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Location Based Social Networking Services…Foursquare Vs. Loopt
Jul 21st
Foursquare
http://www.foursquare.com
Foursquare is a location based social networking service, mostly used with smartphones (iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Palm, and so on). It allows you to share your location with your friends, so you can “check-in” every time you get to a bar, restaurant, or shopping mall. The cool yet slightly creepy part is that your friends can see exactly where you are on a Foursquare map.
Most people might think this is a safety issue or that a stalker might have easy access to where you are, but only your Foursquare “Check-In Friends” are able to access your location. That’s right. you can actually choose not to share your location with all of your Foursquare Friends. My initial concern was that this would make it easier for sexual predators to find their targets but Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley is actually saying “Foursquare is more tightly curated to who you want to have as your check-in friends. Facebook is a good place for status updates and sharing photos, not to keep tabs on where people are going.” After signing up for Foursquare and checking out the settings I do agree with Dennis Crowley.
Loopt
http://www.loopt.com
Loopt offers a suite of mobile apps that run on over 100 phones across all the major U.S. carriers. They currently offer Loopt, Loopt Star, Loopt Pulse for the iPad, and Loopt Mix.
Loopt is a location based social networking service (Loopt calls it Mobile Social-Mapping) that allows you to use the location of your mobile device to discover the best places and events around you or your friends. It also shows you where your friends are (creepy), what they are doing (creepier), and much more (creepiest). Some people might think this is weird because people can see where you are and what you are doing but it can be a very cool app. You don’t have to share this information with everyone although I’m sure this is hackable…there’s gotta be a geek in his mom’s basement somewhere in middle America that has figured out how to track everyone on Loopt and Foursquare…but…what are you gonna do? Anyways…the feature I love is sharing directions and other information on events and places from Citysearch, Metromix, Zagat, and other similar sites. You can also save money with coupons from retailers, which I love as well!
Loopt Star, which is new as of June 2010 (were talking super fresh apps here), is a free mobile rewards game. With this rewards game you can actually get real stuff like free music and special offers.
Loopt Pulse for the iPad (specially designed just for the iPad…isn’t that special) is kind of like Loopt on steroids. You can check out nearby places and local events in Photo and Map views, which I thought was pretty cool even though you can do this on google maps without it.
Loopt Mix introduces you to people nearby (could be creepy) that have similar interests as you. For example, if you were new to Miami and there was a concert you wanted to attend, you could simply create a profile on Loopt Mix and find someone nearby to go to the concert with you.
In conclusion, both Foursquare and Loopt are very neat location based social networking services that can be very useful to some yet creepy to others. If you don’t give a damn about who sees where you are going all day long then get Foursquare or Loopt on your iPhone and have it update to your Facebook. It is a little weird when you are on Facebook and you can see every place your friend John Smith (just an example name) visits on a daily basis…a little “Big Brother Core” if you ask me but…to each his own!
10 Successful Website Actions for 2010
Jan 14th
When I sat down at my desk this morning I thought of a few things that might make one of my websites more successful. After brainstorming this topic, I wrote this post about 10 successful website actions for 2010. Let me know what you think…is there anything off the top of your head that would make your site more successful this year?
- Write new content as often as possible. I see the same content on websites for way too long…write something new! Another good tip when it comes to writing new content…see successful action #2.
- Add a blog to your site so you can start getting in the habit of writing more. This coincides with successful action #1…write new content as often as possible! If adding a blog to your site is not an option right now open a wordpress, blogger, typepad, or tumblr account.
- Simplify your forms so people don’t get confused and press back on their browser for alternate google search results. It’s simple, don’t make it hard for your prospective customers or users to contact you because they will contact someone else if it’s not you.
- Make checkout fast and easy (why is so hard to buy stuff on some websites? This should be dumb easy.)
- Add search to your site so users can find what they are looking for. Search is the future…wait…the future is here already…you need search on your site yesterday!
- Write a better “About Us” section so visitors don’t leave the minute they read the first sentence. According to a web surfer, if your about us section sucks then your company most likely sucks. Your visitors don’t know that you were just being lazy that day and decided to skimp on the about us section rather than the home page.
- Make sure your site works on multiple displays. Although people are buying some huge monitors these days some still have small monitors…especially netbook users. Personally, I have a 10″ netbook, 15.4″ laptop, and a 23″ flat screen for my desktop.
- Make your site easy to read with good font selection. If you ask me, any font under 12 point is getting too small. Cut the BS with crazy fonts! Pick a nice clean font and stick with it for your entire site.
- Create a good video whether you want it to be a funny video for youtube or a serious video for your about us/bio page.
- Update your design and try to get out of the 90s with your cheesy landing pages, over used handshakes, and hit counters.
Using WordPress for Ecommerce
Jan 4th
I did some research recently on using wordpress for e-commerce and I found some interesting themes and plugins. I will only review one plugin for now but I promise I will do more later (I have a laundry list of great plugins and themes for wordpress ecommerce).
The first one I will review is called ShopperPress.
This ecommerce plugin for wordpress seems to be a nice fit for site owners looking to sell their own products or services, offer affiliate products (Amazon, Clickbank, or Commission Junction), sell drop shipped products, sell digital downloads (music, ebooks, images, PDFs), or setup an online catalog or showcase.
Some of the ShopperPress features include:
- Preloaded Themes/Templates
- Affiliate Product Import Tool
- Various Shipping Options
- Payment Integration (Paypal, Google Checkout, WorldPay, and more)
- Google Adsense Integration
- Built-In Article Integration
- Community Forum and Support
I have first hand experience with the support over at ShopperPress and I can certainly say that Mark Fail (the developer) is more than fair and very straightforward. He helped me on numerous occasions even before I started using the product and now that I have been using the free plugin he has been a great help as well. The only beef (minor beef…maybe chicken or pork) I have with ShopperPress is that I think the free version should have a few more features (ie Checkout Options) to really allow site owners to use the plugin before purchasing the VIP version. I do not have a problem with the pricing for the VIP version because I really think $69 is more than fair…especially since you can us the VIP version of ShopperPress on up to 3 websites. I just think a few more features in the free version of ShopperPress would make it easier to evaluate the product and decide whether it is the right fit for you.
For now, this is all I have on ShopperPress but you can see for yourself at ShopperPress.com when you have a chance. Let me know what you think about using wordpress for ecommerce by leaving a comment!
Hot Dog Logic
Dec 31st
Someone sent me this Hot Dog Logic story several months ago and I thought I would share it again. It’s kind of sad but true…don’t always listen to what other people tell you! Staying positive during times like these can be the difference between making money and making excuses. I hate seeing people literally throw in the towel just because they heard something on the news about how their particular market is going to take a dump this year. You have no choice…you either gotta stay in and stay strong (physically and mentally) or get out and move on to something else that will put food on the table.
HOT DOG LOGIC …….
There once was a man who lived by the side of the road and sold hot dogs.
In fact, he sold very good hot dogs.He put up highway signs telling people how good his hot dogs tasted. He
stood by the side of the road and called out, “Buy a hot dog, mister?”And people bought his hot dogs. They bought so many hot dogs, the man
increased his meat and bun orders.He bought a bigger stove so he could meet his customers’ demands. And
finally, he brought his son home from college to help out in the family
business.But something happened. His son said, “Father, do you not watch
television, or read the newspapers? Do you not know we are heading for
recession? The European situation is unstable, and the domestic economy
is getting worse.”And the father thought, “My son is a smart boy. He has been to college.
He ought to know what he is talking about.”So the man cut down his meat and bun orders, took down his highway
signs, and no longer stood by the side of the road to sell his hot dogs.His sales fell fast overnight. “You’re right son,” said the father, “We
certainly are in a serious recession.”
Hot Dog Logic is kinda cute and funny but unfortunately it’s very true. Don’t let the media bring you down and ruin what you’ve worked so hard for. I’m not saying to ignore reality…there are real trends that will tell you a particular market is heading down the drain. In this case, what would you do with your business? Would you just throw in the towel and give up like the father in Hot Dog Logic? I think most entrepreneurs would would not even get close to giving up.
In conclusion, if you run in to a sticky situation during these hard economic times and you are on the verge of giving up, just remember Hot Dog Logic. If you look hard enough, there are plenty of opportunities to be had, plenty of work to be done, and at the end of the day there is plenty of money to be made. I am no millionaire…yet…but I know how to make money and I know how to keep a positive mindset even during the toughest situations. I wish everyone the best of luck throughout the next few years and I hope everyone has a very happy new year! It’s almost 2010!! Can you believe it!?!?
Hey Yoast, I know you said above to use the support forums but this isn’t a specific question for one of your plugins.
One quick question…you can answer it or not but I thought you would be a good person to ask and I figured you might respond. I got my links to work like this http://mydomain.com/index.php/optimized-page-name-here and I would rather have them like this http://mydomain.com/optimized-page-name-here. Does it really matter when it comes to seo and overall page optimization whether that index.pgp is in there or not? Please let me know. If it doesn’t really matter I won’t waste any time changing it….if it is quite substantial I will change it somehow. Thank you so much Yoast!
Kind Regards,
Brian Oliver
http://oliveridesign.com
Manage Multiple Social Networking Accounts
Dec 23rd
I have had several folks ask me how I keep up with all of my social networking accounts. It’s quite simple actually. In order to manage multiple social networking accounts I have started using a wonderful tool called TweetDeck. Most people don’t realize that TweetDeck is used for much more than just Twitter. It actually allows you to manage multiple social networking accounts at the same time as well as more than one Twitter account, which is convenient for anyone with an account for his or her business and personal life.
For example, if I wanted to update my status on Twitter and Facebook I would simply open TweetDeck (I have a convenient little icon on my desktop), type in my update, and press enter. Each time you update your status, you simply decide which accounts you would like to update…it can be any combination of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Myspace. The default is Twitter…probably because most people update Twitter more often than any other social networking account. Sometimes I will update just Twitter, sometimes I will update Facebook and Twitter, and sometimes I will even update Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Myspace simultaneously. No, that was not a typo, I am pretty sure I spelled simultaneously correctly. Haha! You can update Myspace, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter with a single stroke of the enter key on your keyboard. It’s awesome! I no longer have the need to actually visit twitter.com, facebook.com, linkedin.com, and myspace.com on a daily basis to manage multiple social networking accounts.
When it comes to social networking management tools, TweetDeck is pretty much the end all be all for me. I don’t really need anything else to get the job done. What about you? Do you sign in to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Myspace everyday? Do you have a favorite tool to manage multiple social networking accounts?
Destroy Contact Form Spam – Digitize Books
Dec 21st
Over the years many people I know (including myself) have had serious issues with contact form spam. The solution that I have been using for quite a while now is called ReCaptcha, which is a free tool that can be found at http://recaptcha.net. I now use ReCaptcha on every website I build unless a client has a different solution they prefer. Ever since I started using ReCaptcha the amount of spam I get through my website is slim to none…more like none.
The great thing about using ReCaptcha is that not only are you putting powerful spam protection on your website but you are helping a good cause. ReCaptcha actually helps to digitize books, newspapers and old time radio shows. The words from a ReCaptcha captcha (kind of a tongue twister) are actually from scanned books or newspapers. Another feature I really like is that ReCaptcha is accessible to blind users.
In conclusion, if you really need a high quality captcha, check out ReCaptcha asap. You can implement ReCaptcha on any website and you can find free ReCaptcha plug-ins for Word Press, Joomla, Drupal, and probably just about anything else.
To learn more about ReCaptcha visit http://recaptcha.net/learnmore.html or just go to http://recaptcha.net!
CushyCMS is great for a quick CMS fix!
Dec 20th
I have a friend who recently came to me asking how she could edit her website on her own. Obviously, if her site was built with a content management system (CMS) this would not be an issue. Her site was built with no back end for client modifications so in order to edit anything you would have to go in to the html files (for me this is no problem but for the client this can be a complete mess) and edit around code. Building her a new website was not an option due to time and budget constraints so I needed a quick CMS fix.
I remembered a while back that I had found a tool called CushyCMS that would allow you to easily implement content management in to any straight coded site. In this case I was able to make every 5 or 6 of her web pages fully editable (content and images) in a matter of 15 or 20 minutes…this included setup of CushyCMS and everything. It’s so simple…all you need to do is place a css class of “cushycms” on any element you would like to edit and Cushy CMS takes care of the rest.
For example:
<h1 class="cushycms" title="My Heading">THIS IS MY EDITABLE HEADING</h1><div class="cushycms" title="My Main Content"><p>MORE EDITABLE STUFF FOR YOU OR YOUR CLIENT</p></div><img src="MyPhoto.jpg" class="cushycms" width="250" height="100" alt="MyPhoto" />
After you add these div tags you would go in to the CushyCMS Control Panel and add the page to that particular site and voila! You now have a web page that your client can edit without messing with code.
For any web designer that still prefers not to use a content management system like Joomla, Drupal, or Word Press to name a few, CushyCMS is a wonderful option. You can build a quick html/css layout for a client and add CMS to it in a matter of minutes. The best part of Cushy CMS is that you can use it for free! The free version is sufficient for most applications but I can see where the Pro version would be very helpful especially if you need support on the product (I think the pricing on the pro version is more than reasonable). I am using the free version with great success and I would highly recommend this to anyone looking for a quick CMS fix on virtually any website. For more information, go to CushyCMS.com and check it out!
Side note: I am not a paid CushyCMS representative nor do I get an affiliate commission if you sign up. I am simply a happy user of CushyCMS! If you have any questions about CushyCMS please feel to email me or leave a comment.
Great email marketing tool!
Dec 1st
I recently started using a great email marketing tool that I would recommend to anyone. It doesn’t matter if you’re new to email marketing or you’re a seasoned veteran, this is a phenomenal tool that will help you grow your business. It’s called MailChimp and if you’re curious (like Curious George…haha…wow…I’m such a dork) go to MailChimp.com when you have a chance.
I have used many other email marketing tools throughout my career like Constant Contact, iContact, Emma, EasyContact, Yesmail, and a couple others. I still think MailChimp is the easiest and most fun application I have ever used when it comes to email marketing.
The best part about MailChimp (when it comes to evaluation) is that they have a “forever free pricing plan” available. This truly free plan allows you to have a full featured account for up to 500 subscribers and 3,000 emails a month for absolutely free…forget about a free trial this is free forever.
Another thing I love about MailChimp is that you can automatically post your email campaigns to Twitter and Facebook…among many other great features. If you are looking for an email solution, save yourself some time and just sign up for MailChimp.
Ok, enough advertising for a company that I don’t work for…haha! I didn’t just go on this rant because it will benefit me if you sign up for this service. I truly believe in MailChimp and I don’t think that will ever change unless they totally change everything about their company. Anyway, I hope everyone has a great holiday season and a happy new year!
Welcome to my new site!
Oct 19th
My name is Brian Oliver and I design web sites. Some may wonder why I decided to go with the domain name OliveriDesign.com and some may care less. Here is a quick background just in case you are wondering. My Great Grandfather’s last name was Oliveri before he came to America from Sicily. When he came through Ellis Island, they knocked off the “i” in Oliveri and made his new last name Oliver.
Stay tuned for more updates from OliveriDesign.com in the near future! I will be frequently updating the site so keep checking back as often as you can. If you have any questions or you want an estimate please visit my contact page.