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JimWorld Gazette Issue #47 04/03/1998
Gazette - Issue #47 - April 3, 1998
In case you haven't seen it on the JimWorld home page, the diligent members of the JimWorld community have earned themselves the Surfer's Choice Site Of The Year Award. Your reputation continues to grow. People are taking notice of the largest Spam Free Zone on the web. Congratulations to us all. <http://www.technomax.com>----------
I received a large number of volunteers to my request last week for writers to research and profile e-commerce sites on the web. The high quality of each of these volunteers has led me to expand my thinking on this entire issue. Instead of overworking one or two writers, I think we would all benefit from having lots of qualified writers covering many more sites. I will be getting back to all of you who volunteered later this week with my plan. Thank you for stepping forward to help this community grow and learn.
I also received an equal number of volunteers to help with the cgi programming that I mentioned. I have each one of your generous offers in my file and will be tapping each of you on the shoulder for help as we move into new areas of service to this community.
As more and more people step forward to give of themselves to the JimWorld community, it becomes constantly more of a home town instead of Jim's formal living room where guests are entertained. I couldn't be more pleased. Especially as I see how well it is working with the writers for the Gazette and the many Forum moderators who are all carrying a heavy load in order to help. I hope nobody decides to run against me in the first Mayor's Election for JimTown.
CONTENTS
-- Pack Your Bags. We're Moving.-- Make Sure You Can Get Out.
-- Holy Scumbags Batman!
-- Forums Update.
-- The Outing.
-- The Search Engine Bible - Review.
-- MailKing - Review.
-- Tips From The Hitman - Part XXVIII.
-- Calling All Programmers.
-- Snippets.
Link to this issue of the Gazette as http://gazetteworld.com/go/to.cgi?l=g47
PACK YOUR BAGS. WE'RE MOVING
We've outgrown our current server as most of you are painfully aware. Actually, it's not so much that we've outgrown the Dezines server as the fact that their server continues to approach a full stop. I would gladly give you some feedback on what the problems are, but Dezines doesn't accept phone calls from customers and only occasionally answers email support requests.I get lots of offers to host our sites in return for a mention here and there on the site and they are all appreciated. But I've long had my eye on the server farm at iServer in Utah. I met iServer's CEO, Kent Millington at last year's Internet World but kept missing him this year at his booth. Since Kent and I met, iServer has been acquired by a larger company, Verio, which has added even more resources to the iServer tool kit. Now they even offer Net access on a separate network.
iServer has always had a first class reputation. Their servers and connections to the web are outstanding. Their prices are modest for the quality you get.
Kent and his team at iServer have offered to host this community for a couple of reasons. First, he feels that JimWorld is a resource that offers its community real value. The other reason is in the best tradition of business. He wants to show you how good his servers and service are by letting you experience them first hand.
I am already moving the site and expect to be fully moved in and unpacked by the beginning of the week. Might take a few more days to get all of the pictures up on the walls.
I am working with Kent and his team to design some special hosting packages for Gazeteers based on the tools so many of you need in order to build and support your web communities. Hopefully I'll have some details ironed out by next issue. In the meantime, stop in at JimWorld and enjoy the new community-size sandbox.
iServer <http://iserver/>
MAKE SURE YOU CAN GET OUT
Before you get in.I have received several versions of the same message over the past few weeks. The message deals with an important issue, so instead of answering each individually in the future, I think everyone would benefit from a short (sure, Jim. Short? You?) discussion.
The messages all start off about the same:
"I operate a site at
The short answer: It Can Be A Good Idea, But.......
First, let's talk about the Scumbags that --might-- be behind this. They don't usually mean to be Scumbags, but life happens and that's where they wind up.
A typical scenario would be a site that feels that if they could just get enough content together, they could sell tons of advertising. So by adding your site, and several others, they can have enough traffic to sell advertising. The problem is, they have never been successful at selling advertising before and it is not as easy as they think it is. It's not as easy as anybody thinks it is.
The thing that qualifies these people for Scumbagdom is when they don't tell you that they haven't really done this before. Instead they spin a web of half -truths and try to dazzle you with tales of endless wealth. Let's face it. If they told you the truth, they don't figure they have a chance of selling you on the idea.
So let's say you sign up with one of these webmaster-to-riches schemes. How bad can it be, right?
How bad is -- you could loose your entire web site and all of its content to these folks. When they move you onto their server, of course they 'have' to list themselves on the Internic registration, right? And now your traffic and your domain name are in their hands. They now own your site. Lock, stock and barrel.
But you have a contract with them, right? So you are protected, right? Sure you are. As long as you're willing to spend lots of time and money taking them to court. And by the time you win, your original asset, your site and the community around it, will have been driven into the ground. Worthless.
So, does it always have to be this way? No. There are examples every day of sites being merged, acquired or otherwise blended into bigger cooperatives.
Mecklermedia, ClickZ and several others have all been in the news lately for having bought out existing web communities and bringing them under their umbrella.
Did you notice the word 'bought' in the above sentence? It is the key word. They sit down and talk, work up an offer and employment agreement, write a check that doesn't bounce, and things change hands. Press releases go out. When someone wants something of mine, they get my attention best by starting the conversation with: 'Here's what we would like to pay you for what you have.' Great opening line.
So, short of writing you a check, is there no way to enter into growth agreements that leaves you protected. Yes. There are some rules to follow, but it can be done in a way that protects you and doesn't damage the chances of success. If the people trying to dazzle you don't want to do it your way, don't talk to them any more. Don't do anything with them. You'll lose.
- Find out who they are. Do some investigation. See if they pay their bills. Find out if any of them are still on parole. Any current lawsuits?
- Have they done this with (or to) other people? If so, who? Talk to the who and find out if it has been a great experience.
- How much advertising are they selling currently? For how much? Look at the books. Talk to the people buying the advertising.
- Don't let anybody, and I mean anybody, communicate with Internic about your domain name. I have even heard lots of horror stories of ISP's holding domain names hostage. The domain name is your asset. If someone wants to control your domain name, tell them the price and give them the name after the check clears the bank. There is no valid reason why your domain name has to be in the name of anyone besides you. Don't even let someone else handle the transfer with Internic in your name. The forms are very easy to fill out and there is no reason for anyone else to be involved. Want to see my email box with all of the stories of 'partnerships' that wound up with the creator on the outside and the Scumbag on the inside?
- Does your site actually have to be on their server in order for a marketing agreement to be put into force? Why? Better be a pretty darn good reason.
- If the company that wants to partner with you is being paid in advance for advertising, why should you have to wait 30, 60 or 90 days to be paid? It is your traffic that they are selling. You should be paid when they are paid.
- Beware of the contract that you sign. If it doesn't have performance clauses, don't sign it. It is easy for someone to sign a contract with you if it doesn't have any risk for them. There should be clearly spelled out performance requirements that they have to reach or they lose their control over your advertising space and have to pay you for their non-performance.
- Don't let them get behind in their payments to you. If they can't send you a check, pull the ads from your site until they get caught up. If it happens more than once, require them to put money into an escrow account to guarantee that you will always get paid.
- Be very, very careful. It can work great for you or be a nightmare. You determine which at the very beginning. If you retain control and power, you will always be OK.
One of the truly great potential ideas I have seen is the Robot Wars. It has the promise to become a giant force in the 21st century. The web site is a past winner of the Way Cool Hot Site Award. The Robot Wars events are much publicized and drawing an ever increasing audience to the live events. It is riding the crest of the wave of technological fanaticism over the race to build the ultimate robot. The same technology that put a wildly successful robot on Mars.
Robot Wars was started by a visionary with a great idea but no money. So, after endless hours of work and taking the idea to a point where it had proven its potential and gained a worldwide audience, the visionary brought in a partner to provide the funding needed to take the project the rest of the way.
That was pretty much the end of the project, and the visionary. His partner now has everything totally tied up. The visionary can't even put on his annual events without the new partner's permission. Of course, the permission is being denied for the second year in a row. The whole program is in total disarray and will probably wind up moving forward eventually without the visionary. I'm sure that the partner has his own side of this story, but the reality is that a great idea has died because the work wasn't done up-front. Later is too late. So instead of both of them winning big, they will probably wind up both in the loser's column. That is sad for both of them and sad for the public that has grown fond of the Robot Wars events.
Just remember that Gazeteers are higher on the food chain than the sharks in the water. And when someone tells you that 'it is time to fish or cut bait' they usually have you in mind for the role of the bait.
HOLY SCUMBAGS BATMAN!
Maybe I missed something, but I followed a link from a spam message I received just to see what was up. I entered the inner circles of Spam Hell.When I arrived at the site, my browser started creating new browser windows at a furious rate. And every time I tried to close one of these little remotes, two more took its place. Nothing I did was able to get past this particular scumbag's Javascript. He was in total control of my browser.
Each of these little windows just sat there and reloaded his HitBox counter, Banner Swap banners and some other varied non-content. It's a frenzied attack on every source of traffic that this 'person' could find a way to cheat on.
I've written all of the victims I could locate letting them know that their rules are being broken and their other users being ripped off. You might want to do the same.
- Banner Swap <http://www.bannerswap.com/>
- HitBox <http://www.hitbox.com/wc/world.html>
I would give you an email address for HitBox, but they have removed them all from their site. Wonder what that means? Problems?
- SmartClicks <http://www.smartclicks.com/>
John from SmartClicks has also revoked the account of this scam. Just what you would expect from a class act like SmartClicks.
- LinkExchange <http://linkexchange/>
- ValueClick <http://www.valueclick.com/> <advertise@valueclick.com>
Ethan at ValueClick let me know that they have nix'd this 'tool'. I also have some good information for next week about ValueClick for you. Stay tuned.
- Traffic Exchange <http://205.231.210.13/>
TrafficExchange was the first to reply to my email and has already canceled the account of our Scumbag. They are to be congratulated for their professional stand on web ethics.
- AddNet
- Register-It has a banner on the home page of this site
- PostMaster Direct has a banner on the home page
- BeSeen.com is letting them have a free chat room
- HitBox <http://www.hitbox.com/wc/world.html>
Visit at your own peril. It won't actually hurt your system, but you will have to restart your browser.
Absolute Traffic Incubator 2000
<http://www.nadri.co.kr/~minware/join.html>
If nobody comes up with a better nominee, it looks like the Scumbag Of The Year - 1998 is all sown up for this year.
See you next week. Same Bat time. Same Bat channel.
FORUMS UPDATE
The Forums are creating a small amount of email from people who can't see anything in the Forums. Much of this is a result of the Internet Explorer bug described in the Snippets section this week. Others are experiencing problems because they have cookies and Javascript turned off in the browsers.If you are one of the ones that distrusts cookies and Javascript, you will find my sites becoming steadily less effective for you. Much of the new technology that makes the new and planned features work are based on Javascript and cookies. To not utilize these powerful tools would be a real diservice to the vast majority of visitors who rely on us for the tools of everyday work.
If you are part of the minority that thinks that a cookie will allow me to snoop into your computer and find out your dress size, weight or checking account number, you need to rethink your position. Cookies just can't do anything like that. What they can do is bring an amazing amount of automation to a site. It allows the browser to identify you when you return to the site, remember when you were here last and present you with forum messages that have been posted since your last visit. Or remember where you left off last time in your submissions to the 500. Or know that you prefer to see a low bandwidth version of the site.
I could ask you all of these things each and every time that you come to the site, but why put us both to so much effort when perfectly good tools exist to make life easier for us both.
As webmasters or site operators, it is critical that you not fall victim to the hysteria generated by the over zealous mass media as they fight for ratings. You should be in the group of knowledgable and educated elite who will help take the web to the next level. But with all of the unfounded fear generated by misinformation, the road to that future gets steeper every day.
The only choice webmasters have is to evaluate the benefits of technology versus the loss of some portion of their audience. I have made my decision to allow these sites to continue to evolve in response to the needs and desires of the large majority. In order for one person (me) to keep expanding the content of my site, I must employ technology that helps me, and helps the users.
As in the Forums, I will always put forth the effort to try to accommodate the visitor who has his browser features turned off. But that version's features will be greatly limited compared to the features available to the users with a full compliment of browser functions. And in some cases, there will not be a way to accommodate limited browser users at all.
I am fortunate as most of you in these communities understand technology and do not cripple your browser out of fear. This may not be the case for your community. Your site may not have the luxury of such an educated community. You must evaluate the technology issue in light of your circumstances, not mine.
If you are really attached to your concerns over cookies, Javascript and other technological breakthroughs, you are of course welcome to try and change my mind. But unless you have facts and not just rumors and references to Hard Copy and the National Inquirer, don't bother. And bear in mind that I haven't changed my mind in 30 years. But maybe you'll be the one to break that winning streak.
As to the Forums, I continue to receive a steadily growing file of Thank You messages from visitors who have solved problems that have plagued them for months. Yahoo listings in days after months of frustration. Traffic that has shot up overnight. Advice on site and community problems.
It's happening in the Forums. Is it happening without you? Why? Don't need any more traffic or sales? Then share how you did it.
THE OUTING
For those of you that have been hanging out around here for a while, you'll recall last year's Boy Scout outing that I told you about. In the Troop we have a lot of shooting instructors and we take about 100 boys out to the desert for a weekend of shooting and food. I can never resist telling you about these weekends.This year in addition to the usual black powder rifles, .22 caliber rifles, skeet shooting, model rockets and archery we had a small upgrade to our arsenal. You haven't lived until you've been awakened in the morning by a 10 pound Civil War cannon. It does get you up. I think the boys enjoyed that a tad more than the adults.
While I was researching e-commerce sites for the upcoming series of articles, I found myself at the web site for North American Arms. They manufacturer some of the coolest miniature revolvers (and now a semi-automatic) that are small enough to fit in the palm of your hand.
I was having a grand time looking over how well they had constructed their site for a balance between information, service and sales until I stumbled into the page that displayed their .22 caliber miniature revolver built for black powder. I was in love. Had to get my hands on one. I wrote the webmaster and explained about our outing and suggested they might want to loan me one to use on the outing. They said yes, and the gun was a major hit with everyone. It was more fun than I could imagine.
The problem came when I had to face the prospect of sending this cool tool back to the manufacturer. No way. Had to have it. The ad that follows is part of what I worked out so that I wouldn't have to send it back. That was not an option. If you enjoy shooting, you have to see these.
But back to their site. It is an excellent model to look at for good balance between needing to actually close sales and making a visitor feel welcome and unpressured. My hat is off to them. Their web site is as good as their products. I intend to make them the subject of my first profile of e-commerce sites. Not because I owe it to them, but because it works. They sell well on the web, and that is how I measure success.
BTW - if you have a kid, are they in Scouting? It is one of the major tools that Cathy and I have employed in keeping Nicholas on the right path and now that he is almost a teenager, every day I am grateful for what the program has done for him and for our family. Besides, where else can I go out and blow stuff up without getting arrested or having to sign up for 3 years of duty? If you haven't shot off a rocket that goes up several thousand feet on a pillar of fire and smoke, you haven't lived!
THE SEARCH ENGINE BIBLE - REVIEW
Most of you know TJ Walker of Software Solutions <http://www.softwaresolutions.net/> He writes for the Gazette, mostly about credit card fraud. TJ is also the master distributor for WebSuite and other SmartDesk products.I had been talking with TJ and a client of his, Clyde Brinley. Clyde is extremely knowledgable about search engine placement and has been in the process of writing a book about that subject. A couple of weeks ago, I asked TJ when I could get a copy to review. TJ's response was that he didn't want to put me on the spot by asking me to review the book, thinking I might feel awkward if I didn't like the book. Personally, I think he was afraid, because he knows that I have never found a 'Secrets of the Search Engines' book that I couldn't find several bad things to say about them.
I told TJ to send along the book, and if I thought it stunk, I would just throw it away and not review it. After all, he is our master distributor. The fact that I am publishing this review must tell you that the book passed muster with me. I never thought it would come to this. A good search engine book. Go figure.
Clyde lives in Branson Missouri, a town named after my mother's side of the family, so he got 4 points right away. Clyde seems to be another on-line soul with no other life. He submits hundreds of pages to the search engines and tracks everything in this giant data base. Thousands of trials and results. Through all of the gyrations that the search engines are going through.
He's now put the knowledge he has gained from all of this 'work' (I think he enjoys it too much, and just calls it work.) into a very good book, The Search Engine Bible.
The Bible arrives as an .exe file. When you run it, it installs the Bible onto your system and you access it with your browser. The book is pleasing to look at and the navigation leaves no questions as to how to find what you are looking for. All in all, nicely published. Not what we've come to expect from electronic publishing, which is usually just a text file.
The contents page lists the following sections: Contents, Introduction, Author, What Is, How, Summary, Title Name, Meta Tag, ALT Tag, First, Case Study, Fine Tune, Don't Do, Spiders, Fine Tune, Advanced, Beyond, and if you subscribe to the update newsletters, Updates.
Clyde walks you through the entire process of understanding the process of getting high rankings in the search engines. From Meta tags to doorway pages and everything in-between. Clyde's techniques are anti-spamming to an extreme that I find refreshing. His approach is to work the search engines from within the system, not by attacking with the dirty tricks that can get you banned from ever being listed.
The updates that continue to arrive on a regular basis are full of detailed information about the latest developments at each of the search engines. Again, with an eye towards doing it the right way. Not by spamming.
All together, the Bible and the updates make a very attractive package. An excellent 'course' in search engine promotion for the beginner, and an excellent source of on-going factual information for the pro. The updates are on my list of things to read whenever I see it in my mail box. No hint of the usual 'Secrets Of The Search Engines' rip-offs. Just good, solid information.
Clyde and TJ gave me permission to show you some of the contents of the book and part of an update. I have posted this on the JimWorld site at <http://jimworld.com/sebiblereview/> so that you can evaluate for yourself how valuable this might be for you. Take the time to check it out. Even for the old pros out there, there will be plenty of good information that will be new and useful to you.
If you want to order, go to <http://www.softwaresolutions.net/sebible/>
MAILKING - REVIEW
While I was at Internet World, I made it a point to stop by the RevNet booth to meet Walter Thames and the rest of the RevNet crew. As you undoubtedly know, RevNet has been hosting the Gazette mailing list out of the goodness of their hearts for many months. The GroupMaster software runs so smoothly that I never have occasion to talk to Walter or the support department.When RevNet first entered the picture here, I was still using NetMailer to send out the Gazette and with a list of 7,500 subscribers, I was way beyond the design parameters of NetMailer. NetMailer is an excellent product and I have given it many good reviews. But now, the developers of NetMailer have raised the price of the package. At $49.95 it was a steal and something that every webmaster should have a copy of. But at the current price of $399.95 for the same software, it is not on my list of things you should buy.
I had talked this over with Walter and he had told me to stop by during the show and pick up a CD of RevNet's soon to be released package - MailKing. I did and I used it and it has been correctly named. It is the king of the email list management desktop software category.
To the relief of the Gazeteers, I am not running the entire lengthy review of MailKing here in the Gazette. You can read all about it at <http://jimworld.com/reviews/> MailKing may reign for a long time. It is going to be hard to beat any time soon, especially at the suggested retail price of US$99.00.
<http://www.mailking.com/>
TIPS FROM THE HITMAN - PART XXVIII
I had every intention of bringing the Gazeteers some specific information on Hot Bot as gathered by a group of Gazette Forum participants. If you do not read the forums, or you do not make it a habit to monitor you site position at various search engine for various keywords, you likely do not know that there has been a real mess at Hot Bot since the 22nd of March, at least from the point of view of the practitioners of using the search engines as a marketing tool are concerned. Basically, so many listings disappeared, literally overnight that there was a great deal of speculation as to what had happened. Had they changed the rules for positioning sites? Well, it seems the problem may have just been a data base problem as the missing listings have more or less reappeared now. This should make completion of the study more accurate than any conclusions made from studying a system not operating as intended.No Hot Bot report, so I will take time to talk about one of the other Search Engines that I have not gone over as of yet, Alta Vista. Alta Vista came on the scene in 1995 and because of it's awesome speed, it made the transition from new player to contender to Big 7 search engine status. Alta Vista used to be the search engine I used all the time to do searches. I loved the speed and the results were as good as anyone else had. The size of Alta Vista grew to 50 million pages making it the biggest and even at this size it retained the speed. The press loved Alta Vista and so did many of the users.
My opinion of Alta Vista has changed since about the middle of last year. Alta Vista is the search engine that has taken effort to deal with any spamming or even any legitimate efforts to position a site more favorably to the extreme. What do I mean by 'to the extreme?' I want a search engine to return the best examples found for a keyword phrase I enter in the search box. I want the search engine to screen out off-topic sites, but still bring me pages that deal with the subject matter at hand. This, as you know from our discussions on other search engines, should include pages that have a certain repetition or concentration of the keywords scattered through the page from the title to the meta tags, headings, and of course somewhere in the body or even link names and alt tags. This used to be the type of page you could expect to get near the top of a search at Alta Vista. No more. As of the end of last year, pages with the least repetition of a keyword will be returned in the top positions. This will insure that the pages returned have a good chance of being of no use at all. The only way to get any real data is to do a more in-depth search.
Why is this happening? Alta Vista has put such an emphasis on blocking attempts to manipulate position that they have gone to this extreme. I hope that enough negative press will get them to see the light and go back to a less stringent model of filter that does not destroy the engine results. Now, what does Alta Vista index and what should you do about this situation? Well Alta Vista does index the title, the meta tags and the body of the document, but talking about any of this is not going to help you at all if you want your page anywhere in the top 200 returns. What is showing up are pages that have the keyword in the title once and maybe one or two more times in the rest of the page including the meta tags, alt tags, and as part of a URL link even. As ridiculous as it is, making a page that more or less has nothing to do with your keyword or has does not mention the keyword is the way to the top.
As a side note, I have found that pages that happen to have a keyword in a title that is emphasizing something else on the page may just get a good listing. As an example, pages that have had a title carried through to all pages may have a form page asking for payment information show up in the top 10 solely on the merit of the keyword one time in the title and maybe in a link on the site index. The page has nothing to do with the keyword, other than the lucky occurrence of keyword in the title. These are often the pages you might not even think to index, the one you did not even put meta tags on. Guess what? It is the type of page that can be page number one at Alta Vista. Sad but true.
Remember this one thing. The title must contain the keyword. Everything else is of little importance any more. Meta tags will hang you out to dry and a page with real content should be saved for Excite.
Hayden Mitchell <http://www.webthemes.com>
CALLING ALL PROGRAMMERS
SmartDesk, a long term sponsor of JimWorld, released version 2.0 of the WebSuite Server this week. It is a major upgrade to this Tucows 5 Cow and ZDNet 5-Star Editor's Choice product.The other release this week is WebDB, the powerful data base add-on to the WebSuite server and its active page functions.
WebDB has an easy to use Wizard that asks you a few questions and then generates your data base, and all of the programs you need to add, change, delete and search records in the data base. I've seen easy, but this is ridiculous. I set up my first data base in about 5 minutes, complete with all of the programs I needed to run and use it.
All that was left for me to do was to format the pages to my liking and add the page graphics.
So why are we calling for programmers? Now that the VirtualMachine, WebSuite and WebDB are making a place for themselves on servers all over the world, the next step involves developing applications within its features to make it solve problems for real users. We're turning out VM applications like the Classified Ad system, Virtual Tour and some soon-to-be-announced, but we want you to bring your industry knowledge and creativity to the party. Build applications that we might never even think of, much less have time to write.
We have a marketing plan up and running to distribute third-party VM applications world-wide. A rapidly growing dealer network that is hungry for applications for the VirtualMachine.
If you've got design and programming knowledge, check out the Developer's Area at SmartDesk <http://www.smartdesk.com/> You'll be surprised at how easy it is to develop VM applications.
SNIPPETS
Australian Internet Directories<http://www.sofcom.com/Directories/>
Calling all Australian site operators! Are you listed in the Australian Internet Directories database? It is a well designed directory to all things Australian. There are a lot of other services available on this site, like a look-up for Australian e-mail addresses, searchable newsgroup searching and Pick of the Day. Not as heavy on advertising as many directories with a clean navigation scheme.
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Create GIF Animations and WIN!
PhotoAnimator Beta
Got some graphics talent? Wanta win $2000 worth of great software? Willing to do some work to enter? Extensis, makers of some truly outstanding plugins for Photoshop and Quark Express has a new product in public beta. It's called PhotoAnimator and available for Windows and Power PC (Mac). It's in public beta which spells FREE SOFTWARE in my spell-checker. I'm trying the software out now and so far it's bitchin. Has features I've not seen before in anything less than a professional animation engine. I'll have a full review for you soon. But don't worry. I won't win. You've all seen my graphics skills. Create the winning GIF animation (keep it under 15K) and win a copy of everything Extensis makes. Let me know if you win. I'll write about you.
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Attorney Needed
Based on some of the threads in the Get High Forums, and my bloated email in box, we need some information in this community about how copyright laws, and professional etiquette, apply to creating content for a newsletter. Is it OK to quote other newsletters if you are doing it to send traffic to read the full article. How much to quote. When to ask for permission. Where are the boundaries. I know we have several qualified and respected experts on these issues in this community. Want to step forward and write some good information for us?
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If you are experiencing problems with certain web sites, the fault could be your browser. Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 has a bug that keeps cookies and some other basic functions from working correctly if you are behind a proxy firewall. It wasn't a problem in 3.0 but 4.0 has some serious problems in this area. This will explain some people's problems visiting the Forums.
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Other Internet Forums
<http://www.webreference.com>
Another good set of forums is up and running at webreference.com. While not yet as busy as your Forums, they are rapidly developing some very good information. Stop in for a look around. In fact, you should be looking around throughout the site. It's required reading.
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Does your voice mail message direct people to your web site? It's an excellent opportunity to actually deliver some real sales pitch about all of the great resources they will find on the site. Answers to their support questions. Ordering information. Store locations. You do have all of that on your site, don't you?
If the voice mail pitch is good enough, maybe they'll hang up and visit your site. Then you won't even have to talk to them to get them the answers they wanted. Or pull a few bucks out of their wallet. Hard to run a business without bucks. Or Yen. Or Pesos. Or something.
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America Online announced it will begin conducting field trials for high-speed access to the AOL service using Digital Subscriber Line (xDSL) broadband services provided by GTE Internetworking.
America Online will become the first national Internet online service provider to offer this opportunity to residential consumers. xDSL is a technology that provides very high-speed bandwidth to personal computers over existing telephone lines; AOL members using xDSL technology can achieve transmission speeds as much as 25 times faster than a standard 28.8K modem.
Because xDSL provides high-speed access, an AOL member choosing to use an xDSL connection will receive the benefit of faster downloads and a connection to the AOL service dedicated to the individual member and always available. During the trials, AOL will offer eligible members this special high-speed, dedicated access to its service for $49.95 per month, which includes the monthly AOL subscription fee.
AOL's initial field trials will take place in Birmingham, Ala.; Phoenix, Arizona; the Greater Bay Area, Calif.; the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C.; and Redmond, Wash.
Members interested in learning more about xDSL technology can go to Keyword DSL for information about where the trials will operate, how to participate if they reside in field trial areas, and answers to other DSL questions.
If you live in one of these areas, you should try to get in on the beta test. Once you experience this kind of speed for only $50 a month, with full-time connection to the web, you'll wonder how you ever got along without it. Not as fast as a cable modem, but sure beats a dial-up modem.
To really build a community around your site, you need speed. You have to get more places in less time to gather the information needed to make your site hum.
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Thunderstone Search Engine
http://search.thunderstone.com/texis/websearch/
What was once just a product demo may turn into a new player in the web search engine arena. Thunderstone Software placed their search engine software as a demonstration of their Texis Web RDBMS on their site just 2 months ago. They then turned it loose to index 2 million web sites. Since then they've received more than 18 million hits against the engine.
Take a look at this search engine. Its organization may point the way to the future of search engines. I found the results to be very well organized and meaningful. They don't approach a site with the idea of indexing each page, but rather try to compile a sense of what the site is all about and then index all of the pages and present the site as a whole in their search results. It could easily evolve into a major player in the Search Engine Wars because of its advanced approach to concept searching instead of word searching. Add to this that their technology understands HTML 3.0, tables, and framed documents. Getting more interested?
If you want them to spider your site and build a custom index of all of the contents of your site, fill out the form at <http://index.thunderstone.com/texis/indexsite/> and they will send you instructions as soon as they finish indexing your site. They give you a search form to put on your site that lets your visitors search your entire site. The service is free and easy to set up. Go for it.
Their other products for sale on their site look pretty interesting to me. Powerful indexing of intranets. Ability to index everything from Acrobat PDF files to off-beat word processing documents and data bases. If you are trying to gain control of a growing intranet, this is a must see company. Tell them Jim sent you. They have no idea who I am, but I just love saying that line.
If they decide to keep this thing online, where am I going to squeeze in yet another Search Engine Forum for them?
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If you are into motorcycles, visit one of my sites at <http://www.starwestinc.com/> and try out the new classified ad system. I'll be reviewing it soon in the Gazette, but it was easy to install and works great.
If you just gotta have it now, visit <http://www.hoffice.com/demos/classpro/> and get a copy. Spring for the Pro version if you can afford it. It's worth the extra $50.
If you are real nice during the move to the new server, I'll put a copy of this on the JimWorld site so you can have a place to advertise your webmastery products and services.
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Internet News Bureau Affiliate Program
<http://www.newsbureau.com/affiliate>
INB is one of the leading on-line services to have a press release distributed on the web to the media. They now have an affiliate program that pays the site owner a percentage of sales generated by the referring site's advertising. It is set up better than most as it pays you for anything the customer orders for 30 days after their first order. Not an overly generous percentage, but should be worthwhile if you have the right kind of traffic.
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The World Of The Weird Wild Web
<http://users.skynet.be/sky88639/>
Got a really weird site? World class weird? Intergalactic over the top? Then submit for the World Of The Weird Wild Web Award. Fun to visit some of the winner sites. Best viewed at 3 a.m. after a really long day. Merely odd and strange sites need not apply. Only for the wierdest of the weird.
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Apache Server Tops 1 Million Mark
Andover Update
For the first time, the 1 million server mark has been shattered, according to a story released today on Andover Update. The Apache server dominates the field with a 48 percent market share, more that twice that of the Microsoft server, with Netscape in third place.
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JimWorld Awards Showcase
<http://jimworld.com/ourawards.html>
I have reworked the entire award display function on the JimWorld site and posted almost 40 new awards (I was WAY behind). The page size had reached epic proportions and something had to be done. See if you like what I did. There are now a total of 112 awards and it is now easy to browse through them without having to go to a movie while the page loads. You will need to turn your Javascript back on to view this area of the site. While you're there, try submitting for a few of these awards. Follow the links to the submission site. Keep in mind, if I can win these awards, how picky can they be?
I want to thank all of the generous webmasters and award reviewers who saw fit to recognize JimWorld with their awards.
FREE CGI FORMS - WITH FREE HOSTING
Freedback.com <http://Freedback.com/?v_promo> provides the CGI back-end service that web content publishers need to support fill-out feedback forms for their visitors - and all for free. In addition, Freedback.com automatically generates the HTML for these forms, allowing members to simply copy and paste the code into their web sites. Just fill out the Form Wizard's form and he'll generate everything you need - the cgi for the form and the HTML to add to your site.Online marketing professionals know that they can considerably increase the probability of a future visit, a continuing relationship, or even a sale, when a visitor is given the ability to offer feedback or request additional information. Fill-out forms that can email feedback require Common Gateway Interface (CGI) programming. Some website developers find that they may not necessarily have access, permission, ability, or desire to use CGI on their provider's web server. Some providers charge additional fees for this ability, and web programmers certainly charge a premium to write these scripts. Freedback.com lets web content publishers use their scripts and their server, so they can add fill-out forms to their web sites for free.
Sarnat WebSuccess has provided this service since February, 1997, under the name "FreeForm", and claims over 15,000 members. "Our members have come to expect our high level of service, whether it be from our online software or our technical support", says company president Alida L. Gibson, "and we feel that the new name and much shorter address will allow even more people to help each other, simply through word-of-mouth." Indeed, Drake Mariani of the MEMLOK System has reported, "My responses have increased dramatically and are more thorough" with the free feedback form service. Donn S. Gilray, Jr., a financial consultant, agrees: "I am getting more requests for my product than ever, simply because the form makes my site more professional."
No one else will be getting this news until Monday, but David, the operator of the site wanted to give Gazeteers a little head start to try out the new service. If you don't have CGI bin access on your server, or if it is all just a bit too much for you to set up yet, don't let that stop you from having real community building power on your site. Forms just make things happen. Go try out the Form Wizard and give the service a try. And it doesn't matter where your site is host. Free hosting. half-way around the world. Anywhere. And the price is certainly right.
Where was all of this cool stuff two and a half years ago when I was getting started on the web? Took me... well, I won't say cause I embarrass easily, but a long time to get my first form operational on a site. Now it's Plug-And-Play.
How am I supposed to make a living if all of this cool stuff keeps getting easier all the time?
BTW - David is registering the servicemark "Freedback", and one of the things the US Patent and Trademark Office asks for is three pieces of evidence that one has used the mark in a public, commercial setting. Since we have the exclusive on the announcement of the new domain, this edition of the Gazette will be archived in the PTO's permanent records as part of the servicemark application. Now the Gazette will live forever. Unless the government loses it.
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