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AutomobileFest at GoOnTheRoad.com

March 29th, 2008 by askweb20
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If you are an love automobiles, want advice on new cars, trucks, and everything else, you do not need to sort through 1,000,000 sites turned up by search engines. Just go to www.goontheroad.com and enjoy the reviews of new cars and trucks. There is also advice on ways of taking care of your automobile investment and how to improve your lifestyle. If you are an industry fanatic or on the lookout for fresh materials regarding trends and issues in the motoring world, you will also benefit from this site.

The topics being talked about at goontheroad.com include the different approaches of manufacturers to meet the demands of buyers, together with the technological and environmental enhancements that are being introduced. They try to put their hands into all the automotive that are brought out in the market so you can be sure to encounter the latest Toyota or Chevy cars. More than that, you can also interact with different kinds of drivers around the world—test drivers, amateurs and experts, as well as tricks to improve the performance of your car. It’s like visiting your auto-mechanic online.

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Nowtorrents

March 27th, 2008 by askweb20
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There are a number of torrent-tracking sites out there. Yet, Nowtorrents manage to stand out from the rest. Why? Because it is a real-time search engine of torrents and it only shows real results. Others only claim that their results are real yet Nowtorrents can backup their claim. The site has great plugins for Firefox and for Internet Explorer. The layout is good and the results are generated very quickly.

The site does not have its own torrents, yet it is able to track down hundreds of them in the internet. It also has effective categories for the search results, thus helping the user find torrents more easily. The “Box Office” section enables the users to browse through the torrents featuring recent box office releases. The site can also detect and remove fake torrents, making it easier for users to download the content that they are looking for.

The servers of NowTorrents scan the internet for torrent websites and through this they come up with good results. With their software, they are able to root out fake and dead torrents. This is definitely an upgrade from what most torrent sites are offering. The site has two top competitors right now, Youtorrent and pizzatorrent, yet, they outshine these torrent sites by being able to deliver good results without the fake ones.


Tags: Current News · Web 2.0No Comments.

Facebook’s Instant Messenger

March 26th, 2008 by askweb20
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Following the efforts of MySpace to integrate Skype into its features, Facebook began testing an instant messaging platform that its subscribers can use. This instant messenger will be built into the webpages of Facebook. The feature allows Facebook users to chat with each other without downloading any instant messenger software. The Facebook messenger will be built upon Jabber, thus enabling users to add the service to multi-protocol instant messengers like Adium and Trillian.

There are already a large number of instant messengers available to different users all over the world. A lot of them have also closed shop because of non-patronage such as FriendVox and Social.IM, among others. Perhaps, given the large number of Facebook users, they will have another set of username and password to remember; not unless, Facebook’s instant messenger will be embedded directly in its pages just like the Web messenger of Yahoo.

Interestingly, however, AOL has also acquired Bebo and plans to integrate AOL Instant Messenger with this social networking site. It seems MySpace has had headway in integrating an instant messenger into its platform. With this slew of IM-social networking site integration, we will see which one becomes successful and which ones will not.


Tags: Current News · Facebook · MySpace · Skype · instant messaging · social networkingNo Comments.

PredictAd Your Search Box and Earn Cash

March 26th, 2008 by askweb20
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Searching individual sites is still a challenge up to now. It is way easier to search for keywords in the whole Web. However, this state of affairs is being challenged by PredictAd, an Israel-based company which allows you to customize your site’s search boxes and enables those boxes to auto-complete. More than that, it is also introducing an innovation by monetizing your search-boxes with real-estate ads. PredictAd is already up and running in more than 6,000 websites and blogs all over the world. The company has even announced the launching of PredictAdPlus+ for websites that are enjoying greater traffic.

PredictAd monetizes your website by helping you and the visitors on your website to refine their entries on the search boxes. It works like the autosuggest feature of word processors. This search engine also takes note of the search patterns in your site as well as locations and even misspelled words! The end result is that the user can achieve greater accuracy in his search and the website owners can also improve SEO. Amazingly, the ads being displayed by PredictAd also changes as the user changes the words being typed in the search boxes. Revenue is being shared 50-50 between the network and the company while it is 80-20 for publisher. This is a great feature that can be easily integrated in popular blog providers.

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Will Wordpress Become “Social”?

March 25th, 2008 by askweb20
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Wordpress hired a new employee in the person of Andy Peatling, the developer of BuddyPress, which is an online social networking site built upon WordPress. Peatling has also developed many other applications for social network and open technology sites. With the appointment of Peatling, observers are hinting that Wordpress might implement some changes soon towards becoming a social networking site.

Peatling’s experience includes designing ChickSpeak and BuddyPress, which were developed based on WordPress with multi-user capability. What he did was to move the blog posts to one side and made another page that including a messaging system. He also mentioned about the plugins that are readily available for WordPress.

Although there are already thousands, if not millions of social networking sites in the world, what WordPress might be working on is the possibility of connecting these networks into one super-network through OpenSource software. This way, more and more plugins will be developed that will enable social networking sites to connect with each other.

Given the breakneck speed of software and website development nowadays, we might not need to wait for long before we see WordPress’s efforts bear fruit.

Tags: Current News · social networking · technologyNo Comments.

Ask.com Asks for More Women End-Users

March 24th, 2008 by askweb20
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Ask.com has been rumored to layoff 100 of its labor force but according to Reuters.com. The reality is that Ask.com is laying off only 40 jobs. This is still a significant number since it makes up 8 percent of the total number of employees of Ask. Jim Safka, the new CEO of the company said that the company will change its focus and strategy. It will target women who are nearing 40 and over. Currently, this age group already make up more than half of the total users of Ask. The percentage that women from this age group is already at 65 percent of the total users of Ask. Since these women are already onto Ask, then it makes more sense to target more of them.

Google is already handling the advertisements of Ask so rumor has it that Google will take advantage of Ask’s Teoma search technology. In contrast with the former CEO of the company, Safka seeks to implement important changes in the marketing approach of the company instead of its technology. Yet, the importance of technology for Ask could not be overestimated. Currently, Ask has access to 4.5 percent of the market. The search site of Ask has reported 41 million unique visitors in January only. This is certainly higher than the number of visitors in November and December. Given this, it would still be necessary for Ask to invest on its technology.

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Thmbnl.com and Cute Little Thumbnails

March 23rd, 2008 by askweb20
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The importance of thumbnails to a person varies depending on their uses. If you are a blogger, a photographer, or if you simply love creating thumbnails for your website, then perhaps thumbnails are a big deal for you.

Web 2.0 is a very visual platform and there are a lot of content available for everyone who wants to enjoy it. If you want to have a lot of thumbnails in your site, Thmbnl.com can help you with this. This is a web application tool that will help you generate thumbnails. The site features the thmbnl code library, which allows you to create images for external links. The sizes of these thumbnails vary from 60 to 800 plans.

There are different plans available for you, depending on your need for thumbnails. If you want it for free, you get 1000 thumbnails a month. If you pay $19.95 a month, you will get 20,000 thumbnails. That’s a lot! But beat this! If you are a business, you can pay $149 a month and get 900,000 thumbnails! These thumbnails could perhaps serve you for a whole lifetime!

If your website needs a facelift, you can then get a thumbnail from Thmbnl.com and put these thumbnails where your site readers can use them.

 

Tags: Current News · Web 2.0No Comments.

Web Design 2.0 Through Webnode.com

March 23rd, 2008 by askweb20
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You might have been trying to design your own website and you purchased lots and lots of books on the subject. Or perhaps, you have started consulting a hundred sites offering tutorials on how to design your website. Problem is, you are still floundering and you do not know what to do and how to go about designing your site. Floundering is not getting it done. You may also be one of those who do not have the time to design a website.

Web design is now being taken into the realm of Web 2.0 by making web design easier, and internet-based. It surely simplifies website design and creation. Even if your web creation skills are equivalent to a five-year old kid, you can create a professional looking website. Instead of contacting a web designer and spend hundreds or thousands of dollars, you can go to webnode.com and start designing your website online. With this approach, you save money and you save your precious time. The pages of your website could be created through a simple drag and drop approach. So with this, you do not need to memorize a lot of HTML and CSS codes, whatever. You can also add images, forums, and polls at just various clicks on the webnode site.

Webnode definitely supports Web 2.0 and the projects on the site can be easily done. And what’s more? It is completely free. Professional web designers perhaps might lose some of their customers through this site and they might have to look for additional day job.

Tags: Current News · Web 2.0 · technologyNo Comments.

MTV Uses P2P Data

March 23rd, 2008 by askweb20
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TMF, The Dutch music channel of MTV will use data from file sharing and P2P protocols in order to help them select playlists for their viewers. They believe that analyzing data from Bittorrent and other P2P platforms will help them understand better what music the people truly want. Although sales is a good indication of what people listen to, the files being shared can yield important insight to what internet users really listen to.

To use data from P2P, TMF subscribed to the services being offered by GfK, which is a P2P tracking company. GfK will then gather data from file-sharing networks and BitTorrent so that they can provide a list of music titles to TMF. This information will be used by TMF to determine the trends in the listening habits of their target audience and modify their playlist selection accordingly.

The TMF music channel wanted to count downloads as part of its Superchart. Naturally, such a move attracted protests from the music industry. They said that such a move would send out the wrong signal and might even encourage people to download music instead of buying them from legitimate distributors.

With the popularity of P2P and file-sharing networks, recording companies, and now music channels, are using P2P data in order to determine which single will be released.

 

Tags: Current News · technologyNo Comments.