Our web editing software has been reviewed by the editor of the Hertfordshire IoD Magazine. After plugging our software into his own site he was completely blown away. Stephen has experience using web editing software in the past with his editorial and high-end business background and he has never come accross something so easy to use, so to-the-point as ours.

Read the full article here and try out the new demo at www.zakomedia.com/demos/cms

Another techie one sorry. I’ll write an online marketing blog next I promise.

I am constantly testing new technologies, new ideas and new concepts for the online world. I’m keep to find marketing opportunities for myself and my web clients and I’m keen to spot holes which need filling in the hope that I, or a client can fill it.

Pretty much every program has ‘Import contacts from…’, ‘Synchronise with…’, ‘link to…’

Ecademy has no Twitter feed box, the blog RSS feed is awkward and there’s little or no expandability to link to facebook etc.

I just installed ‘Flock’ browser. I like it (Thanks Mark) it’s based on the firefox engine so has that stability and allows me to monitor RSS feeds, Twitter and Facebook contacts, check my gmail and bring together a lot of site internet wide.

Ecademy sadly wasn’t listed… In fact I’ve never seen Ecademy listed… I’ve seen one or two for LinkedIn but I never got on with it personally like I do Ecad…

Is Ecademy falling behind?
Does it need a big face lift to catch up with the big boys?
Does Ecademy need a good developer to release a stable API for these people to link in with the platform?
Should Ecad employ developers to write Firefox/flock/facebook/IE plug-ins?
Would it even benefit from linking with the rest of the gang? Should it remain unto itself?

Opinions?

Tags: internet, social networking, twitter, facebook, RSS, network, ecademy, gypsii

If you didn’t get Twitter, you may be interested to learn of another company offering something similar but more complete.

Gypsii works specifically from a mobile phone as more people travel with mobiles than with laptops. It allows sending of images, ratings, text etc. With a local search feature you can not only find the nearest restaurants and shops, but you can also see what your friends and other Gypsii users have said about them.

Scored the ultimate pool or golf shot? now you can capture all who did witness it to show you’re the champ to people who didn’t.

Interesting idea? Before anyone starts on at me about it being invasive, remember that people only see what you decide to tell them. Anyone using it already? Let me (us) know how you’re getting on with it.

Taken from C|net Facebook Connect: For those who don’t like clicking… this is copied from the article:

Social network Facebook announced Friday the debut of Facebook Connect, a new technology for members to connect their profile data and authentication credentials to external Web sites. It makes the company the latest major Web site to embrace the concept of data portability.

The formal announcement was made through a post on Facebook’s developer blog by senior platform manager Dave Morin, who has been one of the company’s most visible evangelists in the developer community over the past year. Facebook Connect will launch within the next few weeks.

Through Facebook Connect, members will be able to use their Facebook identities across the Web–profile photos, names, photos, friends, groups, events, and other information. Facebook profile content, for example, could appear on other social sites, and Facebook event listings could theoretically connect with external event and invitation services.

Facebook will handle the authentication process, and while privacy controls have not been made clear, the company has stressed that user security will be a priority. And there’s reason to believe Facebook will be particularly careful: The company already partners with outside services to share data in its Beacon advertising program, and the PR missteps surrounding Beacon’s launch are something that Facebook likely does not want to repeat.

It’s a big move for the site. Until this point, Facebook has had a reputation for keeping its cards close to its chest–even banning the account of popular blogger Robert Scoble when he used a script to export his Facebook contact list to Plaxo. But Facebook has a representative in the Data Portability Workgroup, and executives have said that Facebook has wanted to bring its information outside the site eventually.

“These are just a few steps Facebook is taking to make the vision of data portability a reality for users worldwide,” Morin wrote in his blog post. “We believe the next evolution of data portability is about much more than data. It’s about giving users the ability to take their identity and friends with them around the Web, while being able to trust that their information is always up to date and always protected by their privacy settings.”

“We believe the next evolution of data portability is about much more than data. It’s about giving users the ability to take their identity and friends with them around the Web, while being able to trust that their information is always up to date and always protected by their privacy settings.”
–Dave Morin, Facebook senior platform manager

Last month, Facebook started partnering with other social sites to pull external data into Facebook’s “mini-feeds,” displaying user activity from the likes of Flickr and Yelp on Facebook profile pages.

No partner Web sites for Facebook Connect have been announced yet, but director of platform Ben Ling explained to CNET News.com that “there’s been a lot of partner interest.” One partner, however, was displayed in mockups on Facebook’s developer blog: social news site Digg.

The technical details also remain unannounced. “We’re not announcing the details of the partner integration today,” Ling said. “What we’re announcing at a high level is that we will have a program that’s built into partners large and small, and they will be able to access Facebook Connect.”

Facebook kick-started the social-networking developer platform craze when it launched the Facebook Platform a year ago. But on Thursday, bigger rival MySpace made a big move when it opened its own profile content to outside sites–in a sense the reverse of Facebook’s famous decision to welcome external developers onto its own site. Facebook representatives said Friday that there are now more than 350,000 developers from 225 countries developing for the platform, although one prominent programmer said earlier this week that he believes activity may be slowing.

Facebook has also held over 50 “developer garage” events in 10 countries, and Ling said that Facebook Connect will be discussed at future “garages.”

One Facebook insider, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said to CNET News.com that the project had been in the works for quite some time, and said the announcement wasn’t issued as a response to MySpace’s “Data Availability” project. “We actually think what they are up to is pretty cool.”

Representatives from MySpace were not immediately available for comment.

MySpace has partnered with the likes of eBay and Yahoo for Data Availability, which means that many of the Web’s biggest names are now warming up to the idea of social-network identity portability. It’s likely to be popular with users eager to quell the onset of “social fatigue” from too many logins and profiles, but privacy and security advocates may raise a red flag–as might advertisers, to whom Facebook’s walled-in user base was ideal for targeted marketing. Spreading that data across the Web could complicate matters on that front.

Sorry, another stolen blog, this time from Greg Howlett and can be found at MarketingPilgrim With Google and other Search Engines becoming more intelligent and concentrating on human content for human searches, is SEO really worth it’s money in the long run or will there always be a need?

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According to Shoemoney, SEO has no future. I do not always agree with him, but in this case, he is dead right. Let me pull on my flame retardant suit before I explain why.First, understand that the only reason SEO has ever worked is because search engines were not advanced enough to always show relevant information. I remember when I started selling online. At the time, I had only a few competitors in my industry and it was easy to beat them in the SEO game. It took only a few metatags and such, and within weeks, I was dominant.That went on for years. Back in those days, a monkey could have dominated search engines rankings. We moved from metatags to inbound links with the right anchor text and continued our domination. How easy was it? I basically knew during that period how many inbound links we needed to achieve top three rankings, and the results were uncannily consistent.

Eventually, the search engines got smarter, and ended the concept of guaranteed SEO dominance. Some people are still in denial. I still have SEO snake oil salesmen calling me trying to sell me link trading services.

Here is why SEO as we know it is going to continue its death spiral. Search engines are too smart and they have a different agenda. They do not want to reward crummy companies that play SEO games–they want to give the top listings to the best companies. And they are quickly gaining access to the information they need to do exactly that. They will use traffic and buying stats to figure out who the top companies are.

Take my industry of health supplements. Do you think Google wants to reward the SEO contortions of unknown companies and affiliates with lots of free business? Of course not–they want to send their visitors to the top supplement sites in the industry.

Within a year or two, they will be good at it. I can predict what supplement companies will be showing on the first page of Google soon. They will be the companies that have strong brands and lots of business. If you are not in the top ten of your industry, you had better find a way to get there in a hurry if you want to be on the first page of Google.

Yes, this means that the rich will get richer and the poor will starve for SEO traffic. If you are not in the first category, you had better find a way to get there quick. The middle class is about to disappear.

In my last article, I wrote about the importance of branding on the conversion rate. If you want a long term SEO strategy, guess where your focus should be? Yes, your branding. Forget the typical SEO tricks; focus instead on building your brand to a position where Google WANTS you on the front page of results.

If you absolutely have to hire an SEO expert, hire one that understands this truth. I think, however, that you would be better served by largely forgetting about SEO and focusing instead on building your brand.