According to CNNMoney

Wikia, the founder of wikipedia has  a web crawler and he plans to soon launch a community developed web search.

Read On …

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said Friday he is putting the building blocks in place for a community-developed Web search service that would rival search engines such as Google (Charts, Fortune 500) or Yahoo (Charts, Fortune 500).

Wales told a conference of software developers in Portland, Oregon, that his commercial start-up, Wikia, has acquired Grub, a pioneering Web crawler that will enable Wikia’s forthcoming search service to scour the Web to index relevant sites.

“If we can get good quality search results, I think it will really change the balance of power from the search companies back to the publishers,” said Wales, chairman of San Mateo, California-based Wikia. “I could be wrong about this, but it seems like a likely outcome.”

Wikia - which has helped groups set up thousands of Wikipedia-style sites on topics ranging from popular TV shows to specialist health or travel - plans to develop an “open source” Web search service with the help of volunteers.

Wales founded the anyone-can-edit Wikipedia encyclopedia, a noncommercial project that is one of the Web’s most popular sites. He also co-founded the Wikia ad-supported network of self-edited wiki sites. However, the two organizations have no formal ties.

The new Wikia search service will combine computer-driven algorithms and human-assisted editing when the company launches a public version of the search site toward the end of 2007, Wales said in a phone interview.

Human editors would help untangle terms with multiple meanings, such as palm, which can refer to location like Palm Beach, or generic topics like trees or handheld computers.

Search results are generated via another open-source software project called Lucerne. Wales said he is looking at options to enhance Lucerne, but would not detail his plans.

Grub was originally an open source project that was freely available to software makers to enhance as long as they shared any improvements they made. Wikia has acquired Grub from LookSmart Ltd., which had halted work on the project.

Wikia plans to open up Grub to other developers to make improvements or to incorporate the crawler into other sites.

Terms of the deal between Wikia and LookSmart were not disclosed.

However, last week, San Francisco-based LookSmart, which provides banner and search-based online advertising to Web sites, said it had agreed to supply advertising across Wikia’s network of wiki sites. Wikia had been using Google’s advertising service.

“We have interest from a lot of other commercial players in the search space,” said Wales.

Grub relies on distributed computing technology to power the crawler. Computer users who download the software at http://www.grub.org/ can share computer processing time when they are not using their machines, cutting the cost of Wikia developing its own network of computers to crawl the Web.

Open search is part of Wikia’s broader push to promote the spread of free content publishing on the Web. Wales’ objective is to make explicit the editorial judgments involved in modern Web search systems. Proprietary search systems such as Google Inc. keep secret key details of how their search systems work to prevent spamming and for competitive reasons.

Ultimately, Wales wants the Wikia search service to be available to other Web sites and smaller publishers who would be able to install a custom version of the service that points Web site visitors only to links with a specific site. Target customers might include local newspapers, for example.

He detailed his plans at the O’Reilly Open Source Convention (OSCON) in Portland, an annual gathering of open source software developers.

More details can be found at http://search.wikia.com/.

Wikia has raised $14 million in outside financing, including its latest round of $10 million from Amazon.com (Charts, Fortune 500), according to a regulatory filing by the company.

MediaLayer is one of those new age hosting companies that looks very promising! With flourishing growth already, MediaLayer has become a hit with its excellent customer support response time, some have said even seconds, to their efficient uptime and their graceful payment procedures.

Already, MediaLayer has been able to expand from New York to other parts of the country! It aspires to one day open up its own dedicated data center to provide customers with the best hosting experience possible! Part of the reason the company has done so well is because of the active involvement of the higher staff members in even the smallest chores, even answering customer tech support tickets.

The MediaLayer promise is also not to oversell server space, a problem that truly does plague some of the larger hosting companies! Media Layer’s backend user panel is very easy to use as it is DirectAdmin, one of the most revered and reliable backend panels on the market! That in conjunction with their reliable servers and excellent tech support make MediaLayer a rocking hosting provider.

Could this company one day go head to head with GoDaddy? Who knows? But one thing is certain, if MediaLayer is able to keep this kind of service running, they’re going to put a dent in some of their competitor’s wallets.

1and1.com continues to be a solution for businesses and such looking for a place to get long term hosting with one of the web’s premier web hosting providers. With that said it is still not too near interims of competition to GoDaddy.

No real promotional codes are offered and thus no real discounted products can be attained. Transferring a domain is not too easy as there are many things that must be done to actually unlock the domain!

They have just opened a new Data center facility and with that they hope to gain customer support and hope to attain a higher online time, higher then their already 99.999999% uptime guarantee that has truly been fulfilled.

If maintenance is ever ordained they send out a message a few days before the repair time, that’s convenient if you use their servers for FTP purposes, other then that, it’s not that pleasant.

Most customer support staff are not based in the US and are not as friendly as GoDaddy’s tech support. Probably because they don’t keep knocking off prices!

Overall 1and1 is improving, but, it is still no where near Godaddy! With this new data center, reliability may no longer be an issue! Let us hope that this company can clean up its act and can give GoDaddy some competition!

GoDaddy is one of the top domain providers on the net! Consistently surpassing other hosting providers with its superb customer service, superior pricing, as well as 24X7 Uptime assured, GoDaddy truly does fit the term, the best of the best! With upto $100 dollars worth of free stuff included with even the most basic purchase, GoDaddy is a one stop site for novice and expert webmasters alike.

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STCFX now features WordPress Themes!

In the coming weeks we will be adding more and more WP Themes to our collection of top themes, complete with demos and reviews.

Be sure to keep an eye out for the STCFX Featured badge, if you see the badge you will know the theme has been featured and reviewed on our site.

We are looking forward to seeing all the new WordPress Designs that will be submitted by all the great professional WP Designers.

For Users:

You will have an opportunity to share your thoughts and feelings on all the WP Themes. Access to free downloadable WP Skins.
Read what other users had to say.

For WP Theme Designers:

Gain free publicity for yourself and your themes!
Get links back to your site and your themes.

How do I submit my theme(s)?

The process is simple, visit the Contact Us page and submit the following.

Your Name:
Email:
Theme Name:
Design By:
Compatable with: (ie 3.1 / 3.2)
ScreenShot URL:
Demo URL:
Download URL:
Support Site URL:

We will then review your theme and if it meets our standards, your theme will be featured and you will be allowed to post the badge on your site letting your users know that your theme has been featured here!

Blogs have increased popularity over this past months.  Many people have started to create their personal blogs to express their thoughts and feelings.  Internet companies have also started their blogs to inform consumers on the latest product news and reviews.

Because of this, blogs are also being used as internet marketing media.  Before, internet marketing is done by placing banners and links on popular websites, such as news and information sites.  Links were also included on newsletters and marketing letters sent to the members of their mailing lists.

Many people spend time reading blogs.  People read their friend’s blogs, their favorite author’s blogs, blogs on topics that they are interested in, and blogs on product reviews.  With the increasing popularity of blogging, it is even feared that people rely on blogs to get the latest news.

While getting news reports from blogs isn’t reliable, some people look for product reviews through blogs.  In some cases, this is more dependable.  While it is true that some media persons are being paid to write good reviews about a certain product, blog writers write about their actual experiences on products and services from a company.

Since there are many people who read and start their own blogs, blogs are a good medium to market a product.  With the increasing blog traffic means increase in product sales.

Blog traffic can be increased by joining affiliate programs and sites, which will list your blog under a certain search category or name.  You can also have your blog advertised in popular websites.  This, however, will cost some money and is not advisable if you have just started blogging.

A writer who has just launched his/her blog will want as much traffic as possible to increase advertisements on the site.  Also, some advertisers pay every time their link is clicked or the page that has their link is viewed.

When you have increased traffic on your blog, you should try to keep you visitors coming back and recommending your blog to friends and colleagues.

This can be done by having informative or amusing content and good blog layout and design.  You may develop your blog’s content or you can also acquire the services of a web content writer to provide you with the blog articles.

The blog’s layout and design also plays a big role.  While most of the companies offering free blog hosting offer pre-selected templates, there are also some that allows customization that if you utilize this feature correctly can increase your blog’s traffic.

Here are a few tips to make your blog stand out from the millions of blogs out there that have standard designs.

Customize the banner

The banner usually has the most generic designs that are common to the blogs from a blogging company or service.

You can personalize this banner by having a graphic with the dimensions of the banner.  You can also edit the graphic so that it will also include the title of your blog.

In this case, you can create your own graphic or you can purchase professional looking graphics online for less than $10.

Personalizing photos

Of course, most of the photos that you will be posting will be your own.  However, if you don’t customize the photos before posting them, you may miss maximizing the enhancing benefits graphics can add to the page.  Adding photo borders can help the photo stand out from the page.

It can also add to the design of your blog.  You can choose a standard border or you can also create your own border which can be associated with your blog’s templates.

Add a favicon

Don’t you think sites with icons on the address bar before the website’s URL are cool?  Many people do.  These favicons add a professional look to the URL.  These easy to do using photo or graphic editing softwares.

Check out blog templates, layouts, backgrounds, textures and skins

There are sites that offer free blog templates, layouts, backgrounds, textures and skins.  You can make use of these so your blog will not look generic like most of the blogs hosted by the service provider.

Include RSS feeds

This is a cool way to inform people with newsreaders about your blog headlines.  Tutorials on RSS feeds are available on the internet.

Audio makes your blog more personal

Not only does audio personalizes the blog; it can also keep your visitors coming back.  You can try having streaming radio stations, mp3 file or playlists loading with your blog.

Advertisements

If you have signed-up with Google Ad-Sense, which I am sure you would like to do, make sure that the ads are conveniently placed that these will not hinder your readers’ ease in accessing the information on your blog.

Try using these tips and you can definitely increase and retain traffic on your blog.

A weblog (or simply blog) is a website that ‘publishes’ or features articles (which are called ‘blog posts’, ‘posts’, or ‘entries’), written by an individual or a group that make use of any or a combination of the following:

• Straight texts
• Photographs or images (photoblog)
• Video (videoblog)
• Audio files (audioblog)
• Hyperlinks

Usually presented and arranged in reverse chronological order, blogs are essentially used for the following purposes:

• Online journal or a web diary
• Content management system
• Online publishing platform

A typical blog has the following components:

• Post date -the date and time of the blog entry
• Category - the category that the blog belongs to
• Title - the title of the blog
• Main body - the main content of the blog
• RSS and trackback - links the blog back from other sites
• Comments - commentaries that are added by readers
• Permalinks - the URL of the full article
• Other optional items - calendar, archives, blogrolls, and add-ons or plug-ins

A blog can also have a footer, usually found at the bottom of the blog, that shows the post date, the author, the category, and the ’stats’ (the nubmer of comments or trackbacks).

There are numerous types of blogs. Some of them are the following:

1. Political blog - on news, politics, activism, and other issue based blogs (such as campaigning).

2. Personal blog - also known as online diary that may include an individual’s day-to-day experience, complaints, poems, and illicit thoughts, and communications between friends.

3. Topical blog - with focus either on a particular niche (function or position) that is usually technical in nature or a local information.

4. Health blog - on specific health issues. Medical blog is a major category of health blog that features medical news from health care professionals and/or actual patient cases.

5. Literary blog - also known as litblog.

6. Travel blog - with focus on a traveler’s stories on a particular journey.

7. Research blog - on academic issues such as research notes.

8. Legal blog - on law (technical areas) and legal affairs; also known as ‘blawgs’.

9. Media blog - focus on falsehoods or inconsistencies in mass media; usually exclusive for a newspaper or a television network.

10. Religious blog - on religious topics

11. Educational blog - on educational applications, usually written by students and teachers.

12. Collaborative or collective blog - a specific topic written by a group of people.

13. Directory blog - contains a collection of numerous web sites.

14. Business blog - used by entrepreneurs and corporate employees to promote their businesses or talk about their work.

15. Personification blog - focus on non-human being or objects (such as dogs).

16. Spam blogs - used for promoting affiliated websites; also known as ’splogs’.

Blogging is typically done on a regular (almost daily) basis. The term “blogging” refers to the act of authoring, maintaining, or adding an article to an existing blog, while the term “blogger” refers to a person or a group who keeps a blog.

Today, more than 3 million blogs can be found in the Internet. This figure is continuously growing, as the availability of various blog software, tools, and other applications make it easier for just about anyone to update or maintain the blog (even those with little or no technical background). Because of this trend, bloggers can now be categorized into 4 main types:

• Personal bloggers - people who focus on a diary or on any topic that an individual feels strongly about.
• Business bloggers - people who focus on promoting products and services.
• Organizational bloggers - people who focus on internal or external communication in an organization or a community.
• Professional bloggers - people who are hired or paid to do blogging.

Problogging (professional blogging) refers to blogging for a profit. Probloggers (professional bloggers) are people who make money from blogging (as an individual blog publisher or a hired blogger).

Below are just some of the many money-making opportunities for probloggers:

• Advertising programs
• RSS advertising
• Sponsorship
• Affiliate Programs
• Digital assets
• Blog network writing gigs
• Business blog writing gigs
• Non blogging writing gigs
• Donations
• Flipping blogs
• Merchandising
• Consulting and speaking

The following are a few things that you need to consider if you want to be successful in problogging:

1. Be patient. Problogging requires a lot of time and effort, not to mention a long-term vision.

2. Know your audience. Targeting a specific audience or group is a key to building a readership.

3. Be an ‘expert’. Focus on a specific niche topic and strive to be the “go-to” blogger on that topic.

4. Diversify. Experiment with various add and affiliate programs that enable you to make money online (aside from blogging).

5. Do not bore your readers. Focus on the layout. White spaces, line spacings, and bigger fonts make a blog welcoming to read.

Certainly, it is possible to earn money from blogs. One just needs to take risks, have the passion, and the right attitude in order to be a successful problogger.

I received an email today asking if I could do a post on this.

Here you go Amy!

First of all lets understand what each stands for:

HTTP - Hyper Text Transfer Protocol

HTTPS - Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secured

A typical webpage will use HTTP while a information sensitive site such as paypal will use HTTPS. The difference is simple, one is secure and one is not.

You will want to pay close attention to this when you are on a webpage asking you to enter personal information such as your phone number, credit card number and other information you would rather not share with the rest of the world.

If you don’t see the “S” then you don’t enter the info.

Be safe and ask questions, its the only way to really know.

STCFX,

I’m new to this whole webmaster deal and I’ve been trying to get something straight the past few days with no luck. Every site I visit gives me a different explanation. At this point I’m very frustrated and confused - please help. What is DNS?

Alan.

Hey there Alan, thank you for submitting your question!

Unfortunately when it come to DNS there are a few variated meanings. This does cause a bit of confusion with new webmasters when trying to learn and understand the internet and web development.

Let me see if I can help clear up a bit of the confusion.

DNS ( digital nervous system ), this is a term cooked up by none other than Bill Gates to describe a network of PCs ( Personal Computers ) that make it easier to obtain and understand information.

DNS ( domain name system ), is the system that translates domains into IP ( Internet Protocol ) addresses. The domain microsoft.com is a type of short cut to the IP 207.46.232.182 Because the IP address is long and complicated we use a domain name that will be easier to remember. The domain name system will translate microsoft.com to 207.46.232.182 and take us to the right place.

DNS ( domain name server ), is the particular server used to run the domain name system.

DDNS ( dynamic domain name system), If your computer uses a dial up connection, chance are each time you start up your computer you are given a new IP address; this is called a dynamic IP - whereas a computer that always have the same IP address would be called a static IP. The dynamic name system uses the same methods as the domain name system to translate domain name in to IP address.

DDNS ( dynamic domain name server ), is the particular server used to run the dynamic domain name system.

I hope you will find this information helpful Alan. Best of luck to you!

When is the last time your web site had a check-up?

You’ve built a great site and put in place some SEO and submitted to a few directories and search engines, you manage to add a bit of fresh content now and then … things must be ok right? Wrong.

You must constantly be working with your web site if it is to ever succeed.

Like anything a web site needs to be cared for, people need check-ups, cars need check-ups, homes need check-ups and so do web sites.

Here is a list of things to get you started with what you should be checking up on and working at:

• Sitemap
  Do you have one? Is it up to date?
• Meta Tags
  Do you have them? Are they relevant to your sites topic?
• Header Tags
  Are you using them? Are you placing keywords within your header tags?
• Title Tags
  Are you using custom title tags? Does your site have custom title tags for each page using keywords relevant to the pages content?
• Keywords
  Are you remembering to use your sites chosen keywords throughout your content?
• In Bound Links
  Have you checked your sites back links recently? Are you continuing to build links in to your site?
• Google & Yahoo
  When is the last time you submitted your sites sitemap? Has it been a month?
• Social Bookmarking
  Have you signed up with at least one social bookmarking service? Are you remembering to bookmark all your sites pages?
• Ping Service
  Is your site set up with a ping service? Have you checked to be sure its functioning properly?

This is only a short list of a web site check-up, I strongly advise webmasters give their site(s) a check-up at least once every 60 days.