AdesBlog.com

iPad, what do you think?

Posted in » Advice to Businesses, Technology, Usability - by Ades

61 Comments 

Well, as you know the whole internet is going crazy about the new product of Apple, iPad. I just wanted to know what is your opinion on it? As a product and what its impact will be on the PC industry in general. For sure it’s going to strangle Amazon’s Kindle, will probably cannibalize Apple’s own product - MacBook, because with iPad you can pretty much do anything what you would normally do with normal notebooks/netbooks. It also comes with accessories like doc, casing and keyboard in case you want to use it like a real notebook with real keyboards.

I personally think that it’s an amazing product, it will be particularly popular with marketing professionals who would benefit from this kind of beautiful tablet PC (Mac) for their presentation purposes. As with normal people, they would enjoy it for reading e-books and browsing the internet. And of course, there will be tons of great apps that will make the iPad more valuable and usable than it actually is.

One thing disappointed me though… the photo-frame like edges of the iPad. I thought some of the photoshopped ones prior to the launch looked a lot better. I know that they did this out of usability, so that there would be a place around the device that is not-touch-sensitive. This would make your handling of the iPad easier, it wouldn’t interfere with your work, you wouldn’t accidentally launch some apps..etc. However they could have left the preferences of the not-touch-sensitive margin to the user. Don’t you think?

For example, if you like all four sides to be touch-sensitive you could set all four margins to zero. If you like to hold the left-side while using, you could set only left side margin to 1″ and the rest of the sides to zero…. you know what I mean? Basically, it would be just like the Word document where you can specify the margin of your paper before you print. But anyway…

How about you? What’s your thoughts on this product of Apple? I would like to know your opinions, leave your comments under this post.

5 Tips to Improve Your Corporate Blog

Posted in » Advice to Businesses, Blogging Tips - by Ades

21 Comments 

Are you a company that is into corporate blogging? Do you feel that somehow your blog is not taking off? Nobody’s commenting?

Well, I think it’s a common problem in many companies. They are just into it (i.e corporate blogging) because they saw their competitors had a blog, or they don’t want to be seen left behind, or the boss said so!

If you want your corporate blog to be successful, you can’t take it as another PR tool only. Sure, you can post the news about your company, new products and services, events that your company is sponsoring etc. But corporate blogging is not about that only, if you restrict your blog into all the above mentioned things alone then it’s not a blog… it’s just a “news page” that is located under your domain dot com/blog directory.

Recommendations and Examples

For your corporate blog to be successful you need to do at least several things, the more the better, namely:

• Write Interesting Articles in your line of Business * most important *
  So, we have established that people are not eager to visit your corporate blog and subscribe to its RSS just to receive updates of new products, services and all that PR stuff. What people really want is, to read blog posts that are interesting and relevant to your business. Things that they normally do not see or know. Things that you guys are good at.
  .
  For example, if you are an Online Ad-Network Company in Asia, it would be great to know things like
  • average click-through rates on banner types in Asia
  • future of banners, what type of banners are becoming popular, why?
  • regional studies on banner blindness, which banners are clicked most when placed in top, left column, middle etc.
  • what type of websites make the most money (i.e news, forums etc)
  • Banner standardization problem in Asia…. and many more related topics

  Read more »

         

  Related Posts Forrester: Company blogs are the least trusted source of info Are you boring your readers to death? Adobe launches it’s own blog crazyegg case study Keeping track of your blog on the web through Google Alerts

  21 Comments

  
  
  

Rule No.1 of Flash Banner Design

Posted in » Advice to Businesses - by Ades

25 Comments 

I saw this flash banner few times but never really seen the end part. Whenever it came up I thought, well those Mudah.my guys are really advertising a lot! In fact, Mudah is really the biggest advertiser of Google AdSense in the region. So I thought it was their banner.

The thing is I never saw the end frame until today! They are not Mudah, but MySimplifieds.com (see below) Read more »

SitePal’s Talking Widget

Posted in » Advice to Businesses, Online Tools - by Ades

17 Comments 

SitePal, a website that offers animated speaking avatars has came up with a new free widget now. The talking character widget can be integrated into your blog or used as a messaging tool to send voice mails to your friends.

See the demo below… now you can have your own welcoming Obama for your blog :) I like the way he follows your mouse cursor.

Share button at the bottom gives you many options to share your newly created widget with your friends. Options include Email, direct URL, Facebook, iGoogle etc.

Some Suggestions

I think the idea of providing free talking characters i.e widget is great. Whether people will use it or not on their blog that is a different thing. However, I think incorporating the following suggestions into their next versions will increase the chance of people using the widget on their blog.

1. Provide different sizes
   Especially compact widgets… web space is a scarce thing, more so on popular blogs and websites. If possible bloggers would rather monetize the space as much as possible than putting a widget that covers the half of the sidebar. Therefore providing smaller widgets will increase the chance of adoption by popular blogs. Read more »

          

   Related Posts MagikWidget - your blogging widgets BlogRush is no more BlogRush, will it survive? Facebooks comments replacing WordPress comments soon? CopyPasteCharacter.com - special characters inventory

   17 Comments

   
   
   

How to be happy in business (diagram)

Posted in » Advice to Businesses - by Ades

19 Comments 

Just try to be in the Hooray point and you will be fine! :)

via whatconsumesme

My Suggestion to Dropbox

Posted in » Advice to Businesses - by Ades

25 Comments 

First of all, if you are not already using Dropbox, go get it here.

It’s one of the best free backup and PC synchronizing services on the net. It’s simple and it works.

How it works:

Dropbox offers you free 2GB space online that you can use to backup your files. In order to simplify your backup activities, they provide a client software which you can install on your PC. This software creates a “My Dropbox” folder in your PC (you can specify the location). After it’s done, you just drop all the files and folders into your “My Dropbox” folder and that’s it.

After that, your job is done, the software will now start to automatically upload all the files to your online 2GB account. And every time there is a change in your “My Dropbox” folder, it will automatically synch it with your online account.

Additionally you can install the software on more than one PC (at work, at office) and it will keep all of them in synch. No more file transfers through pen drives from office to work!

The small issue:

I am a long time user of dropbox and one thing I would like to see changed in the service is the small improvement in their software. Currently the software creates one folder (My Dropbox) in your PC and only backs up things inside this particular folder. Any other folder or files outside this folder cannot be backed up unless you put them inside your “My Dropbox” folder. Read more »

PDF: Know your UpTime

Posted in » Advice to Businesses, e-books - by Ades

14 Comments 

What does it really mean when a hosting company says they provide 99% uptime guarantee?! It means they guarantee not more than 7 hours (seven hours!!!) of downtime a month or not more than 3.5 days of downtime a year.

So if your business can’t afford to lose downtime of 10 minutes, don’t ever get close to those companies who offer 99% uptime! Rather go for companies who guarantee not more than 10-20 minutes of downtime per year.

Below is a cheat-sheet on uptime calculation provided by guys over at pingdom.

Download PDF: click here

Why including “daily” is not a good idea for blog domain name

Posted in » Advice to Businesses, Blogging Tips - by Ades

14 Comments 

Choosing a domain name for your blog can be quite difficult (unless you do like me… put your name first (ades) and then the word “blog” after it ;)

But one of the things to consider when choosing a domain name is, try to avoid using the word “daily” in the domain name (unless it’s absolutely necessary). Especially if you are going to run the blog alone. Because as a human being you are going to miss a day or two, and it won’t be good (on your part) if your domain says “daily” but you do not provide posts on a daily basis. Or you resort to publishing low quality posts just to have a new post everyday.

Also when you run a niche blog on a particular topic, it would be really difficult to churn out daily posts on a regular basis non-stop. Therefore you have to be careful in defining your niche. It should be something that grows everyday, changes everyday, gives you room to write new stuff…etc. Otherwise, after few months of blogging there would be nothing left to talk about, and you would be off the blogging race soon after.

I think DailyBlogTips is an exception. Daniel Scocco has been doing some great job for some time. But even he, lately has shifted to answering one question per day instead of posting a normal post. Does that mean his blog url will change to DailyBlogFAQs now? ;) But you know where I am getting right?

Having a “daily” word in the domain name defines a certain mental image and expectation in the users’ minds. If you say “daily cartoon” then the users would expect from you daily cartoons… So, when you do not fulfill that expectation, then that mental image is destroyed. As a result your “brand” (or reputation) will be affected negatively.

Summary

To wrap up the post, think twice if you want to have “daily” word in your domain name, unless it’s something like “daily ramblings etc” in that case it wouldn’t matter. Also make sure that the niche that you have chosen to blog about is not a static topic, something that can’t be written (i.e finished) in 200 posts.

Brian Gardner’s New Project - StudioPress

Posted in » Advice to Businesses, Make Money, WP Themes - by Ades

28 Comments 

Brian Gardner, the person who revolutionized premium wordpress themes by his first project RevolutionTheme, has came up with a new project - StudioPress.com

Since it’s a newly launched project, currently there is only one wp theme available. However, more themes expected to be added very soon. The first theme is for real estate sites.

If it works, don’t fix it

As you all know, RevolutionTheme project had been replaced with R2 (RevolutionTwo), and became Open Source. That meant, as I predicted no more less income for both affiliates and Brian Gardner himself. Brian wanted to change his business model from selling themes to selling support.

Before revolution themes were open source, they were selling like hot cakes. Obviously after they became “free”, no one wanted to pay for the support. Because most bloggers are very familiar with wordpress and most of them wouldn’t need a paid support to customize their themes.

Revolution2 was a huge misstep for Brian (from financial point of view). In order to correct this business decision, he had two choices; to bring back the old revolution themes or to launch a new project. Brian has chosen the second option. And I think that was a wise decision. Otherwise it would have been even more confusing for his existing customers from revolution-1 project. Because they are already confused with the whole discontinuation of revolution-1 project and revolution2/open source thing and how it affects them.

Making Money for Bloggers

StudioPress.com is a great news for bloggers. Because it means “back to making money” for most bloggers. Brian Gardner is a great designer, and his themes are one of the best wp themes on the net. Therefore, I have no doubt that this project will be a success.

His affiliates are paid 25% of the sales, that means if you sell one template worth $79.95 you will get $20.00. And if you sell all-inclusive package ($299.95) then you will get $75.00 of commission.

Are you ready to make money?

URL: StudioPress.com

Make Money with Mahalo Answers

Posted in » Advice to Businesses, Make Money - by Ades

18 Comments 

Mahalo Answers is the new extension (service) for the “Human powered Search Engine” - Mahalo. The idea is the same like Yahoo! Answers, people post and answer questions. But with Mahalo Answers, you can actually get paid for your answers, that is when your answer is chosen as the best answer.

The amount paid per question is set by the person who asks the question. He can either make it “free” (i.e best answer is not paid) or provide some money for the best answer. It’s up to the questioner to determine the price, minimum amount is $1 and there is no maximum price.

How do I earn money?

If your answer to a question offering a tip is selected as the best answer, we will deposit the tip into your Mahalo account. All tips are in Mahalo Dollars. Each Mahalo Dollar is currently worth $0.75 when paid out via PayPal. If you answer a direct question offering a tip and the asker doesn’t request a refund, we will deposit the tip into your Mahalo account.

How will I get paid?

Once you earn more than 40 Mahalo Dollars, you can request to be paid via PayPal on your tips settings page. Each Mahalo Dollar is currently worth $0.75 when paid out via PayPal. When you submit your request, we’ll transfer the full balance, or the portion of the balance you choose, to your PayPal account on the 15th of the following month. (source)

There are plenty of categories of topics available on the site. So, if you are good in any one of the topics, you have a pretty good chance of making some money while helping others.

One Advantage

Paid systems such as this, is a good platform for getting speedy and professional answers for your questions. Obviously, the more money you pay, the faster and the more informative answers you will get.

Otherwise, often times in similar free platforms or discussion forums when you post difficult questions which needs some research (and maybe some testing) on the respondent’s part, usually you get only partial answers.

Challenges

One of the challenges for Jason Calacanis (founder) now is to get people on board, and get them to use the system. And perhaps the real challenge will be to persuade them to use the system regularly.

He also needs to make some targeted buzz to attract certain group of professionals who can answer the questions in their own field best. Because, while he sent out email saying that the buzz generation was successful, I don’t think it’s there yet.

It hardly generated any buzz in the blogosphere, at the moment there are exactly 141 results in the Technorati for the keyword “Mahalo Answers“. And currently, the “Blog” section at Mahalo Answers itself (www.mahalo.com/answers/blogs) has no questions about blogging; neither free nor paid.

Given the fact that it is relatively easy to generate buzz with these kind of service in the blogosphere, I don’t know why Jason has chosen to concentrate on media tours instead. He could easily capitalize on “make money online” theme with bloggers and internet users in general. Since the system already has its own currency, they could have come up with effective affiliate program to let members refer other people and earn money too.

Summary

Well, let’s hope that it’s just the beginning for Mahalo Anwsers. After all, it’s still in Beta. Good luck to Mahalo team on the project!

P.S Here is what I asked on Mahalo Answers to drive some traffic and awareness to my blog. Got over 100 views on the question and some traffic to the blog, and paid the best answerer $1. Pay attention to Jason Calacanis’ comment on my question ;)