Crenk » Directory

Invesp: Comprehensive Blog Directory

Steven Finch — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 00:48:56 +0000

There are so many different types of blog directories out in the market at the moment. Today we received an email from Invesp who have created their own blog directory and it seems to be more comprehensive than most others. Additionally it is great to see Crenk already in the directory and doing well. In the term “startups” we are already in the top 10 blogs, with many other top sites including Techcrunch, Venturebeat, TheNextWeb and Killerstartups.

I know that most of these directories aren’t really comprehensive and they don’t tend to include all blogs in the right areas, but who really cares, it is just a bit of fun.

Crenk Directory of Apps – 28 April 2009

Steven Finch — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 13:43:25 +0000

These are the latest applications to be Crenk-ed and added to the Crenk Directory. All applications are FREE to use and their are no trials or purchase requirements. For even more app reviews make sure you subscribe to crenk or follow us on twitter.

(1) Pandora – Pandora is an internet radio company that allows you to create playlists and find new music. Pandora is only available in the USA due to licensing at the moment, but I look forward to them finding a solution for the UK and other countries.

(2) Smugmug – Smugmug is basically a giant online gallery in which users can upload and share their photos, while making them available for purchase and printing.

(3) Filezilla – Filezilla is the best freeware ftp software available in the market today. Filezilla is so simple to use and allows anyone to quickly and easily upload their files straight onto their web server.

Crenk Directory of Apps – 23 April 2009

Steven Finch — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 22:03:33 +0000

(1) Digg – Digg is a social media platform in which users submit stories and then other users vote on those stories and the most popular reach the front page.

(2) Tweetdeck – Tweetdeck is an application built on Adobe Air that hooks into the Twitter API to allow users to Twitter straight from their desktop.

(3) Mixx – Mixx is a social media platform that is very similar to Digg, which allows users to upload latest news and then the community votes upon which they believe is the best.

(4) Last.fm – Last.fm is a UK based music service that keeps tracks of what you are listening to online. Last.fm then also suggest music that you might like, while at the same time letting you know other people who also like the same music as you.

Crenk Launches New Web Apps Directory. Help Us Build It!

Steven Finch — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 15:57:18 +0000

Here at Crenk we have just added a new directory to our site. The directory is for web applications. Every few days we will be adding more and more sites to the directory. Each site in the directory has a brief description and a linkback to their site. We have broken down the directory into 19 different categories including music, photo, mobile, search, bittorrent and more.

To start the directory we have added only 13 of the most popular websites around, but stay tuned for more coming very soon.

If you have a website you would like to see added to the directory, just head over to the directory and at the bottom of every page you will see a suggest a link option, just click on that and suggest something for us to add. Help us build the best web apps directory on the web.

Wefollow: User Driven Twitter Directory

Steven Finch — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 11:31:49 +0000

There has been a lot of talk in the last few days about a new Twitter directory that has launched, its called Wefollow and its from Kevin Rose creator of Digg. Wefollow is a user driven Twitter directory that places twitter accounts into certain categories. Categories include tech, celebrities, sports, blogs, bloggers and more.

How can I get on Wefollow? Simply tweet this .. @wefollow #yourtag #yourtag #yourtag

Remember to replace #yourtag with the tags you’d like to be listed under. So you could send a twitter message like
@wefollow #tech #blogs #web

Remember you can choose a maximum of 3 tags. Choose wisely as there are hundreds of tags out there. Of course it is advisable to select tags which match your niche, but see how you can rank higher on the tag page depending on the number of users in that tag, how popular they are and if the tag is featured on the front page.

Crenk Showcased In Top Wordpress Galleries

Steven Finch — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 21:27:17 +0000

In the last couple of days Crenk has been fortunate enough to have been profiled on some of the top Wordpress galleries.

WeLoveWp – Crenk page

CSSbased – Crenk page

Freemium Wordpress Theme

Steven Finch — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 09:12:04 +0000

Freemium Theme is a free premium theme for wordpress, it was designed by Paul Kadysz and developed by Dariusz Siedlecki and made free by freebiesdock.com.

You can see the demo here.

Some of the features of freemium theme are:

XHTML compliant
flickr RSS support
jQuery menu
2 widget ready sidebars
completely free

Download: freebiesdock.com/freemium-wordpress-theme/

Top 10 Adsense Optimized Wordpress Themes

Steven Finch — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 13:36:28 +0000

There are so many publishers out there that are just learning what Wordpress is and how they can actually make money from blogging. The easiest advertising network to join is Adsense from Google. Adsense provides users the ability to earn money every time one of their readers clicks on an ad. Recently I was looking through free Wordpress themes in search of the most basic template I could find which have adsense blocks as standard and in which optimise those positions to bring in the most revenues for the blogger. After all my searching I thought I might even compile a list of ten themes that I think everyone should use when they are first starting to blog on Wordpress.

1. ProSense | Download Prosense | ProSense Gray | ProSense Blue

2. AdSense Theme | Download

3. Problogger Clean | Download

4. SEO Blix with AdSense | Download

5. Ads Minded | Download

6. Connections with Adsense | Download

7. MW | Download

8. Adsense Ready | Download

9. Boqpod Adsense | Download

10. Tigopedia 1.0 | Download

How Do I Get Listed In The DMOZ Directory? What Do I Need To Do?

Steven Finch — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 14:41:28 +0000

For a long time now we have been producing what I believe is great content here on Crenk. That being said we are still missing from a lot of major site databases on the internet and Im wondering why!

DMOZ.org is the Open Directory Project. The Open Directory Project is the largest, most comprehensive human-edited directory of the Web. It is constructed and maintained by a vast, global community of volunteer editors.

Dmoz is owned by Netscape which now is owned by AOL. So that all being said Im finding it strange that Crenk is still missing from this directory. Is Dmoz still in operation? Do people actually use this service? Additionally, I know how to get listed in Dmoz, but doesnt matter how many times I apply nothing happens.

Blogs.com: The Blog Directory Profiling Some Of The Best News From The Blogosphere

Steven Finch — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 13:16:05 +0000

Blogs.com owned by Sixapart has launched a new blog directory. The blog directory is very similar to Blogged.com, providing news from the blogosphere for different sectors with an attached blog directory.

Blogs.com has been a great success from launch and has some great traffic already to the site. However, when I look closer at the site it seems they it is very basic and isn’t providing too much insights, so why such high traffic numbers. For one it is very hard to get your content shown on their, so doesn’t show true news from the blogosphere, just selected information. Additionally, I have submitted Crenk three times to their direct and I don’t even think they have referenced my site yet!

The design itself is very limiting and only allows them to show a certain amount of information on every page. Additionally, when it comes to finding more interesting sites in a particular niche, I think this just doesn’t happen at all. It is hard to find their directory and they don’t seem to want to show information from various blogs, just stick to the top blogs that everyone has already heard of.

Where Can I Find Tech Company and Product Info? Crunchbase or Tradevibes!

Steven Finch — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 09:17:53 +0000

Where do you head to find technology company information? Currently, there are a lot of technology blogs that provide company directories, but I think there are two key players that stand out in this sector and I’m sure their pageviews will sore in the coming months and years. Those two players have to be Crunchbase and Tradevibes.

Crunchbase is the company directory from the superblog Techcrunch. Crunchbase is build on a wiki type system and instead of just writing about companies and collect data, Michael Arrington thought it would be a good idea to actually put it all together and make some more money from it. Crunchbase has a great look about it and it brings together information from some of the most well-known companies. On Crunchbase you can find descriptions of the company, funding information, location and telephone numbers, competitors and staffing information. I would like Crunchbase to find new ways to make money apart from advertising, like a highlighted company feature.

Tradevibes has a bit of a different layout, but essentially it is the same concept with the type of wiki development. Tradevibes provide a similar set of information as Crunchbase but it also has additional features, such as a fantasy exchange game, voting system on companies, and forums. The design on Tradevibes is actually a bit cluttered and there seems to be a lot of products that have simply just been put together to add features, instead of developing something in house that matches the site. For example, the job board in the left column from SimplyHired.

Both of these companies are leading the way in this niche, however there still seems to be a lot of issues in terms of design and integrating information that is actually needed, without information overload. It would also be nice to see integration with several technology blogs to provide news about each of the companies in the database, but so far even this seems to be limited.

WebHostingRating.com: The Newest Place TO Head to Find Out The Right Hosting Package For Your Needs

Steven Finch — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 10:59:48 +0000

WebHostingRating.com is a new host rating site where they are trying to build the biggest searchable web hosting directory featuring complete information on all web hosting providers, all their web hosting plans, promotional and discount coupons, and unedited reviews by real customers.

From what I can tell this service is built on a Wordpress platform which incorporates a review feature, allowing users to find the right provider and package to suite their needs.

Webhostingrating.com also have other sections on the site, such as a directory, web hosting awards and web hosting tutorials. The articles section is basically their blog in which they discuss everything web hosting. The site itself is brilliantly design and I can see this type of directory really taking off.

Since the site is relatively new, they have only review 4 key web hosting companies at present, but make sure you keep and eye out for more coming in the future. The hosting companies they have reviewed are all Unix hosting, but they have other categories that I’m sure will develop over time, such as Windows hosting, reseller hosting, VPS hosting, dedicated hosting, collection hosting and managed hosting.

While offering some good reviews on trusted hosting companies, they are also writing their own corporate blog, which discusses everything from the world of web hosting. Currently, they seem to have approximately 100 articles in a variety of categories. These categories range from domain hosting to ecommerce to scripting. All the articles seem to be of good length and are very helpful. It would also have been nice to see them add a few pictures in the posts to mix up just the plain text. Normally, a site with the quality of articles they have would grow in the blogosphere, but add in the reviews section and you have a great site in the makings.

Anyways, make sure you head over to Webhostingrating.com and I’m sure they can help you find the right hosting package to meet your needs.

Directory Magic with Blogged.com

Luis Sandoval — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:47:29 +0000

It seems like blog directories are becoming rather numerous. I just recently did a review of Bl ogCatalo g here, and now I am taking a look at Blogged.com.

Registration was easy, but not instantaneous, someone actually reviewed my site and then decided whether I should be added which is what I prefer. After placing some code on my site I was official, and in the first day my site was listed I received traffic. Google Analytics does a great job breaking down where I receive my traffic and I was shocked that Blogged.com worked so quickly. Definitely a place I recommend bloggers list their site. No promises that the same will happen, but what have you got to lose?

What struck me the most about blogged.com is the immediate breakdown of the sites in the directory on the front page. Users are provided well labeled categories to label their own site, but also to find others similar to it. As a registered user you can click on your profile and aside from seeing your site, you are also listed sites that blogged.com recommends you to view. A great way to network and find others like yourself.

Ranking was the most interesting to me. I don’t necessarily find their method to be accurate of a sites worth, but it’s a nice way to see if a site is active or has been dormant for some time. What blogged.com apparently looks at the frequency of the updates on your site and ranks it with a number. The higher the number the more active the site is, but the question becomes is the information worth my time? Is it relevant and well put together. I have friends that update their site three or four times a day, but their efforts are nothing more than to keep a diary of their day, not necessarily hard hitting information so to speak. Just my opinion though.

Users are allowed to write reviews and over time, as reviews are written and enough people have given their thoughts, a new rating is given to replace blogged.com’s rating. Seems a bit arbitrary, but I’ve not been with blogged.com long enough to really see this through. I’m curious to see how others rate my own site and furthermore, what the final outcome will be in terms of a ranking.

A social aspect of blogged.com is present, but does not differ than any of the other offerings from competitors. You are able to invite friends to your circle of favorites, share information through the site, and build a community around your own site.

The underlying factor in all this is simply to drive traffic to your site. Blogged.com does a great job of this, as noted in my own personal experience. Even if you are registered with other categories, it does not hurt to join this community. You might even find yourself enjoying the offerings of this well put together site for quite some time.