I Am Adam Smith

idesktop.tv launches

IDesktop.TV just launched. Its essentially a new GUI for Youtube. However, the feature I'm using it for is their download video function. Can get nearly any video file type. - and doesn't have the youtube logo in it.

Contact Importers

I want to make it easy for TripInvite's users to invite friends. They'll be able to type in email adresses, or import contacts from their webmail service or social networking site. Here's a list of apps that can do this. These all cost $$, if anyone knows of an open source .NET version of a contact importer, please let me know.

thx

adam

http://www.octazen.com/store.php

http://www.adluo.com/content.php?page=order

http://www.sigmavisual.com/subpages/products/product_details2.html

Optimizing a Press Release for SEO

Interesting post at the online marketing blog.

Many search marketing tactics come and go, but one channel of promotion that has steadily evolved is the practice of optimizing press releases for search engines. While it’s true that the future of the traditional press release has been up for debate over the past few years, wire services and the web sites they syndicate content to continue to produce results for the clients of savvy public relations professionals and online marketers.

Yahoo News is still more popular that MSNBC, AOL News or CNN. Being able to rank well on the most popular online news web site as well as Google News simply by optimizing and distributing a press release offers attractive benefits at a nominal cost.

Gigya - Widget Distrubion and Tracking

Gigya is a service that helps you distribute and track widgets. Could be usefull for TripInvite after launch.

Overview of Online Affiliate Programs

Here's a listing of online affiliate programs, ranked in a survey from 2001. Probably out of date, but a starting point in pay per action, and affiliate marketing

Program Name	Ranking	Respon- dents	Affiliates (average)
Synergyx	9.4	7	2,420
My Affiliate Program	8.7	15	817
Ultimate Affiliate Package	8.5	4	23
AffiliateShop	8.7	3	22
AssocTRAC	8.0	4	368
ClickBank	8.0	3	2,008
BeFree	7.8	4	6,333
AffiliateTracking	7.3	4	203
LinkShare.com	7.2	6	12,500
Commission Junction	6.9	15	2,443
Tradedoubler.com	6.5	2	51
ClickTrade	6.5	2	108
In-House Programming	6.4	13	2,479

CrowdVine - Social Networking for Conferences

Story on Techcruch about CrowdVine. Gives conference organizers a social networking tool. Maybe a good partnership opportunity for TripInvite after launch.

From the story...

The free version of CrowdVine for Conferences provides much of the same, simple functionality of a non-conference network (now dubbed “CrowdVine for Groups”). But if you are organizing a conference with 300 attendees or less, you’ll have access to a handful of useful features. Network members can indicate not only their friends but the people they “want to meet” at the conference. Conference organizers can integrate Twitter streams and 3rd-party wikis. And everyone can export the contact information of attendees as vCards after the conference ends (a feature I so wish Facebook and other social networks would adopt).

If you’re willing to pay, you can raise the attendee limit to 1000 ,or unlimited, and gain access to even more features. Advertisements can be removed, you will be given a “dedicated community manager” who helps to foster your network, attendee data can be analyzed to determine who contributed most to the event, speaker information can be imported, sponsorships can be incorporated, and a sessions calendar can be set up. CrowdVine has also partnered with Pathable to create custom, physical badges that show tags and likenesses for each attendee.

Facebook Ad Platform

Facebooks new ad platform is up. Fred Wilson's blog goes over his experience setting it up and using it.

Allows you to create a Facebook page for your business. Then, target people by demographics and interests.

Sites with Free Photos

Pictures are good for making a site more attractive, but more and more, they can also help with SEO. Here'a a list of ten sites with free pictures.

• Flickr.com allows you to share, store, search, and sort your photos. There are always plenty of images available for you to use. Flickr is free, though you will have to register if you want to upload and edit your own images. The photographers establish the terms, so read the permissions carefully. If you use someone else’s Flickr image, it’s always in good taste to link back to its source.
• Bigfoto.com offers pictures from around the world, including America, Asia, Europe, Africa, and Pacific. Each main category has subcategories, for instance “aviation,” which allows you to choose from pictures in a certain theme.
• Fotogenika.net has photos for free download for personal, educational, and nonprofit use. However, you cannot use them commercially, sell them, or claim authorship. The site is well organized, and it includes categories such as architecture, animals, people, and textures.
• FreeDigitalPhotos.net has over 2000 free images that you can use in commercial and noncommercial work. You are not allowed to sell, redistribute, or claim these images as your own. You can browse by category or search for exactly what you need.
• FreePhotosBank.com allows users to have non-exclusive, non-transferable license to images. You can search for photos, see which photos are the most popular, and which ones have the highest ratings or the most downloads.
• FreeMediaGoo.com has a large collection of images, audio, textures, and other visual mediums that you can use for free with some restrictions. You do not even have to credit the images. The site also features some amazing digital images if you are looking for something different.
• MorgueFile.com offers stock photographs in high resolution digital. With over 55,000 images, divided into several categories, they are sure to have something you can use. The thumbnails are small, but your search results display quickly, and the photos are of top quality.
• PhotoRogue.com offers a different concept. If you cannot find what you need, you can send a request. The service is free and uses volunteer photographers. If you like, you can also sign up for an RSS feed that will let you know when new images become available.
• SXC.hu offers high quality images taken around the world by amateur photographers. If you have an interest in photography, you can even submit your own pictures. There are various searching options and over 100,000 images. The photographers establish the terms, so read the fine print, but most pictures can be reused immediately.
• Picsearch.com is another option for those who are not sure exactly what they are seeking. Picseach is a search engine that crawls the web and indexes images. However, make sure that you see the site’s licensing terms or contact the copyright holder before you download pictures. You can edit your search by animation, color, or size to find exactly what you need.

via SearchEngineJournal

Search Marketing for Travel Conference

• Strategies for Maximizing Travel Search Marketing ROI, AIM Clear Blog
• Travel Search Geniuses: Brilliant at Basics, AIM Clear Blog
• Travel Search Marketing: Not Just Direct Response Anymore, AIM Clear Blog
• Competitive Intelligence is Legal Industrial Espionage @ SMX, AIM Clear Blog
• Next Gen Travel Search Engines Threaten Travelocity, Orbitz, & Other OTAs, AIM Clear Blog
• SMX Travel@PhoCusWright Wrap-Up, AIM Clear Blog
• SMX Travel@PhoCusWright 2007 Search Expo, Blizzard Internet Marketing

via SearchEngineLand

Link Building SEO Tips

From Search Engine Journal.... 12 Tips to build links for SEO.

1. Article DistributionDo Article Submissions, possibly even get article submitters to do the article submissions for you — There IS the Article Submitter software, but it is a pain, considering the tediousness of the program…Just build great articles and send them out to the article submission land list (The Article Sites Mster List is a great start)
2. Blog ComentingThis is the best way to build links, regardless of the nofollow, you will be capable of making friends with the blogs you comment on most. Networking on the web is the way of viral link building.
   • Comment and participate on blogs within your niche
   • Email them, LINK to them, they’ll reciprocate through time.
   • Use social bookmarking and trending sites to discover related topics and expand your groups, forums and blog search further
3. Submit Your Blog & RSS Feed Use the Best Blog/Site Directory And RSS Submission Sites. Another list of sites to submit your Blog feed.
4. List Your Site in Directories Use Directory Submitter, there are also services out there that will submit to 3k+ directories for less than $1,200…Crazy. Or just submit to the main directories including Yahoo, Business.com and BOTW.org : More of these directories are listed in our Web Directories section.

5. “Parasite” Host Sites/Blogs Don’t spam, for that is far too black-hat, just make many blogs on hosts such as Blogger and give respect to your fellow readers.
6. Trending and Tracking to find the latest and Meme-ist stories — Catch and follow the memes in order to build links based upon popular stories (Finding stories off the front page of the Social Bookmarking sites for inspiration is a great idea).
7. Get .Gov links by doing work for the government on a free basis/writing reports for them (i.e. be creative - .Gov SEO Ideas/Reports)
8. Do the same for .edu’s - Drop ads on the student job boards and drop links on internship opportunities (Many other options here - Idea: Pay college students for links on their .edu’s and build links to their personal student sites in order to get GREAT .edu links)
9. Do Reviews on sites such as ePinions, Alexa, Amazon, the WhoIs Wiki, etc.and answer questions on Yahoo Answers. Put in good words and create an authority for yourself
10. PR 3.0 — Do Squidoo lenses on your topic, Start a wiki on Wikia (/start your own wiki), write Wikipedia articles related to your firm, Googlepages, Blogspot, Myspace, Wordpress, Typepad blogs and Spaces.Live.com.
11. Buy Links and Request Links — Use Text-Link-Ads, you shouldn’t get in trouble no matter how fearful Google tries to make you feel. Request text link ads and use these templates for writing the proper link requests — I HIGHLY recommend hiring a link builder from India, they are very good at following templates and getting the work done.
12. Forum, Group Postings and Classified Ads — Write relevant and thoughtful posts on the largest forums and groups, do not spam and you will be forever rewarded with thousands+ of links. Post CraigsList, Kijiji and USFreeAds as well as ads on other classified ad sites and build links through them — Craigslist is using nofollow now and your ad will be deleted every 7 days or so, so keep on reposting if you want Craigslist link love.