We have blogging answers!
We’re in the process of building a one-two-three site for newbies to blogging at
Drop on by and check it out! New questions can be submitted at:
Enjoy.
ThankYouVeryMuch!
Owlbert
Yes, it’s probably true
when you think of the future of the Internet and Web 3.0, you think of extending the semantic web concept, weaving together technologies and creating the ultimate user experience.
Well, WRONGO!!! :) Okay, perhaps not wrong, but have you instead considered that Web 3.0 will really center up (drumroll please):
Social Shopping!
Yes, it’s true - forget about following what fashion analysts say online or TV. Instead, you’re going to become a fearless leader of lemmings (or perhaps a gung-ho lemming yourself) and first see what others are buying online before bravely making that critical fashion choice yourself. To wit:
…What happens when following the fashion herd becomes wisdom of the masses? When everyone can become his or her own fashion editor? When “citizen” journalists replace glossy magazines as oracles of fashion?
The next big thing in fashion is not a hot young designer or a new label but an online evolution driven by peer-to-peer recommendation and consumers who want what they see others are buying online – in short, a new kind of conspicuous cyber consumption.
“It’s what I call Web 3.0,” explains Dawn Bebe, managing director of the UK’s first social shopping site for women, Osoyou.com. While the Web 2.0 label is used to refer to the current interactive phase of internet development, defined by blogging, social networking and “wiki” sites built with user-generated content, Bebe believes, “The next evolution for the web is social networks that have a purpose – vertical social networks…. This is where social shopping comes in. The thing that bonds these people is shopping and fashion.”
“We believe that peer-to-peer recommendation is already essential in e-commerce because shopping is a social and emotionally driven experience,” says Malte Goesche, chief executive and co-founder of iliketotallyloveit.com, a social shopping site based in Germany and named after a phrase used by Paris Hilton. “Recommendations by friends help you to discover products you weren’t aware of and didn’t know you needed ….MORE….
Love that line…"didn’t know you needed." 
Remember, you’ve heard it here first! When 3.0 comes roaring in like a freight train, daintily refer people to:
You’ll definitely, like, make an impression.
ThankYouVeryMuch!
Owlbert
ps - and if you’re looking for designer fashion you can, like, totally love:
Want to build
a website…but don’t know how to build a website? Not to fear, it’s Google to the rescue! To wit:
Google Sites’ ease-of-use, tight integration with Google services strengthens company’s position in Web-app race
Google today unveiled a powerful new weapon in its arsenal of lightweight Web-based productivity applications: a tool for easily and collaboratively creating and editing Web sites. Dubbed Google Sites, it’s built around JotSpot, the wiki platform that Google acquired in October of 2006 — and whose previously unclear fate has been cause for quite a bit of hand-wringing.
The search behemoth appears to have a broad range of applications in mind for the freely available tool, from building a private company intranet, accessible and customizable by users on a permissions basis, to developing a public-facing Web site for all the world to see.
Google has aimed to make the Google Sites easy enough for a beginner yet feature-rich enough for a power user. For example, building a Google Site requires no HTML, according to the company: It’s “as easy as editing a document,” the company says. There’s also a “growing list” of page templates to get users started, including “Web page, announcements, file cabinet, dashboard, and list,” according to Google…..MORE….
At first glance, it looks very promising! I wonder, though, how many business folk will actually exert themselves to take advantage of the technology?
More information can be found at:
What do you think?
ThankYouVeryMuch!
Owlbert
ps - want newbie books on website building?
Tell me the below clip out ISN’T cool!
I just came across the free site Kwout - it allows you to easily make quote copies or website images of any page online. Truemors is a great site that offers breaking news, rumors and the like.
So! Let’s say that I wanted to quote something from Steve Pavlina’s blog - I could snip out a picture like so:
Steve Pavlina’s Personal Development Blog via kwout
and include it in my post.
What do you think? ‘way cool thinks I!
ThankYouVeryMuch!
Owlbert
Awesome
doesn’t begin to describe:
5978 High Quality Icons for Web, Apps & RSS
I spent a lovely morning poring over them - WOW!
I think whatever you could possibly need for a web-based design is there (along with credit to the original author/artist). Words really don’t describe this page and blog posting - you MUST see it for yourself.
5978 High Quality Icons for Web, Apps & RSS
And if you’d like some graphic design resources, check out:
ThankYouVeryMuch!
Owlbert
ps - more hi res goodies include:
You know, I firmly believe everything happens for a reason. It’s astonishing how one incident can spark off a whole train of happenings that lead to, well, big huge mind expansions.
Take a month ago. I was banned from a particular diet and fitness forum because my blog was deemed too commercial. To wit:
Due to forum policies regarding external links, advertising, and self promotion, and the fact that we honestly can’t tell where your membership ends and business begins in your posts, we have decided that your account is no longer within the boundaries of our membership and it will be closed. All of your previous posts, including the links, will be removed.
And so, all of my 200+ posts were removed (and I had spent quite a long time answering people’s questions as well). All of my hard work - poof. Gosh that was maddening! I loved the close from the moderator too:
I’m sorry it had to be this way. Given the nature of your business, I’m sure you’ll understand.
Of course, it’s their right, it’s their forum. They want people to provide content to bring more visitors to the forum…but don’t want those contributors to benefit their own businesses themselves. It was maddening to me, mind you, but in the final analysis….their right.
But instead of giving into that anger, I chose instead to redirect my efforts, and thus began a 2 week odyssey that had me pulling 18 hour days, teaching myself php programming and imbibing 5 cups of coffee every, oh, 38 minutes. Okay, that’s an exaggeration but truly, it made the term ‘all-nighters’ seem like a lovely skip through the park.
After lots of MacGyverisms, I released the diet/fitness community Big Huge Minds. Remembering what frosted my petunias in the past, I made sure to offer win-wins to members including:
Letting snippets of their blog postings be included for free
And what’s the end result, I hear you ask? It’s growing great and I’ve been receiving some extremely positive feedback as well!
In hindsight, it would have been so easy to just sit back and complain…but it has proven far more valuable to take control instead.
The resources I used to teach myself include:
Prior to this, I was just a community member - now I’m a community guider. Let this be an example if you run into such issues - you don’t have go get mad, you just have to take control of your future. It could be one of the most beneficial things you do.
ThankYouVeryMuch!
Owlbert
Morning,
I remember back in 1998 when I first came across Craigslist (here’s what it looked like back then!) - I was busy teaching recruiters how to find candidates on the Internet for free and noticed that one could post resumes/jobs. And when I gave a seminar in San Francisco in 1999, I emailed Craig to ask permission to post information about it; I received back a very nice note that impressed me with regards to his customer service.
Thus, you can imagine how delighted I was to read a new interview with him, to wit:
… Elan Form’s simple two-piece shell snaps snug around your iPhone. “We were an early mover doing what we do, and it does help that the site is almost all free. We think we have a really good culture of trust, and that’s because without consciously doing so, we have stood by some core shared values,” said Craig Newmark, Craigslist founder and customer service representative….
… The effort started in 1994. I was at Charles Schwab (Nasdaq: SCHW) , working on overall security architecture. While I was looking around at the Internet, I saw a lot of people helping each other out and thought that I should do something too. So in 1995, I began to e-mail a bunch of friends about art and technical events in San Francisco.
Over the months that followed, people kept asking if I could add the occasional job posting and listings for things to sell, too. Then I said, “Let’s add apartment listings, too.”….MORE….
Craig is a true pioneer for the Internet; he deserves all the success and more. And if you want to get some great insights into craigslist, check out:
Do enjoy the resources above - it does my heart good to know such people are out there.
ThankYouVeryMuch!
Owlbert
ps - want some neat San Francisco vintage goodies?
Lots of people
give bunches of their time to create dynamic thriving forums for their communities. Alas, it’s a fact that drive-by spammers will either register manually or send bad bots to automatically spam the forums with tons of disgusting postings.
Luckily, there’s a great community over at vBulletin.org that consists of developers who will share their great mods and ideas with other customers. Here’s what I’ve found for you so far regarding de-spamming your board:
It doesn’t take much time at all to get the above implemented…and can really help you when you run your own vBulletin board.
ThankYouVeryMuch!
Owlbert
ps - need some unique domain names?
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Going so soon? May these links be a guide to web enlightenment. Schwing!
