Multimedia Agency

Last July 2008, Google formally made another power-end project public after announcing it last December of 2007. The project is “knol”, yes it is another new word that technology invented and according to Google, knol is simply the “unit of knowledge”. Knol is very similar to blogging though knol is more of scholarly and professional article writing on the web. Blogging is traditionally like an online journal where you can express your sentiments and later evolved that caters to marketing and business endeavors of people while knol lets authors or writers to publish their scholarly works online

Knol: What is it all about?

Knol’s creator, Udi Mander who is also Google’s Vice President for Engineering envisions knol to “encourage people who know a particular subject to write an authoritative article”. Just is like blogging, writing a knol is for sharing and in the case of knol, you write to share your knowledge. Unlike other sites for article writing, knol wants to “highlight authors”, and have authority and ownership of their own articles. Knol is the place if you want to build your credibility as a writer online.

Knol also imposes rules and conditions to its authors. Authors are not allowed to market or publish articles that obviously advertise a product or service though business related articles that may mentions products and services are allowed.

Knol and Blog

You can start writing your knol using your goggle account, if you are familiar with blogging then; the steps are primarily the same as blogging. The basic “write and post” routine holds true in knol and readers can leave comments about your article. Knol doesn’t have a “dashboard” like in blogs; you just have to write your article on the page right away and publish it. However, knol is also comparable to writer communities online like Hubpages and Helium. Unlike blogging, readers don’t just give comments on your articles; rather, they can also rate your article. You yourself as a reader to other knols can rate other articles. This feature enables authors to build their credibility online. You can include ads like Adsense from Goggle in your knol can generate revenues, thus earning money through your articles.

Declaring war with Wikipedia

Do a search on knol and all of them will mention the similarity in terms of purpose and goals to Wikipedia though Google doesn’t confirm about this particular issue. There is an ongoing issue that Wikipedia declines to have a partnership with Google since Wikipedia is strong in its stand as a non-profit organization. Google as we all know needs ads and marketing to generate revenue and continue its operations.

So, it is very wise and clever for Google to put and build a competition against Wikipedia. But unlike Wikipedia as mentioned earlier, knol emphasizes author’s ownership in a particular article rather than mere contributor. In your own page, your photo is published with your article, thus making you feel more in control of your articles. Knol like Wikipedia aims to cover all branches of knowledge from science to entertainment and with lots of topics; Knol will soon be another online encyclopedia. But at present, most knols centers on medical topics.

To end up, Knol is another innovating product of Google and indeed another step into the Information Age that we are currently living in. Knol provides writers around the world to find another medium to express and share what they know and particularly their specific field of expertise. Likewise Knol will let authors to have a larger audience taking into consideration the millions of people using the Internet particularly the ones with Google accounts.

Extravagant in style

The Internet has closed the gap between people around the world and drew information within everybody’s reach. As they say, we are now living in what they refer as the Information Age and paved the way for new words such as “techie” and “blogs”. Likewise, some words received alternations in their meanings and became the new set of technological jargons; “yahoo” for example no longer pertains to what cowboys yell, nor is “traffic” when we talk about sites and “google” when we are looking for something in the World Wide Web.

Search engines

Search engines are Internet tools that users make use of to look for information from various websites and links. At present, there are many search engines but Google and Yahoo top them all. However, there is a newly launched search engine called Cuil (pronounced like the word “cool), developed and managed by think tanks from IBM and Google.

Cuil’s Founders

The CEO and one of the founders Tom Costello was a graduate of Stanford University and even taught in the institution for a couple of years. Before Cuil, Costello developed another search engine, named Xift in 1999. Joining Costello are Anna Patterson and Russell Power who worked for Google before establishing their company. The founders used the Irish word “Cuil” which according to Cuil’s homepage is “an old Irish word for knowledge.”

Cuil as a search engine

Cuil takes pride that Cuil in terms of web pages has “three times as many as Google and ten times as Microsoft”. Likewise, Cuil is more particular with keyword-enriched articles with relevant contents in ranking web pages rather than merely basing popularity; though Cuil still regard popularity as an important factor in ranking web pages.

Cuil also has its own features that make it different and unique from the other search engines like Google and Yahoo. The company’s website enumerates three distinct features of Cuil; drill down, roll-over definition and tabs.

Drill down

When you are searching in Cuil, it will not only give you results but a list of categories displayed on the right panel under the name of “Explore By Category”. Cuil wants to refine your searches by giving you more information that might be very useful for your research.

Roll-over definition

This feature sets Cuil apart from Google and Yahoo search engines; it will give a very short definition of the items listed under “Explore By Category”. According to the company this feature will et its users save time since you will know if you should click or not that particular subject based on the definition given.

Tabs

As mentioned, Cuil doesn’t have the “Advance Search” options instead; it has Tabs that specify your particular search. For example, if you are going to search for “toddlers”, the Tabs will give you “activities for toddlers”, “babies and toddlers” and many more. It’s up to you if you want to click on those pages.

Testing Cuil

If you try to search by using Cuil, the striking difference that you will see is the short introduction that they provide along with thumbnails. This feature is really good since you as a user have a little idea of what that particular site or web page is all about. Unlike Google and Yahoo in which the introduction is just a matter of one or two sentences, Cuil really let its users know what site they are about to enter.

Cuil also has their preference feature that will not show pornographic sites from the results of your searches. This is great for families who want to safeguard their family’s viewing. On the other hand, it is hard if you misspell a particular topic unlike in Yahoo and Goggle where they will give you suggestions. Cuil will just prompt you with zero results from that particular search.

To end up, Cuil is a newly launched search engine that you as an intelligent user should try and make use to the maximum. It has several useful features that may suit your searching style.

Paypal is the world leader in online transactions in sending, receiving and paying money across the globe. It is like a bank account on the web, although there you will not get any interest for the balance that you have in the account. Paypal is more of an online wallet for you to pay and get paid with just a simple click of the mouse. Paypal became more famous and well established after it partnered and been protected by leading online store, EBay.

Still the World-leading way to checkout in the internet

Right now, Paypal is the number one as well as the most preferred company for transacting money online. It set a standard for transactions and every new alternative company will compare their features with Paypal.

Issues with Paypal

As time went by, more and more unsatisfied Paypal customer emerged that even led to litigation and court losses. Most of their complaints are Paypal’s actions of freezing their money for no rhyme or reason; in accordance to their Terms and Conditions, they have the right to hold your money. When you have an account with Paypal, the company controls your money altogether.

There are also those problems with their fees particularly those withdrawal transactions to your credit or debit cards. Their current fee is $4 that is quite huge already; it wants its users to withdraw rarely and just accumulate their funds to avoid paying $4 per transactions. This became the start of those cases where Paypal froze hold some users’ money; others were accused of having fraudulent transactions and bad feedbacks in EBay. Furthermore, for small businesses or those who doesn’t transact online that much, Paypal’s fees is very high and expensive.

Any Alternatives?

There are new companies emerging that you can use aside from Paypal. Some of these have very low fees compared to that of Paypal and funds will reflect on your account faster. However, most of them are not applicable to all countries; some are only good for those residing in UK, US and Canada. Nevertheless, here are the top three alternatives to Paypal.

Google Checkout is Google’s answer to Paypal and envisioned to be Paypal’s top rival in e-commerce. With the Google as its parent company with remarkable reputation and strong foundation, the users can be more confident in relying their businesses to them. Google Checkout has services that Paypal fails to give to its customers like free membership, and good and fast customer service. However, Google Checkout is temporarily available in 10 countries and still not included in eBay.

Moneybookers is a London-based company that is accredited by eBay. Much more, their service is available in all countries around the world. Signing up is fast and easy and more and more useful features are introduced to become at par with Paypal. Unlike Paypal, your funds will not be threatened to be frozen in the long run and their service fee is cheaper; free for receiving and sending person-person is only 1% of the total amount. Also, their interface is user friendly and very easy to use especially for first time users.

AlertPAy is a Canadian company that offers the same package as Paypal though you cannot use it with your transactions in eBay. What makes it a top competitor to Paypal is that it is free to use and the fees are relatively cheaper than that of Paypal. You can send money and pay by using your credit card and available in all countries. A slight problem with AlertPay is in its verification process for your account with them; you have to send documents to their headquarters and with today’s modern way of communicating, it is quite irrelevant and rather inconvenient.

Ikobo is another US-based company that offers money transfer services and its greatest advantage is zero set up fees, iKard and low transaction charges. iKard is a kind of debit card which the merchants can use to withdraw money from iKobo account ans also allows the merchants to receive credit card payments at discounted rate. However, it differs from paypal as it is not associated with any kind of banking system. Paypal develops relationships with banking system, whereby the merchants can transfer money from the paypal account to their bank accounts.

Another alternative to paypal is eGold and it is fast becoming a great online digital currency that is regulated by a US-based company (Florida) where one can change e-gold to regular money by the click of mouse. In this system, customers can buy units of gold either with a credit card or by a wire transfer, and it can then be transferred to any other e-gold account by simply clicking on the net. Although e-gold is accounted by weight, the e-gold payment system allows spend to be expressed in terms of eight major national currencies. This payment service is extremely cost effective with low transaction fees even for high amount. In this global payment services, one need to check on the exchange rate to e-gold before going for the transaction. However, the other disadvantage of this online transaction system is that the total money is more controlled by illicit elements and by unscrupulous manner.

It is the Western Union money that is most preferred choice of payment service all across the globe being the oldest and the most credible brand. It simply stays very close to all customers in their own language with the help of a wide network of agents unlike the payment service of paypal. Their services extend from consumer to consumer, consumer to business as well provide with simple financial tools such as prepaid cards and money orders.

To end up, Paypal is not the only company that you can use for your online transactions. There are also ikobo, eGold and western union as well, and although they have worldwide presence they are more valid in countries where paypal is not existent. Some of their services and products may not suit you and gladly, there are new companies that can supplement or even complement Paypal’s services making them good alternatives.

MyGreatWorld.com is a newly launched web service for photo-enthusiasts around the world and those interested in the constant changes through architecture, town-planning or tourism.

If you hate your ciy or if you dearly love it: This is the place to share your impressions.

Photos are often the reminder of happy moments and beautiful locations — or they might be the visual proof of unexpected or lamentable conditions. They can be masterpieces of perspective and composition and carrier of strong emotions. This way or the other they are in good hands at the MyGreat-Project.

By means of an advanced database-technology, photos can also become an archive of time and place and a witness of change and development.

Ten years ago Moscow was a different place than today. So was New York or even Stonehenge.
The change of a place and its surrounding area, as it appears today, is sometimes subtle (and sometimes not). It becomes obvious by comparing the chronological advancement in housing and construction and the varying styles in design and architecture. The further an observer is travelling back in time the more evident growth and progress become. This might be fortunate — but it is not by default.

Combining these different approaches (to a vast mass of digital photography laying dormant on harddrives around the globe), MyGreatWorld.com opens up its services to the community these days to build a worldwide online-database of literally any spot on earth. Even the very streets users are living in are subject to continuous changes - and to make these trends visible is one of the goals.

Also, photos & information from residents and those who know a certain spot are always welcome, both, to make the best out of a trip and not to miss the secret beauty every location holds.

Uploading photos to MyGreatWorld is map-based, fast and easy allowing the user to add new spots to the database (cities, points of interest, landscapes) on the fly. To make the database work, users are asked for the time (year or even better: year & month) and a category their picture fits in best. Any further description a user enters will be additionally indexed for key-words. The same goes for the photo’s title. Structures and designs are straightforward and comprehensible without popup-windows or superfluous gadgets.

Retrieving information from the database demonstrates that MyGreatWorld.com offers more than a mere pool of pretty pictures: The Advanced Search allows for combinations of various search-parameters including the time of the capture, the motive, the spot, key-words in title or description and even the filtering for a certain photographer.

Users find at MyGreatWorld.com a solid framework to enrich with their photos, recommendations and opinions. The site is a young project and there is a lot of space yet to be filled. This also means users can still be the first to add a new spot and to present the flair of a place to the world, the ambassador for a town, landscape or favorite point of interest.

“The site lives from the users’ engagement and from the belief that on an international level there are no ‘boring’ or unspectacular photos: The world in all its facets is very well worth seeing and what’s ‘interesting’ is in the eye of the beholder…”

Descriptions are fine. But hand in hand with pictures, they are better. And at MyGreatWorld.com users might use the combination of both.

For people who are running a website or a collection of websites, mastering link building is very important. You have to be an expert in link building techniques to be made sure that various quality links will direct visitors and users to your website. Link building technique is not just including links to your websites in forums or writing articles; it takes more than that though it can be a great help to.

Why link building

Link building should be done consistently every day to ensure the ranking of your site. And with millions of sites available, you can choose to build up with them with some of the link building techniques. Here are the top link building techniques widely used to generate and increase traffic to your website or blogs.

Reciprocal Linking

This is most common and widely used link building techniques in which you will just find the best website that is related or connected to your own website. After finding the website that interests you, you can start requesting for an exchange of links. Like you, these webmasters are also looking for links exchange that they think will boost the ranking and popularity of their sites.

How can you request for such link exchange? You start by searching certain keywords that best describes and suits your website in search engines like Google. Once you find the website, navigate in the page and look for indication that they want to build links with you like “link to us” and “add url” but if you cannot find those words you can contact the webmaster to ask if they allow link exchange. Also, you should check if they have already some links attached in their page to give you an idea if they allow link exchange or not.

Sending an email requesting for link exchange is also very important, you have to be precise and you have to sound trustworthy. With all those scams flying around, you have to assure that you will not use unethical techniques in link building and will do the task properly. The things that you have to include in your request are the details of your website or website like title, description and the URL.

One-way Linking

One-way linking is placing your link in a website but that website’s link is not attached in any page of your own site. Therefore, there is no exchange of links between sites like reciprocal linking. However, this should be done to mislead other sites promising of a link exchange but rather, you do this through articles that you submit in directories, and posted in forums. You may also execute one-way linking by registering your website in Web directories.

Triangular Linking

From the name itself it is a technique that places links between three sites. Imagine that this is a combination of a reciprocal and one-way linking. Triangular linking is preferred by those who prefer to have a one-way linking.

This is how a triangular linking done: There are three sites involved namely A, B and C. site A will place its link to site B, and in return site B will place a link to C and lastly C will place a link to site A. hence, all three have placed a link to another site but not to the site that placed a link to them. So, a site, receives and gives a link to another site but there is no exchange between two sites.

To end up, it takes a lot of time to master the link building techniques above but starting today would make a difference.

Websites are income-generating tools that can draw more and more customers given the large audience that the Internet has in the world market. Is it websites that a company presents its profile, product, and services and can even transact businesses and close deals through their respective deals. Websites are considered by Internet marketers as an asset that can generate a big investment returns on investment in the future. Websites valuation is not just for those who want to purchase a particular website but likewise, those who wants to sell a website they have developed. And to add up, we are not talking with one website in website valuation but can cover a collection of websites that has been developed and ready for sale.

Why do we need website valuation?

A website’s value like any property like real estate, stocks and many more should not be too low or too high; it should reach in what businesses call as a “fair market price”. A website that has a very high value necessarily means that it has a high potential of attracting new customers, has high ranking in search engines and gained popularity among users.

Website valuation basically to know the worth of a particular websites and determining its value is not as easy as ABC. Even at present with the advancement of the Internet world, there is still no definite criteria and guidelines in how to appraise a website. However, there are little ways that most people who engaged in such businesses.

Inquiries about a certain website from its development, and content can arrive to website valuation. Questions on the keyword contents of a particular site and the traffic it can produce is one factor in website valuation. Just like any business entity, knowing the current assets, revenue and liabilities of a website is a big help in making a quote on how much is its value.

Tools for Website Valuation

Likewise, there are tools in the Internet that are widely used for website valuation like Alexa, Aaron’s KW Tools and Overture Bid tool. Site log files and site financials are also good tools in appraising a website. Lastly, there are domain appraisal tools that are free to use in the internet but the appraisal that it can arrive may not that accurate to the real value of a website.

The buyer and the seller must check depending on the site up for sale. A buyer and a seller have their won interests in the transaction. Likewise, they have their own reasons why they arrive at that price to sell and to buy. If you are on the side of the seller, never underestimate the potential of the site you are selling. Selling your website for a low price will make the buyer think that it not that good since it is way cheaper and likewise a very expensive website will make the buyer back off. Remember there are many sites for sale that are the same or at least similar to your site in terms of content and ranking.

On the other hand, if you are the buyer, you have to regard the website as an investment. Inquire the time or period that you can expect a “return of investment” and the whole site itself. By researching or knowing more about the site for sale before any transaction will give you an idea of how much the seller is willing to sell the website. You will not be surprised if the site is a little bit more expensive or cheaper than the others.

To end up, treat website valuation like any business valuation out there in the market. Though website valuation is still not that structured and regulated; it takes patience and skills to arrive in the perfect price for both the seller and the buyer.