There is a post over at Techcrunch that seems to be getting a lot of hits today and I’m not entirely sure why! Kevin Rose the founder of Digg, Revision3 and Pownce, has written a guest post for Techcrunch which outlines the top 10 ways to increase your Twitter followers.
The 10 points that he makes seem be very basic and if you actually know how to use Twitter properly I’m sure they aren’t new to you. However what I find funny about this post is that Kevin has probably only really got his followers from mentioning Twitter on every Revision3 show that he does and by being hugely known in the USA as a tech boy pinup. It is just weird that he is trying to preach ways to increase your Twitter followers when he hasn’t really used any of these methods.
Digg has finally made some critical changes to the way they are doing business. It has been reported by various sources this morning that Digg has fired about 10% of their staff and are hiring a direct sales team. I know this statement is probably bitter sweat for some of the employees fired, but Digg really needed to change the way they were doing business or eventually everyone there was going to be out of work.
This all comes on the back of BusinessWeek recently disclosing that Digg’s revenue was just $4.8 million in 2007, and through the first three quarters of 2008, $6.4 million. These results meant that they lost about $2.8 million 2007 and $4 million in 2008.
Digg are making these changes for one reason and that is to find a buyer! In my opinion Digg has to make a profit to have any chance of a acquisition. I think the team Digg have really taken the site as far as they can, because they had so many opportunities to implement Digg into a white label solution which would bring in million in license fees, but they were too busy trying for an acquisition based upon heavy loses. Is it just me or does this sound like a stupid business model. I know these days most tech startups don’t have a business model when they first start and they seem to be very reluctant to even add some advertising to at least generate some revenue. In this current climate that kind of business acument really doesn’t boad well for an acquisition!
I have been wondering for a long time now “what makes a good startup page”? How does an internet user determine what will be their start page and what just doesn’t do it for them? In this article I’m going to run through some of the basic types of startup pages out there today and see what characteristics are good for me and what aren’t.
The first type of startup pages are the ‘add your own modules‘ type of startup pages. About a year and a half ago these types of pages were being developed left right and center, but lately they seem be going into liquidation very fast.
Netvibes - Netvibes is a module based startup page that has been growing from strength to strength recently. They are based in France but have been able to build up traffic worldwide. All modules can be customised in whatever style the user sees fit. Netvibes is the leader in this type of startup page and I every time I head back to their site they seem to have made improvements.
Pageflakes - Pageflakes is a startup page very similar to Netvibes except they don’t have the adoption levels of Netvibes. Pageflakes was acquired by Live Universe about either months ago because they were struggling and running out of liquid funds.
iGoogle - iGoogle is basically the Google version of Netvibes but with the Google search option at the top of the page. iGoogle has very limited themes, but it is simple to integrate with everything Google of course.
These types of startup pages are good for the user because they allow you to place whatever modules you want onto the page, but there is such a thing as information overload. Personally, Im not so sure about these types of sites as startup pages, because they are simply just ugly to look at because everything is a base size module and they just take too long to setup!
The next type of startup pages are the ‘one page aggregators‘. This type of startup page brings together some of the most popular rss feeds from around the internet and puts them all onto one page. Basically it is a rss reader for the lazy.
Popurls - Popurls is the original startup aggregator which brings together some of the best sites in the tech industry. Sites include Digg, Reddit, Delicious, Yahoo Buzz, Metafilter and more. The site has a very simple layout showing the top 10 from each site. Additionally, they have added videos from Youtube and photos from Flickr.
Alltop - Alltop is a new site from Guy Kawasaki (evangelist at Apple), in which he takes the idea of popurls and spreads it to pretty much every time of market. This is basically an rss reader for every type of industry for the most basic of internet users.
Original Signal – Original Signal used to be one of the leaders in this space, but recently they have been losing market share fast. Original Signal covers mainly tech and business topics, but they have seemed to update the service in many years.
These startup pages are great if you just want to have a quick look at one site in the morning and see what is happening around the world on a specific topic. However, they don’t allow users to choose the rss feeds you want to read, this can be done easily by using an rss reader.
Finally the other type of startup page is the simple search engine and 99% of the time its Google. Personally Google is my startup page but mainly because I find it easier to click the home button at the top and then type in my search, instead of typing it into the top of Firefox. Google as a page is so simplistic and it provide immense functionality behind that basic exterior.
Overall, what makes a good startup page? This is probably a different answer for every single person. However, I do think that startup pages need to be simple, have a good search option and allow the user to customise if they wish. As always simplicity and functionality are the keys.
Why is Darren Rowse still with b5media after all that has happened there. Darren Rowse who is also know as the Problogger co-founded b5media. I have been wondering after all the job cuts and changes over at b5media, why Darren Rowse is still with the company and is his part in the companies future.
Problogger is one of the most popular blogs in the world and is the cornerstone of b5media which is a network of over 300 blogs. Darren doesn’t see to have a huge active role within the company, but why does he sit by and watch when it is slowly going down the toilet in a tough advertising economic environment.
Darren doesn’t need to be at b5media any more, because his site is still growing and im sure he will always have his equity stake in the company, so what is his motivation?
Windows 7 is the new operating system that Microsoft will be releasing officially in early 2010. However, some users have been able to download Windows 7 for free via the Microsoft website. Thus, I though we would let everyone know about some free Windows 7 wallpapers they can download. These are
high resolution
wallpapers created at Devianart. All credits to creators and owners of the images.
Click on the images to Download them (from Author’s site).
Not too long ago the guys over at Killerstartups launched a new service called Dataopedia. Dataopedia is a basic solution that allows users to type in any url and find quickly key metrics from various sources.
Metrics that are measured include Google PR, Alexa Numbers, Compete and Quantcast analysis, Social media breakdowns, Twitter news, Technorati links, Friendfeed and url registration information. Currently, Dataopedia pulls in all this information from various partners including Crunchbase, Compete, Digg, Getsatisfaction and more.
There’s also something interesting buried at the bottom of the site profiles: an ability to comment on the site using Disqus. While that’s not likely to have the reach of a Google Search Wiki, it provides yet another way to gather details about the site and its reputation.
Dataopedia does a great job of pulling all the key quantitative and qualitative site measures required in todays world of web 2.0. There is still a lot of improvements that can be made with the user interface, but over it is probably already leading in this specific market, even thought market is very small.
Probably more than six months ago now I noticed that iWebTool’s Google Pagerank predictor stopped working correctly. I know that no one has really reported about this issue but it just a well known fact that it no longer works. However, it really makes me wonder why no one has actually contacted Google and tried to get this service back up and running. Google Pagerank is know for providing a basic authority ranking for their search engine, these days it probably has not as much affect on search results as it previously had, but it is still very important. Can someone get this back up and working!!
It was reported yesterday that Lycos will not be shutting down their Mail and Tripod services as reported by Techcrunch and others.
In an article appearing this morning, TechCrunch erroneously reported that Lycos will be closing its Tripod and Lycos Mail services on Feb. 15. The information contained in the blog posting pertains to Lycos Europe products and services and affects Lycos Europe users only.
The closing of these two products by Lycos Europe does not impact Lycos users in the U.S. Lycos, Inc. and Lycos Europe are two completely separate entities and business units. Lycos, Inc. is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Daum Communications, Corp., while Lycos Europe is owned by Telefonica. Late last year, Lycos Europe’s parent company announced it would be shutting down its operations and seeking a sale of its remaining assetts.
Lycos Inc. (www.lycos.com) continues to operate social media, publishing and search services including both Tripod and Lycos Mail. Currently, Tripod is the #17 social networking site worldwide (comScore MM Dec. 2008), with millions of member pages hosted, published and visited each month.
Review My Web is a FREE web site review. We stack you up against your competitors on Google, Yahoo, Blogs, and other key channels like Web 2.0, SEO, PPC, Social News, Blogs and much more.
The process is very simple, head over to Review My Web and add in the website you want analytics for and then also type in two competitors and then your email address. It normally only take up to five minutes for the report to then be sent to your email address, and its that simple.
Review My Web is a great free seo analysis tool, but it would also be great to see previous results and compare if everything is moving in the right direction.
Skimlinks is a new tool that allows web publishers to easily control thousands of affiliate networks in one place with one simple plugin. Affiliate market is all based on the CPA advertising model which is cost per acquisition. In other words when someone purchases a product and comes from your site then you get a percentage of the revenues.
Skimlinks simplifies signing up to hundreds of different networks and then having to check all the stats from these networks. Skimlinks seems like a simple fix to an annoying problem.
A couple of months ago EMI launched the new EMI.com which is basically a consumer portal where all EMI videos can be put into playlists and played. I wanted to take a quick look at how the site has been performing in the recent months.
According to Compete EMI.com has had a huge growth in the first month since launch. Previously the site was a basic corporate site in which generated no pageviews, no promotion and of course no revenues. Since launch traffic has gone from less than 4,000 visitors per month to around 40,000. That is a huge 1177.3% increase in a month.
I think in the coming months we are going to see this figure grow even further to probably around 100,000 visitors per month, but I cant see the site go much further than that. That is of course unless they are able to make the site a lot more user friendly, cause at the moment the UI is a little boring and navigation is terrible.
There is another music streaming service that we didn’t mention in our Top 10 free music streaming services and that is Spiral Frog. Spiral Frog is an ad-supported music download service which has had a huge amount of hype since launch.
Today it has been reported that Spiral Frog might be in a bit of trouble and heading towards the deadpool. These reports come from executives within the struggling company. Why is Spiral Frog in trouble? When launching Spiral Frog was in a growing advertising market in which was still yielding good CPM (cost per 1000 ads) rates, however now in the economic downturn these rates are quickly dropping. Therefore, companies need to keep increasing pageviews and presence to stay ahead of the curve. Spiral Frog has been losing a lot of traffic of late and this combined with the big licensing fees they had to pay upfront for major label catalogues means their in a lot of trouble.
There are only a couple of options that will save Spiral Frog. Firstly, a miracle could happen and they could turn around the traffic and the revenues, but that’s not going to happen. Secondly, they could get more funding and sell part of the shares, but they are running out of shares so I don’t think this would happen either. Finally, the only real option is for someone to step in and purchase the company just before they run out of money and get a bargain basement price.
To be fair in the past Spiral Frog has had a lot of issues and they have been in trouble a couple of times. This is probably what has lead to Spiral Frog getting a lot of media attention. I think Spiral Frog will be acquired by the end of 2009, its the only decent option of the company.
There is a post over at Techcrunch that seems to be getting a lot of hits today and I’m not entirely sure why! Kevin Rose the founder of Digg, Revision3 and Pownce, has written a guest post for Techcrunch which outlines the top 10 ways to increase your Twitter followers.
Digg 
Netvibes 
Pageflakes 
iGoogle 
Popurls 
Alltop 
Not too long ago the guys over at 
There is another music streaming service that we didn’t mention in our 
