Online media is exploding…and with it, a new class of creative people producing their own music, podcasts, professional-level photography and video shows. We’ve compiled the largest list so far of useful tools for self-made photographers, videobloggers, podcasters and musicians.

These entries are compiled from previous Mashable () articles – see the links at the bottom of this article for further reading.

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For photography gods, we’ve brought together more than 90 photo resources and tools. There are thousands of sites serving photographers these days, but we hope this acts as a good overview.

ONLINE PHOTO EDITORS

Fauxto – Advanced online photo editor with an interface similar to Photoshop’s
XmgImg- Image hosting service that provides an interface for users to manage, edit, and share their images online.
OnlinePhotoTool – Edit pictures taken from your hard drive as well as images that are already on the Internet ().
MyImager – Upload images from your computer and from anywhere on the web and edit them freely with the dozens of tools and filters available.
SnipShot – Edit photos from your hard-drive, your Webshots account, or your Flickr account in one place, and then save them back to any of those locations.
Pixenate – Online photo editor with many special effects. You can also integrate Pixenate on your website and allow visitors to edit images.
Phixr – Edit your pictures and directly upload them to Flickr, Fotopic, Livejournal, Photobucket, Fotolog.com, Buzznet and Dropshots.
Pixer.us – Edit your photos online within your browser, add special effects and save them in the most popular formats.
Picture2Life – Edit pictures available on the Internet or taken from your hard disk. You can also import images from popular photo sharing sites.
Cellsea – Upload pictures from your PC or from an URL. It provides over 15 ways to correct color, exposure, and lighting problems.
Preloadr – Photo editor with good image manipulation functions that is connected with your Flickr account.
Picnik () – Photo editor with many interesting features which is directly connected to many photo sharing sites.
Pixelmator () – Pixelmator is a photo editing service for Mac users. The design is superb and intuitive. There are selection tools, paintbrushes of various size and shape, retouching tools, layering and much more. You can enhance photos, analyze colors, add text, create stylized scenes with halftones and image blurring.

PHOTO SHARING

Zorpia – Zorpia is like Myspace () with some more photo features, you can upload you photos and share them on your profile.
Clickfriends -Document your life with your own digital photo essay, then share it with friends and family through ClickFriends.com. Now you can have the same site take care of your online photo albums and your Facebook () or MySpace photo albums. Just upload your photos to the ClickFriends site, and then have them exported to your profile on your preferred social networking site. It´s free and easy to sign up.
Snappages – Snappages.com provides space for you to save and organize your photos, your online friends from virtual communities, and your events in one well-designed web page. It combines various web concepts, including online storage, file sharing, and Facebook-style friend communication.
Photorgy – Photorgy is photo uploading/sharing tool which works with AIM (). Photo albums can be shared and owned by any number of friends, family members, and colleagues.
SlideShare – SlideShare is a content sharing site where you can host and display presentations. Maybe you would use it to show your professional work, or just for personal photo sharing, power point presentations about your latest entrepreneurial idea, or graphics you designed.
Zoomandgo – Contribute your travel photos, videos, or general advice to the Zoom and Go site, and they will reward you with cash. The site has a system of points which can be awarded to the content you submit according to what kind of content it is (written reviews receive less then photos, and videos receive the most).
Zooomr () – Store, share, sort, sell, and search all your photos and those of other users at Zooomr. Users can post comments on individual pictures, therefore, gaining feedback on the photo, as well as gaining insight into the other photographers who use the site. Photos can be shared for free, or can be sold through the site.
BurstCast – Burstcast offers space for you to upload pics from your camera phone either by MMS or by e-mail, right from the phone. On the site, you can choose for your photos to be made public and shown on the home page (but it´s either all or nothing; you can´t have some photos be public and some private).
Mostrips – The photo sharing site is designed to let you create albums to be easily shared on mobile phones. It´s a useful way to send work if you are a photographer, or a head shot if you are a model or actor. Or it can just be a fun way to share photos from your vacations among friends and family.
DPhoto – DPhoto is a photo sharing service which offers well-designed graphics and a professional appearance. With DPhoto you can share your photos with friends and family in an ad-free, secure site.
Invitr – Invitr is a Flickr related application which simply extends your sharing capabilities. With Invitr you can share your Flickr photos with non-Flickr members; so photos that have been categorized as private can now be sent and shared with anyone you choose.
DigitalRailroad – Digital Railroad is aimed at aiding professional photographers connect with more fans and even help them connect to content providers and media companies who are looking to buy their work.
ContakMe – Contakme is a new site where you can upload an unlimited number of photos, create albums, and rate other people´s photos.
Flickr () – The most popular photo sharing site. Upload photos, create sets and join one of the greatest communities of professional and unprofessional photographers.
Picasa () – Google’s () answer to photo sharing. The main application is a download, but there are also web albums.

FREE PHOTO HOSTING

Photobucket () – one of the most popular image hosting services around, favorite amongst MySpace users. Makes it very easy to post your images to social networking sites; gives you 25 GB of monthly traffic and 1 GB of storage with images themselves being up to 1 MB in size.
ImageShack () – The most popular image hosting service. Upload images up to 1.5 MB and embed them in any web page.
AllYouCanUpload- There is no limit to the image size you can upload. You can also upload up to three images in the same time.
ImageHosting – Upload multiple pictures at one time. The maximum filesize you can upload depends on what account you registered.
TinyPic () – Upload pictures and videos and embed them anywhere. The direct link for your picture or video will be tiny (e.g. http://tinypic.com/1)
TheImageHosting – Upload multiple images at once and zipped image files. Maximum file size allowed is 1 MB.
BayImg – Free uncensored image hosting provided by the Pirate Bay. The max file upload size is 100MB and you can can upload about 140 different formats.
XS.to – Upload your images and embed them anywhere. You can also delete images you previously uploaded. Max file size allowed is 2.5 MB.
ImgPlace – Upload up to five images at one time. Maximum file size allowed is 1.5 MB
FreeImageHosting.net – Register to host your images for free. Maximum file size is 3,000 KB.
FileHigh – The free “Economy” account lets you upload up to three images simultaneously and the maximum size for each file is 512 KB.
VillagePhotos – Upload pictures straight from your browser and host them online. 1 GB monthly data transfer.
ImageVenue – You can upload up to five images in the same moment. The maximum file size allowed is 1.5 MB.
ImageCross – Free MySpace image hosting. You can upload images up to 2 MB in size.
SmugMug – SmugMug is a photo uploader, editor, and community portal all in one. You can upload and share your photos, then store the photos with up to four backup copies of each photo in three varying states.

PHOTOGRAPHY BLOGS

Digital-Photography-School – Darren Rowse’s photo tips.
Thomas Hawk – Zooomr’s Thomas Hawk on photography, Zooomr, Flickr and general tech news.
PhotoCritic – A site for photography criticism, with the intention of allowing photographers to critique each others’ work and share opinions, suggestions, and professional tips.
FlickrBlog – While it’s not exclusively a photo blog, but from time to time the Flickr staff will pick a few photos and feature them on the blog and the users see this as a big honor.
DPreview – practically the only resource you’ll ever need for digital cameras; incredibly in-depth and timely reviews of most models available on the market
Shutterlog – some great photos here with attention to detail.
Chromasia – no words, only great photos
Stuck In Customs – blog by one of the greatest HDR photographers on the net
Black and White Photography – great photo blog focusing on B&W photos.

PHOTO MASHUPS

Flappr – A slick Flash-based Flickr interface that lets you do most of the actions you can do on Flickr.
FlickrVision – displays Flickr updates from various users on a Google Map.
Retrievr – an unbelievable mashup that delivers photos based on your drawings.
Flickr Logo Maker – Turns any text into a Flickr-style logo.
Spell with Flickr – this tool enables you to write text in letters based off Flickr images. Not all that useful but fun.
Tagnautica – a slightly weird visual way to browse through Flickr images.
Captioner – adds comic-style captions to your images.
Fastr – a “guess that tag” style game; you are presented with a series of images and you must guess their common tag.
PictureSandbox – Searches the Flickr archive (as well as that of YouTube and some other sites) based on the type of license; great tool for finding images you can actually use in a project
FlickrFling – presents an RSS feed through Flickr images. Completely useless but works as a fun experiment.
Colr Pickr – One of the most useful Flickr Mashups; enables you to search Flickr photos based on their color. Works surprisingly well.
FlickrBall – a six-degrees-of-separation scavenger-hunt game (yes, Kevin Bacon is mentioned), using Flickr thumbnails and tags for clues.
Photo Tag Mashup – Retrieves a number of Flickr images in a simple interface based on a tag you provide
Flickr Sudoku – a Sudoku game based on Flickr images.

MOBILE PHOTO SHARING

SnapZone – An online service that lets you upload your photos directly from your mobile via a wireless connection. Snapzone allows you to free up space on your phone”s memory while also giving you an instantaneous way to share your images with friends. SnapZone is also a community site, so if your friends join you can use it to share your pictures easily in one place.
Fotochatter – network that enables you to share mobile pictures with your friends, as well as receive images from your buddies on your phone
Radar – creates picture conversations – you send your pictures to Radar and your friends can instantly see them and comment on them
Shozu – Mobile uploading to photo sites including Flickr.

PHOTO MIXING AND SLIDESHOWS

Slide – create slideshows easily and embed them on your site or social networking profile.
RockYou – offers several free services, including slideshow creation, photo hosting, photo enhancement and more.
Scrapblog – An online service that lets you upload your photos from many of the popular photo sharing websites and mash them up with hundreds of stickers, shapes, text and YouTube videos to create a digital scrapbook
Vuvox – Vuvox lets you create online animated and interactive slideshows using a range of effects, theme templates and designs
Mixercast – Mixercast lets you mashup your photos and movies into animated, interactive slide shows and throws in ag ood library of stock photo, video and licensed music to use as a soundtrack
Flektor – Flektor has a great set of tools for adding transitions, text, stickers, effects and overlays into movies made out of your photos and online videos

PHOTO PRINTING/BOOK CREATION

Snapfish – Snapfish is run by HP, they let you store and share your photos for free, and prints are cheap with highest quality at 12¢ each. You can also have things like mugs and cards made with your pictures on them.
Fotki – A photo-sharing and hosting site, you can share you photos with others or use it with your blog. It has some unique features like FTP access, and users can choose to sell their photos. There is an integrated printing service that lets you print at many different sizes at good prices.
KodakGallery – Kodak Gallery is owned by Kodak (no surprise there), like the other they let you store and share photos and then make prints and have custom gifts made.
Shutterfly – Shutterfly not only lets you store and share photos and then have them printed, you can also pic up your prints right at Target stores.
Moo – Moo currently has partnerships with many social networks including Flickr, Vox (), and Bebo (), you can print small minicards and notecards with the photos you have uploaded to these sites.

PHOTO SEARCH

PicSearch – image search with some interesting options; for example, you can choose to search only black and white or color photos.
YotoFoto – a search engine which claims to be indexing over a quarter million Creative Commons, Public Domain, GNU FDL, and various other ‘copyleft’ images.
Google Image Search – a resource so commonly used it doesn’t need a special explanation; still one of the best ways to find images of any kind on the web.
Pixsy – Image search engine that’s striking a lot of partnerships. Also provides PixsyPower, a custom video and photo search for your own site.
StockPhotoFinder – a search engine specialized in finding stock photos.
EveryStockPhoto – this site is indexing over 1 million completely free photos from various sources.

STOCK PHOTOS

iStockPhoto () – royalty-free images for low prices; there aren’t any completely free photos here, but photo quality is above average
Fotolia – Another cheap royalty-free image provider, with nearly 2 million photos in stock
SXC.hu – one of the best (and biggest) repositories of completely free stock photography on the net.
MorgueFile – provides completely free photos; no registration required to download.
PixelPerfectDigital – 5000+ free stock photos
StockXpert – the commercial arm of Stock Xchange; offers cheap but quality royalty-free material
Alamy – Alamy is a search engine for stock photos which boasts millions of images from thousands of photographers, picture agencies and national collections. The site does the editing and classification of the images.

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Video () blogging, live video shows and professional film-making are all blossoming now that almost everyone has access to webcams, video cameras and affordable editing tools. In fact, many of the tools for editing, mixing and sharing your clips are now completely free. Here’s a wide selection of video tools available online.

LIVE VIDEO COMMUNICATIONS

Stickam () – The best site for live video communications with multiple people. There is no major competition for Stickam just yet.
Blogtv – Blogtv is a recent discovery to the public.  It allows you to do a live video show, and you can stream it live, as well as archive it for later use.
ooVoo – This allows you to carry on video conversations with live video through a Skype ()-like program.
Mogulus – This site is basically an all in one broadcast solution for video.  You can create, edit, and add things similar to broadcast companies could add.
Ustream () – Allows you to stream live video and you can also embed the player in to your own website.
HeyCosmo – A downloadable application that allows you to connect with other people in many ways, even play games and more.
Operator11 – Go live with your camera and create your own channels. You can also send video comments and remix your videos.

ONLINE VIDEO HOW-TO

Better YT Video Quality – This guide helps you with getting the best possible video quality on YouTube, can be applied to other sites as well.
Make Internet TV – This guide has step-by-step instructions for shooting, editing, and publishing videos on the Internet.
How to put your readers at the scene – A scene-setting guide for online web journalists.
Tips for shooting better online video – learn the equipment, shooting and editing basics from this collection of tips.
Online video tips – a Squidoo lens with several useful online video shooting and editing tips.
Home video tips – Chris Pirillo’s tips for shooting better videos at home.
Camcorderinfo – Every online video comes from a camcorder, so here is the best place to get opinions on your next camcorder purchase.
5 Ways To Create a Great Video Podcast – A great article that applies to both video podcasts and video production in general.

ONLINE VIDEO EDITORS

Eyespot – add effects and transitions to the videos you upload, or use some of the large amount of free video clips and music from Eyespot’s media partners.
MuveeMix – Upload your movie, mix it with music, add cool effects and share it on MySpace, Friendster (), Blogger (), and other networks.
Motionbox – This service features the ability to link to a very specific point or “segment” within the clip itself.
Cuts – Insert sound effects in your videos, add captions, loop the best parts and in minutes you can share your creation with the world.
JumpCut – a free service that enables you to upload, edit and share your videos. Offers keyframe-based editing, effects, transitions and actions.
VideoEgg – A video editing platform that you can add to create a social network and offers opportunities for monetization.
Mojiti – Select videos from popular video sharing sites, personalize them with your annotations and share them with others.
Photobucket – Edit videos within a browser using Flash and remix photos and home videos with other elements, such as music, video captions and transitions.
StashSpace – Upload, store and edit your videos online. You can also record videos directly from your camcorder or digital camera.
BubblePly – Video annotating service where anyone can add text bubbles that are synchronized with video.
Veotag – Service that lets you display clickable text, called “veotags,” within an audio or video file.
Vidavee Grafitti – add graphics and text into any video; the service is called a “legal form of artful vandalism” by the creators.
Vmix – Vmix is a community and a hosting provider for your videos, aimed at creative authors who want to create remixes of their music and videos.
MovieMasher – a combination of a video editor with a timeline and lots of various effects, a standalone player and a media browser.
MixerCast – Mix your media with professional video, images, music, and network your MixerCast everywhere.
Fliptrack – Make a free musical photo slideshow and music video. It’s easy to do and you do it online.

ONLINE VIDEO CONVERTERS

Zamzar – converts all sorts of file formats, including several video formats.
Media Convert – a media converter with a huge amount of options; resulting videos can sometimes be out of sync with audio.
Vixy – a simple converter that can only convert Flash apps from the web to several other video formats.
Hey Watch! – an online video converter focusing on file formats that works on portable multimedia devices, like the iPod.
MediaConverter – a video converter that can be slow and needs polishing, but can sometimes yield really good results.
Movavi – another video converter that allows you to upload videos and convert them to formats you wish to use.

VIDEO SHARING

YouTube () – YouTube is the king of the video sharing sites, it has more users and videos than the others. Any video you can think of it probably already on YouTube.
Google Video () – Since Google bought YouTube, Google’s Video player is mainly used for for-pay content like TV shows. Also there is a search here that indexes all of the video sharing sites on the internet (well, most of them).
Blip.tv – Blip ().tv is the perfect video sharing site for video podcast makers. It’s designed to let them easily upload all types and qualities of media and then send them to their feed for the users. They also let you add ads to you video so you can make some money.
Ourmedia – A great site where you can upload audio, video, images, and text and share them with the world. The OurMedia community contains over 100,000 members.
Veoh – Watch long form, television quality content and publish your own videos.
DailyMotion – Video sharing platform with multiple video search options. You can join groups of people who publish videos based on a common interest.
Metacafe – A site that helps you discover the best videos through a community that filters, reviews and rates new videos every day.
UnCut – Video uploading and sharing community by AOL. Embed all the videos you want in your blog.
ClipShack – video sharing community that allows you to upload video clips, make friends, keep a collection of your favorite videos and comment on clips.
5min – Video sharing site with a particular vision: collecting videos that can visually explain anything in 5 minutes.
Brightcove – Search, click and watch. Music videos, news, travel, recipes, adventure. Thousands of channels, including the best in online video.
Viddler – Viddler lets add tags and comments to video that will show up at specific times. It also has unique features like flickr and twitter integration.
Revver – The first video sharing site that provides users with the possibility to earn money from the videos they upload.
Vimeo () – Vimeo is a video sharing site that has an emphasis on it’s users. The video’s you find there are more likely to be home movies or shorts by aspiring film makers, and also a lot of lip dubs.
Yahoo Video – Yahoo’s version of online video.  Similar to Google video, but done the Yahoo way.
HelpfulVideo – Share your knowledge and skills with others for free or little charge via video clips.
BroadbandSports – A video sharing site specifically for sharing sports related videos.
Travelistic – A video sharing site that allows users to post video content specific to travel.
Livevideo – Video sharing site that lets you create personal channels. Upload your own videos and share them with the world.
Kewego – A video sharing network where you can upload your own videos and view videos by others.
Godtube – It’s a Christian version of YouTube.  All things Christian welcomed.
Coull.tv – An interactive twist to video, this site allows you to view video and add interactive elements to it by using your mouse.
Mediabum – Video sharing site focusing on funny videos.
VMIX – Another video sharing website; All content is screened, so be sure everything you upload is legit.
Grouper – Video sharing site with a big selection of content; enables you to create playlists and easily upload videos to MySpace.
Break – Break is a video site and more for comedic based content.
Videosift – a Digg ()-like site which lets you submit, vote, and comment on videos.
GeeVee – GeeVee is a video sharing site specifically for sharing videos of game play in video games.
Stage6 – A video site that uses the Divx player so you can upload High Definition video, of course this also means longer upload times, and you need DivX support (usually a browser plugin).
Tube Battle – vote for the best videos, organized by category.

VIDEO HOSTING

TinyPic – Host videos and images for free; it is possible to upload videos in the most popular formats and link videos on MySpace, eBay, blogs and message boards
Vidilife – Upload videos and store them online. There is no limit in terms of length of the files you can upload.
Dropshots – Good site that lets you upload videos, share them and embed them on other sites.
ZippyVideos – Upload and store video files (maximum 20 MB) in the most popular video formats.
Supload – Free service to host video clips and images. Maximum video file size allowed is 20 MB.
Rupid – Another provider of free video hosting: you can host your videos and share them with others.
Pixilive – Free images and video hosting for MySpace, eBay, Facebook and other sites. Maximum size for videos is 10 MB.
Mydeo – store and stream your videos online. You will be able to embed a video on any website and send streaming video messages .
YourFileHost – Upload files anonymously and share them with others. You can upload any file format up to 25 MB.

VIDEO ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT

Aggrega – create and organize your own music video channels and share them with others.
Feedbeat – a fantastic service that lets you create playlists with videos from different sources – YouTube, Google Video and others. Each playlist gets its own subdomain on feedbeat.net.
Ajaxilicious – an online movie catalogue which enables you to manage your movies and share them with others via RSS.
Cliproller - create custom video channels and add as many as you like to your personal Cliproller page.
CozmoTV – CozmoTV is a site that allows you to create and organize channels of video already existing online.

VIDCASTS AND VLOGGING

BlogCheese – a simple way to create and share a video blog – all you need is a webcam.
Revision3 – A video podcasting network that’s home to many well made video podcasts, including Diggnation, which is Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht’s video podcast about the top stories on Digg.
Jabbits – Social video blogging: Use your webcam to record your Post or Jab with an easy-to-use recorder.
Ask a Ninja – got questions? Ask a ninja! One of the most popular vidcasts in the world, and definitely the funniest.
Galacticast – a weekly Sci-fi comedy podcast, episodes usually consists of lots of really geeky parodies.
Scriggity – A news podcast, where the viewers send in the news that they think should be on the shows.
SuperDeluxe – A site to find videos that focus mainly on comedic content.
DL.TV – Some of the the old TechTV crew back at it again with their own own show on all things tech.  One of the best video podcasts for tech geeks.
Webnation – Amber Mac’s bi-weekly video podcast with news and interviews relating to current events in the tech world.
Tom Green’s the Channel – A daily video podcast that is recorded live and is hosted by Tom Green. He usually has a celebrity guest on the show.
GeekBrief TV – a daily podcast hosted by Cali Lewis, it’s a 3-5 minute update on the latest tech news.
This Week in Tech – famous tech vidcast by Leo Laporte, one of the most viewed vidcasts in the world.
The Broken – tech show for teh 1337 h4×0rz.
Digg Podcasts – a long list of popular podcasts, containing most of the vidcasts on this list and many more.

VIDEO MASHUPS

Virtual Video Map – YouTube videos on a Google map. Find out where do all those cool videos come from.
RealPeopleStuff – a site that combines CraigsList () and YouTube, offering video clips related to ads.
TagTV – enter a tag and get results from Flickr and YouTube. Clean and simple design makes TagTV a very neat way to browse photos and videos.
I Love Music Video – combines YouTube with info from your Last.FM account. Great way to get videos (at least until Last.FM signs an evil deal with all those content providers and starts offering music videos).
MusicPortl – information on bands and musicians containing biographies, Flickr images, related blog posts and YouTube videos.
Magg – aggregates videos from several video sites. Also works as a search engine.
RateMyDanceMoves – Hot or Not-style site, presenting you dance-related YouTube videos to vote on.
ReviewTube – a site that enables you to add captions to YouTube videos. Nice idea, but relatively poor execution – the captions frequently overlap, making the text unreadable.

MOBILE VIDEO APPS

Youtube mobile – a stripped down version of YouTube tailored for use on mobile phones.
Shozu – a free service for your phone that makes it easy to send and receive photos, videos and music
Abazab – a universal video player that also works on your mobile phone.
Srobbin Mobile Video – An unofficial search for Google video on your cell phone.
Yahoo Mobile – Yahoo mobile allows you to search, find, and play videos right on your cell phone.
MobiTV – MobiTV allows you to watch television video from popular networks of all kinds.
MTV Mobile Video – Anything MTV related all for download to watch on your cell phone.
ESPN MVP – If you are a Verizon Wireless customer and have the V Cast service enabled, you can watch sports clips and more.
Moblr – Moblr allows you to view videos uploaded to the site directly on your cell phone.
Mobunga – This site allows you to download videos to your mobile phone, as well as iPod and PSP.

VIDEO SEARCH

Blinkx – Perform searches within the most popular video networks, such as CBS, Reuters and CNN. Users can search for content and create TV channels that splice relevant content together.
PureVideo – Search within the most popular video directories and video sharing sites. PureVideo features up to six channels and each channel contains about six source sites.
SearchVideo – Search engine and directory created by AOL. Users can also search within specific video channels like MySpace and YouTube.
Search For Video – search engine and video directory that displays results from hundreds of video channels. Search For Video also provides an add-on for Firefox ().
Yahoo! Video Search – Yahoo! has a video search engine that gathers videos from Yahoo! directory and from many other online sources. You can also search within specific domains or sites.
TubeSurf – Video search engine that gathers results from popular video directories, such as YouTube, Yahoo! Video, MySpace and Google Video. TubeSurf is also available as an add-on for Firefox.
ClipRoller – Search across popular video sites, such as: YouTube, Metacafe and more. As you continue to search for videos, ClipRoller learns your preferences and delivers content you like to watch.
Pixsy – A video search engine that lets users search content across dozens of video sites. Users are allowed to save searches and single videos.
ScoopVid – Search engine that enables you to either search for videos or browse through channels and categories.
Google Video Search – Google’s Video search recently was updated and now searches many video sites other than just YouTube and Google Video.
AOL Video – once known as the great media search engine, the AOL-purchased SingingFish, AOL Video kept some traits of the crowd’s favorite place to look for hard to find videos, but true fans claim that the site is not as good as its predecessor.
Truveo – Search videos or browse by either channel or category.
Altavista Video – good old Altavista isn’t what it used to be, but it does have a video search section.

ONLINE VIDEO DOWNLOADS

VideoRonk – Search and download your favorite videos from YouTube, Google Video, Metacafe, DailyMotion, iFilm, MySpace, Vimeo, Blip.tv, Revver and more.
VideoDL – Download online videos available on YouTube, Google Video and Break.com stright to your computer.
Vixy – Grab videos from popular sites and convert them into various video formats (including iPod and PSP).
KeepVid – Download videos from many video sharing sites, including YouTube, Google Video, MySpace Videos, DailyMotion, Blip.tv, Revver and other services.
VideoDownloader – Get videos from video sharing sites. VideoDownloader is also available as a Firefox extension, allowing you to seamlessly integrate it within your browser.
YouTubeX – Download videos from YouTube. It doesn’t have a lot of options in terms of video sites among which you could choose, but it is very easy to use.
DownThisVideo – This site lets you download videos from YouTube, GoogleVideo, MetaCafe, Vimeo and other services.
KissYouTube – A service that provides two interesting and effective ways to download videos from YouTube.
YouTubeDownloads – Another site that lets you download videos exclusively from YouTube (other sites are not supported).
Kcoolonline – Download videos on your hard disk from more than 90 sites, including YouTube, Google Video, Metacafe, iFilm and MySpace, Yahoo and many more.
YouTubia – A YouTube clone that lets you download and save YouTube videos within your IE or Firefox browser.
MediaConverter – A platform that lets you download and convert videos straight from YouTube.

MISCELLANEOUS VIDEO TOOLS

Hellodeo – Record videos from your webcam and post them on any web page.
Flikzor – Send and receive video comments on your profile, blog and more.
Flixn – Record a video message right in the web browser and share anywhere including MySpace and eBay.
GabMail – Service that enable users to send unlimited numbers of free video email messages.
Bubble Guru – A site for recording webcam video messages and getting them onto your website or sending to others.
CamTwist – Software package (for Mac computers) that lets you add special effects to your video chats.
WebcamMax – Software that lets you add videos, screen, pictures, flash and effects to virtual or real webcam and broadcast on all messengers (Windows ()
only).
StumbleUpon Video – Just press “Stumble!” and a random video is presented to you, you can also ask for random videos with in categories like Humor, or Cats.
CrowdRules – video answers to your questions.
ClipSync – interact with other users while watching the same video as them.
ClipSyndicate – publish broadcast quality news on your web site.
Broadbandsports – a big collection of sports-related videos.

ONLINE TV

For this section please visit our roundup of free online television services.

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Podcasting – distributing shows over the web for downloading to computers and mobile devices – has been a big trend over the past few years. While over-hyped in the early days, podcasting is proving itself to be a great communication medium. Many podcasters now make a full or part-time income from their shows: here’s a plethora of tools to help out all those self-made podcast stars.

PODCAST CREATION GUIDELINES

How To Create a Podcast – About.com’s step-by-step tutorial for podcast beginners.
iLounge Guide to Podcast Creation – another guide for creating your own podcast for absolute beginners.
Podcasting Legal Guide – find about legal issues relevant to podcasting in this Creative Commons guide.

PODCAST HOSTING, SHARING AND NETWORKING (FREE)

Pickstation – A Digg for podcasts and music.
Collectik – “Mixtapes for podcasts”: find, share and organize podcasts.
Podbean – Free podcast hosting and publishing.
Castpost – Free hosting for audio and video clips.
HeyCast – A tool to create video podcasts. Essentially, HeyCast creates RSS feeds from any existing video files on the web. It doesn’t provide hosting or sharing features.
Blubrry – A podcast network that lets you create a podcast and browse the podcasts of others.
Evoca – “YouTube for voice recordings”: create audio recordings from your computer mic, your phone or Skype, share them with others and embed them on websites.
ThePodcastNetwork – A network of podcasts on a range of topics including business, entertainment and comedy.
MyPodcast – podcast hosting solution offering unlimited storage, bandwidth, and free templates for your podcasts.
PodServe – this service is still in alpha stage, but everyone’s invited to try it out. It offers a hosting space for your podcast and a directory of user-created podcasts.
PodcastPeople – a service that enables you to post text, audio and video materials to your own customized show, and even earn some income from it through sponsors.
PCastBaby – free podcast hosting service offering 10MB of storage space and unlimited bandwidth.
Podomatic – create, find and share podcasts with this free service.
Blubrry – create your podcast on Blubrry; browse through other podcasts and create your personal playlist.

PODCAST ADVERTISING

Podango – get free unlimited hosting for your podcast and share ad revenue with Podango 50/50.
Podbridge – Provides podcast metrics and advertising.
Podtrac – a service that connects podcasters with advertisers.

AUDIO TOURS

TourCaster – Find audio tours of your favorite cities and download them to your iPod.
iAudioGuide – Find audio guides for major world cities and download them to portable devices.

VIDEO PODCASTING

Veodia – Create live TV shows and convert them to video podcasts.
Blip.tv – A “video podcasting” service. Broadly similar to YouTube, but the focus is on independent creators, who get a share of revenue.

MOBILE PODCASTING

Podlinez – a simple service to listen to podcasts on your phone.
Gabcast – Record podcasts straight from your phone.
Yodio – Record audio from your phone, add photos and captions.

TEXT TO PODCASTS

BlueGrind – Converts text (especially blogs) into podcasts.
Feed2Podcast – Convert any RSS feed into a podcast.
Talkr – Convert blogs to audio podcasts.
Odiogo – convert RSS feeds, text articles and blog posts to podcasts.

PODCASTS TO TEXT

CastingWords – a podcast transcription service that converts podcasts to text for $0.75 minute. It employs human transcribers.

PODCAST DIRECTORIES

Grepr Podcasts – A directory that makes recommendations by finding patterns in your interests and comparing the interests of others.
Yahoo Podcasts – Explore podcasts, listen to them, subscribe to them and even create your own.
MobilCast – directory of podcasts and radio shows, complete with playlists.
PodcastAlley – a podcast directory with over 30,000 podcasts. Maintains a monthly top list.
DigitalPodcast – a simple, categorized podcast directory
Podcast.net – a very comprehensive podcast directory; contains tens of thousands of podcasts.
PodcastDirectory.com – a directory of podcasts with a top list, a list of featured podcasts, and categorization.
PodcastDirectory.org- a simple directory with a very clean layout.
Podfeed.net – on Podfeed you can host and share your podcast, find podcasts, as well as read and write podcast reviews.
iAmplify – A premium directory where you pay to download self-help podcasts.
Earkive – Directory that lets you listen to podcasts on your phone (mobile or landline)

LIVE PODCASTING

Talkshoe – Create your own live talkshow or interactive podcast.
Waxxi – Audio shows streamed live, mainly with notable technologists. Once recorded, the live shows are available as podcasts.
NowLive – A social network that lets anyone create a live, interactive talk show. Stickam for audio, in some ways.

PODCAST HOSTING (PREMIUM)

PodcastSpot – Offers both free and premium podcast hosting.
SwitchPod – a podcast hosting service, with unmetered bandwidth, statistics and even some promotional opportunities.
Hipcast – create audio, video materials and podcasts and post them to your blog.
Libsyn – Liberated Syndication will host your podcasts for a modest monthly fee.

PODCAST SEARCH

Everyzing – Audio and video search engine.
Podscope – an audio and video search engine that searches the words spoken in podcasts.
Pluggd – Discover and share podcasts, and search for specific parts of podcasts using advanced search technology called HearHere.
PodNova – Podcast search and community.

PODCAST FORUMS

Podcast Alley Forum – a well visited forum on everything related to podcasting.
DigitalPodcast Forum – a good forum for promoting your podcast.
World Podcast Forum – a fresh forum about podcasting.

PODCAST CREATION SOFTWARE (OFFLINE)

Propaganda – Create professional podcasts including background music, jingles, crossfading and more. Windows only. Free trial, $49.95 to buy.
Audacity – Free, open source software for recording and editing audio. Versions () for Mac OS X, Windows, GNU ()/Linux () and other operating systems.
Adobe Soundbooth – Advanced audio editing from Adobe. Windows and Mac. Free trial, $199 to buy.
Wildvoice Podcast Studio – Record audio, add music and sound effects and upload to Wildvoice.com or other sites. Windows only.
SnapKast – Podcast creation for Windows. $79.99.

PODCAST CREATION SOFTWARE (ONLINE)

Odeo – Perhaps the most popular podcasting platform. It allows you to record audio within your browser, embed it anywhere and create your own audio channels.
Hipcast – Record high-quality audio right through the web browser or your phone. No additional software needed.
Gcast – Record, mix and broadcast your podcasts. You can record messages by phone and upload MP3 files from your computer.
Podomatic – This site lets you record video and audio online directly from your browser. You can also receive in line calls from listeners wanting to leave voice comments.
ClickCaster – create, broadcast and sell your very own radio shows and podcasts. You can record audio right from your browser or upload an existing MP3.
Wild Voice Shout Recorder – Online service that lets you record audio files through an intuitive interface but doesn’t let you edit them or add special effects.

MISCELLANEOUS PODCASTING TOOLS

Enablr – make your podcasts indexed and searchable.
PodShow – a network that brings audio, video, podcasts, and music to your computer, iPod, mobile device, or television.
Divicast – enhance your podcast with images and text and share it with everyone.
Divvycast – where podcasting and music meet. Helps bands to create podcasts.
Podbop – Find bands in your city and download free MP3s to your iPod to preview their music ahead of the show.
Noisely – Enter a subject you’re interested in, and Noisely serves up a selection of podcasts you’ll like. Press play, and all the ‘casts stream continuously until you stop them.

——————-

Musicians need to reach fans; fans want to find musicians. The web is the perfect way to connect them. There are now literally hundreds of music social networks where you can sample a wide variety of music, plus hundreds of online stores and marketplaces that ensure the artist gets a fair cut. Here’s our selection of the most interesting services in the online music space.

INTERNET RADIO

Last.FM () – one of the most popular music communities around, with personalized radio stations, a stunning array of social networking features, RSS support and lots more.
Slacker – personalized Internet radio which offers a desktop version of the application and a hardware portable music player. Available only in the United States.
ShoutCast – A large directory of Internet radio stations, categorized by genre. Streams work in Winamp ().
Live365 – A directory of web-based Internet radio stations – expect popups.
Yahoo! Music – listen to Internet radio and watch music videos on Yahoo’s music portal.
AOL Music – AOL’s take on internet radio. Offers music from XM as well.
Pandora () – a very popular Internet radio/community which brings you new music based on stuff you like. Works only in the US & Canada at the moment.
Yottamusic – a huge music library boasting over 3.4 million songs, accessible from your web browser.

MUSIC DISCOVERY TOOLS

MusicMesh – browse through artists based on their similarities; find tracklists and reviews for albums.
Blogmusik – browse through top lists and listen to popular artists for free.
Musicovery – discover new music with this cool take on Internet radio.

SOCIAL NETWORKS

See also: 12 of the Best Music Social Networks

iLike () – a community that lets you discover new music based on you and your friends’ tastes.
PureVolume – a “MySpace for music”, albeit with a classier design.
ProjectPlaylist – popular site for sharing playlists and posting them to other social networks.
Imeem () – another playlist-sharing community for artists and fans that also supports embedding of tracks on other social sites and blogs.
MP3.com – the famous music site is now a social network similar to MySpace Music.
iJigg – a place for indie bands and artists to post their music, which the users can download for free.
MOG – a place to share your music and video library and exchange thoughts on music with others.
Fuzz – discover new music; artists can sell their music, but there are also free songs to be found on the site.
eListeningPost – convert your tracks into preview files, then sell them and keep 94% of the profits.
ProjectOpus – Music community for indie bands, complete with widgets to post on MySpace and blogs.
Rapspace.tv – social networking for rap and hiphop.
Musocity – a music community with profiles for fans, artists, retailers and music venues.
Haystack – social networking, playlist sharing and band profiles.
Bandbuzz – find and rate music playlists in a Digg-like interface.
Midomi – find songs by humming or singing the tune. Then explore profile pages and network with others.
Buzznet – large pop culture community with news, videos, photos and member profiles.
JukeboxAlive – Upload music and share tracks with friends. Bands can sell their CDs, write a blog and post events to a calendar.
MusicHawk – track bands and see band-related news and reviews, as well as information on gigs and new releases.
ReverbNation – social network connecting bands, fans and venues.
MusicNation – find new music, watch music videos; if you’re an indie/unsigned artist, join for a chance to get exposure or even a record contract.
Grooveshark () – an online service that rewards you for sharing, reviewing, and discovering new music (currently in private testing – enter you email address on the homepage to be notified of the launch).
Dopetracks – upload and share your tracks and beats, and record music online.
Funk Player – a music sharing community where authors can upload songs, while everyone can bookmark, select, listen and comment on them.
FIQL – social playlist sharing.
Soundflavor – create playlists and share them with other users; meet people with similar taste and discover new music.
FineTune () – pick an artist and receive a custom playlist featuring music by that artists and other related artists.
MusicMobs – browse through playlists and create your own in a simple interface.

MUSIC SHARING APPLICATIONS AND WIDGETS

uPlayMe – a downloadable application that lets you meet people with similar music tastes.
DotTunes – share your iTunes collection with friends through your web browser.
Audiozue – A Mac OSX application that posts your recently-played iTunes tracks to your MySpace page or blog.
Sonific – a music network where you can store the music you hold the rights to, and syndicate it to other sites with SongSpot widgets.
Mediamaster – upload your entire music collection and access it from anywhere in the world. You can also publish this music via widgets to any website.
BooMP3 – upload and share your MP3s; unlimited hosting.
Goombah – an application that scans your iTunes library and connects you with like minded users.
Maestro – upload your entire music library and access it from anywhere.

MUSIC MARKETPLACES

iTunes () – Apple’s overwhelmingly popular music download store is a service that requires little in the way of introduction.
Amie Street – music market where music starts with free price, and the price increases as a track becomes more popular (the price never goes above 1 dollar).
Emusic – one of the most successful “indie” music stores, with over 100 million DRM-free tracks sold.
Bleep – high-quality MP3s with prices that are a bit high, but offering a great assortment of quality music.
MP3 Tunes – an online music store offering 30,000 albums and some 360,000 songs in its catalog.
Amazon () – a soon-to-come music store which should have a huge assortment of music from big and indie labels alike.
PayPlay.FM – choose between over 1.4 million indie music tracks, and buy them in either MP3 or WMA format.
Beatport – a Flash-based music store with an embeddable player.
Audio Lunchbox – choose between 2 million DRM-free songs in MP3 or OGG format.
Indiepad – buy music from indie artists; if you’re an artist, sell music to people directly on the site.
Indistr – another audio marketplace that connects indie artists with the listeners.
Mtraks – an indie music marketplace with a very interesting and quite strong music collection in store.
MagnaTune – here you’ll find an assortment of music from various genres, ranging from electronica, rock and chillout to metal & punk.
Jamendo – an online music repository offering thousands of albums for free while still protecting the artists’ intellectual rights.
Musicane – buy and sell audio, video and ringtones.
Musiclovr – music search, recommendations and a store. Purchases are made via Amazon and iTunes.
MySpace Music / Snocap – through Snocap’s embedded music stores, bands on MySpace sell tunes to the social network’s huge audience. Bands can also sign up for Snocap independently and sell music elsewhere.

JAMMING

Ejamming – jam with other musicians and record music online.
Kompoz – compose music with other musicians. Record a track, then invite other musicians to add their own instruments.
Jamnow – a musical collaboration site where you can jam with other musicians. Jam sessions can be broadcast live.
Indaba – listen to completed music or works in progress and give your feedback; join in the music-making sessions or start your own.
JamJunky – have a song that’s not quite finished yet? Or, better yet, have a dozen? Organize them with JamJunky.

KARAOKE

Singshot – the “YouTube of Karaoke”: record yourself singing along to popular music and listen to others doing the same.
kSolo – sing along to backing tracks, and rate the recordings of others.

REMIXING

Jamglue – remix your music online and listen to other users’ mixes.
Splice – upload samples, remix them and post them for others to hear.
YourSpins – mix your own version of your favorite track, share it and post it to your blog or MySpace page.

MOBILE MUSIC SERVICES

Flotones – a mobile social network which allows indie bands and artists to sell their content for use on mobiles.
Entertonement – a large directory of ringtones, with top lists and categorization for easier browsing.
Mercora – a social radio network that enables you to search and listen to over 3.5 million songs; offers an application for listening to music on your smartphone.

MUSIC CHARTS

Billboard – home of the Billboard charts, with music videos and reviews.
MTV’s music charts – MTV charts and videos. Videos playable only in the US.
ChartU – a “Digg for music”: vote on tracks to boost them up the chart.

ARTIST DATABASES

Allmusic – probably the most comprehensive music database on the Internet. If your favorite artists aren’t there, well, then you’re listening to some pretty unknown artists.
Pandora Backstage – artist profiles and discographies from the personalized streaming service. You can create a custom radio station straight from an artist’s page.

LYRIC DATABASES

AbsoluteLyrics – Lyrics for all major artists.
Hot Lyrics – huge alphabetized lyrics database. Hard to navigate, but lots of content.

MUSIC SEARCH ENGINES

Qloud () – Music search meets social networking. Currently back in private testing once, but Mashable has a review here. The service that launches next may be substantially different, however.
FindSounds – a search engine for sound effects and music instrument samples.
Musipedia – find and listen to songs based on keywords you provide.

AUDIO CONVERSION TOOLS

Zamzar – converts all sorts of file formats, including several audio formats.
Media Convert – a media converter with a huge amount of options.
MediaConverter – a media converter that can be slow and needs polishing, but can sometimes yield really good results.

MISCELLANEOUS MUSIC AND AUDIO TOOLS

Bluegrind – converts text to audio.
BePopular – find gigs in UK and Ireland and get your tickets.
Getabuz – create voicemail and audio e-cards online.
iden.tify.us – can’t figure out where a certain melody comes from? Identify it with the help of this service.
Houndbite – share funny audio clips from your life with other users, with the possibility to earn prizes.

BuddyPress

70 ways To Improve Your English

1. Start your own English language blog. Even for people who don’t have to write in English, writing can be a great way of properly learning the kind of vocabulary you need to describe your own life and interests, and of thinking about how to stop making grammar mistakes. The problem most people have is that they don’t know what to write about. One traditional way to make sure you write every day in English is to write an English diary (journal), and a more up to date way of doing this is to write a blog. Popular topics include your language learning experience, your experience studying abroad, your local area, your language, or translations of your local news into English.
2. Write a news diary. Another daily writing task that can work for people who would be bored by writing about their own routines in a diary is to write about the news that you read and listen to everyday. If you include your predictions for how you think the story will develop (e.g. “I think Hillary will become president”), this can give you a good reason to read old entries another time, at which time you can also correct and mistakes you have made and generally improve what you have written.
3. Sign up for a regular English tip. Some websites offer a weekly or even daily short English lesson sent to your email account. If your mobile phone has an e-mail address, it is also possible to have the tips sent to your phone to read on the way to work or school. Please note, however, that such services are not usually graded very well to the levels of different students, and they should be used as a little added extra or revision in your English studies rather than as a replacement for something you or your teacher have chosen more carefully as what you need to learn.
4. Listen to MP3s. Although buying music on the internet is becoming more popular in many countries, not so many people know that you can download speech radio such as audio books (an actor reading out a novel) and speech radio. Not only is this better practice for your English than listening to English music, from sources like Scientific American, BBC and Australia’s ABC Radio it is also free.
5. Listen to English music. Even listening to music while doing something else can help a little for things like getting used to the natural rhythm and tone of English speech, although the more time and attention you give to a song the more you will learn from listening to it again in the future.
6. Read the lyrics to a song. Although just listening to a song in English can be a good way of really learning the words of the chorus in an easily memorable way, if you want to really get something out of listening to English music you will need to take some time to read the lyrics of the song with a dictionary. If the lyrics are not given in the CD booklet, you may be able to find them on the internet, but please note that some lyrics sites deliberately put a few errors into their lyrics for copyright reasons. Once you have read and understood the lyrics,  if you then listen and read at the same time, this can be a good way of understanding how sounds change in fast, natural, informal speech.
7. Sing karaoke in English. The next stage after understanding and memorising a song is obviously to sing it. Although some words have their pronunciation changed completely to fit in with a song, most of the words have the same sounds and stressed syllables as in normal speech. Remembering which words rhyme at the end of each line can also be a good way of starting to learn English pronunciation.
8. Write a film, music, hotel or book review. Another motivating and easy way to make yourself write in English is to write a review for a site such as Amazon or Internet Movie Database. Many non-native speakers write reviews on sites like this, and if you have some special understanding of the book, music or film due to your first language or knowing the artist personally, that would be very interesting for the English speakers who read and write reviews on the site.
9. Only search in English. Switching your search engine to the English language version of msn, yahoo, Google etc. can not only be a good way of practising fast reading for specific information in English, but could also give you a wider choice of sites to choose from and give you an idea of what foreigners are writing about your country and area.
10. Read a book you’ve already read or seen the movie of in your own language. Although most language learners under Advanced level would probably learn more from reading a graded reader or something from the internet than they would from reading an original book written for English speakers, for some people reading something like Harry Potter in the original can be a great motivator to improve their English. To make this easier for you and make sure that it motivates you rather than just making your tired, try reading a book that you already know the story of. This not only makes it easier to understand and guess vocabulary, but you are also more likely to remember the language in it. If you have not read the book before, reading a plot summary from the internet can also help in the same way.
11. Read a translation into English. Another way of making sure books are easier to understand is to choose a book that was originally translated into English, preferably from your own language. Even if you haven’t read the book in your own language, you will find the English is written in a slightly simplified way that is more similar to how your own language is written than a book originally written in English would be.
12. Skip the first ten pages. If you have given up with a book in English or are reading it very slowly, try skimming through the first ten pages or skipping them completely. The start of most books tend to be mainly description and are therefore full of difficult vocabulary and don’t have a clear story line yet to help you understand what is happening and to motivate you to turn the next page. If the book is still too difficult even after the introductionary part is finished, it is probably time to give that book up for now and try it again after you have read some easier things.
13. Read a book with lots of dialogue. Opening up books before you buy one and flicking through them to find one with lots of direct dialogue in it has several advantages. If there is less text on the page due to all the speech marks etc, this can make it easier to read and easier to write translations on. Dialogue is also much easier to understand than descriptive parts of a book, and is much more like the language you will want to learn in order to be able to speak English.
14. Read English language comics. Even more than books with lots of dialogue, comics can be easy to understand and full of idiomatic language as it is actually spoken. There can be difficulties with slang, difficult to understand jokes and/ or dialogue written how people speak rather than with normal spellings, so try to choose which comic carefully. Usually, serious or adventure comics are easier to understand than funny ones.
15. Read English language entertainment guides. Nowadays most big cities in the world have an English language magazine and/ or online guide to the movies, plays, exhibitions that are on in the city that week. Reading this in English is not only good value, but it could also guide you to places that English speakers are interested in and where you might hear some English spoken around you.
16. Read English language magazines. Like books, if you can read two versions of the same magazine (Newsweek in your language and in English, for example), that could make understanding it much easier.
17. Take a one week intensive course. Although you cannot expect to come out of a very short course speaking much better English than when you started it, if you continue studying a little over the following weeks and months, the knowledge you gained then will gradually come out and mean that your level of speaking, listening etc. are better than they would have been if you hadn’t taken that course. This positive effect can still be true up to a year later.
18. Follow your intensive course up with an extensive course. The more time you can spend studying English the better, but studying periodic intensive courses with a few hours of study a week in between is probably better value for money than any other system as it gives your brain time to subconsciously learn and start using the new language you have learnt before you introduce the next new “chunk” of language.
19. Supplement your group class with a one to one class. Another good way to combine two different kinds of classes is to study both in a group class and one to one. Having a one to one teacher, even if just a couple of times a month, will mean that you can be taught exactly the language that you need, that you will have more time to speak, and that you can have as much error correction as you like.
20. Supplement your one to one class with a group class. The benefits of having a group class are often less clear to students, but they include the fact that you will learn to deal with several people speaking at once, have a chance to practice skills such as interrupting people, and will hear a range of different viewpoints and topics.
21. Teach your children or friends some English. Recent research has shown that elder children tend to be a couple of IQ points above their younger siblings, and the most likely reason is that explaining things to their little brothers and sisters gives them an intellectual boost. In the same way, teaching someone lower level than you the English you already know is a great way of permanently fixing that knowledge in your own brain.
22. Ask your company to start English lessons. Even if you don’t need to speak English at work, English lessons can be a fun and reasonably priced way for your company to spend their training budget in a popular way.
23. Have English radio on in the background while you are doing your housework. Even if you are not listening carefully, it will help you get a feel for natural English rhythm and intonation.
24. Play English language learning games on your Nintendo DS. Although such games can have quite random language and are unlikely to improve your ability to speak English on their own, the next time you hear or read the same language elsewhere it will be really fixed in your brain by the fact you have played a game with it in already. It is also a nice way of taking a break from your other English studies while also doing some English. To make sure it really is a break and to avoid wasting time learning language from the game that is not much used in daily life, don’t bother writing down any new language you see in the game, but just try to learn it from playing the game again.
25. Say or think what you are doing in English as you do your daily tasks. As you are doing your chores, try creating sentences describing what you are doing, e.g. ‘I am unscrewing the ketchup bottle cap’. This gets you used to thinking in English without translating, and can be a good way of seeing what simple vocabulary that is around you everyday you don’t know. yet
26. Watch English language films with English subtitles. For people who can’t understand a film without subtitles but find themselves not listening at all when reading subtitles in their own language, this should be the way of watching a film that you should aim for. If it is too difficult to watch the whole film this way, try watching the (usually important) first 10 or 15 minutes of the film with subtitles in your own language, switch to English subtitles after that, and only switch back to subtitles in your own language if you get totally lost following the story of the film.
27. Watch films in your language with English subtitles. If you are finding English films with English subtitles too difficult or you can’t find English films with English subtitles in your local video shop, this is a good second best option. Looking for local films with English subtitles can also sometimes be a good sign of quality, as it means the producers of the film are expecting it to be popular internationally as well.
28. Watch English films with subtitles in your language. Again, this is not as good practice as English language films with English subtitles, but is more relaxing, can be easier to find suitable DVDs for, and is also possible with VHS.
29. Watch the same film or TV episode over and over again. This can not only save you money on DVDs, but will mean that you can really learn the language without having to study it. Some comedies can also get funnier the more you watch them, especially if you watch them with no subtitles and so understand a little more each time you watch it.
30. Be realistic about your level. One thing that holds many language learners back is actually trying too hard and tackling something that their brain is not ready for yet. Checking your level with a level check test on the internet, by taking an English language test (FCE, CAE, IELTS, TOEIC, TOEFL etc.), or by taking a free trial level check and/ or lesson in a language school will help you find out what your level is and so choose suitable self-study materials.
31. Be realistic about your reading level. Most researchers agree that people learn most when reading something they understand almost all of. If there are one or two words per page that you have never seen before, that is about the right level. If there are three or more on every page, you should switch to something easier and come back later.
32. Read graded readers (= easy readers). These are books that are especially written for language learners like you, e.g. Penguin Readers. Although it can be difficult to find something as interesting as things written in newspapers or on the internet, in terms of learning the language only people who need to read for their work or an exam usually gain more from reading things written for graded readers. Graded readers of classic books like Charles Dickens also have the benefit of giving you a lot of knowledge about the literature, and culture more generally, of English speaking countries in a short time.
33. Read the whole thing with no help. Although using a dictionary has been shown to help with both short term and long term learning of vocabulary, the fact that using it slows reading down can stop some people reading in English at all. Reading a whole book quickly through just for pleasure from time to time will help you remember how fun reading in another language can be.
34. Read and learn everything. At the opposite extreme, it can be hard work but very satisfying to get to the end of a book knowing that you have learnt every word in it. See other tips on this page to make sure it is a book that is easy enough to do this with and to ensure that the vocabulary you learn is useful.
35. Watching English children’s films or TV programmes. Although some of the vocabulary you can learn from things made for children can be a bit strange (lots of animal names and maybe animal noises, including baby names for things), the fact that not only the language but the structure of the story is simplified can make it an easy and motivating thing to watch. Like good language learning materials, the same language is also often repeated to make it memorable, and the use of catchy songs etc. can increase this positive effect on your memory.
36. Read English children’s books. This is very similar to watching English children’s movies, but with the added advantage of there being more illustrations than adult books, which both helps you to understand the story and makes the page brighter and more motivating to read.
37. Keep a list of language to learn, e.g. a vocab list. Even if you don’t often find time to go though your vocab list and it keeps on building up, just the act of choosing which words you need to learn and writing them down on a special list can help you learn them.
38. Go through your vocab list several times every day. If ticking off words on a vocabulary list on the train to work is inconvenient or embarrassing for you, you can keep your list of words to learn as an entry in your electronic dictionary, as a mobile phone to do list or as a text file in your MP3 player (e.g. iPod). Although the time spent transferring the information between different formats like these may seem wasted, in fact any time you spend using the vocabulary like this will help you learn it.
39. Convert your vocab list to English only. One way to stop yourself translating and therefore increase your speed of comprehension and production is to learn all your vocabulary without the use of your own first language. Ways you can write a vocab list in only English include with synonyms (words with the same meaning, e.g. “tall” and “high”); with opposites (“high” and “low”); with pronunciation factors such as number of syllables (the number of beats, e.g. three for “de- ci- sion”) and the word stress (the syllable that is pronounced louder and longer, e.g. the second syllable in “baNAna”); and gapped sentences (e.g. “I am not _________________ in science fiction” for the word “interested”).
40. Cross out and delete. Crossing out or deleting words, sentences or whole pages that you have learnt can be a great motivator, and save your list of things to learn becoming too big to handle.
41. Throw everything away and start again. One of the things that can put most people off learning is a stack of half finished books or a huge list vocabulary waiting to be learnt. Simply getting rid of all that and starting again with something new from zero can be a great motivator and get your studies underway again.
42. Label things in your house or office with post-its. The easiest vocabulary to learn is the vocabulary of things you see and use everyday. If you can write the names of things around you on slips of paper and stick them on the real thing, this is a great way of learning useful vocabulary. If you can leave them there over the following days and weeks, this is a very easy way of revising the vocabulary until it is properly learnt.
43. Label a drawing. For people who can’t put labels on real things, the next best option is to take a photo of a real place in your life like your office, print it out, and then draw lines to all of the things you can see in the picture and label them in English with the help of a dictionary. You can do the same thing with places you pass through everyday like the station. Because you will see the same thing again and again, it should be easy to really learn the words for those things.
44. Keep a diary in English. This is a popular method of making sure you use English everyday for people who don’t often speak English and can’t think of things to write about. The fact that you are writing about real things that have happened to you means that any words you look up in the dictionary will be vocabulary that is useful for you and easy to learn.
45. Online chat. The closest thing to speaking for people who don’t have the chance to speak English is online chat, as you have to think and respond quickly, and the language is short and informal just like speech.
46. Listen to the radio news in English. You can make this easier by reading the news in English first, or even just by reading or listening to the news in your own language.
47. Read an English language newspaper. Freebie newspapers like “Metro” in London are usually the easiest to understand, followed by mid-brow titles like “The Daily Express” or “The Daily Mail” in English. Popular newspapers like “The Sun” are more difficult because of the idiomatic, slangy use of language and the number of jokes in the headlines and articles.
48. Write fiction in English, e.g. short stories. For people who find writing a diary about things that happen to them everyday boring, the best thing is to let your imagination go and write about whatever comes into your head. The advantage of this is that if you can’t think of how to say something in English, you can just change the story to something that is easier to explain. Perhaps the easiest way to start writing fiction in English is with a diary, changing any details you like to make it more interesting and adding more and more fantasy as the weeks go on.
49. English language exercise videos. This is quite similar to how babies learn, by listening, watching and copying. It is also good for your health!
50. Learn a famous speech or poem in English by heart. Although you may never hear or get the chance to say exactly that line, having one memorable example of an English grammatical form in your head can make it much easier to learn other examples of the same grammar as you hear them. It is also something you can practice over and over without being as boring as grammatical drills.
51. Get tipsy (= a little drunk) before speaking English. This can not only improve your fluency while you are drinking, but can also improve your confidence in future days and weeks by showing you that you can communicate what you want to say.
52. Use a dictionary while you are watching a movie. Films often have the same words many times, so if you look up important words the first or second time you hear them, you should have learnt them by the end of the film. It is easier to use a dictionary if you watch with English subtitles.
53. Learn and use the phonemic script. Although there are many sounds in English, there are even more spellings. By learning the phonemic script and writing vocabulary down with it, you can both add another stage to your vocabulary learning that should help you learn it more thoroughly, and improve your pronunciation. It can also make things easier for you by stopping you trying to pronounce different spellings of the same pronunciation different ways.
54. Learn some spelling rules. Many people think that English spelling is random, but in fact most words follow some kind of rule, e.g. the “magic E” that changes the pronunciation of “mad” and “made”.
55. Record your own voice. For people who don’t have much or any correction of pronunciation from a teacher, recording yourself and listening back makes it easier to hear whether you are really making the English sounds that you are trying to or not.
56. Use computer pronunciation analysis. Although most programmes that claim to tell you when you are pronouncing correctly or not don’t actually do that, listening many times and seeing how your voice changes as you try to match the sounds and waveform given by a pronunciation CD ROM can be good practice and more motivating than just recording your own voice.
57. Learn as many words as you can of one category, e.g. animal words. Learning similar words together can both expand your overall vocabulary and make them easier to learn by forming links between the words in your brain.
58. Take holidays abroad. This is not only a good opportunity to speak English in situations where you really have to make yourself understood in order to live, but it is also a good motivator to study English seriously in the weeks and months before your trip. If possible, also try to use English even when you could use your own language, e.g. when you pick a guided tour of a museum or historic place or when you book a flight on the internet, and try to avoid package tours.
59. Draw pictures of the words you want to learn. Especially if you are artistic, this can be a better way of learning vocabulary than writing translations or example sentences.
60. Find a foreign boyfriend or girlfriend. No tips on how to do this here, but everyone agrees that getting or even just looking for a date in English can be a great motivator to improve your language skills.
61. Arrange a conversation exchange. Swapping lessons and conversation with someone who wants to learn your language can be a good alternative for those who aren’t looking for romance, or can sometimes lead onto dating for those who are!
62. Sign up for an English language exam. Even if you don’t need to take an exam and don’t want to or can’t take a special course to study for it, paying to take an exam like TOEFL, TOEIC, IELTS or FCE can really motivate you take your English studies seriously.
63. Model your accent on one particular actor. e.g. try to speak like Robert De Niro. Students who say they want to sound more like a native speaker have the problem that native speakers don’t sound all that much like each other. Choosing one model can make the task of improving your pronunciation more clear, and is quite fun. Doing an impression of that person also makes a good party trick.
64. Use an English-English dictionary. Trying to use a bilingual dictionary less and switching to a monolingual one can help you to stop translating in you head when you are speaking or listening, and other useful English vocabulary can come up while you are using the dictionary.
65. Occasionally talk to or e-mail your friends in English. Many people find this a bit false or embarrassing, but if you think of it as a study club and set a particular time and/ or place, it is no different from studying maths together.
66. Go to an English or Irish pub. As well as having a menu in English and being a good way of finding out something about the culture of English speaking countries, you might also find there are free English language listings magazines, English language sports on the TV and/ or foreign people you can speak to.
67. Buy a speaking electronic dictionary. Although most electronic dictionaries are not as good as paper ones for the amount of information they give you about each word, some of them have the very useful function of saying the word with the correct pronunciation.
68. Learn your electronic dictionary vocabulary list. Most electronic dictionaries also have a button which you can push to see the last 30 or more words you looked up. By deleting words you decide are useless or you have already learnt from this list, you can use it as a “to do list” of words to learn that you can look at several times a day in the train etc.
69. Switch operating system to English. Changing the operating language of your mobile phone, video recorder etc. to English can be an easy way of making sure you use the language everyday.
70. Set goals. Deciding how many hours you want to study, how many words you want to learn or what score you want to get in a test are all good ways of making sure you do extra study.

Driving quality targeted traffic to your blog or website is the most important part of any webmaster or bloggers job. With nobody visiting your site, even the greatest looking site with tons of great content isn’t going to make you any money. Making money from your blog/site requires sufficient amount of visitors. Of course no blog or site is born with thousands of visitors. In order to drive traffic to your site, you need to promote it. The more traffic you drive to your blog, the more money you will make.

There are many ways to drive quality traffic to your site, including paid advertising, which is one the most effective methods of getting quality traffic to your site, but not everyone has or wants to spend money on paid advertising, specially beginners like myself. Fortunately there are many free and easy ways to drive quality traffic to your site. Here are

61 easy and free ways you can generate quality targeted traffic for your blog or website.

Submit your site wherever you can!

1. submit your blog to directories in your niche.

2. submit your blog to all the free directory and search engines.

3. submit your site to free website review sites like coolsiteoftheday.

4. submit each and every post to social bookmarking sites using onlywire.

5. submit your articles to article directories like Ezine, article base and associated content.

Use web 2.0 and other resources to promote your site.

6. write related articles on WikiPedia with your blog url in it.

7. make a hubpage for your blog, with a little bit information about your blog.

8. make a wiki page for your blog.

9. make a squidoo lens or more with a link to your site.

10. sign up at 43things.com and write things related to your blog and what you want to accomplish.(you’d be surprise by the number of people, just reading other peoples list)

11. create a myspace page for your blog.

12. create a facebook page for your blog.

13. create a hi5 page for your blog.

14. join blogcatalog and do the same as with mybloglog.

15. use MyBlogLog to create a community around your blog. join other peoples community, so they do the same for you.

16. create an account with Technorati and with every new post, ping it.

17. post related how-to videos on you tube with your blog address on the bottom of the screen or at the end or beginning of the video.

18. use yahoo answers to answer questions related to your niche, leaving your link in the resource box. (believe it or not, 10% of my traffic comes from 20 minutes a week answering questions on yahoo answers)

19. create an account on stumbleupon, and stumble each and every article you write. (one of the best ways to drive traffic to your site for free)

20. join as many forums as possible, especially forums related to your niche

Take advantage of free tools and Plug-ins.

21. place a “digg it” button right after your post, to make it easy for your readers to digg your post.

22. use a comment notifying plug-in to let your readers know about new comments. believe it or not, most people read more of other peoples comment on your post, than your post itself.

23. use social bookmarking plug-ins to make it easy for your readers to submit your post to social bookmarking site

24. install “tell-a-friend” plug-in to make it easy for your readers to let others know about your post.

25. make use of “all in one SEO” plug-in to make your blog search engine friendly.

26. use a forum plug-in to create a forum for your blogs readers to talk and discuss related issues.

27. use a free keyword tool to find and use good ranking keywords in your niche.

28. use sites like vista print to make free business cards ($5 shipping for 250 free BC which is worth it) with your site url on it and pass it around.

29. make a free favicon to be easily found in your readers favorites file. (people like to find what they want fast. I myself sometimes give up finding a particular article or site in my huge favorite file, simply because i don’t want to spend 5 minuets to go through the whole list. A favicon is like big spot light focused on you between hundreds of other people!

30. use free press release services to gain visibility.

31. Use pingomatic to ping RSS aggregators.

32. use free advertising sources like craigslist and backpage to post ads about your articles or blog in related categories.

Other Bloggers Can Help Too!

33. talk about or if you can interview a trusted person in your niche

34. Leave comments on blogs in related niches or any niche for that matter.(don’t spam, leave genuine comment, as you would like others to do so for you)

35. make a banner ad for your blog and exchange with other interested bloggers.

36. use blogroll to link to other bloggers in your niche in exchange for a link to your blog on their blog roll.

37. ask other bloggers to write a review of your blog in exchange for a link to their site from your site.

38. dedicate a post about a top bloggers in your niche. it will catch their attention and they may link to you

39. whenever appropriate, link to other bloggers articles in your post. they will return the favor.

40. use your best articles to post on other peoples blog as a guest writer (it’ll gain you visibility and new audience)

41. another blogger to post on your blog as guest (while he enjoys some new readers, it will brings his readers to your site as well)

Use your site as a tool to attract and keep visitors.

42. provide freebies, like free ebooks, free downloads and etc, to your readers.

43. once in a while run a contest related to your niche and encourage visitors to participate for a prize, and do give a prize to the winner, no matter how small. it will help to establish your persona as a trusted blogger, and once people see you as a trustworthy person, not only they will keep coming back to you, but they will bring other visitors as well.

44. use common questions related to your niche for the title of your article.

45. use keywords in the title of your post. keywords in title is one of the easiest and most important techniques of search engine optimization.

46. use a small place on your blog to have your blogs complete url ready for those who wish to link to your blog.

47. keep your blog clean and easily navigable.(how many times you have left a site, because you weren’t able to find what you came for?)

48. use numbered list for your informative posts, like “5 ways to…”. people tend to like these kinds of post.

49. shocking and surprising articles will draw people to your site.

50. be on the look out for new developments and news related to your niche, the first person breaking a new story, gets the most traffic.

51. videos are increasingly becoming popular, use them on your blog to your advantage.

52. use tags for your post, as its becoming a very popular way of finding related content.

53. Post frequently. search engines and readers like fresh content.

54. if you have any other blog or site, place a link to your site. (you can even create a blog to talk about your journey with your blog/site).

55. read and respond to your readers comment.(if i feel that what i say is important to the writer, i am more likely to came back for more and encourage others to do the same)

Extra!

56. Put your blog URL in your forum signatures.

57. use your blog name for your user name in forums and when leaving comment on other blogs.

58. ask your friends and family to Digg and stumble your posts. a post with more diggs or stumble, means more visibility.

59. put your blogs name and url on a bumper sticker or something like that, and attach it to your car. big corporations pay people to place their ads on their car, you don’t have to pay anyone, use your own car and also give some stickers to your friends and family and ask them to stick it on back bumper.

60. make flyers with your blogs name and a short captivating headline style description and pass it in the mall or parking lots. if you use a good headline, at least 60-70% of the people will visit your blog out of curiosity, and who knows how many will become your die-hard fans!(readers).

61. and last but not least, be patient and give it some time. no one goes from 20/30 visitors a day to hundreds and thousands of visitors, over night.

Some of the above mentioned traffic generating methods can be done in under 5 minutes, and some may take longer. But one thing is certain, if you put enough time and effort into using these methods, you will see great results, and you will succeed in driving massive amounts of quality traffic to your site. Use these free and easy traffic generating methods, combined with fresh quality content, and you are sure to see a huge increase of traffic to your blog or website.

140 Niches To Make Big Money With Google Adsense

acne medication
adult
adult toys
advertising (site web)
amazon
as seen on tv
audio books
auto loan
automotive
baby shower
banks business loan
beauty products
bill consolidation loan
black lights
broadband phone
business finance
business opportunity
car accessory
car insurance
car rental
casino
cat food
catholic / christian / religious products
cell phone
ceramics
chess
chocolate
cigarette
classic car
computer hardware
credit card
cruises
customizable vitamin store
dating
debt consolidation
debt management
dental
discover card
dish network
domain Registration
dropshipping
dvd rental
ebay
ebook
ecommerce
educational software
ezine
fantasy sports
fast cash loan
finance and investment leads
fitness
floirst / flowers
forex
garden plant
gift basket
gifts
golf
gospel msuic
gospel music
health fitness
hemp
home depot
home safety tip
home security
home theater
homeschool
horse
horse racing
hosting reseller
hotel
infidelity test kits
insurance
internet marketing domain free free
jogging
karaoke
lasik
life experience degree
low fat recipes
magazine subscriptions
make money internet
prepaid credit card
maternity
medicine alternative
medical vacation (plastic surgery)
merchant account
MMORPG
modern furniture
mortgage
motorcycle
movie tickets
multi level marketing
muscle and fitness
music
nail care
nba tickets
netflix
new age
office supplies
online bill pay
online casino
online cigarette
online games
online pharmacy
paintball equipment
pay per click
pc 2 phone
penis pills / breast creams
pet friendly
phone card
photo developing
poker
pottery
projector
psychic
real estate
relaxation
ringtones
satellite
shopping cart
skincare
software
speciality music
sportsbook
mobile phone service
textbooks
travel
travel insurance
victoria secrets
voip / vonage
watches
web design
web site promotion
wedding
weight loss
wine
xm radio
yacht charters
yahoo / yahoo auctions
yoga

This is the list of world’s best webmaster forums sorted by Alexa rank and Category. Alexa rank will roughly tell you the popularity of the forum (amount of visitors) but does not necessarily imply the “quality” of the forum. Category is roughly the main topic of the forum.

You can also check my Top List of Best Social Media Sites.

Click on header titles to sort by Website, Alexa or Category.

Last updated in May 2010.

Top 100 Social Media Sites

This is the comprehensive list of best Social Media and Social Bookmarking sites. I have sorted it by Alexa ranking which roughly represents the popularity of a website.

To sort the list by Website, Alexa or Category click on the header titles.

Last updated in May 2010.

1000 Ways to Die – Chick Eats Worms (Die It)

October 27th, 2006 – Filed under Internet Marketing & SEO by Cristian Mezei
Global Marketing (emphasizing technical specifications)
1. Don’t use site-wide links. They are highly deprecated in the latest algorithm changes, and may even lead you to a penalization of your website’s SERPs. As a measure of precaution, I recommend a maximum of one site-wide (no matter the number of pages) for every 40 to 50 unique links from 40 to 50 unique domains.
2. Use the title and meta description tags as wise as possible. They are your best choice of avoiding supplemental pages. Try to make each page with it’s own unique title and description, and never repeat more than 20-25% of the title and description tags content on different pages. Use a limited number of characters (8-10) in the title tag, and put the most important of them, relevant to each page, at the beginning.
3. Read my previous post on 14 search marketing questions, asked by Digitalpoint members.
4. Try to use H tags (1,2,3 etc) at the top-most possible location in the pages of your website, in the source order, and NOT visual order.
5. Don’t be a Copycat. Don’t write news or posts just to have something for the big Google. Nowadays, duplicate-content filters are continuously evolving and even if you gain something on the short term you will loose it later. Try to be innovative.
6. Use a pen and paper. Always have an agenda and a pen around. Note down every crazy idea you think of … Most of us have truly great subjects to write about, but during the day we forget, busy with other issues. I always note my ideas. At the end of a day, I am amazed to see a 20 subjects list to write about, versus 1 or two that I can come up with at writing time.
7. Suggest “related websites” in your website’s Alexa information page. That will bring some traffic.
8. If you want that early search engine boost, don’t just buy a new domain and invest $10K on the website design and development. You are better off buying a 5 year domain and investing $5K on the website. Age matters a lot and it will matter good years from now on.
9. If you own a website that contains 80% Google and you are always on the lookout for new content/news to write about, please and I mean PLEASE read Ionut’s Google System. He’s still a student at a University in Bucharest (I live in Bucharest, so I have to meet him soon) and he can write all those stuff about it. Imagine him 10 years from now. He’s great on finding every bit of information, bug, unreleased service or any other thing about Google.
10. Try to build other websites that revolve around your primary niche. Use them to better market and infuse brand and traffic into your primary website. I’m not talking about building scraper websites. Build quality content ones, and invest money and time and work hours in them. But in the end, just make them a vehicle that you will use to better market your primary website.
11. Use Google’s, Yahoo’s and MSN’s(that’s the Moreover ping server which will ping MSN) sitemap services. Not only that it will provide you with invaluable server and website data, but it will get your pages in their index faster.
12. If your website is in DMOZ, and Google and MSN (Live.com) show the DMOZ title and description, and that doesn’t work for you (most of the time, the DMOZ information for your website sucks) just bypass it and use your own ones. MSN and Google both support this function.
13. Don’t ignore Google’s, Yahoo’s, Live’s and Ask’s image search functions. Most of the times, you can get a higher traffic from the image search engines then from the usual search, especially if you have a content rich website. Just a reminder for you: use the title attribute on links that surround the images, and use the ALT attribute on the image tags themselves. Also, always remember to rename your images with relevant descriptive words (a maximum of 4 words works best).
14. Have a look at the websites I read (Bloglines), and subscribe to their feeds. Read them regularly.
Advertising and Affiliate Marketing
15. If you use the Adsense, YPN! or adCenter contextual ads on your website, try to optimize them. Don’t just insert them in your website and leave them. Work with them, change the position, the ad layout, the colors, the content around them. And remember, that at least for Adsense, the ad that’s placed in the highest position possible in the source’s order, will yield the highest income per click.
16. Use affiliate programs once your website has started to receive some quality traffic. Depending on your niche, affiliate programs are a much better way to convert your traffic, then all the other advertising methods like contextual networks, banners, links etc. Commision Junction is a good way to start your research.
17. Effectively lead your readers to your MDA (Most Desired Action). That may be a newsletter box, a banner, an Adsense etc. Place your MDA right below comments, or in the left/right sidebars, or in the header. Experiment. Analyze. React.
18. Build an affiliate system for the services products you are offering. Let others do the PR and sales job for you.
RSS & Newsletter Marketing
19. Don’t trust yourself only in RSS feeds. A lot of users are “old-school” and prefer e-mail newsletters. Always offer this option.
20. Another good newsletter tactic is to offer a periodical e-mail digest with the top stories in a certain period. A week, a month etc. Maybe some of your visitors missed a few interesting posts/articles.
21. Research Robin Good’s Best Blog Directory And RSS Submission Sites (Part 2 and Part 3 available too) and market your RSS feed in all those websites. Don’t know what an RSS feed is ? (if you don’t, you’re either a moron, or you should fire someone).
22. Not only submit your RSS feed to different RSS aggregators, but learn to market it.
Analytics Marketing Techniques
23. Pay attention to your website’s statistics. Install a good analytics tool like IndexTools or Google Analytics. Not only the absolute numbers and statistics (like total users/total visits) count. Try to go deeper and analyze the navigation patterns, entry/exit rates and pages, the new /returning visitors ratio etc.
24. Continuously monitor your server stats, referrers and logs, and try to respond to links and articles that reference your website. That shows dedication and it’s another way to market your website indirectly.
25. Survey your visitors (you need a free user account to read this article). Learn what your audience and demographics are. Strive to improve your readership towards your website’s business goal. Constantly re-survey.
26. Research your market and always be up to date with your competitors. What their prices are, where do visitors go, is the site designed for success ? Look for things like quality code and content, internal/external linking, keyword density in content and links, pages indexed, Google Pagerank, quality titles, headers, site layout and design, conversion process, site load time, dedicated host, what new services they develop and announce etc.
27. Learn to increase your leads
28. Trial and error Trial and measure: raise awareness of your products and services, convert a visitor into a registered user and/or paying customer, persuade exiting customers to make further business, developing loyalty.
Brand and Visibility Marketing
29. When commenting a post or story in another website don’t spam: “OMG that’s uber cool”, “Nice post” or something like that. Instead, try to make your comments in a professional way, show what you liked/disliked/agreed/etc, cite other sources, give examples, bring pertinent arguments etc. Remember, comments are an important part of a post/article. Over 60% of the readers will also read the comments.
30. Try to associate your name or your website’s name/brand with the big boys on your niche. Regularly comment their articles (don’t spam) and from time to time make reviews of their post on your blog/website.
31. Starting your website from scratch, always sucks. Seek out other websites/companies in your industry and try to establish a relationship with them. Try a mutual partnership and/or services recommendations. Don’t try to e-mail/fax your direct competitors.
32. Brand and paint your employee’s uniforms and your company’s cars with your logo and website address. This is especially useful if you have a lot of cars. It’s mass-branding and it will get people, thus future clients in your local area accustomed and comfortable with your logo, website and business.
33. Put your website address, on every possible internal piece of paper or communication device, including, but being limited to business cards, letterheads, invoices, newspaper and/or other print ads, yellow pages advertisements, receipts etc.
34. Always identify yourself with your visitors, especially if you own a publishing website/weblog. Always have your editor name written for articles and it’s best to have a profile too. A picture, a contact method.
Social Media Marketing
35. If you ever want to write something that will end up on any of Digg’s, Reddit’s, Netscape’s, Newsvine’s (etc) frontpage, write about how to get on their frontpage, about Firefox, WordPress or Apple/Mac. No matter what you write about those, people love them and you WILL get on the frontpage, unless it’s un utterly stupid article.
36. Pay close attention to Stumbleupon. It’s a great alternative social network. Install their toolbar, and if you write a good post, submit it in their system. Be faithful and fairplay with the other members, help each other, and add friends to your account. Ask other members to review you if they liked what you stumbled upon. StumbleUpon traffic had the highest converting ratio (at least for me), in comparison to Delicious, Digg or Reddit users, which seem to be RSS and AD blind.
37. Whenever you have the belief that digging your articles will yield you an increased CTR on your Adsense ads, RSS subscriptions, comments or any other kind of added benefit to your website, you are wrong. I can sustain Davak’s post 80%, except the Alexa part. Digg users do use the Alexa toolbar or plugins that count as the Alexa toolbar. But you won’t notice any increased CTR’s, comments or clicks, no matter the traffic gained from a Digg.
38. Reward helpful and valuable users by promoting their work on your homepage, or develop a rating system. Invest 5 minutes of your time to send a quick email or note telling them you appreciate their help.
39. At least once per year, ask your visitors what do they think about your website’s content. What would they want to read more ? What new facilities should you offer them ? 10 reasons to survey your visitors.
40. Be humble. Don’t forget where you started from, even if you are a professional in your field. No one can be an authority in a certain category if others don’t link to/recommend/interview/blog about.
Link Baiting, Link Building and Research
41. Write controversial content that will self-generate links and discussions/comments. Pick on well-known people, criticize loved websites or brands.
42. When starting your website, try to gather a few links from already established and trustworthy websites. Stop trying to get your link on websites that are 2 months old like yours. Pay a directory submission in Yahoo!, BOTW, Webxperience!, Skaffe or other well known directories. Paying for a directory submission almost guarantees you a faster response time. DMOZ is an excellent way to start but you can’t get your way in fast and with money, so it’s best to “submit-and-forget-about-it”.
43. Build links slowly, to avoid the sandbox. Slowly can mean 5-10 gained backlinks per month.
44. When you research websites for IBL’s possibilities, don’t be fooled about high PR pages. What you need is Trust, not a high Pagerank. How can you tell if a website is an authority website or not ? Just find 5 titles of 5 articles on that website and search those phrases in Google. If the website appears on the first page, then it’s a quality website. After that inspect some of it’s backlinks, and try to see if the website is involved in dubious link schemes or has IBLs from irrelevant and spam websites. If it doesn’t, you’re OK to go. Remember, what you need is Trust, and traffic. Not Pagerank.
45. A good link building strategy is to comment or participate in discussions or content on other websites in your industry. It’s not enough to have good articles/content. The world has to know about them. Make connections/relations with other jounalists/bloggers/entreprenours in your niche, comment their articles, and links will come by themselves, with time.
46. Create posts/articles that help your visitors and attract natural links. “5 tips to …”, “25 easy ways to make …. better” type of articles are the best you can write.
47. Write stories/articles in the most highly-ranked websites of your industry and link to your website from the article. I am not talking about article directories, but industry websites that accept content contributions from members. (like ThreadWatch or WebproNews, for example)
48. Are you in any good relations with an US faculty/university ? Kindly ask them if you can contribute with something, and request a link from their websites. .edu and .gov links are supposed to carry a little more weight and authority then regular links. An excellent post in SEOmoz on ten ways to earn an .edu link
49. Do you write in forums ? Always put your link in your signature, and try to write a few attractive words too, to increase the likelihood of clicks on your links. Many forums like Digitalpoint or V7N, have a latest blog post function. If you have a feed, always use that functions (tip: it works with any feed, not just blogs).
50. My best advice for gathering a LOT of easy links is to create and release free templates for any wide-spread, free CMS system out there. WordPress, PHP Link Directory, Joomla, Mambo, Typo66, Drupal, etc. You are not a designer ? Hire one to build you some templates. What’s the benefit ? That small “template by X” in the footer of the template, that will reside in all the websites that use it. The more functional and beautiful the template is, the more people will use it. Colleen, from Kalina Web Designs as well as Chris from Pearsonified come highly recommended by me and others. It’s not worthwhile to tell you that I too have a design company. We’re too expensive for your ass
51. If you are interested about Pagerank rather then relevancy, whenever you submit to directories or other websites that accept links, try to search the most relevant page with the highest PR, and submit to that. Keep the relevancy pretty high on your list though, otherwise they will reject your website for sure. I would and will.
52. Viral marketing, word of mouth, tell a friend schemes can get your server on fire in hours. Viral marketing describes any strategy that encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message to others, creating the potential for exponential growth in the message’s exposure and influence. I guess this Threadwatch article about a Mini-Cooper AD will tell you more.
53. Ask friends or colleagues in your industry, to review your business website. If you have high profile friends, then you are sure to bring a high traffic and increased authority impact to your website.
54. Build a funny 404 page that will make your visitors laugh a bit and maybe will attract some links.
55. Don’t overlook linkbaiting: Organize a contest, adding a competitive element to it and offering a prize, post a very cool and funny post (usually a video or a cartoon or something that everyone would understand visually), ideally related to your industry etc.
56. Take a 6 months/1 year college class and get a personal page on the university’s .edu domain. Prices are usually cheap
Corporate & e-Commerce Marketing
57. Issue press releases for your website. No matter the field, a well written press release can not only improve your marketing strategy and gain a few inbound links and link bait from other websites, but can lead to journalists that will cite your company in their offline/online magazine as well as in online news websites like Google News and Yahoo! News.
58. If you have a company or product presentation website, try to provide multilingual pages. Helps for ranking in different localized search engines and user experience …
59. If you have local conferences or shows, that relate to your industry attend to them. Go yourself, or send an employee. Make business connections, friends, discuss daily issues, socialize. You wouldn’t imagine how much that will help you on the long run.
60. If you sell products or services on your website, regularly offer discounts or promotional coupons. That will not only increase sales and visibility but will attract links and stories, especially if you are a well known company. Issue a press release each and every time you offer that discount. Journalists and news search engines like Google News usually pick up the press release if it’s written correctly.
61. Offer a Privacy Policy (think about how much information is on the Internet; your credit card, your home addresses, your personal letters by email. etc.), a FAQ section, a Help section or any other functionality that will bring your website closer to your visitors, increasing authority, trust and re-visit rates.
62. No matter your writing skill, read a few pointers about how to write a professional press release (excellent 21 pages e-book on the new rules of PR – local mirror) and try releasing a free press release at PressBox, Free Press Release, PrLeap, i-Newswire, 24/7 Press Release, PR.com, PR Free or ClickPress. After you’ll see the benefits, hire a professional press release writing service and do it by the book at PrWeb, PrNewsWire and/ore other global, more authoritative PR distribution services.
63. Read the PccPolo 101 marketing tips (local mirror) and the United States Small Business Administration 100+ Marketing Ideas.
64. Your customers are always right!
65. Thou shalt remember that not only Google has a Bible: The 10 Commandments of Marketing (you need a free user account to read this article).
66. Personalize your company’s cars license plates
67. Optimize your website’s shopping cart and watch how your average order size increase and your cart abandonment rate decrease.
Blog Marketing
68. Do you have a company or corporate website ? Build a blog for yourself. Blogs are a common way of internal company communication as well as a good source of PR. Clients and possible clients feel close and can interact with your team, online.
69. Do you blog ? Pimp your blog with social bookmarking tools, a Feedburner account with the FeedCount option activated to show your RSS subscribers.
70. If you have a blog (but not only a blog) take full advantage of Technorati. Technorati offers you the chance to submit 20 tags relevant to your blog, when you create your account, and start to claim each blog/website. Don’t let that stop you. Use Technorati tags, tailored for each post individually. Technorati pages rank extremely well, and it’s a great source of traffic, so it’s best to use it to your advantage. Watch how PrWeb uses Technorati tags in every press release, to it’s advantage. The advantage is that your specific article will show up in searches of each of those tags.
71. Whenever you write a post on your blog, or an article in your publishing website, or a press release, try to think search too. Research with Overture and Wordtracker (if you have an account), what are the best words to use in your title. They tend to help a lot, because the title usually is used in the meta description and URL too. That will boost your page a little in the SERPs.
72. Plan your blog’s start. When starting a new blog, it’s important to realize that every detail counts. Don’t start with a default theme and ‘hello world’ – like posts and then ask for links. Try to start with 2-3 good written subjects. Always plan ahead and write today, tomorrow’s post.
73. Always link from your blog. Link to as many quality websites as possible. Don’t be afraid to “spread your PR thin” or some other BS like that. Link to good posts of people, link to good newspaper articles, and most importantly, link to relatively unknown blogs/websites that feature a good original story. In most cases that will yield you some free PR. Most other websites (like PrWeb or blogs etc) have trackback plugins so they’ll feature your story in their comments.
74. Read Quadzilla’s 9 rules about blogging (disregard rule #10) and Seth Godin’s how to get traffic for your blog post.
75. Have a blog ? Always ping update services. Here are the Update services I use for this blog (For WordPress, they are located in Options/Writing/Update Services):

http://rpc.pingomatic.com/

http://pingoat.com/goat/RPC2/

http://pingqueue.com/rpc/

http://ping.feedburner.com

http://www.bloglines.com/ping

http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2

I use the Bloglines, Technorati and Google Blogs pings to update those services immediately and not wait for services like Pingomatic to notify them hourly.
Design, Content, Accessibility and Usability Marketing
76. The quality of the layout and design matters. Don’t release an ugly, badly design website. I would rather wait to do a much better design and release the website afterwards. The same situation for websites that are already online. Got an ugly design ? Redesign the website. It’s proven that a new, more beautiful and accessible design for a website strongly increases the likelihood of bookmarking, re-visiting, and subscribes to the feed and newsletters.
77. Write with the user in mind. A BAD post example is like writing a long citation of another blog-post/authority site, and actually writing no opinion of your own. Try to add your own analysis and views of the subject. No matter how many other websites blogged or wrote about a story, they will never write the same post as yours, with the same pro’s and con’s.
78. Spell check your content. There’s no other big mistake for a publishing site than users criticizing the misspells. Take those extra 2 minutes to check the spelling errors in Word or even Google.
79. Try to get your readers to comment and to involve themselves with the subject at hand. Uses phrases like “I’d like to know what you think?” / “I’m waiting your suggestions about …” etc.
80. If you can’t write good stories, don’t. Hire an experienced publisher to do the writing for you. John Scott hired Peter Da Vanzo to blog for V7N’s blog. Not because John can’t, but because he’s not the writing geek and because he wanted a professional blog. That does the job well for him and that can do the job well for you too.
81. If you have a website where people can pay online for products, make the job easy. Put a BIG button or text, use multiple processors like 2CO, Paypal etc. Don’t hide the payment link in some footer or sidebar space. Make it visible. If you don’t have your own shopping cart, then let the visitor know that he will be redirected to a 3rd party website, to complete the payment process.
82. Make sure the website is consistent in look, feel and design. Nothing is more disturbing to a visitor/customer than feeling as if they have just gone to another website. Keep colors and themes constant throughout the site. And yes, this is a marketing tool too. You DO want your visitors to come back right ?
83. If you have a content website, try to keep your posting frequency regular. If you decide to post 1 post per day, then post 1 post per day, every day, every week, 365 days/year. So what if it’s Christmas ? Just don’t make your posting habit irregular. Today 1 post, tomorrow 5 posts, 1 week no posts etc. That disturbs visitors and that will hurt your RSS subscribers and newsletter subscribers numbers.
84. If you just invested a lot of cash for a beautiful Web 2.0 design and layout (Web 2.0 hotties and how to design Web 2.0 style), why not make the best of it ? Make sure that it’s a valid XHTML and CSS layout and submit it to the hottest CSS galleries around the world like CSS Beauty, CSS Import, CSS Remix or CSS Vault.
85. Always personalize your e-mail responses, newsletters, invitations and any other material that ends up at your existing or possible future clients. Never send a bulk message. Most of the current clients get offended by such messages and the future possible clients will just ignore them.
86. Send out a “thank you” email to all existing customers and alert them about your plans for the next year.
87. Add interactivity to your website. Visitors need to have a communication highway one way or another. If you still haven’t included a commenting system, a forum, a blog or other interactivity systems to your website, do it now. Always ask questions from your readers and try to involve them in your world.
88. Create an (extensive) glossary of terms in your industry, like Aaron did for his industry: search engine marketing. That will set you apart and will make you an authority website in your niche.
89. Create powerful anti-spam blocks for your website. No-one will trust your authority if your website is full of spam. Use a Captcha module, or a math module, asking visitors to identify a string or to do a mathematical calculation before their comment gets approved. According to Akismet, 93% of (blog) comments are spam. Loren Baker’s Search Engine Journal got hit with 850.000 spam comments since he installed Akismet (thanks for the info Loren).
90. Put the accent on visitor experience not traffic. Traffic is useless if you can’t convert it into paying customers. A visitor experience optimized website with 500 visits/day can bring you twice the income then an un-optimized one with 10.000 visits/day.

Only 90 ? I want you guys to continue with the last 11.

Have a great week-end.
Submit your business or company to Webxperience! and Webotopia directories.

Internet marketing is about lots of little things, not one big one. This list is half-list, half-procedure. If you go down these items in order it might give you a decent internet marketing plan for the next few months. If you have others, post ’em as comments:

by lan lurie

1. If you have a Flash introduction on your web site, delete it. If you don’t agree, try this: Shove your head into a bucket of water. Stay in there, not breathing, for 10 seconds longer than is comfortable. That’s what you’re doing to your customers. Delete it, please.
2. Check the load speed of every page on your site. If any load in more than 10 seconds, fix it (2-6 seconds is far better). If your developer says they can’t, and it’s not your own network causing the problem, fire them. Here’s a good page load tester.
3. Check your site for broken links. You can use a tool like Xenu. Fix those links. Do not pass this step until you’re done. If it takes your developer more than a week to do this step, again with the firing thing.
4. Make sure you have a user-friendly 404 error page, not the generically nasty PAGE NOT FOUND message.
5. Make sure you have a user-friendly 500 error page, too. A 500 error happens when some bit of database code you wrote late at night decides it’s had enough with this world, and takes your web site with it. That usually leads to something terribly informative like “500 Error Connection Timed Out”. Maybe you can do something better?
6. Remove all inline javascript to a separate .js include file. That will speed up page load times and may help you with search rankings, too. Plus it appeals to code geeks like me, and we’re all that matter, right?
7. Set up Google Webmaster Tools, Yahoo! Site Explorer and Live.com Webmaster Tools. You’ll see your site from the search engine’s viewpoint, what folks use to find you, and whether there are any problems that might be hurting you in the search engines.
8. Set up an XML sitemap, too. Check out Sitemaps.org for an overview.
9. If you’re running an e-commerce site, hire a really good writer to rewrite all your product descriptions. Those descriptions matter more than you think.
10. Get analytics set up on your site. You can’t do internet marketing without it. Actually, you can, but you’ll suck at it. I recommend Google Analytics. If your developer says they can’t install anything, well, you know…
11. In that analytics tool, make sure you can consistently track conversions: Sales, or leads, or whatever else you want folks to do when they see your site.
12. Get a HackerSafe or ScanAlert logo on your site. While I question their value, the search engines don’t. Nor do customers. That sticker can get you more search engine ‘trustrank’ and improve conversion rates.
13. Put your full address and phone number on each page of your site, for the same reasons.
14. Use Wordtracker, Trellian Keyword Discovery or something similar to find the top keywords that folks use to find your products or services.
15. Now find the top ranking sites for those phrases.
16. Who links to them? Do a “link:” search on Google, or use linkdiagnosis.com or Yahoo! Site Explorer to build a list. Now go out and get those links!
17. If two years ago some SEO hack advised you to put 100 links at the bottom of your home page, delete them. They’re not helping you, and they may be hurting you.
18. If two years ago that same SEO hack advised you to write title tags that read like this – “Wedding stuff and wedding things and weddings stuffs and weddings things with more wedding items and this is your place for weddings” – delete those too and write something that doesn’t sound like Elmer Fudd suffering a mental breakdown.
19. If you have the same keywords in your keywords tag on every page of your site, search your feelings… Do you really think the search engines are that stupid? Change ’em, or delete the tag altogether. The tag doesn’t really help, and duplicating keywords across all pages can flag you as an SEO spammer.
20. Write a high-quality meta description tag for each page of your site. That may not affect ranking but it’ll get more folks to click on your search listing.
21. Make sure your site uses correct semantic markup. Your developer had better understand what that means. Don’t make me come over there…
22. Get your site totally standards compliant according to the W3C code validator.
23. At the same time, make sure your site isn’t hideously ugly.
24. With those two items handled, you can now go to all the major XHTML and CSS site directories out there, which list lots of standards-compliant sites, and submit your own web site. If you get in, you get great links from great sites. Do not submit your site to any CSS or XHTML directories until you see a happy green report on the W3C validator. Doing so wastes your time, and the directory owners’. They’re liable to digitally tar and feather you.
25. Comment on other folks’ blogs. That gets you attention from those bloggers. They may come look at your site, or just drop you a line, or they may do nothing for a while. But you’re building relationships you can use later.
26. Do a press release a month. Chances are something cool happened. Did you hire someone new? Create a new product? Complete a new project? Win a prize? Brag!
27. Get someone who can write to create that press release. Bragging doesn’t help if you sound like an idiot.
28. Learn to use Google Reader. Subscribe to the top internet marketing blogs. Read them a lot. For a hint you can look at the AdAge 150 list.
29. Go to Google blog search. Search for your own brand name. Then subscribe to that search result in Google Reader (you’ll find a little RSS link on the search results page). That gives you a quick look at what folks are saying about your company.
30. Do the same thing for your own name.
31. Then subscribe to who’s linking to you on Technorati, for the same reason.
32. Go to local directories like Yelp! and make sure you’re listed. Hey, it’s a link, right? Plus it’ll give you one more place to manage your reputation.
33. Be sure your company information is up to date in Google, Yahoo! and Live’s local search tools.
34. If you’re a local business, ask your customers to review you on one of the local sites: Either on the search engines or on the other sites. This will boost your ranking in local search results. Beg, plead, bribe. It does require work on their part. And don’t worry if you get a few negative reviews, either.
35. Start working on Yahoo! Answers. This is an opportunity to make yourself an expert, and get some links at the same time. Spend no more than an hour a week. Read Matt McGee’s excellent article on the subject to learn more.
36. Invite people to subscribe to your house e-mail list. If you don’t have one, start one. This continues to be one of the most neglected facets of internet marketing.
37. Make sure there’s an easy way for folks to sign up for that list.
38. Remove any extra fields from your subscription form. All you need is their e-mail address.
39. If you require registration during checkout, get rid of it.
40. If you’re automatically opting folks in to your e-mail list, stop.
41. When you receive customer requests via e-mail, answer them. Fast.
42. Remember that house e-mail list I got you to start building? Starting sending out a quality offer to that list, once a month. See how it works. Keep testing different types of subject lines, creative, offers and such. Always strive to beat your last best performance.
43. Now you’re ready for some real online marketing (yes, all this was a warm up). Create a landing page for the best offer you’ve got. Follow best practices. Read Marketing Sherpa’s Landing Page Handbook for the best information you’ll find.
44. Create 2-3 headlines for that page.
45. Write a few different versions of body text for the landing page.
46. And finally use a couple of different images.
47. Then use a multivariate testing tool like Google Website Optimizer (if the budget’s tight) or Widemile (if you want the best possible result) to test all those headlines, copy versions and images and find the best ‘recipe’.
48. Create 2-3 pay-per-click ads on Google Adwords and/or Yahoo!. Point those ads at the landing page. Be sure to use whatever tagging mechanism your analytics software requires, so you’ll know which ad generates which clicks.
49. Now start that test!
50. Pick the 3 things you learned from that test, and apply them to the rest of your site. Did one call to action work best? Create a button to put everywhere on the site. One type of photography? Use that, too. You get the idea.
51. Did conversion rates go up? Cool! Now make sure you’re earning a good return on those PPC ads. Increase your spend and broaden your campaign, always watching out for ROI.
52. Now you can create landing pages for all those house e-mails you’re sending out. Since you already know which subjects work best, and which kinds of offers, you can start with a good foundation and find the best possible landing page.
53. Borrow your neighbor’s DVCam. Put it on a tripod. Film yourself talking about one of your products, or explaining how to use one of them. Post it on YouTube and then embed it on your site. No, you’re not Scorcese. But it’s more exposure for you, in another venue.
54. Are you still using Yahoo! Answers? I hope so. Don’t make me come over there AGAIN.
55. Create a MySpace page for fans/hobbyists/enthusiasts/students of your product or service. Don’t brand the page that heavily. Focus on the type of product or service. Attract folks who want to know more. Then wow ‘em with your knowledge, and build a circle of friends. Now you can announce offers and such to them, too.
56. Do the same thing on Facebook.
57. Find any industry-specific social networks that are relevant to you. It’s easy: Go to Google and search for “‘your product’ social network”. Bet you find some. If you do, join up.
58. Take all the cool stuff you’ve learned by testing offers, and newsletters, and keywords, and ads, and landing pages, and revamp your site. Then announce your new, improved site to all your customers, and subscribers, and MySpace friends, etc..
59. Whew! You’re done. Congrats! Now, go back to step 1, and repeat the process. Because you’re never ‘done’.

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