RSS Feeds Go Crazy in the Marketplace

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Geeks and Bloggers use RSS exclusively for the publishing and subscribing to news headlines and blog feeds, however many other innovative and useful applications of RSS have been sprouting up here and there.

The marketplace is quickly learning that you can use RSS content feeds for so much more and its getting crazy and wild out there in the business world.

To see a small sampling of what people are doing with feeds visit http://www.msifetch.com/Unique_Feeds.html

Everything from audios and videos, recipes, graphics, weather, comic strips and much more. It seems there is no limit to what you can do with a little ingenuity and creative thought.

Many of the larger sites are starting to utilize these new features making it a lot more interesting adding such feeds to your website. Companies like Apple, Ebay, Amazon and shopping channels are offering a much more graphical interface than just a headline and a paragraph.

With the web surfer becoming much more "web savvy" than they were a year ago, they are expecting not only information but also an entertaining web experience. People love watching or listening to media and this also means they are more likely to read your message while they are visiting.

While most RSS Feeds were simply headlines and a small amount of text there was not really any reason to add these feeds to your website. As this is rapidly changing the ability to add some of these new feeds means great content for your website and good search engine ranking because of the constantly changing content.

Not only can you bring outside feeds into your sites but it is also very easy create your own from the desktop. Programs like RSS Editor and RSS Builder are free RSS Feed creators that let you make feeds that can then be offered from any website.

Embeding RSS Feeds in your Web Site

MSIFetch http://www.msifetch.com is a new generation of server side software that allows anyone to take a feed and embed it directly in their website. This new format produces PHP feeds so they look like part of your page and are seen by search engines as content.

There are many services that do this for free however they get most of the credit so to have it all running on your own site makes a lot more sense.

Advertising in RSS Feeds

As publishers have moved towards monetizing RSS feeds, their have been vibrant discussions as to whether advertisements in feeds are viable or whether they will drive subscribers away. At the end of the day while it appears that many are discussing the philosophical approaches to ads in RSS feeds few are taking the time to examine the options available for inserting advertisements in feeds.

Ultimately the advertisements served are going to determine the success of RSS as an advertising medium. The ads served must be related to the content contained in the feed. If the RSS feed contains quality content, the ads are relevant, and the volume of ads is in balance with the volume of content served, advertising in RSS feeds will succeed. Take a closer look at some of the ad serving options currently available for RSS feeds.

RSS Feeds are starting to take on a whole new feel and if you have not yet investigated all the incredible possibilities then you should do your self a favor and have a look. 





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Trendy Directories : Countdown Has Begun ?

khiepoet , 0 Comment
Probably SE engineers and CEO's are asking themselves the same question.

Directory frenzy begun when Google announced his PR mechanism, slower in the beginning but extremely accelerated lately.

Keeping the same trend it's very accurate to say than in 6 months, with continuously improved automated tools for submitting, the quantity of links to be considered by crawlers will grow, artificially, extremely.

And the content itself will be almost the same while the services provided by directories to visitors (others than submitting webmasters) are practically null.

There is one axiom, one question and one estimation :

The axiom :

Search engines will degrade and penalize some but not all directories.

The question :

Will this happen on automated algorithmic bases or a human rating will be involved ?

This question is linked to the definition of "bad neighborhood" and "link farm". The algorithm will decide that a directory has over a certain % links to "bad sites" and penalize it ?

Let's take a look at DMOZ : based on this algorithm Google will need to penalize DMOZ because is crowded with dead links and forbidden content (due to corrupt editors).

So we may think that a "kind" of human rating will be added in the equation. Because it's obvious that an "AI" can't judge the value of content, especially related to the usefulness towards live people.

The estimation

In my opinion all automated directories will be penalized. If the submission isn't human rated or approved than the directory will be blacklisted.

Also all the directories based on the same principles : approving links without providing any content/human intervention, will be penalized.

The "paid" directories, which contains a handful a "selected" links, will not be penalized but their usefulness as real traffic are questionable and , probably, the PR benefits will be degraded a little.

The "big" directories, counted on the fingers of a hand, will stay with the same weight. Nothing new here :D big guys are always friends.





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Your Website Copy Could be Letting You Down!

khiepoet , 0 Comment
A professionally presented business website is a powerful and essential marketing tool: it's the first thing prospective customers will look at before they decide to contact you. If the copy on your website is not written to an acceptable standard, it may be losing you customers. It's not enough just to have amazing graphics and imagery: you need the words to make it complete. Is the spelling correct? Are punctuation marks in place? Does the copy make sense? These are questions that website designers should be asking themselves before they upload a new site.

One of the biggest flaws with website copy is inconsistency: for example the word 'website'. Some sites spell it as one word, some as two words; as far as I am aware both are acceptable, but not both versions on the same site! In my opinion, a lack of consistency will deter a significant amount of would-be customers from using the services of a company that has not taken the trouble to proofread their website.

Poor spelling on a website is another costly but avoidable mistake.
The majority of visitors will leave the site very quickly if they find too many spelling errors. This again will give them the impression that the site owners don't really care; and they would be right! I am also convinced that copy that has been 'padded out' with insignificant trivia is also a big turn-off for visitors – clear, concise and informative is the order of the day.

Anything containing textual content should as a matter of course be proofread: it's important that not only are mistakes in spelling, punctuation and grammar found and corrected, but that the text flows smoothly for the reader. The copy on a website should not be treated as the 'poor relation' of the project. You can have the most up-to-date, eye-catching graphics available but you will still need well-written copy to compliment them.

There are the odd few web design companies around that will happily inform visitors how they can supply them with a state-of-the-art website but then insert second-rate copy, which totally negates any good work they have achieved. This will reduce the initial impact of the site, and more often than not will have an adverse effect on business.
It pays to have the copy checked professionally, whether the design company has written it themselves or had it supplied by the client; it may cost a lot less than you think to have a website proofread - it could cost you considerably more if you don't!

Remember: if visitors to your site cannot find the information they are looking for because of badly written copy they will simply leave the site. The only people to benefit will be your competitors





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10 tips for photographers in order to get accepted by ShutterStock

khiepoet , , 0 Comment
If you want to get accepted on Shutterstock site, you have to send them 10 pictures and 7 of them must be accepted. If not, you may try again after one month. Why is it so important to get on Shutterstock? Because Shutterstock is the best microstock site for photographers and graphic artists (check the list of other microstock sites).

1.Check the noise

Noise is the most frequent reason why the photo is not accepted – you should display your photo at 100% zoom and check if there is some noise (especially in the blue sky), JPG artifacts, sensor dust and other defects. You have several ways to fix noise issue:

2.Check the sharpness

Another frequent reason for rejection is sharpness – zoom your photo at 100% again and check if the subject of the picture is focused properly.
The best practice, how to have sharp photos is:
  • use tripod
  • use DSLR (Digital single-lens reflex camera)
  • use wireless trigger

3.Submit photos with various subjects

Don't submit two and more photos of the same subject – even the variations of same subject. Don't try to submit photos of:
  • your pet,
  • flowers,
  • sunsets
Try photos of
  • food and drinks,
  • fitness,
  • healthcare,
  • IT, computers, communications,
  • concepts like success, happiness, sadness, anger,
  • seasonal photos (Christmas, Easter, autumn, spring),
  • people (with model release)

4.Use Post processing

You should use at least the basic post processing in Adobe Photoshop, Gimp, or some other graphic editor. The main steps should be:
  • levels
  • white balance
  • sharpness
But be careful, less is sometimes more.

5.Description and Keywords

Don't be lazy: type appropriate description and keywords – Make sure all keywords relate directly to the image.
If you are too lazy to type 50 keywords, then you can use some tools:

6.Beware of logos or faces without model release

If the photo contains recognizable face, then you need to have Model Release signed by this person. Also check to be sure there is not some logo or company name in the background (on the building, on the clothes etc.)

7.Try illustrations

Quite a lot of photographers are also graphic artists and on Shutterstock is much easier to get accepted with illustrations (vector or just bitmap) than with photos. You can also try to submit some computer generated graphics – fractals, 3D models, 3D scenes… In the 10 images you can have some illustrations, some photos and some 3D graphics.

8.Buy DSLR Camera

If you want to earn some good money and don't want to spend too much time in Photoshop, then buying DSLR (even the cheapest model) is the best way to do it. Photos from compact digital cameras need much more work in Photoshop and usage of noise reducing software.

9.Try another site meanwhile

Check the list of best microstock sites for photographers, some of them don't need sample files for review (Dreamstime, Fotolia, BigStockPhoto, 123RF or
Crestock)

10.Don't give up and try it again

If you don't succeed, try it again after one month. Use this time for improving your skills, enlarging your portfolio and submitting on other sites. Trust me, Shutterstock is worth the effort.
Do you have some other tips? Type them in comments.



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Best microstock sites

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Using FeedBurner with Google Webmaster Tools

khiepoet , 0 Comment
If you use Google Webmaster Tools and expect to submit a feed as the source for a sitemap of your blog or website, you should use your site's original feed, and not your FeedBurner feed, for the sitemap to work properly.

Here's why:
If you use our feed stats services to track feed item clickthroughs, FeedBurner rewrites your item URLs so that we can track the clicks before sending suscribers back to your website to view the original content. These links use the feedburner.com domain, of course. Sitemaps expect the original domain of the website in question to be found in the feed in order to function properly; these feedburner.com-rewritten permalinks will not work and then cause Webmaster Tools to report a sitemaps error. This error can be completely sidestepped by providing your original source feed instead. Webmaster Tools won't lack for any information or functionality as a result, and you can keep clickthrough tracking turned on in your FeedBurner feed.
One other point: if you have a site whose original feed redirects traffic to FeedBurner (for example, if you use Blogger redirection, or you use our FeedSmith plugin for WordPress), you will need to give Webmaster Tools the address of a feed that does not get redirected as a sitemap source.


For Blogger users, the following general feed URL format should always work:

http://mybloggerblog.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?redirect=false
 
For WordPress FeedSmith plugin users, use this URL format:

http://www.mywpblog.com/?feed=rss2
 
For all other platforms, other feed URL variations that are not redirected are what you need to provide.




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The best microstock sites for selling photos, illustrations, footage, flash

khiepoet 0 Comment
In the following article I have written down some details about the best microstock sites for photographers and graphic artists. If you are just a beginner in the microstock world, then I can recommend you to start with Dreamstime and after you have a portfolio about 50 images, try your luck on the Shutterstock.

The best selling sites

I created a graph, where you can compare the earnings according to the portfolio size:
All data are from my portfolios on microstock sites from the last year (2008). As you can see, my best (and not only mine) site is Shutterstock.

Shutterstock is the microstock agency with the biggest portfolio (more than 6 mil. images) and with the biggest selling potential for contributors – Shutterstock generates for me the biggest income. This site is based on subscription model, so the prices for one sale are one of the smallest (but the number of sales is amazing).
They accept: photos, illustrations (jpg, eps format), footage
Registration page: Shutterstock

Plus

  • The biggest income – see the graph above
  • Quick sales – first sales comes within few hours after accepting your images
  • Short pending times – from few hours to one or two days

Minus

  • You have to add new images every week; otherwise the sales will go down quite quickly
  • It is hard to be accepted (most of the contributors have to try it several times) – the image inspectors are really tough when reviewing yours first ten pictures.
You can read more about this agency in the Shutterstock category of this site

They accept: photos, illustrations (jpg, eps format)
Registration page: Dreamstime

Plus

  • The easiest microstock agency for start selling photos and illustrations
  • Older pictures are still selling well

Minus

  • Sometimes a bigger reviewing time – one week and more
You can read more about this agency in the Dreamstime category of this site

They accept: photos, illustrations (jpg, eps format), footage
Registration page: Stockxpert

Plus

  • Older pictures are still selling well

Minus

  • At the beginning they want 3 sample files for review


Quite a good site – from autumn 2008 the sales went up
They accept: photos, illustrations (jpg, svg format), footage
Registration page: Fotolia

Plus

  • No review at the beginning – you don’t have to send them sample files
  • Older pictures are still selling well

Minus

  • Smaller sales
  • Quite small commissions for non exclusive members/pictures
  • Vectors must be in SVG format
You can read more about this agency in the Fotolia category of this site

I have no illustrations there yet and also only few photos (because of the tough reviewers). But iStock is one of the top agencies with the best content and also the earnings per one picture is one of the highest.
They accept: photos, illustrations (jpg, eps format), footage, flash, audio
Registration page: iStockphoto

Plus

  • For somebody the best agency – lot of benefits for exclusive members
  • The highest earnings per one image

Minus

  • Tough registration – you have to pass the test and then send 3 sample files (if you are not accepted, you can repeat after one week, then after 2 weeks, then after month, two months, six months, one year…) and the reasons for rejection are not described well.
  • Even if you pass, the reviewers are still tough – more than 50% of my photos (which are selling well on other sites) were not accepted.
  • Complicated system for submitting photos and even more complicated for illustrations.
You can read more about this agency in the iStockPhoto category of this site

They accept: photos, illustrations (jpg, eps format)
Registration page: BigStockPhoto

Plus

  • No review at the beginning – you don’t have to send them sample files

Minus

  • Smaller sales
  • Longer approval times

They accept: photos, illustrations (jpg, eps format)
Registration page: 123RF

Plus

  • They accept nearly everything
  • You don’t need to select categories – one of the quickest submitting system

Minus

  • Small sales

I have here quite a small portfolio, so I will add some info later.
They accept: photos, illustrations (jpg, eps format), flash
Registration page: Crestock

Plus

  • You don’t need to select categories

Minus

  • Small sales
  • Tough reviewers


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