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Leveraging Twitter for Your Freelance Business

2012-02-10T12:39:35Z

Social media applications such as Twitter can be effectively utilized as a tool for freelancers like yourself to promote your services. In a time when the world is connected through the internet, failing to employ such a simple strategy to connect with your potential and existing clients is a waste of opportunity. Remember that you are promoting to the rest of the world each time you post something in Twitter.

(Image source: Fotolia)

The content then, is what matters. You can update your existing clients on your latest projects and network with freelancers like yourself. In your Twitter, you may link your followers to your professional blog where they can further explore your work and even better, re-tweet it to their own network. All these can bring you more business in the long run as these people go on to recommend you to potential clients.

Here are five possible ways to make good use of Twitter for your freelance business:

1. Connect with Relevant People

As you would probably agree with me, social networking platforms like Twitter and Facebook have definitely facilitated our access to such opportunities to exchange knowledge and insights to an unprecedented level. To effectively utilize such access, you must first connect with the right people to obtain valuable information from. For instance, following the tweets of designers would update you with some of their latest work, from which you may find inspirations or ideas for your own design.

Besides, there will always be things you can modify and improve about your business, be it the design of your work, marketing strategy or even the capacity of your web server. Twitter, being a great tool to network with people of the same field, is your key to refining your business. This is because freelancers like you are now able to share tips and critique each other’s work and approach. Such online relationships, although casual, can do wonders for you by widening your perspective on how things can be done.

2. Draw People to Your Blog

Twittering is a good way to inform your followers on any updates to your portfolio blog. However, the benefit of using Twitter goes beyond the purpose of simple notifications. Each time your followers get informed about your latest work or design, they may also send out a Tweet after checking out your site. This is especially when your work shows extraordinariness and your followers want to comment and compliment about it.

(Image source: Fotolia)

Through a networking apparatus like Twitter, your blog gets promoted exponentially. This way, your blog, along with your awesome work, gets free publicity to more prospective clients. Also, supposing you have set up a Twitter account solely for your freelance business(which is advisable), then those who follow your Twitter are likely to be those relevant people you want to associate with your business. Once these people tweet or re-tweet about it, their followers are also the target audience you would want to promote your business to. In this manner, your blog is advertised freely and specifically to those that matters.

3. Find Prospective Clients

A major component of Twitter is its search function that enables users to search for other users to follow. There, you can search for specific topic or interest and get a list of Twitter accounts for your consideration to follow. If you are looking for prospective clients, then this is great tool for yourself to get acquainted and develop a professional network with other freelancers or potential clients. Strike a conversation by replying to their tweets. It works the other way round as well. Having a Twitter account yourself, people are able to search for you and request to follow your tweets.

Don’t be surprised to receive messages requesting for your freelance services. They might have come across your tweets after combing through potential freelancers on Twitter, saw your work on your site and got impressed. Either that or they might have seen some random tweets of users who were following you and subsequently check out your blog.

In any case, such bi-directional search between yourself and other potential employers would no doubt open up doors to more opportunities.

4. Establish Your Brand

Once you have a decent number of followers, it becomes a must to update them on your latest work so that they get constant reminder of your business. Focus on your specialty from the various services you provide and your followers will know what to expect from your updates. If, for instance, you’re a freelance web designer who is an expert in doing up creative typography for sites, then perhaps you can emphasize on the font design of your latest works in your tweets.

At the end of the day, it’s all about creating that association between what your business does best and your business brand. Once people can tie your brand to your brand’s selling point (in this case, the typography of web design), then you have established your brand well. As your followers consist of existing clients and potential ones as well, it is crucial to build a good reputation for your business and let the good words get spread throughout the entire network.

5. Be the Expert

If you want to get more referrals to clients through the internet, you need to build a name for yourself. To do that, post insightful updates to your Twitter and give your audience what they want to know. Providing meaningful comments on other’s work as well as your own will impress upon your audience that you’re passionate and serious about what you do. Besides, sharing your thoughts about designs is the first step to getting priceless feedback from other freelancers.

(Image source: Fotolia)

Not all of us will eventually be considered as experts simply by giving our personal takes on designs and such. But if you managed to get there, your personal work will be taken more seriously. Your followers would be more likely to tweet the work of someone who is deem as the expert or the leader of the field. The end result is that you’ve earned yourself a good reputation, and that’s great because more people will hear of your work. This includes potential clients for your business.

Showcase of Dieselpunk Artworks

2012-02-09T10:45:26Z

So by this point most of us are familiar with the steampunk aesthetic. But how many people out there know about dieselpunk? Dieselpunk style is similar to steampunk, but there are distinct differences. While steampunk focuses on Victorian-age sci-fi, dieselpunk is based on the style and technology of the early 20th century, from World War I through World War II. The “punk” suffix on the word indicates its counter-cultural influence in regard to its opposition to historically-accurate and contemporary aesthetics. It’s similar in many ways to the noir styles of the time, though isn’t necessarily as dark.

The term “dieselpunk” was coined in 2001 by game designer Lewis Pollak to describe the style of his role-playing game Children of the Sun, but it has since grown to encompass the style of a number of mediums, including art, music, movies, fiction, and more. There are two basic styles of dieselpunk, one based on the roaring twenties with a mostly positive view of technology and culture, and the other based on World War II with a much darker style and often based on widespread warfare.

Below are more than 50 awesome dieselpunk artworks to give you a taste of what dieselpunk is all about!

Dieselpunk Cars (Image Source: RyanLovelock)

KIEV Dieselpunk Hovercraft (Image Source: Lipatov)

Dieselpunk Hovercraft (Image Source: Lipatov)

Arrival in Utopia (Image Source: Lipatov)

DeiselPunk Gall (Image Source: Kaaskop)

Dieselpunk Robot (Image Source: Chaingunchimp)

Dieselpunk (Image Source: Sedeptra)

Dieselpunk Girl (Image Source: Vadich)

Desert Sands (Image Source: Mykeamend)

Soldier (Image Source: Beaver-Skin)

Gwen in Her Hepmobile Rocket (Image Source: BWS)

The Widowmaker (Image Source: Davincisghost)

090509 – Dispute (Image Source: 600v)

Claudia (Image Source: Lipatov)

Red Baroness (Image Source: LadyDeuce)

Mobilzitadelle “Franz-Josef I” (Image Source: JanBoruta)

The City of Tomorrow (Image Source: BWS)

Rush Hour (Image Source: Malaveldt)

250409 – BB2 3-4 (Image Source: 600v)

290809 – NFZ T1 v2 (Image Source: 600v)

210609 – NFZ A2 (Image Source: 600v)

Ironclas (Image Source: MurderousAtomaton)

Let’s Have Another Cup… (Image Source: BWS)

Aviatrix (Image Source: Conceptbloke)

Calling the Space Patrol (Image Source: BWS)

GateHouse Gazette 10 Cover (Image Source: mykeamend)

Eurocentric Liner (Image Source: Stefanparis)

Diesel City3 (Image Source: Stefanparis)

Retro-Futurism Poster Project (Image Source: Inochi-zero.)

Wheel of Fortune (Image Source: Mykeamend)

Fasten Your Seat Belt (Image Source: Stefanparis)

At Your Usual Dealer (Image Source: Stefanparis)

Twentieth Century (Image Source: Stefanparis)

The Iron Baker (Image Source: Kallini)

Freedom in the Clouds (Image Source: ViaruTarkin)

Pegasus IV (Image Source: Stefanparis)

Panzerarmee “Radetzky” (Image Source: JanBoruta)

Grenadier (Image Source: Vkucukemre)

Space Spy (Image Source: Innovari)

Dieselpunk Airships (Image Source: Tome Wilson)

Coding Kung-fu: 35 Graphics Built Purely With CSS3

2012-02-08T05:43:31Z

Look at the graphics below, awesome Photoshop works right? Nah, they’re created by CSS3. Yes, they’re completely “drawn” by CSS3! When we have seen enough CSS3 animations we thought those are all CSS3 can do as a potential Flash killer, but we’re wrong. Developers perhaps don’t satisfy with the fun of animation, so again, they push the boundaries of CSS3 to challenge the graphic editor’s realm.

With this post comes 35 carefully crafted CSS3 graphics which even include something you wouldn’t relate with CSS3 like Apple iPhone, cartoon character Doraemon, and more surprises! Heck, some of them even come with detailed tutorial that teach you how to achieve it! So don’t miss the great chance to learn to create graphic using CSS3 and little bit of HTML, let’s get naughty with CSS3!

You are strongly recommended to view these demos using the latest version of Safari or Developer version of Google Chrome. Most demos support the latest version of Firefox and Google Chrome, though.

RSS Feed Icon

RSS Feed Icon built with CSS3, exclusively from Hongkiat! Along with the link comes a tutorial which you can actually learn to “draw” the RSS Feed icon without using even a single image. Create the CSS3 miracle with your own hands!

Apple iMac

Yeah my eyes also can’t believe that, but it’s iMac “assembled” purely with CSS3.

Apple Keyboard

It’s Apple Keyboard built with CSS3! Heck, the keyboard buttons can even be pressed.

Apple iPhone

Oh, one more thing: iPhoneCSS3.

Cherry Blossom

The real awesomeness of CSS3 is that it can be used to build anything including plants and animals!

Coffee Cup

A tiring day? Let’s have a CSS3 coffee, best served with Safari/Google Chrome.

Doraemon

This Doraemon is famous for CSS3 compatibility testing. Try it in Internet Explorer 8 or below and have a nice day.

Meowww!

Now you are looking at a cat built completely with code! Too bad the CSS3 can’t generate sound effects, at least for now.

Mushroom, Triforce, Poké ball, Kirby

“Being a nerd, I’ve made some nerdy creations – a Mario mushroom, the Triforce, a Pokéball, and Kirby. For those that use dinosaur browsers, there’s a screenshot of what it’s supposed to look like.”

Nyan Cat

“It contains 81 DOM elements, 688 lines of pure CSS and one JavaScript function for
looping audio. My CSS fails CSSLint test and I’m really proud of this.”

Patterns

The CSS3 is so great that it can also be used to build fundamental asset for web design, such as these patterns.

BonBon

BonBon are sweet CSS3 buttons created with a goal in mind: sexy looking, really flexible buttons with the most minimalistic markup as possible.

iOS Icons

Amazing? Yes. These icons are built by rounded corners, shadows, gradients, rgba, pseudo-elements, and transforms, with the help of certain tools such as westciv’s tools and Border Radius.

Social Media Icons

That’s impossible for web developer to not build social media icons if they can build iPhone and Doraemon with CSS3. And they built these icons really well.

Social Media Icons

Another set of social media icons that show the possibilities of the CSS3 in creating usable icons.

Peculiar

“Peculiar is a free icon package made only in CSS. It was created for sites and web applications that depend on fewer HTTP requests as possible or don’t need to use any image at all.”

GUI Icons

84 simple GUI icons using just CSS and semantic HTML. This is still considered as “non-production ready” icons, but they look very promising.

Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs is not only the icon of the digital age, but also the leader who greatly promotes HTML5.

Twitter Fail Whale

The Twitter fail whale will not fail to surprise you, except in Internet Explorer 8 or below.

umbrUI

User Interface elements made possible with CSS3, and it looks really sleek!

Adobe Photoshop Logo

A tribute to Photoshop without using Photoshop.

Android Logo

The Android is made of fairly simple shapes, but it explains the advantage of CSS3: you can make simple stuff and modify it any way you want by using just code but not Photoshop.

Apple Logo

Retro Apple logo presented using CSS3, still as awesome as the time it was created.

Atari Logo

Years before, who would have thought the Atari logo will be re-created using CSS3.

BP Logo

Simple logo can be made easily with CSS3. The best thing with some of these logos showcased here are there are code provided for you to try out!

Dribbble Logo

Famous user-powered showcase site Dribbble’s logo showcased using CSS3.

Magento Logo

Magento’s logo is not too hard to draw but the outcome looks professional.

McDonald Logo

I’m lovin’ CSS3!

Twitter Bird

Perfect proportion, hat tip to the creator.

Windows Logo

Windows logo! Looks really awesome, and it’s easy to create!

Internet Explorer Logo

Really great creation! It works in major browsers except Internet Explorer 8 or below.

Google Chrome Logo

I’m not sure you love the new logo of Google Chrome or not, but this CSS3 Google Chrome logo looks awesome!

Opera Logo

Now a practice for you: what are the differences between this CSS3 piece and the real deal?

HTML5 Logo

HTML5 can’t shine without CSS3!

Volkswagen Logo

Except the color scheme, this CSS3 clone looks identical to the original one.

Reflection

With the boom of the logos and graphics made of pure CSS3 come the discussions which greatly debate about the usability of the CSS3-produced graphics in the real world production environment.

Generally the CSS3 graphic is fine, but it might get annoying especially when you need to alter the design or simply resize the graphic, also the biggest pain here is the technology is not yet fully supported by certain browsers like Internet Explorer.

What do you think? Will you use the graphic made with CSS3 in your site? Do you have any solution for its current drawbacks? Let us know your thought, and do share with us if you just baked a CSS3 graphic!

Willing to actually do something with CSS3? You’ve come to the right place! Below are guides and tutorials written to aid you greatly on your road to mastering the CSS3.

40+ Apps & Tools To Customize Your Facebook Pages

2012-02-07T09:30:42Z

Facebook now has over 800 million active users around the world. If it were a country, it would be the third largest in the world (right behind China and India), and more than twice the size of the United States.

So it’s pretty much vital for anyone trying to promote a product, service, event, or cause to create a Facebook page. While other social networks (Google+ among them) are making gains, Facebook is still the largest and most popular out there, and that’s unlikely to change in the immediate future (and besides, Google+ doesn’t even allow brand pages yet).

One of the biggest mistakes brands make when creating Facebook pages is to just use the default tabs and default content. They post nothing but self-promotional updates and have no realy ways of interacting with their fans. Basically, their pages are boring.

The answer to this common problem is to make use of all the custom content applications and tabs available for Facebook pages. You can add custom welcome tabs, video tabs, feed your blog or other RSS feed into your news feed, import your tweets, and a lot more. Finding the apps to do all this, though, is a bit trickier.

In this guide, we’ll show you some of the best apps for Facebook pages and how to best use them. While it would be impossible to cover every app available (there are thousands that can be used on pages), this post will get you started.

More related posts:

Customizable Tabs

Creating completely custom tabs is the bread-and-butter of Facebook Pages. These apps make it easy to create completely custom tabs for just about anything.

First Impression

First Impression is North Social’s landing page app. The CMS built into the app makes it easy to create, edit, and update the page. It also includes the ability to customize the image and message that get posted when someone shares you page. Pricing for North Social apps is based on the number of fans you have (less than 1,000 fans is only $19.99 per month) and all accounts come with a 14 day free trial.

Welcome Tab

Welcome Tab is Involver’s landing page app. It makes it simple to create a custom branded splash page for your FB Page that invites visitors to become fans.

TabMaker

TabMaker is a free tool for creating custom tabs for your Page. You can create pages in a WYSIWYG editor, making it accessible for non-tech-savvy users. There are additional apps you can add to your tabs, both free and paid.

Social Candy

Social Candy offers content management and marketing tools for creating and managing professional, customized Facebook Pages, with no technical skills required. Subscriptions start at $29.99 per month, though you can try Social Candy for free.

ShortStack

ShortStack lets you create a number of specialized tabs for your Page, including fan-only content, sweepstakes and contests, custom contact forms, and more. They offer a number of widgets for adding functionality to your pages, including Flickr, images, voting, polls, virtual gifts, countdowns, iFrames, videos, and more. Their free account can handle Pages with up to 2,000 fans, and paid plans start at $15 per month.

Tabsite

TabSite is a fan page platform that lets you easily customize your Facebook page. It uses widgets to let you customize the content that appears on your custom tabs. Widgets available include everything from images and text content to YouTube channels, RSS feeds, and contact forms. They offer a free plan with up to 2 tabs per fan page, advertising in the footer, and a limited number of widgets. Paid subscriptions start at $5 per month, and there’s also a full white label option available.

Lujure Social Suite

The Lujure Social Suite offers a number of widgets and apps for customizing your fan page, including iFrames, YouTube, PayPal, Google Maps, Countdowns, Twitter, Live Chat, Tumblr, Real Estate, Skype, Vimeo, and more. Their free plan allows one tab and access to all the applications. Paid plans start at $30 per month and include all the applications, plus an unlimited number of pages and tabs.

Fan Page Engine

Fan Page Engine makes it really simple and easy to design your own custom tabs. They have a drag and drop interface for creating pages, offer “reveal” tabs (fan gates) to increase likes to your page, and they have help videos to guide you in creating your own tabs. Their Basic subscription starts at just $4.97 per month.

Video Players and Tabs

There are a ton of video players and tabs for Facebook pages out there, so we’ll only cover a few of them. If the ones below don’t do what you need, you can rest assured that there probably is an app out there somewhere that does, you’ll just have to do a bit more research.

YouTube Tab

The YouTube Tab, from TabFusion, lets you easily add a YouTube tab to your fan pages. While it’s not free, pricing is a reasonable $10 per year. It’s a very versatile tab that can be easily customized to fit your needs, and is already used by a number of high-profile brands, including DC Shoes, Nissan Japan, and Peugeot.

Video Channel

Video Channel from North Social lets you add and organize YouTube video content directly. You can customize the tab header, add a fan gate so visitors have to like your page prior to watching video content, commenting is optional on videos, and there’s management options for sharing. It requires a North Social subscription, which starts at $19.99 per month.

Video Premiere

Video Premiere is another video tab app from North Social that is focused on showcasing the release of new video by displaying a single large format YouTube video on your page. It includes fan gate functionality, a customizable header, sharing management, and optional on-page comments. It requires a North Social subscription, which starts at $19.99 per month.

Best YouTube Channel for Pages

Best YouTube Channel for Pages lets you display playlists or your channel and will show up to fifty of your most recent videos. The app is reasonably priced at $9.99.

Hubnut

Hubnut is a widget directly from Vimeo. Just create your Hubnut with your Vimeo videos and then paste the code it gives you into any custom tab that allows HTML.

Blip.tv Tab

Blip.tv Tab is another app from TabFusion. This one lets you includes your Blip.tv videos on your Facebook Page. The background image and text colors can be customized, and the app is only $10 for the year.

Vimeo Tab

Vimeo Tab is also from TabFusion. It only works with Vimeo Plus accounts, and includes all your videos and channels. The background and text colors of the app are customizable. Vimeo Tab is $10 for the year.

Contests

Running a contest on your FB page can greatly increase the number of fans you have if you run the contest well and get the word out. There are a number of apps that can help you run a contest or sweepstakes. It’s important to be very careful when running a Facebook promotion or contest, as it’s vital that you adhere to Facebook’s rules, or risk having your page deleted without warning. This is why using a third-party application can be a good idea, as they make sure everything is set up according to Facebook’s rules.

Votigo

Votigo offers a number of contest and promotion apps for your page, including photo and video contests, and a viral sweepstakes app. Both apps are still in beta, and are currently very inexpensive, at only a couple of cents per month.

ContextOptional Contest

ContextOptional offers a Contest app for adding a contest to your page. You can add photo contests, video contests, and essay contests (or a combination of the three) to your page, with the ability for fans to upload their own content and where fans can vote on entries.

ContextOptional Sweepstakes

ContextOptional also offers a Sweepstakes app, which gives you complete control over the design of your sweepstakes tab. You can gate entries with a requirement to like the brand page or provide an email address or mobile phone number. You can also control the number of entries per fan, and collect custom information from each entrant.

North Social Sweepstakes

The North Social Sweepstakes app lets you launch a sweepstakes in minutes on your FB page. It supports fan gates, includes tools for building your subscriber lists, and lets you embed a simple, customizable info-capture form. A North Social subscription is required.

Momentus Media Contest

The Momentus Media Contest app lets you create video, photo, and text-based contests, with winners decided by a judging process that you define.

Sweepstakes & Contests

Sweepstakes & Contests from Friend2Friend makes it easy to set up a sweepstakes or contest tab, including a form for collecting data, photo uploads, and more. Fan gates are also supported, as are newsfeed Share options to help word spread about your page.

Strutta Contests

Strutta Contests lets you create photo, video, audio, or text-based contests quickly and easily. Users can comment and vote on entries, share the contests through Facebook and Twitter, and four conest configurations are supported: public vote, judges pick, public vote for finalists with final winner picked by judges, or judges pick finalists and public votes on the winner.

Blog, RSS Feeds, and Other Imports

Feeding your blog or other RSS feeds directly into your FB page is a great idea. It means your page regularly has new content added, and also drives more traffic to your blog. You can also import your Twitter or other social network feeds directly into your Facebook page, which can greatly simplify keeping your page up-to-date. Some apps let you import the feeds directly to your newsfeed while others give you the option to just have it import to a tab.

Blog Tab

Blog Tab, a free app from TabFusion, lets you include your favorite blog within a tab on your page. You just provide the RSS or XML feed and Blog Tab does the rest.

Google+ Tab

The Google+ Tab, free from TabFusion, lets you import your Google+ stream as a tab within your Facebook page.

Tumblr Tab

Tumblr Tab, from TabFusion, lets you include your Tumblr blog as a tab within your Facebook page. The app is $10 per year.

Selective Tweets

Selective Tweets lets you update your Facebook status from Twitter, just by appending the #fb hashtag to the tweets you want to post. This way you’re not cluttering up your Page’s feed with tweets that may or may not be relevant.

North Social Twitter Feed

North Social’s Twitter Feed app makes it easy to import your Twitter feed into your fan page. It includes a customizable header, easy design interface, and management for sharing options.

Involver Twitter

Involver’s Twitter app syndicates your Twitter feed directly to your Facebook Page’s newsfeed. It requires a free Basic Involver subscription.

RSS Graffiti

RSS Graffiti syndicates RSS feeds to your Facebook wall. It can support multiple feeds and multiple walls, you choose the combination.

Involver RSS Feed

Involver’s RSS Feed app lets you syndicate your blog to the news tab on your Facebook page and automatically pushes updates to your fans’ news feeds. It’s included with a free Basic Involver subscription.

North Social RSS Feed

North Social’s RSS Feed app supports fan gates, have a customizable header, and includes the ability to customize the image and messaging when content is shared by your users. It requires a North Social subscription, starting at $19.99 per month.

eCommerce Tabs

The addition of ecommerce tabs to Facebook is relatively new. Until recently, the only way to sell things through Facebook was to redirect users to a different site to make purchases. Now, there are a number of apps that let you sell directly through Facebook (and, in some cases, other social media sites).

Owjo

Owjo lets you manage multiple storefronts on different social networks through a single interface. It even lets you host your store on other people’s websites by offering a cut of revenue. It’s easy to customize the look and feel of your site, has a completely secure payment platform, and even lets you create product bundles. It’s free to open an Owjo store, there’s no contract, and you only pay once you start making sales (you pay 7% of each sale plus normal credit card processing fees).

BigCommerce SocialShop2

BigCommerce lets you sell on a variety of platforms, including Facebook through their SocialShop2 app. You get a complete store on Facebook with point and click installation, a customizable display banner, real-time product search, and complete orders and returns right from Facebook. SocialShop2 is included free on all BigCommerce plans.

LunarStore

LunarStore, from LunarMods, is a freemium ecommerce app for Facebook that offers payment through PayPal or Amazon checkout and can be set up in as little as 15 minutes. There’s a free plan that has a 5% transaction fee but no monthly fee and allows for up to 50 products. Their paid plans allow for more items (and multiple photos for each item) and start at $19.95/month.

ShopTab

ShopTab is a Facebook app that includes inventory management, support for multiple languages and currencies, and FB share integration. Plans start at $10/month for up to 500 products. All the plans come with 24/7 support and a free 7-day trial.

Ecwid

Ecwid is an ecommerce widget provider that lets you easily set up a Facebook store in minutes. Ecwid can be integrated with virtually any site, including most common CMSs and even sites designed with programs like iWeb. In addition to integrating with Facebook, it also works with MySpace, Blogger, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Ning, and many more. You can use it with a variety of payment methods, including PayPal and Google Checkout, too. There are both free and paid plans with Ecwid, with the main difference being the number of products you can have (the free plan allows up to 100, while the paid plan allows up to 20,000).

Payvment

Payvment lets you set up a Facebook store for free. There’s a free version and two paid plans (starting at $29.95/month), with slightly different features for each. The main advantages paid plans have are that they automate promotion to fans and offer full analytics. All the plans allow for CSV catalog importing, social sharing through Facebook, Twitter, and email, setting of “featured” items, automated inventory control, and much more.

VendorShop

VendorShop is a free social shopping Facebook app with a number of useful features. You can have fan-only discounts to entice people to like you page, and shoppers don’t have to enable any apps to purchase from you. There are no subscription or transaction fees beyond standard PayPal fees to process your transaction.

Newsletter Signup Forms

It’s pretty important for brands to capture information about their fans outside of just Facebook. What happens if Facebook suddenly deletes your page or bans you? You will have lost the contact information of everyone who was a fan. That’s why it’s a good idea to make it easy for your fans to sign up for your newsletter from your page, and to encourage them to do so (exclusive newsletter-only offers are a great way to do just that).

MailChimp

MailChimp offers integration with Facebook in the form of a signup tab, embedding a signup form right on your Page.

Constant Contact Labs – Join My Mailing List

Constant Contact offers Join My Mailing List for setting up a subscribe form on your Facebook Page.

Other Interesting Apps

Depending on the type of page you’re creating, you might be interested in some of the following apps:

My Etsy

If you sell on Etsy, then the My Etsy app lets you add your Etsy store and/or favorites to your Facebook Page, with share functionality for each item. It also automatically posts to your news feed if one of your items is featured on the Etsy home page.

Genbook BookNow!

Genbook is scheduling software that can be integrated with Facebook to let people schedule appointments right from your FB page. It’s a great option for appointment-based businesses like salons, chiropractors, counselors, tattoo parlors, and more. A Genbook account is required to use BookNow.

Schedulicity

Schedulicity is another appointment and scheduling app that lets you connect with existing clients and lets them book appointments directly from Facebook.

PageLever

PageLever is an analytics suite for your Facebook pages. You can measure things like fan growth, mobile fans, comments, and likes, and lets you know which of your posts have performed best. There’s a free trial available, and after that plans start at $34 per month.

FAQ Page

FAQ Page makes it simple to create a F.A.Q. tab on your fan page. Enter questions and answers and it will automatically format them with a list of questions and accordian-format answers.

Poll

Poll lets you create quick polls for your pages. It’s easy to use and effective at collecting user consensus and data. Photos, videos, and links can also be added into polls, making it more versatile.

Conclusion

There are thousands of apps you can use on your Facebook pages, to do just about anything you want. With new support for iFrames, you can even embed entire web pages into your Facebook Pages, with little work other than setting up the initial page. Apps make it easier for non-tech-savvy users to create custom pages, though, and aren’t going anywhere in the immediate future.

What are your favorite apps, tools, and widgets for custom Facebook pages? Leave a comment below to share your finds with other readers!

Networking Guide for Bloggers: Choose People Wisely, You Must (Part 3)

2012-02-06T06:59:27Z

I’m sure you can relate to this and agree that selecting the right people to reach out to is the most important step on your way to success (whatever success is, since we’re talking networking).

If you do this right, clearly, you’ll be able to build strong relationships with great people. If you take a more random or less thought-through approach then your mileage may vary, so to speak.

Clearly, contacting everyone whose email address you can get your hands on is not the best idea. You don’t need to be in touch with the whole world. A small group of people who you really want to meet and get to know is more than enough.

Quick note:
This post is a part of a series titled – Networking Guide for Bloggers. Be sure to check back next week for more! If you’ve missed the previous post(s), here are the links:

Part 1 – Networking for Bloggers: Why It Is Important
Part 2 – Networking for Bloggers: Setting Your Goals and Rules

Good starting point

There are a couple of things to keep in mind when choosing the people you want to reach out to. First of all, let’s talk the areas/niches those people are in.

There are three main places where you can go to find interesting people:

Look into your niche.
Look into your passions.
Search for like-minded people.

Your Niche

Now, looking into your niche is self explanatory. You simply investigate what’s going on in your niche, and find all the interesting (for whatever reason) people.

There are no rules, someone interesting is simply someone interesting. Once you stumble upon such a person you’ll know that it’s them.

Your Passions

This is an area that might mean exactly the same as your niche, but not always. Consider this example: If you’re a guitar blogger, looking into your niche means going through different websites and blogs, and trying to find interesting authors. But going through your guitar passion means finding other guitarists, guitar teachers, and other people that might have only a presence on Twitter, for example, and not even a website.

Remember, it’s not strictly business, so grading people solely depending on the sizes of their sites rarely turns out well. Even people with seemingly no connections might be extremely helpful for all kinds of advice or help.

Like-minded People

Finally, what I mean by like-minded people are people who share a similar journey to yours. Let’s use the same example. If you’re a beginner guitar blogger, you might consider reaching out to some beginner bloggers in other areas, not only guitar. Also, you might choose to reach out to someone who has already achieved the goals you are trying to reach right now (and they don’t have to be within the same niche as well).

Advice from those kinds of people is often invaluable. Seeing what other people are doing in different niches, and then applying it to your own can give you a real head start before your competition realizes what’s going on.

Different groups of people

OK, we’ve covered some places where you can find interesting people. Now let’s talk what kinds of people to look for. Three categories here: peers, a-listers (E.g. celebrities) and mentors.

Peers

A peer is someone who’s at a similar stage that you are at. In other words, it’s someone who you can share your journey with. There’s rarely anything better than discussing your plans and planning future projects with someone who’s talking to you from an equal level.

How to recognize such people? First, start by searching for some blogs that appear to be getting the same publicity as yours does, or slightly more of it.

Look at things like average number of comments, shares (retweets, likes), PageRank of the blog (you can check this at http://www.prchecker.info/ or by using a FireFox plugin called SearchStatus), Alexa rank of the blog (http://www.alexa.com), number of RSS subscribers (if the blog owner shares this). I know that there are a lot more metrics you can look into, but using just the ones here is more than enough to recognize a peer.

Peers are great for networking. They always keep you accountable, and force you to constantly work on your growth if you don’t want to be left behind. Building a network of peers has a lot more value in itself than just helping you to achieve your initial goals. This is probably the most valuable group of people you should reach out to.

A-listers

A-listers or celebrities in your niche can help you in many different ways. And you don’t even have to ask for that help. In most cases, just the sole act of you doing something for them is helping you already.

For instance, in the blogging niche, the sole act of you working with someone like Darren Rowse on a project bumps up your brand a lot. Even though you might be participating in the project for free, with no actual monetary compensation.

A-listers can also introduce you to many influential people, and vouch for you when it’s really important. Moreover, working with these kinds of people makes you much more experienced, and more knowledgeable about how things are being handled at the top.

Your niche’s celebrities are very easy to find. Probably, you don’t even have to search for them, you just know who it is from the top of your mind.

However, getting in touch with them, and building a relationship is much harder than it is with peers. You have to understand that A-listers are hit from every angle by other people who want to achieve the same thing you want, so getting through the filter is much more difficult.

If someone says no then don’t take it personally. You never should. Just proceed with your strategy like nothing ever happened. Busy people have to say no if they want to be able to do anything in a day, soon you’ll face this situation yourself.

However, depending on the exact person you’re trying to contact you might stumble on different personality types. Just like in real life, some people are great, and some are not. Don’t believe anyone who tells you that every A-lister is a great person, this can’t realistically be the case.

The goal while dealing with celebrities in your niche is to be able to talk to them from the same level, like you’re equals. I know that when you’re just starting out they are popular and you are not, but you are still same human beings, and there’s no point in one of you being treated with less respect. Keep that in mind.

Mentors

Finally, a mentor. Having a mentor is truly a great thing. A mentor is someone who’s much more experienced than you, and hopefully has already done what you are trying to do. Advice from such a person is often invaluable. Especially if you’re stuck at something and can’t find a good way out.

Identifying your desired mentor is not difficult. Simply choose the person you’re looking up to the most. Someone whose actions have always been highly inspirational to you. Someone who’s books/posts/blogs you’ve always been reading.

One more thing to think about is what exactly do you want to learn from this person? What are the first 5 questions you might have for this person? Your mentor should be someone you know you could easily spend many hours talking to on various topics related to what you’re doing.

Once you know who it is, you have to come up with a strategy to get this person to become your mentor (which we will discuss in the next episodes).

Now, your mentor doesn’t have to necessarily know that they are indeed your mentor. For them, you might be someone who they like contacting and talking to or exchanging emails containing various advice.

Also, sometimes you don’t even have to talk to your mentor to get some advice. Sometimes looking up some information on what they did in a similar situation that you’re in (when facing a similar problem), is more than enough to get you going.

Unfortunately, there’s no guarantee that you’re going to be able to connect to your mentor and build any kind of relationship. The problem is similar to the one with A-listers – many people trying to achieve the exact same thing you are trying to achieve. So if you can’t seem to reach a given person you might want to select someone else.

Interestingly, getting a mentor is often easier than building a relationship with celebrities in your niche. I think it has something to do with our mindset. We tend to be much more careful and much more respectful when approaching a mentor.

Action time! Now it’s up to you to go ahead and select the groups of people you want to get in touch with.

A simple path you can follow

Select a group of 15 peers, either in your niche, your passions or other like-minded people.
Select 5 celebrities in your niche or broader niches (in case yours is too narrow).
Select 1 mentor you truly want to contact.

These 21 people are the starting point for you. In the next parts we’re going to discuss how to go about contacting them and building those relationships.

Of course, if you want to select a bigger group of people I don’t advise against it, but you might find it a lot more challenging to be able to handle all the initial communication. And you can’t mess that up. Often, if you fail to make some things happen on your side you might burn the contact completely.

Now, let’s get down to business. The next part is all about ways of approaching people. Until then don’t forget to subscribe to get the posts delivered straight to your inbox.

Did you manage to create your own list of 21 people? Feel free to share your opinion and thoughts you’ve had when completing the list.

A Look Into: Black and White in Design

2012-02-02T07:04:08Z

Black and white are too of the most emotive visuals in nature. Polar opposites, the two seem to stand for opposing metaphors, as well. Black is usually seen as dark, a symbol of authority and power, and, occasionally, as a symbol of evil. White is a sign of purity and brightness and of a natural innocence that combats its opponent.

(Image source: Fotolia)

The real benefit of these two shades is to meld together in a contrasting design. Using such a stark dichotomy, you immediately establish a dynamic in the design that is impossible for the viewer to ignore. It is clean, can be either simple or complex, and has endless opportunities that other color schemes just don’t manage to generate. It all just balances itself out.

Many graphic designers today see that the best way to stick out in today’s full color world is not to join them but to set themselves apart by refusing to follow the norm. Duality has become the name of the game, giving us every reason to try it ourselves to see the effect.

Let’s take a look at how black-and-white designs are being used in various graphics, with great success.

Product Packaging Design

1300 on Fillmore
This specialty food product is a line created for the 1300 on Fillmore restaurant, run by chef David Lawrence. Each bottle design features a simple black-and-white picture of his hands as they work with various ingredients, each one related to the item itself.

For example, you see Lawrence handling cornmeal for the jalapeno cornbread mix or dicing garlic cloves for the roasted garlic and bacon vinaigrette. The design is elegant and effective, without any color at all. It looks even more striking against the clear bottles of liquid dressings that have their own, natural color.

Henry (Lagarde)
This Argentinian wine is already well known throughout Europe for its taste. But the packaging needed to be just as memorable. Using a black bottle instead of the traditional, shaded green glass, they used both a black-and-white label and a matching box.

There are two different lines of the boxes, one that is black with white font and one that is white with black font, featuring a black-and-white picture of a cluster of grapes on a vine as the only decoration. The slight reddish color of the foil on the bottle works well with this design.

Scent Stories
Probably the greatest example of black-and-white packaging, Scent Stories is a product line of perfumes made as a personal project by Ah&Oh Studio. It is based on four famous authors: Edgar Allan Poe, Marquise de Sade, George Orwell and Pierre de Laclos.

Each scent was tailored to the tone of the writers’ stories, with a small explanation of each on the packaging. On the back of each bottle is a snippet from the authors’ most well known stories. Then, the bottles were topped with finely crafted busts for each. For de Sade it is a screaming women, for Poe a grinning skull, for Orwell a pig and for de Laclos a faceless, wigged aristocrat.

More: Showcase of 50 Black & White Creative Package Designs

Website Design

Marcin Kaniewski Photography
This photographer has implemented a really brilliant design for his website. Not only does it use the beautiful contrast of black and white very effectively, going so far as to remove all color from even the thumbnails, but it acts as a portfolio as well.

Each image features one of Kaniewski’s photographs, which can be viewed by clicking for a larger image. You can also change the background from black to gray or white.

Subtraction
Subtraction is the website for social collage app Mixel, created by former New York Times design editor Khoi Vinh. He took an interesting approach to the main image by using his large black dog as the featured subject. Then, he built the rest of the site in black and white around it.

The unique factor here is not the design itself but the way Vinh manages to make the contrast appear friendly and warm rather than the usual intensity the dual shades create.

2otsu
This portfolio site for a graphic design group has been featured on a number of lists for best overall concept. Available in both Flash and HTML, it uses viewer interaction to great effect. You start by deciding what format you want to view it in. Everything at this point is black and white.

Then, it takes you to the main page and has you select what color you want for the interface. From there, you are directed to the now customized list of fast, scrolling portfolio images, which are black and white until you click on them and they expand in full color.

More: Showcase Of Beautiful Black And White Websites

Logo Design

Culinary Zen
The black background with the white text and image is very direct and well made. It is impossible not to have your eyes immediately drawn to it as a whole rather than any particular part of the logo.

The use of the "C" doubling as a plate is another nice touch that brings it all together by giving the image itself more relevance to the actual name, not just the focus of the company.

Silent Monkey
Unlike the logo above, Silent Monkey uses a white background to give the image more light and brevity. The cartoon ape in the center is cute and simple, and the lack of a mouth brings the image together with the name very effectively.

The text is extremely small, which is actually a benefit, as it makes the words seem somehow quieter, as though they are being whispered to the viewer.

Fashion Australia
Not all shades have to be so bold, and actually, using intermediate colors is a good idea for less stark logos. This one uses a dark gray that softens the image. It works well with the only color in the logo, which is a pink bowtie on the kangaroo.

It is also a softened version of a brighter shade, mixing it beautifully.

More: 35 Stunning Black And White Logos

Conclusion

Black and white are two of the most useful shades you can find for any design project. What are some of your own favorite examples of black-and-white design?

Tell us in the comments.

6 Ways to Unleash Creativity in the Workplace

2012-02-02T06:46:20Z

The demand for creativity from employees is rising in this age of rapid technological advancement. This is evident when we see multinational companies like Google setting up something known as a the 20 percent program or policy where Google developers get to spend 20 percent of their working hours (a day at work) on side projects. It was an attempt to give employees the time and space to think innovatively. Indeed, the policy works well, with some of the best products of Google (e.g. Google News) originating from the program.

(Image source: Fotolia)

Some of you may think that creativity is an inborn trait rather than something that can be learned and developed. This may be so, but without a conducive environment for creativity to be expressed, how can we expect to see ideas arising from creative employees? This is precisely what this article is about, to show you ways which you can adopt in the workplace to encourage employees to seek innovation in their work.

More related posts:

1. Reward Creativity

If you want to get employees to think out-of-the-box, you need to motivate them with some form of rewards. Moreover, suggestions have to be taken seriously so that employees are willing to come up with more creative ways of improving the workplace. Otherwise, everyone will think it’s a waste of time to squeeze out creative juices for suggestions that won’t be implemented anyway.

To kick-start things up, you can set goals for your employees to think up of some ways of making work processes more efficient. Perhaps each employee can be tasked to provide one suggestion by the end of each week and you’ll assess which idea is the best. This will be followed with a reward for the employee and equally important, implementation. The reward can be tangible ones like giving monetary incentives, or intangible ones like recognition from the organization by announcing the winner to the rest.

2. Anonymity & Confidentiality

Your employees may already be motivated to be creative but have no outlets to voice out their wonderful ideas. While the outspoken ones can always speak to the management about some suggestions they have in mind, others may be too shy or afraid to do so in this manner. Providing a suggestion box or anything similar would grant these employees the anonymity and confidentiality they crave, thereby inspiring the creative spirit that you wish to instill as part of the organization culture.

However, some of the most creative ideas are born out of brainstorming sessions where a group of people discuss and debate about possible solutions to a problem. Having such a private channel for employees to contribute ideas may thus hinder the creative process. Moreover, those who provide the effective ideas won’t get identified and get the recognition they need. It will be wise to balance both private and public mediums for employees to propose their suggestions.

3. Innovation Teams

A more systematic way of promoting creativity in the workplace is to set up innovation teams. Each innovation team will be tasked to come up with ideas on how to improve the work process of a particular aspect. Deadlines are to be set to ensure that the teams present their ideas and be rewarded if they are excellent. When done properly, this will signal to everyone that the organization values work-related creativity.

One catch is that such innovation teams may be seen as too ‘deliberate’ to some employees. Creativity is supposed to be spontaneous; ideas arising from the strokes of genius. Having such teams may make it seem like an extra chore for those assigned to them, and the systematic approach (i.e. the focus on a single topic) may come across as too rigid for creativity to flourish.

4. Support Creativity

Employees may be unwilling to take risks because they do not know whether the organization supports creativity. This is when you need to guide the organization in the right direction, and show that creativity is highly valued. This has a lot to do with how receptive you are to their ideas, and how you make known your intention to be a more creative company.

One reason why employees are not thinking out-of-the-box or coming up with solution that are vastly different from how things used to be done is that they may be afraid of the repercussions of making mistakes. Risk-taking has to be encouraged and be seen as a norm in the organization. Developing a creative culture takes time, but it starts off with management being more open-minded and less judgmental to the suggestions by employees.

5. Diversity Among Employees

How can different ideas exchange if everyone thinks in a similar manner? Employees with comparable backgrounds, qualifications, experience, etc creates a homogeneous working environment. Perhaps having such homogeneity between the employees will facilitate team-bonding and such, but when it comes to workplace creativity, a uniform and agreeable crowd leaves little room for ideas to flourish.

Rather than setting stringent recruitment prerequisites, you might consider giving more allowance in your criteria. Hire staffs from different knowledge and background and get them to mingle around in projects and even company events. Organize more informal settings between employees with dissimilar profiles for the interchanging of thoughts.

6. Positive Working Environment

Sometimes, too serious a mindset can hinder creativity. Having fun during work allows one to be relaxed and that’s where one tends to get inspired with wonderful ideas. Needless to say, a stressful or even depressing work environment doesn’t give one the mood to think of doing things differently. The employee would only look forward to the end of the day.

Psychological studies have revealed that positive mood can spur creativity. The idea is that positive mood awards us with greater flexibility in thinking because our perspectives are widened. We become more open-minded in that sense and are willing to explore alternatives. Knowing such findings now, incorporating fun into the work through team-bonding activities or retreats every once in a while can be a crucial element in injecting creativity in the workplace.

Free and premium Video Hosting Platforms – Best Of

2012-02-02T17:47:34Z

Video content has been growing in popularity and influence online for the past few years as more and more people worldwide gain access to broadband internet access. Now, video is almost a necessary component to any brand’s online presence, and is being used in virtually every industry (for evidence of this, one need only look at the popular Blendtec series “Will It Blend?“).

But most companies and content creators don’t realize the volume of sites out there that are available for hosting your videos. YouTube is just one site, but there are dozens of others out there, too, of varying quality. Below, we’ve covered twenty of the best (including YouTube), with information on content restrictions, cost, and whether they permit commercial content, as well as key features of each.

Free and Freemium Platforms

There are a ton of free and freemium video hosting platforms available, though many have content restrictions. Some don’t allow commercial use, some only take certain kinds of videos (like episodic web series), and some limit how much you can upload. Many of these platforms have paid plans that let you overcome some or all of the restrictions, and some have partner programs that let you earn money from your videos.

YouTube

YouTube, owned by Google, is the most popular video hosting platform out there. There are millions of videos on YouTube, covering virtually every topic and style imaginable (with the exception of pornography). YouTube has a lot of advantages as a video host, but also has some pretty distinct disadvantages for some users, namely the inclusion of ads on and around your videos, which may be undesirable for many businesses (the last thing you want is for a competitor’s ad to pop up next to your video). YouTube’s partner program does let you earn revenue from advertising, though.

More info:

Cost: Free
Content Restrictions: No pornography or sexually explicit content, no videos intended to shock or disgust, no videos showing illegal activity, no graphic or gratuitous violence
Commercial Content OK: Yes

Vimeo

Vimeo is one of the more popular video hosting platforms, especially for non-commercial video. There have been reports of difficulties with the Vimeo player for some users, though other users definitely prefer the Vimeo player to many others. They have two plans for non-commercial users, though they do allow commercial use for small, independent production companies with some restrictions. Vimeo also offers Perks to their Plus members, along with advanced statistics and unlimited groups, channels, and albums.

More info:

Cost: Free for Basic plan, which allows up to 500MB/week uploads, including 1 HD video, or $9.95/month or $59.95/year for Plus membership, which includes up to 5GB/week uploads and unlimited HD videos (see Premium section for Vimeo Pro)
Content Restrictions: No commercial content
Commercial Content OK: Generally no, there are exceptions for small production companies and similar

Metacafe

Metacafe focuses on entertainment more than many other free video host, and specifically entertainment aimed at a particular demographic. They have more exclusive, original, and curated premium content than any other entertainment site, and are among the top 3 video sites in the U.S. They’re dedicated to showcasing short-form videos from the world of movies, video games, TV, music and sports, primarily aimed at young men. If your video content is likely to be appealing to that demographic, then Metacafe might be a good choice to host your videos.

More info:

Cost: Free
Content Restrictions: No content that is unlawful, obscene, defamatory, libelous, threatening, pornographic, harrassing, hateful, racially or ethnically offensive, or encourages illegal activity
Commercial Content OK: Yes

Vitomy

Vitomy is a hosted video player that lets you completely customize the video player to meet your branding needs. You can build your own unique and creative templates for your video player more easily than many platforms. The only downside is that only the paid plan allows player customization. Both plans, however, offer video uploads, previews, search, and built-in Vitomy templates. The free plan offers 40GB of bandwidth and storage, while the paid plan offers 200GB.

More info:

Cost: Free to $59/month
Content Restrictions: None listed on website
Commercial Content OK: Yes

Blip.tv

Blip.tv is focused on distributing original web series for content creators. They automate uploading of your videos to various channels, including YouTube, and allow for revenue generation. They offer insights and analytics into your traffic, a massive distribution network, and a number of powerful social tools. They also have completely customizable video players that can display a single episode, your entire series, or specific playlists.

More info:

Cost: Free
Content Restrictions: Aimed a episodice web series
Commercial Content OK: Yes

Premium and Enterprise Platforms

Many of the free platforms above don’t allow you the full control you need over your content, especially for enterprise users. That’s where premium video hosting platforms come into play. The biggest downside to premium video services like these is their cost, often in the hundreds of dollars per month. But what you get is superior service and generally more control over your content, as well as more advanced toold.

SproutVideo

SproutVideo is a business video hosting solution that offers a number of features important to businesses. These include security and privacy options, SSL embeds, domain whitelists, HD video, mobile playback, easily customizable video players, and embeddable videos. Their analytics will show you how many plays your videos get, where those plays are coming from, which videos are popular, and where your videos are being viewed on the web.

More info:

Cost: $10 to $750 per month depending on bandwidth and storage needs, there’s a $1 free trial available
Content Restrictions: None specified on the website
Commercial Content OK: Yes

Viddler

Viddler is a video hosting platform for businesses, including educational institutions and non-profits. They offer three plans depending on your needs, including a customizable enterprise plan. Videos hosted with Viddler are HD quality, embeddable, and will play on mobile devices. They have their own ad network to help you generate revenue with your videos, and they also offer a plan to sell access to your video using subscriptions, both available on their Business plan.

More info:

Cost: Starting at $50/month for Pro and $100/month for Business, discounts are availalbe for education customers and non-profits.
Content Restrictions: No hateful, threatening, pornographic, obscene, abusive, unlawful, harrassing, racially or ethnically offensive, libelous or defamatory, or any content that encourages illegal activity.
Commercial Content OK: Yes

Google Video for Business

Google Video for Business is part of the Google Apps suite, and is optimized for internal corporate and enterprise video communication. It’s private, secure video hosting that makes it easy to share things like training videos with your coworkers without making them public on the web or having to deal with an on-site solution. It’s accessible from anywhere, and works on Mac, PC, and Linux computers.

More info:

Cost: Included in Google Apps, which is $5/month/user or $50/year/user
Content Restrictions: None specified on the website
Commercial Content OK: Yes

iPlayerHD

iPlayerHD is a high definition hosting service for businesses. It’s ad-free, includes a DRM streaming option, allows you to choose whether videos are embeddable or not (or choose which domains can embed them), and allows for unlimited video length. They also offer analytics, and they auto-detect the device the video is being accessed on so the appropriate file is automatically delivered. You can set up custom landing pages for you videos and even choose a "no encode" option that won’t re-encode or compress your video files.

More info:

Cost: $30/month or $300/year. A 30-day free trial is available
Content Restrictions: None specified on website
Commercial Content OK: Yes

Framesocket

Framesocket is a premium video hosting platform designed for developers. It offers an API to make uploading easy (as well as a desktop uploader), an easily customizable video player, customizable channels, automated audience building tools, and mobile compatibility. You can gather videos from an unlimited number of users and sources, and then securely store or serve them via Framesocket’s content delivery network.

More info:

Cost: $25/month including 5GB of storage and delivery, additional storage is available at $.50/GB and additional transfer is available at $.25/GB
Content Restrictions: None listed on website
Commercial Content OK: Yes

23 Video

23 Video is a premium video hosting platform that’s aimed at high-traffic enterprise videos. It includes 1TB of traffic per month, with additional traffic available. You get an unlimited number of videos, unlimited users, and unlimited video length. You have full freedom over the design of the open source video player, and you get your own fully-customizable videosite with your design and your domain. There are powerful analytics included, as well as a variety of distribution options (including subscribing via email, podcasting, iTunes or AppleTV), and videos can automatically be posted to Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Google Video.

More info:

Cost: $675 per month, plus $250 per extra 1TB of traffic
Content Restrictions: None on website
Commercial Content OK: Yes

Vzaar

Vzaar is a professional video platform that is easy to use but quite powerful. It includes a video player with customizalbe colors, borders, brand overlays, brand text & links, subtitles, end screen text, and more. Videos are high definition and iPhone compatible. You have access to privacy controls, domain controls, and more. Videos can be set to autoplay and loop, and you have a variety of encoding options. Vzaar also offers integration tools for Ebay, embeddable video code (including HTTPS embed code), and integration with Google Analytics and Mail Chimp.

More info:

Cost: $29 to $499 per month depending on bandwidth, video numbers, and optional iOS streams
Content Restrictions: Nothing tasteless, offensive, or obscene (including pornography)
Commercial Content OK: Yes

Brightcove

Brightcove offers an enterprise-level video hosting platform that includes live streaming capabilities, YouTube sync, and other distribution and syndication options. They offer monetization and advertising opportunities for your online media, as well as powerful analytics and integration options. There are fifteen video player templates you can choose from, all of which are customizalbe. Smart Players let you deliver both Flash and HTML5 video so you don’t have to manage separate players or have extra code on your website.

More info:

Cost: $99 to $499+ per month
Content Restrictions: No content that contains pornography, promotes illegal activity, is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortious, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, libelous, invasive of privacy or publicity rights, hateful, or racially, sexually, ethnically or otherwise objectionable.
Commercial Content OK: Yes

Vimeo Pro

Vimeo Pro is an enterprise video solution from Vimeo. Pro videos don’t show up within the regular Vimeo site (though you can enable the "Community Pass" for videos which meet Vimeo’s regular content guidelines), and you can host commercial content. You get 50GB of upload space and unlimited on-site plays, and up to 250k embed plays (additional space and plays can be purchased), with no bandwidth caps or time limits. High definition video is available (with full 1080p), and it’s compatible with mobile, tablet, and connected TVs. You get fast priority uploading, as well as HTML5 support with the Vimeo Universal Player.

More info:

Cost: $199 per year
Content Restrictions: Not specified on site
Commercial Content OK: Yes

Oculu

Oculu offers unlimited video uploads for your commercial videos, with restrictions on storage and plays based on the plan you select. Their controls are incredibly easy to use, with a dashboard for customizing each individual video. They offer multiple embed options (including standard embed, overlay, and lightbox videos), and tools to manage, measure, and optimize your video campaigns.

More info:

Cost: $19/month to $245 per month
Content Restrictions: Not listed on site
Commercial Content OK: Yes

Ooyala

Ooyala makes it easy to manage your video content across a variety of CMS platforms, including WordPress, ExpressionEngine, Drupal, and others. They automatically transcode your videos into a variety of formats and sizes to support major devices and screen sizes. You can customize your player however you want, with completely customizable player templates that can be used with Silverlight, Flash, and HTML5. They offer APIs for integration with third-party CMSs as well as for bulk uploads and importing of content (including YouTube content). Ooyala works with Flash Access Digital Rights Management and supports custom meta data. Full syndication is possible across YouTube, Facebook, and iTunes, as well as through custom feeds.

More info:

Cost: Starting at $500 per month
Content Restrictions: Not listed on website
Commercial Content OK: Yes

Kaltura

Kaltura is an enterprise video hosting app with some of the most versatile options out there. They offer browser-based, bulk, desktop, FTP-based, and drop folder uploads, among others. They let you transcode your videos to a variety of formats and sizes, using teh transcoder of your choice, and they have powerful management and publishing tools for your video content. Their video player works with Flash or HTML5, and it makes it easy to share content via Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and over fifty other social networks and blogs. Kaltura is one of the only commercial video platforms that also offers basic video editing tools, including the ability to trim and clip content, and add subtitles. They offer a variety of options for monetizing your content, including adveritising, pay-per-view, and VAST support. They offer deployment options for SaaS, self-hosted, community, and cloud editions.

More info:

Cost: Not specified, though a free trial is available
Content Restrictions: No content that is unlawful, obscene, defamatory, libelous, threatening, pornographic, harrassing, hateful, racially or ethnically offensive, or encourages illegal activity.
Commercial Content OK: Yes

Limelight Networks

Limelight Networks offers the Limelight Video Platform, which gives you flexible tools to publish, manage, analyze, and monetize your video content. You can manage your entire online video workflow with Limelight or just the parts you need. It includes sophisticated metadata management, integration with your existing CMS, analytics, in-video search, and support for free, suscription, and ad-supported videos.

More info:

Cost: Not listed on website
Content Restrictions: Not listed on website
Commercial Content OK: Yes

GravityLab Multimedia

GravityLab Multimedia offers a number of premium video hosting plans that makes it easy to deliver your content from your website to computer screens, TV screens, and handheld devices. Their videos are fast streaming with little buffering required, work with Windows Media, Quicktime and MP4, and Flash streaming with pause, fast forward, and rewind. They don’t require any annual contract, so you can cancel at any time.

More info:

Cost: $19.99/month to $420/month
Content Restrictions: Not listed on website
Commercial Content OK: Yes

35 Imaginative “Hands And Fingers” Photo Manipulations

2012-02-01T08:48:20Z

Hands and fingers are the greatest assets of every human born in this world. With hands and fingers, human created great arts that shine in the human history. They are really great, but can they be artistic as well? It’s hard to answer this kind of questions with a ‘no’, especially in this technological age, when everything can possibly become an art with the might of creativity and the power of the Photoshop.

(Image Source: Coltography)

In this showcase you won’t see any regular hands and fingers, as we brought to you 35 manipulation works with artistic attempts on hands and fingers. So let’s see what artists and designers can do when it comes to brush up their own hands and fingers!

More related:

25 Fingers. Aside from its seamless manipulation, this work is so great that it makes me actually think that having 30 fingers look really cool! Well I have to confess that as a developer, I will like to have a hand like this. (Image Source: Alexandre Guilbeault)

Multi Hands. Another really cool one with awesome manipulation applied. (Image Source: j.walsh)

A Handful. “I would be so much better at piano…” (Image Source: pwnedbyryan)

Again, I Say… For everything you do, there might be an eye watching you. (Image Source: 0 W8ing)

Arms Break, Vases Don’t. Sometimes if you are too careless, your hand will go wrong on you! (Image Source: alltelleringet)

Being M.C. Escher. So which one is the real hand? A nice one! (Image Source: billyboingo)

Candlehand. Looks great, and what’s greater with this photo: it’s completely real! (Image Source: Bradi)

Chase Your Love. Killer metallic effect. (Image Source: SubhadipKoley)

Cyborg Hand. The day you know you’re not your father’s son. (Image Source: Naikoivanenko)

Don’t Preach. Which one is the real hand? Or which one is the photo? (Image Source: haribahagia)

FingBods. “Hey man, what’s weird about me?” (Image Source: Sterzy Hunter)

Finger Killer. It’s a magnum, for sure. (Image Source: thecolourushproject)

Flaming Fingertips. This actually makes you think about it, wonderful piece. (Image Source: PhilipHolm)

Give Me A Hand. Don’t try this at home! (Image Source: Stefano Sala)

Give Me A Hand. It’s like these hands got some personalities! (Image Source: tiagogmc)

Gold Fish In My Hand. Very sleek manipulation with amazing uses of colors! (Image Source: sertanarig)

Handed. How many fingers in total? You will never get it right. (Image Source: Õri Balázs)

Hands. I have to say, the 3rd hand is epic. Amusing and unique one! (Image Source: cute0designer)

Hands. Could be what you’ll see when you did too much Photoshop stuff! (Image Source: justyourtype)

I Love Chocolate!! The expressions are priceless, and I believe it will be troublesome to live with these kinda annoying fingers. (Image Source: Manu Pombrol)

M&M’s Chocolate Candy. Cute or haunting? Different people will have different thought about this piece. (Image Source: erwin mallari)

Mutant Cell Pearl. Yikes! (Image Source: Tavieo Sawyer)

My Kind Of Angel. “As an artist, I soar high to the limitless boundaries of my imagination through art and I enable myself to fly with my bare hands.” (Image Source: Alvin Adriano)

Orchestra. More hands are surely cooler. (Image Source: Manu Pombrol)

Pyro. Great manipulation and lighting, gave me a feel that the photo is expressing something. (Image Source: Tom Miatke)

Save the Earth. Unique manipulation work with great details inside it. (Image Source: Fayaz Mohamed)

Screaming Hand. You can’t have quiet environment with this kind of hand. (Image Source: Lintza)

Self Disassembly. “I have a robotic left arm. It malfunctions once in a while from too much computer work, so I have to take it off and service it. The hardest part is trying to reconnect all these wires with one hand.” (Image Source: Josh Sommers)

Some Skills. I doubt its usability, great concept though! (Image Source: Julio Mello)

Spander. Never thought the evolution of the spider could be that similar with human hands. (Image Source: Coltography)

The Hand That Feeds. The Hand That Feeds! (Image Source: Josh Sommers)

Today I Got My Guitar Fixed. Love the slightly transparent effect on one of the hand, guess which! (Image Source: holly henry)

Working Fingers. I always imagine if I could just lie on bed and type on the keyboard like this. Beautiful hand by the way. (Image Source: saibia)

You Are What You Eat. Amusing idea with classic quote, well done! (Image Source: Dimaci)

You Will Never Be Alone. There’s always a helping hand for you. (Image Source: Olivia Ariferiani)

Reflection

So now you see, hands and fingers could not only make interesting stuff, they could also be interesting by themselves! In fact I was quite doubtful that what would be the manipulation works of hands and fingers look like when I just started to search for them here and there, and I didn’t regret to compile them into a showcase, just like they didn’t fail to inspire and/or amuse me!

Which one would you choose to customize your hand to? Oh! The question should be, which manipulation piece you like in this showcase! Do let us know your favorite(s)!

30 Dribbble Freebies For Web Designers

2012-01-31T12:53:28Z

Looking for some User Interface (UI) design for inspiration or free UI PSDs for your next design project? We dived into Dribbble.com, and handpicked you some of the finest (and free) PSDs shared by various designers.

Check out the entire list after jump.

For more PSD downloads – we recommend checking out our freebie section and the following posts:

Compact Music Player by Daryl Ginn [Download]
A lovely minimal compact music player design, would serve you in the best manner if you are to build a new app or something that requires a music player.

Percentage Bar by Daryl Ginn [Download]
These two awesome percentage bars can be used in any application where something is getting loaded.

Glass Music Player Freebie by Norm [Download]
Glass Music Player is a great music player with a classy glass look; this free PSD can be downloaded without any problem.

Radio Player Freebie(PSD) by I’m Charlie – TheIssland [Download]
Here we have a beautiful looking radio player with a lovely track being played on it; a little addition of buttons can make it much better.

Blixt Freebie #2 by Andree Blixt [Download]
This is a nice search bar made by using Photoshop; you won’t be able stop yourself from typing keywords in it.

Twitter Button Freebie by Norm [Download]
These are two attractive Twitter buttons; they have been made with vector shapes and some layer styles.

Half Moon Music Player by Norm [Download]
The unique Half Moon Music Player has got a lovely piggy nose styled pause button along all other major music player buttons.

Calendar Freebie by I’m Charlie – TheIssland [Download]
We have got here a neat looking calendar freebie in PSD format; white background with black digits gives it a classy look, while the red top makes it look hot.

The aButton Freebie by Diego Monzon [Download]
AButton is an exceptional freebie which can be used wherever you like and the shading around the white color gives an eye popping effect.

Wrench Freebie by Diego Monzon [Download]
The wrench gives a strong feeling; this great PSD has been left editable in all ways and has got paths as well.

Map UI Controls Freebie by Edi Gil [Download]
Some great images that can be used in map user interfaces.

Wooden Button by Pontus Johansson [Download]
We have got a lovely wooden button over here; it’s a great idea of using wood effects to create a virtual button.

Black UI Kit by Jonathan Moreira [Download]
This is a beautiful user interface kit with a number of buttons; it gives a dim light disco feeling.

Audio Player by Cameron Dearsley [Download]
Simple, but stylish audio player PSD and it has the required audio player buttons on it as well.

Pixels Shopping Basket by Norm [Download]
We have an attractive red colored shopping basket, ideal to be put on online shopping sites.

Stylish Notification by Thomas Offinga [Download]
Those are three different attractive notification bars, which are ideal to be used in places where confirmation, error or warning signs are meant to be displayed.

Loading Bar by Andreas Fluge Iden [Download]
These are three different loading bars having distinct colors and each can be used to denote specific processes.

Wooden Menu by Breezy [Download]
Wooden Menu is a gorgeous looking wooden touch menu; it can be used on any appropriate site, probably some wood products site or on any site to give it a classy look.

Notepaper Freebie by Norm [Download]
A beautiful fully layered PSD, appropriate for being used at any place where a note is required to be shown in a handwritten style.

Power Button by Pontus Johansson [Download]
An impressive power button, the best part is that it really gives a feeling that something big can be turned on and off with it.

Banner Designs by Scott Rollo [Download]
Pretty Banner is a really cute banner with a nice little star on it, the curve in the background gives it a natural look good.

Macbook PSD by Dany Duchaine [Download]
This is a fully layered PSD Macbook pro, has the classic silver coloring and a nice Apple Inc. like surrounding.

Your cart widget by Pawel Kadysz [Download]
Your cart widget is an amazing widget being shown in two different color schemes with different backgrounds.

35 Sweet Social Icons by I’m Charlie – TheIssland [Download]
Sweet Social Icons are a number of sharp and well toned icons that can be used on any project to give it direct connection to social networks etc.

Google PSD by Victor Ingman [Download]
This is an amazing PSD for Google+; the g+ logo is a bit dark, but becomes visible when you look more closely

Vue by Fares Farhan [Download]
An amazing user interface kit with a number of buttons that support great features and can be used for various purposes.

Wooden Panel Box by Patrik Larsson [Download]
A realistic woody panel box with several layers and it can be customized with ease, would cast a great impact on an online wood store.

Freebie- Social Buttons by Patrik Larsson [Download]
These are really nicely toned social buttons for Facebook, Twitter and the latest big gun in the gang, Google+.

Modern Vintage Stickers Badges by Pixeden [Download]
An outstanding set of 8 retro stickers and vintage badges. They feature all kind of styles including grunge, modern and retro. You can find a great usage for this in any web design or ui project you have in mind.

Speckle Brushes by Maleika E. A. [Download]
An amazing pack of speckle brushes for photoshop which are made with only "the finest cocoa powder" This great brush pack is available for free download and commercial projects usage.

Networking Guide for Bloggers: Setting Your Goals and Rules (Part 2)

2012-01-30T11:05:08Z

For me, there are two things that should be considered as the starting point of a well thought out networking strategy. The headline of this post gives a good hint on what I’m talking about, so let me just say it upfront: start by setting your goals and understanding the basic rules.

Quick note:
This post is a part of a series titled – Networking Guide for Bloggers. Be sure to check back next week for more! If you’ve missed the previous post(s), here are the links:

Part 1 – Networking for Bloggers: Why It Is Important

A word on setting goals

“Setting goals is an important part of most of our projects, or at least it should be. Goals are a guidance for us on what path we should take.”

It all sounds nice, and surely is true, but what does it really mean, you know, in plain English? Well, my personal approach can be explained by the phrase: “goals are the answer.”

Here’s what I mean. Whenever I’m starting a new project, the very first thing I do is set my goals. From that point on I have an answer to every question I might stumble upon concerning the project.

(Image source: Shutterstock)

What I do is simple. When faced with a challenge or a decision I simply ask myself what solution is the most in tune with the goals I’ve set and brings me closer to achieving them.

Even though it’s not that obvious at first, setting goals is as important for networking as it is for any other project.

Before you do anything, and I mean anything, you have to know what you’re aiming for and why you’re trying to reach out to people.

Now, I’m not going to tell you what your goals should be – this is up to you. I’m only going to give you some hints and possible ideas that are somewhat common for most people.

common goals of networking

The word goals is pretty vague and it doesn’t indicate what a properly defined goal should look like. In most cases, goals are answers to the question of what I want to achieve in a given project – what my desired outcome is.

In other words, by the end of the day/week/year what is it that you want? And I don’t mean the material stuff.

For example, most bloggers have very similar answers:

“I want to have an established network of friends (other bloggers) who would promote my content to their own audiences and be willing to publish my guest posts every now and then.”
“I want to have a group of people willing to participate in collaborative projects with me, and help me with my product launches.”
“I want to meet some influential bloggers who could introduce me to some of the A-players in my niche.”
“I want to partner with other bloggers in their launches, and be a valuable ally to them.”

These are all valid goals, and they are surely worth pursuing, but what I would advise you to start with, is dividing all the possibilities into two groups.

Short term goals Vs. long term goals

Long term goals are actually better for defining first because they create an overall image of what you’re doing, and point you towards the right path.

Long term goals are also more general in nature, so you can use them as a base for defining short term goals.

In essence, your long term goals are things you want to achieve ultimately. Short term goals are specific milestones that will get you to your long term goals.

For example, your long term goal might be to get to know 5 bloggers and create a strong enough relationship to be able to publish each other’s guest posts and participate in their promotions in the time of one year. To get to this goal you’d have to create a number of short term goals. Things like: contact 10 bloggers and offer them guest posts within the first month. And so on.

Blogging is rarely a strictly business-like activity and, at the same time, rarely a strictly personal thing. That’s why the most common long term goal of networking for bloggers is to simply make friends. To have a small number of good friends with whom you can participate in different kinds of projects, promotions and other activities.

This sort of relationships can be used both for strictly business projects and some personal, social activities. The diverse nature of blogging itself gives you such possibilities. This is something very difficult to achieve in other fields … try to imagine a similar situation in corporate banking, for example.

Here’s what I advise you to do when working on your goals.

1. Pick your final, desirable outcome.

Making friends, in my opinion, is what works best. However, you can also try more business driven approaches. Like building personal expertise in your niche, or becoming the go-to-person for a given (precise) activity.

Whatever you choose remember about two things: your goals have to be exact, and there has to be a deadline.

For example, “I want to meet some bloggers and publish many guest posts on their blogs.” – This isn’t exact. “I want to meet 10 bloggers from my niche and publish 30 guest posts on their blogs.” – This is.

And, of course, the deadline … well, deadlines are deadlines, I’m sure you understand what a deadline is.

2. Try to define a number of milestone goals (Short term goals).

This is where you try to come up with some steps that will bring you closer to the ultimate goals.

Important. You don’t have to design your whole path, so to speak. Short term goals are exactly what the name says, so you only need to define your goals for the next month or so. When the month ends you simply define another set of short term goals.

Continuing the example above; your short term goal could be to “contact 20 bloggers and offer them a guest post within 30 days.” – This is both exact and has a deadline.

However, before you take your goals and do anything with them you need to learn one important thing.

important rule of networking

I won’t keep you hanging here, so I’ll just say upfront that the rule is this: it’s not about you, it’s about them.

Sorry to be the one to break this to you, but … no one cares about you (except for your mom).

OK, it’s not that harsh. Your friends care about you too. But before they can care about you they need to become your friends. Same goes for your online friends.

(Image source: Shutterstock)

Don’t be amazed that some people simply ignore your emails. It’s just life. Strangers ignore each other all the time. And you are no different. When was the last time you deleted an email from an unknown recipient? … umm today?

Whatever you do, remember that you have to give before you take.

Blasting an email to a stranger titled “great business proposition inside” won’t work in a thousand years. You’d be lucky if out of 1000 emails even one gets opened and read.

Now the funny part, giving just like that, out of the blue probably won’t work either. I’d say that there’s another important step before you can even give – introducing yourself.

Remember when your mom taught you never to take candy from a stranger? That’s exactly the situation here.

So finally, here’s a possible real life scenario: introduce, give, take. Actually, a more accurate one is: introduce, give, give, give, give, take … or something similar.

In essence, networking like we’re discussing it here works just like it does in real life. That’s because it is real life, the internet is just a medium, and there are still people on both sides.

As a matter of fact, you have to be even more careful when asking for something online than you’d be in real life. It’s much easier to refuse or even ignore someone over the internet. That’s one of the reasons why some people prefer doing business over the phone to using email. Saying no to someone directly is much more demanding in terms of inner strength than writing it on the screen.

This all makes the whole online environment much more subtle and uncertain; hence the importance of giving before you can take.

It’s time for action, isn’t it? That’s why the next post in the series is going to be all about selecting the right people to contact. Until then don’t forget to subscribe to get the posts delivered straight to your inbox.

I have one more question for you. What do you think about the idea of introducing yourself before doing anything else? Don’t you find giving something out of the blue to be a little strange?

7 Splendid Techniques to Encourage Comments on Your Blog

2012-01-20T11:14:27Z

One of the best ways to gauge the health of your blog readership is to check out how many comments you have for your posts. More comments mean that your readers are actively engaged in what you have to say. Such positive engagement between the readers and yourself creates a lively community that sustains readership and attracts more visitors to your blog.

Not getting the amount of comments that you would like to have? Don’t worry; it may not have anything to do with the content you’re providing. You may be providing quality content and information to readers, but not sufficiently stimulating them to provide inputs to your posts.

Here are a few ways to get your readers more involved before you scrutinize your content for any potential flaws. Full list after jump.

Related posts:

1. End with a Question

Sometimes readers don’t know what to comment about. Posting a question about your post will give them an anchor point to what they can talk about. Intuitively speaking, we should place that question right at the end of the post. If your reader has read from the beginning to the end and got to that point, chances are that he or she is interested in what you’ve written. The reader will be pretty motivated to answer your question.

One thing to note is that your question should be as general as possible, unless you want to direct the discussion to a specific point. A general question allows for more freedom in their comments, so that your readers don’t feel constrained and choose not to comment in the end.

2. Ask for Contributions

Another way you can ask for more comments is to get them to contribute to your seemingly incomplete post. This is especially applicable to posts where you organized your content in the form of a numbered list (just like this one). Now, the trick here is to ask your readers to add on to the list. Make them feel that they are contributing to the article by merely commenting their opinion.

A better way will be to end your numbered list abruptly so that it appears to the readers that you need their help to complete the post. Say, for example, you end the list at #9. It seems a little odd (no pun intended) to stop there right? So, you appeal to your readers to help you think of that #10 tip and post it in the comment box.

3. Reply to Comments Promptly

Basic courtesy dictates that when someone gives a certain feedback about one’s work, one should, at the very least, thank him or her. If your reader has a question posed to you, all the more you should answer promptly. This will let your reader feel that his or her comments matter, and that he or she isn’t talking to him or herself.

If you take too long to respond, the reader might have already forgotten about it and take it that there’s no point commenting on your blog posts. The issue here is that these comments are addressed to you, so no one else but you yourself has to reply to it before the reader feels ignored.

4. Reward Insightful Comments

Simply replying when being commented on isn’t enough; sometimes you need a carrot to motivate them to type out what they think. It can be any forms of reward: a contest for the best comment posted, prizes for answering correctly a question posed, or perhaps the promise of writing the next post based on the most interesting comment.

But these are pretty straightforward and overt ways of rewarding commenters, which may come across to some readers as ‘trying too hard’ and put them off.

Well, another perhaps even more effective way is to capitalize on our need for social approval. Making your commenters feel special for posting an insightful comment is a great incentive. They get rewarded with recognition and attention. A perfect example will be that of Facebook’s trademark ‘Like’ button. One reason why we post all those funny and intriguing statuses is probably because we secretly love our friends liking them. Go search around for some plugins that function the same way as the ‘Like’ button for your blog comments.

5. Reduce Barriers to Commenting

Is there anything that might be hindering your readers from posting comments? Do a check yourself and try to post something yourself. Does it go through smoothly? Also, is the comment box easily noticed once you enter the blog as a visitor?

The other thing to look out for is whether visitors to your blog need to register or log in before they can comment on your posts. If this is so, this might be the reason why you’re getting so few comments. Taking that extra step to register in order to comment can be a big turn-off for some readers, so they would rather hold their peace forever.

Make sure to put yourself in the shoe of the visitor or reader in order to know how easy or hard it is to comment.

6. Commenting on Posts in the Blog Community

If you want people to comment, then set a good example yourself! Comment in your own blog and other similar topic blogs in the community. Ensure that you give well thought out comments that relate to the topic in question instead of one-liner generic answers (e.g. “Great Post!”). This is especially so when you comment on other blogs and leave a link to your site. You want to attract readers and the bloggers to your blog and not let them mistaken your comment as a spam.

Providing valuable feedback to a blog entry is pretty much like doing an advertisement for your blog. If you want to garner more comments, one of the most straightforward ways is to improve traffic to your blog. Readers who stumble across those blogs can see what you’ve commented and click on your link to check out yours.

Also, implicitly speaking, the author of the blog whom you posted a comment may feel obliged to return the favor by commenting on your posts. This is particularly so when your comment really strikes a chord with him or her.

7. Shake Things Up a Little

The last point here has something to do with your content. A discussion arises when there is a common goal to work to (e.g. providing suggestion for that last tip in your numbered list) or when there are conflicting opinions. I’ve pretty much discussed the former in my #2 tip on asking readers for contribution. As for the latter, all you need to do is to make your content a little controversial or take sides with a particular opinion of yours.

A blog is more than a news site where you simply present the facts and leave the readers to their own judgments and thoughts. A blog consists of your opinions as well; otherwise there’s little the readers can comment about. These opinions and arguments which you present on your blog should be thought-provoking enough to let your reader react and respond to it, as if to defend their own opinions or even beliefs.

You may feel comfortable sitting on the fence with most of your entries because you don’t want a situation where you offend your readers. Sooner or later though, they may get bored with your lack of opinions. I guess the best way is to feel your way around what your target audience is like, and then adjust your content to the level acceptable to most of them.

[Freebie] St Valentines Icon Set

2012-01-27T06:09:48Z

This year, to celebrate the St Valentines Day, Hongkiat and Grafpedia are really proud to provide you this beautiful and lovely icons set. Roses, Love messages, hearts, chocolates, rings, gifts, candles everything to switch your website and commercial tools in the power of love.

Each icon is available in various sizes: 48×48, 72×72, 128×128, 256×256 and 512×512. You can use them for personal and commercial use. Redistribution without permission is prohibited.

Here’s a quick preview of what’s in the pack:

Download

Download St Valentines Icon Pack (all)

5 Amazing Things Internet May Have Ruined

2012-01-20T11:03:40Z

Many of us are unable to survive without the internet because our modern society has grown to become so reliant on it. We go online everyday and has grown so accustomed to the net that we don’t actually realize the impact that the internet has on our lives. Needless to say, the internet has serves us well by allowing us to connect with the rest of the world ever-so-easily.

(Image source: Shutterstock)

Yet, this convenience comes with a price tag. We should take a moment and ask ourselves what are some of the things we may have sacrificed along the way. That way, we can gain a proper perspective and approach internet with some caution to ensure that we don’t lose more than what we gain.

1. Privacy

This is something all of us internet users are probably aware of, especially if we’re on some social networking site like Facebook. It used to be the case when stalkers have to resort to physical means to stalk their victims. Not anymore now, with our greater reliance on the internet to provide us with entertainment, goods, information, etc. Such dependence usually means we have to reveal bits and pieces about ourselves (i.e. contact details, credit card numbers, our preferences, etc) in order to transact with the net. Privacy gets compromised as a result, and stalkers use that to their advantage.

Even if you resolve not to engage in any social networking sites by not signing up for one, photos of you or any other information about yourself may still end up in Facebook. How? Well, so long as you have friends who are using Facebook or any of such sites, they can always post things about you that are open to the rest of the world. Got drunk at the party last night? Your friend (or enemy) snaps away with his or her mobile device and post it up on Facebook for the pleasure of the entire network.

Besides, you must’ve probably provided your particulars to some internet company as you register for their newsletters, purchase their products online, etc. Who’s to say that the information you’ve given to them are kept confidential? Don’t you ever wonder how you receive random email spams? Cookies are also embedded within sites to track your mouse movements so that they can be analyzed for marketing purposes, or even for the government to track you.

Are we not all under tight surveillance here in cyberspace?

2. Reliability of Information

With millions of blogs and websites out there on the net, one question we often ask is how much is the information they provide accurate and reliable. Given the convenience and low cost of publishing a blog or a website, there seem to be a lack of accountability for what are being published. The ease of modifying your online publication (as compared to offline publications like books and newsletters) makes putting out incorrect information less of an issue to the owner of the site. He or she can always amend the mistakes at no cost.

(Image source: Shutterstock)

Specialized journalists who adhere to the accuracy of the stories they produced are now replaced by bloggers who may not have such practices. The result is that you get a massive number of different versions of the same story because there’s no way to verify it without a trustworthy source (e.g. from a news site). At the worst, opinions can be misinterpreted as facts by readers online who may then go on to spread them as the gospel truth in social networking sites.

As we internet users become aware of the existence of rumors masquerading as truths, we start to become skeptical in whatever we see or hear about be it in Facebook or blogs. This, in effect, creates a generation of cynics among us, who regards internet information as unreliable and shaky at best.

3. Copyrights

While some bloggers write their entries and pay little attention to the correctness of their information, others simply lift them off from other sources and claim it as their own. Plagiarism, as they call it, is rampant in cyberspace. You would’ve probably seen the same content appearing in different websites with no references to the original source. The reason why many seems to be doing it is perhaps because the free concept of the internet has led us to believe information is meant to be spread.

Such ingrained mindset has a similar impact on our perspectives of paying for entertainment. Since the coming of Napster, purchasing for music has become unnecessary for some of us. We could just download the latest albums of our favorite artistes off the net. Then along came the popularity of movies, e-books, applications and games, all of which could be downloaded illegally through file-sharing and bit-torrent applications.

Whether or not you support the free distribution of information and digital commodities like music, copyrights have never ever been so drastically infringed before the internet was available.

4. Genuine Communication

On one hand, internet facilitates communication like no other technology has done so: Emails and chat messengers allow us to be in contact with anyone in the world so long as you’re online. In that sense, internet users like you and I are empowered with an enriched network of unprecedented accessibility. Communication, however, is more than accessibility or contactability. For the sake of connectivity, internet has sacrificed quality and perhaps, genuine communication.

Messages in the form of text can be hard to interpret. Most of us have experienced misunderstandings that arise from the ambiguity of emails or online chats. To make up for the lack of facial expressions and body languages present in real life, emoticons naturally arise to minimize the confusion. Nevertheless, it is still quite hard for one to feel as heard online as when one connects with another in real life. Yet, such quality communications are more and more being replaced by online communication. Again, it has to do with our dependence over the internet.

Shy individuals may hail such superficial online communication as their savior to a better social life. To that, I would say internet provides a good initiation stage for them to know people. For the friendship to progress further, it would still require a physical meet-up in order to truly connect, What happen is that these individuals end up relying on online communication that they become too comfortable with it to advance to offline conversations.

A virtual social life online is still a pseudo one.

5. Work/Life Balance

As accessibility, connectivity and contactability improves with the internet, work expectation increases. Customers expect companies to be available 24-hours a day online, which means that a fully functional website is a must. The implication of such universal expectation is that employees have to access their work emails during the wee hours after office hours. The line between working time and your time becomes blurred.

(Image source: Shutterstock)

Even without the rising expectation of the society at large, the mere fact that internet is accessible 24/7 only means that you can check your emails any time outside work. Your bosses know that for a fact and would use that to their advantage, by sending you work during weekends. Their reason? Everybody’s doing it, so it’s expected of you to follow with the rest of the world.

But of course, it may not happen that way because it depends on the company culture and policy on taking work home. What I’m saying is that the temptation is there in most workplaces to utilize the awesome accessibility of the internet to push work into our personal space. Sometimes even employees themselves want to take work back home knowing that they can do it over the weekend.

If you want to maintain work/life balance, sometimes it’s necessary to draw that line and segregate work time from your time.

One Thing the Internet Will Never Ruin – Creativity

One thing, however, remains un-ruined by the internet and probably will never be: Creativity.

It seems that there’s no end to human creativity. This is especially so when user-generated content is a primary characteristic of the internet. Looking at all the video mashups in Youtube, satirical blogs, podcasts, etc, it’s clear that the internet will evolve along with human’s unlimited creativity. The beautiful thing about the internet is its ability to connect with the world, with everybody inspiring and sharing information with everyone else. Rather than undermining creativity, the internet cultivates and unites the world with it.

100 Imaginative “Cities of the Future” Artworks

2012-01-28T13:34:01Z

What the future might hold has long been a topic of speculation for artists and creative types. Trying to imagine what the world around us might look like in twenty, fifty, hundred years, or even end of the world can provide hours of entertainment. And it’s obvious that those artists and designers who take the time to create concepts of what they think the future might hold for us put a lot of time and consideration into their pieces.

Below are 100 fantastic artworks depicting what the future of the city might be. There’s a lot of diversity in the images, with everything from dark, almost apocalyptic, scenes to bright eco-utopias.

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Utopia City (Image credit: JamesHillGallery)

City Of The Future (Image credit: Killerethyl)

City of the Spheres (Image credit: Voyager212)

Future City 1 (Image credit: PeteAmachree)

City of the Future (Image credit: Jacob07777)

Future World 2 (Image credit: RudolfHerczog)

Future Road (Image credit: DaniNaimare)

Future Cityscape Concept WIP 5 (Image credit: Toiletbear)

3D Future City (Image credit: Forcg)

City (Image credit: Yty2000)

Future City Concept (Image credit: Cok3ster)

Capital 30 (Image credit: Revolved)

Cross Fate City Concept (Image credit: Adimono)

Smog (Image credit: Alexiuss)

Future City (Image credit: Pevel)

Speedpaint – Future City (Image credit: Antifan-Real)

Dark City (Image credit: Vaghauk)

Egypt – 2070 (Image credit: Merl1ncz)

City Of The Future 2 (Image credit: Xizeon)

SFM X-mas – Sci-fi City (Image credit: Enterprise-E)

Future City Too (Image credit: RobertDBrown)

Future Cityscape 1 (Image credit: Jarling-art)

Inner City (Image credit: Aksu)

Future City (Image credit: Xboxpsycho)

City of the Future (Image credit: Blackangel559)

Epic (Image credit: Christian Stoll)

Microcity (Image credit: David Fuhrer)

Paradigm Shift – Zone Zero (Image credit: Aiven – Yvan Feusi and Gaetan Weltzer)

Fantasy on City Image in the Future (Image credit: Yaroslav Shkriblyak)

Dark Tales of the Future (Image credit: Rasmus Poulsen)

Advent of Yellowstone (Image credit: Theswordsman77)

Organic City (Image credit: Spivak000)

Gravity City (Image credit: Yonaz)

Concept: Futuristic City (Image credit: I-NetGraFX)

Bold Visions – City Docks (Image credit: Antifan-Real)

Underwater City (Image credit: Nkabuto)

Meduzarts: Subaru Ep3, Concept (Image credit: I-NetGraFX)

Different World – Different Time (Image credit: Caucasian-eagle)

Megastructure (Image credit: Hideyoshi)

Epocholis (Image credit: Jenovah-Art)

Mirai Millennium SF BG (Image credit: Pinakes)

Cityscape (Image credit: Erenarik)

Ultracity (Image credit: Guitfiddle)

Metropolis (Image credit: Hideyoshi)

City Concept 3 (Image credit: Voyager212)

London 2063 (Image credit: Grivetart)

Magic Hour (Image credit: Benef)

Red Dawn (Image credit: Unfor54k3n)

Dome City (Image credit: PixelObsession)

Future Of City (Image credit: Arielitem)

Glide Down to the Future City (Image credit: ROMAgfx)

A New City (Image credit: Dekus)

Mountain City (Image credit: ApneicMonkey)

Ship Highway (Image credit: PixelObsession)

Capital Megacity (Image credit: Julian399)

Skypollution (Image credit: Izaskun)

Future-City Speedy (Image credit: Brehnman)

Plate City (Image credit: Farkwhad)

Dwellings (Image credit: AdoC)

Fallen Concept (Image credit: AdoC)

Vulcanae (Image credit: Gizmodus)

Mirandopolis: Birdcage District (Image credit: Gizmodus)

Rainy Dawn (Image credit: Voyager212)

Sci-Fi City (Image credit: TomEdwardsConcepts)

The Desert Labs (Image credit: Shadowtuga)

Speedpaint_73 (Image credit: Concept-on-mac)

Glass Prison Sci-fi City (Image credit: GutsBerserk)

Techno-Oasis (Image credit: Julian399)

Fast Food City (Image credit: PE-Travers)

Plaza (Image credit: Guitfiddle)

Futuristic City (Image credit: Brehnman)

The City (Image credit: Urielbeaupre)

Babylon (Image credit: Unfor54k3n)

Vertical Urban Scrawl (Image credit: JakeMurray)

Mad City (Image credit: Nelson808)

The Rule of Law (Image credit: Arsdraw)

City Design 1 (Image credit: Datamonkey-ultima)

Future (Image credit: Radoslav Žilinský)

Edge of Precipice (Image credit: Taenaron)

2210 (Image credit: 3yen)

Sun City (Image credit: Adimono)

The Future Harbor (Image credit: Yunhyunjung)

City Towers (Image credit: Aksu)

Sci-fi City (Image credit: Diversebeing)

The Three Sisters (Image credit: Nelson808)

Spear City (Image credit: TheTrashCaretaker)

Ballpoint City Digital Color (Image credit: RKGfXnl)

Canyon City (Image credit: AndreeWallin)

Windy City (Image credit: Hideyoshi)

City Night (Image credit: Molybdenumgp03)

Underwater City (Image credit: Lostsoul121)

The City of Dharchonia (Image credit: TateishiEigo)

Hidden City (Image credit: Molybdenumgp03)

Bridge City (Image credit: Loboto)

Futuristic City (Image credit: Milkmom)

Visari Env 02 (Image credit: Ichitakaseto)

Temple (Image credit: Xenomorph-designs)

City Lights (Image credit: Breaker213)

Silence (Image credit: Nitro-killer)

Utopia (Image credit: Adimono)