A blog can benefit from both the process of search engine optimization (SEO) as well as from the social network traffic. However it is important to choose one and most of the people are not able to make this choice. If you are also confused about making a choice for your blog, here is a look at what is better for your blog; SEO or Social network traffic.

To decide between SEO and social network traffic for your blog, you should first understand how you can befit from the two. Here is a look at the benefits of the two.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

SEO can help if you want to monetize your blog with relevant ads. People clicking on ads always look for more information, services or products.

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The majority of social media analysts admit that the most popular social medias for business are Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Yes, they are the biggest and the best. However MySpace should also not be forgotten. What can you do in MySpace if you are not music or movie producer (let’s admit music promotion is one of MySpace’s strongest features)? From the first impression of colorful and full of useless stuff personal profiles – nothing. Well, that is not really correct attitude to second largest social network in the World. People are allowed to create their space as colorful as they want, but business has some other resources to make their MySpace profile useful for branding.
In the first place let’s check the two biggest competitor Facebook and MySpace statistics. September social network usage stats shows us some nice numbers.

As we can see People stay longer in MySpace than Facebook in US. It is really strange that 45 – 54 years old visitors make 19% of all MySpace visitors. Teens are main audience while in Facebook people up to 17 years old are only third group of users. From business perspective the target audience of various services and sales companies is 18-65 years old, because these people are financially independent and can easily buy, hire, pay for services etc.. That’s 77% of Facebook’s users and 64% of MySpace users. Is it enough audience for your business? If yes, you can definitely invest more or less time to presence in both giants.

Facebook has business page feature and that makes this social network much more attractive for branding, however MySpace can be used for branding as well. Let’s see what can be done in MySpace in order to present your business spending up to 10 minutes a day in this social network.

In the 1st place you should open a new account naming it like your company or product, not personally. This account will be like your business profile. I am not a big fan of profile design generators, but you can definitely try doing some with the colors of your business brand. I would recommend to stick to MySpace Themes, which are customizable, because if you generate a code, you will always have to deal with HTML in case you’ll need to edit some fields in your profile.

2nd step is information about your business. MySpace provides lots of fields with personal interests which can be used to describe your business, provide short list of services with the hyperlinks to your company website, contacts. Please be aware, that all external links in MySpace are redirected using their internal URL shortener which opens new page and only then you can click the link.

3rd step is getting some friends. Try using people search and the keywords of your business. When you will have few friends, you will see suggested contacts and will be able to add them to friends. It is recommended to add 10-20 contacts as friends daily. Not all of them will approve you, so you will collect around 100 friends per month.

4th step is adding some extra information about your business to your profile. Of course, you can always   add the craziest moments from your company Christmas party, but will it help to promote your business? If you have your website or corporate blog, you can always add the RSS feed. MySpace has only 3 RSS Feed applications News Merger, RSS Reader and SpringWidgets RSS Reader. Choose one of them and add your blog RSS feed to your profile. Also you can add some news from your business using some trustworthy sources, magazines or simply Google News service.

If your company already uses Twitter, you can easily synchronize it with MySpace. Every Twitter update will go to your MySpace account and vice versa. If you use FriendFeed, there is also a nice application for displaying your FriendFeed updates. In general all these widgets works on the base of RSS feed technology, so if you participate in some social network and your activity can be subscribes via RSS, you can add it to your MySpace profile easily.

5th step is setting your MySpace Blog. It can be customized to your brand colors. If you write a press release, you can easily publish it in your blog. Even if you do not write anything, you still can share some interesting articles, which uses sharing buttons as AddThis, ShareThis etc. The blog activity is shown in your Friends’ activity feeds and may create an illusion, that you are very active in your MySpace profile.

Once everything is set, it takes up to 10 minutes per day to post some links to a blog, request and approve new Friends, post some picture of your product or website screenshot. It is also recommended to allow sending statuses to one of your emails you can check 1 time a day, so you will be able to see all the new requests and friends coming and will be able to react quickly.

There are some more useful parts of MySpace which can also be used for your business. For example, MySpace provides email service. Every person who is active in various social medias needs to register in various forums, social networks, in order to comment in any blog one needs to provide the email. I doubt you want using your main email for such semi-spam messages, therefore MySpace email is perfect for that as it is secondary one.

MySpace has a huge Forum, where you can search for your area and sometimes write few posts. Do not forget to set a signature with the link to your website.

If you sell something, you can give your products or services a try in MySpace Classifieds section where people sell and exchange goods and services.

Of course if you have some video ads of your products and services, you should be adding them to MySpace Video section.

The MySpace application gallery has started not so long ago, therefore there is still a lack of come really useful applications, such as Digg or Delicious Favorites updates or post to Tumblr and vice versa feature. Hopefully there will be more useful solutions for business in MySpace as a result of competition with Facebook. Now all analysts admit that MySpace looses the competition, however some services are much more popular in MySpace than Facebook. While waiting for such improvements in second biggest social network in the world, every business should take a warm place in MySpace and remain there with some basic branding activity.

About the author: Marius Kuitniauskas is a social media manager in PokerNews group of poker information websites in more than 25 languages. Also he works as community manager for poker blog community my.pokernews.com. Marius has got expertise in the fields of SEO, gambling related internet marketing, social media and blogging. He has education in journalism and works in online media market for more than 10 years.

Make Money advertising Amazon Products

Want to add something to your web page that stands out, provides rich content and an interactive experience to people visiting your web page, costs nothing and has the potential to make you a little money at the same time?

Amazon started out as an on-line book store which also sells CDs, DVDs and Videos but these days they sell anything and everything. Amazons’ well established affiliate scheme will not make you rich but it will provide you with a small revenue stream.

To join you need to have a website and fill out a short form to become an Affiliate member. (It may take day or two to have your membership confirmed).

You make money from referral fees generated when products actually purchased as a result of a link from your site.

In this guide we show you one method of adding these links using Amazon Widgets. Fees are paid at the rate of 5% -15% of the selling price for each product purchased.

Links to specific products can earn the highest rate of 15% whilst general links to Amazon earn the lower rate of 5%.

Amazon will keep you informed of how you are doing via your online account or you can opt for a weekly email. Payments are made quarterly providing you have earned more than the minimum (in the UK it is £10).

Note: in the UK book vouchers are also available instead of a cheque payment.

Our tip for making money is to ensure your referrals are relevant to your site and your users interests. It is possible for you to make decent money if the people you refer buy the more expensive items such has digital cameras or computers etc.  Amazon have many attractive deals that can offer your visitors genuine bargains.

Step 1

You can click this and all the following images to enlarge them

First you need to point your browser towards the Amazon affiliate website. To do this type https://affiliate-program.amazon.com into your browser as shown above. Click the Join Now for Free button.

Step 2

You will now need to apply to become an amazon associate by filling in the Your Contact Information form as shown above.

Step 3

You are now given a unique ID and the first page of the Associates Central site is displayed. You need to tell Amazon how to pay you. To do this click the Specify Payment Method button.

Step 4

The Payment method page is now displayed. Click one of the three radio buttons to select a payment method and then click the Continue button to move on.

Step 5

You are now taken to the Associates Central Home page. Here you can find out what’s new and what offers are available. To add an Amazon element to your site click the Get Started Now button.

Step 6

The Associates program is now explained. Once you have read this page all you need to do is click the Continue button.

Step 7

Amazon will now explain the different ways that you can add links to your site. You can add Banners, a whole store, s single Widget or multiple Widgets. In this example we will add a widget. Click the Continue button.

Step 8

The Build Links and Banners page is now displayed explaining the different types of link available. At this stage just click the Continue button.

Step 9

The Create an aStore page is now displayed, as we are not creating an aStore in this guide just click the Continue button again. The Create Widget page is now displayed. In this example we will add a Deals widget. To do this click the Learn More link shown above.

Step 10

Once the Deals Widget page is displayed you need to select a format. In this case we select a side bar.  To add Lightning Deal and Our best Deal click the check boxes to place a tick in them. Next select the size of widget to be displayed on your page and finally click the Add to my web page button.

Step 11

If your web site is hosted by any of the companies in the links list above, then click that link and you will be taken to a step by step tutorial for that host.

Step 12

If for example you wish to add a widget to a WordPress blog. First open another browser window and logon to your blog and then click the Write tab.

Step 13

When the Write Post page is displayed click the /code tag.

Step 14

Now switch back to Amazon Central. If you are going to add the code directly to your site click the Copy button.

Step 15

A message may now be displayed asking you if you want the web page to access your clipboard. As you launched the action just click the Allow access button.

Step 16

Now switch back to your Wordpress blog and click inside the text box to place the text cursor inside. Now Paste the code by pressing the Ctrl key and the V  key together on your keyboard. When you’re done click the Publish button.

Step 17

To view your Blog click the View blog link or type your blog address into your browser. You will see an Amazon Widget has been added to your blog.

For most web-savvy users, RSS subscriptions are self-evident, like email or instant messaging. And for some, catching up with latest news and entertainment via RSS readers has become part of the daily routine. As effectiveness and time management are the bywords of the productive user, the question arises: how to use RSS effectively? In this article, I’ll try to give a simple and concise overview of what you can do to answer the question.

First of all, you need to sit back for a while and think what you’re really interested in and can spare time to read about. A list of topics or categories, so to say. This is harder than it sounds. After all, you are a creature of the internet, with horizons broader than that of an average bear. However, you can’t afford to read about everything from Astronomy to Zen. Unless you make a living reading RSS feeds, in which case, where can I apply? For the rest of us, priorities are very important.

Once you have decided on what you want to spend time reading about, you need to pick a reader. There are two main options: desktop and web. This Lifehacker article discusses the pros and cons of each, but what it’s really down to is personal preference and habit. If you’re an avid Google fan and your computer is perpetually online, you’ll probably pick Google Reader. If you’re not romantically involved with any big name and enjoy offline capabilities in an application, you might decide to go with any one of the several desktop readers (e.g. NewsGator suite or GreatNews). The possibilities are endless, really, and a well-configured, customized reader will greatly increase effectiveness. Don’t be afraid to experiment.

Now, with the topics and reader chosen, it’s time to pick the feeds. This is a trial-and-error moment for most people. What you shouldn’t hesitate to do is to unsubscribe from feeds: inactive feeds, overly-active feeds, feeds of blogs and websites you don’t reallyenjoy, etc. Popular, large sites and blogs usually offer feeds for separate tags or topics, or Top Ten / Most Popular / Weekly / Biweekly / Monthly feeds, which, frankly, are a blessing. 100+ new articles a day from one feed alone is an intimidating sight.

With topics, reader, and feeds in place, you can increase effectiveness even more. One of the ways is even greater emphasis on priorities. Some readers, like Mac-only NetNewsWire lets you move folders up or down, depending on how important their content is. Another very helpful tip is to learn the keyboard shortcuts for your reader. Almost every major reader has them. That includes, but is not limited to: Google Reader, NetNewsWire, and FeedDemon.

Finally, don’t try to catch up. If you’ve come home after a week-long camping trip, just think about the fact that you’ve spent the last week in a far better manner than sitting in front of a screen reading your RSS feeds. If you’ve missed a few wonderful posts by accident, well, that’s just life.

For more great tips, you can read web worker daily article.

Social media gurus keep speaking about corporate blogs all the time — CEOs should have one or at least assign the task of running a blog to their subordinates. Great! But what should a CEO write about and how should they do it? These questions are not discussed widely. However, I have my own opinion about the corporate blogs I would like to share it with you.

First of all one should not concentrate one the text alone. Video converts much better than any text! A single picture can tell more than 15 tutorial pages. Writing articles also takes a lot of time. In many cases CEOs don’t even have time to write a paragraph, not to mention doing research and collecting data for a full article. It’s quite suspicious if a CEO can write a 2 pages post about their company, views, strategy, services, products, plans for the future; also answer readers’ questions, criticize the competitors, curse the government for the imperfect laws, analyze the industry, etc. Most likely such person is not a very good CEO and should probably seek a different career path.

CEO’s blog should be short, irregular, interesting, live and organic. How is this possible? It’s easy if you use a mini-blogging platform and a sharing bookmarklet – a special link in your browser’s bookmarks section, which can get the information from the page you are viewing.

A mini-blogging platform is almost the same as a blog, only it makes sharing the media much easier. Of course no one restricts you from writing a 5 pages-long article, but the name mini-blog implies that you should keep it simple and concise. In many cases mini-blogging is considered to be the same as micro-blogging (e.g. twitter). However, micro-blogging has a lot more limits. Text and comment length is limited, the links must be as short as possible, therefore a URL shortener is necessary. Other media cannot be embedded into the text. In other words, micro-blogging is a collection of different services and in most cases it is based on conversation. Mini-blog, however, is more of a discussion-based means of communication, where all kinds of media can be embedded easily. Whereas in regular blogs, one will usually need some HTML knowledge just to embed the video.

Company’s CEO should choose an easy to understand and manage tool with basic features, which would not take a lot of valuable CEO’s time. It takes some time to learn how to use a platform such as WordPress; there are way too many tools for twitter; while Tumblr seems to be the best option. It only takes a couple clicks to post some quotes from various websites and comment them or to post a video from YouTube. You can also easily integrate twitter stream.

There are many more nice and useful features on Tumblr to be mentioned. For example, Facebook application, iPhone app, mobile publishing via text message or email, desktop widget for Mac users. Voice post is also an incredible feature < you can call to an international phone number and leave a voice message. Tumblr also has a third party application directory full of useful tools.

Posterous and Publr are some of the known Tumblr competitors, but they do not have that many users probably due to the lack of features. One other thing to know about Tumblr is that they care about the content quality, so it is not advisable to try and sell your products or services on Tumblr blog, as you might get banned. Unless of course your content is in the language other than English.

The most important feature in mini-blogging platforms is the internal subscription to other users’ blogs (but you can also use RSS). Building the network of followers is very important, because they will be the ones to spread your information to their networks. Re-posting someone else’s posts is as easy as it is in Twitter, except you have many more possibilities.

CEO blogs should use services like Tumblr to save time while remaining interactive and innovative. There are other benefits of choosing Tumblr too.

Here are some of the companies that already chose Tumblr:

* Big Champagne Media Measurement
* Bickbot
* Wave Tribe

Judging from the amount of bad press cloud computing has received on the Internet you might be forgiven for thinking you should not touch anything associated with cloud computing.

Well, the truth is cloud computing is just a marketing term and marketing terms come and go. I remember when multimedia was the hottest thing in computing if you could add the term multimedia to your product it was sure to sell. Now multimedia is old hat.

Cloud computing is hot at this point. It is the collective term for when IT power, such as applications and connectivity, is delivered over the Internet as you need it, rather than stored locally on a desktop computer.

Seeing this as an opportunity for development, many companies both large and small have jumped on the band wagon. The list of these companies include (but is not limited to) Google, Microsoft, and Salesforce.

What is it?

Cloud computing is a blanket name covering many web-based activities;

For example, Google Apps is a collection of web-based programs and file storage that can be accessed via a web browser. These applications are free and the software is stored on Google’s servers, which mean no installation is necessary.

To access the service, users log in to Google, to access their applications and files. All the applications in Google Apps work through a web browser. Users must have a Google account to use them.

Google Apps includes a customizable start page (iGoogle) and Google Sites (with web page creator). Also communication tools such as Gmail, Google Talk, and Google Calendar. Productivity tools are also included — with Google Docs you can create and edit text files, spreadsheets, and presentations.

Microsoft Office Live concentrates on giving you the tools to establish a web presence (design a website), plus a set of business applications in the form of a collection of password-protected lists, libraries, workspaces, and tools that help you collaborate with clients and co-workers. These applications can be customized to meet your needs.

An example of a how a smaller company has embraced cloud computing is Salesforce.com — this company has formed a strategic alliance with Google.

Salesforce has helped to alter the business software landscape by producing a web based contact management application. This application is a subscription-based service over the web and it completely eliminates the need for software. As part of the alliance, salesforce.com will be the first on-demand company to resell the Google AdWords platform, acting as an official distribution channel.

The Salesforce Platform, as the world’s first on-demand platform, enables customers, developers and partners to build powerful new on-demand applications that extends beyond CRM to deliver the benefits of multi-tenancy and The Business Web across the enterprise. The Salesforce Platform allows applications to be easily shared, exchanged and installed with a few simple clicks.

Concerns have been raised about many aspects of cloud computing and some see cloud computing as bait to lure users into using free online applications, which will be turned into subscription based services at a later date.

Other concerns include the fact that you lose control of both your apps and your data. Some Internet doom mongers cite the fact that should you loss Internet access you not only loose your ability to use your applications but the ability to access your data as well.

For example, one area that could potentially benefit from the cloud computing concept is on line accounting. Sage and Mamut/MYOB both have Internet-ready versions of their applications that many small business need constant access to. They also need to keep control of their software updates allowing them to choose when updates are performed. The last thing you want is for your accounts system to stop working when you’re running your month-end accounts. Therefore, many accounts departments would put off updates until less sensitive time, with Internet based services you lose this control.

In practice it is very rare for companies as big as Google or Microsoft to experience outages. It does happen but you can be sure it will be fixed at lightning speed. If your computer goes down you would not have been able to access your information anyway. If your Internet connection goes down then this can be a problem and represents your biggest worry.

Other potential problems include loss of control. Because access rights are shared across the services, security relies on how carefully others protect their login credentials. Furthermore, it’s not impossible that at some point in the future these services will get hacked.

Where is it going?

Cloud computing potential out-ways the concerns about it. In a way it’s nothing new, many of us have been sharing data, and storing information, documents and photos online for many years. Server based tools have also been available for many years, for example, online virus checkers. I would argue that “Cloud Computing” is much more than marketing hype. It a useful and growing set of Internet based applications and services.

The advantages of cloud computing are that your data is not stored in a desk-bound computer. The data is stored on secure, backed up and disaster-proofed servers such as Host1Plus offers. These servers offer far more protection than your office could ever provide. Many of the applications are free and can grow as you grow, with many services offering premium paid for services.

For cloud computing to work, you need to make sure you have both local and Internet based file storage. Don”t abandon computer based applications just yet, and you need to monitor the market and should your current service provider start charging for what was a free service vote with your feet and move.

Here are the photos form yet another party sponsored by Host1Plus:

DJs: John Digweed and Sasha

At Host1Plus we not only take hosting seriously, but also like to do some serious partying. Here are some photos from one of the events we have sponsored. Enjoy!

Photographer: Artiom Ištuganov

DJs: Kastis Torrau and Donatello

Photographer: Artiom Ištuganov

DJs: Kastis Torrau and Donatello

Wikipedia says that the Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks. What you see in the title image taken from The Opte Project, is just a fragment of a much larger internet map. Obviously, it is impossible to map all computers connected to the internet. Thousands of them go down every day while new ones replace them. The fact remains — internet is growing.

It is also virtually impossible to determine the “birthday” of the internet. A simple search on Google will give you plenty of different opinions: some say that it is over thirty years old while others argue it is more like twenty. And yet, for the purposes of this article, let’s just say the internet was born on 6th of August 1991, when Tim Berners-Lee has introduced his idea of the World Wide Web at CERN laboratories in Switzerland. After all, to many casual users the whole complex structure of the internet is reduced to daily typing-in those three magic letters into their browsers — WWW.

Let’s go back and see what people thought of the internet before it was born. Interestingly enough, it seems that people cared about e-commerce more than they did about information sharing. The first video is from 1969 and it rather accurately describes the idea of e-commerce. Of course, the way it is visualized looks funny to us, but the concepts are accurate:

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