This might be the wrong way to do it, as im still learning how to use these sites…

Here’s a great tutorial on how to use social bookmarking for the most effective results. There are a few important rules to follow for the best use of social bookmarking sites.

Happy Bookmarking!

I’ve been researching open source social network platforms trying to find, well basically the next wordpress of social apps… It’s not very apparent to me which is the most popular platform.  Even with myspace’s wildly popular sites like myspace, facebook, social networking is still in its infancy in the open source. But where theres a demand, there is supply… and people talking about it.

I’ve been looking at new platforms along the lines of membership, classroom and/or social networking. I dont know if you’ve been through the internet marketing guru slam, but it’s interesting to get inside their programs and see how they have things set up. I just finished up a month with PPC Classroom, a go-at-your-own-pace online course to learn the in’s and outs of Pay Per Click. A very viable internet marketing method, but somewhat risky for the little guy.

A look inside this bad boy had my mouth watering to learn programming once again.  They had segmented learning modules according to a course plan, with embedded video for better understanding. At the end of each segment, they integrated quizzes, where a passing score was required to move on to the next segment. It was automated and also saved student data. Way sheik. And to add the finishing touch, as soon as the forum opened up, it really started to feel like a community very quickly. If you wanted to learn pay per click, you couldn’t have asked for a better learning environment.

Justin Brookes SiteFlipAcademy, sadly no more, had an excellent 2.0 style membership platform. (I stand correct, read Justin’ comment below) This was a video learning environment with a super user friendly interface and ultra fast page loads. His info was easy to learn, quick to put into action, and it actually worked. I made money flipping websites, sadly no more. The marketplace for templates kinda ebbed right now, but Justin Brooke is the man! I highly recommend getting on his list. His site is at sitefling.com

SiteRev5 is a community driven free membership networking site. I found it when I was flipping sites. One thing I dont like about social sites and blogs is that they’re so cluttered and difficult to use. No so with SiteRev5. Their layout is easy to navigate with a lot great information, submitted by knowledgable  members. If the market returns for siteflippers, I’ll be the first one back to this site.

So while considering a new platform, I wanted to integrate the following things. A way to present information in the fast loading 2.0 style platform with uncluttered pages. And I want people to be able to sign up, with an easy way to communicate with those subscribers.

WordPress a fantastic way to present info, and communicate with feeds, but it gets confusing at the subscriber stage. Also, any social abilities outside of commenting would require a forum. Not a big deal, but I’ve seen better ways to put it all together.

I’ve also looked through straight social networking platforms and picked the top 3 most talked about.

Elgg.org winning the BOSSIE award for “Best Open Source Social Networking Platform 2008″ comes in on top. Seems to be the easiest to use as well.

PHPizabi.net is a close 2nd. Seems more powerful, but looks much harder to work with.

People Aggregator is probably the best all in one solution. Easy to use, with more power. To me, it looks difficult to customize. As a designer, that’s kind of important to me.

I’ve also looked into content management with membership and communication ability. Joomla immediately comes to mind, but after a week inside Joomla I never wanted to look at another CMS again.

Since Pact publishing announced Drupal as the winner of the 2008 Open Source CMS Award, its time to dig a little deeper. Drupal known for community building capabilities. Its easy to install, set up and create content with. Templates are clean and easy to customize. Member signup and user control is rock solid. And there’s a lot of documentation if I have questions.

Some things out of the box that I dont see: Nicely optimized urls for SEO (default story is http://site.com/node/1) Drupal says URLs can be customized. Also, I’d like a way to contact my subscribers, preferrably by email. There are a few mail modules to add on which should do the job. All in all this is a great solution for a membership and community sites.

With a little help, Drupal goes all the way. Im learning to custom design better navigation and also learning the taxonomy. Will have some more info on that soon. In the meantime,  Acquia has a great modules for drupal including an rss aggregator, forums, comments, contact forms, user profiles, polls, and also fixes the SEO problem for urls.

I usually opt for google, if it fits my needs, but this time the big G didnt cut it. I wanted to share a .zip file. So I went to work, signing up and comparing many of the free online file storage sites. I went through about 6 of these services before I found one I even liked. File Qube by far gets my vote for best free online file storage site…

Not only does it include 2GB’s of free space, it’s easy to use and quick to navigate with a smooth interface, and has a multitude of features. It meets the requirement for secure file storage with a quick share/unshare toggle and password protect option.

For files that you want to share or publish, it couldn’t be any easier. There’s a ‘hotlinks’ function that allows your visitor to download your files straight from your website, without having to even look at fileqube’s site for download.

The feature I love, is that it counts downloads, so you don’t have to mess with any other type of stats to know if your files are getting any attention.

They have a nifty little widget maker to create widgets to share files right on your website (filebox widget and flash maker widget)

And, they include services that you drag and drop to activate. These include 2 image editors and 2 document editors. Now, storing and editing your files doesn’t get any easier!

This is free for commercial or personal use.
I only ask that you keep the link that credits my site for the design.

Here’s a full working preview

Download The zip File

Russell Brunson wants to make his students a collective $100 Million Dollars and the winner gets a New Corvette!

Best Part: the training is FREE and benefits World Teacher Aid which gives children in El Salvador and Ghana, Africa.

Join Me in this Challenge:

Free Internet Marketing Challenge

Best of Luck and,
See You On the Inside!

Its called CommentKahuna and its FREE.

Check out the video. Its pretty cool.

Happy Commenting,

I’d never heard of Gary Vaynerchuk before I was sent a link to this video. I wont forget him now, This rant is fantastic… ROI. Return on marketing Investment of your advertising dollar. Traditional media advertising is incredibly expensive and doesn’t provide nearly the rate of return you can derive from strategic internet marketing campaigns in 2008 and beyond.

This is all fine and good, as we assuredly have seen this before. But the real story here is that they made this $100k with ONE product on clickbank, bidding on just ONE keyword. and their numbers are insane…

check this out
- $6,513.04 in one day
- $153,426.72 in 6 weeks
- $526,422.83 in 7 months.

…not to mention that they set it all up in just a few minutes.

This is a VERY VERY different ball game… As the entire advertising world moves toward the internet you need to be a step ahead of the game. These guys do 7 figures a year with Clickbank consistently and generate far bigger numbers than virtually anyone else on the planet. Without spending huge amounts of money on advertising.

Point being… if you’re a suffering affiliate, you seriously need to know this information.

And of course, it wouldn’t be fair if they didn’t share with with the world, now would it

HERE’S THEIR SALES PAGE »

Unique Template. Classy &Functional…
Beautiful with a ton o’ goodies.
(XHTML & CSS) W3C Validated Tableless Template. Full Rights.

Description:
The ultimate in form and function. Beautiful professional design, flawless code… flickr feed. photo gallery. Fading News Ticker. Working Ajax Contact Form already set up, tested and easy to configure. 100% Unique and Original Tableless design . All pages XHTML / CSS Valid. Full Rights.

This template has never been used before and is only being sold once. You will receive a completely unique template, only one of it’s kind. Built for digital photography but can easily be changed to fit your niche. Comes with 5 pages, just add your copy. If you need help changing the logo or text links, just ask.

Includes:
• 5 Pages - W3C Standard Valid XHTML & CSS Tableless coding.
(no errors or warnings on all 5 pages. check validation links in footer)
• Cross Browser Compatible. Tested in latest FF, IE6 and IE7 at 5 screen resolutions.
• Original Sliced Photoshop Files
• All scripts for flickr feed, photo gallery, news ticker, contact form.
• Instructions for everything included.
• All Art and Fonts plus 2 header/logo designs to choose from.

- Full working copy of the site for preview. Will be taken down after auction.
http://monochromatic.digitalrenewal.com

Buyer receives full rights (personal commercial and/or resale), I will never sell this template again.

Bid Now at Sitepoint

Description: For immediate online purchase, website design is professional, and code is highest quality valid web language: CSS and XHTML, code is Tableless. Design is Beautiful. Templates are original and sold to only one buyer to maintain uniqueness.

Click here to see more of my WebSite Templates

I’m happy to say, people are really digging my templates. Here’s some of the feedback I’ve been getting from SitePoint Buyers:

Great template, immediate delivery.
Would buy again.

Very happy with the template,
all as promised.

Great template for a good price.
Easy transaction. A++