to other people who are visiting the same site as you. GigaOM’s Liz Gannes describes the experience of following your friends around the web to see what they’re looking at, and hopping over to a site where people are congregating. Though the chat thing has been done and done again, this social “map” aspect sounds pretty novel, and Gannes says it’s easy to turn the tracking on and off, and that it’s disabled by default for password-protected sites. Medium is currently in private, invite-only beta, but in classic Web 2.0 you can enter your e-mail address at the Medium web site to be notified when the site launches this winter.

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Filed under: Business, Internet, Office, Web services, Google, Social Software

Joe Kraus of Jotspot, has announced today that they have been acquired by Google. Jotspot is a leader in hosted wiki application development. Jotspot was founded in 2004 as the first company to offer this type of hosted wiki solution. Jotspot’s goal was to make wiki websites that anyone could update and add to, without knowing coding. Jotspot had a simple WYSIWYG editor, with advanced search and email integration components. Jotspot was not only aimed at smaller personal projects, it was also aimed at corporate intranets, project management, and help desks.

Jotspots hosted plans once sat from a $199 month for 5000 hosted wiki pages with unlimited users. To a simple Personal account with 5 users, 10 pages, for free. Could we possibly see the integration of one giant free plan from Google?

Currently, Jotspot is offline to users. The Palo Alto based company says to stay tuned to regain access to the system. Google is most likely merging all data and transferring the Jot system over to Google’s servers. This is an exciting move by Google, again, in the online application environment, adding to their online suite of applications with the likes of Documents, Calendar, Gmail, Spreadsheets, and Apps for your Domain.

Check out some Jotspot screenshots after the jump…

Typical Jotspot homepage

Revision control page

Editing a Wiki

Sending email directly from a wiki

Attaching documents

Search feature

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Google AdSense ads are playing a vital role in the advertising and marketing arena. Moreover, lately it has been found out that it is also crucial in the SEO industry. In fact, AdSense can be used as an SEO…

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Sometimes when the going gets tough, we need an hour or two to drift into something relaxing or fun. Certainly, we need to unwind not to forget but to face the complexities of life with vigor and might. More…

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Filed under: Security, Web services, Social Software

Thought phishing was just a problem for banks and PayPal, did you? Well, it’s entered a new territory: MySpace. And it’s got some new tricks up its sleeve. MySpace’s iconic Tom Anderson has made a post describing the new attacks that con users into divulging their MySpace username and password. What’s interesting about the attacks is that, unlike most phishing sites that must exist on a site other than the official site and whose fake URLs need a keen eye to be identified), these exploit MySpace’s customization features to make an ordinary profile at profile.myspace.com look exactly like the official login page. You can see a screenshot of one such phishing profile here. You’ll notice that the URL begins with profile.myspace.com rather than the legitimate login.myspace.com, but the page is otherwise indistinguishable from an ordinary MySpace login prompt.

So what are evil phishers using those passwords it collects for? Spamming, of course. Once a phisher has a user’s login info they use them to post spam comments and send spam bulletins to that user’s friends. How original.

Anderson’s advice to MySpace users is that whenever they see a login form they should go to www.myspace.com instead of entering their username and password, which is, in my opinion, no solution at all. It just compounds MySpace’s already-jarring interface problems. By allowing arbitrary CSS in MySpace profiles, MySpace has created a huge problem for itself that’s going to take a very creative solution.

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Filed under: Developer, Linux, Web services, Freeware, Social Software

Qunu is a community supported site that allows Linux users to get assistance from available online subject matter experts, depending on what type of help you need, and the software you need the help with. I’m currently without a Linux machine, but can see how a service like this could be invaluable. Incredibly, Qunu boasts 2770 experts signed up to assist other users, and as of the writing of this post, 14,946 help sessions donated. All this in only 143 days.

It seems that there are things that become possible in a community that buys in completely to free software philosophies, and it’s really admirable to see. I can only imagine how much more pleasant it would be to be able to actually explain my difficulty to someone who is an expert at what I’m trying to do, rather than figure out how to craft the ultimate Google query to find my obscure fix.

Any Download Squad readers that have had any experiences with Qunu, please leave us a comment and let us know how your experience went.

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World Wide Web overwhelms the Netizens with lots of sweeping changes. This time around, it brings one more technology to ponder on. Said new technology dubbed as ORION, may mean adjustment in the current realm of search engines and…

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Quality online articles are intended to be read by many not only to make readers knowledgeable on the subject matter but also to contribute to traffic building and backlinks. An optimized article is composed of vital information about a…

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Compete and ROOT.net are attempting to put advertisers together directly with “consumers” where these “consumers” are more like “users”. Yes, these users voluntarily share interests and these sites match “offers” with their users that have declared their interest in these…

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Filed under: Video, Web services, Google, Social Software

Head over to YouTube right now and search for clips from The Daily Show, the Colbert Report, or South Park. You’ll find your search discouraging, since clicking on most of those video Links will get you naught but a big red “This video has been removed due to copyright infringement” or “This video has been removed due to terms of use violation.” That’s right, Comedy Central’s lawyerbots are reportedly on a rampage and have asked that newly Google-owned YouTube take down copyrighted clips from their shows. That sound you hear is the sound of a million buzzes being killed or, as Agent Smith would say, “That… is the sound of inevitability.”

As I wrote recently, Viacom–Comedy Central’s parent company–and other media companies in similar situations could easily rectify this situation by simply offering the best clips from their shows on their own web sites with their own branded player that users can embed in their blogs and MySpace pages. This would allow them to directly control their content while still allowing their shows’ biggest fans to do all the free promotion they want, and they could stick ads at the end for their other properties. Warner Music recently got a clue and struck a deal with Brightcove to do this very thing. Personally, if I were Viacom I’d rather pay a few engineers to give fans a legitimate alternative to copyright infringement than pay a bunch of lawyers to sit around watching YouTube.

Still, Viacom is well within its rights and Google’s only option–its only smart option, at least–is to comply with their requests. This, as I’ve said before, is the shape of things to come.

[Image via NewsCloud]
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Filed under: Business, Design, Developer, Utilities, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Windows Mobile, Symbian, Palm, Web services, Commercial, Shareware, Freeware, Open Source, How-Tos, Social Software, Unix

Do you have a favorite utility or application, and just wish it would do one little thing, that would improve your experience with the program? I get that feeling all the time. It can be a helpless feeling for us non-developers, since we’re sort of at the mercy of the software we can find to do what we need done. But there is hope. Below I’m going to provide a few tips that can help you to get changes affected in your favorite software, if you’re willing to be patient, careful and very respectful.

1. It might seem obvious, but use software that is being actively developed. I can’t count how many times I’ve found myself using a program and wishing that something would be fixed or improved with it, only to find that it’s an abandoned product that hasn’t been updated for two years. If that’s the case, it really may be worth the trouble to ditch the old software and find something comparable that is being actively developed. Now, I’m not suggesting you go and throw away perfectly good utilities if they do everything you need them to. If that’s the case, rock on - who cares if it’s getting updated. But if you wish something were different, the tension you feel with the product is probably already high enough to make a search for something better worthwhile. Luckily you know a site that brings you tons of useful downloads every day.

2. Okay, now that you’ve got actively developed software, find out where the developer or developers hang out. Online, I mean - don’t go stalking people. Most developers are writing software because they earnestly want to help people get something done. While the onslaught of feature requests can be quite daunting for developers, most of them weather the storm because they know that they will be able to either find a trend amongst all of the requests, or find a real nugget of good information that they can turn into their next killer feature. So don’t just find a forum for the product, see if there is a feature request forum or topic, or maybe one for the beta version of the software. Oh, and if you’re looking to get a change done in the software, help out the developers by beta testing their software and providing useful feedback.

3. Once you’ve found the right place to make your suggestion, it might just contribute to the trend that will hopefully convince the developer to make the change you’re looking for, if it’s a common request. If it’s not a common request, here’s how to request a feature that the developer will see as the nugget of good information that they can turn into their next killer feature. Oops, I feel a sub-list coming on:

   1. Honestly consider whether your suggestion will only benefit you, or if it will truly make the product better. If your idea passes that test (and be brutally honest with yourself), your next task is to…

   2. Sell your idea to the developer. You know it’s a great idea, but the developer probably has never considered their product the way that you have. It’s a matter of perspective, so you need to take great pains to effectively communicate your idea. This means use spell check, write complete sentences, use proper grammar and follow the common-sense rules of written communication. Pretend you’re writing to your boss, or better yet, writing to someone to convince them to give you a job. In other words, be professional. At the same time, try to get them excited about the possibilities your idea presents.

   3. If your pitch is successful, the developer will likely reply to ask you further questions about your idea. And even if they don’t - another user might, so make sure you take part in the conversation. Give the developer all of the information they request, and if it’s another user engaging you, be respectful. Chances are, even if the developer hasn’t replied, they’re probably watching the conversation. Sometimes it’s the conversation that helps enlighten the developer to your wonderful idea.

   4. If you’re not already beta testing the product, get with the program. It’s the best way to know whether your idea has been used, and will give you the opportunity to give feedback about the way your idea was implemented.

4. Finally, if your idea isn’t accepted, don’t get discouraged. Some developers have very specific product development paths in mind, and aren’t looking for outside input, or are only looking for input that fits their ideas of where the product should go. That’s okay - just know when to quit. If they’ve made it clear they aren’t going to pursue your idea, be respectful and gracious - thank them for their time, and wish them luck (and mean it).

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Filed under: Audio, Video, Web services, Social Software

Those Facebook social bookmarking features we told you about the other day? Well, the wait wasn’t long and it seems that they’re available to everybody now, even little ol’ me. Facebook, of course, isn’t calling it social bookmarking, they’re calling it “Sharing.” There’s now a “My Shares” link in the left-hand sidebar, and there’s little “Share” buttons all over the site–next to photos, people’s profiles, and items other people have shared. When you share an item you can choose to put it on your profile or share it with specific people, or both.

When you share something with another Facebook user, it shows up in their right sidebar, not in their News Feed, which will be a relief to those who were afraid of overzealous linkers (or those with dreams of “free” iPods) spamming things up. Like events, you can enter someone’s e-mail address if they don’t have a Facebook account, but they have to register for an account before they can see what you’ve shared. There is, naturally, a bookmarklet that you can use to share Links from across the web, as well as MP3s and videos from YouTube and Google Video.

Overall, I think Facebook’s new Sharing features are well-implemented and well-thought out. They don’t get in the way, it’s easy to control who you share with and easier still to manage items. I really wish MP3s had an embedded player like videos do, but you can’t win ‘em all. Look after the jump for a bunch of screenshots of it in action.

Your shared items appear on your Mini-Feed if you choose, and you can remove them later with the X button. Others can use the “Share” button to share them themselves. Unfortunately, no embedded player for MP3 files, unlike videos (below).

This is the pop-up that appears when you use the bookmarklet. Videos from YouTube and Google Video show a thumbnail. I like how it grabs the description from YouTube, too. On the right you can add Facebook users or email addresses to share with.

This is how a video shows up on your Mini-Feed. Clicking on the Play button…

…makes it expand to the full embedded player.

Clicking on the Share button on a photo shows this attractive dialog.

The My Shares page shows everything you’ve shared. You can remove items with the X button, which also deletes their associated comments, etc.

So far I haven’t see any “Facebook Sharing is teh sux” or “OMG SHARING wut is this MySpace!!1?” groups pop up, but I suspect it’s only a matter of time.

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If search engines were human beings, how would they look like? Will they resemble everything you dream them to be? How does it feel to hear the warmth of the human voice answering your queries instead of the boring…

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