Super Captcha

This is just funny...








That should stop the spammers, right?

Making money 2.0 style

Ever since YouTube was sold for $1.65 kajillion everyone has jumped on the bandwagon believing they can be the next internet success story. The trouble is, there are hundreds of web 2.0 startups trying to reinvent the same thing. Not to discourage, but it will take an original idea, not just a regurgitated concept.

Maybe that's why Yahoo bought MyBlogLog so fast. It was original, and the idea had proved to be viral. In just a few short months their userbase had grown significantly.

If you look at who is actually buying these sites, it's web giants like Google and Yahoo that add them to their bag of tricks to someday include in their world domination plan.

The success of a web startup depends on a few rules, some good startup advice, and possibly a web startup toolkit. Equally important is knowing what not to do, and being aware of web startup mistakes.

A great article in Business 2.0 about web company startups suggests that mistakes can be shortcuts to success.

Web marketing and make money online

If you didn't visit the links in the SEOSnafu awards, there's one in particular to visit if you're not familiar with it. It's John Chow's blog about how to make money online. It's a great read if you're interested in exploring the web's potential, and besides sharing web marketing tips, cool cars, and interesting videos, he also offers a link to your blog if you take the time to review his blog.

John's blog is loaded with some great online insight and is well worth a visit.

Web 3.0 is coming

The web is no longer just brochureware.

Between all the mashups and API's is a new web that will evolve unlike anything most of us ever saw coming. From gaming to applications, it's future is a subscription based environment.

And that could extend to everything beyond the OS. The web is becoming more of a platform and database. And as the scrapers and aggregators mature, so will the application.

The SEOSnafu Awards

I think it's time to give credit where it's due. And without further adieau, the 1st SEO Snafu awards!

Best Internet Marketing Blog
John Chow

Best SEO blog
SEOBook
* with honorable mention to Jim Boykin, Graywolf, and Stuntdubl

Best Affiliate Marketing Blog
Shoemoney

Best Trends Source
Popurls

Social Media Mogul
Pronet

Best Forum (WH)
Digital Point
* with honorable mention to ThreadWatch

Best Forum (BH)
syndk8
* with honorable mention to SEO Black Hat

Best Blogger Resource
Problogger


Drop a comment to suggest a future category.

SEO Conferences coming up

Dave Naylor, Greg Boser, and Jennifer Slegg announced the launch of SEODays. These will be 2 day conferences available in UK, Europe, USA and Canada.

Also coming up is SES NY, which I hear is possibly the best one of all.

One that seems to have a lot of people talking is the Elite Retreat. I know a lot of people I respect in SEO have had good things to say about it.

The People Have Spoken

Social media is growing by leaps and bounds, with the sale of YouTube on everyone's mind in hopes of creating the next big web 2.0 success story.

The players being digg, delicio.us, reddit, and to a lesser extent, Netscape, Newsvine and Stumbleupon, are at the mercy of a voting system by their users.

Key users are in part becoming influencers, but at what expense to those which frequent social bookmarking sites? Do theses contributors have adverse or biased effects on reporting the facts? While influencers of these types of websites dictate what's hot and what's not, isn't a 2.0 democracy leaving the backdoor open to buying of votes and more?

With these sites being undeniably popular and receiving millions of hits per day, their looms the very real possiblity that the way we get our news is on the verge of shifting. But more importantly is the risk of payola and attempts to gain the system.

Social bookmarking sites are ultimately a challenge to traditional media, but without proper policing, the inevitable gaming of such aggregator sites could lead to their demise.