Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Archive for August, 2009

Panabee

Search is becoming useful now as more and more search engines emerged on the Web, and they actually allowed users to perform different types of searches across a multitude of these search engines. However, to find information about the thing you’re looking for with the possibility to visit a Web application that returns you two different set of search results with a simple query you input, there is a newly launched Web service called Panabee.

Panabee, by its default display order, will display Google in the left-hand pane, and Bing, Microsoft’s official search engine in the right-hand pane. But the unique Panabee’s differentiation factor is that Panabee has incorporated a flexibility display option to allow users to choose and display Panabee in a one window or left and right-hand pane display mode. In addition, Panabee is providing search results from two search engines selected by users. What they only need to do is to select their favorite site, with the given categories as follows: images, videos, shopping, coupons, reference, just to name a few, the selected site will be shown on the left-hand or right-hand pane respectively.

Frankly, I can’t say it’s an innovation in the search engine industry, but it’s definitely something that most people need, especially for those who are Blogger, Shopper, Marketer, or Techie that always find a way to compare search results.

Convez

To perform currency conversion, there is a new one that called Convez which you can perform currency conversion mainly currencies from Europe using the latest exchange rates.

Currently, Convez only supports the currency conversion for twelve (12) currency forms, they are British Pound (GBP), US Dollar (USD), Indian Rupee (INR), Swiss Franc (CHF), Czech Koruna (CZK), Danish Krone (DKK), Estonian Kroon (EEK), Hungarian Forint (HUF), Lithuanian Litas (LTL), Polish Zloty (PLN), Romanian Leu (RON), and Russian Ruble (RUB).

To use Convez is very simple, simply input the amount figure to be converted, and select a currency to be used, Convez will act as a currency calculator utility and helps you to convert the amount to some popular currency forms. If you like the conversion result so much, how about embed the currency image for the conversion you did? Yes, you can by just embed the code onto your Web site or blog.

Su.pr

For the content publishers, one of the Web services they probably will use daily is the URL shortening service, simply because of its ability to shorten the content URL and share the links to thousand of potential readers. However, to use the URL shortening services to the next level, such as to attract more audience for the site you managed, not many can helps you to get more traffic than this Su.pr.

Su.pr, a Web project of the popular social bookmarking service StumbleUpon, is not only a service that served as an URL shortener. With Su.pr, you can enter the text message as well as URL link and post it to Twitter, and Facebook. For the text message and URL link you posted, it will be converted into a Su.pr link.

Su.pr also helps solve the problem of making the content, i.e. the Su.pr link you want to share at the time in the future with the “schedule” feature. For example, if you want your piece of Su.pr link to be shared in future, assume that on tomorrow, you can schedule the URL link to be shared in that time given.

In addition, one of the reasons that Su.pr has received attention is because of the administrative dashboard provided can give you the basic statistical data of the Su.pr link you shared. The statistical data, though is in the basic form, can give you the number of clicks, view stats, and retweets. If the Su.pr link you posted has already been reviewed by any user of StumbleUpon community, the number of same review will be shown. For the statistical data, you also can download it in MS Excel csv format for future reference.

For the traffic sources functionality, Su.pr can helps to track and compile data mainly from these two (2) different sources, the direct one and the StumbleUpon organic traffic. For the traffic not came from these sources, which are typed, bookmarked, email, and mobile, they are considered as organic traffic. Basically, organic traffic is the additional traffic when the Su.pr link has been shared with the StumbleUpon community and being thumb-up by the users. As more users thumb-up your Su.pr link, it will be shared with more people who share similar interests. In other words, when a lot of people thumb-up your Su.pr link, assumed that the Su.pr link will point to your own content, it’s clear that your eventual goal of making your content to reach more audience will be achieved in this manner. If your own user-generated content is one of the popular links in the StumbleUpon community, as people thumb-up and like it, you’ll find this Su.pr’s offering is more than what the ordinary URL shortening service can offer.

As we know, URL shorteners work in their own way. But for the domain branding purpose, you can create the short URLs on your domain. It is now possible if you’re running a blog with the WordPress platform and install the Su.pr plugin for WordPress. However, you’re required to do some configurations before you can get your very own short URL on your own domain.

Overall, Su.pr has really caught me eye, though in fact it’s a bit more complicated than the other URL shorteners out there on the Web.

CORRECTMYTEXT

To learn a foreign language, there’s no other place better than Web now. For instance, if you have started to learn a foreign language, and managed to wrote a document in this foreign language, there is a language learning community where users will help you to verify the text in this foreign language.

This new Web service called CORRECTMYTEXT is a new language learning community where you can add your text, and having your text in the foreign language to be corrected in the grammar and usage aspects. Currently, there are several native speakers of ten of the most widely used languages that are English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Korean, Russian, Japanese, and Italian to share their knowledge. What’s more, for these native speakers or language professionals to review your text and correct all errors of style or grammar, it is offered without any charge. Also, you can request a voice version of your corrected text.

Overall, CORRECTMYTEXT is a language learning community wherein not only you can get your text in foreign language be corrected, you also can practice speaking a foreign language using the voice version of the corrected text offered.

JoobsBox

Starting an online job board seems to be a good idea to monetize on the Web, though it’s not easy to find a niche for the field you’re targeting at if you planned to start a job board. For instance, if you’re looking forward to start a tech job board, or job board for freelancers, part-timers, you might come across a lot of the similar one in your home country. From a business perspective, that’s probably what the developers around the world were thinking when they developed the job board scripts which they can charge on a per-domain basis, so as far as the software-end is concerned, it’s hardly to find any of the good yet open source job board scripts out there.

Let’s say you want to start a job board and you do not want the hassle to develop your own by programming it or outsource it to the software house, you can now turn to an open source, and light-weight piece of job board script called JoobsBox.

JoobsBox, similar like another popular job board script Jobberbase, is built using PHP/MySQL. Currently, JoobsBox is still in Alpha stage, but includes features such as RSS feed integration on each category of job categories, plugin system that make it possible to extend the application easily, custom templates, iPhone ready and the availability of an admin panel. However, the posting of job opening is rather basic right now, employers will not need to register an account in order to post the job details to the job board. In other words, there is no any connection in between job seekers and employers where they can looking for each other. But JoobsBox is very easy to use as you can perform the installation in a 3-Step process, and it’s done.

In fact, this job board script is built to be light-weight, so you won’t find employer accounts, payment integration or resumes management. However, the aforesaid features is told to be developed in the upcoming release on its official blog.

If you’re interested with this job board script, check out the demo via here.

CancelAds

For the bloggers or Web site owners who want to optimize the advertising effectiveness, here’s another pay-service business model that offered by CancelAds. However, unlike the idea of taking money to run traditional banner ads or any sponsor search, the ad-based business model is solely focused on the Web surfers.

In general, CancelAds is a service that is intended to connect Web surfers with content creators and eliminate the irritation over ads. To help the Web surfers to enjoy the fair Web without ads, Web surfers pay a small subscription amount to support their favorite Web sites and enjoy them without ads. This helps in supporting the Web publishers that they like and in the mean time, not intended to deprive the sources of revenue of these Web publishers.

To make this idea works, CancelAds might need to attract a large pool of Web publishers to participate in this business model. Only if the Web publishers copy and paste the CancelAds site code on their sites, Web surfers will see a CancelAds button where they can help in buying a subscription in order to cancel ads on the site for a certain period of time. Of course, the revenue will then be shared between CancelAds and the Web publishers concerned.

Will this type of ad-based business model work? It’s still too early to conclude. However, the facilitation between Web publishers and the users as the switching of its emphasis from publishers’ pay-per-click to Web surfers’ subscription model is truly compelling.