Source: Sixrevisions
Robin Good: Here is a useful guide to fifteen online payment systems like PayPal, their management and transaction costs, alongside a simple introduction to basic terminology (ACH payments, payment gateways, payment processors, etc.).Useful. 8/10Full article: http://sixrevisions.com/tools/online-payment-systems/ See it on Scoop.it, via Online Business Models ... Read more
Source: Unbounce
Excerpted from the original article: "In this post Carlos and myself (Oli) are going to analyze one of our customers – Vinoetic.com – landing pages (after they opted to allow us to get our opinionated hands on it). Our goal is for it to be an educational exercise that can hopefully help improve the page. Warning for the creator of the page: There are going to be some... Read more
Source: Youtube
Google has just introduced the "Knowledge Graph" — or semantic analysis — to its most fundamental tool, search. Here's what that means.From the original article on Mashable: "Starting today, a vast portion of Google Search results will work with you to intuit what you really meant by that search entry.Type in an ambiguous query like “Kings” (which could mean royalty, a sports team or a now-cancelled TV show), and a... Read more
Source: Projeqt
Robin Good: Now that SlideShare has significanty restricted its free offerings, limiting the size of presentations that can be uploaded for free, many presenters like me have started looking again for valid alternatives. Among the many options available, one interesting and feature-rich presentation sharing service is Projeqt, which not only allows you to upload your existing presentations or PDFs, but it allows you to edit, extend and even create new... Read more
Source: Webpronews
From WebProNews: "...“We’ve been wanting to work on this for a long time, but our data scientist was previously tied up on other items (and we’ve just hired a research assistant for the project),” Fishkin tells us. “The original catalyst was the vast quantity of emails and questions we get about whether a page/site is ‘safe’ to acquire links from, or whether certain offers (you know the kind – ‘$100... Read more
Source: Prdaily
Robin Good: If your company is looking into how to curate their own news stream while creating extra value for readers, this article can help you out in identifying the process and the key steps to take.From the article intro: "Curating news that the media isn't covering can lead to media coverage. And, by extension, it can improve and expand on stories the media are covering....There's plenty of evidence that... Read more
Source: Webpronews
From the article intro: "There some discussion going on in the webmaster/SEO community that Google may have de-indexed some free web directories. Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable points to a WebmasterWorld forum thread on the subject.The thread begins with a post from user Sunnyujjawal, who says:"While checking some sites links I found 50% free submission directories are out of G now. Will Google count such links in negative SEO... Read more
Source: Insights.iyogi
Robin Good: If you have been wondering how can it ever be that by giving things out for free people will buy more of your products/services, you must check out this great report on consumer adoption of freemium products and services. “If it can’t ‘sell’ for free, can it ever sell at all?”From MarketingPilgrim review of the report by Cynthia Boris: "The free sample has been used to tempt grocery shoppers... Read more
Source: Wwwmscorner
Robin Good: As the gathering and discovery of news and stories leverages increasingly the adoption of technology tools that scan, search, find and monitor specific topics or geolocations in real-time, it seems only natural that a new breed of real-time photo/image search engines are beginning to appear.From the article intro: "Thanks to services like Twitter and Instagram, and the global 'smartphone saturation' phenomenon, live reporting from big events has never... Read more
Source: Statsilk
Robin Good: StatSilk offers a set of free downloadable software tools to create professional-looking stat and trend charts.StatPlanet can be used to create anything from basic interactive maps to advanced infographics.StatTrends is tailored to create interactive graphs and charts.Key features include: -> Multiple graphing and charting types-> Select countries by clicking on them in the world map or country selection window. Statistics and details for the country selected are displayed inside popups... Read more
Source: Infocus.cc
Robin Good: InFocus.cc is a useful and free web app which allows you to select/highlight any area on any web page, and get a shareable URL for it.This is very useful for when you need to tell someone where to specifically look on a web page without having to draw a small manual for it. Here is how it works:1) You input the URL of the site where you want to... Read more
Source: Cashinghub
Robin Good: Basic guide to the tools you can use to identify all of the backlinks and the keywords used by other sites to link to your web site, and to the few simple steps you need to"It was until Google’s penguin update while all SEOs were busy in building links. Now, they are busy in removing those spam links, is not it funny. At list not funny for those... Read more
Source: Info.clesh
Robin Good: Clesh is a web-based professional video editing system which can be run from any Mac, PC or Linux computer without the need to install any software.Key features include:
Source: Geofeedia
From the official site: "Geofeedia's powerful tools, easy-to-use interface, and patent-pending technology allow you to perform precision location-based searches to monitor social media.Journalists use Geofeedia to quickly find and curate social media from locations where breaking news is happening.Geofeedia delivers a one-of-a-kind, aggregated search experience for user-generated content by using the powerful API’s of Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Flickr, and Picasa. Geofeedia is not endorsed or certified by any of the... Read more
Source: Smallbiztrends
Robin Good: If you are interested in improving your credibility / reputation online here is a good list of recommendations from John Follis at SmallBizTrends.From the original article: "Whatever your business, product, or service, credibility is key. It’s also true with your personal reputation. On that note, the information that appears, or doesn’t appear, whenever your name is searched on the Internet is a litmus test of your personal and... Read more
Source: Contentcurationmarketing
Robin Good: This article (no author name) on Curata raises a very important questions for those responsible to select and publish content for a medium to large organization.The issue is: do you address all of the possible customer tribes, in additional to existing and potential clients, or do you curate and select content for a specific tribe?While the article overall answer acknowledges that only big brands have the power to... Read more
Source: Thenextweb
Excerpted from article: "To learn more about the importance of curation in today’s fashion industry, here are three emerging fashion startups in New York City and Los Angeles. 1) Material Wrld (http://materialwrld.com/)Material Wrld is a New York City fashion startup founded by eager entrepreneurs Jie Zheng and Rie Yano. “In Manhattan, we all have really small closets so we see this as an option to refresh your wardrobe...”. Material Wrld focuses on fashion bloggers, creative... Read more
Today content curation is "sold", promoted and marketed as the latest and trendiest approach to content production, SEO visibility, reputation and traffic building. But is it really so? Is it really true that by aggregating many content sources and picking and republishing those news and stories that you deem great is really going to benefit you and your readers in the long run? Is the road to easy and effortless publishing via curation tools a true value creation business strategy, or just a risky fad? How can one tell?

Photo credit: theprint
Let me clarify a few key points:
1. Curation can be effective only as much as it effectively provides a quality filtering mechanism that can replace my need to consult multiple sources. When such need is forgotten and a curation channel becomes another broad aggregation and republishing venue, the end result is more content to go through and little or no insight gained.
2. Shallow curation efforts, where the main goal is to republish selected content with the minimum effort and time, are going to be effective only for the very short term. As soon as quality, value-creation creators start to emerge and gain authority, the gap between them and the others will be very hard to fill.
3. Curation is an effective means to build a strong relationship with a niche audience of passionate people to engage, not a marketing strategy that caters to gain a broad audience of readers by virtue of quantity and breadth.
4. The key element that makes curation work is the competence and focus of the curator and of the topic he has selected. Repeated efforts to create curated channels that mix and match broad and highly competitive topics are bound to see a very short life.
For these reasons, I think that much of the apparent new curation work being done is bound to be soon disappointed by the results it will gain. Though the apparent new curation "leaders" are working around volume and breadth, I have a strong feeling that within a year this panorama will have already evolved significantly in its natural direction.
Highly specific news and content channels, curated by passionate and competent editors will gradually become the new reference and models for curation work.
This article is all about starting to identify some tentative reference points that can be used to anticipate these changes and position one's own curation channel in a way that it will guarantee the greatest return on investment, over-time, possible.
My goal, is to help you understand how you can start to evaluate and distinguish value-creating content curation, from shallow aggregation, noise-making republication and pure content regurgitation before it is too late or someone else in your same niche will have done it before you.
Here's is my official checklist, to identify value-creation curation, from everything else.
The new frontiers for content curation tools and services are in a) providing advanced collaborative ("social)" features and in b) introducing and integrating new and effective, highly visual, delivery formats.
Photo credit: CaraMaria
Curating content and news is not just about the selection, editing and contextualization of stories about a specific topic or theme, but it is increasingly about how these information items are (collaboratively) gathered, organized, grouped, displayed and in which...
A web designer creates beautiful layouts for the web content of his customer. The customer is happy at first, but as he grows more knowledgeable about the web and its possibilities, he starts asking new layout changes, integration of new features and more.
Photo credit: Peshkova
What happens next is that the designer grows angry to the customer instead of rejoycing for the new work, knowing that changes and adjustments are more...
Is Empire Avenue just a fad? Is EAv just another social network and maybe a fascinating new type of news reader (like Robert Scoble writes), or is it really - like I think - a whole new ball game?
Photo credit: JGraphic, Empire Avenue, mashed by Robin Good
And assuming one wants to start playing it, what are the best strategies and approaches to make it work?
In this second part of...
If you are curious to see what happens at the convergence between social networking, social influence and reputation, online engagement and gamification, I think it is about time you gave a good look, if you haven’t already done so, at Empire Avenue.
Photo credit: JGraphic, Empire Avenue, mashed by Robin Good
Empire Avenue is an online community game based on the idea of a stock market where you buy and sell shares...
Why is content curation so important? In this video interview, I recorded with Micah Sifry, co-founder and editor of the Personal Democracy Forum, you can taste one more viewpoint and explanation of why news and content curation are becoming so important. And not only.
Photo credit: Robin Good
Micah Sifry states it clear and without any hesitation: such abundance of content and of people producing it offers great business opportunities that are...
Are content curation and the future of search converging? Who will you trust when it comes to find out what alternatives to a problem are out there and you have only an Internet connection? How much individual freedom do you want to sacrifice to an algorithm, no matter how accurate?
Photo credit: Robin Good
But why, you may rightly ask, to question Google or other search engines ability to sort and classify...
Hey AdSense publisher, are you really ready for Google Panda? Almost four months have gone since Panda, the new quality content filter from Google that has hit the web making thousands of web sites close business in the name of giving greater space to real quality content. Not to web sites that have been built and maintained exclusively for the purpose of making money through ads.
Photo credit: Vlue - iStockphoto
It's...
Once I started realizing that the consequences of Google Panda on MasterNewMedia were not going to go away anytime soon, I completely stopped worrying about Google and begun devoting my time and resources to my most important asset: readers and fans. I also started to wonder whether there could be a way, maybe in the future, to escape from this apparent Google stranglehold without simultaneously becoming also a victim of...
What do you need to do to recover from the Google Panda penalization? Is there something specific you need to look at? How long it will take to recover? The answer to all of these three questions is: nobody knows (yet) for sure. Not at least until a consistent number of Panda-hit web sites recovers from it fully and shares what it has done to do so.
Photo credit: Eric Isselée...
If you have been hit heavily by the Google Panda penalization, like MasterNewMedia has, one of the hardest thing to do is to understand what is the appropriate frame of mind to get into before starting to fix, modify or correct possible problems.
Photo credit: Eric Isselée - iStockphoto and Ashwin KA
Rushing to prune and modify content on your web site may not really get you the results you need,...
MasterNewMedia, is officially among the Panda victims. The site was hit first by the new Google Farmer update, also known as “Panda”, on February 24th, and then again, even more strongly on April 11th 2011. The impact on the revenue front has been dramatic.
Photo credit: Eric Isselée - iStockphoto
In this MasterNewMedia multi-part guide devoted to Google Panda, you will be able to better understand what Panda is, how it...
Though I am not a great fan of conferences and events (as I find them still utilizing old-fashioned delivery formats, which keep and increase the separation between audience and presenters) there are key factors that can make me become a most passionate event fan.
Photo credit: Mlenny Photography
Specifically:
Venue: The event is designed around a special location or place, where the "being there" is not just the same as sitting inside an...
How do you create a professionally-looking explanation video that illustrates in simple words what your company does and how it solves its customers problems? Given the wide number of options on the market, the little time available to choose and the little familiarity a new client may have with your business and the services it provides, if you cannot explain rapidly and in simple words what you and your company...
How do you transform a webinar or an Internet conference into a memorable, highly engaging and useful event? What are the key areas in which one needs to work to move online events from one-way presentations, with zero interaction and involvement, to highly engaging learning experiences where everyone gets to participate?
Photo credit: Andres Rodriguez
In this introductory guide to the key strategies to host memorable and engaging online events, Adriano...
Are you looking for a web-based service that allows you to create and publish a professional online survey? Do you need to create an online survey but are not too sure about what service to use? In this MasterNewMedia guide you can find the best available online survey services and some information to help you choose your ideal one.
Photo credit: John Takai
Online surveys main application is to help you get...
If you are interested in finding out the rate of organizational adoption of social media by the largest charities in the US, this new report written by Nora Barnes and sponsored by the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research provides all of the information you are looking for.
Photo credit: Eyeidea and AlexMax
Key highlights from this report include:
a) For the first time in the past four years, every charity...
This is the story of SEOmoz, as I have heard it by sitting in the first row of a small but very attentive audience at the LUISS University in Rome, Italy. The storyteller is Rand Fishkin himself, the father and founder of an SEO company which has become synonym of high value tools and services, competence, and a natural inclination to share valuable information before asking something in return.
Photo credit:...
If you are searching for Open Source software, where do you find good directories and collections of OSS tools, and how do you evaluate the many candidates available?
Photo credit: Ophelia Cherry
Unless you are looking for popular popular open source software - such as the ones available in the SourceForge top downloads or the few ones backed by vendors like Apache, Linux, MySQL, PHP, eMule, GIMP, OpenOffice or VLC, Google...
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