I must have incredibly high standards or something because this was another week where there just wasn’t much in the way of articles or posts that stood out to me.
37signals has become something of a polarizing company these days. A lot of people love them and a lot of people don’t. I’m personally on the fence I guess although none of their products or opinions really have any effect on my everyday productivity of philosophy. I appreciate that they feel very strongly about their methods and products. It would be nice if more people took the same stance sometimes.
I’m officially sour on traffic from StumbleUpon, digg, reddit, etc. now that I’ve been running this blog for awhile and seen what those services can do for me. The answer is that they can’t do much. There’s a good point in the post at Push Standards about banner advertising that I agree with 100%. I share his thoughts on guest blogging also as a matter of fact.
Daniel Jalkut, of Red Sweater Software, gave a presentation on Application Acquisition at the C4 Conference that is definitely worth a watch. It runs a little over an hour and is kind of slow at the beginning. Stick it out to get a look at the thought process of an independent software developer trying to expand his product base.
Mark Wielgus, at 45n5.com, posted another one of his Ze Frank style videos about the dirty world of “make money online”. The eBay product he highlights is pretty incredible; not for its worth but for its scamminess. Holy hell, Internet Marketing can be a disgusting thing.
This post about StumpleUpon at Problogger, actually written by Skellie, is a really deep look at what it takes to get one of your posts some attention from StumpleUpon users. I’ve had some totally random posts on this blog catch fire on SU before though that didn’t follow any of these rules/suggestions.
WP-Premiums is a gallery site showcasing customizations of WordPress Premium Themes. I wanted to drop this site a plug today in light of my ongoing premium WordPress theme giveaway. In addition to the gallery, they have a nice blog with news and updates on the Premium Theme scene.
There haven’t been a lot of articles/posts lately that have really caught my interest. I read some pieces on the botched Microsoft buyout of Yahoo! that were good but I’ll spare you any links to those. I have my own thoughts on the matter that I can sum up with briefly: Yahoo totally blew it.
Moving on to the links:
Lee Falin is one of those independent Mac developers I’m always so interested in. Well, he’s actually looking to become a former independent Mac developer because he’s selling his company and his software. His post is a really nice look into the thought process of selling off your business.
This is a nice look at various online backup solutions available to everyone by James Duncan Davidson over at the Inside Lightroom blog. James focuses on the bandwidth and cost factors for a large photo library but I think his findings apply to anyone looking for a large scale backup solution.
This is a rather innocent post where Adii helps promote a new WordPress theme built to look like Facebook. Normally that’s not really worth mentioning but the comments on this post are intense. Someone chastises the theme’s author for stealing intellectual property (which is an interesting argument) but their approach is a bit harsh.
Welcome to another exciting edition of Wednesday Links:
Anyone who has spent any time at one of the million webmaster forums on the web has seen people promoting programs that will deliver “thousands of unique visitors” to your site for low, low prices. They’re obvious scams but Jon Leger took the time to go out and prove it. The moral of the story is that the only paid traffic that is worth it is PPC, but I think in our hearts we all knew that to begin with.
Shawn Blanc’s latest review of a piece of Mac software is an in-depth look at the blog editing application MarsEdit. This review is massive, like his other looks at Mac apps, so if you’re on the fence about purchasing a copy of MarsEdit (like I am) then check out Shawn’s breakdown.
Article marketing is one of those link building and traffic strategies that I always seem to be too lazy to put effort into. I’m going to try and get over the hump and get into it more so this affiliate marketing article over at Affiliate Confession should be a nice starting point for me.
I think Craig Newmark, the founder of Craigslist, is a pretty interesting character so I found this article at InfoWorld to be a good read. He’s always good for a great quote like this:
“Banner ads are often kind of dumb, and they slow the site down. I’m not interested,” he said.
I’m a little short on time today so this week’s edition of Wednesday Links is going to be a little brief.
MicroISV on a Shoestring is one of my favorite software developer blogs although, as of late, it’s been more about using SEO tactics to promote a website and product. His latest post called “Why You Shouldn’t Pay Any SEO You Can Afford” is worth a read. It’s a bit on the long side though so set aside some time to take it all in.
I’m big on using Coda for all of my web development and there are a lot of tips and tricks available at Panic’s new Coda Developer site. These videos are worth checking out even if you don’t own a copy of Coda right now. They might just push you over the edge.
This article at Wired is probably one of the best looks at the behind-the-scenes events that helped shape the new Apple iPhone. It’s interesting to see how Steve Jobs’ vision came to be.
Everyone loves a good CSS tutorial, right? Check out this awesome walkthrough for adding a gradient effect to your web site’s text using CSS and a simple PNG image.
The Observer wrote a nice piece recently about David Karp, the founder of Tumblr. David’s story is pretty interesting. He began his career as a teenage CTO for a dot-com startup in New York before moving on to form his own company called Davidville. He now works on Tumblr full-time. Oh yeah, and he’s only 21.
I’ll be the first to admit that I love browsing Digital Point but for the most part it’s a pretty dirty place. The true colors of the Internet come out in some of the forums over there. Thankfully, every now and again someone makes a brilliant post like this one full of tips for people new to the domain name game. It’s a must read for anyone interested in getting into domains.
Here’s another forum thread you should check out over at the DotSauce Domain Forums. The starter of this thread has given an entire PHP code example to scrape AdSense stats. PHP fans should stop by and check this out.
Since I can’t seem to go a day without mentioning something about WordPress I offer you this great article at Slightly Shady SEO about encoded footers in themes. As I mentioned above, the Internet is a dirty place and that’s never been more apparent than with this popular tactic of encoding sponsored links in WordPress themes. Someone should make a site that lets you upload footer files and get them decoded and scrubbed clean.
It’s my second installment of Wednesday Links. Let’s get right to it…
Tips on Writing a Scraper at Dellanave
This is a nice little article with some advice for people writing scrapers. The timing of this couldn’t be better as I’m currently reading a book about building webbots and scrapers.
I promise this will be my last mention of Entrecard for awhile but this was too slick to pass it up. This post at TechiePortal walks you through making a simple WordPress widget to display a list of the latest Entrecard users to drop their card on your blog.
DoshDosh is one of the most well written Internet marketing blogs on the web. This recent list of social news websites should prove to be a really good resource for everyone who runs a blog. There’s no excuse to not find a social news site to match your niche now.
I hope everyone who has a domain with Network Solutions or ever just looked up a domain’s availability there takes the time to read this article on the latest controversy in domaining. You should read the whole post but the short version is that every time someone checked on a domain at Network Solutions the company put a hold on it for themselves. Unbelievable.
Anyone using a Mac probably heard the news that the extremely popular NetNewsWire was released for free last week. I’ve already seen an increase in RSS subscribers to this blog using the program. But what you might not have considered is how this change in NetNewsWire’s pricing has affected other independent developers making RSS readers on the Mac. To get one person’s perspective, check out the developer of NewsLife’s blog and his post “Scorched Earth“.
If you have a link that you think I might like check out please send it my way.
