In 2006 I proudly started my first blog, DigMo! It was technology, it was creativity, it was music and it was education. Despite it being a bit of blog soup I was pleased at how quick the site grew but within a few years it reached a critical point beyond which I really couldn't get the traffic to grow. The site was frankly far too general to appeal to a specific community.

The site had a massive 80% bounce rate and taking advice from reading the great advice on this site I decided to take stock and critically re-evaluate the future of DigMo!

As a result I decided to split the site and create two separate niche blogs, DigMo! To focus on educational technology and I launched a new site, TotalApps, to focus on Mac and iPhone App reviews. The thought of starting from zero scared me and I looked at ways to get the site up and running quickly.

I decided the best way to draw attention to the blog was to offer regular site competitions. Finding companies willing to sponsor prizes was actually much easier than I initially expected. I tend to target companies whose product I have reviewed and especially if the review has been popular with readers.

With blog authors being urged to declare any products they are able to keep once a review is published what better way to retain your creditability but by passing the review samples on to your readers as a competition prize ? It seems to me like a logical benefit that will add value to your site and grow the community.

The Mistakes

I think it is best to share my mistakes with the Problogger readers and the initial competitions I ran simply required visitors to leave a comment on a post. This didn't grow the site and managed to result in a massive 70% bounce rate i.e. the users came, entered, and left knowing we would email them if they had won.

The Successes

I decided if I was going to make competitions really work they needed to be of benefit not only to the visitor but also the site and thus I needed to limit entry to RSS subscribers (both email and reader)

The solution was simple and surprisingly successful and will basically work for anyone running a Wordpress blog even with a custom theme.

Setting the competition up takes a tiny bit of code adjusting but nothing too difficult.

The Concept

The competition works by placing a code at the bottom of blog posts that will only appear when the entry is read in an RSS reader, i.e. it does not appear on site.

To do this I used a known solution that was pointed out to me by fellow blogger Thaya Kareeson.

There are a few versions of this idea around but this solution works brilliantly on TotalApps. As I haven't come across any plug-ins that can run competitions this bit of code fiddling is the ideal solution for now.

Getting Started

Open the functions.php file in your current theme folder (I would back this up before adding the code just to be on the safe side).

Paste the following code into the text :

function contest_post_filter($content) {
if ( is_feed() )
return $content.'TotalApps Competition Code (Please note it is case sensitive) : a12221s';
else
return $content;
}
add_filter('the_content','contest_post_filter');
function contest_comment_filter($comment_text) {
return str_replace('a12221s', '[code hidden]', $comment_text);
}
add_filter('get_comment_text','contest_comment_filter');

There are two lines you need to change - 1. the line that says TotalApps Competition Code and 5 lines down the code is repeated (a1221s).

I recently ran a competition where visitors could win a copy of Screenflow 2.0. The following screenshot shows the bottom of the post as it appeared in the browser.

. and this is how it looked in the RSS reader. You should note your RSS Feed must be the full article view (i.e. not just the abstract) for the code to appear.

When the competition closes as I generally ask the sponsor to select a number between 1 and the number of comments and then contact the lucky winners using the email address in the comment.

When a competition closes you can either comment out the code in functions.php by adding /* before the code and */ after or alternatively is simply change the text to "No competition at present"

Offering a reason to sign up to the RSS feed resulted in the number of TotalApps RSS subscribers growing in one month to double the number of readers DigMo! had after 3 years.

Tips :

• Know what your readers want and try and target prizes appropriately.
• Make sure you link to your RSS and RSS by Email Feeds in the post to make it as easy for visitors to subscribe as possible.
• Make sure you make the rules clear and post the winner's name publicly on site.
• Where possible have the competition sponsors look after the postage. This not only saves you time and hassle but it is also assures the sponsor the competition is above board.
• Don't run competitions for more than a week as most of the comments tend to happen in the first week after that it dries up quickly.

I have to say I am certainly no expert in coding or blogging but am really excited to find a solution that really works for managing the competitions and I am equally as excited to see the number of subscribers grow.

There may even be better solutions out there and if you know of any I would be keen to hear them.

David Cleland is a teacher based in Ireland who runs three successful blogs (TotalApps, FlixelPix and Digmo.co.uk)

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

How To Run Subscriber-Only Competitions on Your Blog

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Like you, I've been a member and user of PayPal's service for years. They were early to the game and grew accordingly with a product that made buying online drop dead easy. With an exit to eBay they were integrated into a powerful money minting machine.

They also joined a culture of apathy and disdain for those that help them line their pockets developers.

Like their acquirer, PayPal continued to build a mediocre developer community, foster it with partial code samples, limited information and limited support. Now in kindness to PayPal they did begin providing better support a few years ago and are pretty good when it comes to engaging developers on the message boards offering solutions a problem that has plagued eBay for years.

Visit any eBay developer board and you'll find replies that focus on posting in the wrong thread topic instead of offering a solution. It shows the developers that they aren't a priority.

I was looking forward to the release of the brand spanking new PayPal X Developer Network. Hoping that my previous experience wouldn't hold true and that there would be a renewed focus on the developers that are integrating the PayPal gateways and API's into their platforms. But they let me down.

The new developer community site is plagued with broken links, the same old code samples and forums that stopped loading threads on October 28. The intention is there but the execution is hit and miss.

I can forgive them this time, though. Because it appears that their intention is to focus fully on their API implementations and integrate the legacy products like IPN and PDT into a more standardized solution.

Which will help PayPal as it moves toward working with developers to create a wider range of solutions like mobile and in application micro-payments.

Something else of note with the new PayPal X Developer Network is the improved site IA. Thank you to the person(s) that restructured the information and worked with the UI person(s) to highlight what developers want most . . . documentation.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

PayPal X Developer Network Same as it Always Was is a post from: TechStartups.com

Startups, it's time to begin shortening and tracking your own URL's. Taking control of your data is the simplest way of measuring your engagement online next to direct conversations with users. Look at it like taking a survey without asking a single question.

So what?

There is a wealth of data to be collected from that shortened URL that can help you make your product(s) better. Take for instance if your job is to write blog posts and then tweet about them. If you're tracking the data yourself you can measure the most active click-through times and tweet then. Another example might be your desire to track other click-throughs and track the geo-location of your biggest fans.

Other great information to get from this one-click survey is what site did they use to click-through, also known in the biz as referrer and what some might call the holy grail of necessary data for digital product development, user-agent. For when you need to know the application or platform, such as mobile, to better your products. So that's so what.

So how?

There are a couple of ways to get it done. If you want the data and tracking that I described above without having to parse your log files you can use the code samples that I will add below. If you simply are looking for a way to brand your URL shortener and use it on Twitter, then you can follow the discussion and directions in this forum thread for using .htacess on Apache [http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum92/2545.htm].

For those of you ready to get it on with a kick start and build on top of it, here we go. I should mention that this is for those on a LAMP box. Not sure what LAMP means? This isn't for you then. If you do and are on another platform, feel free to follow along for the concepts.

First Get a short URL

The best choice doing this the right way is to figure out something that comes close to your regular URL. Say your site is goldfishbowlpirate.com and you found that gbp.me was available. Then you would snatch it up and your short URL's would look like http://gbp.me/1234. Make sure you host the account on a LAMP server.

Second Edit the .htaccess file

Simple copy and past job into your .htaccess file will get you on the road to tracking your click-throughs like a champ.

code: RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^[0-9] /

Third MySQL table

You'll need to setup a couple of tables: one to store the URL's that need to be redirected and one to store the click-through data.

The base table

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `url_base` (
`url_id` int(11) NOT NULL auto_increment,
`url_key` varchar(6) NOT NULL default '',
`url_value` varchar(255) NOT NULL default '',
`bookmarklet` tinyint(1) NOT NULL default '0',
`user_host` varchar(255) NOT NULL default '',
`create_time` timestamp NOT NULL default CURRENT_TIMESTAMP,
PRIMARY KEY  (`url_id`),
KEY `url_key` (`url_key`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM  DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;

The clicks table

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `url_clicks` (
`hit_id` int(11) NOT NULL auto_increment,
`url_id` int(11) NOT NULL default '0',
`hit_host` varchar(255) NOT NULL default '',
`hit_time` timestamp NOT NULL default CURRENT_TIMESTAMP,
`hit_referer` varchar(255) NOT NULL default '',
`hit_agent` varchar(255) NOT NULL default '',
PRIMARY KEY  (`hit_id`),
KEY `hit_agent` (`hit_agent`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM  DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;

Fourth Code it up

This is where the magic truly happens. We need code to create shortened URL's, handle the redirects by looking up the shortened URL in the url_base table and track the click-through in the url_clicks table.

I've created a zip file that has all the necessary files in it and the SQL above for download. Also Included in the zip are the .htaccess file and four PHP scripts.

1. config.php A configuration file
2. index.php To act as the index incase there is an error with the redirect
3. makeit.php To make shortened URL's. It can be called by other programs like an API
4. makeit_b.php To make shortened URL's for a Bookmarklet for easy testing and copy and paste. To use the Bookmarklet simply right-click on your bookmarks toolbar and paste the code below into the Location' section. Make sure to swap out yourshorturl' with your own!javascript:(function(){var%20a=window,b=document,c=decodeURIComponent,d=a.open('http://yourshorturl/makeit_b.php?url='+c(b.location),"bkmk_popup","left="+((a.screenX||a.screenLeft)+10)+",top="+((a.screenY||a.screenTop)+10)+",height=145px,width=200px,resizable=1,alwaysRaised=1");a.setTimeout(function(){d.focus()},300)})();

Now that you've got all the code you need to begin shortening and tracking your own URL's you can take a look at a sample of a very simple admin page. I've been using this system of shortening for nearly two years for all of my Twitter URL's.

A special thanks to Mike Marusin for writing the first version of this code for his own personal URL shortener back in 2007.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/4

Post from: TechStartups.com

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The best way to be sure a contract contains all the terms one needs is to do the same type of transaction over and over until you know it cold. Next best is to find someone else who has to rely on. Those aren't particularly helpful suggestions to someone in unfamiliar territory with a deal on the line, though, so here are some suggestions to help identify missing terms.

1) Make up a hit list. Before you start reading, write down list of the important terms. This step takes a surprising amount of mental discipline but it is incredibly important. Avoid the temptation to dive straight in and see what the contract says. Even if you think you know what terms you need, write them down before you start reading.

2) Take the contract in sections. This goes along with my piece on How to Read a License Agreement. Instead of reading front-to-back, search the contract to find all the terms on your hit list. Do they match your requirements? Is anything from your list missing? Bonus points for lining up your hit list in one column on a piece of paper and writing down the comparable terms in the contract in the next column. I have only taken this extra step a handful of times, but found it very helpful when the deal was complex or I was having a hard time getting through the contract language.

3) Put it Back Together. Now that you have found the biggest points, you can read through and see how other terms flow around them. Do all the defined terms match your understanding of what they should be? Do any subparagraphs under one of the big points limit its applicability?

4) Try to Break it. It's also easy to read a sentence, squint a bit and say yeah, that basically covers it. Instead of trying to read the contract in a way that fits your needs, do the opposite. How could a paragraph be read against you? E.g. if you quit vs. being terminated by your employer, will you lose any vesting in your stock?

5) Read with a Friend. If the deal is important it merits more than one set of eyes. I frequently find that useful points come out of discussion with a co-reader.

6) Search for Exemplars. I am putting this last because it's really hard to find good examples of many types of agreements. The SEC's EDGAR database is a good source, but search is very limited unless you pay for advanced search capabilities. Docstoc and Scribd have pretty good libraries but since there is no clear way to judge quality it is best to look for at least 3 samples of the type of agreement you need, then compare terms carefully before relying on any one contract.

I hope these ideas are helpful. Reading carefully and catching everything is a genuinely hard task. Practice very much makes perfect and these are some of my favorite practice tools.

Names added to that list yesterday included one local writer: the ludicrously prolific Michael Nagrant of Hungry Mag, Serious Eats, New City and just about any paper or website that publishes a byline. Owning to all sorts of biases here as both a colleague and friend, if the Times really wanted to make a splash in naming Bruni's heir apparent few food critics have the resume of Nagrant; one that includes collaborating on a Beard Award-winning cookbook; a critic whose voice is constantly evolving; a entertaining and engaging writer equally comfortable in traditional and new media; one whose personal code of food journalism ethics is downright Orthodox Catholic in the age of the Yelp! Elite Squad.

I contacted Nagrant about his name popping up. He responded by saying that he's sent Times "Dining In/Dining Out" Editor Trish Hall samples of his work in the past two months for her consideration. Nagrant replied, "The New York Times food critic position is one of the most important jobs in American food writing. Whether it's (Ruth) Reichl or Bruni or (William) Grimes et al, as a writer I've looked to those who've held that chair and always tried to write to that standard. The NYT critic spot is very much a goal of mine." As to wanting to take the job in these uncertain times for print journalism, Nagrant said, "In these tough times for print journalism where some would rather be the next food TV star or own a restaurant, I want to write. I don't want to be rich or famous. I only want to sustain myself, practice the craft and get better everyday. I want nothing more as a writer and I'm willing to give everything I am if the honor came my way."

Nagrant acknowledged Eater's speculation yesterday with (natch) twitter updates, paraphrasing Groucho Marx and even providing a headshot so the Times doesn't have to.

Developing for Intel AMT isn't easy. While 4 weeks may seem like a short time, keep in mind that I don't eat or sleep (I work 24 hours a day). That's 4 weeks * 7 days * 24 hours = 672 hours! I'm joking again. But developing a management console really does take time. Here's some quick advice on working faster:

• Understand the basic concepts. This is the best advice I can give. Know what you're doing before you start doing.
  • Check out my first and second blog posts for a good introduction to Intel AMT.
• Sign up for ISPP. The Intel Software Partner Program allows you to create a Project Plan based on the use cases and features you'd like to implement. Know where you're going before you start going.
• Take advantage of your resources. Read the documentation in the SDK. There are also plenty of samples that implement the same features that you're trying to implement. Don't try reinventing the wheel.
• ASK QUESTIONS! Use the forums and blogs to ask questions about the things that you don't understand. I wasted so much time trying to figure things out for myself. Asking questions almost always gave me the answer I was looking for. Uh, just ask questions...

Within the next few weeks, I'll talk about some of the obstacles that I faced during development along with some more advice. You'll soon be able to download IT Helper 1.0 and try it out for yourself. I wanted to have it available by today, but I still have to work out some minor details before releasing it publicly. Thanks for reading and remember to check for updates regularly.

One other piece of news that will be very interesting to non-developers eagerly waiting to try out the service: Google is planning to release Wave to 100,000 users beginning on September 30th, using the service's main wave.google.com hub rather than the developer site (we can likely expect a Gmail-like limited invitation system). By this time we can likely expect there to be a rich variety of Wave widgets the site already boasts plenty of them, including a RickRoll widget and more practical things like a weather forecast but you can't try them out without a Developer Sandbox account.

Thanks to Noah Hendrix for the tip.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

I started this as another protip comment on this FriendFeed thread about Reader likes but it got kind of long, so here goes:

Reader recently launched liking (and a bunch of other features). One of the nice things about liking is that it's completely public*. It would therefore make sense to be pretty liberal with liking data, and in fact Reader does try to expose liking in our feeds. If you look at my shared items feed you will see a bunch of entries like:

<gr:likingUser>00298835408679692061</gr:likingUser>
<gr:likingUser>11558879684172144796</gr:likingUser>
<gr:likingUser>07538649935038400809</gr:likingUser>
<gr:likingUser>09776139491686191852</gr:likingUser>
<gr:likingUser>02408713980432217881</gr:likingUser>
<gr:likingUser>05429296530037195610</gr:likingUser>

These are the users that have liked. Users are represented by their IDs, which you can use to generate Reader shared page URLs. More interestingly, you can plug these into the Social Graph API to see who these users are.

Liking information isn't just limited to Reader shared item feeds. If you use Reader's view of a feed, for example The Big Picture's, you can see the <gr:likingUser> elements there too. This means that as a publisher you can extract this information and see which of your items Reader users find interesting.

For now liking information that is included inline in the feed is limited to 100 users, mainly for performance reasons. That number may go up (or down) as we see how this feature is used.

* I've seen some wondering what the difference between liking, sharing and starring is. To some degree that's up to each user, but one nice thing about liking is that it has less baggage associated with it. We learned that if we try to redefine existing behaviors (like sharing) users get upset.

I give a 25 minute presentation and then hold an hour town-hall question and answer session. Great questions were asked, so if you are interested in what goes through a VC's head, take a gander.

The video is really well done. The slides are integrated into the presentation. I'd highly recommend Craig Kendall if you need any video creation or editing work. Thanks Craig for putting all the time into the video. Here's a bit about Craig:

Founded on 13 years web and video experience and a passion for top quality video, Craig Kendall is the founder of Kendall Media Group and eventon.tv. Currently partnering with many Boulder area technology programs including IgniteBoulder, the Boulder Denver New Tech Meetup, and Silicon Flatiron's Crash Course for Entrepreneurs, eventon.tv is helping provide video recording and production for the web. Having recently returned to Colorado after 13 years in Tennessee, Craig is thrilled to be part of the technology community in Colorado."There's some really amazing things happening in the Boulder/Denver area as far as technology and entrepreneurship and Kendall Media Group is excited to be a part of it," says Craig. Reach out to Craig at craig at kendallmediagroup dot com.

Embed RSS Feeds in Web Pages

Go to this page, replace the feed URL with your own feed, use the default color scheme or change it to something else and then click Get Code. You'll get a JavaScript snippet that can be easily placed in the sidebar of your blog.

If you like to embed feeds from multiple sources, merge all of them into one using Yahoo Pipes and then pass the combined feed to the Google Gadget. You can also use RSS widgets like WidgetBox or YourMinis that are done in Flash and not JavaScript.

Embed MP3 music and other Audio

If you like to embed audio files like songs, podcasts or interviews in your web pages, use Yahoo! Media Player - its a free Flash music player that automatically detects all links to MP3 files in the current web page and turns them into a music player. Another alternative is the Google MP3 Player.

To embed other audio formats like 3GP, Midi, Real or Windows Media, it may be a good idea to convert these files into MP3 using Zamzar so that they play on almost any web browser.

Embed Flickr Photos and Slideshows

To embed an individual Flickr photograph in your blog, click the "Share This" link (available next to the photo title) and choose embed it. Flickr requires that the embedded image should link back to Flickr and this built-in embed option automatically takes care of that requirement. (see example)

To embed a Flickr photo slideshow in your web page, open any Slideshow in a new page (see example) and choose "Customize HTML" from the embed option (see example). Here you can specify a custom size for your Flash slideshow so that it fits just right into your web page.

Embed High Quality or HD YouTube Videos

To embed a high resolution version of YouTube clip in your web pages, first make sure that Watch in High Quality or Watch in HD link exists next to the YouTube player as most videos are only available in standard format.

Next copy the YouTube embed code and append &ap=%2526fmt%3D18 (for high quality) or &ap=%2526fmt%3D22 (for 720p High Definition) to the URL value of the movie parameter (both instances).

Embed Picasa Web Albums

When you open a photo album inside Picasa, click the link in the right sidebar that says "Link to this album" and choose "Embed Slideshow". You can use the same approach to embed individual photographs that are available inside Picasa.

Embed Events from Google Calendar

Click the drop-down arrow next to any Google Calendar and select Calendar settings. Open the Google Embeddable Calendar Helper program by clicking the customize button and choose elements that you want to display or hide in the calendar.

Embed Very Large Photographs

To embed really large images in your blog, you may either use Deep Zoom or the Google Maps viewer. These programs break your photographs in small tiles and you can even pan / zoom across these images very similar to the default interface of Google Maps.

Embed Charts and Graphs in Web Pages

My personal favorite is Zoho Sheet any chart created inside Zoho Sheet can be published as an external image without exposing the full spreadsheet. If you are interested in creating charts with low volume of data, use Google Charts.

Embed GIF Animations and Screencasts

GIF animations (see example) are a perfect way to embed short screencasts in web pages as they require no plugins and auto-play inside feed readers. You should upload GIF files to your Flickr account as it preserve all the frames while lot of other image hosting website will drop anything after the first frame.

Embed Word Documents

Upload your document to Scribd and they'll give you the embed code in Flash. Scribd supports both doc and the new Office 2007 docx format in addition to Open Office documents. Even Barack Obama is using Scribd to upload his public documents and upcoming plan.

Embed PowerPoint Presentations

While the popular choice is Slideshare, you should also consider using Issuu (best web application) for presentations that are either large or formatted in the form of magazines or catalogues (see example). The only downside is that Issuu accepts PDFs so you need to convert the presentation before uploading onto Issuu.

Embed Spreadsheet Data

Both Zoho Sheet and Google Docs allow you to publish a range of cells from a spreadsheet into a web page but the embedding process in Zoho is less complicated - select a range and choose "Publish" from the contextual menu to embed that range into your web page.

Embed Adobe PDF Files

To embed PDFs in a web page, you can either use Issuu (for magazine style PDFs) or Scribd for PDFs has either have lot of text or have a top-to-bottom reading layout similar to Word documents.

Embed Flash (SWF) or Flash Video (FLV)

The best option to embed Flash content is via swfobject. It improves the overall user experience by providing alternatives in case Flash is missing and your Flash content also becomes more searchable. This tutorial has all the files and other details to help you get started with SwfObject 2.

Embed LinkedIn Profile

If you wish to display your LinkedIn profile in the sidebar of your blog, try LinkInABox. People (site visitors) can read a summary of your LinkedIn profile without leaving the site.

Embed Google Maps in Web Pages

Embedding a Google Map in your website is now almost as easy as adding an image just open the Static Maps wizard, search for location that you want to embed and specify the dimensions of your map. They'll provide a simple URL that actually points to a static image of that map.

Embed Another Webpage in your Blog

If you like to embed another website into your web page, your best bet is an IFRAME tag also known as an Inline Frame. Just set the SRC value to the address of the web page that you want to embed into your current HTML document. You could try IFRAMEs for inserting live search results from Google into your web page without having to worry about APIs.

Embed Windows Media or QuickTime movies

While it is possible to embed mov or wmv videos in web pages directly using the OBJECT tag, I recommend that you put these videos onto blip.tv and then embed them in web pages as Flash video. That's because your visitors can then play the video without extra plugins and two, they always have the option to download the video in the original format from blip.tv servers.

Embed Other Fonts in Web Pages

Most web pages use universal fonts like Arial, Times New Roman or Verdana since they are installed on most computers and hence your web pages will render correctly. If you want to try something different and render pages in fonts like Microsoft Calibri or Adobe Garamond Pro that are only available on some machines, all you need is sIFR it lets you use almost any font for your web pages using JavaScript + Flash and is perfect for writing newspaper style headlines.

Embed your Lifestream in a Web Page

You have a presence on YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Last.fm, Facebook, Amazon and a dozen other online places. It can get really tough for friends to track you at so many places so what you should do is create an account at FriendFeed, import all the different services that you use and then use the FriendFeed Badge to embed your lifestream activity on your main site.

Related tutorial: How to Embed Video in PowerPoint

How to Embed Almost Anything in your Website - Digital Inspiration

The year 2008 saw the emergence of some great pocket video cameras that are no larger than your mobile phone, inexpensive, they shoot good-looking video and are almost as easy to operate as an iPod - no confusing controls, just a single record button. These pocket camcorder attach to the computer via the USB port and record video in a straight-to-web format perfect for YouTube and other video sharing websites.

If you looking to buy one this holiday season, you have three pocket video cameras to choose from - Flip Video Camcorder, Creative Vado and Kodak Zi6.

Creative Vado Pocket Video Camera ($100)

This has a 2" screen with 2x zoom and 2 GB internal memory perfect for recording upto 2 hours of video (resolution 640480, MPEG4 AVI). Creative Vado can be recharged via USB (similar to iPod or Zune) and includes removable battery. You'll have to separately buy the RCA cable that is required to connect your Vado camera to a TV. Supports both Windows and Mac.

Creative Vado HD Video Camera ($200)

This camera has the same dimensions as the previous one (slightly heavier) and lets you shoot video in High Definition format (resolution 1280720, H.264 AVI).

The internal memory is 8 GB and the HDMI cable in included with Vada HD Camcorder. Read detailed reviews of Vado HD at PC World, PC Magazine and CNET.

Kodak Zi6 Pocket Video Camera ($180)

The Kodak Zi6 features a 2.4" LCD, 2x zoom, records both HD (H.264) & standard video but can also capture still photographs at 3MB resolution. Zi6 only has 128MB of internal memory, so you'll need to buy a separate memory SD Card to record longer home movies.

The Kodak Zi6 does include both A/V and HDMI cables for connecting the camcorder to the television screen. Also include 2 Ni-MH rechargeable battery and charger included. Read Kodak Zi6 reviews at MacWorld, PC Magazine and LaptopMag.

Flip Mino HD Camcorder ($230)

FlipMino HD sports a 1.5" screen and can record up to 60 minutes of video (1280 x720 at 30 frames per second) on its 4 GB internal memory (non expandable). The camera has internal rechargeable battery that can be charged via USB port or the power adapter though you'll have to buy it separately. TV connector cable is included to watch videos on television.

The included software program is compatible with both Mac and Windows and includes basic video editing features with the option of extracting still image frames from the video - the camera itself cannot snap still photos though. Read Flip Mino HD reviews and picture samples at Macworld and PC Magazine.

Pure Digital Flip Ultra Video Camera ($150)

The Flip Ultra video camera carries 2GB of built-in flash memory and can record 60 minutes of video at 640480. The camera has a 1.5" LCD and requires 2 AA batteries that last up to 2.5 hours.

It records video in MPEG-4 AVI format at 30 frames per second. NTSC cable is included with Flip Ultra for connecting the unit to TV though there's no way to expand the memory. Watch video review of Flip Ultra at Macworld and CNET.

Conclusion: I think the Zi6 offers best value for money - you get HD quality video, it has the largest LCD screen, the memory is expandable and Kodak Zi6 is the only pocket video camera that can shoot still photographs. Authors who have used the camera seem impressed by the video quality of Zi6 if there's reasonable light and the camera is held with a steady hand.

Related: Camcorder Buying Guide: NTSC vs PAL Cameras

Pocket Video Cameras - Buying Guide - Digital Inspiration

The Brainstorm

Save The Date

The Invitation

Pre-Press

Finished Product

Custom Stamps

The Event

The Photobooth

The Gifts

The Ring

Finally, Something Cool From Noby

Phew

</div

It all adds up to a sad scenario that seems destined to end with Motorola going the way of one-time icons like RCA, Westinghouse, and U.S. Steel. If Carl Icahn thought booting Ed Zander from the CEO job was going to fix anything, he was clearly mistaken.

On Glassdoor.com, the input from Motorola employees is brutal. Some samples:

From a senior project coordinator -- "There are probably too many downsides to express in this reveiw. There is high stress level due to the fact that no one knows from day to day if they will have a job even if they are a top performing employee."

From a software engineer: "Motorola is huge into cost cutting right now. It seems that cost cutting is our actual product. It makes me wonder that if we are so bent on cutting costs then are we going to say no to the right projects that will help make money in the end?"

From a senior quality engineer: "Please force out these dinosaur managers who have no grasp of technology! According to reports, our current CEO does not even use email. The previous CEO, Ed Zander, let the company become a laughingstock with its RAZR phones."

From an anonymous employee: "Tough times for the company have lead to a stressful work environment with employees and resources stretched very thin. Lost the creative edge from years past. Poor middle management in general. Very few managers are truly decisive leaders - they are unwilling to take any chances and risks and prefer to follow the herd."

CEO Greg Brown has one of the lowest internal approval ratings of any CEO reviewed on Glassdoor, at 19%. Employee satisfaction runs at a low 2.7 on a scale of 1 to 5. Unless something radical happens, Motorola's days of being a great company are done.

The subject line here could also be titled What I, a sales/biz dev guy, think about Twitter's market position, but I'm going with a punchier title. I'm totally addicted to twitter, but I feel like there's something missing here - what's missing goes beyond the obvious scale issue everyone else is talking about.

Twitter has been a bit of a whipping boy lately on the social software circuit. Some choice samples:

Mike Arrington: Twitter downtime on the upswing
DA Howlett: .. while Twitter has great utility, it could be so much more

Jeremiah Owyang: The cracks are starting to show

Allen Stern: Is Twiter F'ed?

There's even an open letter out there to twitter from Shel Israel. With all due respect to him, claims that tweeters are mostly talking about twitter and the chatter is not positive is quite overstated. That said, the trend is decidedly from twitterpraise to twittergripe.

But let's put this in context - Twitter hasn't had much competition since the Goog bought out Jaiku and basically put them in cryostasis. That's changing, and fast. SAP is on the move. The Automattic team will likely capitalize off the wordpress community to build adoption of their Twitter-like tool. Other vendors are likely to follow as well.

Michael Porter's five forces model is an instructive if aging benchmark to identify areas where any organization is competitively vulnerable. I would submit the following back-of-the-envelope analysis is instructive:

Threat of Supplier Influence - Low. Twitter is on an OSS/RoR stack.

Intra-industry Rivals - Low. Rivals are fairly marginalized right now.

Threat of New Competitors -High. There's quite a bit of interest in casual awareness of activity, which seems to be a key pillar of the social graph. I expect a whole lot of activity jumping in during 2008.

Threat of Substitutes - High. We're already seeing a number of social graph players flirt with casual presence applications mixed with other core competencies. I expect more to follow with features like conversation threading.

Buyer Propensity to Switch - Medium. My take from geeks leaving Facebook in droves is that social graph users are fickle lot (I know I am). However it's easier to port yourself than to port everyone you speak with, so I'll call this an orange level threat.

What falls out of this analysis is that Twitter's challenge ahead will be differentiating itself using something other than We were first. There's more than just a business model or monetization model to consider. I'd be interested what your own napkin-analysis of Twitter is based on Porter's Five Forces, and your takeaways from it.

Whole Foods has been doing this for about a year with both audio and video podcasts, all of which are produced using in-house talent. Scott Simons, Regional Marketing Director, hosts the Secret Ingredient show. There has been discussion on the Yahoo Videoblogging List about this show and the opportunities to also integrate both freelance produced content as well as user-generated content. Word on the street is that Whole Food is not interested, preferring to control the show in-house. It's a full service blog-based site, with comments accepted and RSS. Visitors can manually download the flash version of the episode, though that is not playable on most MP3 devices.

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Before Events

If you're going to an event, start checking around to see who's attending. Look for an Upcoming entry or a Facebook group. Most modern conferences put these up as matter of course (and if you RUN a conference, consider this step). From there, see if you are already friends (social network definition) with any one. If not, consider friending them based on the fact you're heading to the same event.

Other places to check for event communities are on Yahoo! Groups and Google Groups. You might have some other recommendations for this one, too.

Before Interviews, and Related to Events

Log into LinkedIN and see what you can find about your interviewer, people who work at the prospective new company, and other companies in the industry. It's a way to build a picture of the landscape without relying on other people's information. For instance, if the company you're thinking of working at turns up zero results in a search on LinkedIN, it might mean that the culture is less forward-thinking or at least not social media equipped. If you look at a few profiles that come up in the search, and note that people are only there a year (two or three samples, maybe), then perhaps the place is big on competition, or maybe not really rewarding to long term employees.

Related to events, once you know someone's going, see if you can find them in Facebook (maybe MySpace), LinkedIN, Twitter, and see if you can search out a blog by putting their name and blog in a Google search. Oh, and don't forget Flickr.

Flickr is a PERFECT tool for searching out info on people. I've known some people who don't use their headshot as an icon on any social network, but a little Flickr searching later, I realized I could point them out at an event. (By the way, if you don't know this, that's why I put LOTS of pictures of myself on my website. It's because I want you to be able to find me at events. Not because I'm vain, though I guess you could argue that one, too).

Conversation Pieces

From here, once you find some shreds of this person or some people online, you've built yourself a means by which to seek out similar points of interest, tangential conversational topics, and maybe even potential business opportunities you can discuss, should the moment arise. That's the beauty of social media and social networks. They let you better understand the people who participate.

If You Find NOTHING About People

That can be a conversation starter, too. I didn't find you on Facebook. What do you think of those social networks? You can assume that the person isn't especially convinced of the value of social networks and making media, but I wouldn't lead outright with that. Maybe this person is a prolific blogger behind the firewall. Maybe they're using an alias. It took me a little TOO long to connect Genuine on Twitter with Jim Turner of One By One Media. They were two different people in my head until spending some time at an event.

After Events

Stealing a page from Jeff Pulver (who is a MASTER at building community in the real world and online), after events is a great time to plumb up all the various social media connections. Get connected in Facebook, maybe LinkedIN, in Twitter, Flickr, and wherever else you tend to use. Consider reading their blog, adding it to your reader for a while. Make it a chance to learn more about the person now that you're in their orbit. Do what Laura Pistachio Fitton does and invite them into your Twitter Village. The point is to get to know them now that you've met in person.

Reflect on YOUR Presence

Some people are debating the value of Facebook right now as a business platform. At the very baseline, fill out your profile. Give information that you wouldn't mind your employer seeing. Not because you have to self-censor, but in this world where people use the tools that are available, your Facebook page and your Twitter stream and all these various artifacts you're creating are available for people to search.

At the same time, once you get over the paralysis of the above, make sure you put enough of yourself into your profiles that people can get these conversational hooks to communicate with you at events. If you're strictly business at your conference appearances, try to indicate that in your profile. The point is, once you realize that you can use these tools to build real world relationships, consider the effect in both directions (you finding them; them finding you).

First Moves Are Yours

The conversation itself is up to you, and no, I don't tell you how to not be shy at an event directly (though one way you can do this is to find your way into circles of people on the periphery, and look for your conversational in). But with some of this prep out of the way ahead of time, you'll find yourself a lot more prepared than when you used to show up at these events cold.

The Social Media 100 is a project by Chris Brogan dedicated to writing 100 useful blog posts in a row about the tools, techniques, and strategies behind using social media for your business, your organization, or your own personal interests. Swing by [chrisbrogan.com] for more posts in the series, and if you have topic ideas, feel free to share them, as this is a group project, and your opinion matters.

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Note that unless you're superhuman, you probably can't do all seven of these in one day, but you can certainly get started on them!

1. Create a Name and Logo

One of the most fun things about going freelance is coming up with a business name for yourself. I chose my business name and designed myself a logo when I still had a fulltime job, and wanted to daydream about working for myself.

There are a few important things to keep in mind when choosing a name:

1. It should be memorable Almost anything can become memorable with repetition, but some names are just more boring than others. For example I would stay away from acronyms RBC design, HSL programming it all kind of sounds the same after a while.
2. It should be (relatively) distinct It's difficult to find anything totally unique, but try to make sure there isn't already a company with your exact name doing the same thing as you. You can do this by Googling the name to see what shows up and checking government company registration records in your country. Here in Australia you can do this online and I'd guess most other countries offer the same service.
3. It should be you! This is your freelance business after all, so make it personal. My freelance business is/was called Good because my partner and I wanted to do good things for the world! Alas the government here wouldn't let us register an adjective so technically it was Good Creative.

One choice that you will need to make is whether your business name should include your own name in it. So for example mine might have been Collis Ta'eed Design or something like that. There are advantages and disadvantages either way, so you may wish to read more on Naming Your Freelancing Business - To Personalize or Not?

Logo design is of course something that you'll need a designer for. If you aren't a designer yourself then you can either hire a freelancer (try posting a job for free on our FreelanceSwitch job boards) or, if you really don't want to spend any money yet, then choose a nice typeface for yourself, a colour palette and just make sure you always write it exactly the same and promise me that when you have the money you'll hire a designer because branding is important and there's more to it than you might think!

2. Register Your Business

Registering your business isn't as fun as coming up with a name and a logo, but it's an essential part of becoming a freelancer. There is also something very satisfying about receiving a letter from the government saying your business is now official.

Registering a business is different in different parts of the world, so the easiest thing to do is to search for register small business your country in Google and read up. The process is usually something like:

1. Choose a business structure
   Common business structures include sole proprietorship, partnership and company. Generally speaking the first two are easier and cheaper to register but offer less legal protection. A company structure will mean more tax and legal requirements but will limit how liable you are personally for anything that goes wrong. In really simple terms if everything was to go pear shaped in your business and you were being sued, having a company would mean that no-one could take your personal possessions your house, your car. However a company, at least here in Australia, will also mean you have to do things like have directors, pay (higher) annual fees, jump through more hoops for your taxes and so on. This is of course an over-simplification, and you need to read up on the choices. It's also a good idea to find an accountant or lawyer to help you particularly if you're not sure what the benefits and drawbacks are.
2. Fill Out Some Forms & Lodge Them
   Once you know what sort of business you want to register, you will have to get a hold of some forms (here in Australia you can download them off the net) and fill them all out and send them off. Like all government forms, they are usually a bit troublesome but reasonably straight forward.
3. Wait for your Certificate of Registration
   Once registered you should receive some sort of certification, often with a business number. Here in Australia the number you receive is then a number you have to quote on all your bills/invoices when you do work.

(Note: If you've already registered your business in your country, I'd be curious to hear if the process is the same as I've outlined, so leave a comment and let us know! Oh and my apologies for making everything a bit Australia-centric)

3. Prepare Your Web Portfolio

When you apply for jobs you're going to need something to show. Although you can get away with just sending samples of your work, it's best to have a web portfolio. Having a portfolio online means you can easily refer people to your work through email, via a business card or in person. Without a web portfolio you are either using a physical portfolio (mostly only designers will do this) or sending samples via email. While both of these can be acceptable, they simply aren't as efficient as having a website.

Caution to Web Designers: Although there is a temptation to produce the be-all, end-all portfolio for yourself, it is better to have something than nothing. So start simple and get it out, then you can always complicate and redesign later.

If you aren't a web designer then fear not because there are plenty of services to help you get a portfolio online without touching code:

• CarbonMade - www.carbonmade.com - Example Portfolio
  It's quick, it's free for a small portfolio (5 projects) and it's cool in a cutesy web way.
• Designer's Toolbox - www.designerstoolbox.com/ - Example Portfolio
  Unlike the other services here you have to pay for this one. It's $30 a month which is not a huge sum to pay if you're getting work from your portfolio, so worth a look.
• Coroflot - www.coroflot.com - Example Portfolio
  I haven't used Coroflot before, but they've been around for a while and have a ton of members so I figure they must be doing something right. The down side appears to be that you have a large Coroflot header on top of your portfolio.
• Behance - www.behance.net - Example Portfolio
  Like Coroflot, Behance is more of a social network with portfolios as the centre piece. Nonetheless
• Wordpress - wordpress.com
  Wordpress offer free blogging accounts on Wordpress.com which can be customised with themes. Why would you want a blog? Well you can turn it into a portfolio fairly easily, particularly if you're a writer. Even if you want to show graphics, just use the posts as portfolio items.

Know some other portfolio services? Leave them in the comments!

You might also like to read our FreelanceSwitch portfolio articles - Build a Killer Online Portfolio in 9 Easy Steps, 5 Reasons Freelancers Should Blog, The Secret to Getting a Lot of Web Design Work and Portfolio Zen.

4. Take Some Work on the Side

You don't need to quit your job to become a freelancer. In fact it's often better to get a taste for freelancing by taking on jobs after-hours. Here are a few of the benefits of taking on side jobs:

1. You get to test the waters
   Freelancing isn't for everyone and you may find that actually you quite like your regular job. Taking on some freelance jobs on the side means you can find this out and still have your job to fall back on should things not pan out. And if you do find you love freelancing, then you can still enjoy saying goodbye to your 9-5, with the satisfaction of knowing it's permanent.
2. You can build a client list
   When you first start freelancing, you are starting from zero. No clients, no income, no experience. Freelancing on the side means you can get a bit of momentum going so that when you do switch to full time you're already in a comfortable position.
3. It's less stressful
   When you're cut off from a regular income source it can be a bit stressful at first, wondering when and if you will get paid. Working on the side removes this stress and lets you get used to freelance income. You can also build up some extra cash to use as a fallback for when you cut off your job.

For many people freelancing on the side is in fact what they want to do. You may find that a few jobs here and there is all you really need for a bit of extra income and a bit more creative freedom. In that case moonlighting is an end in itself.

You can read more about freelancing on the side in our article On the Side or All the Way?

5. Prepare a Mailer

For many freelancers the first question they want answered is where do I find jobs?'

The best place to find your first jobs is through people you know. You can do this by asking around of friends, colleagues, people you used to work with, extended family, and anyone you think might have appropriate connections or work.

A simple way to do this is to create a little mailer to send out, just to let people know you're available for work. This was something I did early on which lead to my first five jobs. Some were direct contacts and others were the result of people I knew passing my name on to something they knew.

It's important to make your mailer:

• Brief Don't bother your friends and colleagues with an epic email. Make it short and sweet.
• Professional If you're a designer, it's not a bad idea to use a graphic. If you're not then a well worded email will suffice.
• Contain a Call to Action Make sure there is a phone number to call, a website to visit or an email to send if the person is interested.

Mailers don't take long to create and are an effective way to kickstart your marketing. For other marketing ideas check out 101 Ideas to Get More Freelance Work and for more information about mailout marketing read our article: Harnessing Mailouts - a Complete How-To Guide to Email Marketing.

6. Scour the Job Boards for some First Jobs

Job boards are a great source of early leads when you don't have that many contacts. As your freelance business develops you will be able to rely increasingly on referrals, but early on, your address book may be a little flat.

You should approach job boards for three types of work:

1. Work to bring in income
   Naturally most jobs you go for are to earn yourself money. Whatever type of job you accept, make sure you are fairly compensated.
2. Work to build your client list
   It's important to develop a wide range of contacts and clients as these people will help get you work in the future. Referrals are a powerful mechanism for getting jobs, but first you need people to refer you on.
3. Work to build your portfolio
   There are many reasons you might want to build up your portfolio. It may be that you want to go in a different direction to your previous work, it may be that you aren't permitted to show previous work because of a contract with your employer, or you may simply have not done much work. In all these cases it can be a good idea to take on some early work specifically to build up your portfolio.

There are plenty of job boards around, including FreelanceSwitch's own Job Board. We also have a giant list of places to look for jobs in our Monster List of Freelancing Job Sites. Finally for a client's take on job boards, read how not to apply for jobs on a job board.

7. Figure out how much to charge

Pricing yourself is a difficult exercise for any freelancer. There are lots of factors to consider and no common standards. The best way to go about pricing yourself is first to calculate your break even rate and then adjust according to what factors are important.

• Your Break Even Rate
  For every person there is an amount of money that you need to make each year just to maintain a basic lifestyle. Additionally there are a rough amount of hours that you are capable of working in a year. So if you combine these two things you can get your break even rate the amount of money you need to charge per hour so that you can earn enough to survive. Fortunately we've developed a Javascript calculator to help you do the math, just visit freelanceswitch.com/rates and plug in a few numbers to calculate your break even hourly rate.
• Adjusting for Other Factors
  There are many factors to consider in your pricing such as other people's rates, your marketing strategy, how much money you need to make beyond breaking even, what kinds of jobs you want to attract and so on. You might like to read our 9 essential factors to consider when determining your price to help you find a final rate.

At the end of the day though if you aren't sure how much to charge the simplest thing to do is to talk to other freelancers. Here at the Switch we have some forums with very nice people who can help you along your way to freelance freedom!

Other things you can do

There's plenty of other things you can do to kickstart your freelancing career: create a home office, sign up to invoicing and client management tools, perhaps even quitting your job though I'd be cautious with that one.

If you are planning on becoming a freelancer, you might also consider grabbing the FreelanceSwitch book How to be a Rockstar Freelancer. It's 212 pages long and packed with the same sort of straight forward advice as this article.

Whatever you do, I wish you luck getting started and hope that the blog and community here at FreelanceSwitch will be able to make your transition smooth and effective!

Ad Break: Post Freelance Jobs for Free! It costs nothing to post a job, and just $7 a month to become a freelance member