I would like to thank all of our sponsors and partners for the May. May has been a very exciting month here at Crenk. Crenk released a new theme for the site in which we are constant working on providing the features that our readers want to see and use. Our traffic has really stepped up and we have seen some great results for this and our RSS readers. Plus Twitter is at an all time high and on the rise.
Please follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/crenk
Please subscriber to our RSS feed: http://feeds2.feedburner.com/crenk/feed
At Crenk have also hired a fulltime writers to the site who will bring in a lot more quality content faster. Welcome Luis and Augusto.
Luis is a writer who has been working on Crenk for a long time and now he has taken the plug into fulltime journalism. Luis is based in the USA and will be bringing our readers some of best and newest startups from that part of the world.
Augusto is a computer geek and fan of the latest technologies, specially those within IT. Augusto has worked as an IT consultant and operations manager for a couple of years. Microsoft Student Partner, MCTS and MCITP.
If you are interested in writing for Crenk then please get in touch and we can see if you fit the bill.
Thanks to our Sponsors and Partners
Adphilia – Adphilia is our CPM advertising partner. Adphilia has really help us develop a constant income stream which allows us to grow our team and site. The advertisers Adphilia provides are top quality and the results have been great.
RouteNote -RouteNote is a digital music distributor that is send artists from all over the world to the leading digital music stores (iTunes, eMusic, Amazon).
Popurls – Popurls is the original single page news aggregator. Popurls is the leading destination to find out what is happening in the world of technology and other topics by simply just visiting one page.
If you would like to become a sponsor or a partner with Crenk then please don’t hesitate to get in touch with any ideas you might have.
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.
2008 has been a very interesting yer here at Crenk. Crenk was launched mainly as a hobby for me to review new startups. Since that time we have had several writers head over to Crenk and help us out with content, including Ades, Kenneth, Mike, Luis, and our newest writer Matt.
In 2008 we have written over 760 posts on various topics. Crenk has also been recognised by some of the biggest names in technology including Guy Kawasaki (who put us towards the top of alltop), Thomas Marban (placing Crenk on Popurls). Additionally, we have our articles syndicated by Reuters, Google News, Livestrong and Computer Shopper.
In terms of subscribers we have had a huge increase throughout the year, mainly because of our partnership with Blogrovr which now means we have over 20,ooo subscribers to Crenk.
In terms of advertisers who have pretty much kept this site in business we would like to thank Adphilia for their hard work in bring in at least some income for the site, as well as TribalFusion.
What can you expect from Crenk for 2009? Crenk in 2009 will be bringing you a lot more startups that are making splashes all around the web, as well as that we hope to offer startups so free advertising on the site. Crenk will also be featuring a lot more top tools posts that help our readers find startups in the same niche. Apart from that you will be able to find more helpful tips and analysis as well as more articles, more freebies and more cool stuff in general.
Thanks for reading Crenk in 2008 and stay tuned cause we will be bringing you even more in 2009.
It has finally happened! Crenk has been recognised by Popurls.com and added to their famous aggregator of everything great on the web.
Popurls was launched by Thomas Marban back in March of 2006 and since then has been dominating the world of “single page aggregators”. Other sites have been copying the structure of Popurls, such as Alltop and others, but nothing can really compete at the moment.
Of course our link isnt at the top of the Popurls site, but we have been featured in the “quickies” section, along side Techcrunch, Techmeme, Centernetworks and ReadWriteWeb. This is a great honour for our site and just goes to show that hard work and producing good content can actually get you somewhere.
