After The Dot Net

Typography is not an easy subject if you are not inclined to design.

For me when I’m designing it is very important that I have examples in front of me which means I’m a better copier but honestly I think it requires skills to copy. If the decision has to be made about typography then it examples become more important.

Smiley Cat Web Design has a post on collection of formats for headlines which I think is a must see for anyone who is involved in web designing therefore I’m sharing the link. Expand your knowledge about heading designs by visiting http://www.smileycat.com/miaow/archives/typography-for-headlines.php.

Typography for Headlines | Smiley Cat Web Design

If you are a blogger I’m sure you have been asked why you blog and also why do others blog. This question is not easy to answer. I decided to find out why people and went to my trusted resource Google.

Dane Taylor in his blog mentions that he writes or blogs for personal pleasure only. Way back in 2004 Sandhill had the same question and when he asked his fellow bloggers why they blog the answer he got was the pleasure of sharing or having their comments on different things on the Internet was the main reason why most of the bloggers blog. Victoria Carrington classifies the reason why people blog based on the type of blog one writes for. You can read the list here. Though the list is not complete I would agree with Victoria in general.

One of the websites or blog that impressed me the most was Chris  Garrets. He has conducted a survey to find out why people blog, their demographics and blogging trends in general. A background of Chris is important as that makes the survey more credible.

Chris Garrett is a professional blogger, Internet Marketing Consultant, new media industry commentator, writer, coach, speaker, trainer and web geek. He was also a founding member of Performancing. You might know him from his past writing for such sites as ASPToday, ASPAlliance, Threadwatch, or more recently, ProBlogger, The Blog Herald, FreelanceSwitch, Cogniview, AdSavvy and CopyBlogger.

Top ten readers who best answered the questions in the survey were awarded a Pro Blogger book! The findings of the survey are interesting (please be aware that these statistics are for 2008)

• The number of people who started blogging was the highest in 2007. Though the number of blogs started in 2008 is less but one has to keep in mind that only half of the year has gone by.
• About 75% of the bloggers started blogging after 2005.
• 62% of the responders to the survey were  males.
• USA has the most number of bloggers followed by UK.

• Most of the bloggers have higher education.
• 30% of the respondents were between 20-30 years whereas 50% of them were between the ages of 30-50 years.
• 50% of the bloggers blog for pleasure
• 35% of the respondents blogged for business
• Only 4% of the bloggers blogged for money.

While the results are very interesting one has to keep in mind that it has been assumed that the respondents are a good representation of bloggers around the world. This assumption means that the results are not perfect representation of the blogging community but one can safely assume that the survey results are indicative of the trends. To access the full report of the survey please go to http://www.chrisg.com/survey/.

In the end it is safe to assume that majority of the bloggers blog for pleasure and this is true for me. It would be great if you can share why you blog by adding comments.

If your product or service is targeted at mothers then Mom Central Consulting is the right service for you. Mom Central Consulting helps businesses to market to Moms. In simple words Mom Central Consulting is social media mom marketing firm.

Mom Central Consulting have deep, authentic Moms knowledge and experience to assist any business in marketing for moms with meaningful results. The marketing aspects that Moms Central Consulting assists on are

• Positioning and Brand Strategies
• Business Development & Strategic Alliances
• Marketing Communications
• Concept Development

Some of the tools or mediums that Mom Central Consulting uses are

• Word of mouth
• Sampling campaigns
• Drive traffic
• Sales promotion
• Coupon promotions and
• Real time events

Mom Central Consulting has a proven track record and you can get the list from there website at http://www.momcentralconsulting.com/

There is a special promotion on where if you register for their service you receive a promotional MOM Central Trend Report for free!

Sendible allows you to send messages to people by scheduling them in the future. There are multiple options for recipients. You can schedule a message to email addresses, phones via SMS, contacts in Facebook, contacts in MySpace and to your Twitter followers. One of the great features is that Sendible allows you to send international SMS free of charge.

Some of key uses of Sendible are

• Sendible lets you schedule messages to be sent in the future to various platforms like Email, SMS and social networking websites like Facebook or MySpace.
• You can manage all your contacts from one place as Sendible integrates with all major email providers like Yahoo, Hotmail and Gmail and other major social networking websites.
• Create future reminders for yourself. Now that you can import your Facebook friends birthdays into Sendible calendar it is very easy to set up reminders for them and perhaps also schedule an email to them.
• Keep yourself informed about upcoming events. You can also subscribe to information and choose it to receive it in the medium you are likely to use the most eg. mobile, email or a social networking website.
• You can manage your outbox. You can get a bird’s eye view of what your future messages are and make changes if needed.
• Sendible.com allows you to create ad campaigns and have your ads appear in the messages our users are sending to their friends and customers.
• The latest update (June 30th 2008) allows you to update your Facebook status via Sendible.

Future additions

The following would be added soon

• support for other social networking websites like Friendster, Hi5, Orkut and Xing.
• Ability to update multiple services at one go. Right now one has to update different services one at a time.
• Ability to setup surveys in Sendible and invite people to take the survey from Sendible.
• Ability to set up events in Sendible and send invites from Sendible using different mediums.

AfterThe.Net analysis

If you are not using RSS feeds to get the latest posts on other blogs then this tool is not for you. If you use RSS feeds and find it painful to go to your RSS reader for new updates then this tool is for you.

IMfeeds is a tool which allows you to receive RSS feed updates in your IM (instant messenger). RSS feeds are updated every five minutes. Though there are other tools that are similar but the simplicity of the this tool makes it unique.

Signing up for IMfeeds is really easy.

• add IMfeeds to your contacts in the IM. If this is confusing then go the home page of IMfeeds.com and click on “get started”and the next page gives you an option of adding IMfeeds as your contact on Yahoo messenger,  MSN messenger, Google talk or AIM.
• Once added you send a message to IMfeeds which has the command ‘join’
• You receive a reply instantly with a link in it to confirm your account.
• The confirmation page asks you to choose a username, password and asks you to agree to the terms and conditions.
• Once your account is created you can add feeds to your IMfeeds account for which you want the updates to be sent to you.
  You can add the feeds by providing the feed address in your IMfeeds account on the IMfeeds website or you can send a command from your IM with ‘sub’ added to the RSS feed address. RSS feed address can be got by right clicking the orange icon on the website for who’s RSS feed you want to subscribe to.

You can unsubscribe by either manually deleting the feed in your IMfeeds account or by sending a message with ‘unsub’ in front  of the feed address you have subscribed to. IMfeeds also allows you to import OPML files that have been exported from other RSS readers.

IMfeeds also allows website owners to create their own badge which can be placed on their website which can be used by readers to start receiving website updates from IMfeeds by clicking on it.

IMfeeds does what it is supposed to do and if you are big fan of RSS feeds you will like it for sure.

GPS  is one of the great inventions of modern times. Wikipedia describes GPS (Global Positioning System) as “The Global Positioning System (GPS) is the only fully functional Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS). Utilizing a constellation of at least 24 Medium Earth Orbit satellites that transmit precise microwave signals, the system enables a GPS receiver to determine its location, speed, direction, and time”

GPS technology has given the opportunity to businesses to be more productive and “in control". One of the industry that has benefited a lot with this technology is the transport industry. GPS has helped the transport industry become more efficient and has helped cut costs. For example a customer calling a taxi service is able to get the taxi faster and probably at a lower cost. This is made possible by GPS as the coordinator of the taxi service is able to contact the nearest vehicle to the customer which enables the taxi to reach the customer faster and a lesser cost as the distance traveled is less.

Some detractors argue that GPS infringes your right to privacy. I personally do not agree with that because I believe that when one is at work one is fully answerable for all the actions and if one is working diligently then there is nothing to fear. Tracking of employees was practiced earlier as well though it was done stealthily. Therefore to contend that because of GPS privacy of people is infringed is wrong for in this day and age there are other ways to find the location of person.

If you are based in United States and looking for the latest GPS systems then you should consider Brick House Security. Brick House are the leaders in providing the government and private users assistance in security, safety, protection, covert surveillance, and counter-surveillance. They have some amazing GPS Tracking devices which include

• Super PocketTrack Covert GPS Tracker
• T-Trac XS Internet GPS Car Tracking System
• P-Trac Micro - Tiny GPS Tracker which works indoors!
• GPS Fleet Management System FT6200

To check their whole range you can go to http://www.brickhousesecurity.com/gps-car-tracking-vehicle-logging.html. Brick House Security has more than 12000 security products!

With the use of mobile Internet gowning there are some interesting developments that have taken place on the Google’s mobile home page. Now Google’s mobile homepage lets you add some of the gadgets like feeds, weather, stocks, Gmail and few other gadgets from iGoogle: which is the personalized home or start page. The personalization can be done from the phone by accessing Google’s mobile home page at http://www.google.com/m/. This might be cumbersome.

The good news is that now you can customize your Mobile Home Page from IGoogle itself which makes life a lot easier. For Iphone users the home page for Google is at http://www.google.com/ig/i.