Macronimous Web Blog

Wordpress is a simple and handy platform that is highly used in creating blogs and is also one of my favorite blog platforms, Wordpress plugins that are used along with it can create excellence to sites. Out of many Wordpress plugins that are available, I have chosen 4 that are my darlings, from the Multimedia point of view. These plugins are highly useful with regards to creating Multimedia-rich websites and blogs, and I also am of the impression that they are simple to use, without any complications or hassles.

(1) Kaltura Video recording and management - http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/kaltura-interactive-video 

This plugin is quite apt to make the videos in your blog more interactive. With facilities like uploading, importing and recording of videos into your blog posts,  modify videos with the help of an online video editor; this plugin is definitely a hit! What I like the best in this is that it this plugin also supports a huge variety of codecs and audio/video file formats along with video sharing options. In short, complete management and administration of videos is possible with this wizard! 

(2) MTR Audio and Podcast Recorder - http://www.podcastingnews.com/2008/09/15/free-podcast-recorder-plugin-for-wordpress
 

I would say a “must-download plugin” for the Podcast freaks; this plugin is called the MTR Podcast recorder that allows all the recordings to be saved in MP3 format. It is saved in the same server as that of Wordpress. The best part that I like in this plugin is that it allows handling the records and musical selection lists from the Wordpress administration itself. This helps in easy playlists management and overall blog site administration. 

(3) NextGEN Photo Gallery - http://alexrabe.boelinger.com/wordpress-plugins/nextgen-gallery

One of my most favorites, this photo gallery plugin is very useful, especially for those interested in creating and sorting their own image collections. This plugin has a tinge of Web 2.0 and jQuery JavaScript library, all packed in one. The users can also upload images that have watermarked text or images. The best thing is that various JavaScript effects like Thickbox, Lightbox and the likes can be used. 

(4) Kimili Embedded Flash - http://kimili.com/plugins/kml_flashembed
 

So you want to embed flash based movies into your blog, then Kimili is the best choice! A very flexible plugin with many features attached to it, the Kimili  also complies with the standards. It is very useful for search engine optimization of blogs, as the plugin itself is search engine friendly. What’s more, this plugin also gels on well with other plugins in its 1.2 version, and hence is definitely the best pick for WordPress.

I have found these plugins to be remarkable and of great use to me. There are many more great plugins from WordPress, and if you feel anyone or more of them have stirred your web designing senses, then do not forget to suggest about them in my comments section.

Online competition tracking is not as easy as we all think and we don’t know when competitors make different alterations to their websites and fine-tune their keywords to gain top results. The most crucial phase and factor of SEO is competitor analysis, as staying ahead of the competitors is not an easy task. For that, we have various free competitor tools, which can help you track your competitor levels and also help you understand the competitiveness of your industry for success.

(i) TouchGraph.com You can try it right away! Enter a URL or a set of keywords and then click on the button ‘Graph it!’ However, the following have to be kept in mind: · It is always advisable to have the latest version of java, minimum Java 1.5. Also popup blockers should be disabled to allow launching websites. · After typing out the URL or the search keywords, hit “Graph It!” Press the “Run” button when the question prompts as, “Do you want to trust the signed applet?” http://www.touchgraph.com/TGGoogleBrowser.html

(ii) Myriadsearch.com This is an excellent tool to view competition rankings across numerous search engines that are available nowadays. http://www.myriadsearch.com/

(iii) Seotoolset.com - competition research tool To show the present ranking of the top competitors across the prominent search engines, use this competition research tool. It gives the topmost 25 rankings across the board and sorts the results as well. The site that has the highest ranking is listed in the beginning. http://www.seotoolset.com/tools/free_tools.html

(iv) Spyfu.com SpyFu allows you to look at the keywords that are purchased by your competitors. It also shows the keywords that they optimize their site for. Once the competition is understood, you can become masters in their own game and at the same time can also tap on their weaknesses as well! http://www.spyfu.com Hope the above quoted sites have helped you with your search for top competitor tools

Even before we started using SEO, Just after building the sites we started using a Site visitor analytic tool. Initially we used Goldstats; It was more than sufficient when we had only 20 pages, and no much SEO really done. It was a nice start.

But when we added articles, and  really wanted to know more about the readers, and what keywords they use. We needed a better tool actually, and found Webstat in 2002. Again we were really happy until we found we reached a number of pages. We also found urchin an interesting tool, and finally settled with Google analytics - which gives everything an SEO company needs.

We do not recommend Google Stats to everyone.  Spending time each day to study your visitors through Google stats might not be easier, unless you have a passion about your site visitors. If you need to know some simple reports to study in 5 minutes use some simple hosted solutions like Webstat or Gostat’s simplified versions. We have also written very simple custom Stat solutions in PHP/mySQL, write us if you need a Demo and a free version. It gives every detail you need to know in 3-5 minutes. We haven’t named it, as we have no intention of selling it until now.

I believe even if you use Google Analytics, you may need a simple analytic tool. 

A whole new browser. (?) Can’t agree to that fully, since it is based on Apple’s WebKit and Mozilla’s Firefox components.
I personally like the products from Google, and I believe Chrome would also make some difference in the Browser market, though it is available only in XP and Vista. A Linux version should make this difference easily. Few good things are  a Quicker installation, quick loading of pages (do they show them from their cache?), and recently visited pages shown as thumbnails.

You get a bigger screen for websites, unlike the other browsers there is no bottom information bar, the page loading information just comes as an Ajax(?) window, and vanishes after the page gets loads.

Our website menu is not positioned properly; Our CSS team is working on it to fix that soon. I used Chrome for writing this blog, and found it is working very fine. I hope Wordpress team do not have to work hard for these browsers. I noticed on issued in Wordpress editor issue - The format had gone completely, when I saved and opened this blog entry. This has to be fixed in the WYSIWYG plugin in Wordpress.

I am keen to check some of the DHTML sites, probably the scripts from Dynamicdrive.com, as their scripts are widely used for menus and browser side dynamics.

There is no favicon appearing in the address and title tab, no Google chrome Logo and title anywhere. The location of the Tab looks nice, most of the browsers do use this project for Product title. This is a smart move.
No Google toolbar for Chrome yet, hope it is in development, they should launch it any time now. Chrome does import your favourites etc from IE quickly.

Developers and designers have to spend more time for this browser too, as I do not think Chrome is going to be just another Browser, since it has better focus on web applications. Google office documents should perform well with Chrome, But I didn’t notice big difference when I opened Spreadsheets in Chrome. I expected the suggest for work well inside the columns, seems like such features are yet to come.
Overall the Browser is impressive, and I hope it will affect the market Share of IE and Firefox to an extent, especially the later one.

Its Web2.0 era, and many of us know how a web 2.o site would look like. We are also developing web 2.0 sites, especially Social networking sites, though we still have no clarity on Web2.0 impact in business. But everybody wants to make it. We get at least 2 requests per week for Social networking application development in Web 2.0 mash ups which are already aplenty in the market. Due to the recent popularity it received,  venture capitalists pour money over such applications, and they get one for them with a “BETA” tag under their logo.

I recently found few directories with a list of web2.0 sites. I was wondering what is the need for this huge list? Are they going to be used by people? How many of us are registered with more than 3 or 4 social networking sites? While I appreciate specific group based social networking sites, what is the need for 200 similar social networking sites for one community? Is that not looking potentiality waste of money. After investing few thousands of dollars what will happen if the site is not promoted due to the fear of its competition it already has? What market can the site catch? 20 registered users in 2 years? How many users will come back to the site after 2-3 visitors?

Here is a list of diretories which has 100s of web2.0 based sites, under different categories. Are they worth visiting and registering?

http://web2.econsultant.com/

http://www.go2web20.net/

http://www.digfoot.com/

I do not say there should be no competition. But uniqueness is needed for any web2.0. Many of them are offering free services, and that can not be the only reason for their success. I beleive the following points should be considered by anyone who wants to develop a Web2.0 application.

1. Does the market or the society need this application?

2. Does the site going to make impact in the market or the society?

3. Can I make money out of this site and this is not just my hobby?

4. Am I offering unique features that will attract used in my web2.0 site?

5. Am I NOT wasting my (or my VC’s) money by making Just another web2.o site?

6. Do I have enough funds to market the site heavily and to overtake my competition?

7. This is not just a trial I want to make since I have few thousand excess money in my Bank A/C, Right?

If you say even single “NO!, you should really think about your stratagy.