I have dabbled a bit here and there with social networking and feeds and various article rating systems. I have not always been dazzled by these systems for one reason or another. Sometimes they are too complicated, sometimes the results and participation are either artificial or too inbred to actually be social, sometimes there’s too much politics, sometimes they just aren’t that much help for my interests or my websites.

Be that as it may, these systems do serve some purposes, some serve them very well. One large and sometimes controversial system is Digg.com. Members refer a “good” article to other members on a certain topic for certain key words, other members “Digg” it or vote on it as to its interest, relevancy or quality of content.

This system works a lot of the time from what I can see. There have been some social “ganging” or clique Digging of votes, and there have been a few articles about the resulting problems. But overall, Digg serves its purposes, and it has a lot of members and readers who do not submit articles or Digg on them.

People who submit the articles, and the people who wrote those articles can get a lot of attention if an article gets adequately Dugg to boost it to prominence. This attention may be parlayed into increased traffic for the article, Digg member name recognition, author name recognition, publishing website name recognition and resulting prominence, contracts, sales, etc.

What does it take to become a success on Digg? How does it feel to be a success at Digg? Who are the biggies at Digg? Here’s an article with some first class answers to these and other questions about Digg - “HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE POPULAR ON DIGG?,” appearing on the DesignInterviews Blog and written by Helen Walker. Helen interviews five very successful Digg members:

Jonathan Snook - http://snook.ca/
Mark Boulton - http://markboulton.co.uk/
Jonathan Nicon - http://f6design.com/
Alex Griffioen - http://www.oscaralexander.com/
Joe Dolson - http://www.joedolson.com/

She has some great responses to some great questions. What you can learn from this article? Better read it.

Digg Me?
Arthur Browning

Gateways for transacting business online have made financial dealings possible and convenient. The online payment gateways are the best way to electronically transfer money. Which one is best for you.

Online payment gateways are financial agents who act as intermediaries on the internet between buyer and seller, sender and receiver of funds. Online payment gateways conveniently permit visitors to make payments and transfer funds any where on the planet that has an internet terminal worldwide.

Some online payment gateways have the abilities to send an invoice or make payment online - done through emails or cell phones. For international tranfers they may even provide a currency exchange with very low charges.

Increasing use of the online payment gateways has occurred for many reasons: 1) the transfer of money or payment is convenient 2) the security measure of encryption is used to prevent any hacking or scamming 3) the transactions can be guaranteed for users. Setting up the online payment gateway on a website allows visitors to complete purchases quickly and easily.

Making a choice as to which payment gateway is best for you is an important decision. One very important factor is gateway compatibility. Any online payment system that is compatible with only a few other gateways automatically narrows your options.

Customers may balk at doing business with a merchant or service provider whose online payment gateway is not compatible with the most popular systems. Here are some criteria for deciding which gateway is best for you.

1) The security measures - does the system be use a digital signature to inhibit hacking?

2) The dynamic IP address records - do they provide additional security by running a check on the IP address used in prior user transactions?

3) The 128-bit security by Secure Socket Layer - do they use SSL automatic encryption?

4) The compatibility - do they operate with banks, credit cards, Western Union, American Express, other gateways?

5) The guarantee - do they guarantee transactions and offer a reimbursement if there is a problem?

6) The speed - do they quickly process all transactions? - checks can take days to clear if not electronically processed - credit card transactions and money transfers from a funded account should be instantaneous.

Payment gateway systems like Google’s Checkout, Epay, PayPal and MoneyBookers.com each offer some good features. One problem with larger companies is that they are the first targets of hackers. Microsoft Windows is hacked more than Apple and Internet Explorer is hacked much more than Firefox.

PayPal is the largest and oldest payment gateway and it gets the most hacks. There are thousands of scams conducted against PayPal accounts. PayPal is also the respondent in several class action suits because of problems with customer accounts. PayPal has lost many customers because they tried to exclude other systems from Ebay.

One excellent gateway payment system without all the hacking and lawsuit problems is MoneyBookers.com. They provide all the services quickly, easily and safely. When you shop around for payment gateway systems you should remember that no system is without limitations.

Every system needs to achieve a user-friendly status to serve the merchant and the buyer - and to be around for the future.

Wal-Mart should sell small solar generator and electric hookup kits for the grid - then watch their stock prices rise.  Ask them at their link.
Arthur Browning

Hosting is steadily moving to dedicated hosting, and that movement will continue for the next few years. Need for a consistent online presence for any business will demand webpage updates or a new website.

When webpages are designed or improved hosting services have to be reviewed also. Should the website remain in shared hosting (also known as virtual hosting) - or should the website switch to dedicated hosting.

Dedicated hosting is more dependable and a real asset to websites that generate revenue directly form their 24/7 online presence. Dedicated hosting has traditionally been delivered by an many providers, but dedicated hosting is a real specialty that requires special skills to provide the types of hosting products necessary with stability.

Demand for dedicated hosting is increasing. Dedicated hosting services accounts had been slow and complex to set up and to change, for both the ISP and the customer. Determining what hardware, burn testing, server OS configuration, application configuration, IDC installation and connectivity configuration all had to be discussed.

It had been a time consuming and expensive affair for all the parties involved. But new virtualization tech is now ready to make dedicated hosting simpler and faster by eliminating the complexity while bringing additional virtual hosting benefits that did not exist previously. Servers give scalable, dedicated hosting services now quickly and easily.

This new tech eliminates hardware, hardware drivers and hardware upgrades for customers and it delivers higher levels of availability which allows clones of production environments to be created for a unified process.

As a service provider or a customer, it’s necessary to know the many different types of server virtualisation which have different prices and levels of resource control as well as base-OS independence.

VMware Virtual Infrastructure 3 seems to head the class in these criteria, combining the very highest resource control with the elimination of hardware drivers. Infrastructure 3 also allows intelligent redistribution of VMs from any failed physical servers to the remaining healthy servers.

Server virtualisation technology is expanding its customer base because virtualised hosting service providers and customers see the possibilities for a high-quality virtualised hosting.

Moving In All the Right Circles,
Arthur Browning

“Imagine if you could speak to every individual that visits your website, answer their questions, communicate key marketing messages and make sure they either make a purchase or leave their contact information. How about if you could offer this level of 24/7 support for less than $10 a month? If it sounds too good to believe, you haven’t heard of SitePal.”

Okay, Arthur is imagining that right now - about whether a virtual employee is a good idea.  If that virtual employee could answer every FAQ concisely and in a well-modulated voice with well-enunciated answers, then I would count that as a plus.

It is true that people can respond to machine and recorded voice communications.  I am thinking now of computerized counselling programs and telephone voice answering services that are well-planned and effective.

That you need a customizable moving image/cartoon character to anthropomorphically engender trust for engagement and reassurance is even conceivable for many visitors, especially the impaired or immature.

“Use A SitePal Virtual Employee To:
* Increase your conversions and sales
* Engage your visitors to take action
* Provide information on your product
* Collect leads from your visitors
Try it FREE for 15 Days
Over 100 models to customizefor your needs
How it Works
SitePal is web-based software that allows you to create animated speaking characters that act as virtual employees on your website. Using SitePal’s easy-to-use, powerful online editing tool, you can:

* Customize the character to your liking
* Add audio through either voice recording or text-to-speech functionality
* Publish it to your website within minutes

The process is virtually automated, no technical experience is required and characters can be changed whenever you want. A SitePal virtual employee is a cost-effective, proven way to enhance the customer experience, reinforce your brand and improve business results.

Visit www.SitePal.com to learn how other businesses benefit from SitePal.”

It could be good - but I think I should see some working examples of this product on several sites.  Then I can write up a short commentary in WTB for all you internet people out there.

We Cannot Fear the Future,
Arthur Browning

The closer we get to April 1st the more I have to think about my April Fool’s Day tricks. Although I don’t consider myself a professional fool, I have some very professional moments. Here’s a little vignette to explain: I went to the
Template Monster website and entered the name of a celebrity, “Angelina Jolie”, into the “keyword” section of the search page.

The next thing I saw gave the fool in me a real laugh. When I entered that celebrity-related keyword the logo at the TemplateMonster.com website had changed. Although the logo is a little blue monster with huge ears – it had changed into a nice little blue Angelina Jolie - also with huge ears!

The same thing happened when I entered the names of Brad Pitt, Bruce Willis, Will Smith, Jennifer Lopez (even “J.Lo”) and Steven Seagal. Each time the logo changed into a blue monster, big-earred version of that celebrity.

Yes, it is absolutely worth the visit. Look at it before someone blows the whistle. Just search your favorite celeb – see what you get! That’s what I call a great April Fools’ Day prank!

This could be considered quite unexpected from those techies, but they do have some creative fools there too. So, Happy April Fools’ Day! WTB wants to thank TM for the laugh and the April Fools’ Day trick.

Live! From the Template of Fools!
Arthur Browning

There has been something of a phenomenon in recent years that seems to be acceleratibg to meet demand. I wrote an article for Ezine about it - “Women Home Porn Stars Make New Million Dollar Business of Cottage Industry on Internet Websites”.

I did a little investigation and received some stats from www.adult-templates.com . They told me that sales were good, these templates were popular because they only needed to change out photo files.

How did this happen? Maybe it’s just the natural course of events. Look at it: 1) Stay-at-home job 2) good income 3) less work 4) new technology 5) new culture 6) fame 7) public demand. How do these women (some guys too) decide to join in a burgeoning industry? - - Go figure.

What Happened to the Old Days?
Arthur Browning

Call for Web Designers - Email for Interview

Web Templates Blog is planning to begin a new sister blog, Design Interviews. The new blog will be dedicated to interviewing webpage designers with interesting portfolios and usable web development savvy.

If you are a web designer please contact me by comment to this blog post and send me a link to your webpage. I am always on the lookout for good designs.

Stay tuned for the URL of the new site and further announcements as I progress in the completion of the website.

From that Wild, Wacky, Wonderful World of the Web,
Arthur Browning

How does age matter? Ethically and legally speaking age matters for many websites. Economically speaking there is also the issue of financial responsibility. For the websites offering mature services and adult products the age verification process is a must, even though it is frought with shortcomings. The news is full of chatroom related problems and crimes.

Most states are pushing for improved age and/or identity checks - a probable further loss of the right to privacy. But you shouldn’t be able to transact in these environments without responsibilty - and I guess that means honesty as to your identity. Big concerns over sexual predators are just the beginning for the push to improve age and identity checks.

Improved identification with minimal infringements of rights, as well as keeping the web a user-friendly environment for communication and commerce is the big trick here. Nobody has bottom-lined all the implications so far. Any improvements will take cooperation and patience.

Messaging and sharing of photos is huge for kids and teens. I’ve seen some of the photos and text from those interactions. They range from typical or fun to raw or grotesque. Parents, school administrators and police have become increasingly worried that teens are finding more trouble than they can deal with. There have been plenty of arrests and lawsuits stemming from the new “e-street”.

A lot of websites allow visitors to self-report their age. There are tools to verify age, used most effectively porn sites or sales of alcholic beverages. A credit card acts as both identity and age verification for many sites, but the card could be borrowed or used secretly. IDology Inc. and Sentinel Tech Holding Corp.’s Sentry use various methods to check addresses, birth dates and other information that users have provided versus the record of public databases, like voting and property records.

Minors do not have as many unique identifiers as adults do - they are not registered voters, they don’t have mortgages or car loans, many don’t have driver’s licenses. Schools have legitimate concerns about releasing student records to various corps and agencies, and some states restrict disclosure of driver’s license information on minors.

Changing to a more reliable system entails cost too. And any technical solution that is rigid enough to work would penalize the legitimate users who cannot be verified. There is also a concern that partial enforcement of indentity measures would only drive kids and troublemakers to a non-compliant website - kind of like slipping away from teacher’s view at a dance. Half solutions in fact would give parents and children a false sense of security, and possibly increase risk.

Freedom vs Responsibility - the biggest question in Eden.

Against the Wind,

Arthur Browning

Template Monster washed its hands of Ultravertex.com, citing Ultarvertex.com’s unethical business practices. Ultravertex.com, an image provider for webpage designers, had been a partner for some years with Template Monster. The basis of the partnership was a contract whereby Template Monster purchased an exclusive license from Ultravertex.com which entitled Template Monster customers to a free account with the image provider.

Ultravertex.com was allegedly barring Template Monster customers from downloading its graphic image files. Numerous complaints and requests sent to Ultravertex.com had gone unanswered, according to Template Monster’s customer reports. Template Monster states that it tried to investigate the situation but received no response to its several inquiries of Ultravertex.com. Additionally, Template Monster states it was recently made aware of Ultravertex.com’s alleged misuse of images that they do not own. Further, Template Monster gave notice to everyone involved that they have dissolved their partnership with Ultravertex.com and will have no further dealings with them.

Template Monster made the decision to break off the partnership agreement and believes they may well have to go to court to protect their customers and themselves. Template Monster removed all the links to Ultravertex.com from the TM webpages. And Template Monster issued a recommendation to all of its clients that they no longer use any images from Ultravertex.com.

“We are extremely upset with this situation,� says David Braun, CEO of Template Monster. “The free account with the image provider was a great bonus for our clients. Unfortunately, we have no other choice but to break off this partnership in order not to mislead our clients. We are very sorry about the situation but we do promise to provide a similar bonus for all of our clients as soon as possible.�

I personally would like to know what Template Monster will offer its customers as a replacement bonus. And, readers, if you have info on Ultravertex.com send me a comment.

Arthur Browning

Template Monster Press Room issued a release (Template Monster Presents CRE Loaded Templates) regarding their new Template product called CRE Loaded Template. This Webpage Template variation was designed to more fully accomodate osCommerce. In response to the requests of buyers and designers Web Monster put “CRE Loaded” into template form, which makes a specialized and highly functional webpage very affordable. Now, that’s what I’m talking about. Template Monster also provided the Webpage design for CRELoaded.com.

Arthur Browning