Technology Reviews | Internet Startups | Social Media

It’s all fun, good news, and games until you read the fine print and FAQs.

The #squarespace story. Super-simple website creation and hosting company SquareSpace is the latest company to throw out a twitter gimmick.  For each of the thirty days running between June 8th and July 7th, SquareSpace has committed to give out 1 new iPhone 3G S.  All that must be done to win is to write a twitter update containing the hashtag #squarespace.  Sounds cool and simple right?  It is.  But then we read the official rules and detials.

5. Winning prize will include a $199 gift certificate to the Apple store, which may be used toward the purchase of an 8GB iPhone, or toward any other official Apple products or services. This is currently the price listed by Apple of the most expensive new iPhone, and we were advised by Apple that this is the best way to conduct the giveaway.

6. Should the daily winner choose to purchase an iPhone with their gift certificate, he/she will be responsible for establishing and paying for their own cellular/data network plan through AT&T (or whichever provider supports the iPhone in your country).

So, you don’t really win an iPhone. [click to continue...]

Financial stimulus packages are terms of the distant past (in internet time), and so it is time to shift attention to a mental stimulus package.  If you are looking for a bit more brain exercise after reading your daily subscription of the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal, then let this list of websites guide you in your insatiable quest for knowledge.

Wikipedia. Wikipedia has established itself as the go-to resource for simple and quick online research and knowledge gathering.  While it is constructed and written by anyone who decides to add to it, there lies a strong community of “moderators” insuring that the content is verified and can be accounted for in a concrete (book, article, etc.) source.

HubPages. HubPages is a bit less academic than wikipedia, and is a bit more practically informative and personal.  Hubs can be found on any topic from the crazy looking Vibram Five Fingers Shoes to practical advice such as [click to continue...]

Niche stores are no longer the thing of small towns.  The internet has given has given new life to the mom-and-pop retailers of all sorts of quirky trinkets and novelty products.  Sure, online communities offering free e-commerce management do exist for sellers such as this (eCrater and etsy), but giving in to such an offering requires the seller to hang their brand on the back of another.  Luckily, setting up a personally branded e-store is almost as easy as using a free service with the help of auto-installer software generally found on any good web-host.

Many aspiring online retailers intially turn to the ever popular osCommerce, ZenCart, or CubeCart platforms because they are free and open source allowing for [click to continue...]

Websites as desktop applications are becoming and increasingly popular trend as WiFi and mobile internet increase their reach and user base.  Rather than connect to the internet and direct the browser to a specific website, the user can experience the website as a regular computer program.  Many times desktop versions allow users to broaden their experience through increased or new features.  I have chosen 5 websites of the tens of millions out there that I believe to be better experienced as a desktop application rather than through their actual website.  Feel free to add your favorites in the comment section.

eBay. The popular auction website’s desktop app allows for more targeted searches so that shoppers can find what they really want.  eBay’s desktop app also [click to continue...]

Back at the time of it’s inception, gather.com was one of the premier websites for writers to showcase their work and abilities – and snag a few rewards for doing so.  As time rolled on they remained the same and added an element of “newsiness” to their site by incorporating the Gather Essentials (major categories for posts – Money, News, Politics, Food, A&E, Movies, etc.)  In recent times, it seems that gather has moved away from any sort of creative or writers showcase and has become in their words “the premier social networking website for the 35+ crowd”.  Now that the social networking giant FaceBook has all but snagged every last bit of that crowd and allowed them to socially network in a popular and much easier way than was available on gather, it seems that gather is somewhat lost yet again.

I will give credit to gather for [click to continue...]

Twitter has long been heralded as a valuable marketing and lead generation system for businesses, and for all practical purposes it is.  Business or marketers seek out and follow other people with similar interests or tweet subject matter, and slowly work their way into a relationship which may or may not result in sales.  The great thing is, this whole process works in reverse and often to the benefit of the shopper/service seeker.

I have been thinking about switching things up soon webhost-wise, and so decided to tweet about it making sure to contain the key words “web hosting”.  Sure enough, within 5 minutes I had the first hosting company contact me in an effort to promote their service and sell me some hosting.  Not long after I got a second hit, and then a third.  The trick is to turn these marketer’s solicitations into deep discounts and product trials.  With just a little pushing and interaction I was able to manage a 10% discount – nothing too much, but it could be much more if you are into haggling and deal hunting.  The key is to make yourself the target rather than becoming one at the mercy of a pushy marketer.

And with that, I will try to come up with some content that is a bit less twitterish…

Susan Boyle completely owned the Twitter Top 10 trends list once again on Sunday.  Susan Boyle is still a trending topic, but she is now at about number eight and will most likely fall off the map at the mercy of a few sporting events yet to happen this week.  Twitter trends are a great way to find out what the majority of twitter users are talking about, but the trends are only temporary.  It would be nice if someone developed a twitter app to track the most consistently tweeted words or phrases.

If someone were to develop such an app and perform the analytics I am almost convinced that, excluding all articles and pronouns, the “f”-word would be near the top of the list – if not at the top.  Now, the f-bomb is no Susan Boyle, but [click to continue...]

I have always held PartnerUp.com as an invaluable resource for entrepreneurs looking to join up with others, grow their team, network, or simply learn from and interact with other like-minded individuals.  However, until now I have always found PartnerUp to be a bit old fashioned and poorly designed.  It seemed as though it was unable to really live up to its full potential.

While design should not diminish the helpfulness, effectiveness, value, or overall usability of a website it does affect a users overall impression and will to use a website.  PartnerUp’s user interface [click to continue...]

A growing trend amongst the increasing amount of social media adopters is to take advantage of integration tools which cross-network certain social networks and social media applications.  As more internet users (namely those from FaceBook) adopt twitter, they are making an attempt to kill two birds with one stone by porting their twitter updates to FaceBook.  It is my position that those who use social media in this way to not have an accurate understanding of the services that they are using.

Whether intentionally or not it seems the the prompts for updates are somewhat reversed based upon current usage of the services.  Twitter begs of users “What are you doing right now?” where as FaceBook kindly wonders “What’s on your mind?”  More often than not users are more apt to tweet what is on their mind in the form of [click to continue...]