Last month, Google announced that Google Labs, which allowed Google developers and users to “field test” experimental Web projects, will be phased out. Many Labs experiments will be sidelined, but the Ngram Viewer made it.

Sponsor

Changing media types. An Ngram Viewer search plotting the mentions of major communication technologies between 1800 and 2000.

The Ngram Viewer joins a handful of other features that make Google Books interactive and immersive. In June, Google added doodling to a select group of its e-books. Back in 2009, Google offered rights owners the option to offer their books under Creative Commons licensing, so the public can share and remix them. Google’s efforts to digitize the world’s books have created their fair share of consternation in the publishing world, but they sure have given us access to some wonderful data.

Major religions of the world.

Nerds, Dorks, Geeks and Dweebs.

Discuss

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Last month, Google announced that Google Labs, which allowed Google developers and users to “field test” experimental Web projects, will be phased out. Many Labs experiments will be sidelined, but the Ngram Viewer made it.

Sponsor

Changing media types. An Ngram Viewer search plotting the mentions of major communication technologies between 1800 and 2000.

The Ngram Viewer joins a handful of other features that make Google Books interactive and immersive. In June, Google added doodling to a select group of its e-books. Back in 2009, Google offered rights owners the option to offer their books under Creative Commons licensing, so the public can share and remix them. Google’s efforts to digitize the world’s books have created their fair share of consternation in the publishing world, but they sure have given us access to some wonderful data.

Major religions of the world.

Nerds, Dorks, Geeks and Dweebs.

Discuss

Go to Source

Advertise here with BSA

Have you heard about the Freelance Starter Kit from Vandelay Design? The kit is a great resource for anyone who is just branching out into freelancing, or for those who have been freelancing but are looking to get better results. The bundle includes loads of valuable resources that will make a difference in your business. The resources will save you time, protect you legally, show you how to build your business, and help you to create awesome work for your clients.

Update: Congratulations to the following winners:

• Sophie Lewis
• Travis
• Juliana Hughes
• Matthew
• Robb Lewis

We will get in touch with the winners! Thanks to all the participants.

We will give away 5 copies of the Freelance Starter Kit and to participate is easy, just leave a comment on this post.

The Freelance Starter Kit includes:

Contract Templates: Having an effective contract for your client work is critical.

Identity Sets: Present a professional image to your clients with these identity sets that include an invoice template, a proposal template, letterhead, envelope, and business card.

E-books on Business and Freelancing: These e-books cover specific topics related to running a successful freelance business.

Interview with Successful Designers: There is a lot that can be learned from successful designers.

Icons: Every web designer has a constant need for high-quality icons, so we’ve included some of our most useful icons that are likely to get a lot of use in your client work.

Giveaway Details

• 5 winnners, 1 bundle each
• Comment on this post to be eligible
• One comment per person
• Winners randomly selected on June 29, 2011

In case you want to speed up and get your Freelance Starter Kit, Vandelay Design is offering our readers a $5 off coupon to purchase it, so just enter “wdl” as a discount code and you are ready to go.

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Originally posted at The Digital Home

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In what’s an uncommon occurrence, Rowling retained all the rights to digital copies of her books. And until now, she had not struck any deals with publishers or distributors to make the series available digitally. All that will change when Pottermore officially launches this fall.

Sponsor

That’s big news for e-books as the bestselling series will undoubtedly be wildly successful in its new e-format. (It’s as good an excuse as any to reread all the novels, right?) But the announcement is significant in a number of other key ways, not just because of Rowling’s decision to release the e-books now, but because of the way in which she has chosen to do it.

Self-Publishing’s Defining Moment

The books will be available exclusively through the Pottermore site, meaning that Rowling is self-e-publishing the novels. While self-publishing is, of course, nothing new, digital publishing and digital readership has helped self-publishing become more popular and, for authors, more lucrative. As we reported earlier this week, Amazon recently announced that self-published author John Locke had joined its “Kindle Million Club” after selling over one million copies of his e-books on the Kindle platform.

But Rowling’s decision here isn’t just another mark of legitimacy for self-publishing, nor is it simply yet another blow to the traditional publishing industry – although no doubt, both of those are true. Rowling’s announcement has several other ramifications here for the publishing industry.

DRM-Free Content

Digital rights management (DRM) technology is often placed on digital content, so the argument goes, to help prevent piracy. And indeed, the Harry Potter series may already be among the most pirated books in history, no doubt because of fans’ desire to read the books in a digital format. But rather than viewing that desire with suspicion about sharing, Rowling is trusting they’ll do the right thing. The Harry Potter e-books will reportedly be DRM-free, although they will be digitally watermarked with purchasers’ information.

Wired calls this the publishing industry’s “Radiohead moment” and likens this to the band’s release of its albums on its own site. “The crucial parallel between Radiohead and Rowling is the fact that they both put their faith in the fans rather than any intermediary. For Radiohead, this meant self-releasing their album In Rainbows after the end of their contract with EMI with an honesty-box pricing strategy.”

E-Book Standards

DRM-free content also means that consumers won’t be locked in to one particular format. As it currently stands, DRM is one mechanism that prevents users from sharing e-books; but it also means that Kindle owners can’t read Nook content, and Nook owners can’t load their iBooks onto their devices. But DRM is only part of the problem here; file formats are another. Rowling says that the books will be made available for all formats – to Kindle, iPad, Nook owners alike.

It’s not yet clear how that will be accomplished, but the most obvious way to do that would be via ePUB, the open e-book standard. However, Kindle does not currently support ePUB. But as paidContent’s Laura Hazard Owen posits, “if any author could get Amazon to change its policy, it’s J. K. Rowling.”

There have been rumors recently that the Kindle will begin supporting ePUB, and that may come as part of Amazon’s new library lending program this summer.

(Another) Tipping Point for E-Books

The tipping point for e-books could have been when Amazon announced that Kindle versions were outselling print bestsellers two-to-one or when it said that e-books were outselling all print copies. The tipping point could have been when the company announced that a self-published author had managed to sell one million copies of his e-books.

But it seems likely that with the excitement and passion that Harry Potter fans have for anything associated with the series, that the release of the digital Pottermore will unleash yet another milestone in what is a quickly changing landscape for publishing.

Discuss

Go to Source

In what’s an uncommon occurrence, Rowling retained all the rights to digital copies of her books. And until now, she had not struck any deals with publishers or distributors to make the series available digitally. All that will change when Pottermore officially launches this fall.

Sponsor

That’s big news for e-books as the bestselling series will undoubtedly be wildly successful in its new e-format. (It’s as good an excuse as any to reread all the novels, right?) But the announcement is significant in a number of other key ways, not just because of Rowling’s decision to release the e-books now, but because of the way in which she has chosen to do it.

Self-Publishing’s Defining Moment

The books will be available exclusively through the Pottermore site, meaning that Rowling is self-e-publishing the novels. While self-publishing is, of course, nothing new, digital publishing and digital readership has helped self-publishing become more popular and, for authors, more lucrative. As we reported earlier this week, Amazon recently announced that self-published author John Locke had joined its “Kindle Million Club” after selling over one million copies of his e-books on the Kindle platform.

But Rowling’s decision here isn’t just another mark of legitimacy for self-publishing, nor is it simply yet another blow to the traditional publishing industry – although no doubt, both of those are true. Rowling’s announcement has several other ramifications here for the publishing industry.

DRM-Free Content

Digital rights management (DRM) technology is often placed on digital content, so the argument goes, to help prevent piracy. And indeed, the Harry Potter series may already be among the most pirated books in history, no doubt because of fans’ desire to read the books in a digital format. But rather than viewing that desire with suspicion about sharing, Rowling is trusting they’ll do the right thing. The Harry Potter e-books will reportedly be DRM-free, although they will be digitally watermarked with purchasers’ information.

Wired calls this the publishing industry’s “Radiohead moment” and likens this to the band’s release of its albums on its own site. “The crucial parallel between Radiohead and Rowling is the fact that they both put their faith in the fans rather than any intermediary. For Radiohead, this meant self-releasing their album In Rainbows after the end of their contract with EMI with an honesty-box pricing strategy.”

E-Book Standards

DRM-free content also means that consumers won’t be locked in to one particular format. As it currently stands, DRM is one mechanism that prevents users from sharing e-books; but it also means that Kindle owners can’t read Nook content, and Nook owners can’t load their iBooks onto their devices. But DRM is only part of the problem here; file formats are another. Rowling says that the books will be made available for all formats – to Kindle, iPad, Nook owners alike.

It’s not yet clear how that will be accomplished, but the most obvious way to do that would be via ePUB, the open e-book standard. However, Kindle does not currently support ePUB. But as paidContent’s Laura Hazard Owen posits, “if any author could get Amazon to change its policy, it’s J. K. Rowling.”

There have been rumors recently that the Kindle will begin supporting ePUB, and that may come as part of Amazon’s new library lending program this summer.

(Another) Tipping Point for E-Books

The tipping point for e-books could have been when Amazon announced that Kindle versions were outselling print bestsellers two-to-one or when it said that e-books were outselling all print copies. The tipping point could have been when the company announced that a self-published author had managed to sell one million copies of his e-books.

But it seems likely that with the excitement and passion that Harry Potter fans have for anything associated with the series, that the release of the digital Pottermore will unleash yet another milestone in what is a quickly changing landscape for publishing.

Discuss

Go to Source

In what’s an uncommon occurrence, Rowling retained all the rights to digital copies of her books. And until now, she had not struck any deals with publishers or distributors to make the series available digitally. All that will change when Pottermore officially launches this fall.

Sponsor

That’s big news for e-books as the bestselling series will undoubtedly be wildly successful in its new e-format. (It’s as good an excuse as any to reread all the novels, right?) But the announcement is significant in a number of other key ways, not just because of Rowling’s decision to release the e-books now, but because of the way in which she has chosen to do it.

Self-Publishing’s Defining Moment

The books will be available exclusively through the Pottermore site, meaning that Rowling is self-e-publishing the novels. While self-publishing is, of course, nothing new, digital publishing and digital readership has helped self-publishing become more popular and, for authors, more lucrative. As we reported earlier this week, Amazon recently announced that self-published author John Locke had joined its “Kindle Million Club” after selling over one million copies of his e-books on the Kindle platform.

But Rowling’s decision here isn’t just another mark of legitimacy for self-publishing, nor is it simply yet another blow to the traditional publishing industry – although no doubt, both of those are true. Rowling’s announcement has several other ramifications here for the publishing industry.

DRM-Free Content

Digital rights management (DRM) technology is often placed on digital content, so the argument goes, to help prevent piracy. And indeed, the Harry Potter series may already be among the most pirated books in history, no doubt because of fans’ desire to read the books in a digital format. But rather than viewing that desire with suspicion about sharing, Rowling is trusting they’ll do the right thing. The Harry Potter e-books will reportedly be DRM-free, although they will be digitally watermarked with purchasers’ information.

Wired calls this the publishing industry’s “Radiohead moment” and likens this to the band’s release of its albums on its own site. “The crucial parallel between Radiohead and Rowling is the fact that they both put their faith in the fans rather than any intermediary. For Radiohead, this meant self-releasing their album In Rainbows after the end of their contract with EMI with an honesty-box pricing strategy.”

E-Book Standards

DRM-free content also means that consumers won’t be locked in to one particular format. As it currently stands, DRM is one mechanism that prevents users from sharing e-books; but it also means that Kindle owners can’t read Nook content, and Nook owners can’t load their iBooks onto their devices. But DRM is only part of the problem here; file formats are another. Rowling says that the books will be made available for all formats – to Kindle, iPad, Nook owners alike.

It’s not yet clear how that will be accomplished, but the most obvious way to do that would be via ePUB, the open e-book standard. However, Kindle does not currently support ePUB. But as paidContent’s Laura Hazard Owen posits, “if any author could get Amazon to change its policy, it’s J. K. Rowling.”

There have been rumors recently that the Kindle will begin supporting ePUB, and that may come as part of Amazon’s new library lending program this summer.

(Another) Tipping Point for E-Books

The tipping point for e-books could have been when Amazon announced that Kindle versions were outselling print bestsellers two-to-one or when it said that e-books were outselling all print copies. The tipping point could have been when the company announced that a self-published author had managed to sell one million copies of his e-books.

But it seems likely that with the excitement and passion that Harry Potter fans have for anything associated with the series, that the release of the digital Pottermore will unleash yet another milestone in what is a quickly changing landscape for publishing.

Discuss

Go to Source

Advertise here with BSA

One thing we really like to do here at WDL is to keep you supplied with all the latest and greatest freebies. Whether it’s icons, textures, or e-books, were always on the look out for things that will make you’re life easier. This week we’ve come up with a collection of brand new free fonts that you’re sure to find very useful in your upcoming designs.

Morning Glory

FoglihtenNo01

Rawengulk

Janda Curlygirl Serif

Learning to Trust

Lobster Two

Limelight

OSP DIN

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Advertise here with BSA

One of our jobs here at WDL is to keep you supplied with all the latest and greatest freebies. Whether it’s icons, textures, or e-books, were always on the look out for things that will make you’re life easier. This week we’ve come up with a collection of brand new free fonts that you’re sure to find very useful in your upcoming designs.

Fabrica

Afta Serif

Network Font

Absinthe

Fox Type

Ostrich Sans

Rokkitt

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The new Kindle 3G with Special Offers will run customers $164, 25 bucks cheaper than the original Kindle 3G which retails for $189. The new member to the Kindle family will have all the features of the original – free 3G, Pearl e-ink display and an 8.7 ounce body. The only difference is that it is ad supported.

The Kindle 3G with Special Offers will work the same way as the Kindle with Special offers that Amazon launched in April. That Kindle only has wi-fi capability and costs $114, $25 less than the regular Kindle wi-fi.

The ad supported Kindles have promotions sponsored by Amazon partners like Visa, Olay, Buick and Chase that appear on the home page and as screensavers. The ads do not interfere with the text of your e-books.

The “special offers” that are promoted via the device are things like “$10 for a $20 Amazon gift card” and “Save 20% on over 200 HDTVs available through Amazon.com.” So if you are strapped for cash and don’t mind putting up with some minor advertising, these “special offer” Kindles are for you.

The Kindle wi-fi with Special offers looks like it was a big success for Amazon:

“Kindle is the bestselling e-reader in the world. It’s been just six weeks since we introduced the new $114 Kindle with Special Offers, and already customers have made it the bestselling member of the Kindle family,” said Jay Marine, Director, Amazon Kindle.

This news comes on the heels of Barnes & Noble’s announcement of their new Nook Simple Touch Reader for $139. It boasts a touch screen and is the smallest, lightest e-reader on the market. And Monday, Kobo announced its new eReader Touch Edition for $130.

These new releases and price wars can only signal good news for consumers, as e-readers continue to get more affordable.

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Originally posted at News – Digital Media

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BundleHunt has begun its two weeklong software bundle sale of some of the hottest apps for Mac OS X and an awesome set of design goodies.

The 13 items are worth over $780.00. The bundle is selling for $49.99, at a 93% discount. There’s some great apps here that almost anyone should find tempting including Snippets (priced at $39), ColorSchemer Studio 2 (priced at $49), ShoveBox (priced at $25).

BundleHunt 4 comes with a number of great premium applications included such as Layers (priced at $25), WPBundle – 3 WP Themes of your chioce (priced at $100), the full set of stylish and unique icons from Symbolicons (priced at $37), & Picans(priced at $42). Hanpicked collection of design resources from Tapptics (priced at $49) & WeGraphics (priced at $187) and SmashingMagazine’s newest 3 e-books (priced at $29). In all, there are 13 applications and products included in the bundle, all for an amazing price – $49.99

This bundle not only saves you big money but also could win you an iPad 2 (16GB/WiFi) BundleHunt 4 Package includes 13 products with an incredible discount:

Snippets is a powerful application for Mac OS X that stores the most valuable pieces of code you can reuse in different projects many times.

ColorSchemer Studio 2 is a professional color-matching application for Mac OS X & WIN OSto help you build beautiful color schemes easily.

Layers is an outstanding screen Capture application for Mac OS X. Layers captures every Item on Your Screen as a PSD Layered Image.

ShoveBox is a is a Mac OS X application that catches all those little scraps of information that you can’t act on now but would rather not forget.

WPBundle are offering 3 WordPress themes of your choice. Every theme speak for themselves, built on top of the WooThemes Framework.

SmashingMagazine got you the newest 3 E-books in their store: Mastering Photoshop for Web Design, Volume 2, Professional Web Design Vol. 2 and Getting the Hang of Web Typography. The 3 e-books are available as PDF, ePUB or Mobipocket.

Symbolicons are a family of royalty-free vector icons and symbols for most any use. You get the complete set of 465 Icons.

Decompose is a Mac OS X application allowing an easy extraction of elements from pictures to use them to make composite images.

Tapptics is a collection of design files & step-by-step training created to help designers, developers & idea people save time and money creating mobile apps.

Picons‘s all 440 icons for BundleHunt users. Basic 1,2 are brand new icons set containing 440 hand-crafted vector icons, built on a grid and sharing the same visual language.

ThemeFuse are contributing with 3 WordPress Themes (3 themes of your Choice) with Standard license.

WeGraphics is a creative studio specialized into the creation of a large library of design elements such as vector art, textures, fonts, brushes, etc . 30 of their high quality sets
are included in the bundle.

IconJar : 211 Hand Crafted Icons for User Interface Designers.

The sale will last for two weeks, and ends on midnight, EST, May 31 2011. For more information, visit bundlehunt.com.

I’m an active member of several Internet Marketing/Small Business Forums, and without fail, every time a newbie joins a forum, they invariably ask the same 10 questions you see listed below. Even though I’ve answered these questions many times in the past, my answers are scattered across several forums. Because of that fact, I decided to write an article that answered those recurring 10 questions all at the same time, all in one place.

Newbies, are you paying attention? Here are the answers to the 10 questions you ask most often:

1. How do I get traffic to my website?

Answer: There are a variety of ways to get traffic to your website. The best long term solution, of course, is to properly optimize your website so that you get organic traffic – meaning traffic from search engines. The best way to achieve this is to make sure your site has plenty of quality, relevant, keyword-optimized content that visitors will want to link to, such as articles, interviews, e-books, videos, podcasts, reviews, etc.

In the short term, you can use paid methods like pay-per-click, ezine advertising or text advertising. Or, you can utilize free social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn. Or better yet, use a combination of all of the above methods.

2. How many click-thru’s before I make any sales?

Answer: Assuming your traffic quality is good and you have all your ducks in a row, according to conventional wisdom, you should start making sales after you’ve had 100 click-thru’s. I happen to disagree with conventional wisdom. Let me explain why.

Even though you could make make a few sales after you’ve had 100 click-thru’s or less, I’ve seen many instances where marketers still hadn’t made any sales after 500 click-thru’s. That’s why I always tell marketers, wait until you’ve had a minimum of 1000-2000 click-thru’s before you start panicking. Because it’s very possible, you might not get a single sale in the first 100-500 click-thru’s.

But in the next 100-500 click-thru’s, you could get 10 sales. That’s marketing. You just never know in which batch of hundreds those sales are going to be in. Again, assuming your traffic quality is good and you have all your ducks in a row.

3. What’s the best marketing method?

Answer: There is no best marketing method. They all work, provided, they are all executed properly. The best marketing method is the one that works best for you. The main thing is not to fall into the trap of jumping from method to method like so many marketers do. You have to be disciplined enough to be patient. You have to give whatever method(s) you’re using a reasonable chance to work. Then, when you find something that works, milk it to the point of diminishing returns.

4. Why isn’t anyone responding to my advertising?

Answer: Assuming once again, you have all your ducks in a row, according to The Rule of 7, on average, people have to see your ad a minimum of seven times, before they act on it. Does that mean people will automatically buy what you’re offering after they’ve seen your ad seven times? No it doesn’t.

Again, it’s just an average. It could be more than seven, but it could also be less. The fact of the matter is there are far too many variables involved to suggest that after people see your ad seven times, they will automatically whip out their credit card, and purchase what you’re offering – not the least of which is traffic quality, competency of your sales copy, and the viability of the item being offered.

5. What should I sell online?

Answer: Everyone has a talent. So, why not turn your talent into a product or service and sell it? For example, let’s suppose you’re an above average fisherman. You could write an e-book instructing others how to fish. Or, perhaps you’re an expert at utilizing social media. You could start your own social media consulting service.

Another option is to join an affiliate program and sell other people’s products for a commission.

6. What are the best free places to advertise?

Answer: I’ve had amazing success with forums. While you can’t blatantly advertise on forums, you are allowed to promote your website in your signature file. What’s a signature file? In essence, a sig file is a classified advertisement you write about your business that is automatically attached to every forum post you make.

The social networking sites I mentioned previously are also very effective. In addition, if you have above average knowledge of a particular topic, question and answer sites like Yahoo Answers and AllExperts are also a good option.

7. Should I join a traffic exchange program?

Answer: No. In my opinion, those programs aren’t worth your time or money. Oh sure, you’ll get plenty of traffic to be sure. But it’s garbage traffic plain and simple. And as the saying goes, “garbage in, garbage out!” That being said, some marketers have successfully built subscriber lists using those programs. But I still think your efforts are better spent elsewhere. Same thing goes for free classifieds. For the negligible amount of return, I think your efforts are better spent elsewhere.

8. How long before I start making money online?

Answer: That question is impossible to answer because there are far too many variables involved such as talent, work habits, organizational skills and level of determination. And while I’ve seen individuals come online and make alot money very quickly, I also know of individuals who have been trying for months, who have yet to make a dime.

9. Do I need a website to sell online?

Answer: The answer to that questions is, it depends on what your goal is – what you are trying to accomplish. While you can definitely sell online and make money without a website (for example, affiliate programs). If you want to establish your own identity and sell your own products, you definitely need a website.

10. How much money can I make online?

Answer: See #8

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

10 Internet Marketing Questions Newbies Ask Most Often

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One of the leading CMS’s today for online businesses is WordPress. There are many WordPress eCommerce shopping plug-ins and themes available that you can use to build an online business in no time. This article will help you to find some great shopping plug-ins and themes for your WordPress site.

Pros And Cons

WordPress is popular amongst developers of eCommerce websites for a number of different reasons. One of the major reasons is that it offers applications that are easy to learn and use. These applications are generally quite affordable, and some of them are even free. The majority of the plug-ins and themes supplied by WordPress are open source and light weight in terms of size in comparison to Magento and other famous e-commerce solutions. The only major disadvantage is that it can’t be used for sites with a lot of sales due to heaviness of database queries.

Famous E-commerce Shopping Plug-ins

1. YAK for WordPress

YAK is a solid choice if you are interested in adding an open source shopping cart plug-in. This WordPress plug-in is beneficial for those sites which offers their users software products online. These products may also include e-books as well as other software in zip-files. Customers can purchase your product through any purchasing option provided by the YAK plug-in like cheque, credit card form, Google Checkout, PayPal, PayPal Payments Pro, and Authorize.net. The only thing required is php5 to make your YAK plug-in work properly.

2. Cart66 Pro

This plug-in enables you to sell digital as well as physical products from your website. If you are willing to make your web page a one stop shop then you should go for this plug-in. It is really a very powerful plug-in for WordPress because you can manage orders, sell your products, place products anywhere on your site or sell internationally. Payments can be received by PayPal Website Payments Standard, PayPal Express Checkout or Manual Checkout. It also has options for UPS real time shipping rates, membership, payment plans and coupons.

3. WordPress eStore plug-in

This WordPress e-commerce plug-in also enables you to sell your digital goods online. The best thing about the WordPress e-store is that it supports multi-site license.  It also assures the security of your resources so you know you’ll always be able to provide reliable services. The payment methods are also free from third party interaction. Checkouts are also very sleek. Just as in any other plug-in, you can get your payments via PayPal, 2Checkout, Authorize.net or Manual Payment. Customers can purchase if they have credit card or PayPal account.

4. EShop

Eshop is another shopping plug-in for your online store. This WordPress plug-in is helpful in creating product spots because of its compatibility with custom post types. Customers can enjoy shopping by registration. You can upload as well as download product by using E-shop. It also generates automated emails. The best feature of E-shop is that it has basic control of stock and multi-site compatibility. There is an uninstall option available in the file if you don’t want it on your site you can simply use this option. It also gives discount options. Checkout is done by Authorize.net, PayPal, Payson, eProcessingNetwork, Webtopay, iDEAL and Cash/Cheque.

5. WP e-commerce

The WP e-commerce shopping cart is good to use for selling products and services online. It can also be used to collect fees online if you choose to run a service that requires monthly or yearly fees to be paid. If you are searching for a plug- in which has a high usability factor and great looks, then WP e-commerce is perfect for you. It’s a great solution for selling your albums,crafts, art, books, almost anything really.

6. WordPress Simple PayPal Shopping Cart

This plug-in enables your customers to add items to their shopping cart. It gives your customers an option of one click shopping by providing an “Add to Cart” button in its application. You can also display a shopping cart on the bar or in any post using this plug-in. This plug-in allows the user to add or remove anything from his cart.

7. Quick Shop

This plug-in is enabled by installing a sidebar widget.  It allows the user to and and remove items from their cart before purchasing it by showing their selected items in the sidebar. By adding tinyMCE button you can show your inventory list. Editing can be done easily because it integrates itself with CFormsII. You can format your widget layout from Admin–>option–>Quick Shop. It is compatible with WordPress MU.

8. Market press

This was the first plug-in which has a flawless integration with WP multi-site and BuddyPress. If you want to fully use custom post types and catalogs then MarketPress will make it easy for you. It has a number of shortcodes so that your online store can be maintained efficiently. It also provides global listing of products from all over the network of MarketPress stores. It provides well documented custom shipping and gateway modules.

9. WpStoreCart Plugin

This plug-in is also used to sell digital and physical products. This is a free version and has many of the same features that any other e-commerce shopping plug-in has. The merchant gateways include authorize.net, PayPal etc.

10. WP Invoice

A free WordPress invoicing system. It is supported by different browsers. It includes two widgets so that the customers can view their history and awaiting invoices by signing in. Invoices are powered by paypal and superior Instant Payment Notification system. It has a powerful customizable user interface. Payments can be done by paypal or credit card which is accepted by authorize.net and MerchantPlus NaviGate. Invoice pages are viewed in SSL mode. Invoice look up can be added anywhere on your site if you are using PHP or WordPress shortcodes.

11. FoxyPress Plug-in

This shopping plug-in is similar to the EShop plug-in. It is used with foxy cart to add items on wordpress page or posts. It utilizes a WYSIWYG editor or shortcodes for adding items.

12. TikiPress Plug-in

TikiPress plug-in is developed to allow you to sell tickets online for an event or products on your WordPress site. This plug-in is new and still in the beta phase.

13. Image Store Plug-in

This plug-in is developed to provide an online image gallery for your wordpress website without anxiety of installation of multiple plug-ins. It is integrated with wordpress database and paypal cart. It is helpful in the growth of your e-commerce website. It enables you to download CSV of sales and customers. You can upload an image through zip file. It provides dynamic editing of images and watermark functionality. It makes your online store a purchasable image gallery. It also ensures the secure access of images by prohibiting its unsafe usage. All entries can be removed by uninstalling them.

14. NoShop Product Page Plug-in

This is a special wordpress plug-in which allows you to create your product list along with their pictures. The shopping cart of this plug-in does not need to have any picture installed in it, it is already present in the list. Pictures used in the list are referenced by URL.

15. GoodRelations For WP E-Commerce Plug-in

If you have an e-commerce store then this plug-in will enrich it with RDFa data for semantic web. It will make your product search engine friendly by enabling search engines to read the details of your product.  This plug-in is used by many famous online shops. It is used with WordPress 3.0 and WP e-commerce 3.7.6.7.

16. WP E-Commerce Weight & Destination Shipping Modules Plug-in

This plug-in manages the database for the shipment of products. It allows you to send your shipment on the basis of weight and continent or weight and country. Quotes can be calculated by summing up the entire cart price against its configured weight bands.  It can also be done by adding the individual item’s cost.

Famous WordPress E-commerce Themes

1. The Clothes Shop

The clothes shop is a theme which is developed to enable you to create a web site for you to sell your products using images or videos. This theme has a front-end customer registration and login protected account area. It has 30 independent and 22 custom widgets. The best part of this theme is that it includes the option for a customer to create a “wish list”. It works with WordPress 3.0 and 3.1 and is cross browser compatible. The regular license is available for only $40. One can test the theme by paying in advance via bank transfer, cash at store or cash payment on delivery. It is a reasonable amount to buy a plug-in free, localized theme.

2. The Furniture Store

The furniture store is a WordPress e-commerce theme with two localized child themes. It has 27 independent and 23 custom widgets. It also has an optional blog. It is an image based, cross browser compatible theme that you can purchase for only $45 and also includes a customer login area.

3. ViroShop

This e-commerce theme has a built-in shopping cart plug-in and a jquery fancy slider.  This theme has a product viewer, a registration area and an optional blog. The regular license of the theme is offered for $35.

4. enViraShop

This e-commerce shopping plug-in has a built-in shopping cart and an admin theme options. There are five color themes which are available for ribbon and cart and an enhanced jquery.

5. Sofa Shoppr

This theme has 8 built-in widgets with multi level drop down navigation. It utilizes either a jQuery slider or a flash gallery.You can display multiple prices for listed products. it is entirely customizable through theme option page. It is a available in wordpress 3.0 and 3.1 version. It’s cross browser compatible and available for $40.

6. RGBStore

It is a web 2.0 WordPress theme for shopping cart applications. The theme is available in three colors: red, green and blue. It works with wordpress 3.0. This theme is available with 6 page templates. It has a cross browser compatibility.

7. Crafty Cart

It is a retro style WordPress e-commerce theme for making your site an e-shop for shirts and handmade items. This theme requires the WP e-commerce plug-in for shopping cart functionality as its design has an add to cart button and a shopping cart widget. It is a free wordpress e-commerce theme.

8. Simple Cart

It is a simple and powerful wordpress theme. It has a grid layout of for products and AJAX cart functionality. Images are easy to swap out and the whole theme is completely customizable.

9. wpStore

This theme is also available for free. It supports up to WP e-commerce 3.7.8. You can give an exclusive look to your e-commerce site by using this theme. The sidebar of the theme contains shopping cart, brands list and top products which is adjustable from product edit page.

Inspiration Gallery of Shops Made With WP

1. Worm Sign T-shirts

2. MythCast

3. Ecademy Press

4. John Stein’s Art Journal & Gallery Shop

5. Cyber Suicide

6. Recycled Mags

7. RubyPDF Technologies

8. Brandon Dayton

9. Macon & Lesquoy

10. SmillasSmycken

Tutorials to Learn The Development of E-commerce Website With WP

• A Crash Course in Creating E-Commerce Websites with WordPress
• The Ultimate WP E-Commerce Tutorial
• WordPress theming for beginners
• How to Create a WordPress Theme from Scratch
• How to write a WordPress plug-in
• See how easy it is to widgetize your WordPress theme
• WP Tutorial: Your First WP Plugin
• Create a Custom WordPress Plugin From Scratch
• Anatomy of a WordPress Plugin
• WorPress Plugin Development with PHP

The above list includes WordPress E-commerce shopping tools and resources that you can include in your website to increase business. Their installation links have been included in the images so that you can easily download them directly from here and save your precious time from searching them on web.

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Our friends at Digiarty Software have teamed up with us to give away 10 $15 iTunes gift cards (valid on the U.S. iTunes store) and a free software download for everyone in celebration of their two new products: PetsWar (an iPhone game app) and MacX iPhone Mounter (which lets you transfer files between iOS devices such as the iPhone to your Mac).

Read on to learn how to download MacX iPhone Mounter for free and how to win a $15 iTunes gift card.

MacX iPhone Mounter: Transfer Files Between iOS Devices and Mac

MacX iPhone Mounter is designed to help users back up their movies, TV shows, video, music, podcast, playlist, e-books, and more on their iPhone, iPod, iPad to their Macs.

Free Download of MacX iPhone Mounter (Limited Time)

For a limited time, you can get this awesome software, normally valued at $25.95, for free. Just download it from the MacX iPhone Mounter page, and use the license code below:

BQ-UMUOYQYT-BSSBET

This free software download ends on April 10, 2011.

PetsWar: Addictive Tower Defense Game for iOS Devices

You may have heard me tweet about PetsWar recently; it’s a fantastic tower defense game featuring dynamic game play. This game features 29 challenging levels, 41 characters and 18 diversified scenes, along with different factors that may influence the combat.

Get it from the Apple App Store — available for iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad — for only $0.99.

Check out this video of PetsWar:

How to Win an iTunes Gift Card

To celebrate the release of PetsWar, the creators are giving away 10 iTunes gift cards worth $15.

To win, simply answer the following question in the comments:

• How would you use your iTunes gift card if you won?

Giveaway Details

The iTunes gift card giveaway ends on Tuesday, April 12, 2011 after which the comments section on this post will be closed and you will no longer be able to leave a comment. The iTunes gift cards are valid for use in the U.S. iTunes store only. Please leave a valid email address when filling out the comment form so that we can contact you if you’ve won. Please only comment once. The 10 winners will be randomly selected using the same method as previous Six Revisions giveaways. The winners will be announced on a separate post and you’re advised to subscribe to our RSS feed so that you can be quickly notified when the winners announcement post has been published. Please note that comments are moderated and so your comment may not show up right away. Please also note that comments that do not follow the instructions on how to participate (described above) may not be published, or may be removed later on.

Related Content

• 10 iPhone Apps Every Web Designer Should Know About
• 35 Beautiful iPhone App Website Designs
• 25 Awesome Gift Ideas for Designers & Developers
• Related categories: Tools and Resources

About the Author

Jacob Gube is the Founder and Chief Editor of Six Revisions. He’s also a web developer/designer who specializes in front-end development (JavaScript, HTML, CSS) and also a book author. If you’d like to connect with him, head on over to the contact page and follow him on Twitter: @sixrevisions.

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Amazon’s e-reader, the Kindle, will soon be available in AT&T’s retail stores, the company has announced.

The price for the 6-inch, 3G version of the device will cost $189, which is the same as the price on Amazon. Unsurprisingly, the Wi-Fi-only version of Kindle will not be available at AT&T.

If you’re looking for exclusive deals, forget about it, as AT&T isn’t offering any. However, if you want to test drive the 3G Kindle before you buy it, you will be able to do so at AT&T stores starting March 6.

More About: 3g, amazon, att, e-books, e-reader, Kindle, retail

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Amazon’s e-reader, the Kindle, will soon be available in AT&T’s retail stores, the company has announced.

The price for the 6-inch, 3G version of the device will cost $189, which is the same as the price on Amazon. Unsurprisingly, the Wi-Fi-only version of Kindle will not be available at AT&T.

If you’re looking for exclusive deals, forget about it, as AT&T isn’t offering any. However, if you want to test drive the 3G Kindle before you buy it, you will be able to do so at AT&T stores starting March 6.

More About: 3g, amazon, att, e-books, e-reader, Kindle, retail

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According to the Toluna survey, almost 80% of respondents have bought books from the online retail giant, compared with just 8% for Waterstones. 

Where do people buy books? 

Almost 56% of respondents head online to buy books, while 23% use Waterstone’s, 23% buy books from supermarkets, and 21% use WHSmith. A higher proportion (58%) of the 16-34 age group are buying books online. 

There are some positives for offline booksellers from the survey results, with 43% claiming that they aren’t planning to buy books online in future. 

Which websites do they use? 

Amazon is the clear winner here, with almost 80% of respondents buying their books there, compared with just 8% for Waterstones and 4.5% for WHSmith. 

Why do people choose to buy books online?

Unsurprisingly, price is the key factor for 71% of consumers, and there is a perception that books can be bought more cheaply online. 

50% cite the convenience of online shopping, while 35% appreciate the improved choice on offer, and 27% find reviews and recommendations helpful. 

What can traditional booksellers like Waterstone’s do better online? 

With the decline of some booksellers like Borders, in the US and UK, the growing influence of the internet, e-books, and the dominance of Amazon, brands like Waterstone’s face a challenge. 

The decline of Borders wasn’t necessarily all about the internet, but the fact that the retailer outsourced its e-commerce activities to Amazon until 2008 tells its own story. 

Many offline booksellers have so far failed to establish an online presence as strong as that of Amazon, though Barnes & Noble in the US is one example of how this can be done. 

User reviews

Amazon is difficult to beat when it comes to user reviews. Almost any book you enter into Amazon already has at least a few reviews, but the same cannot be said for Waterstone’s. 

Waterstone’s and others should be more pro-active in attempting to gather more user reviews from customers, such as emailing post-purchase to ask for customers’ opinions, offering incentives to do so, or even using third party reviews providers. 

One thing Waterstone’s does well offline is to provide written recommendations from its staff of certain books, and this is something which could work well online. 

In the absence of reviews from other customers, this is one alternative that provides customers with help and ideas when searching for a book to read. This online review from Tom at the Brentford store is a great example: 

Use the multichannel advantage

One advantage that offline booksellers have over pure plays like Amazon is that they can offer a more varied range of services to customers. 

For example, they can offer collect in store services to web users, or else offer in-store ordering kiosks for customers who are unable to find what they are looking for in store.

Mobile

Waterstone’s has a useful iPhone app, but it does have its limitations, such as a clunky checkout process. By contrast, Amazon account holders can use 1 click ordering on the app to make smooth mobile purchases. 

The Barnes & Noble app is a great example, as it contains many useful features for offline shoppers, such as the ability to search for books using the phone’s camera. Great for price comparison. 

Free delivery

When asked how online booksellers could improve, 43% of respondents cited lower delivery costs.

In a price sensitive market like this, delivery costs can be a deal breaker, so free delivery offers can be an effective sales tactic. 

Waterstone’s now offers a clear free delivery offer on its homepage: 

The Book Depository has been a UK success story, and part of the reason for this is the simplicity of its offering. It offers free delivery anywhere in the world, and this has helped to establish it in foreign markets, and to compete with Amazon on price. 

Amazon revealed details about its forthcoming over-the-air software update for owners of the latest-generation Kindle and Kindle 3G devices Monday.

Device owners will be especially happy to learn that the page numbers in tens of thousands of e-books now match the page numbers in their respective print editions, a feature that will be especially useful to academics and students who need to quickly reference and cite passages.

Page numbers will be coming to Kindle’s mobile apps “in the coming months,” a spokesperson said.

Additional features include:

• New newspaper and magazine layouts: The layouts of newspapers and magazines have been reformatted for quicker discovery and navigation, Amazon claims. (Note: We have not yet personally tested this feature.)
• Public Notes: Users can now opt to automatically share their book notes and highlights with their personal network and other Kindle readers.
• Before You Go: At the end of each book, users will be prompted to rate it in the Kindle Store, as well as share their thoughts to their social networks and see recommendations for further reads. It’s not a feature that will be particularly useful for users, per se, but should help Amazon sell a few more e-books.

The update is available for manual installation here. An over-the-air update will becoming to Kindle devices in the near future.

More About: amazon, e-books, Kindle

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Learn about Forex trading in a web 2.0 form. With the ability to rate and review the Forex brokers you’ll be able to find the best of them and change the rankings of the ones you’ve tried.

A lot of free information is available – e-books, articles, indicators, expert advisors, online tools, strategies, etc.

The site is updated frequently and is open to the visitors’ requests, suggestions and ideas.

view more

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Starting an e-commerce business today is easier than it has ever been. There has never been such an abundance of tools, software, experts and resources to teach you exactly what to do and how to do it.

A few years ago, it would cost you an arm and a leg just to get your e-commerce site up. Today however, we have a multitude of shopping cart software to choose from.

In 2001 when I first started selling online, starting an e-commerce business may have seemed like a risky thing to do. Today you hear tons of success stories in newspapers and online media.

Nevertheless, many newbies still make some fundamental mistakes when starting their first ecommerce site. This article highlights three key factors in being successful at e-commerce.

Choose a Moderately Sized, Profitable Niche Market

You cannot, and should not, try to be the next Amazon. Selling everything under the sun is not easy, cheap, or really necessary. It took Amazon millions of dollars and years of operations to finally achieve a profit. Can you afford to do the same?

I’ve always advised my students to “go niche” – in other words, to choose a well-defined and targeted niche market. However, choose a niche market that is too small is a mistake as well.

You’ve probably read e-books that tell you to explore obscure niche markets. It’s true that in such markets it’s easier to make money since there is less competition. However, fewer competitors can also mean less profit on the table, and a smaller audience. What good is it if you can completely dominate an obscure niche market, yet cannot make enough money from it to sustain at least a full-time income?

It makes perfect sense when you think about it! If there was a lot of profit to be made, there would be existing competition to some extent. You’ll

Ideally, your target market should be not too broad yet not too narrow. Look for potential growth in your market as well. You don’t want to end up serving a shrinking market.

Don’t Spend Too Much Time on Software

The right software will make or break your new e-commerce venture. However, some marketers prefer to go for open source systems just because it’s free. What they fail to consider however is that almost any kind of open source software is never a finished product. Unless you want it to look like every other site out there using the same system, you’ll need to work on it.

That’s when most people realize the real hidden cost of open source software – your time! If you choose open source software, remember that it’s still going to cost money and time to develop it into something you want. More often than not, it will only steer you away from your main goal of building a working site fast.

That’s why I always recommend new marketers to go for ready-made e-commerce shopping cart systems that are web-based. This will save you lots of time. The time you save can easily be used to market your site and get more traffic.

Web-based e-commerce systems usually also come with tons of different web templates you can choose from. This helps you to get the design you want for your store. Modifying the templates a little will make your site even more unique.

Paid software also comes with accessible support, whereas open-source programs don’t. Having someone you can turn to when things don;t go exactly as planned is extremely valuable. With open source software, you’ll find yourself begging for help and attention at support forums.

Deal With Back-end Issues As Quickly As Possible

Having an e-commerce store is just one part of a successful e-commerce business. There’s tons of other back-end stuff you need to take care of too. For example, shipping and delivery is a major concern.

A successful e-commerce business always has products in stock and always ships fast. Most successful online retailers has spent tons of time, money and planning to delicately put together an effective stocking, delivery and customer support system. How you need to develop your back-end processes really depends on your market, the size of your company and your level of experience.

However, I strongly believe that if you can identify bottlenecks in your processes and make a genuine effort to address them, you should be able to get a smooth start in your e-commerce venture.

Your cash flow and line of credit is another massive concern, although no guru will teach you about these things in an e-book or seminar. It’s something that you will learn to understand and master with time. When you’re starting out however, a little caution will go a long way. Keep everything simple, and avoid spending on expensive hardware or software.

After all, the kind of hardware and software you really need is pretty cheap nowadays. You can get dedicated servers, help desk systems, merchant accounts and other related tools for under a hundred dollars monthly. Warehouse or storage space is completely redundant if you can find a drop shipper to supply the products and make the actual shipment to your customers.

Take some time to carefully design and test your back end processes. You simply cannot afford to take these things for granted. If you do, you may end up with a lot of grumpy customers and that’s never a good thing for your brand or profitability in the long run.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

How to Create a Successful E-commerce Website – A SPN Exclusive Article

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It’s official: electronic Kindle books are now outselling paperbacks on Amazon, marking a major milestone in the publishing industry.

The news was revealed in Amazon’s fourth quarter earnings report, and comes just six months after the company announced that e-books were outselling hardcovers.

In a statement, CEO Jeff Bezos said, “Last July we announced that Kindle books had passed hardcovers and predicted that Kindle would surpass paperbacks in the second quarter of this year, so this milestone has come even sooner than we expected – and it’s on top of continued growth in paperback sales.”

The company adds that for 2010, it sold 115 Kindle books for every 100 paperback books, and “three times as many Kindle books as hardcovers.” Those numbers don’t include free Kindle books, making the numbers all the more significant. The growth in e-books, as well as strong sales of the Kindle 3, helped Amazon achieve $10 billion in a single quarter for the first time in its history.

More About: amazon, e-books, Kindle, trending

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Originally posted at Deep Tech

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On the eve of the New Year, we bring you a string of predictions that (mostly) came true, from the lips of Nostradamus himself: Tom Selleck.

Yup, he’s not just a crucial part of the “Tom Selleck Waterfall Sandwich” equation, he’s also a prophet — well, you know, in an accidental way, like that episode of Felicity that foresaw the coming of the iPad.

Back in the ’90s, the TV airwaves were graced with a series of AT&T commercials titled “You Will,” all of which told viewers about the crazy, tech-related abundances of the future. The commercials were narrated by Selleck and — it gets eerier — directed by The Social Network’s own auteur de cinema, David Fincher.

As you can see from the above video, a lot of Selleck’s (or the writers’, rather) predictions came true: e-books, GPS, iPad-like devices. While AT&T can’t exactly claim credit for delivering these bounties unto us, it did come out with a bevy of exceptionally good guesses as to what the future would bring.

[via Dvice]

Image Courtesy of Tom Selleck Waterfall Sandwich

More About: att, business, MARKETING, tom-selleck, video

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Originally posted at News – Digital Media

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It is common knowledge that to survive in online business these days, you must be able to offer something of value, Free to your site visitors. I am not referring to give away bonuses but to items you feature on your website to attract and retain visitors. These can be in the form of “special posts” which are designed for link baiting purposes.

Depending on the success you achieve with your link baiting, you may graduate from offering this link bait Free to either using it as a means of generating a list by requiring sign ups or even eventually turn it into a paid tool/service.

What should this link baiting tool/service comprise of?

This is where I find that most relatively new marketers get it wrong. They seem to always indulge in “taking coal to newcastle.”

What do I mean by this?

There is already a preponderance of certain types of Free items on the internet. This includes things like e-books, newsletters etc. Why not give something unique and use it as a link bait to attract visitors and self-generating and perpetuating backlinks?

Also, you cannot effectively compete with the “Gurus” and big companies as a small business owner in terms of quality and quantity when it comes to offering free common items such as newsletters, e-books etc.

When trying to decide what your link bait should be, fall back on your areas of strength – that is, areas where you have a comparative advantage over others.

For link baiting to be valuable and sought after, it must be comprised of the following:

* Can not easily be replicated by other webmasters. This must mean it must involve some special skill, work and time. The more of these it involves in most cases, the more you separate yourself from the pack and the more effective the link baiting becomes.

I’ll give you some examples.

Traffic Hoopla’s Hit Exchange Reports:

Since 2002 (Yes, before TrafficHoopla.com), this site has consistently published what has become the most popular, and most respected testing report on manual hit exchange advertising.

It is called the Hit Exchange Report, now an exclusive of Hoopla Pro Membership, published every Tuesday, without exception, no missed issues, ever.

Extrapolating from the above, the key features of good link baiting come to light – that is uniqueness, involving time and effort, skill as well as areas of comparative advantage.

Directory Submission Software:

There is this IMT Directory submission software just released in BETA to members of the famous internet marketing forum – Warrior Forum. I specifically noted the Alexa Rating of the webmaster’s forum on which it is hosted as about 60,000 at the time of release barely a month ago. As of today, the Alexa Rating of the forum is 15,615. What a nose-dive within so short a period of time, thanks to the “link baiting” tool.

It must have taken the originator quite sometime, effort and skill to develop the product but he is now beautifully harnessing the benefits.

Free WordPress Themes:

This is another example. When programmers design WordPress themes and give them away for free, what do you think they are doing? Being foolish or playing father Christmas? Certainly not. They insert their links in these themes and use it as a perfect link baiting tool.

Top Article Directories:

This is one of my own link baiting tools/service. I have identified my area of strength as management accounting which ordinarily I use to carry out research and provide accounting data for management decision-taking.

I have deployed this skill in gathering data, analyzing, summarizing and presenting information for the use of other webmasters as a link bait.

Within barely a few weeks of the post, my targeted keyword phrase – “top article directories” is already ranking as no. 2 on page 1 for that term and has been responsible for a large chunk of traffic to my website.

Of course, my backlinks for that post have gone viral and I just keep seeing one backlink or the other added on a daily basis even without any effort on my part.

In summary, link baiting is a very effective strategy for generating massive traffic and viral backlinks.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Link Baiting: A Source Of Massive Traffic And Viral Backlinks

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Originally posted at Relevant Results

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Google has launched its long-awaited e-bookstore, Google E-books, bringing more than 3 million books — many of them free — to any device with a web browser in the U.S.

The initiative, previously known as Google Editions, offers an alternative sales model from the dominant players in the space, such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Apple.

Instead of purchasing e-books through a single online store to read only on compatible software (i.e. books bought from the Kindle Store can only be read on Kindle apps), Google lets consumers buy books either from its store or any other online vendor that sells books in EPUB and PDF formats, and read them on any device with a web browser.

This allows independent booksellers with loyal customer bases to advertise and sell Google e-books via their own venues and take an (as of yet undisclosed) cut of the revenue, an opportunity previously denied to them. It also allows consumers to choose whom to purchase their books from on Google’s platform, just as consumers can choose between third-party sellers on Amazon. Google E-books is also launching with an affiliates program in place.

It’s a smart move on Google’s end, as the company will have potentially thousands of booksellers and affiliates marketing on behalf of its service.

In addition to a Google Web Reader application, users will be able to read Google e-books on apps for Android, iPhone and iPad devices. Reading content will automatically sync across devices, so if you begin reading in the morning in the iPad, you’ll be able to pick up where you left off on your iPhone or Android device on the subway, and again on your office computer during your lunch break.

Nearly 4,000 publishers will be providing content through Google E-books at launch, including all of the major players: Random House, Macmillan, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, etc.

It’s a brand new ecosystem, which makes retailers and affiliates, as well as publishers, participants in the e-book selling process for the first time.

Store

Web Reader

More About: amazon, Android App, barnes & noble, Google, google e-books, google editions, ipad app, iphone app, Kindle, nook, trending

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The New York Times announced Thursday morning that it will begin publishing bestseller lists for e-book fiction and nonfiction in early 2011.

The Times’s bestseller lists, established in 1935, are arguably the definitive metric for success in the book publishing world. The addition of two new lists for e-books points to the growing importance of the medium to the industry — and underlines the fact that what may be selling best in hardback or paperback may not be what’s selling best in electronic format.

U.S. consumers are projected to spend $1 billion in e-books this year, according to a recent report from Forrester, who also expects that sales will surpass $3 billion by 2015. Earlier this year, e-tailer Amazon announced that it is now selling more e-books than hardcover books, and that it expects e-books to overtake paperback sales by the end of 2011.

“The vibrant growth of digital publishing has created a need for an impartial, reliable source for tracking and reporting the top-selling e-books across the country,” says Janet Elder, editor of News Surveys for The New York Times.

More About: e-books, new york times, publishing

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Customers will have bought $966 million in e-books by the end of 2010, according to a new report from Forrester.

The report says the e-book market still has tremendous room to grow, as only 7% of online adults who read books read e-books. Forrester predicts that the e-book market will have risen to almost $3 billion by 2015, even if nothing else changes in the industry, which is unlikely given the rapid development of e-ink technology and the rise of e-book readers in the last couple of years.

The report also highlights a couple of interesting facts about the average e-book reader. She reads the most books, spends the most money on books, and consumes 41% of books in digital form — and that includes people who don’t have an e-reader yet.

A recent statement from Amazon, which claims that Kindle books are outselling hardcovers by a large margin, confirms the meteoric rise in e-book popularity. Things are looking equally rosy on the e-reader front, with Amazon claiming the Kindle 3 has been selling better than any previous version in its first four weeks on the market, while Apple said that it sold 4.19 million iPads in its last quarterly earnings report.

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Amazon has announced another expansion of its Kindle platform with the Kindle for the Web beta, which allows book samples and snippets to be read directly from a browser.

The new version is embeddable across the web, and also acts as another revenue stream for members of the Amazon Associates Program. Online publishers who refer people back Amazon through an embed of Kindle for the Web will be entitled to a percentage of any revenue generated off of the referral.

Although it is limited solely to first chapter previews, Kindle for the Web functions largely like other iterations of the Kindle platform, as seen here:

We’re a bit surprised that Kindle for the Web did not come sooner. In addition to its popular Kindle e-reader, the world’s largest online retailer currently has supporting apps for every major mobile platform, as well as desktop applications for PC and OS X.

Although the web service supports only book previews, it is clearly extendable to full titles. The question is how long Amazon will wait before flipping the switch to allow full content access through Kindle for the Web.

One might argue that this sort of availability would cannibalize sales of physical Kindle devices, but the reality is that Amazon makes considerably more money on e-books than it does on Kindle e-readers. Any extension of the Kindle platform is a valuable step for Amazon to take.

More About: amazon, digital content, e-books, e-readers, Kindle, Kindle for the Web

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Joomag is a service for digital interactive magazine publishing and hosting. It features a powerful platform for creating digital interactive content, including magazines, e-books, catalogs, reports, brochures and photo albums. The online viewer delivers a realistic flipping effects and user friendly magnifying and panning features.

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Amazon is hiring a ton of hardware people, and sources close to the company say that it plans to expand beyond the Kindle e-reader to make new kinds of gadgets to help customers access the content it sells. Most likely, those gadgets would include audio or video players.

More than 70 job listings appear at the website for Amazon’s hardware division, Lab 126. The New York Times’ Bits blog says it has sources “with direct knowledge of the company’s plans” who say that these positions are open in part because the company is planning to finally design and produce new kinds of hardware.

According to one of the sources, Amazon has always planned on this for Lab 126; it just started with the Kindle e-reader. Believe it or not, the source says that Amazon once considered designing its own mobile phone to compete with Google’s Android and Apple’s iPhone, but that decision-makers decided it was “out of Amazon’s reach” at the time. That said, the company is still open to it at some point in the future.

Music players were named as a specific example of what Lab 126 might produce as it staffs up. That makes sense since Amazon sells albums and songs online. It also sells TV shows and movies digitally, so a video player seems a likely candidate as well.

The Kindle has sold millions of units, and Amazon’s e-books have in some cases surpassed hardcovers in sales since its launch. However, Apple recently launched a competing store called iBooks, which allows users to buy and read books on the iPhone and iPad. Amazon has its own app for the iPhone and other mobile platforms, proving that it’s most interested in the revenue it receives from digital book sales. The Kindle hardware is a means to an end. Any new hardware Amazon creates would probably adhere to that philosophy.

More About: amazon, Hardware, Kindle, rumor

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There are a lot of marketplaces, membership-based communities, and stock sites where designers can purchase resources. We see value in this variety, and we think Vandelay Premier is different from the others in a few key ways:

• Career resources in addition to design resources. In effort to help our members achieve greater levels of success in their careers as designers, we provide informational resources (like interviews, short e-books, and special reports) that cover various topics relevant to designers and freelancers.
• Extended license. Our design resources come with an extend license that allows mutiple uses on personal and commercial projects, including use in themes, templates, and other resources that will be distributed in mass. Extended licenses can get very costly with most resources, but with Vandelay Premier there is no additional fee.
• Marketplace with exclusive discounts. We have partnered with a number of companies that provide products and services for designers, and we’ve negotiated discounted rates for our members. More info on these partner companies in a minute.
• Low price. Members get unlimited access to our design resources, career resources, and marketplace for just $9 per month. Or if you would like to save a little bit of money there is an option of $79 annually. You can sign up here.

A Sample of the Design Resources Already Available

We’ve launched the site with more than 40 resources available for download, so it’s already a great deal! There are already almost 300 textures on the site, up to 4000 px by 3000 px in resolution. New resources will be added regularly, so the value of the membership should be constantly increasing. If you’d like to stay up to date with the additions to the site you can subscribe to the RSS feed or follow us on Twitter. Here are just some of the resources that are already available (click on the links to see more details).

One-Page Portfolio Template

The highly-talented Soh Tananka designed and coded a one-page portfolio template that is great for showing off your work.

Highly-Detailed Filigree Vectors

Chadlonius designed this beautiful set of filigree vectors.

Hand Drawn Floral Vectors

Sebastiano Guerriero of WeGraphics designed these vectors that are great for giving your work a hand-drawn effect.

General Website Icons

This set of icons includes many of those iconcs that you need all the time in web design. It was created by Andy Gongea of Graphic Rating.

Laptop PSD

Mohammad Jeprie of Desain Digital has created a few PSD files for us, including this one of a laptop.

Old Paper Textures

Caleb Kimbrough of Lost and Taken has done a few texture packs for our members, including this one of old paper.

Brown Paper Textures

This set provides one of the staples that every designer needs, brown paper textures.

Urban Textures

Caleb Kimbrough’s urban textures are great for adding grunge effects to your design.

Rusty Dumpsters Textures

Very high res textures that make something positive out of old dumpsters.

Grunge Bricks Textures

This set adds a grunge twist to the popular brick texture.

Stone Wall Texture

A high res set of textures from a nice stone wall.

Leaves Textures

Caleb Kimbrough has contibuted two sets of leaves textures that are great for nature-inspired design.

Bokeh Textures/Backgrounds

There are two sets of bokeh textures in a wide variety of colors.

Watercolor Textures

Sebastiano Guerriero created this set of beautiful watercolor textures.

Acrylic Brushes

A set of 18 high res Photoshop brushes, with more on the way.

Brush Strokes Brushes

There are already 2 sets of brushes in this series.

Career Resources

How to Use a Blog to Market Your Design Business

Over the past 3 years this blog has proven to be the most valuable asset to Vandelay Design, and this short e-book (40+ pages) looks at the topic of how designers can use their blog as a promotion tool to improve their business or their career.

Selling Stock Graphics: An Interview with Ryan Putnam

Selling stock is a great supplement or alternative to client work. Ryan Putnam of Rype Arts has sold a lot of stock illustrations and icons over the past few years and in this interview he shares from that wealth of knowledge and experience.

Using Twitter to Market Yourself: An Interview with Andy Sowards

Twitter has proven to be a very productive resource for many designers, and Andy Sowards is one of the best examples of the impact that Twitter can have on a career. In this interview he shares his tips and insight to help other designers achieve success with Twitter.

If you want to get access to all of these items and more you can sign up for just $9 per month or $79 per year.

Marketplace: Exclusive Discounts for Members

Here is a list of the current deals that are available to our members. They will change from time-to-time and more will be added.

• Site5 – 25% off shared or re-seller hosting, or 10% off shared cloud hosting.
• StudioPress – 25% off any theme.
• Pro Theme Design – 15% off any theme.
• UpThemes – 80% off the first month of a standard or developer club membership.
• ThemeJam – 10% off any theme.
• Shopify – 20% off any hosted e-commerce plan.
• Surreal CMS – $50 off the first year of an annual Pro account.
• Ronin – 20% off a team plan.
• Snobby Slice – $30 off coding services.
• Code My Concept – 20% off coding services.
• Jumpeye Components – 20% off any product.
• Pixmac – An extra 15% on any purchase of credits.
• MOO – 15% off printing services for new customers.

Sample Pack of Resources:

We’ve put together a small sample pack of a few resources that will give you an idea of the quality of resources available. You can download the sample pack for free and visit Vandelay Premier to see everything that is available to members.

Want to Design for Us?

We are looking for talented freelance designers to join our team to create resources for members. Ideally we would like to find designers who are interested in working together on a long-term basis, but one-time projects are ok too. We’re interested in help with creating resources like:

• Vectors
• Icons
• Brushes
• PSDs and design elements

If you would like to pursue the possibility or working together, please email us at info@vandelaydesign.com. Please provide a link to some work samples, preferrably the types of items that you would like to design for us. Due to the amount of inquiries that we have been receiving we will not be able to respond to everyone, but we will do our best.

Thank You!

The first 3 years of the Vandelay Design Blog have been a lot of fun and a great learning experience. Thank you very much for reading our blog and for making it possible to extend our business in this way. Without our readers the posts would have ended a few years ago and none of this would be possible. Thank you!

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The way this system works is by using a search spider in order to create a database with all the files that have been uploaded recently to the sharing services mentioned above.

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Learn more about Bergfiles.com in Dataopedia.com

Find out how much Bergfiles.com is worth with Stimator.com

Have a business question? Ask Startups.com

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Amazon predicts that it will sell more e-books than paperbacks by the end of next year, and that they will eclipse both paperback and hardcover sales combined shortly thereafter.

“I predict we will surpass paperback sales sometime in the next nine to 12 months. Sometime after that, we’ll surpass the combination of paperback and hardcover,” Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos told USA Today.

Kindle books have already eclipsed hardcover sales; Amazon recently said it sells 180 e-books for every 100 hardcovers, with the ratio constantly shifting in e-books’ favor.

Many readers still favor the good old printed book. In a recent poll, most Mashable readers cited a preference for physical books over e-books. However, with the e-reader/tablet battle heating up (the iPad is selling amazingly well, and Amazon recently launched a new version of the Kindle) — not to mention the increased convenience and accessibility of e-books via a range of mobile and desktop apps — paperbacks and hardcovers may soon become a minority in the world of books.

[img credit: Amazon]

More About: amazon, e-books, Kindle

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Earlier today, Amazon announced that Kindle books are now outselling hardcovers. Are we witnessing the dawn of the e-book?

That is the subject of today’s Web Faceoff, our weekly series where we pit two web apps against each other in a competition for supremacy. For this week’s episode though, we decided to compare two mediums for information: the printed word vs. the electronic book.

Books have been the cornerstone of our society for centuries, especially after the invention of the printing press — perhaps the most important invention in human history. Digital technology has begun to radically change the role of books in our society though. The e-book has exploded in popularity, especially since the launch of the Amazon Kindle. The e-book’s portability (it takes up no space, can be read on multiple devices) has helped it gain momentum. The ability to interact with e-books digitally (e.g. digital notes, bookmarks, zoom) has even made hardcovers and paperbacks obsolete for some.

That’s why we want you, the Mashable readers, to weigh in on an important question: Which do you prefer: e-books or print books? Cast your vote in the poll below. Be sure to leave your rationale/arguments in our comments section!

Which do you prefer: ebooks or print books?online survey

More About: amazon, eBook, Kindle, Real book, web faceoff

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E-books have hit a significant milestone. In each of the last three months, Amazon reports that sales of books for Kindle have outpaced the sale of hardcover books, and that growth is only accelerating.

In a statement, Amazon says that, “over the past three months, for every 100 hardcover books Amazon.com has sold, it has sold 143 Kindle books. Over the past month, for every 100 hardcover books Amazon.com has sold, it has sold 180 Kindle books.”

That’s impressive, especially considering it was only back in December that Amazon was celebrating Kindle books outselling the real thing on Christmas Day. Six months later, the shift has apparently become the norm.

While part of that shift has to do with reading trends in general — Amazon notes that e-book sales grew 163 percent in the month of May and 207 percent year-to-date through May — Kindle book sales (and other devices like Barnes & Noble’s Nook) has been aided in recent months by price cuts getting e-readers into the hands of more consumers. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos says that “the growth rate of Kindle device unit sales has tripled since we lowered the price from $259 to $189.”

Those price reductions, of course, have been triggered in large part by new competition in the form of iPad. As much as anything else, Amazon is once again reminding us that Kindle is far from dead in the wake of Apple’s tablet, although with Kindle now offering apps for Windows, Mac, and most mobile operating systems, it’s long-term success may ultimately be much more dependent on its e-book store across platforms as opposed to physical device sales.

More About: amazon, e-books, Kindle, trending

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Over the holiday weekend, one developer managed to game iTunes in a way that put his apps in 42 of the 50 top sales spots in the App Store’s book category.

An Apple rep has just confirmed to Engadget that one developer, Vietnam-based Thuat Nguyen, violated the Program License Agreement in a way that rigged fraudulent purchases of his e-books. All of his apps have been removed from the store.

Apparently, only a few hundred users were impacted by Nguyen’s actions, but some users were charged as much as $600 for e-books they never purchased. As a precaution, we recommend checking your iTunes purchasing history and any linked credit card account to ensure that you were not affected by this scam.

However, if you were inadvertently part of this fraudulent activity, you’re pretty much on your own as far as recovering lost funds and maintaining the security of your iTunes account. Apple said you’ll have to contact your bank about chargebacks and change your iTunes password; the company didn’t offer any special help or reporting mechanisms.

Various reports around the web indicate that the e-books in question were of suspiciously low quality to begin with. Between this factor — which should have surfaced before the e-books even hit the App Store — and the fact that Nguyen’s books rose so quickly in sales rankings, we wonder if this fraudulent activity couldn’t have been stopped earlier or prevented entirely.

What do you think: Have we become complacent about the supposed safety of the generally locked-down App Store? Should Apple be doing a better job of fraud detection and prevention?

More About: apple, e-books, fraud, itunes, scam

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• We’ve got an old and slow computer at our house, and I’ve tried everything to speed it up. How much faster would it run if I reinstalled Windows?
• Can anyone explain how iTunes decides what to sync if your library on the computer is larger than the space available on your iDevice?
• What’s the best bill-tracking solution when you have multiple roommates?
• I am starting college soon, and I was wondering how difficult it is to find textbooks for classes as e-books? Which e-book reader ties into the best marketplace?
• Does anyone a similar site like Lifehacker that talks about technology related to businesses or enterprises?
• What are the differences between Microsoft Word 2007 and Microsoft Word 2010? Are they compatible with each other?

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Microsoft – Word Processors – Word – Microsoft Office – MicrosoftWord

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The Web is full of information, articles, videos, white papers, e-books and all matter of research and information. Some of it is very, very good, and some of it is misleading and irrelevant. Somewhere in the middle, falling squarely in the category of spectacularly mediocre, is the vast majority of the rest of it.

If you’re like me, always trying to improve, learn, and grow your business, then you’ve probably been frustrated in your search for truly useful information that you can actually use to improve your marketing, branding, and sales efforts.

There seems to be a wide choice of articles dedicated to surefire courses on do-it-yourself marketing that will make you a Web-Media-Mogul overnight (usually available for a mere three payments of twenty-nine, ninety-five) and of course, there’s always lots of stuff on how you just got to get on-board with the next big social networking fad. Excuse me while I delete another email about an absolutely fabulous linking strategy I just can’t live without.

It’s all too familiar and for the most part, a waste of time. If this nonsense were really the answer to growing your business, then you’d already be rich, sitting on some Bora Bora beach sipping pina coladas, and not hunched over your computer trying to find something useful that will actually help.

In One Word Or Less

When it comes to marketing, it really doesn’t matter what venue, method, or media you employ; marketing is simply a matter of effective ‘communication,’ easy to say, not so easy to do.

Your ability to communicate is the key to marketing success, or conversely, your inability to communicate effectively is what is holding you back. So the time has come to grapple with the real problem, and that is, how do you communicate your marketing message in the most effective manner to your audience; how do you tell your brand story so people pay attention, and care.

The first thing to understand about marketing communication is that text messaging, Twitter and all other limited, one dimensional solutions, stifle the very thing that’s necessary to implement effective marketing communication: the nuance, depth of understanding, and emotional value inherent in what you offer – the very thing your audience needs to know about what you sell. The key being ‘why they need what you offer’ not ‘what.’

Communication Is A Complex Process

The second thing to understand about marketing communication is that it involves five critical elements in order to be effective: the Message, the Method, the Messenger, the Audience, and the Venue.

Ask yourself, why are you on the Web at all? If it’s because everyone else is on the Web, then you’re never going to have the marketing breakthrough you crave; but if it’s because you have something to say, a story to tell, a reason for people to say, “I need some of that!” then it’s time to get serious about developing the right message, delivered by the right messenger, sent to the right audience, and employing the Web venue’s best method of multidimensional communication – Video.

This is nothing new. Web Video is now accepted as the most effective communication tool available to Web businesses, so what is the difference between Web Videos that are an utter waste of time, and worse, counter productive, and Web Videos that turn companies into marketing phenoms?

Unlike one-dimensional forms of communication, Web Video delivers your message by accessing multiple senses using visual and auditory techniques. Just by adding a human being as presenter goes a long way to making an impact.

Because video communicates by accessing multiple senses on both a subliminal and direct level, it demands knowledge and expertise in concept creation, writing, casting, graphic and motion design, video production and editing, audio, music and sound design, as well as the ability to get it all to work together in an effective presentation delivered on time and for an affordable investment.

But all of this expertise and skill can be wasted if your video campaign lacks an identifiable emotionally relevant conceptual design. One of the hardest marketing concepts for bottom-line oriented business executives to accept is that the value of their offering is found in the emotional satisfaction their product or service provides. Telling people what a company does alone is not marketing, telling them why they need what you do is. Companies that focus on ‘the what’ turn their products and services into commodities and products that are indistinguishable from the competition, but companies that focus on the emotional value they provide, deliver the answer to the question, why people buy from one company and not from another.

Effective Marketing Communication is Concept Based

All good marketing is based on an emotionally based concept. This is especially true on the Web, where content and attention span go hand-in-hand. If your Web marketing is not interesting, informative, and entertaining, it will never be memorable; it will never have the lasting impact you need to meet your sales and marketing objectives. Effective marketing communication starts with an emotionally charged concept, one that can be spun-out into a long-term presentation strategy, a concept with legs.

Coming up with an appropriate concept that will work for your product or service takes a bit of creative thinking, but it really isn’t as hard as you think. One caveat that often escapes clients, when they come to us with their ideas is that the concept must be executable for the available budget. Anybody can come up with fantastic ideas that are impossible to implement or cost prohibitive. The trick is to develop a concept that can be implemented on time and on budget.

Executable Brand Video Campaign Concepts

One method we use to develop affordable brand video campaign concepts for clients is to combine the emotional value proposition the client offers with a recognizable presentation trope.

Tropes are metaphorical expressions, or in this case, storytelling-scenarios that audiences recognize and accept in terms of their implied expectations and implications. Used properly within the context of a Web Video presentation, tropes can simplify and shorten a complex message, and provide cover for what would otherwise be a boring, blatant sales pitch, or desperate plea for business.

Human beings are all programmed for pattern recognition, it is a basic skill needed for survival, and it’s been hardwired into our DNA. Our very survival as a species is dependent on our ability to recognize danger and opportunity. Business and marketing is no different. And that is what makes communication tropes effective. This intrinsic aspect of our nature allows professional video marketing experts to tap into the motivational triggers that govern our subliminal decision-making responses, the kind of responses that get people to buy what you sell.

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Web Marketing Ideas You Can Actually Use

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Elmo and his Sesame Street friends have already set up shop in Apple’s App Store, but today Bert, Ernie, Big Bird and the rest of the crew now have their own e-bookstore to call home.

The Sesame Street e-bookstore is an online collection of 121 character-driven e-books — covering learning subject areas like letters, numbers, counting and colors — offered in standard, audio, interactive and animated formats. Users pay an annual $39.99 subscription fee for unlimited access to all titles.

The e-books available include many of the same titles that Sesame Street has published over the past 40 years, but with digital additives. Audio e-books include narration, sound effects and music; interactive titles invite children to participate in the storytelling process; and animated e-books read like movies with full-color animation.

The site gives users their own bookshelf, includes tips for parents and boasts simplified navigation for children in Kids Mode.

Sesame Street’s digital publishing initiative is an aggressive move that makes its popular titles relevant to today’s web-centric world. Sesame Street has, however made a few puzzling choices; for instance, books are only accessible through the Sesame Street e-book reader, a browser-based application that requires Flash and is thus neither platform-independent nor mobile-friendly. Also, the annual subscription fee model implies that users won’t actually own any of the titles.

Still, if parents respond to the e-bookstore the same way they’ve responded to iPhone and iPad versions of Sesame Street content, then this endeavor could prove to be a big success for the educational non-profit.

Tags: ebooks, sesame street

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Publishers and brands are falling all over themselves to create products for the iPad. Considering that the new device is seen as a potential savior for paid content, that makes sense. But is the iPad ready to deliver on that promise? So far iPad users are purchasing content from the iTunes store. But they’re also swiping free stuff.

For brands looking to invest in developing paid products for the new device, that money might be best spent elsewhere.

How about those paid apps that publishers are so excited about? It’s been six weeks since the iPad officially launched, and publishers are being cagey about sales. But today it came out that Conde Nast’s app for GQ sold only 365 copies. Considering how many brands are contemplating devoting resources to iPad-specific development rather than simply translating their print products to the device, that could be a bit worrisome.

Of course, the novelty of the device could account for slow app sales. And iPad sales are quickly increasing. But are customers going to be as willing to fork over for content in this new iPad friendly space? Maybe not.

There are applications that are performing very well on the device. But as Mashable points out, they’re free:

“ABC announced that its app has been downloaded more than 200,000 times, and earlier this month Rupert Murdoch revealed that the WSJ app has roughly 64,000 subscribers. Both of these apps, however, are free.”

And according to The Unofficial Apple Weblog, iPad users seem pretty willing to pirate content for their new toys:

“In the week following the launch of the iPad, six of the top ten selling business-related paperbacks saw a significant spike in unauthorized downloads on BitTorrent, according to BitTorrent news blog TorrentFreak.
This cohort saw average increases of 78 percent over the week prior to
the iPad launch. While this data may suggest the onset of an eBook
piracy revolution, such a coup is still a long ways away.”

TorrentFreak chose to follow the piracy of business e-books because that topic fits the interests of the current iPad buying demographic. While not a comprehensive study, it is interesting to consider that iPad owners — who were quick to fork over for a new digital device, are using it to get themselves free copies of books they either weren’t reading before or that they used to paid for.

It could simply mean that consumers inclined to pirate e-books are reading more on their iPads. But that’s further proof that while a mobile tablet might promote more digital reading, it may not encourage people to pay for that content.

That said, as Peter Kafka at MediaMemo points out, there are still plenty of branding opportunities in the space:

“Needle mover? Nope. But Condé also gets the chance to sell some
advertisers the right to be a premium app sponsor, so the dollars could
pile up, eventually.”

Many well known internet marketers recommend rebranding e-books when possible as a way to increase visitors to your website and build a successful online business income. Because re-branding e-books has proved to be profitable does this mean that it is actually the best strategy?

Like so many other things with internet marketing this question has both a for and against answer, and it basically needs to be looked at as a separate case in each instance.

1. Reasons why rebranding e-books is a good idea:

It is easy to do
Rebranding an e-book can take a very short period of time to do and can bring you extra income over a long period of time. These e-books can usually be offered as a free download as an incentive for someone to join your emailing list, which just requires them to fill in their name and email address in an optin box on your website and then they can download the book.

Alternatively you could add a free download section on your website where visitors would be able to download a variety of e-books. If they choose to purchase any of the products that are offered via an e-book that you have re-branded, you will get the benefit of earning a commission on that product.

An added advantage of using this method is that it does not involve you having to write anything, create any graphics or create a product. All that is required of you is to re-brand the book and share it with other people online.

If you are involved in any type of MLM affiliate program, by passing on a rebranded e-book you will not only make a direct profit, but will also benefit from any affiliates below you who may generate extra income for you as well.

2. Reasons why re-branding e-books may be a Bad Idea!

Inside every re-brandable e-book there are certain links that cannot be changed and these are links that generally belong to the person who created the book in the first place and they will also continue to benefit from the work that you do in sharing the e-book with others.

If this scenario does not appeal to you then you should think about writing an e-book that is perhaps similar to the one you were thinking of rebranding and then you could keep all the profits as all the ads will be your own.

Another disadvantage of a rebranded e-book is that if you find an affiliate product that you would like to sell and the creator of that product offers you an e-book that you can rebrand to get started, chances are if the product has been around for any length of time, that the e-book can already be found all over the internet and it will not attract many interested people.

With affiliate products it is important to have a unique selling point if you wish to be successful and if you have something that is already last weeks news it will not work for you. With a little extra work you could have a report that is unique and that no one else has seen yet and this will give you a much greater chance of being successful.

Rebranding e-books definitely has a place in marketing an online business opportunity and should not be judged too harshly. The secret is to look at each case individually and make a decision on what will work best for you. Depending on what you want to achieve and the quality of the book, you can then make an educated choice on what will work best for your online income business.

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Is it a Good Idea to Rebrand E-Books as an Online Business Building Tool?

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