Lifestreams for Beginners

It is becoming increasingly difficult for socially connected people to keep up with all their own online activities, never mind their friends. Skinflakes, for example, writes posts on a variety of sites including, Digg, Delicious, Twitter, Clipmarks, Zimbio, Blogger, and Wordpress. We are also looking to create a presence on YouTube, facebook, and Scribld . Clearly this strategy allows people using a variety of different services to find out about Skinflakes. However, our posts are strewn all over the net making it difficult for people to access all of our content.

FriendFeed, Socialthing, and Dipity are examples of a new generation of websites that allow you to organise all you and your friends’ social media activities into one place. They allow you to create a new page or "lifestream" made up of content written in various social media sites.

Some of you may have noticed the mini blog column that runs down the left hand column of our Skinflakes. This feature is simply uses the lifestream created by FriendFeed to bring together all of our social media content into the mini blog.

Of course you can also use FriendFeed to keep up to date with friends who use services that are not your bag. So if you have friends that uses Pownce instead of Twitter you can use FriendFeed to bring their updates into one place. You can also use FriendFeed as a simple web based RSS reader to create a constantly updated list of interesting things. For more about web based RSS readers check out one of our previous posts.

FriendFeed is not the only service in town. Dipity is a new service that gives you the option of displaying posts in a timeline a feature that gives a deeper insight into how people spend their time online. SocialThing looks like a much prettier version of FriendFeed that has been recently acquired by AOL but, for the moment you need an invite to sign up to this service.

How to put a FriendFeed on your blog

• Sign up to FriendFeed

• Add friends from facebook or from your email address book

• Click on “next see your FriendFeed”.

• You need to link your accounts by clicking on the surprise surprise “link your accounts” link

• When you have added all the services click on feed to "view your feed".

• If you want to add a service that isn’t on the list – just click on blog and past in an rss feed link for a service you are interested in eg feeds.feedburner.com/skinflakes will give you posts from skinflakes on your FriendFeed.

• You can also use FriendFeed like Twitter and post messages directly on to your feed

• When you are happy with the contents of your FriendFeed - copy the link for your FriendFeed

• Go to your dashboard in blogger and click on layout

• Add a new gadget – select “feed” and past in your FriendFeed link

• Save the changes and view the FriendFeed on your blog

Second Life for Beginners

This week, Skinflakes attended the launch of the Elucian Islands, the Second Life home of the Nature Publishing Group. The event was a meeting that took place in the real world with guests from the virtual world displayed on a plasma screen. We sat listening to the guest speakers but you couldn’t help being drawn to the virtual figures or avatars sitting in a beautifully rendered meeting room in Second Life.The hands of the avatars typing away, submitting questions to be asked in the real world.

At one point I was sure one of the the avatars stripped naked and suspended themselves in the middle of the virtual meeting room. Why did the person controlling this avatar do this? I guess the simple answer is because they could.

Nature are working hard to use Second Life to extend their traditional role as an organisation that allows scientists to communicate which began with the journal, then through the web and now through Second Life.

I had dismissed Second Life as a game for geeks and my attempts at creating a skinflakes presence of second life took me back to adventure role playing games of the eighties and nineties with a character who was named Skinflakes Scaramon. I must admit I decided the whole thing was just a bit too geeky for me and gave up. This feeling was compounded when one of the speakers told us about people, known as furries, who like to roam around as animals in Second Life. Confirming my suspicions that Second Life is just Dungeons and Dragons for the noughties?

Nature Publishing Group don't seem to think so. Nature on Second Life is a serious business venture. They have clearly invested a lot of time and money in creating an interactive virtual world and judging from their literature they hope to make a return charging people to hold events in their virtual world. Looking at the economic statistics on Second Life is an eye opener. The 15 million people who visit second life have created a vibrant economy with their own currency, the Linden Dollar.

I'm starting to think that virtual worlds are going to be big and whilst the technology is not quite there for the masses. It is only a matter of time before virtual worlds move into the mainstream. Perhaps its time for Skinflakes Scaramon to take his first steps in Second Life after all.

How to get a second life

Visit the second life website

Fill in the registration details

Select an avatar

Download the software -to be honest I didn't get this far but it all seems quite straight forward

Generating Ad Code for beginners

Last month we showed you how to make a bit of on the side dosh out of blog or website by using Google Adsense. Google have also put together a very useful video which gives you a 60 second run through of how to get your ad code.



It is also possible to add the code - and therefore the adverts - straight through blogger, by going to the Settings page, selecting "add widgets" and then scrolling down to the "Adsense" tab, denoted by a dollar sign. As long as you have an adsense account already (see last month`s entry) you can quickly set up your adds in less than five minutes.

Unfortunately, those of you using Word Press (mentioned in our recent blogging post) wont be able to access the riches of adsense, as this popular blogging system doesn't allow Google Adsense or indeed other obvious mechnisims for advertising. We are examining how Word Press works as part of our possible switch and will let you know whether any financial avenues open up on this front ...

Blogs for beginners

The Blogsphere – or the Sanctum of Saddos as my Dad flatteringly calls it – has been abuzz this week with the story of a home based blogger who recently sold his blog for an eye watering $15 million. Bankohlic, a blog that provides info about the banking sector, is now in the hands of a corporate site, Bankrate, who felt the blog had acquired such a valuable, distinguished and numerically large audience, they simply had to have it.

Naturally this has had a lot of bloggers dribbling over their keyboards as it seems to prove that there is gold in those cyber hills. Some, like the distinguished Problogger, have let the odd sour grape slip into their reporting, but overall there appears to be renewed excitement in the possibilities – particularly those of the cash kind – that can stem from blogging.

Of course very few people make anywhere near the astronomical amount that Bankoholic`s owner has reaped – and many non-corporate bloggers, individual and organisation based, are probably not interested in making money in the first place. But even if riches aren't the goal, it’s a fact that many blogs fall a long way short of such lofty heights. Many indeed are barely able to keep going or attract a very small amount of interest.

This is a shame as blogs remain an engaging and direct way to communicate with a target audience. Even the internal medico-politics in Wales can produce a decent and interesting blog if, as in this case, its done properly.

Today’s how to guide seeks to highlight the basics behind a decent blog. This isn’t a revolutionary set of concepts and its aimed very much at beginners – but following these steps will give you the building blocks for a well read blog:

How to … set up a blog

Choose a host site wisely: Choosing where you host your blogger – in other words which site you put your blog on – is important as it will effect key elements such as your design and even where you are placed in Google’s ranking system (see our entry on Google rankings). At Skinflakes we are considering the unthinkable and jumping ship from Blogger as while it is easy to use, it has a number of drawbacks. You have to have an account to comment as a reader and it is behind other flexible sites such as WordPress in terms of Google rankings (as WP gets more hits and so forth). Buying your own domain name (something else we are considering) and therefore site is the best option as you wont be at the whim of your host site if it decides to make changes to its structure. Plus you’re given more respect by Google and higher rankings. This is cheap to do and can be achieved quickly through looking at the 123 site, but you may wish to make sure you’re committed to your blog for the long haul before you take this step.

Choose a niche even more wisely: When opting for a subject for your blog ask yourself three questions:

Do you know enough about the subject and are you monitoring other key websites so that you’re up to speed with what is happening in your field?

Are you prepared to update your blog at least three times a week? If you aren’t then you run the risk of losing readers and interest, as well as being displaced by other competitor blogs. And yes, we know Skinflakes occasionally falls down in this regards …

Is the niche you re aiming for popular enough for you to meet you re aims? If you re writing for fun then ignore this question, but if you’re looking to make money or are an organisation trying to get its opinion across, consider carefully whether your target consumers are there in the first place or are likely to be interested in a blog. In short, is it all worth the effort?

Using "ping" sites: In order to get your posts "indexed" on the major search tools and servers it helps to "ping", or rather notify them that your post actually exists. This will make it more visible to users when they are searching for your blog and posting subjects. Some sites, like wordpress, do this automatically, but there is not harm in registering for free with sites like pingomatic and after each post making sure you "ping".

Lay the right technological foundations: Blogs can take a variety of different forms and styles. Lifehacker is completely different in look, feel and content to Al Gore’s blog, which in turn has little in common with Notts County FC’s midfielder Gary Strauchan’s effort (yes, a shameful plug for one half of Skinflakes favourite football club). However, if you want a successful blog, whether as an individual or as an organisation, you do need to get some practical elements right. All blogs need some basic, but easy to achieve technical and style flourishes so that they can attract and retain readers:

Keep your entries short, snappy and to the point: A blog is not a novel and online users don’t have the time or the inclination to read reams of text. If you look at any of the major blogs, such as those mentioned above, you will see that the entries set a premium on being short and snappy. Don’t worry if you cant squeeze all your info into a post as blogs should also be …

Link heavy – To cut down on the amount you’ll have to write, link to other sites and pieces of information that are relevant to your topic. Blog readers appreciate links as blogs are often regarded as a useful bank of information and content - irrespective of the opinions they offer.

RSS Feeds – People have a thousand and one websites to view these days, so setting up an RSS Feed that delivers your latest updates straight to an individual (such as through an RSS Reader) allows you to guarantee visits and readership, as well as build up an army of subscribers. People who browse blogs also tend to be more techy and more likely to use RSS Readers. Setting up feeds is automatic through Word Press and shortly they`ll be a post on Skinflakes showing you how Feedburner allows you to set up feeds easily for other sites.

Social Bookmarking – Make sure your blog has social bookmarking tabs that allow readers – and maybe even yourself – to post your contributions to large community sites such as Digg it, Delicious, Facebook and Reddit. This will increase the chance of more people seeing your entry.

Comments – Finally blogs should be interactive. Allowing people to comment and interact with you directly will make your blog more engaging and more likely to be read. There is also no need to worry about adverse comments - all blog platforms can be moderated as a user function, meaning that you can choose what ends up in print on your blog.

Web Widgets for Beginners

Aren’t widgets those little bits of plastic at the bottom of beer cans that makes the pint come out like draft? Yes well that is true, but here in geekland widgets are bits of code you can paste into your website to do interesting things.

If you look at some of the new features that have appeared on the skinflakes website in recent weeks such as: the search bar, the email alerts sign up box, the adverts, the feed from our social media sites – these are all web widgets (also known as gadgets on blogger).

The great thing about web widgets is they allow you to do clever things on your website or blog without having any knowledge HTML, Javascript or any computer language. All you have to do is go to a third party website follow a list of instructions and you will receive a bit of code needed to do the job.

Web widgets give bloggers the power to create webpages that are more feature rich than many corporate sites. Through the use of widgets the skinflakesblog can now generate income through Google Adsense and the amazon affiliates programme . Our email alert widget allows readers of our website to become subscribers and our friend feed displays all the content from our social networking activities.

How to add a web widget to your blog

1. Go to a website that will create a web widgits. Widget box, which list hundreds of widgets, is a good place to start alternatively go to a specific site such as Google Adsense to create an advertising widget or feedburner to create an email alerts subscription box. Blogger and wordpress also have many widgets you use to improve your blog.
   

2. Many widgets can be created in a few minutes by selecting the designs you prefer. Most websites give two options: you can copy the code that when pasted into your blog or website will display your widgit or click on a button to that will add the widget directly to your layout page in blogger or wordpress.
   

3. The pasting code route is fairly simple in blogger. Click on layout tab and then the “add a gadget” bar. This will give you an range of custom built widgets you an add to your blog. If you select the option for HTML/Javascript you can paste your code, remembering to click on the save button, and the widget is now on your site.

Skinflakes round up ...

Skinflakes comments

Graham Jones returned from an extended absence in August with a new posting on the, ahem, gender problems facing Internet marketeers. The article is not quite as exciting as many of you are thinking and didn't find full favour with Skinflakes, but it is an interesting look at how many websites focus a bit too much on the all mighty dollar sign. And just to show that our own hypocrisy can occasionally result in us disappearing smartly up our backsides, have a look at our own posting on Google Adsense that shows were not totally adverse to a bit of Skinflakes cash ...

Elsewhere, Problogger published another interesting article on how to get a blog postings read which also drew a comment from us, this time endorsing all of the main points, but warning starting out bloggers that they might want to lay off the press releases and newsletters ...


Skinflakes facts


As we mentioned when Skinflakes started out, we are keen to give out regularly facts on how Skinflakes is doing and since weve now passed our first month with a webcounter, here are our vital statistics:

1. 704 views in one month - a good start, but were aiming for more than a thousand over the next month.

2. 8 followers on Twitter.

3. 8 followers via RSS Feeds.

4. 1 comment to our articles.

5. The staggering total of $0.84 made from our Google Adsense drive in the past week.

6. 10 Diggs for our articles on Digg it

Not bad figures for our first full month, but obviously were looking for bigger and better things down the line ...

Social bookmarking for beginners

Social bookmarking is now present on virtually every news site and information webpage – which is sometimes perplexing considering most people haven’t got the faintest idea what it is or the opportunities it offers.

All of us though have seen a social bookmarking tab. If you look at the bottom of any page on BBC Online, such as this one below, you`ll see a box with tabs for five sites, including Facebook and Digg it, the latter being the most popular pure form of social bookmarking site with around 2.7 million regular users. Skinflakes incidentally uses another variation – a tab on the left hand side of the screen with the full plethora of social bookmarking sites currently on offer.

The presence of Facebook in the BBC’s list hints at the underlining commonality between social networking and social bookmarking. Digg it, like Facebook and its other cousins in the genre, is a free service that allows an individual to create a tailored profile which can be customised with information, pictures, links to sites of personnel interest, a section that allows you to add friends and even the facility to start up a small blog.

However, the main difference between the two is that social bookmarking is built primarily around the sharing, discussion and rating of individual web stories and articles. Users mark a webpage, save it to their profile and in doing so highlight it to the Digg it community.

This latter process of distribution to the millions of Digg it subscribers works through a series of mini-feeds which are tailored by category (identified by the submitter) and can be accessed through the sites search engines or by setting preference controls so the user sees a specific feed when they log in. Categories include political news, gadgets and business.

The real twist behind Digg it though is that articles receive more prominence, the more votes – or “diggs” – they receive from Digg it users who see the article and think it’s worth a positive endorsement. Hence the more digs an article gets, the higher it is on the main Digg page in each category which users see straight away when they log on. In addition, submitting an article creates a mini-discussion forum where all Digg it users can discuss and argue about the stories content.

For users, Digg it provides a neat online storage system where their favourite articles can be secured in one place and shared with other people. For someone with something to say, Digg it provides a way of flagging up content to a large body of people who –thanks to the category based mini-feeds – are likely to be interested in the topic behind the post. It therefore offers an opportunity to get access directly to your target audience.

Of course, simply digging a webpage isn’t the end of the story as to get it widely viewed and dugg it must receive those crucial votes to get on the front page where more people can see it. There are various guides knocking around on how to do this, but in truth all of them, such as this example from Problogger, only work if you have built a strong list of subscribers and have the time to put some serious effort into it. And rather paradoxically, social bookmarking was listed in another recent Problogger post about distractions that can prevent a blogger from the main business of getting a blog written.

Below are five basic tips from my experience of using Digg it that give you a starting point on how to get a webpage promoted through this particular social bookmarking site.

How to … begin to get your content noticed on Digg it

Make sure the content is relevant – if possible – A lot of readers of Digg it have a specialist interest in particular areas, especially tech issues. Yes, the word geek is applicable. Therefore if you want diggs marking your content on tech issues, such as say Firefox, is likely to be the way to go. However, don’t become too obsessed by tailoring articles/webpages solely to Digg it – just make sure that it’s worth posting your information there in the first place!

Make the title interesting – The first thing that Digg it asks for is a title for the article or story. Don’t automatically use the title of the story as sometimes they are painfully dull and probably wont attract anyone’s attention. Pick something that is likely to grab your target audience’s attention when they glance down a mini-feed. Obviously don’t just call it “big tits” or anything like that …

Make sure you place your Digg in the right category – An obvious point, but its surprisingly easy to botch your category and send your article off to the wrong group of people. At the beginning Skinflakes posts were all being placed under gadgets – applicable for articles on podcasting equipment, but less so for articles on Google rankings. Therefore think carefully about your target audience before choosing your category.

Don’t over- spam or become an obvious marketer – The web does not like a spammer. As with all forms of communication there is a temptation to go crazy on Digg it and repeat post your article or flood the system with too many Diggs to boost your profile. This can – and is in one case – result in a lot of negative blowback from the Digg it community. Also make sure you don’t just promote your own pages – keep your account lively with other diggs about related topics so that people will become interested in what you`ve got to say and will follow your diggs as a “fan”.

Make friends and fans – A simple way to alert more people to your postings is to get your current online contacts to join Digg (or link up with them if theyre already on there). Look out for prominent, active Diggers who you can become a fan of and allow anyone whose interested in your content to be a fan of yours.

Google adsense for beginners

Regular readers of skinflakes, may have noticed the appearance of adverts on our site. To some people this is a crime against blogging. But writing a blog takes time and is free for people to consume, so we have no problem putting relevant adverts up on the site that aren’t too annoying. Skinflakes is still in its infancy and and our current aim is to increase our traffic. At this point I will suggest that you forward the contents of this blog to someone you think might find it interesting. But back to the the subject of today’s blog. Google Adsense - a service that allows you to create tailor made averts for your website which are relevant to your content.

Why do I want adverts on my website? Well you may not but Google Adsense provides you with an easy way to generate money from your website.

If you look at the adverts carried on the skinflakes site they are for goods and services related to social media - things that are likely to be of interest to people reading our blog. No dating agencies adverts, pornography, or phishing scams just links to other relevant websites.

When people click on the adverts it generates a tiny bit of cash for us. Which whilst we are not ready to give up our day jobs just yet some bloggers report that they make a healthy living from the advertising revenue generated from their blogs. Steve Pavlina a high profile blogger.

For example, claims to earn $1000 a day. So how do you go about setting Google Adsense up?

Register with google for an adsense account, if you already have a gmail, blogger or igoogle login you can use this:

1. Click on the sign up button in the top right hand corner of the page
2. Enter your contact details including the the address of your blog or website
3. On the Adsense set up menu click on the type of ad you want to create - probably best to start with Adsense for content. Alternatively Adsense for search can be used to create a search box on your sites that will generate relevant adverts along with the results of a search.
4. Select on the ad unit button. Personally I like to limit the advert to text only but select the option that suits your site.
5. Select the size and colour of your advert. When you are happy click “continue”
6. Adsense will give you a box of code that has all the information needed to put the advert on your website. Copy this code by highlighting the contents of the box and pressing “ctrl c”
7. To paste the code into a blog on blogger – sign into your blog and go to the dashboard
   
8. Select the layout tab and click on the add gadget box. Scroll down until you reach a an option add html code click on this past in the code “ctrl v” and save.
9. You can reposition your adverts by moving the boxes around now that you are back in the layout page.

Another way of making money from your blog is to join the the Amazon’s Associate program. This gives you the opportunity to select products you think are relevant to your site. If people click through and buy the product - you get a 5% cut of the sale. For those serious about making money from advertising Skinflakes recommends that you check out Steve Pavlina’s epic “how to make money from your blog” article and subscribe to the Problogger RSS feed for more information.

Email alerts for beginners

Watching the BBC show, [spooks] CODE 9, this week; I thought it odd that some of the characters were using personal digital assistants (PDAs). The series is set in 2012 and given the declining sales of PDAs; I suspect the humble PDA will be largely obsolete by then - even if London is destroyed by an act of nuclear terrorism.

The declining sales of PDAs is largely down to the popularity of other portable tech- namely smart phones like the Blackberry and now Apple’s iPhone. Using smartphones, people can communicate in a whole set of new ways via text message, picture message, videocalls and instant messaging, as well as through social networking - using mobile internet or by email. The PDA or pocket PCs as some became known have fallen by the way side as people are unwilling to carry several electronic devices where one will do the trick.

Apple’s decision to combine mobile phone and ipod in the glorious iPhone saw this trend coming as many modern phones have perfectly acceptable mp3 players and indeed cameras. Now that we have high speed mobile broadband these devices are genuinely making the internet mobile and look likely to kill of stand alone mp3 players as well as the PDA.

If you are one of the increasing army of people using email on your phone it is well worth looking taking advantage of email alerts to keep you up to date with the latest information on the web. Whilst some news sites such as the news.bbc.co.uk allow you to set up alerts based on your interests, many smaller sites do not offer an email alerting service. There is a way round this problem - a free web service called sendmeRSS allows you to set up alerts from any site that has an RSS feed.

RSS feeds as discussed in a previous entry allow you to be constantly updated on new stories. If for example you want to be updated by email when a new skinflakes blog is produced simply follow theses instructions:

How to create email alerts from RSS feeds

1. identify an RSS feed that is of interest eg http://feeds.feedburner.com/skinflakes
2. go to http://www.sendmerss.com
3. type in the address of the rss feed of interest
4. type in you email adress.
5. go to your email and verify you address by clicking on the appropriate link
6. every morning you will see new emails generated from an RSS feed

Another way of creating email alerts is to use the google alerts service which allows you to recieve daily emails based on searches in google news. This can be a very useful way of media monitoring for small companies that can't justify the expense of media monitoring.

A flake aside ...

As mentioned in our last post, Bill Thompson delivered a good knock out blow to the web expansion doomsayers in a recent article both on his blog and BBC Online. Bill is one of the web's most astute commentators and well worth following ... and his latest post now has its own skinflakes comment and link.

As Skinflakes explained in an entry recently, commenting on other well established blogs is a good way to boost your Google rankings and spread your message - but please dont be an arsehole of colossal proportions and churn out a pure bit of promotional gumpf.

More from skinflakes soon on Facebook and Digg - remember to leave comments or email in if you have any subjects you`d like us to take on from the beginners perspective here at Skinflakes.

Tiny URL for beginners ...

If you look at most films, newspapers and books, it is clear that a lot of people like nothing more than a good apocalyptic nightmare where society is torn down by hurricanes, revolutions, superbugs, tidal waves, volcanos or, my personal favourite, a giant marshmallow man in a sailor’s hat.

The web has had its fair share of calamitous predications in its short lifespan; the most recent being that it’s rapidly expanding size (i.e. in terms of users, bandwidth uptake etc) is about to cause everyone’s computer to explode in their faces. Fortunately there are plenty of on the ball commentators around to install some sanity, like Bill Thompson, whose article for BBC Online this week dealt with some of the major myths raised by the “expansion” doomsayers.

However, while the internet isn’t about to detonate, the rising levels of online users are causing quite a few spin off problems as the demand for web space spirals upwards – a phenomenon that recently resulted in Icann expanding the number of top level domains available to companies, organisations and countries.

A small but irritating side effect is that web links or URLs are becoming increasingly long, simply because the web needs new addresses to assign to the rising number of pages that are springing up on a daily basis. For example a link to a Problogger article that we added on our Twitter feed today runs to well over 70 characters:

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2008/08/28/a-downside-of-getting-to-the-front-page-of-digg/

Besides being as ugly as a boxer after a knock out, longer URLs create a host of niggling, yet collectively serious problems for those looking to promote a website or a particular webpage.

They are harder for people to remember, meaning that your customers or members are unlikely to recall what to type in, if they are like the rest of us and forget to scribble your page title down. This might be one of the reasons why some research has suggested that short URLs have a higher click through rate than their more expansive cousins.

Even if you don’t buy this research and reason, it is a fact that longer links have a tendency to “break” when copy and pasted into an email. The sender wont be able to spot this problem, only the recipient will know when they click on the link and it doesn’t work. This will obviously slow down your communication, mean you have to repeat send an email (fingers crossed it will work) and on top of that get a sharp pain of frustration in the front of your head.

And if youre a blogger or poster, trying to comment and thereby promote your site (see our advice on how to boost your Google rankings), may become difficult because a lengthy link takes up too many characters in a comment box. This is especially the case if youre using more sophisticated micro-blogging sites like Twitter, which restrict you to 150 icons.

So, how to get round this problem? Well, to use the skinflakes mantra, there are free, easy to use services that can help you shorten your URL links.

A good example is TinyURL, a website that allows you to cut the size of your URL to a smaller number of digits. This will make it easier to remember, unbreakable and allow you to squeeze a promo for your site into that tight comment box. There is no restriction on how you use the link - it is yours once it is entered - and it does not alter the content or performance of your page or site. There is also no need at all to speak anyone vaguely technical, as today`s how to guide demonstrates.

How to … Tinyurl:

1. Log onto TinyURL.com
2. Enter the URL of the webpage into the “Make tiny URL” tab.
3. Click on the tab … and its done! You will be taken through to a new page with your cut
down URL.Click on it to make sure it works and then feel free to distribute it as you wish to
who you wish.

Podcasting for Beginners

Podcasting has moved into the mainstream - statistics fom emarketer show an incredible 18.5 million people in the US downloaded a podcast in 2007 and the BBC’s World Service's Global news has over 1 million monthly downloads.

The huge surge in people listening to podcasts is largely a result of the global success of ipods and itunes and the fact that large broadcasters like the BBC and NPR have embraced the technology. Most large radio stations and many newspapers now produce high quality podcasts most of which are free to download. For any one thinking of producing a podcast it is a good idea to checkout the competition - Podcast Alley and itunes are probably the best place to start.

Last week we discussed how to produce your own mp3 files using a USB microphone and Audacity. The next step is, of course, to make it available in a form that allows people to subscribe using programmes like iTunes and Juice.

All you really need, to turn you mp3 file into a podcast, is a link known as an RSS feed . This will allow people to subscribe to your podcasts so that they will receive all future episodes direct to their desktop or mp3 player. Creating your podcasting feed is the subject of today’s how to.

How to podcast

1. Upload your mp3 to your website – if you don’t have a website don’t worry just sign yourself up to a service like yahoo geocities or 0catch which will allow you to upload some mp3 files. It is important to note that free web hosting accounts like this will have limits the amount of storage space eg the amount of mp3 files you can upload.
   
2. Find out the web address for your uploaded mp3 usually the address of your website followed by the name of your mp3 file eg www.podtastic.com/pod1.mp3
3. Open an account in blogger and create a blog - each new entry should correspond to a podcast.
4. Write a blog entry that describes the audio file followed by a link to the podcast.
5. Post your blog entry.
6. Register for an free account in feedburner this will allow you to create a podcast friendly feed and get statistics about who is subscribing to your feed
7. Create a podcasting feed. All you need to do is paste the web address of your blog into the "start feedburning now" box. Remember to tick the “I am a podcaster “ box
8. You will have to select one of two feeds to burn – select the one that ends in rss.
9. Edit your feed title and web address and activate your feed.
10. To find out what clicking on your podcast feed looks like - click on the rss symbol next to the title of your feed and you will see how easy it is for people to sign up to your feed using a range of different application including itunes.
11. Submit your feed to itunes and podcast alley.
    

Google rankings for beginners

Besides having more money than anyone bar God, Google is still the top beast in the internet search engine jungle. According to new research published last week by Pew, around 59% - 61% of all USA based web searches in June 2008 were made using Google. Its competitors are being left very much in the shade– for the time being anyway.

Getting a foothold on the web’s premier site is therefore incredibly important – and it’s also crucial that your site is as far up Google’s search pages as possible. As Red Cardinal reported in 2006, only 15% of users look at the second page of their Google search, less than 1% go to the third page. After that you’re into a serious number of 0.0 digits.

But how do you make sure your site is prominently placed?

Most people believe that Google’s page rankings are based purely on keywords and hits. It is certainly true that both of these are important, but they are only two of a melee of factors that are drilled through a complicated formula to produce the search results that pop up on your screen. Other elements include the positioning of keywords on the webpage (i.e. in the title, main body of the text, etc), how often a site is updated and the number of times a page is linked to by others sites - and the value of those linking sites (to see how far you can push your head before it explodes – take a look at this page for the specific page ranking formula).

Tapping into this complex array of determinants is not simple, not least because a lot of the factors rely upon on external popularity (hits/links) that beginners have to encourage from scratch.

However, its certainly not impossible. After less than two weeks, Skinflakes is already registering on the first page of the Google search for its name. Today`s how to guide gives you some basic tips on how to get your site in a position to climb the Google rankings.

But I`m not going to tell porkies. It’s not easy or certain that you`ll get your site highly mentioned even with our guide until you have a bit of popularity behind you. So, its worth being a little bit cheeky and using some backdoor approaches that allow you to piggy back your site onto more established sites. You won’t achieve a direct link, but as current search engine results for skinflakes and skinflakes blog on Google demonstrate (have a scroll down) you can get your site mentioned a couple of times prominently on that crucial first page.

Here are three quick and sneaky tips:

1. Comment on established and well viewed sites. By engaging with other sites that are highly valued (i.e. well linked too, well visited) and leaving a reference to your site you are likely to be thrown up early on Google searches. We recently commented on an interesting Graham Jones article and left our taglines – hey presto within a day we were on Google’s front page for skinflakes searches. Be careful not to abuse this though, make sure you have something to say about the article – certainly don’t just do it for pure advertising sake – or the moderator will quite rightly kick you into touch. A further spin off of commenting in this way is that people will hopefully want to find out more about you by visiting your site and keeping tabs on your other comments.

2. Create a RSS reader page. Putting together an RSS reader pages with any of the main RSS feeder providers will also boost your chances of heading into that first page. You can learn how to do this from last week’s entry and you can sign up to our pageflakes page here.

3. Create an Amazon booklist. Amazon is obviously one of the most visited sites on the web and by creating a list of recommended books through a profile page, you also increase your chances of being highlighted by Google. Simply go into your profile (make sure it contains a link to your site), create a relevant list of books and submit to Amazon. Again, don’t abuse this, make sure the books are relevant to your site and that, well, you’ve actually read them ... Read the skinflakes recommendations here.

How to ... basic tips to boost your Google rankings

1. If possible, choose a distinctive name for your site or blog. Don’t just call it “My blog”, “John Smith products” or employ any other common terms that are likely to already be in use. Something well used, means more competition and a harder climb up those rankings. And anyway a distinctive name will make it easier for people to remember your website.

2. Make sure your site name is mentioned as early on as possible in your web address. If there is any text in front of the web address – say http://www.infoskinflakes.com/ - then the “info” will be taken as a main tag for the page, hence potentially lowering your ranking.

3. Ensure that the keywords that people are likely to type into their search are mentioned first in the title of your webpage. Hence don’t write “Press release: Skinflakes – new mobile phone launched by Skinflakes”, instead title it “Skinflakes mobile phone launched – Skinflakes press release”.

4. As we have done at the top of our blog, write down the keywords that describe what your blog or webpage is about as both an introduction tool and so that Google latches onto those words and associates them with your site. Promience in the text is a key thing Google looks for.

5. Update the content of your site regularly. Google does scan how often a site is refreshed and uses this as an indicator of how active and current it is – rewarding the most active with higher page rankings.

6. When you have completed a post – get it distributed so people can link to it. Use social bookmarking sites such as Digg and social networking sites like Facebook to spread it. The more people who see it, visit it and link it, the higher your page and site will go in the rankings.

Recording Audio Podcasts for Beginners

I hate the term podcasting. Not because I have anything against iPods or have a problem with the millions of podcasts downloaded each month. It is just that it is such a lazy uninspiring term to describe a technology that gives us all the power to broadcast audio and video to a global audience.

Audio and video media files have been available to download long before the term podcast was coined. Podcasting describes the way in which the files are distributed. People subscribe to a podcast and every time a new file is produced it is automatically downloaded to a person’s computer and in some cases transferred to their portable media player, be it an ipod or mobile phone.

So assuming you think you have something interesting to say – how do you go about creating a digital audio file?

All you need is a computer, a microphone and some audio editing software. The Samson C01 USB podcasting pack which retails for around £100 is a great way to get started. It contains a studio quality condensing microphone, stand and software that will allow you to produce studio quality recordings. It really is good enough to record music demos if that's your bag.

If your budget won’t stretch to this or if you just want to experiment before you commit, the Logitech basic USB mic on a stand retails for under £10.

Another even cheaper alternative is an analogue microphone with a 3.5 mm jack, these are even cheaper and will work on most computers, but be warned they are notorious for picking up electrical hums. If you have a laptop with a built in microphone then that will be as good as a cheap plug in microphone.

For software you can’t really go wrong with Audacity - a free programme available to download from http://audacity.sourceforge.net It is a really intuitive bit of software that works like a tape recorder on your computer but also gives you access to a range of simple editing features.

The process of distributing your audio file will be covered in future blog entry. But for now here is a guide to producing you own mp3 recordings.

How to record an audio file on your computer

1. Download audacity http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/ note there are versions for windows Macs and Linux.

2. You will also need to download LAME MP3 encoder – this little download allows you to turn your audio files into mp3s http://lame.buanzo.com.ar/

3. Plug a usb mic into your computer – asuming it should be plug an play unless your computer is out of the ark

4. Run Audacity

5. Press the record button and talk into your microphone. You should see sound waves jumping up and down as you talk.
   

6. If nothing is recording try playing with your audio settings- go to windows start menu/settings/controlpanel/sounds and audio devices then click on "audio" tab and then adust the volume in the sound recording section

7. If you want to cut a bit of the recording out - then simply highlight it with your mouse and press delete.

8. When you are happy with your recording, click on “file” and then “export as an mp3”. You will probably be asked to locate the Lamemp3.dll file. Simply show Audacity where you saved it and you should be able to save your file as an mp3.

9. If you want to change the quality of you mp3 files click on “edit” and “preferences” you should then select the “file formats” tab and adjust the mp3 bit rate – the higher the number the higher the quality and file size.

Webcounters for beginners

As Graham Jones reports this week, the much trumpeted Web 2.0 revolution appears to be slowing down. For those of you not plugged into the nerd matrix and not aware of this buzz word, it basically refers to a wide set of technologies, that began to appear on the web in around 2003. They are easy to use and free to operate, and encourage user creativity, information sharing and collaboration. RSS Feeds, Wikis, social networking sites and lovely old blogs are some examples of these techs.

One core principle of Web 2.0 that may well be holding back it’s uptake amongst organisations and businesses is transparency. Most people in the corporate world have a natural inclination to hide any facts about themselves from public view as if they were as important as Britain’s nuclear codes. Public comment, discussion, content rating, published visitor figures and other stats are completely avoided on most “official” websites you’ll visit. By doing this businesses and organisations are passing up on a wealth of free feedback from their target audience as well as making themselves appear closed, fusty and, lets face it, a bit of a git.

One very small baby step to making yourself a bit more open is adding a webcounter to your site. This shows how many times your page has been visited and lets the browser judge whether your site or blog is making the impact that you might be claiming all over your webpages. It really is the first rung on the transparency ladder - and yes, I can hear the groaning and I promise not to use that analogy again.

Setting up a webcounter is easy and once again free. There are various sites that will help you embed one on your site, one of the simplest being freelogs.com.

Today’s how to guide runs you through their very, very simple set up routine. Our webcounter, set up this morning, is on the right hand menu.

How to set up a webcounter ... on blogger

1. Log on to http://www.freelogs.com/

2. Click on “create your free counter”.

3. Fill in the set up table’s tabs with a username, password, start count – be good and don’t set it to 3 and a half billion – email address, your page’s link in the URL box and choose the style of counter you want.

4. Decide whether you want the counter to show the number of visits or unique users. Then click on agree policy before pressing on create counter.

5. Your counter will be set up and you’ll go through to a page with a webcode. Copy this.

6. Log into your blogger account and click on customise from your dashboard so you’re through to the page element section.

7. Click on the add element tab and select “add text”. Paste the code in, give the counter a title, select save and a counter box will appear in the page element and on your blog. Move it around until its in the right location.

For corporate websites and business sites, just call your tech guys!

RSS readers for beginners

There are a large number of perfectly intelligent, well informed web users to whom the term “RSS feed” brings on a frown and a strong desire to head for the nearest exit. It is, to many people, a phrase that either means absolutely nothing or conjures up unflattering images of internet geeks, probably dressed in Star Trek uniforms and drumming their fingers to the theme tune from the X-Files.

However, as Scobleizer reported in October 2007, between 10 and 65 million people already use RSS Feeds in some way – and this figure is only going to increase as more sites offer RSS and more users become aware of its benefits.

But where does a new RSS user get started and what potential does this technology offer to anyone looking to promote an organisation, business, website or blog?

A good starting point for the answers to these questions lies with RSS Feed readers – free to subscribe services that help users organise their RSS Feed subscriptions. There are various competitors to choose from in a very crowded market, including Netvibes, I-Google and Pageflakes.

No one at those companies will thank me for saying that there isn’t a great deal to choose between them, but the beauty of all the main RSS readers comes from their simplicity. Registration, choosing your feeds and customising your homepage can all be done in a handful of clicks. Follow the steps on the Netvibes help page and you can have a fully running RSS Feed page in well under an hour.

However, the real potential in RSS Feed readers is that some of them - Netvibes and Pageflakes particularly - allow the creation of public pages that any web user can access (again, all for free). These can be designed quickly and with limited fuss by anybody who signs up for an account with that reader. Once active and filled with RSS Feeds, a public page can be promoted to web users who can subscribe to them irrespective of whether they hold an account with that reader.

Therefore RSS readers, like Netvibes and Pageflakes, offer you the capability to tailor make a ready made visual base for your chosen RSS Feeds that is instantly accessible to your target audience. Anyone can subscribe and with minimum effort have a page of rolling news from different parts of your preferred site or sites. For your audience it takes away the effort of having to trawl through sites or multiple sites for information – something that users are increasingly reluctant to do - while for you it means that your messages have an increased chance of being read.

Adding your own feeds, from say a blog or a website, is also extremely easy.

You simply copy the URL from your RSS feed (an entry soon will show you how to create RSS Feed from personal websites), place it in the "Add RSS Feed" tab that is prominently displayed on all the RSS readers mentioned above. Your feed should then become instantly active and ready to be put in your public page.

If youre still confused about this process, then this page from the BBC tells you how to do this in a step by step way for the BBC RSS feeds (see the box on the right hand side - "Subscribe to this Feed")

Some organisations have already spotted the potential in these public RSS reader pages. The UK’s National Archive Office and the Washington Post have their own pages while anyone interested in the US elections can stay up to date with several news organisation newsfeeds on Pageflakes.

And we even have our own social media blog public page here at skinflakes.

RSS Feed readers provide an easy, interesting and effective way of marshalling your feeds in a manner that makes them accessiable and visually impressive to your audience. With no cost implications and limited set up time, they are the easy way to get your voice heard.

How to Netvibe …

Personal Page - http://faq.netvibes.com/getting_started

Public Page - http://faq.netvibes.com/public_page#public_page

How to Pageflakes ...

Personal Page

1. Visit http://www.pageflakes.com/
2. Click on the “Sign Up” option at the top right of the screen.
3. Fill in the information table as instructed.
4. Decide whether you want to alert your friends to Pageflakes through Google, MSN (etc)
5. Now you are through to your page. To customise, click on the menu tab (top right) and from the left hand options bar, browse “flakes” (i.e. RSS Feed options) by category or by keyword (clicking on the yellow “Browse Flakes Tab”).
6. If you have found a site that doesn’t have a Pageflakes feed already, then click on Menu and then “Add an RSS Feed”.
7. Copy and paste the RSS Feed link from the site into the “Add Feed” box – and the feed will appear on your page.

Public Page (Pagecast)

1. Log onto your personal page
2. Open up the menu bar and select “Make a Pagecast”
3. Select “Public Page to the World”
4. Fill in the menu tab, including a title for your page, some key words that will help it be picked up by Pageflakes search engines and any email addresses of people you`d like to alert to your public page.
5. And there it is – a public Pagecast page. Edit the page with the feeds you want as per the instructions for the personal page above

Twitter for beginners

I must admit when somebody first sent me a link to the microblog, Twitter, my first reaction was, “what a colossal waste of time”. It seemed to be full of updates on the most banal aspects of people’s dreary lives. “Going to see Batman tonight.” “Just had fish and chips for tea etc” I was ready to dismiss it as a faddy thing for kids. Enthusiastic friends convinced me to have another look.

Basically Twitter allows you to write very small postings of 140 characters. I mean you can just about write a decent haiku in 140 characters but surely reducing communication to this extent renders most messages meaningless?

But there seems to be a bit of a buzz about Twitter, so I read a bit more and it turns out Twitter works quite happily on your mobile phone. If you can convince people you have interesting stuff to say - they will subscribe to receive your messages known as tweets.

Suddenly I saw potential. Covering live events Twitter would allow you to communicate the exciting moments or decisions directly to people’s mobile phones. Motions passed at conference, new products released, scores at sporting events. It allows companies to set up a text alerting service for free – a powerful new way of reaching customers provided you have something interesting to say. Aside from personal tweets, the BBC the Guardian are twittering even Gordon Brown is twittering.

Another way of looking at Twitter is your own personal newswire update to the world on the latest event of importance to you or your business.

The great thing about Twitter is its versatility you don’t need to have a mobile phone. You can update on a computer and users can subscribe using RSS feed (to be covered in depth soon).

Just as some people like to talk on the phone whilst others prefer face to face contact Twitter offers choice. Users of facebook might be interested to know that you can synchronize your Twitter updates with the “what are you doing” section of your profile. A quick text message will tell your friends colleagues what you are up to and they can choose to find out from their facebook account, their mobile phone or through an rss feed or by visiting the Twitter website. That is what is so seductive about Twitter – it is the choice you give people in how they access your information.

Twitter is not the only microblogging site on the block. Other players are Pownce, jaiku and plurk. Whilst they do not quite do the same thing as Twitter they have unique features of their own. I’ll probably blog about them in future.

How to setup a Twitter account

1. Visit www.twitter.com
2. Click on the big green box that says Get started – join
3. Fill in details as requested including squiggly writing to convince Twitter you are human
4. Click on “I accept – create my account”
5. Twitter asks for your email so it can check your contacts to see if your friends are on Twitter
6. Skip this step by clicking on “skip”
7. Tell Twitter what you are doing
8. The search bar at the top allows you to search for people or organizations you might want to follow
9. The “find and follow” link allows you to search for friends by their email or just invite them to join Twitter and follow your postings (tweets)
10. Click on add devices and fill in your mobile phone
11. To set up email alerts – from people you choose to follow click on notices

Follow our skinflakes on Twitter for a daily update on interesting social networking sites
http://twitter.com/skinflakes