Rev2.org

There are a lot of ways to communicate your story to the world. But on your website, you have just three options. Text, graphics and video. Why is it that 99% of the communications are in text form, when all the studies show that people aren’t reading text but rather scanning it.

Your website has the capability to be a full fledged HD broadcast center, though most just use it for an online brochure. With that in mind, check out an explanatory video I saw on how Skype works. This is a prime example of how anyone wondering what skype does can learn easily and quickly. I would’ve had to read deep into the Skype website to learn half as much as this 2 minute video taught me. While it looks simple, making a ‘grabby’ explanation like this is an art.

The original story tellers commoncraft.com no longer take new customers, which left the door wide open for the next round of innovative video story-tellers.  SayItVisually!, the company that made this piece, specializes in custom explanatory videos. They have the writers, directors, animators and other talent required to get your proposition across to your wanna-be customers. They even made the video that we use on the VOIS homepage!

What’s your plan to explain your next killer business idea?

Websites that compare one site to another or link similar things, like apps or software, for comparison are not new.  SitesLike.com, however, is different.

Taking a more proactive approach, SitesLike attempts to link comparable or complementary sites by relevance using both a a safe browsing test using Google Safe Browsing (to make sure each site is safe) and user voting and linking to build solid matches.

The way it works isn’t as complicated as all that sounds, of course.

A user visiting SitesLike enters a new website to link, along with some keywords for matching purposes.  A captcha verifies that it’s not a robot doing the entering and then the site is put into the SitesLike database.  The database then compares keywords and finds matches (if any) while offering the user the chance to enter sites like the one just entered for automatic matching.

Other users to SitesLike can search for sites by relevant keywords or see the latest entries on the front page and click through.  When they find a site to look at, they are presented with sites considered comparable.  Users can then vote up or down to verify the comparability.  Each vote raises or lowers the correlative comparison, making or breaking the link.

Sites that are inappropriate or mislabeled can be flagged by users as such so an administrator can check them, of course, and sites that are offensive or that engage in spam or other questionable activities are removed and banned.  Banned sites can petition for re-admittance, especially if wrongfully flagged by the Google Safe system.

SitesLike is totally free to use and a very interesting and possibly catchy concept.  It is, however, somewhat complicated to explain, which limits its word-of-mouth spread and it’s very new, so currently most of the sites available in the database are large, well-known sites like Amazon and Bing.

Eventually, though, this could become a popular destination for those looking to network with like-minded sites or find new avenues for exploration on their favorite subjects or ideas.

Yesterday we looked at Tweetblocker, to help prevent spam on Twitter.  There is another alternative since ss Twitter becomes more popular, it also becomes a new haven for spammers, phishers, marketing robots, and so forth. One thing about the Internet doesn’t seem to change: the more popular a communications medium on it becomes, the faster it will be inundated with scammers hoping to use it to find new victims.

TwitBlock.org is a bulk filtering and blocking tool for Twitter users. Despite that description, it’s not “just another spam blocker.” It has a little more going for it.

First and foremost, it’s entirely voluntary and controllable by the user. While this means it isn’t as easy as the “automated blockers” out there, it does mean that it’s less likely to filter out those you really want to follow. Some accounts, obviously, will get black listed just because they fit “the profile” (whatever that is) of a spammer. That’s not always the case.

The point of TwitBlock is to go through your followers (and following) lists and rank users by the likelihood of their being spammers or bots. The criteria for placing them in the position they fall into are clearly given and they are not automatically unfollowed or blocked without your choosing to do so.

Most users of TwitBlock, in fact, will likely go through the rankings manually and block/unfollow those they aren’t sure about. Since links to the profiles for each user on the list are given, it’s easy to check them out and decide for yourself. When I filtered my list, I found a few “spammers” on the list who weren’t really that, just people who send a lot of links to sales pages for stuff they like–I have one person I follow who’s an Amazon freak, for instance, and sends 2-3 book or music recommendations daily.

What I did find is that a handful of my followers were definitely robots of some kind. Since I wasn’t following them back and hadn’t ever noticed them before (no messages from them to me were sent), I can simply ignore them without worries. I don’t use any of those “automat follow back” tools that are so popular (and in my opinion, stupid) now, so I don’t have a lot of junk messages in my Twitter stream.

The “About TwitBlock” page explains how the ranking system and other aspects of TwitBlock work very well and makes it clear that the tool is not an auto-filter, but more an information gatherer to quantify what makes a spammer or bot and what makes a real user.

It’s extremely useful and a simply-done, nicely worked web app. If you’re fairly serious about your Twitter use, but don’t want to automatically dump users that some app’s AI thinks are “spammers” based on whatever mysterious criteria they use, then this is your solution. TwitBlock will ask permission to track your account for data gathering purposes (nothing personal, just to improve its filters), but this is voluntary and you don’t have to give permission for that.

Definitely worth a shot and TwitBlock is free to use in its Alpha stage.

There are a lot of “Twitter follower” sites to build the number of tweeps you have following your Twitter account. Most work in roughly the same way: sign up, put in your Twitter info, and a large group of people are picked and added to your account and you are added to theirs. Simple, sure, but effective?

With the rise in popularity for Twitter comes the inevitable schemes, software robots, and other problems that go with that popularity. In fact, a daily crowd of new Twitter applications hits the Web, hoping to become the “next big thing.” Most are, as with any other social networking site, generally useless apps with limited appeal–assuming they aren’t just copy-cats of someone else’s app.

Discus.me is a little different. While it’s not likely the next end-all-be-all of Twitter apps, it is at least unique. It’s another “get massive followers” type of site, but it’s not along the usual vein of most follow apps.

Discus.me uses what they call a “Chain Membership system.” That’s a good way to describe how it works.

Once you sign up, you are put in as the first link in a “chain” of users. You’re linked to whomever signed up for Discus.me last and then new signups for the next week are all linked to you as well. So if Craig signs up on Day 1, he is linked to Herb who signed up on Day 0 automatically. Then when Aaron, Christen, and Jody sign up on Days 2, 3, and 4, they are automatically linked to Craig as well as each other.

The chain continues for seven days with every new signup on those days adding to the links. This can ad up fast, of course, especially once Discus.me gets popular.

To test how it works, I created a Twitter account for it called VODiscus. Through @VODiscus, I elected to sign up for the usual 10 random famous people Twitter tries to connect you with. Then I signed up with Discus.me and waited.

The account was created about a week ago. In that time, followers have increased to 40 and the account is now following 33 people (as of this writing).

Most of those were gained in the past weekend, at a rate of about 4-6 per day.

Obviously, at its current rate, Discus.me won’t flood your account with new followers and instantly make you into Ashton Kutcher. As the site becomes more popular, though, I could see this increasing quickly and making some real headway. Most of the new followers, if you look at the timeline, are real people making occasional “real” comments. Some are, of course, bots and others are nothing more than promotional tools.

Personally, I think I would say that Discus.me is just another scheme to build followers with little or no merit. So far, the only way I’ve seen Twitter followers becoming useful, engaging people for building networks and getting more site click-throughs from Twitter is by doing it the hard way. In other words, spending the time searching for those who have like-minded interests and following them (hoping for the follow back) and by networking through your current friends’ lists to find more friends.

Sites like Discus.me have their place, though, and some will definitely find this one to be useful. So far, the majority of those who followed the test account appear to be “real” Twitter users rather than just robots and spam accounts. So for now, it’s worth trying if you’re interested in new, random links through Twitter.

93 Studios (ninetythrees.com) is, at first glance, a news magazine built in the style of a Web portal/blog mashup.  That’s just the first glance, though.  It’s a little more than that.

First off, unlike most wannabes in the online news magazine business, 93 Studios has real artistic flair, great layout, and above all, rich and deep content.  It’s not just written material either.  There are in-studio video presentations, discussions, and more–all done with a high grade of professionalism.

This site is definitely more than just another blog with YouTube videos embedded.

The content is aimed at several subjects, running around the board, and growing daily.  The professionals who put this site together aim towards high production value, deep content, and strong journalism.  Nearly all of it is investigative-style journalism, delving into questions like the culture behind newspapers and the related subject of why they’re disappearing.

That example shows something else unique to 93 Studios that you won’t find in it’s quality television counterparts, such as ABC’s 20/20: threading.  The story of newspapers in our pre-modern and modern culture leads into the question of why newspapers are beginning to die on the vine.

This “exploration of content,” as 93 Studio’s Steve Spalding says, “takes time to ‘pilot’ other types of content.”  He cites their Nonpartisan Guide to Healthcare Reform that debuted on the site about a week ago as an example of this.  I think the current in-depth look at Zombies in culture, film, art, and storytelling is a better example.

The story of zombies began on 93 with a look at why media is so fixated on them (in popular movies, books, etc.) and began to expand (or “thread”) from there.  I count no fewer than six zombie-related stories on 93 Studios right now and I’m sure the threads are continuing.

As you may have gathered, the subject matter at 93 Studios is not singular, but is very broad and far-reaching.  Each entry into the storyline has a number.  So, for instance, the excellent explanation of how the site’s editors and journalists view the story as central to reporting is #53: Get Another Perspective.

Over time, 93 Studios plans to begin self-funding (it’s currently a startup) by offering expanded content through information products (e-books/pamphlets) and traditional print (books, magazines) as well as syndication and other feeds.

Steve Spalding, who is the founder of 93 Studios and the managing partner for it’s parent company, Crossing Gaps, says that “93 Studios can’t just be about our editors and our content.  In the future we want to offer a complete solution for content producers on the Web.”

That about sums it up.  Crossing Gaps is a Gainsville, Florida LLC.  93 Studios is currently in its Alpha stage.

Twitter is finally coming into its own and this Summer saw the little social networking app suddenly become the communications medium of choice for many. From Oprah to Ashton Kutcher to the Iranian elections, Twitter hit the main stream with a tidal wave of popularity. With that popularity comes the scammers hoping to use it to take advantage of the newly initiated tweeps on Twitter.

Made by Haskrocket, the Agile/Ruby on Rails developers behind sites like LocalPolitics.in and Matchless Music, created TweetBlocker.com to help users combat the growing tsunami of spammers and scammers on Twitter.

The app works by simply ranking spammers in your follow/followers lists and allows you to unfollow or block them one at a time or en masse.

The ranking or grading of users on a spam or no-spam scale is done by analyzing a combination of habits (tweets), ratio of followers to following, the age of the account, and basic spam algorithms to look at the Twitter stream of the account itself.

On the TweetBlocker dashboard, the suspected spammers in your list are shown with a ranking (score) and grade (A, B, C, D, or F). Hovering over any user’s name shows their last couple of tweets so you can refresh your memory as to who they might be. In my test, most of the users ranked with an F were likely spammers that I blocked. It was the Cs and Ds that were hit-and-miss and required individual scrutiny.

Be aware, though, that many who are given an F are probably getting that mainly because they are not very often using Twitter (have few tweets to followers in ratio) and whose tweets are largely made up of URL links.

For those who are interested in getting more involved in the spam war, a bookmarklet is available that can be used from Twitter.com to flag individual users as potential spammers. This works by simply flagging whomever’s profile page your browser is on and adding them to the TweetBlocker system. Each addition ads to the user’s ranking, pushing their grade towards F. This is a nice little tool, though I don’t think it should replace @spam (the Twitter spam account).

TweetBlocker is a nice tool and useful for the avid Twitter user whose account’s followers are getting cumbersome. If your stream is increasingly filled with marketing messages you’d rather not get and you’re using one of the “auto-follow back” tools to boost your followers list, then TweetBlocker may be a helpful solution.

It’s free to use and easy to get to know, so it’s worth trying.