I recently came across (and started using) a new website called FeaturedUsers.com. They are a Twitter app ad network:
…If you’re a Twitter user, it’s a great way to get more followers and support your favorite Twitter apps. If you’re a Twitter app developer, it’s a simple way to start monetizing your application.
The basic idea is that Twitter users can gain exposure and followers by paying to have their Twitter details show up on various Twitter app websites. The idea is simple, cheap, and will not turn you into a Twitter superstar overnight. However, it’s a great way to help support 3rd party Twitter apps and gain some followers in the process.
As Twitter spam is on the rise, many are quick to denounce anything that even looks like spam on Twitter (and usually with good reason). This kind of Twitter ad network is a great alternative to spamming people directly on Twitter. Advertising yourself here still gets your name in front of a highly targeted audience (Twitter users) without cluttering up people’s tweet streams.
In a way, FeaturedUsers.com helps keep spam out of your twitter stream. And that should make any tweep happy.
Check ‘em out over at FeaturedUsers.com.
This is a question most bloggers wonder–especially when they are first getting started. While there are plenty of ideas on exactly how often you should blog, we wanted to know how often you actually are blogging.
As we close in on 100 bloggers having completed the 2008 Indiana Blogger Census, I thought it would be a good time to share a little bit of the data we’re collecting. As you can see from the pie chart, Hoosier bloggers are blogging much more than I had anticipated.
Read the rest of this story over at the Blog Indiana 2008 Conference blog.
Sell photos on photrade | By HamWithCam
Ever since I discovered Photrade.com through their sponsorship of Blog Indiana, I’ve been admiring the service and slowly starting to use it. My main interest in the service is the ability for bloggers to find great photography and easily place it on their blog or website. Many bloggers just grab images from Google Image Search or where ever they can find them without consideration for the legal implications of using photos without permission. With Photrade, the permission is built-in.
On the other side, photographers (professional and amateur) can profit off not only your free usage of their photos, but the integrated marketplace allowing their photos to be licensed/sold at prices they can control. All photos can be watermarked with a custom mark that helps protect everyone’s photos. If someone wants to purchase the right to use your photo without the watermark, Photrade facilitates that purchase in an automated way.
I believe this new service, which is just now in beta, has huge potential. Below, I humbly submit some feedback from what I’ve experienced so far.
- I love the ability to search for blog post images and easily post into my blog. I would love stronger integration the way flickr lets you make blog posts about a photo directly to your self-hosted blog.
- Please, please, please release an API. I think a killer application for Photrade would be a Wordpress plugin that would let me browse Photrade’s database of photos straight from my “Create New Post” screen. Then, just a button click drops the photo into my blog post.
- It would be great if the framing and links that accompany an embedded Photrade photo could be customized. I’d just like to see the style, spacing, and fonts be a little better styled (or give me control).
- The uploader works pretty well and it is fairly fast (as they claim). However, it would be great if they could add some kind of counter letting me know how many photos I’ve uploaded and if any had any errors. Also, once the uploads are done, there is nothing prompting me as to what to do next.
- A more detailed, expanded view of all my photo view activity and their earnings.
- And last but not least… I can’t wait until the Flickr integration is complete! That is what is really keeping me from using Photrade to full potential. I have a pro account at Flickr and use it for ALL my photos. Being able to import photos directly from Flickr would make Photrade my 2nd favorite photo app (maybe my first, depending on the size of my next royalty check!)
Of course, the site is still beta, and is still amazing. I highly suggest you check it out: Photrade.com
For some reason, I tend to be fascinated with other people’s business cards. I love seeing how creative people can be in such a small amount of space with such a specific purpose. I never seem to be happy enough with the business cards I design for myself and am considering a redo sometime soon. I thought I’d share one of the websites I came across that gives some amazing examples of simple, stunning, and memorable business card designs that should give anyone a creative kick in the pants.
36 Cool Business Cards You Should’ve Seen
If you find yourself having difficulty blogging regularly, I’ve found that sometimes the key is to make the technical part of the act of blogging easier and more convenient. Integrating the ability to blog into applications or websites you normally use can not only make blogging easier, but encourage it.
flickr
My favorite photo sharing website makes it very easy to make a blog post using either one of your photos or someone else’s that is marked as reusable. At the bottom of the “Extending flickr” tab of the “Your Account” page there is a section to add details about your blog (or blogs). If you’ve never done this before, read the simple directions to set things up properly for your type of blog and you’re all set. Once you’ve added at least one blog, a new “Blog This” button will appear above the photos you look at on flickr. Clicking on this button lets you write a blog post about that photo and post it (and the photo) to your blog all from within flickr.com. Once your done, you’re right back to looking at photos on flickr.
Google Docs
I’ve been using Google Docs since it was called Writely and I love it. I store all kinds of information in Docs and having access to it from any computer is very convenient. Today, however, was the first time I noticed that the “Share” button also allows you to post a document as a blog post directly to your blog. There is a similar set up process like flickr and then your able to post. If you already use Google Docs, this is just another reason to keep using it. If not, using Google Docs in this way can allow for more structured storage of drafts (using folders), a more robust WYSIWYG layout interface for your blog posts, versioning and collaborative sharing/writing of your blog posts–to name a few reasons.
There are other great tools that let you interact with your blog such as Windows Live Writer and ScribeFire, which I’ll cover in a future post.
I’ve been playing around with the publisher tools for 4INFO.net and have put together a convenient way to search the “twit-o-sphere” for a keyword via your cell phone using a text message.
4INFO is a text messaging information service that lets you request and subscribe to a wide range of information from various publishers via your cell phone. I’ve signed up as a publisher and have reserved the keyword: TSCAN.
Here’s how it works:
Send an SMS/text message to 44636 in this format: TSCAN <keyword>
For example, if I sent a text message to 44636 with the message:
TSCAN obama
I would get back a short menu of the most recent “tweets” with the name “obama” in them. I could then reply to that message with the corresponding menu number to see the entire “tweet.” Seem confusing? Give it a try! It really works.
I have no idea if this is useful to anyone, but just thought it was a fun way to learn about 4INFO’s publisher services.
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