Archive for the “Cool Stuff” Category
Aug
15
2008
 
BMW Shape-Shifting Car made Out of ClothPosted by: Dre in Cool Stuff, tags: bmw, car, cloth, nextgen
Concept cars give automotive designers a chance to let their imaginations run wild, often with outlandish results. But even by that measure, BMW has come up with something as strange as it is innovative — a shape-shifting car covered with fabric.
Jul
09
2008
One-Theme : The Best Wordpress theme to date!Posted by: Dre in Cool Stuff, Design, Web 2, tags: Design, theme, wordpressThis theme is just amazing, if you are looking for the perfect wordpress theme this is the one for you, this video will explain everything for me. If the video didn’t rock your world check out this live demo and if you are interested in buying it please order from my affiliate link here. These are some of the features One-Theme has One Theme Features
Be sure to get this theme! This is just something cool for all those firefox 3 users, Type “about:robots” in your address bar and see what happens. Cool trick right?
Jun
21
2008
Conde Nast’s Reddit goes open-sourcePosted by: Dre in Cool Stuff, tags: code, Conde Nast, CPAL, open source, Reddit, social media, social newsReddit, the social news site that publishing giant Conde Nast acquired in 2006, has made a big announcement: The site’s code, as of Wednesday, is open source. It’s been released under the Common Public Attribution License (CPAL).
“It was kind of an easy decision for us,” Huffman explained. “One of our driving goals is to stay as open and transparent as possible and give our users an alternative to mainstream media…this is just the next logical step toward that goal of opening up the actual system.” He added that he was surprised that Conde Nast was so quick to approve Reddit’s proposal to go open-source. Reddit now counts 4.5 million unique visitors monthly, significantly smaller than rivals Digg and Yahoo Buzz. But the site has grown 1,000 percent since the acquisition by Conde Nast’s Wired Digital division, Huffman said. And its open-source move is something that none of its competitors is doing, he emphasized. Growth of news aggregation start-ups, however, could take a hit when the frenzy over the 2008 U.S. election is over. “I’m not too worried about it,” Huffman said. “I think traffic will definitely change a little. We’ve seen that in smaller scales already. We saw when the Ron Paul movement kind of came and went…when Ron Paul kind of cooled down, a lot of those users left but the traffic stayed up.” Reddit has a history of openness, too. Last year, to celebrate its acquisition, the company toured around the country giving away free beer.
Jun
18
2008
10 Great Search Engine Optimization ArticlesPosted by: Dre in Cool Stuff, SEO, Web Development, tags: Article, SEOYou might think you don’t need search engine optimization for your blog, but playing nice with the search engines is the very best way to get organic, targeted traffic to your blog or website. The biggest problem I had learning SEO was that there is just an awful lot of information. And some of it is conflicting. As a newbie - or even a seasoned blogger who just hasn’t bothered with search engine optimization - SEO can seem daunting and deep. The truth is, it can go about as deep as you want it to. As a blogger, it behooves you to know at least the basics of how to make sure that your site makes friends with the search engines. With so much information out there, it is hard to know where to start. Since I have been a student of search engine optimization for a long time now (much longer than I have been a blogger), I am going to tell you a secret: All the SEO training you need is available for free. You don’t need to buy a $495 video set from an SEO “guru” to learn how to get targeted search engine traffic to your blog. Believe me. I have never paid for an SEO training product] and most of my online income now comes from my ability to get my niche sites at (or very near) the top of the SERPS (search engine results pages) through time-tested (white hat!) search engine optimization methods. This collection of articles is just a small sampling of some of the great SEO information that is available online for free. There are literally millions of articles out there that will help you through any aspect of SEO at any skill level. The majority of these articles are basic enough for newbies to follow, but contain enough specialized information to still teach the experts a thing or two (or eight!).
This is just one of Danny Sullivan’s many articles for SEO beginners. I picked this one to feature here because it really focuses in on what a search engine is looking for when it ranks your blog or site. This is by no means intended to be a comprehensive or “best of” list. These are just my particular favorite SEO articles right now. In fact, all the sites featured here are some of my favorites for many topics related to internet marketing, blogging and making money online. Just remember the next time you see a $47 report that promises to get your site to Google’s front page by next week, just keep in mind that there is nothing new in that report - you can get to the front page (or even the first few listings!) for free, you just need to know the right methods and put in the work necessary to get there. If you have an SEO article or tip you’d like to share, please feel free to link or share it in the comments. This post is about Copywriting What is Copywriting Copywriting is basically marketing. Copywriting is persuasive and it promotes an overall idea about a company, product or service. It is one of the most important aspects of marketing. Copywriting can include anything from slogans to articles. Understanding copywriting is essential to being able to successful run a marketing campaign. Basic copywriting has the single intention of selling. The reason for the copy is to sell a product or service. When it comes to website copywriting, though, there are two main intentions. Website copywriting has the goal of selling and also a goal of boosting search engine rankings. For this reason, website copy is usually more in depth and wordy rather than the typical copy. Copywriting is the aspect of choosing words and text. It does not usually include the look of the copy. However, when it comes to website copy, all aspects are considered. Since the main idea of copywriting is to sell an idea, product or service, it is very important for a business owner to understand what makes up a good copy. It is all about quality content that gets to the point and captures the potential customer’s attention. Copywriting is about knowing how to use words. You have to know how to manipulate them and put them together in a way that achieves your ultimate goal. A good copy will grab attention and make people excited. The internet is a large place to try to run a business. Success in the internet market place is all about catching people’s attention. You have to be able to get people to come to your website if you ever want to sell a thing. Copywriting can be the way to get visitors and make money. With all the competition online, copywriting can be the way for you to make your business stand out from the crowd. You have to have something that will set you apart or you will get lost in the crowd very easily. Effective copy is going to speak your target audience. It is going to offer useful information that will captivate them. You should address concerns, answer common questions and explain your product or service in your copy. Remember, though, that your copy must be easy to read and something that will hold the readers attention. Your copy should make your customers want your product and feel, even, as if they need your product. You have to sow the seed in their mind that they can not live without your product. Effective copy can do just this. It helps to write your copy from the point of view of your target audience. Use language they would use. Talk as they would talk. You have to relate to them on that deeper level or they will likely click away to someone else’s website. Copywriting can really make a huge difference in your online presence. It can bring in a large crowd or it can keep people turning away. Hat is why it is so important to understand copywriting. As a business owner, you understand that marketing your business is important, in fact, essential to your businesses success. However, if you never understand and grasp the concept of copywriting then you will never be a success. The quality of your products and how great they are is something only you will know until you start telling people about it. Essentially, that is what your copy will do. You should approach your copywriting with the same enthusiasm you have when talking about your products. You want to convey that in words to your readers. You have to be passionate and articulate. You have to use the power of words to draw a mental picture for your readers about just how great your product is and why they must buy it. Your copy is something that is so very important that you should spend plenty of time developing it and revising it until it is perfect. This is one area where you will not want to just throw something together. Copywriting is something that not everyone can do. If you find yourself struggling with copywriting then you may consider hiring someone to write it for you. This is a good idea for someone who can talk passionately about their product, but that can not seem to get those words into print. A trained and experienced copywriter can turn verbal passion into written passion for a copy that will blow your customers away. That is the bottom line of copywriting. You want to blow your customers away so you can start your business on the road to success. Now you can download videos from YouTube to your PC for viewing offline. Perhaps this doesn’t sound like anything revolutionary, but for many, a simple and free way to do it has been elusive. This is especially true since YouTube not long ago changed their URL and Embed coding. About two weeks ago, I downloaded a program that cost $30 to do the job. It worked, and worked well. But just today, I found a program that works just as well, and it doesn’t cost a dime. I downloaded it, tried it a few times, and decided I had to tell you about it if you hadn’t already heard of it. It’s called YouTube Downloader, and I’ve prepared a quick video to show you how it works. Below the video is the link to the download. I have to be honest here: The $30 software I bought has an affiliate program, and that is the software I was going to promote. But, in all fairness to you, the readers of this blog, I decided not to do it. The reason is simple. There are a LOT of programs out there that cost money, and they do their jobs very well. In some cases, “free” substitutes don’t give you all the features and advantages. In those cases, I always suggest and recommend the better program, even if it costs money. But sometimes, you get everything you need without having to “whip out your wallet,” and this is one of those cases. Watch the video: YouTube Downloader is available now from Download.Com Source: youtube Rumor has it that Bluray is the new Betamax. Quite a large sum has been spent on HDTV systems with DVD Players, even HD DVD Players. Instead of the market being driven by ‘What kind of crap does SONY want to sell us’ it may well be time for the actual ‘market’ to tell the industry what is wanted. There of course are options the Big Guys would prefer you never considered. Let’s see: Maybe Digital Download. Folks that are ‘Early Adopters’ are generally tech savvy and more than likely use broadband at home. Some recent Broadband could do live download, although I’d prefer saving to a storage device to play without the vagaries of commercial bandwidth delivery. Or here is an idea - Is Blu-Ray Just More Planned .. Source: Gamers  It seems that most webmasters and internet marketers have the goal of getting their sites onto page one of Google. I admit that I, too, feel a sense of joy and satisfaction when my sites hit the top 10 for my keywords. But is the top 10 good enough? Should you rest on your laurels once you’ve achieved page one ranking? Not according to the AOL search data that was compromised in 2006. Yes, that data is two years old, but I think it’s important to revisit those results and remind ourselves of what it revealed. That compromised data gave us the following break-down of the percentage of clicks received by each of the top 11 search results:
“Wait,” you say, “those numbers barely add up to 50%!” That’s true. According to the AOL data, that’s because 46% of all queries resulted in no clicks — meaning that the user didn’t see what they were looking for and so tried something else or moved on. There are a few points I want to make about this. First, this is data from AOL, and without being too unkind to AOL users, well, they’re not the savviest of searchers. That makes a difference. I would theorize that Google searchers would be a bit more prone to “dig” for the result they need, especially since in my own experience the figures aren’t quite so drastic as this data shows. That said, though, this chart helps to demonstrate the vast difference between the #1 ranking for a set of keywords and all of the other rankings. Basically, the number one ranking gets the lion’s share of the traffic, and the other 9 of the top 10 just get the tricklings. Number 11, the first result on page 2, gets virtually no traffic at all. I included it in the results to demonstrate how little effect a page 2 ranking has on your traffic. This is one of the reasons I advocate trying to rank for a series of long-tail keywords, and not putting all of your efforts into one set of very popular keywords. Getting to #1 for a single set of competitive keywords requires an exponential amount more effort than ranking #1 for dozens of long-tail keywords. And, as demonstrated by this data, those dozens of “lesser” rankings will be far more valuable to the bottom line of your traffic than a #9 or #10 ranking for a competitive keyword. Let me illustrate. Let’s say that your niche has a set of competitive keywords that generates 10,000 searches a day. Sounds like a goldmine if you have a page one ranking right? Let’s see. If you managed to get on page one, but only rank #9, based on the AOL data you would only get 150 of those visitors to your site (4,500 or so per month). However, if you manage to rank #1 for 10 keywords that each only receive 1,000 searches a day, you would get 226 visitors (6,780 or so per month). That’s 150% more traffic for the long-tail keywords. And I promise you, it’s dramatically easier to achieve (and maintain) 10 less competitive rankings than it is for one super-competitive one. In fact, in many cases you can achieve multiple #1 rankings for long-tail keywords with the same quantity of links needed just to get you on page one for the super-competitive keywords! Just ask the happy 3WayLinks.net customer who recently posted at the users’ forum regarding their first $369 day in affiliate profits. Or another forum poster who reached his first $100+ AdSense day thanks to 3WayLinks’ ranking his sites for lesser-competition keywords. So remember, when planning your keyword targets for your web site, don’t forget to target a variety of long-tail keywords. Even if you are planning on going after a competitive set of keywords, still keep the long-tail on your agenda, and give them at least as much of your time and resources. Do so and you’ll reap the rewards to be found in Google’s “low hanging fruit.” Source: Search Engine Optimization How long has everyone been telling you that Google loves blogs? Months? Years? Well, it's true, and I wanted to share an experience that helps reinforce that truth to you. The Blog That Resurrected My Rankings I had a site devoted to a particular type of exercise equipment. The site was in the top 7 results for its keywords in Google for over six months. Unfortunately I had server problems and the site went down for a few days. Google crawled the site constantly because it was well-linked, and so big G knew instantly that the site was down. Since it stayed down for a few days, Google must have decided it wasn't coming back up, and its rankings plummetted. After the site did come back up, it reappeared in Google, but this time on the third page (ranking 25 - 28 for its .. Source: Search Engine Optimization |
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