SEO Expert - The Role Of SEO

It is a need in the present business field to open up an online store in order to withstand all the competitors. This is also considered as an easy way to reach out to all potential customers without facing any trouble just like retail stores. It is not enough to just develop a website and make it up and running. It is also very important to take necessary steps in order to identify the websites by millions of users who are surfing internet on daily basis. Your company will be able to gain popularity among users from around the globe thereby bring tremendous increase in the business frontiers. Search engine optimization is the technique adopted by many owners in order to popularize the websites by many means. This is also known as SEO services.

Usually this is done either by the company themselves by forming a separate team with SEO experts or by outsourcing the task to a third party company. The third party company will be specialized in SEO jobs with a number of SEO experts working together for the benefit of the clients. A SEO expert is a person who should be well versed in all the internet activities. They should be good at social networking as socializing is the key factor involved with marketing.

They should have all the knowledge on web designing and should be able to reformat the client website according to various needs and as per the changing trend in order to get potential customers. Creativity is very important for SEO experts as there will be needs to add certain creative writings if the clients website is not up to mark while considering all these aspects. It is a common phenomenon that the websites should contain various attractive terms and writings that catch the customer in a very short time frame. Also the SEO should be knowledgeable in the area of the business and accordingly they should be able to identify the keywords used by customers in order to search for all the related services on internet. Based on all the collected keywords, they should be able to create various back links to search engines. Back links are very important factor to be noted by SEO.

They should be careful in creating back links only with reputed classified sites and with other related websites. Avoid back links with any low profile website as it tends to add up more spam rather than potential customers thereby lowering the client website. This shows the importance of a SEO expert in managing SEO services.

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SEO Specialist

Search Engine Ranking is a buzz word that you will hear all over the Internet. If you want your website to rank high on any of the major search engines like Google, Yahoo or Bing, you use a method called SEO. There is no doubt about the fact that if you want your business to be successful online, you have to rank on the first page of the search engines.

Do not expect too much traffic if your website is not on the first page. Almost 40% of traffic is generated from the Number one ranking spot in Google for any given keyword. Almost 90% of the traffic is generated on the first page.

No one set of rules will make this happen for you, but it is rather a series of good SEO strategies that will get your site to the top. First learn the Key elements of SEO or get a SEO Specialist to do it for you. Develop your own optimization system as you learn more and more tricks and tips.

You can learn the basics of SEO by means of online courses and systems. My advice to you will be to get a good understanding of how SEO works or hire a good SEO Specialist that can do it for you.

Using an algorithm, the likes of Google decide which site will rank at the top. They keep this algorithm a secret, but I have found that if you apply a few principles you will almost always get to the top position. Some basic principles are things that they look at and will influence any Search Engine Ranking.

Content is one of the factors that can make a great difference in getting to the top of the search engines. The Search Engines are always looking for good quality unique content to display to their visitors. If you have good quality content that is unique, you already have a good chance to get better rankings. If you write that content yourself it is far better than copying someone Else's from an article directory. With that said however, I had instances where I ranked number one with Directory articles as well.

There are a lot of other factors that also influence search engine optimization. According to what I have found, back links is the second largest factor of search engine ranking. When doing SEO you must ensure that you don't just use any links, as some links will rather get you penalized than helping you. If you take some time and learn the basics of SEO and back links, you will be well rewarded.

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SEO Expert - Top Tips and Tricks

When starting to drive traffic to a new domain, research needs to be carried out in order to plan out how to build the site. Then you say, these are the keywords I need to be doing, build out the pages on your WordPress platform for those particular buying keywords.

You're crafting these little pages of content and then they are driving straight to the offer. You might wonder, do you funnel them into another sales letter? I suppose it depends what you're working on.

As an SEO expert and as you know, it depends on the system. I'm really going well with the blog model where I have a name capture on the blog and I convert a fair bit of that traffic on to a list where I can build the relationship. There are select opportunities for that person to take any of the call to actions, either ones directly in the article itself or to the side where I'll put strategic banner placements etc.

You build up the on page thing. Then what I'll do is I'll take that same content and leverage off page as well. I'll get rewrites of that article distributed and point back to the first one. Then I'll start building a layer of third party sites.

Now you might be wondering, do you have a process, a systematized process? OK, you've created the page, so you then get those articles rewritten and then going out for distribution. Do you have a thing where you say, for example, at minimum I'm looking for ten articles or twenty articles or whatever? How do you do it? For a system to work you need to have some guidelines or goalposts to shoot between.

Have a perpetual content machine working. All I need to do is feed it keywords and then the content will come back to me for me to place on the blog and the rest of it will be distributed automatically using for example, Article Marketing.

I'm sure others want to become an SEO expert. You might be asking, is there any chance we can dig in deep as to how that model works? You get the content done, so you get it written through your writer and then it comes back to you and you publish on the blog. I'm going to go through what some of the different processes are? Most use blog comments and article submissions.

Basically as soon as an article is posted on my blog, that activates back linking and further distribution of that article. That's the signal.

You might be asking, where are you posting on that? Do I take it to Ezine?

It's much broader than that. Basically I have someone posting it to article submission sites. So it will go to all the popular article sites and it will also go to private blog networks. It will be linked back to the site and the category and to the article itself. They'll be different versions of the article.

You might be wondering, where's this assistant posting it? It sounds like there are quite a few different areas it's going out to.

It goes across several networks, so you don't want to be single network dependent because it's too much of a pattern. Also you're missing opportunities. So you want to go quite broad with your traffic syndication. I use a number of networks and a number of ways to get links. I think that's worked well for me to go very broad. I've got a lot of different traffic channels for my content and that's why I get a lot more traffic than most people. Also I'm able to cover some of the areas that they're missing.

You might be wondering, how does your assistant or the assistant who's posting the content out, know which one to do? Let's say you've just created that content and let's say you've got six or seven different methods. Do you just say, pick three of the seven different methods that we have at random and post for that? I'm just really wondering how your systematize it.

I have subscriptions with some services and we use all of them, the only enhancement or variable is if I want to add on top. If I want to do an extra special bomb, then I could go a little bit hard core. Say, video distribution; we would start with a baseline but I would also add in a couple of extra video channels if I decide that is going to be worth the effort.

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Make a Living Being an SEO Specialist

SEO (search engine optimization) is one of the most lucrative businesses today. There are thousands of websites being created everyday and most of them are requiring an SEO specialist for their internet marketing campaigns. Business owners are willing to pay thousands of dollars to people who can help them improve their Google ranking.

How can you earn money from this industry? Basically, you have to understand first what SEO is all about. Let's say you have an online business that sells weight loss products. For you to be able to maximize your online earnings from sales you need two things:

• Highly targeted visitors to your website
• A SEO expert who can help you generate traffic.

In simpler words, they need to get their sites on top of Google search results to have a better online visibility. Being on top of Google ranking means less expenses in advertisements and sponsorship. As a person with expertise in SEO, you can do the following to earn cash and make a living:

• Create your own website. This must be optimized for search engines and must have a high Google Page Rank. To do this, you have to build backlinks to your site by posting comments in forums and sites with related topics. Once your blog or web page already has a stable position in major search engines, you have the options to sell the site or use it for affiliate marketing.

• Provide SEO services to other webmasters. Use your skills to earn money online. Most blog owners are too busy to think about SEO and some of them simply have no idea about how to optimize their sites. Take advantage of these opportunities to build an online career.

• Create a profile in freelancing sites. Post your portfolio in oDesk and Freelance. You can charge employers per hour or per project. Some SEO specialists are earning up to $27 per hour depending on skills and experience. The intricacy and complexity of the tasks are also considered in determining the salary of the contractor.

On the other hand, here are some skills that you need to possess in order to become a qualified SEO expert:

1. The ability to create profiles in high-ranking forum sites and use signature links to build backlinks
2. The ability to search for .gov and .edu blogs and use signature links to build incoming links
3. The ability to write unique articles using keywords and LSI (latent semantic indexing) words to boost SEO rank
4. The ability to write ezine articles and submit guest posts to high traffic relevant blogs to increase blog site popularity

Without the skills discussed above, it is nearly impossible to build a career in this industry.

These are just some ideas to make money online by being a SEO specialist. There are other methods that you can use to generate cash from this field. If you want to make it as a full-time job, always update your portfolio with your recent and current projects to give a good impression to clients and customers.

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Effective Tips for Becoming An SEO Expert

Whether you desire to be a freelance SEO expert or a part of a well-known SEO agency, you would first need to be well-versed of the different internet marketing areas. More so, your knowledge should turn in to results of getting websites, preferably your own website first, rank in the search engines especially Google. Itemized below are the things you need to be the best SEO practitioner you could be.

Stay Updated

Probably, your basic knowledge of SEO processes and how it generates money got you interested in learning more it and considering providing SEO services as a career. This is a good start. However, it is important to stay up to date on the latest developments in the SEO industry.

It is a given fact that search engine rules change almost on a daily basis. On top of that, search engine algorithms remain a mystery until now. This is why being well-informed as much as you can on SEO is important because what worked today may no longer work in a couple of days.

SEO related articles, forums, seminars and training programs flourish online. They can give you training and advice on becoming a search engine optimization consultant. You can also add in your library SEO or internet marketing books authored by specialists in the field.

Set Up Your Own Website

You can never prove yourself credible in providing SEO services unless you own a SEO themed website that will embody your SEO strategies. Apply in your website the techniques that you plan to offer your prospect clients. You can use your own website as a trial-and-error site to conduct processes from simple keyword research to building backlinks.

Following are some helpful insights in creating a successful website for your SEO venture:

Content is everything - Readers and search engines love interesting and useful content. By keeping a website of quality content, you can an authority in your niche. This can get your website all the traffic it needs.
Post images or videos - Second to content, readers and search engines are attracted to images and videos related to the search topics.

Get quality backlinks - Whether your website holds a lot of pages, it can still be highly optimized with quality backlinks. An SEO expert connects with authority sites that are related to your SEO themed website.
Always wear the right hat - Be smart with the SEO tactics that you will use to promote your website and the websites of your future clients as well. You have the freedom to choose among the SEO hats - black, gray or white. The right hat can help you build your SEO empire while the wrong one can crash your online presence anytime. So, be wise.

Create a portfolio.

Once potential clients get drawn to your website, most of them will ask for a list of websites that you have successfully optimized to their own benefit. If it happens that you do not have client websites, you can start building your reputation by offering a friend, a relative or a few non-profit organizations your services for free. Such can give you opportunity to practice your skills, build up your portfolio and create a contact list. This is also a good way to promote your SEO business.

Meanwhile you can also go for smaller and less demanding clients for a start. As you become an established SEO expert, you will be ready to optimize websites of bigger companies. Designing some websites for your own use and get them ranked is an ideal way to begin with. Once they gain some a substantial flow of traffic, you can sell them or load them up with AdSense.

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Be An SEO Expert and Earn a Good Income

Today, there is fierce competition on the internet as many webmasters are seeking to have their sites on the first page of search engines, especially Google. There is, therefore, an opportunity to make money at home as a search engine optimization guru, which simply means making a website or a write-up searchable by incorporating relevant words or phrases that users type into search engines.

Recommended websites:

• Google.com/adwords
• Goodkeywords.com
• Overture.com
• Blogger.com
• Wordpress.org

If you want to make money at home online with the knowledge of search engine optimization, which is otherwise called SEO, take note of the following points.

• You could either offer it as a service to webmasters or use it as a means to gain traffic to your own site or blog. So the first thing is to determine the model you want, from among the above two options.

• Have a thorough understanding of how search engines work in respect of searches being performed by users all over the world. This enables you to play the game by the rules so as to avoid penalties.

• Register an account with Google. Google is the most user-friendly search engine with millions of users. Go to Google Adwords to sign up for the account. This gives you access to its keyword tool. That is what you need to research the actual words that users are typing into the search bar when looking for information.

• Set up a Wordpress blog. You may also set up a free blog at Blogger.

• Log in to your Adwords account. Use the keyword tool to find keywords that you want to target for your blog. When you enter a phrase, you will get a long list of keywords or phrases as well as the corresponding number of searches performed on them per month.

• Select keywords with 1,000 to 10,000 searches per month and save them in a notepad on your computer. For each keyword or phrase, write an article or blog post for your blog each day.

• Submit keyword rich articles to different article directories, linking them to your blog in the resource box. Also, share the post on Twitter, Facebook and other social bookmarking sites. By doing this, you are building backlinks for your blog which will be ranked well on Google, thereby bringing traffic to it.

• An alternative way to make money at home online is to offer your search engine optimization expertise as a service on forums and freelancing sites. You could even build a website for this SEO service and get webmasters to pay you for what you know. In comparison, doing search engine optimization for your own blog should be a welcome idea to you.

Pros

If your website or write-up shows up in search engines, you have gained relevance for the keywords you targeted and you will have visitors. From this, you will make money from the products or services that you are promoting.

Cons

Even though you may have a keyword rich website or article, it is still very hard to show up on page one since, in most cases, there are already thousands or millions of pages on the keywords you may target.

If you want to earn a good income online as a search engine optimization expert as far as your own sites or articles are concerned, you should target keywords that have less competition but considerable amount of searches per month.

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Search Engine Optimization - Good Keyword Optimization Is Knowing How To Place Your Keywords

You have taken the time and concluded a thorough keyword research to ensure the best keyword optimization. It is now time to determine how you will use your keywords and phrases for the best overall search engine optimization so that you will rank high in the search engines.



Once you've decided what keywords are relevant for your site, the work begins. You need to know how to integrate them into your content in a constructive way. You should go about this procedure in a tactful manner, if you do it hap-haphazardly by inflating your keywords or overusing your keywords the search engines will definitely figure it out sooner or later. You might be able to get to the top of the search engine rankings quite quickly, but believe me you won't stay there.

When utilizing incorporating keyword optimization there a couple of things you must be aware of. Keep in mind that not all search engines use the same algorithm, but you can still ensure by using some of the following general strategies you will achieve a better search engine ranking.

A lot of search engines will index an entire page so it's important to make sure you place your keywords throughout each and every page of your content. Also you should be utilizing the page properties of each page you create (keywords, meta tags, etc.).

A general rule to ensure good keyword optimization is making sure your web site has at least 100 words minimum of good quality content keeping in mind good keyword optimization strategies. If you are doing article writing some people say 250-300 words will do the trick, however I have found different. When I concentrate on quality versus quantity I tend to produce higher quality and high quantity simultaneously. Don't just whip out a 250 word minimum article with the sheer intent of promotion in mind, even if you have chosen good keywords, quality always comes out on top. Readers want good quality content that will actually help them solve what they are searching for.

Another tactic known to ensure good keyword optimization is 'keyword prominence' which is part of a search engines' algorithm. It simply means finding the best place to place keywords. Most of the research I have done says the closer your keywords are to the start of a sentence the better. Much research also emphasizes ending your site or article with your keywords. I do both to ensure quality keyword optimization.
Another strategy to ensure good keyword optimization is 'proximity' which simply means how close together your keywords are. In other words, putting your keywords as close together as possible within a sentence, but at the same time ensuring your sentence is clear.

Keyword Density is a clear cut strategy you want to incorporate to ensure good keyword optimization.
Keyword density measure the weight of keyword in your content, in other words how many times the keywords are being used. It is recommended that keyword density range from between 3-7%. This means for every 100 words you use your keywords should appear 3-7 times. If you go higher than this, it could qualify as spamming. Again you need to keep in mind good quality content. It can be difficult to weave in 10 keywords, but if you pick a couple of your most important keywords and repeat them, it should make things go a lot smoother.

Finally to ensure the best possible keyword optimization the last strategy you want to consider is 'frequency'. Frequency is closely related to keyword density. Search engines prefer to see the repetition of more than one or two keywords. Do concentrate on your primary (2-3) keywords, but also incorporate other keywords that you have indicated as keyword. I generally have 6-7 keywords with the main emphasis on two or three of the keywords throughout my content.

There are many tactful and proven keyword optimization strategies for ranking high in the search engines. However, many sites completely ignore them, stick with these proven strategies and you will see results. In the end your customers will appreciate good search engine optimization even if they are completely unaware of what it is. Always keep in mind that humans read your content and they are looking for good content not over used keywords.

Diana is an educator of 23 years and was first introduced to the network/affiliate marketing industry in the early 80's. Diana is now using her teaching philosophies to help turn around the 97% failure rate in the network/affiliate marketing industry. By being an affiliate with the most simplistic Network Marketing company today, Global Domains International or GDI, she is changing how people view the industry and guiding them to personal success.

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Keyword Research And How to Write The Best Content For Your Website

Search engine optimization has changed significantly since the early days of the Internet. Titans of the web search community, such as Google and Bing, continue to refine their methods of effective SEO in order to give users what they are most looking for in their content. In the old days, it was simply a matter of proper keyword usage, frequency, and click throughs. Today, Google is spearheading the movement to measure which links users are actually finding useful. They pay attention to the average time that a user spends on a web page and also give the user the option of endorsing or nixing a URL they have clicked upon to determine appropriate ranking in customized user results.

So do keywords even matter anymore when it comes to writing top quality content that gets the results you should be looking for? Actually, yes, it does. Keyword research is still one of the most valuable things that you can do for your SEO, because it pays direct attention to the terms that people are searching and the methods in which they are finding information just like yours. You ignore keyword research at your own risk. Many hate the process because they feel too "hemmed in" by the way they can write their articles when in reality it allows them to be more focused in the things they talk about, the things they share with the public, which are, in all actuality, what the public really wants to know.

To establish the best keywords for your content, it is best to think about a subject matter you are very passionate about. Make a list of all the various aspects of the subject that attract you. From there, use that list to develop search terms. This process can be translated to multiple disciplines or fields of interest. Make sure that you do this for all of your sites, or at least make sure that your writers are doing so.

Once you have established good, solid keywords and keyword phrases, then you can focus on writing the best content that your site has ever seen. By pouring more thought into what you have to say instead of keyword frequency, you can take your site up the Google search ranks in a hurry. But without the research part of the equation, you'll never get to the level of quality that belongs on that first page.

Whether you are the one writing the content or not, you need to know the processes, so you can train those close to your site for what to watch out for in the digital age. Without the attention to detail and quality of craftsmanship, you won't be able to survive in the age to come.

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How to use Twitter in Online Marketing

That social media are essential in online media campaigns has become a truism. But how do you combine your Twitter strategy with your search engine marketing campaign, and how do you generate enough followers for Twitter to make a difference?

Why should you use Twitter in your online marketing?
There are at least three answers to this question:

• Given that tweeps (those that use Twitter) often refer to sites, posts and articles in their tweets, Twitter may generate traffic directly to your site. If these tweets are retweeted by other Twitter users, the traffic may become significant.

Note that many bloggers and journalists use Twitter to find stuff to write about. A link found in Twitter may lead them to your site. They may refer to it in their writing, generating a link that can be very valuable search engine optimization wise.

•  Search engines are using social traffic as one of the factors in their search engine algorithm. Links from Twitter to your pages may boost your rankings in the search engines.

To what extent Google make use of Twitter data is unclear, as Google no longer has access to Twitter raw data (which is one of the reasons they are trying so hard to promote Google+ as an alternative), but tweets may find their way into other sites that are indexable by Google (like Delicious, Posterous and Reddit), so this effect may still be important.

• If you can build a standing as a useful and reliable source of information in Twitter, your are essentially strengthening your personal “brand” or the brand of your service or company.

If tweeps find your tweets being repeatedly retweeted by others, they will interpret that as a sign of your trustworthiness, which makes it much more likely that they will follow the link to your site.

The importance of building a Twitter following
We have seen online marketing “experts” that recommends that you put up a lot of twitter accounts and then send messages or tweets to a large number of people enticing them to go to your site.

This may work for affiliate scams and for the distribution of malware, but this tactic will ruin your reputation and any chance you have of being considered a serious and trustworthy provider of information, services or goods.

There is only one way to Twitter marketing success and that is the hard one.

You have to build a sufficient number of followers in your area of expertise, i.e. people who are likely to find your tweets interesting and who are likely to retweet them.

The retweeting part is important, not only because it leads to more direct visits to your site, but because retweets will expose your profile to a larger number of people, helping you generate more followers. That is the virtous circle you want get into.

The number of followers required may vary, from industry to industry and from language group to language group. If you are promoting a bicycle repair shop in Oslo, Norway, that will require fewer followers to have an effect, than — for instance — if you want to promote soft drinks on the global market.

How to get more followers

To build a sufficient number of followers takes time. In the beginning progress will normally be slow. Ultimately, however, you will reach “critical mass”, where the number of followers start to accellerate. This tipping point is reached because an increasing number of followers start promoting your tweets and your profile through retweets and comments.

If you continue to push good content and interact actively with your followers this tipping point may be reached when you get some 1500 to 2000 followers.

Before you get to that point, there are a few tactics that might be of help:

Identify influential Twitter users

Identify tweets that should be interested in your topic or knowledge and follow them. A simple way of finding such people is to go to the most influential tweeps in your field and look at the people who they follow and who follow them. You may also find their Twitter identity on web sites and business cards.

There are also Twitter directories and — of course — Twitter’s own Who to follow feature, which becomes more useful the more followers you have.

The 2000 restriction

Twitter has put in place a 2000 followers restriction. That is: before you yourself has reached 2000 followers, you are not allowed to follow more than 2000 people. Remember also that seasoned tweeps will look at your following to follower ration to determine whether you are a serious actor. If you follow 1999 and have only 10 followers, you are most likely a spammer, and they will not follow for your tweets.

Because of this you need to prune your follower list from time to time, to remove those that do not follow you back.

That is extremely hard work using the normal Twitter interface, but there are — fortunately — tools out there that makes this easier. You can for instance use Social Bro to identify tweeps who are passive (who do not tweet themselves) or who do not follow your back.

By all means: Do keep the tweeps that provide you with good info!

Promote your Twitter acount

Make sure to promote your Twitter account outside of Twitter.

Sign your blog posts with your @name. If this is a company account, include the name in newsletters, magazines, letter heads, business cards, and posters. Add the @name to other social media accounts like Facebook, Linkedin, Pinterest and Google+.

Delivering content

You would obviously like to use your Twitter account to promote your own services. Adding a tweet regarding your latest promotion is OK and necessary, but remember that people are not normally going to follow your account because of those promotions.

That are only going to follow you if you:

• Entertain them with funny and provoking tweets.
• Engage in interesting and meaningful conversation.
• Tweet stories and links that will interest them.

Tactic No. 1 is highly effective, but also very demanding and risky, as humor may be misread and lead to antagonism.

Be social!

Tactic No. 2 is very efficient. Replying to and commenting on the tweets of others is an efficient way of generating interest and followers. Most experts in the field will tell you that this is the way to go. But it is extremely time consuming.

Remember that Twitter is alive 24/7 and if you are planning to develop the services or good you are planning to promote, you cannot spend more than some 30 minutes a day on Twitter. So, unless you have the money to hire two or three full time tweeps, full and real time surveillance is out of the question.

Because of this most social media marketers stick to checking on the “Interactions” and “Mentions” with regular intervals, and comment and retween when possible and necessary.

Find rare and useful content

Tactic No. 3 is essential and doable. You need to produce a steady stream of tweets that will be of interest to your audience. This means that you have to go beyond tweeting about your own store, company or organisation (unless you are the Queen of Great Britain or the President of the Unites States, that is).

If you have a bicycle repair shop, tweet bicycle news. Give infomaltion about new bikes, biking travel desitinations, maintenance tips and so on.

Try to find news sources that are not covered by others. In the field of social media and search engines, everybody tweets the latest Search Engine Land or Mashable article. If you can find valuable information from less known sites, you will be considered a more valuable curator of search and social media news.

Do also retweet tweets you find interesting and useful. Preferably use the old fashioned way of retweeting , as this means that the tweet will be clearly marked with your image/avatar in Twitter. That photo or logo should be an important part of your Twitter branding!

By retweeting informative tweets you also please the original tweep, making her or him more aware of you and your online work. Your followers will also appreciate the fact that you reward other Twitter users in this way. In other words: This kind of retweeting adds to your social standing, which is a good thing.

Spread your tweets

If you spend 30 minutes a day curating content and tweeting about it, you will soon end up tweeting 10 to 20 tweets in a very shot time. Sending out several tweets in one go may actually be efficient as it makes your profile more visible in the Twitter stream. But if there are too many of them, many Twitter users will get annoyed and suspect you of spamming.

You therefore need to schedule your tweets for a more even distribution throughout the day. There are several tools that let you do this. Take, for instance, a look at HootSuite or Social Oomph.

What not to do

If you establish a Twitter account, make sure you follow up. You do not have to send out 10 tweets a day, but you do have to keep the account alive. Finding a “dead” Twitter account reflects badly on your brand. As an absolute minimum, tweet once or twice a week, so that Twitter users find it worth while to become a follower.

If you want to build an interested and efficient following, however, you must to much more than that!

One more thing: If you have managed to generate an enthusiastic and engaged following on Twitter, do not waste it by linking to crap content on your own site! All of this is worth close to nothing if your own site is of a bad quality.

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Top 5 Social Sites for Film Fans

If you ranted and raved about the recent Oscar nominations on Facebook, but none of your friends seemed to care, it’s time to either A) find new friends or B) find a social network that caters to your cinematic needs.
Here are five great sites that help you connect with film fans from all over the world.

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1. GetGlue

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If you love movies, but your interests are too varied to be contained to one medium, then GetGlue is for you. Much like Foursquare, you check in to your favorite activity — everything from movies, TV shows, the big game, music, books and plenty more — using the website or the mobile app. But instead of badges, you earn stickers with every checkin. Some stickers will give you the opportunity to win prizes, but most are simply a great way to show your geeky pride to the people that follow you. Unlike Foursquare’s badges, though, you can actually request physical copies of the stickers you’ve earned, so you can take that pride offline as well.
The interaction on GetGlue is pretty one-on-one. So if you’re looking for conversation, the best thing to do is check in after you’ve watched the movie and include a quick review in your post. Someone will usually chime in with their own opinion and you might make a new friend.

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2. iCheckMovies

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Some movie fans set a goal to watch everything on a particular list of films, like the Best Picture nominees, the IMDb Top 250 or any of the AFI 100 inventories. With iCheckMovies, just check off the movies you’ve watched and it will automatically track your progress on a variety of these indexes all at once. You can even create a personal list if you want to target a specific genre or area of interest. When you’ve completed a list, you’ll earn awards that display on your profile to show your movie-watching prowess to the world. Based on the movies you’ve seen, the site will try to match you with people who have similar tastes so that you can easily follow their progress and discover new movies.

If you want even more interaction, iCheckMovies recently set up forums for users to discuss genres, regional films and for fans of film podcasts to chat about the latest episode. Depending on the level of involvement you want, the site offers free membership or a couple of paid membership tiers, but for most people, the free version is all you’ll need. Be careful, though — checking off movies can become quite addicting.

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3. Letterboxd

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One of the newest social movie sites out there, Letterboxd is still in beta, so you’ll need to request an invite or find a friendly film fan that will send you one. Once you’re in, create a personal profile and then populate it by searching for movies. Each title has its own page, complete with a brief plot synopsis, cast information, average star rating from the community and popular reviews written by other Letterboxd users. From here you can mark that you’ve seen the movie, like it, give it a star rating, write a review or put it on a custom list, like “My Favorite Samurai Movies.”

Nearly all of your Letterboxd activity is broadcast on the site, so there are plenty of avenues to find users who share your cinematic interests. And because you don’t have to send a friend request, you can follow anyone in order to check out the latest movies they’ve seen, lists they’ve created and reviews they’ve written. Just add your own two cents to one of the ubiquitous comment boxes and get the conversation rolling.
The site is gaining quite a bit of traction with online film critics, so look to connect with some of your favorite personalities from /Film, Movies.com, FirstShowing.net, Twitch and more.

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4. MUBI

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If your film standards lean more toward Federico Fellini than Lindsay Lohan, MUBI may be the social movie site for you. MUBI (formerly The Auteurs) focuses on international films, experimental shorts and titles that you might find in the Criterion Collection. On the site, you can set up a personal profile complete with the style of films you prefer, like Fashionable Alienation, Vanguard Cinema and Neorealist, among others.
Next, rate your favorite directors, your favorite movies, post notes to your wall and follow people from all over the world or in your region to see what’s playing at the local art house theater. Jump into the forums where you’ll engage in discussions like “Cinema that redefines narrative,” “Kurosawa vs. Shakespeare,” and “Nihilistic Cinema.” Some of these conversations are so deep it’s like a film class in a box.
If you’re an aspiring filmmaker yourself, check out the Garage to connect with other auteurs who can help you make your cinematic dreams come true.

What really sets MUBI apart is the ability to stream hundreds of these great films directly to a computer or Boxee device on your TV. Most of the short subjects are free, longer films are available for a one-time rental fee of 99 cents to $2.99, or for unlimited access to the entire catalog, it’s only $6.99 a month.

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5. Seenth.at

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Seenth.at hasn’t even launched yet and it’s already generating quite a bit of buzz among movie fans. Like other sites, users can mark a movie as seen, owned, add it to a custom list, give it a star rating or write a review. But with Seenth.at, you can also recommend a movie to a single user, a group of users or the community at-large. All of this activity is grouped together as part of the site’s Chatter, a Pinterest-like graphical presentation of everything Seenth.at users are doing.

The Chatter can be broadened to all users, narrowed to only the people you follow or even filtered down to an individual film to see what people are saying about it. From there, it’s easy to recognize positive reviews in blue, negative in purple and spoiler-filled reviews are clearly marked in yellow so you don’t accidentally click on them. In addition, you can post your favorite quotes from the movie, as well as start conversations so that others can offer their opinions and insights.

The site is set to launch soon for a small group of VIP members, but the Seenth.at developers hope to make it available to a larger audience in the coming months, so get signed up for beta testing now. With its strong visual approach, this is one site you’ll want to keep an eye on.

Read More

ONLINE MEDIA GOD: 400+ Tools for Photographers, Videobloggers, Podcasters & Musicians

Online media is exploding…and with it, a new class of creative people producing their own music, podcasts, professional-level photography and video shows. We’ve compiled the largest list so far of useful tools for self-made photographers, videobloggers, podcasters and musicians.

These entries are compiled from previous Mashable articles – see the links at the bottom of this article for further reading.
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For photography gods, we’ve brought together more than 90 photo resources and tools. There are thousands of sites serving photographers these days, but we hope this acts as a good overview.

ONLINE PHOTO EDITORS

Fauxto – Advanced online photo editor with an interface similar to Photoshop’s
XmgImg- Image hosting service that provides an interface for users to manage, edit, and share their images online.
OnlinePhotoTool – Edit pictures taken from your hard drive as well as images that are already on the Internet.
MyImager – Upload images from your computer and from anywhere on the web and edit them freely with the dozens of tools and filters available.
SnipShot – Edit photos from your hard-drive, your Webshots account, or your Flickr account in one place, and then save them back to any of those locations.
Pixenate – Online photo editor with many special effects. You can also integrate Pixenate on your website and allow visitors to edit images.
Phixr – Edit your pictures and directly upload them to Flickr, Fotopic, Livejournal, Photobucket, Fotolog.com, Buzznet and Dropshots.
Pixer.us – Edit your photos online within your browser, add special effects and save them in the most popular formats.
Picture2Life – Edit pictures available on the Internet or taken from your hard disk. You can also import images from popular photo sharing sites.
Cellsea – Upload pictures from your PC or from an URL. It provides over 15 ways to correct color, exposure, and lighting problems.
Preloadr – Photo editor with good image manipulation functions that is connected with your Flickr account.
Picnik – Photo editor with many interesting features which is directly connected to many photo sharing sites.
Pixelmator – Pixelmator is a photo editing service for Mac users. The design is superb and intuitive. There are selection tools, paintbrushes of various size and shape, retouching tools, layering and much more. You can enhance photos, analyze colors, add text, create stylized scenes with halftones and image blurring.

PHOTO SHARING

Zorpia – Zorpia is like Myspace with some more photo features, you can upload you photos and share them on your profile.
Clickfriends -Document your life with your own digital photo essay, then share it with friends and family through ClickFriends.com. Now you can have the same site take care of your online photo albums and your Facebook or MySpace photo albums. Just upload your photos to the ClickFriends site, and then have them exported to your profile on your preferred social networking site. It´s free and easy to sign up.
Snappages – Snappages.com provides space for you to save and organize your photos, your online friends from virtual communities, and your events in one well-designed web page. It combines various web concepts, including online storage, file sharing, and Facebook-style friend communication.
Photorgy – Photorgy is photo uploading/sharing tool which works with AIM. Photo albums can be shared and owned by any number of friends, family members, and colleagues.
SlideShare – SlideShare is a content sharing site where you can host and display presentations. Maybe you would use it to show your professional work, or just for personal photo sharing, power point presentations about your latest entrepreneurial idea, or graphics you designed.
Zoomandgo – Contribute your travel photos, videos, or general advice to the Zoom and Go site, and they will reward you with cash. The site has a system of points which can be awarded to the content you submit according to what kind of content it is (written reviews receive less then photos, and videos receive the most).
Zooomr – Store, share, sort, sell, and search all your photos and those of other users at Zooomr. Users can post comments on individual pictures, therefore, gaining feedback on the photo, as well as gaining insight into the other photographers who use the site. Photos can be shared for free, or can be sold through the site.
BurstCast – Burstcast offers space for you to upload pics from your camera phone either by MMS or by e-mail, right from the phone. On the site, you can choose for your photos to be made public and shown on the home page (but it´s either all or nothing; you can´t have some photos be public and some private).
Mostrips – The photo sharing site is designed to let you create albums to be easily shared on mobile phones. It´s a useful way to send work if you are a photographer, or a head shot if you are a model or actor. Or it can just be a fun way to share photos from your vacations among friends and family.
DPhoto – DPhoto is a photo sharing service which offers well-designed graphics and a professional appearance. With DPhoto you can share your photos with friends and family in an ad-free, secure site.
Invitr – Invitr is a Flickr related application which simply extends your sharing capabilities. With Invitr you can share your Flickr photos with non-Flickr members; so photos that have been categorized as private can now be sent and shared with anyone you choose.
DigitalRailroad – Digital Railroad is aimed at aiding professional photographers connect with more fans and even help them connect to content providers and media companies who are looking to buy their work.
ContakMe – Contakme is a new site where you can upload an unlimited number of photos, create albums, and rate other people´s photos.
Flickr – The most popular photo sharing site. Upload photos, create sets and join one of the greatest communities of professional and unprofessional photographers.
Picasa – Google’s answer to photo sharing. The main application is a download, but there are also web albums.

FREE PHOTO HOSTING

Photobucket – one of the most popular image hosting services around, favorite amongst MySpace users. Makes it very easy to post your images to social networking sites; gives you 25 GB of monthly traffic and 1 GB of storage with images themselves being up to 1 MB in size.
ImageShack – The most popular image hosting service. Upload images up to 1.5 MB and embed them in any web page.
AllYouCanUpload- There is no limit to the image size you can upload. You can also upload up to three images in the same time.
ImageHosting – Upload multiple pictures at one time. The maximum filesize you can upload depends on what account you registered.
TinyPic – Upload pictures and videos and embed them anywhere. The direct link for your picture or video will be tiny (e.g. http://tinypic.com/1)
TheImageHosting – Upload multiple images at once and zipped image files. Maximum file size allowed is 1 MB.
BayImg – Free uncensored image hosting provided by the Pirate Bay. The max file upload size is 100MB and you can can upload about 140 different formats.
XS.to – Upload your images and embed them anywhere. You can also delete images you previously uploaded. Max file size allowed is 2.5 MB.
ImgPlace – Upload up to five images at one time. Maximum file size allowed is 1.5 MB
FreeImageHosting.net – Register to host your images for free. Maximum file size is 3,000 KB.
FileHigh – The free “Economy” account lets you upload up to three images simultaneously and the maximum size for each file is 512 KB.
VillagePhotos – Upload pictures straight from your browser and host them online. 1 GB monthly data transfer.
ImageVenue – You can upload up to five images in the same moment. The maximum file size allowed is 1.5 MB.
ImageCross – Free MySpace image hosting. You can upload images up to 2 MB in size.
SmugMug – SmugMug is a photo uploader, editor, and community portal all in one. You can upload and share your photos, then store the photos with up to four backup copies of each photo in three varying states.

PHOTOGRAPHY BLOGS

Digital-Photography-School – Darren Rowse’s photo tips.
Thomas Hawk – Zooomr’s Thomas Hawk on photography, Zooomr, Flickr and general tech news.
PhotoCritic – A site for photography criticism, with the intention of allowing photographers to critique each others’ work and share opinions, suggestions, and professional tips.
FlickrBlog – While it’s not exclusively a photo blog, but from time to time the Flickr staff will pick a few photos and feature them on the blog and the users see this as a big honor.
DPreview – practically the only resource you’ll ever need for digital cameras; incredibly in-depth and timely reviews of most models available on the market
Shutterlog – some great photos here with attention to detail.
Chromasia – no words, only great photos
Stuck In Customs – blog by one of the greatest HDR photographers on the net
Black and White Photography – great photo blog focusing on B&W photos.

PHOTO MASHUPS

Flappr – A slick Flash-based Flickr interface that lets you do most of the actions you can do on Flickr.
FlickrVision – displays Flickr updates from various users on a Google Map.
Retrievr – an unbelievable mashup that delivers photos based on your drawings.
Flickr Logo Maker – Turns any text into a Flickr-style logo.
Spell with Flickr – this tool enables you to write text in letters based off Flickr images. Not all that useful but fun.
Tagnautica – a slightly weird visual way to browse through Flickr images.
Captioner – adds comic-style captions to your images.
Fastr – a “guess that tag” style game; you are presented with a series of images and you must guess their common tag.
PictureSandbox – Searches the Flickr archive (as well as that of YouTube and some other sites) based on the type of license; great tool for finding images you can actually use in a project
FlickrFling – presents an RSS feed through Flickr images. Completely useless but works as a fun experiment.
Colr Pickr – One of the most useful Flickr Mashups; enables you to search Flickr photos based on their color. Works surprisingly well.
FlickrBall – a six-degrees-of-separation scavenger-hunt game (yes, Kevin Bacon is mentioned), using Flickr thumbnails and tags for clues.
Photo Tag Mashup – Retrieves a number of Flickr images in a simple interface based on a tag you provide
Flickr Sudoku – a Sudoku game based on Flickr images.

MOBILE PHOTO SHARING

SnapZone – An online service that lets you upload your photos directly from your mobile via a wireless connection. Snapzone allows you to free up space on your phone”s memory while also giving you an instantaneous way to share your images with friends. SnapZone is also a community site, so if your friends join you can use it to share your pictures easily in one place.
Fotochatter – network that enables you to share mobile pictures with your friends, as well as receive images from your buddies on your phone
Radar – creates picture conversations – you send your pictures to Radar and your friends can instantly see them and comment on them
Shozu – Mobile uploading to photo sites including Flickr.

PHOTO MIXING AND SLIDESHOWS

Slide – create slideshows easily and embed them on your site or social networking profile.
RockYou – offers several free services, including slideshow creation, photo hosting, photo enhancement and more.
Scrapblog – An online service that lets you upload your photos from many of the popular photo sharing websites and mash them up with hundreds of stickers, shapes, text and YouTube videos to create a digital scrapbook
Vuvox – Vuvox lets you create online animated and interactive slideshows using a range of effects, theme templates and designs
Mixercast – Mixercast lets you mashup your photos and movies into animated, interactive slide shows and throws in ag ood library of stock photo, video and licensed music to use as a soundtrack
Flektor – Flektor has a great set of tools for adding transitions, text, stickers, effects and overlays into movies made out of your photos and online videos

PHOTO PRINTING/BOOK CREATION

Snapfish – Snapfish is run by HP, they let you store and share your photos for free, and prints are cheap with highest quality at 12¢ each. You can also have things like mugs and cards made with your pictures on them.
Fotki – A photo-sharing and hosting site, you can share you photos with others or use it with your blog. It has some unique features like FTP access, and users can choose to sell their photos. There is an integrated printing service that lets you print at many different sizes at good prices.
KodakGallery – Kodak Gallery is owned by Kodak (no surprise there), like the other they let you store and share photos and then make prints and have custom gifts made.
Shutterfly – Shutterfly not only lets you store and share photos and then have them printed, you can also pic up your prints right at Target stores.
Moo – Moo currently has partnerships with many social networks including Flickr, Vox, and Bebo, you can print small minicards and notecards with the photos you have uploaded to these sites.

PHOTO SEARCH

PicSearch – image search with some interesting options; for example, you can choose to search only black and white or color photos.
YotoFoto – a search engine which claims to be indexing over a quarter million Creative Commons, Public Domain, GNU FDL, and various other ‘copyleft’ images.
Google Image Search – a resource so commonly used it doesn’t need a special explanation; still one of the best ways to find images of any kind on the web.
Pixsy – Image search engine that’s striking a lot of partnerships. Also provides PixsyPower, a custom video and photo search for your own site.
StockPhotoFinder – a search engine specialized in finding stock photos.
EveryStockPhoto – this site is indexing over 1 million completely free photos from various sources.

STOCK PHOTOS

iStockPhoto – royalty-free images for low prices; there aren’t any completely free photos here, but photo quality is above average
Fotolia – Another cheap royalty-free image provider, with nearly 2 million photos in stock
SXC.hu – one of the best (and biggest) repositories of completely free stock photography on the net.
MorgueFile – provides completely free photos; no registration required to download.
PixelPerfectDigital – 5000+ free stock photos
StockXpert – the commercial arm of Stock Xchange; offers cheap but quality royalty-free material
Alamy – Alamy is a search engine for stock photos which boasts millions of images from thousands of photographers, picture agencies and national collections. The site does the editing and classification of the images.
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Video blogging, live video shows and professional film-making are all blossoming now that almost everyone has access to webcams, video cameras and affordable editing tools. In fact, many of the tools for editing, mixing and sharing your clips are now completely free. Here’s a wide selection of video tools available online.

LIVE VIDEO COMMUNICATIONS

Stickam – The best site for live video communications with multiple people. There is no major competition for Stickam just yet.
Blogtv – Blogtv is a recent discovery to the public.  It allows you to do a live video show, and you can stream it live, as well as archive it for later use.
ooVoo – This allows you to carry on video conversations with live video through a Skype-like program.
Mogulus – This site is basically an all in one broadcast solution for video.  You can create, edit, and add things similar to broadcast companies could add.
Ustream – Allows you to stream live video and you can also embed the player in to your own website.
HeyCosmo – A downloadable application that allows you to connect with other people in many ways, even play games and more.
Operator11 – Go live with your camera and create your own channels. You can also send video comments and remix your videos.

ONLINE VIDEO HOW-TO

Better YT Video Quality – This guide helps you with getting the best possible video quality on YouTube, can be applied to other sites as well.
Make Internet TV – This guide has step-by-step instructions for shooting, editing, and publishing videos on the Internet.
How to put your readers at the scene – A scene-setting guide for online web journalists.
Tips for shooting better online video – learn the equipment, shooting and editing basics from this collection of tips.
Online video tips – a Squidoo lens with several useful online video shooting and editing tips.
Home video tips – Chris Pirillo’s tips for shooting better videos at home.
Camcorderinfo – Every online video comes from a camcorder, so here is the best place to get opinions on your next camcorder purchase.
5 Ways To Create a Great Video Podcast – A great article that applies to both video podcasts and video production in general.

ONLINE VIDEO EDITORS

Eyespot – add effects and transitions to the videos you upload, or use some of the large amount of free video clips and music from Eyespot’s media partners.
MuveeMix – Upload your movie, mix it with music, add cool effects and share it on MySpace, Friendster, Blogger, and other networks.
Motionbox – This service features the ability to link to a very specific point or “segment” within the clip itself.
Cuts – Insert sound effects in your videos, add captions, loop the best parts and in minutes you can share your creation with the world.
JumpCut – a free service that enables you to upload, edit and share your videos. Offers keyframe-based editing, effects, transitions and actions.
VideoEgg – A video editing platform that you can add to create a social network and offers opportunities for monetization.
Mojiti – Select videos from popular video sharing sites, personalize them with your annotations and share them with others.
Photobucket – Edit videos within a browser using Flash and remix photos and home videos with other elements, such as music, video captions and transitions.
StashSpace – Upload, store and edit your videos online. You can also record videos directly from your camcorder or digital camera.
BubblePly – Video annotating service where anyone can add text bubbles that are synchronized with video.
Veotag – Service that lets you display clickable text, called “veotags,” within an audio or video file.
Vidavee Grafitti – add graphics and text into any video; the service is called a “legal form of artful vandalism” by the creators.
Vmix – Vmix is a community and a hosting provider for your videos, aimed at creative authors who want to create remixes of their music and videos.
MovieMasher – a combination of a video editor with a timeline and lots of various effects, a standalone player and a media browser.
MixerCast – Mix your media with professional video, images, music, and network your MixerCast everywhere.
Fliptrack – Make a free musical photo slideshow and music video. It’s easy to do and you do it online.

ONLINE VIDEO CONVERTERS

Zamzar – converts all sorts of file formats, including several video formats.
Media Convert – a media converter with a huge amount of options; resulting videos can sometimes be out of sync with audio.
Vixy – a simple converter that can only convert Flash apps from the web to several other video formats.
Hey Watch! – an online video converter focusing on file formats that works on portable multimedia devices, like the iPod.
MediaConverter – a video converter that can be slow and needs polishing, but can sometimes yield really good results.
Movavi – another video converter that allows you to upload videos and convert them to formats you wish to use.

VIDEO SHARING

YouTube – YouTube is the king of the video sharing sites, it has more users and videos than the others. Any video you can think of it probably already on YouTube.
Google Video – Since Google bought YouTube, Google’s Video player is mainly used for for-pay content like TV shows. Also there is a search here that indexes all of the video sharing sites on the internet (well, most of them).
Blip.tv – Blip.tv is the perfect video sharing site for video podcast makers. It’s designed to let them easily upload all types and qualities of media and then send them to their feed for the users. They also let you add ads to you video so you can make some money.
Ourmedia – A great site where you can upload audio, video, images, and text and share them with the world. The OurMedia community contains over 100,000 members.
Veoh – Watch long form, television quality content and publish your own videos.
DailyMotion – Video sharing platform with multiple video search options. You can join groups of people who publish videos based on a common interest.
Metacafe – A site that helps you discover the best videos through a community that filters, reviews and rates new videos every day.
UnCut – Video uploading and sharing community by AOL. Embed all the videos you want in your blog.
ClipShack – video sharing community that allows you to upload video clips, make friends, keep a collection of your favorite videos and comment on clips.
5min – Video sharing site with a particular vision: collecting videos that can visually explain anything in 5 minutes.
Brightcove – Search, click and watch. Music videos, news, travel, recipes, adventure. Thousands of channels, including the best in online video.
Viddler – Viddler lets add tags and comments to video that will show up at specific times. It also has unique features like flickr and twitter integration.
Revver – The first video sharing site that provides users with the possibility to earn money from the videos they upload.
Vimeo – Vimeo is a video sharing site that has an emphasis on it’s users. The video’s you find there are more likely to be home movies or shorts by aspiring film makers, and also a lot of lip dubs.
Yahoo Video – Yahoo’s version of online video.  Similar to Google video, but done the Yahoo way.
HelpfulVideo – Share your knowledge and skills with others for free or little charge via video clips.
BroadbandSports – A video sharing site specifically for sharing sports related videos.
Travelistic – A video sharing site that allows users to post video content specific to travel.
Livevideo – Video sharing site that lets you create personal channels. Upload your own videos and share them with the world.
Kewego – A video sharing network where you can upload your own videos and view videos by others.
Godtube – It’s a Christian version of YouTube.  All things Christian welcomed.
Coull.tv – An interactive twist to video, this site allows you to view video and add interactive elements to it by using your mouse.
Mediabum – Video sharing site focusing on funny videos.
VMIX – Another video sharing website; All content is screened, so be sure everything you upload is legit.
Grouper – Video sharing site with a big selection of content; enables you to create playlists and easily upload videos to MySpace.
Break – Break is a video site and more for comedic based content.
Videosift – a Digg-like site which lets you submit, vote, and comment on videos.
GeeVee – GeeVee is a video sharing site specifically for sharing videos of game play in video games.
Stage6 – A video site that uses the Divx player so you can upload High Definition video, of course this also means longer upload times, and you need DivX support (usually a browser plugin).
Tube Battle – vote for the best videos, organized by category.

VIDEO HOSTING

TinyPic – Host videos and images for free; it is possible to upload videos in the most popular formats and link videos on MySpace, eBay, blogs and message boards
Vidilife – Upload videos and store them online. There is no limit in terms of length of the files you can upload.
Dropshots – Good site that lets you upload videos, share them and embed them on other sites.
ZippyVideos – Upload and store video files (maximum 20 MB) in the most popular video formats.
Supload – Free service to host video clips and images. Maximum video file size allowed is 20 MB.
Rupid – Another provider of free video hosting: you can host your videos and share them with others.
Pixilive – Free images and video hosting for MySpace, eBay, Facebook and other sites. Maximum size for videos is 10 MB.
Mydeo – store and stream your videos online. You will be able to embed a video on any website and send streaming video messages .
YourFileHost – Upload files anonymously and share them with others. You can upload any file format up to 25 MB.

VIDEO ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT

Aggrega – create and organize your own music video channels and share them with others.
Feedbeat – a fantastic service that lets you create playlists with videos from different sources – YouTube, Google Video and others. Each playlist gets its own subdomain on feedbeat.net.
Ajaxilicious – an online movie catalogue which enables you to manage your movies and share them with others via RSS.
Cliproller - create custom video channels and add as many as you like to your personal Cliproller page.
CozmoTV – CozmoTV is a site that allows you to create and organize channels of video already existing online.

VIDCASTS AND VLOGGING

BlogCheese – a simple way to create and share a video blog – all you need is a webcam.
Revision3 – A video podcasting network that’s home to many well made video podcasts, including Diggnation, which is Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht’s video podcast about the top stories on Digg.
Jabbits – Social video blogging: Use your webcam to record your Post or Jab with an easy-to-use recorder.
Ask a Ninja – got questions? Ask a ninja! One of the most popular vidcasts in the world, and definitely the funniest.
Galacticast – a weekly Sci-fi comedy podcast, episodes usually consists of lots of really geeky parodies.
Scriggity – A news podcast, where the viewers send in the news that they think should be on the shows.
SuperDeluxe – A site to find videos that focus mainly on comedic content.
DL.TV – Some of the the old TechTV crew back at it again with their own own show on all things tech.  One of the best video podcasts for tech geeks.
Webnation – Amber Mac’s bi-weekly video podcast with news and interviews relating to current events in the tech world.
Tom Green’s the Channel – A daily video podcast that is recorded live and is hosted by Tom Green. He usually has a celebrity guest on the show.
GeekBrief TV – a daily podcast hosted by Cali Lewis, it’s a 3-5 minute update on the latest tech news.
This Week in Tech – famous tech vidcast by Leo Laporte, one of the most viewed vidcasts in the world.
The Broken – tech show for teh 1337 h4x0rz.
Digg Podcasts – a long list of popular podcasts, containing most of the vidcasts on this list and many more.

VIDEO MASHUPS

Virtual Video Map – YouTube videos on a Google map. Find out where do all those cool videos come from.
RealPeopleStuff – a site that combines CraigsList and YouTube, offering video clips related to ads.
TagTV – enter a tag and get results from Flickr and YouTube. Clean and simple design makes TagTV a very neat way to browse photos and videos.
I Love Music Video – combines YouTube with info from your Last.FM account. Great way to get videos (at least until Last.FM signs an evil deal with all those content providers and starts offering music videos).
MusicPortl – information on bands and musicians containing biographies, Flickr images, related blog posts and YouTube videos.
Magg – aggregates videos from several video sites. Also works as a search engine.
RateMyDanceMoves – Hot or Not-style site, presenting you dance-related YouTube videos to vote on.
ReviewTube – a site that enables you to add captions to YouTube videos. Nice idea, but relatively poor execution – the captions frequently overlap, making the text unreadable.

MOBILE VIDEO APPS

Youtube mobile – a stripped down version of YouTube tailored for use on mobile phones.
Shozu – a free service for your phone that makes it easy to send and receive photos, videos and music
Abazab – a universal video player that also works on your mobile phone.
Srobbin Mobile Video – An unofficial search for Google video on your cell phone.
Yahoo Mobile – Yahoo mobile allows you to search, find, and play videos right on your cell phone.
MobiTV – MobiTV allows you to watch television video from popular networks of all kinds.
MTV Mobile Video – Anything MTV related all for download to watch on your cell phone.
ESPN MVP – If you are a Verizon Wireless customer and have the V Cast service enabled, you can watch sports clips and more.
Moblr – Moblr allows you to view videos uploaded to the site directly on your cell phone.
Mobunga – This site allows you to download videos to your mobile phone, as well as iPod and PSP.

VIDEO SEARCH

Blinkx – Perform searches within the most popular video networks, such as CBS, Reuters and CNN. Users can search for content and create TV channels that splice relevant content together.
PureVideo – Search within the most popular video directories and video sharing sites. PureVideo features up to six channels and each channel contains about six source sites.
SearchVideo – Search engine and directory created by AOL. Users can also search within specific video channels like MySpace and YouTube.
Search For Video – search engine and video directory that displays results from hundreds of video channels. Search For Video also provides an add-on for Firefox.
Yahoo! Video Search – Yahoo! has a video search engine that gathers videos from Yahoo! directory and from many other online sources. You can also search within specific domains or sites.
TubeSurf – Video search engine that gathers results from popular video directories, such as YouTube, Yahoo! Video, MySpace and Google Video. TubeSurf is also available as an add-on for Firefox.
ClipRoller – Search across popular video sites, such as: YouTube, Metacafe and more. As you continue to search for videos, ClipRoller learns your preferences and delivers content you like to watch.
Pixsy – A video search engine that lets users search content across dozens of video sites. Users are allowed to save searches and single videos.
ScoopVid – Search engine that enables you to either search for videos or browse through channels and categories.
Google Video Search – Google’s Video search recently was updated and now searches many video sites other than just YouTube and Google Video.
AOL Video – once known as the great media search engine, the AOL-purchased SingingFish, AOL Video kept some traits of the crowd’s favorite place to look for hard to find videos, but true fans claim that the site is not as good as its predecessor.
Truveo – Search videos or browse by either channel or category.
Altavista Video – good old Altavista isn’t what it used to be, but it does have a video search section.

ONLINE VIDEO DOWNLOADS

VideoRonk – Search and download your favorite videos from YouTube, Google Video, Metacafe, DailyMotion, iFilm, MySpace, Vimeo, Blip.tv, Revver and more.
VideoDL – Download online videos available on YouTube, Google Video and Break.com stright to your computer.
Vixy – Grab videos from popular sites and convert them into various video formats (including iPod and PSP).
KeepVid – Download videos from many video sharing sites, including YouTube, Google Video, MySpace Videos, DailyMotion, Blip.tv, Revver and other services.
VideoDownloader – Get videos from video sharing sites. VideoDownloader is also available as a Firefox extension, allowing you to seamlessly integrate it within your browser.
YouTubeX – Download videos from YouTube. It doesn’t have a lot of options in terms of video sites among which you could choose, but it is very easy to use.
DownThisVideo – This site lets you download videos from YouTube, GoogleVideo, MetaCafe, Vimeo and other services.
KissYouTube – A service that provides two interesting and effective ways to download videos from YouTube.
YouTubeDownloads – Another site that lets you download videos exclusively from YouTube (other sites are not supported).
Kcoolonline – Download videos on your hard disk from more than 90 sites, including YouTube, Google Video, Metacafe, iFilm and MySpace, Yahoo and many more.
YouTubia – A YouTube clone that lets you download and save YouTube videos within your IE or Firefox browser.
MediaConverter – A platform that lets you download and convert videos straight from YouTube.

MISCELLANEOUS VIDEO TOOLS

Hellodeo – Record videos from your webcam and post them on any web page.
Flikzor – Send and receive video comments on your profile, blog and more.
Flixn – Record a video message right in the web browser and share anywhere including MySpace and eBay.
GabMail – Service that enable users to send unlimited numbers of free video email messages.
Bubble Guru – A site for recording webcam video messages and getting them onto your website or sending to others.
CamTwist – Software package (for Mac computers) that lets you add special effects to your video chats.
WebcamMax – Software that lets you add videos, screen, pictures, flash and effects to virtual or real webcam and broadcast on all messengers (Windows
only).
StumbleUpon Video – Just press “Stumble!” and a random video is presented to you, you can also ask for random videos with in categories like Humor, or Cats.
CrowdRules – video answers to your questions.
ClipSync – interact with other users while watching the same video as them.
ClipSyndicate – publish broadcast quality news on your web site.
Broadbandsports – a big collection of sports-related videos.

ONLINE TV

For this section please visit our roundup of free online television services.
——————-

Podcasting – distributing shows over the web for downloading to computers and mobile devices – has been a big trend over the past few years. While over-hyped in the early days, podcasting is proving itself to be a great communication medium. Many podcasters now make a full or part-time income from their shows: here’s a plethora of tools to help out all those self-made podcast stars.

PODCAST CREATION GUIDELINES

How To Create a Podcast – About.com’s step-by-step tutorial for podcast beginners.
iLounge Guide to Podcast Creation – another guide for creating your own podcast for absolute beginners.
Podcasting Legal Guide – find about legal issues relevant to podcasting in this Creative Commons guide.

PODCAST HOSTING, SHARING AND NETWORKING (FREE)

Pickstation – A Digg for podcasts and music.
Collectik – “Mixtapes for podcasts”: find, share and organize podcasts.
Podbean – Free podcast hosting and publishing.
Castpost – Free hosting for audio and video clips.
HeyCast – A tool to create video podcasts. Essentially, HeyCast creates RSS feeds from any existing video files on the web. It doesn’t provide hosting or sharing features.
Blubrry – A podcast network that lets you create a podcast and browse the podcasts of others.
Evoca – “YouTube for voice recordings”: create audio recordings from your computer mic, your phone or Skype, share them with others and embed them on websites.
ThePodcastNetwork – A network of podcasts on a range of topics including business, entertainment and comedy.
MyPodcast – podcast hosting solution offering unlimited storage, bandwidth, and free templates for your podcasts.
PodServe – this service is still in alpha stage, but everyone’s invited to try it out. It offers a hosting space for your podcast and a directory of user-created podcasts.
PodcastPeople – a service that enables you to post text, audio and video materials to your own customized show, and even earn some income from it through sponsors.
PCastBaby – free podcast hosting service offering 10MB of storage space and unlimited bandwidth.
Podomatic – create, find and share podcasts with this free service.
Blubrry – create your podcast on Blubrry; browse through other podcasts and create your personal playlist.

PODCAST ADVERTISING

Podango – get free unlimited hosting for your podcast and share ad revenue with Podango 50/50.
Podbridge – Provides podcast metrics and advertising.
Podtrac – a service that connects podcasters with advertisers.

AUDIO TOURS

TourCaster – Find audio tours of your favorite cities and download them to your iPod.
iAudioGuide – Find audio guides for major world cities and download them to portable devices.

VIDEO PODCASTING

Veodia – Create live TV shows and convert them to video podcasts.
Blip.tv – A “video podcasting” service. Broadly similar to YouTube, but the focus is on independent creators, who get a share of revenue.

MOBILE PODCASTING

Podlinez – a simple service to listen to podcasts on your phone.
Gabcast – Record podcasts straight from your phone.
Yodio – Record audio from your phone, add photos and captions.

TEXT TO PODCASTS

BlueGrind – Converts text (especially blogs) into podcasts.
Feed2Podcast – Convert any RSS feed into a podcast.
Talkr – Convert blogs to audio podcasts.
Odiogo – convert RSS feeds, text articles and blog posts to podcasts.

PODCASTS TO TEXT

CastingWords – a podcast transcription service that converts podcasts to text for $0.75 minute. It employs human transcribers.

PODCAST DIRECTORIES

Grepr Podcasts – A directory that makes recommendations by finding patterns in your interests and comparing the interests of others.
Yahoo Podcasts – Explore podcasts, listen to them, subscribe to them and even create your own.
MobilCast – directory of podcasts and radio shows, complete with playlists.
PodcastAlley – a podcast directory with over 30,000 podcasts. Maintains a monthly top list.
DigitalPodcast – a simple, categorized podcast directory
Podcast.net – a very comprehensive podcast directory; contains tens of thousands of podcasts.
PodcastDirectory.com – a directory of podcasts with a top list, a list of featured podcasts, and categorization.
PodcastDirectory.org- a simple directory with a very clean layout.
Podfeed.net – on Podfeed you can host and share your podcast, find podcasts, as well as read and write podcast reviews.
iAmplify – A premium directory where you pay to download self-help podcasts.
Earkive – Directory that lets you listen to podcasts on your phone (mobile or landline)

LIVE PODCASTING

Talkshoe – Create your own live talkshow or interactive podcast.
Waxxi – Audio shows streamed live, mainly with notable technologists. Once recorded, the live shows are available as podcasts.
NowLive – A social network that lets anyone create a live, interactive talk show. Stickam for audio, in some ways.

PODCAST HOSTING (PREMIUM)

PodcastSpot – Offers both free and premium podcast hosting.
SwitchPod – a podcast hosting service, with unmetered bandwidth, statistics and even some promotional opportunities.
Hipcast – create audio, video materials and podcasts and post them to your blog.
Libsyn – Liberated Syndication will host your podcasts for a modest monthly fee.

PODCAST SEARCH

Everyzing – Audio and video search engine.
Podscope – an audio and video search engine that searches the words spoken in podcasts.
Pluggd – Discover and share podcasts, and search for specific parts of podcasts using advanced search technology called HearHere.
PodNova – Podcast search and community.

PODCAST FORUMS

Podcast Alley Forum – a well visited forum on everything related to podcasting.
DigitalPodcast Forum – a good forum for promoting your podcast.
World Podcast Forum – a fresh forum about podcasting.

PODCAST CREATION SOFTWARE (OFFLINE)

Propaganda – Create professional podcasts including background music, jingles, crossfading and more. Windows only. Free trial, $49.95 to buy.
Audacity – Free, open source software for recording and editing audio. Versions for Mac OS X, Windows, GNU/Linux and other operating systems.
Adobe Soundbooth – Advanced audio editing from Adobe. Windows and Mac. Free trial, $199 to buy.
Wildvoice Podcast Studio – Record audio, add music and sound effects and upload to Wildvoice.com or other sites. Windows only.
SnapKast – Podcast creation for Windows. $79.99.

PODCAST CREATION SOFTWARE (ONLINE)

Odeo – Perhaps the most popular podcasting platform. It allows you to record audio within your browser, embed it anywhere and create your own audio channels.
Hipcast – Record high-quality audio right through the web browser or your phone. No additional software needed.
Gcast – Record, mix and broadcast your podcasts. You can record messages by phone and upload MP3 files from your computer.
Podomatic – This site lets you record video and audio online directly from your browser. You can also receive in line calls from listeners wanting to leave voice comments.
ClickCaster – create, broadcast and sell your very own radio shows and podcasts. You can record audio right from your browser or upload an existing MP3.
Wild Voice Shout Recorder – Online service that lets you record audio files through an intuitive interface but doesn’t let you edit them or add special effects.

MISCELLANEOUS PODCASTING TOOLS

Enablr – make your podcasts indexed and searchable.
PodShow – a network that brings audio, video, podcasts, and music to your computer, iPod, mobile device, or television.
Divicast – enhance your podcast with images and text and share it with everyone.
Divvycast – where podcasting and music meet. Helps bands to create podcasts.
Podbop – Find bands in your city and download free MP3s to your iPod to preview their music ahead of the show.
Noisely – Enter a subject you’re interested in, and Noisely serves up a selection of podcasts you’ll like. Press play, and all the ‘casts stream continuously until you stop them.
——————-

Musicians need to reach fans; fans want to find musicians. The web is the perfect way to connect them. There are now literally hundreds of music social networks where you can sample a wide variety of music, plus hundreds of online stores and marketplaces that ensure the artist gets a fair cut. Here’s our selection of the most interesting services in the online music space.

INTERNET RADIO

Last.FM – one of the most popular music communities around, with personalized radio stations, a stunning array of social networking features, RSS support and lots more.
Slacker – personalized Internet radio which offers a desktop version of the application and a hardware portable music player. Available only in the United States.
ShoutCast – A large directory of Internet radio stations, categorized by genre. Streams work in Winamp.
Live365 – A directory of web-based Internet radio stations – expect popups.
Yahoo! Music – listen to Internet radio and watch music videos on Yahoo’s music portal.
AOL Music – AOL’s take on internet radio. Offers music from XM as well.
Pandora – a very popular Internet radio/community which brings you new music based on stuff you like. Works only in the US & Canada at the moment.
Yottamusic – a huge music library boasting over 3.4 million songs, accessible from your web browser.

MUSIC DISCOVERY TOOLS

MusicMesh – browse through artists based on their similarities; find tracklists and reviews for albums.
Blogmusik – browse through top lists and listen to popular artists for free.
Musicovery – discover new music with this cool take on Internet radio.

SOCIAL NETWORKS

See also: 12 of the Best Music Social Networks
iLike – a community that lets you discover new music based on you and your friends’ tastes.
PureVolume – a “MySpace for music”, albeit with a classier design.
ProjectPlaylist – popular site for sharing playlists and posting them to other social networks.
Imeem – another playlist-sharing community for artists and fans that also supports embedding of tracks on other social sites and blogs.
MP3.com – the famous music site is now a social network similar to MySpace Music.
iJigg – a place for indie bands and artists to post their music, which the users can download for free.
MOG – a place to share your music and video library and exchange thoughts on music with others.
Fuzz – discover new music; artists can sell their music, but there are also free songs to be found on the site.
eListeningPost – convert your tracks into preview files, then sell them and keep 94% of the profits.
ProjectOpus – Music community for indie bands, complete with widgets to post on MySpace and blogs.
Rapspace.tv – social networking for rap and hiphop.
Musocity – a music community with profiles for fans, artists, retailers and music venues.
Haystack – social networking, playlist sharing and band profiles.
Bandbuzz – find and rate music playlists in a Digg-like interface.
Midomi – find songs by humming or singing the tune. Then explore profile pages and network with others.
Buzznet – large pop culture community with news, videos, photos and member profiles.
JukeboxAlive – Upload music and share tracks with friends. Bands can sell their CDs, write a blog and post events to a calendar.
MusicHawk – track bands and see band-related news and reviews, as well as information on gigs and new releases.
ReverbNation – social network connecting bands, fans and venues.
MusicNation – find new music, watch music videos; if you’re an indie/unsigned artist, join for a chance to get exposure or even a record contract.
Grooveshark – an online service that rewards you for sharing, reviewing, and discovering new music (currently in private testing – enter you email address on the homepage to be notified of the launch).
Dopetracks – upload and share your tracks and beats, and record music online.
Funk Player – a music sharing community where authors can upload songs, while everyone can bookmark, select, listen and comment on them.
FIQL – social playlist sharing.
Soundflavor – create playlists and share them with other users; meet people with similar taste and discover new music.
FineTune – pick an artist and receive a custom playlist featuring music by that artists and other related artists.
MusicMobs – browse through playlists and create your own in a simple interface.

MUSIC SHARING APPLICATIONS AND WIDGETS

uPlayMe – a downloadable application that lets you meet people with similar music tastes.
DotTunes – share your iTunes collection with friends through your web browser.
Audiozue – A Mac OSX application that posts your recently-played iTunes tracks to your MySpace page or blog.
Sonific – a music network where you can store the music you hold the rights to, and syndicate it to other sites with SongSpot widgets.
Mediamaster – upload your entire music collection and access it from anywhere in the world. You can also publish this music via widgets to any website.
BooMP3 – upload and share your MP3s; unlimited hosting.
Goombah – an application that scans your iTunes library and connects you with like minded users.
Maestro – upload your entire music library and access it from anywhere.

MUSIC MARKETPLACES

iTunes – Apple’s overwhelmingly popular music download store is a service that requires little in the way of introduction.
Amie Street – music market where music starts with free price, and the price increases as a track becomes more popular (the price never goes above 1 dollar).
Emusic – one of the most successful “indie” music stores, with over 100 million DRM-free tracks sold.
Bleep – high-quality MP3s with prices that are a bit high, but offering a great assortment of quality music.
MP3 Tunes – an online music store offering 30,000 albums and some 360,000 songs in its catalog.
Amazon – a soon-to-come music store which should have a huge assortment of music from big and indie labels alike.
PayPlay.FM – choose between over 1.4 million indie music tracks, and buy them in either MP3 or WMA format.
Beatport – a Flash-based music store with an embeddable player.
Audio Lunchbox – choose between 2 million DRM-free songs in MP3 or OGG format.
Indiepad – buy music from indie artists; if you’re an artist, sell music to people directly on the site.
Indistr – another audio marketplace that connects indie artists with the listeners.
Mtraks – an indie music marketplace with a very interesting and quite strong music collection in store.
MagnaTune – here you’ll find an assortment of music from various genres, ranging from electronica, rock and chillout to metal & punk.
Jamendo – an online music repository offering thousands of albums for free while still protecting the artists’ intellectual rights.
Musicane – buy and sell audio, video and ringtones.
Musiclovr – music search, recommendations and a store. Purchases are made via Amazon and iTunes.
MySpace Music / Snocap – through Snocap’s embedded music stores, bands on MySpace sell tunes to the social network’s huge audience. Bands can also sign up for Snocap independently and sell music elsewhere.

JAMMING

Ejamming – jam with other musicians and record music online.
Kompoz – compose music with other musicians. Record a track, then invite other musicians to add their own instruments.
Jamnow – a musical collaboration site where you can jam with other musicians. Jam sessions can be broadcast live.
Indaba – listen to completed music or works in progress and give your feedback; join in the music-making sessions or start your own.
JamJunky – have a song that’s not quite finished yet? Or, better yet, have a dozen? Organize them with JamJunky.

KARAOKE

Singshot – the “YouTube of Karaoke”: record yourself singing along to popular music and listen to others doing the same.
kSolo – sing along to backing tracks, and rate the recordings of others.

REMIXING

Jamglue – remix your music online and listen to other users’ mixes.
Splice – upload samples, remix them and post them for others to hear.
YourSpins – mix your own version of your favorite track, share it and post it to your blog or MySpace page.

MOBILE MUSIC SERVICES

Flotones – a mobile social network which allows indie bands and artists to sell their content for use on mobiles.
Entertonement – a large directory of ringtones, with top lists and categorization for easier browsing.
Mercora – a social radio network that enables you to search and listen to over 3.5 million songs; offers an application for listening to music on your smartphone.

MUSIC CHARTS

Billboard – home of the Billboard charts, with music videos and reviews.
MTV’s music charts – MTV charts and videos. Videos playable only in the US.
ChartU – a “Digg for music”: vote on tracks to boost them up the chart.

ARTIST DATABASES

Allmusic – probably the most comprehensive music database on the Internet. If your favorite artists aren’t there, well, then you’re listening to some pretty unknown artists.
Pandora Backstage – artist profiles and discographies from the personalized streaming service. You can create a custom radio station straight from an artist’s page.

LYRIC DATABASES

AbsoluteLyrics – Lyrics for all major artists.
Hot Lyrics – huge alphabetized lyrics database. Hard to navigate, but lots of content.

MUSIC SEARCH ENGINES

Qloud – Music search meets social networking. Currently back in private testing once, but Mashable has a review here. The service that launches next may be substantially different, however.
FindSounds – a search engine for sound effects and music instrument samples.
Musipedia – find and listen to songs based on keywords you provide.

AUDIO CONVERSION TOOLS

Zamzar – converts all sorts of file formats, including several audio formats.
Media Convert – a media converter with a huge amount of options.
MediaConverter – a media converter that can be slow and needs polishing, but can sometimes yield really good results.

MISCELLANEOUS MUSIC AND AUDIO TOOLS

Bluegrind – converts text to audio.
BePopular – find gigs in UK and Ireland and get your tickets.
Getabuz – create voicemail and audio e-cards online.
iden.tify.us – can’t figure out where a certain melody comes from? Identify it with the help of this service.
Houndbite – share funny audio clips from your life with other users, with the possibility to earn prizes.

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