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JimWorld Gazette Issue #56 06/26/1998
Gazette - Issue #56 - June 26, 1998
To all of you participating in the Search Engine Forums and the Get High Forums, please set your preferences on your next visit to select the one-year cookie and set the number of days you want to view back messages. The cookie change means never having to log in again, which is a real blessing.The Forums are now running on the latest release of the Ultimate BB software and is running much faster.
The upgrade had an added benefit of making the Forum threads searchable in the site search engine. Try it on the home page. It will call up all of the threads containing your keywords. Very handy improvement.
CONTENTS
- Mac Users - Please Come Home
- Site Update
- Gazeteer In The News
- Review: Perl Resource Kit from O'Reilly & Associates
- Web Navigation - Part I
- Get Linked
- Contests Must Work - Everyone's Doing One
- When Building Community - Go For The Throat
- On-Line Resource Management
- Snippets
MAC USERS - PLEASE COME HOME!
After almost 6 weeks of painful trial and error and the assistance of lots of people in the H-E-L-P Forum, I have finally, finally, finally found the bug that was crashing our visitors on Macs running Netscape 3.04!!!!!!Turns out that, as usual, it was a combination of things that did the dastardly deed. I had a few /font closes before the /center closing tags. This alone has no negative impact on browsers, but add to the that some of my tags were upper-case and some lower-case. Who would have thought?
Making it a bit harder to track down was the symptom that it didn't happen when you first came to the home page, but only when you came BACK to the home page. Bummer.
Thanks to all of you tireless testers out there that were willing to repeatedly run your Mac's into the JimWall and crash it to help me test.
Couldn't have done it without you.
SITE UPDATE
The past couple of weeks have been an extremely busy time of growth on the sites.The newest version of the excellent Ultimate Bulletin Board software <http://www.ultimateBB.com> that was installed in the Search Engine Forums is a big hit. Lots of great new features, and much lower server load. This week it will be installed in the Get High (Traffic) Forums.
The Helpware Directory continues to grow faster than I expected. We will be upgrading to the new HyperSeek search engine software (the latest version of what was YooHoo) and launching several new features, including the ability for listed sites to compete in the Top Ten Sites under each category. I'll be reviewing the HyperSeek software soon. It is killer stuff.
Because of the number of submissions by get-rich-quick sites that do not place the required link on their page (which takes time for me to check) we will be changing the submission page to fetch the submitted page and verify that the link and graphic are there. This will cut down significantly on the time required to review sites. We currently are getting three spam submissions for every valid submission. Some people just can't seem to understand that unethical submissions will damage their site.
This week saw the newest launch with the 'beta' release of the SubmitBOT. Free submission of your page to a growing list of search engines. Give it a try. It's fast and free. The SubmitBot is scheduled for expansion each week with a new service. This week I will be focusing on submissions to 100 Free-For-All pages. Look for that in the SubmitBOT soon.
Many other features are in development for the JimTOOLS area. Some are just improvements on services found elsewhere but don't do everything I would like, and some are all new services that I have always wished I could find somewhere.
GAZETEER IN THE NEWS
Congratulations to Gazeteer and Forum participant Kira Lerner. Her web site About Schuyler Falls <http://www.skyfalls.com/> has been picked as a Yahoo! Pick of the Day AND a Netscape "Site Highlight" !!Congratulations Kira. You have worked hard for it and we are all happy for you. I just got my foot stuck in the door at your site and Poof! An hour vanished. Fun site!
While I was there, it became obvious to me that your site is deserving of an even bigger honor.
Kira (rightly, I think) credits our own Yahoo Forum Moderator, Janet Berg, with helping her stay on target and find her way through the quicksand of site development. Visit the Yahoo Forum at http://searchengineforums.com to read how Kira got where she was going.
Now we expect to see even more of you in the Forums learning to get the recognition your sites deserve.
A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR
Web Cards has a solution for businesses who want to announce their Internet sites to customers, suppliers and contacts. Web Cards are low-cost, full-color postcards with an image of a home page on one side and a custom message on the other.The entire process of ordering Web Cards is done through the Internet. Customers fill in an on-line order form at http://www.printing.com/ or work by phone with a representative who can manipulate the image from a Web page to fit the card. The "artwork" for the card is captured directly from the customer's Web site. Proofs are posted to an on-line location for approval. Confirmations are done by email.
Web Cards are available either in 4"x6" size, which can be mailed first class for 20 cents or in 5"x8" size, which are mailed at regular 1st class rates. Prices start at $95 for 500 full-color postcards. Free samples and a brochure are available by contacting the company at 1-800-352-2333 or by email at mailto:webcards@printing.com
If you're looking for an affiliate program to add to your site, you won't do much better than the new one at WebCards. Generous payout and as reliable as they get. After knowing Joe for about a year now, I am certain that if you generate activity for him, you will get paid. And on time.
REVIEW: PERL RESOURCE KIT -- UNIX EDITION
Perl Resource Kit - UNIX EditionWritten By: Larry Wall, Nate Patwardhan, Ellen Siever, David Futato & Brian Jepson
Published By: O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.
<http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/prkunix/>
1812 pages, $149.95, Includes 4 books & CD-ROM
I've been having to learn a lot more Perl than I ever expected in order to implement all of the new gadgets and gizmos. When you can't take a few weeks to just sit and study, but rather have to work it in as time allows, you need some pretty good resources and tools.
Fortunately, the nice folks at O'Reilly developed this amazing kit of everything you could ever want to know about Perl - all in one box. Here's what you get:
* Over 1800 pages of tutorial and in-depth reference documentation for Perl utilities and extensions, in four volumes. The books in the Kit are not available elsewhere (or separately) and include:
- Programming with Perl Modules, by Nate Patwardhan with Clay Irving
- Perl Module Reference (two volumes), compiled and edited by Ellen Siever and David Futato
- Perl Utilities Guide, by Brian Jepson
You also get a new Java/Perl interface that allows programmers to write Java classes with Perl implementations. This new tool was written specially for the Kit by Larry Wall, the inventor of Perl.
If O'Reilly keeps sending me these books that are so good I have to make room for them next to my monitor (because I use them every day) I am going to run out of room and have to get rid of my monitor just to make room for more books. The left side (as it should be) of my monitor looks like an O'Reilly book store display.
WEB NAVIGATION - PART I
I don't know about you, but one of the most frustrating experiences I run into when I'm racing down the Information Highway is running into a "road block"! I mean here you are traveling at the speed of light (well, almost!) and all of a sudden you hit a dead end! Smash! Right into a brick wall! The webmaster neglected to provide a way out of a particular page!Besides just plain ole' poor design, navigation is probably the largest problem on the Web. One of the mottoes that I have adopted as a web designer is: "Don't ever make your visitor have to use the Back button on their browser!"
In the next three or four articles, I will attempt to help you webmasters out there see how you can improve the navigation on your sites. I'm going to assume that most of you don't know Java, JavaScript, Perl, or DHTML, and therefore I'm sticking with straight HTML which is the safest and most browser compatible way to go.
The "Text Bar"
In this article, I would like to bring your attention to one of the most unused tools for navigation on the Web. I'm speaking of what I call the "textual navigational bar". This is so simple and yet, there are so many designers who miss it. I am referring to a simple, text-based bar of links running across the bottom of your pages. The "pipe" symbol, or some other such method to separate the different text links usually separates these links. Here's an example:
home | products | services | what's new
You simply take the major categories of your site and divide them up into these text links so that the user can access any of these sections from any of your pages. This "navigation bar" is included in the footer section of your pages, which usually include such information as copyright, company name, address, phone, email, etc.
Why Text?
This brings us to an important question; "why use text?" Why not use a cool looking graphical navigation bar? The answer is simple: accessibility!
First of all, those with visual handicaps will not be able to "read" a bar that is an image map, for example. This is also a good reason why you should always us the ALT attribute on your image tags.
Secondly, not everyone surfs the Net with graphics turned on in their browser! You see, there are even some who only use text browsers such as Lynx. Others may have slow computers, modems, or connections and have graphics turned off on their browser to make downloading pages a lot quicker. These are reasons enough for you to use text only navigational bars!
Of course, there are many ways you can use graphics for navigation and we'll get into that later in these articles. I'm not proposing that you use text instead of graphics. I am proposing that you use the text bar in addition to graphical navigation. Adding a simple text bar on the bottom of your pages is not difficult to do!
Making Text Look Like Graphics
There are some ways that you can use to "doctor up" these text bars a bit. You can use nice looking fonts and make the links a different color rather than the usual blue. You can also use tables.
I had one client who had sixteen different sections on his site that needed to be placed in a navigation bar! I took the links and created a "site map" that was comprised of all the links built into a table. I colored the table background, placed a captioned header cell (with a different color), and called it a site map. I also included small 3D balls at the front of each link much like you would on a list.
This makes the "map" actually look like a graphic, although the only graphics are the little balls! You can view this site map at: http://homebusinessgroup.com/
Remember: "Don't make them have to use the Back button!"
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Milt Rodriguez is owner and operator of Stellar Design, a professional web site design, hosting, and promotion company in Northern California. You can find them on the Web at: http://stellardesign.com
They have also started a new email ezine called 'Website Tips' which will help you with monthly articles like this one. You can subscribe at the web site.
GET LINKED
EuroSeek<http://www.euroseek.net/page?ifl=uk>
If you haven't listed your sites in EuroSeek, you are missing a lot of traffic. They list sites from all over the world, so don't be shy. The listing process is fascinating. You make all of the decisions, set up a password, and you can come back as often as you like and update your listing - in real time. Cool stuff.
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Interesting new banner exchange. They offer 300 free impressions on sign up and a generous 5:4 ratios. The best looking option appears to be the button exchange. 31X88 pixel mini-banners, animation is OK. The only downside to the button exchange is that they allow 10K buttons. Same limitation as the banners.
I think that is a mistake as many webmasters would be happy to have an good exchange service if it didn't tie up a lot of screen real estate and bandwidth. 4K would be acceptable.
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ValueClick
http://www.valueclick.com/
If you are a member of ValueClick, make sure to check out their new referral program. Easy to join and looks like a good benefit.
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Need another growing list of search engines all around the world? Sure makes an easy way to find places to submit your site. Try the new one at SilverSearch http://web4.superb.net/silver/search.shtml
CONTESTS MUST WORK - EVERYONE'S DOING ONE
WebcrawlerContests continue to prove themselves as traffic builders all over the web. Innovation is the key. Check out the contest at Webcrawler used to generate loyalty to the personalized search pages. The idea is to get you to register your personal information and interests with Webcrawler, and then to visit your personalized search page at least once per day. Each time you visit, you are entered again into their drawing for a new car. Not just a new car - an Alpha Romeo Veloce Spider! Want to hazard a guess how well this is working?
Snap!
Not to be outdone, the Snap directory will tease you with 'Win instant prizes: Use Snap! to search the Web and you could win instantly. A message on your search results page will let you know if you've won.' Or register for their big prize of a trip to Moscow and fly in a MiG-25 Foxbat. Or learn high performance driving in Arizona then go test your skills in Germany on the Autobahn. Or take the $10,000 cash and do whatever you want with it.
These are just a couple of the more visible contests being used to drive not only raw traffic to a site, but to reward users for loyalty and frequent visits.
Constructing your contest is the most important feature of hosting a contest - It must deliver results and you have to decide in advance exactly what 'results' means to you. Do you just want a bunch of people to visit your entry form, or do you want them to browse through your site or use your site's services?
Once you decide what you want the visitors to do, then you can design a contest to make that happen. And don't tell me you just want them to come buy your products. That is not the goal. Maybe you want them to come visit and discover how valuable your product is and learn enough to consider buying it. That is a goal that you can achieve on the web.
If you are already running a contest, get out there and find out how others are using contests to generate results. Take a hard look at your contest and see if you can't make it perform a little better.
WHEN BUILDING COMMUNITY - GO FOR THE THROAT
Building web community is not for the faint of heart. The best communities are built by virtual pit bulls. People that just won't give up. They don't keep going in a direction when they notice that nobody is following them. They bury the bone they've been chewing on and get a better bone. They change direction at the drop of a hat. They keep looking for that magical niche that they can fill that attracts a growing community.These are the traits you should have if you are going to build a serious community.
There are two ways to grow your community. One way is money. Spend like a drunken sailor. Advertise everywhere. Deploy massive technology. This way works. Unfortunately, it doesn't necessarily mean that you will reach profitability any time in the future. Take a look at the most major communities: the search engines. Not exactly known for the profits they generate are they? You can only go so far with the 'We are willing to bleed money in order to be the last one standing.' Money people will not keep pumping money in forever on that sort of plan.
The other way is to find a niche need and fill it better than anyone else in that market. Be willing to do whatever it takes to get the growth you need. Be creative, but be tenacious. Don't get stuck riding a losing horse. Keep looking for new ways to add incremental growth. Don't keep trying to make the Big Score. Lots of small features will add up to a community that draws people back more and more frequently.
But where do you find these niche markets? Try watching MSNBC and CNN. They are always creating new panics when they run out of real news to cover. They drum up a significant amount of panic and fear that you can make use of if you are willing to provide serious resources to service those niches.
Right now MSNBC is back to beating the Dangers To Kids In Chat Rooms. We all know that the Net is a target rich environment for predators of all kinds. And the lowest form of life are those predators that prey on kids. It is a serious threat. Is it as serious a threat as the mass media claims? Only if there are four predators on-line for every kid on-line. Unlikely, but that is the perception that is used to get ratings. To listen to the reports, every kid is under constant attack every minute they are on-line.
So, how do you turn this panic to your advantage while actually providing a real service?
The wrong way is to add to the frantic broadcasting of misinformation. Remember that something will happen in the world that is real news and the media drum beaters will drop this current 'crisis' as if it never existed. So basing your plan on exploiting the fear is not a long term answer.
But, delivering a real service that happens to benefit from this panic will give your community a fast start in growth. But it must be a service that has enough real value, and fills a real need, to survive when the media has moved on to more fertile ground.
The reality is that there are serious dangers involved in kids meeting in chat rooms. My son, Nick, loves to chat. His mother and I have invested a lot of time and effort teaching him how to handle situations he might run into on-line. And he has run across at least two sleezeballs in chat rooms. But he knows how to add those people to his exclusion list.
Both he and I would be much more comfortable if there were some moderated chat rooms that were able to keep an eye out for inappropriate behavior. But they are few and far between.
That sounds like a real need that could be filled by many web sites. Moderated chat rooms for kids. And you could add to it a directory of fun, safe and screened web sites that would appeal to kids. And how about a forum for parents to discuss the issues they are concerned about? Maybe a newsletter?
But do you want to set up and moderate thousands of chat rooms covering every interest that kids have? Not unless you have a fortune sitting around gathering dust.
So let's scale this down to something a mere human might be able to do. Pick a subject that kids are interested in. Become THE expert site for that interest. Be the first to catch the wave of a new fad. Early adopters of new fads have a hard time finding information and interaction with other early adopters and will gladly congregate wherever the information is available. If it also happens to reside on a service that offers a great deal of safety, the parents will be on your side and encourage their kids to visit you. Then as the fad grows, so will your community.
To grow a community like this, you will need compelling content to first attract your audience. A comprehensive directory of other sites in the same niche will go a long way toward meeting that need. As will some hot graphics and attitude that appeals to kids, not to you. Chat rooms and forums are critical ingredients. A newsletter... required. And expert information that tells all there is to know about the subject. Something that brings new fad converts to your site right from day one of their interest. These are the content that brings the kids.
The tools that bring the parents are a bit different. Information for them that establishes your site as THE safe place for their kids to follow their interests will put them on your side. But you want more from them. How are you going to staff chat rooms 18 hours per day with moderators? As the parents. They'll do it. If there were a real community on the web for role playing games like Magic, L5R and AD&D that offered real resources, Nick would want to be there all the time. There are thousands of one-way sites about role playing games, but not one single community, much less a safe-site community. If there were, and they asked me to volunteer for an hour or two each week, they wouldn't have to ask twice. For some information on how to administer your moderator resources, see the following article on resource management.
Where do you get the 'Killer Content' you need to develop your site? Same place I get lots of mine and where the Mining Company gets all of it. Just ask. There are millions of people that want to write and create for the Web, but don't have an audience. Or they don't want to commit the time necessary to build a complete community themselves. They have other things in their lives, unlike people like me. Just ask them and you will be amazed how hard they will work to make your site the best of its type.
If you haven't noticed yet, there are a lot of people giving of themselves to make the community what it is. Writers. Moderators. Programmers. Designers. Software reviewers. Forum participants that give much more than they take. Public relations teams to promote various aspects of the community. The list grows almost every day. How much do they get paid? Nothing directly. But each gets something. It might be new clients that come to them because of the help they give others. Or the pleasure of having an audience for their creative efforts. I try to see that each volunteer gets something back that repays them for their labors. And you in the community have always given each of them more than they ever expected.
So, after looking at how we can 'exploit' a current hot topic in the news, are we now poised to become Scumbags? No. Not at all. We are going to chose an interest that we can build a community around based on real need, not media panic generated false need, and we are going to create the ultimate community to fill that real need. But we will employ some tactics that allow us to get some recognition while the panic is going on. But even when the panic moves on to other hot-spots, we will still keep chugging right along because our community is built around real needs and services.
And the nicest part of building a site to attract attention from people that have been panicked by the media is that the media periodically goes back and digs up the old bones that they have buried, dusts them off and chews on them until something real happens in the world.
ON-LINE RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
If you are going to administer a significant on-line community, there are some tools you must deploy early on if you expect to keep up with the growth. Automated resource management is one such tools.Resource management is a simple enough concept, and not a new problem in the world. Every business faces the problem to one extent or another. You have a store. It is open X number of days per week and Y number of hours each of those days. There are varying levels of activity on different days of the week, and at various times of the day. And you have Z number of employees to staff the store, covering all of those variable demands.
Sounds easy enough with a good pencil and pad of paper, until the employees let you know which days, and times, they can't work. And someone gets called for jury duty. Or gets sick. Or quits. Or gets fired. Or. Or. Or. And. And. And.
The business world has faced these problems since the dawn of time when the first overworked business owner hired the First Employee. When computers came along about 40 years ago, keeping track of resources of one kind or another was one of the first needs addressed. Right after keeping track of mailing address lists, but that's another story for later.
The tools that have evolved are serious tools and they are going to be essential for you and your web-based community.
Don't see how? Well, think about that busy Safe-Chat system of monitored chat rooms we just discussed. How are you going to know that each of the rooms will have a monitor whenever it is open? How are you going to schedule all of those volunteers, all over the world, with each only being available for a limited time each day, and maybe not every day?
Adaptiv WorkFORCE to the rescue. This powerhouse of resource management automation, developed by Adaptiv Software Corporation and proven by thousands of users for many years, can make it possible for your plan to be put in place and run successfully.
Just define all of your needs. Then define all of your available resources. Print some reports. Done.
Something changes at the last minute? Enter the change. Run the report. Done.
Volunteers get the schedule they want. All needs are covered. Life is good. Go fishing.
Check out this important piece of software at the Adaptiv web site at <http://www.adaptiv.com/>
SNIPPETS
700+ Great SitesThe Children and Technology Committee of the Association for Library Service to Children has developed a directory of high quality sites for children. They call it the 700+ Great Sites and they accept submissions. They have also developed probably the best description of what a valuable site contains that I have yet seen. Read it and see if you agree. http://www.ala.org/parentspage/greatsites/criteria.html
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PR Web
<http://www.prweb.com>
Want to send out a press release? Think you have something that is newsworthy?
PRWeb is a free service sponsored by PR Newswire. You can send out a free press release to their Opt-In list and see what kind of results you get. If you don't get even one press inquiry from that list, you might not have a newsworthy item. You probably won't get great results from a larger paid distribution.
They also have a once-per-site announcement service that doesn't have to be newsworthy. I have always gotten good results from this and the press release distribution on their site.
If you want some help writing your press release and getting it formatted the correct way, use their Wizard to help you write it. It does a bang-up job.
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SServ
<http://www.sserv.com/web411/>
On 29 June 1998, all of SServ's operations were shut down due to the imminent liquidation of Computer Workshops' Internet services division. Although SServ was a growing and productive portion of Computer Workshops' corporate assets, it represented a drain on staff resources that was impacting other portions of the Computer Workshops' business.
All services are at this point quiescent. evaluWEB is being moved to an alternate server in San Diego, California and should be on line by the end of July.
SServ, including the web://411/ database, evaluWEB, Start Here, Network NewsStand and Internet Search, is currently preserved in cold storage on Computer Workshops' servers. If you are interested in these properties, they are still currently available for sale. For no-obligation information, send mail to mailto:spectre@sserv.com
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JimSurvivalSkill
Never, ever stand near a person having one hand behind their back and a grenade pin in their mouth.
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Searcher Magazine
http://www.infotoday.com/searcher/jun/story2.htm
An excellent overview of where the search engines have been going recently. Very non-technical and a good read.
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NewHoo
Thanks to NewHoo for designating the Search Engine Forums http://searchengineforums.com as a Cool Site in their directory. Have you submitted your site to them yet? I think they are going to make it, so you should get in before it gets too crowded.
NewHoo has taken an approach similar to that taken by The Mining Company that has generated a wealth of excellent content at the Mining Co. - Volunteers. NewHoo is enlisting a virtual army of reviewers to maintain sections of the new directory. Of course, quality will vary depending on the skills of the different reviewers, but overall it should work very well. We wish them well and look forward to a great new resource on the Web.
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URLX.NET
http://www.urlx.net
Want to buy or sell a domain name? Here's another new brokerage for you to check out.
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Diary of a Web worker bee.
Get yourself a cup of coffee and visit http://www.thestandard.net/articles/opinion_display/0,1266,850,00.html for an entertaining look at the world of Web start-ups. Don't blame me if it strikes too close to home! Take a look around the rest of the site and sign up for some of their newsletters if you want to get a daily fix of NetNews.
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Recommend-It.Com
http://www.recommend-it.com
Want an easy way to let your site visitors do your work for you? Let them send recommendation to all of their friends that your site is an essential stop on their next cyber-trip. Recommend-It.Com doesn't require you to run a 3D rotating dayglow orange and hot pink 30K banner just to use their service. A simple, tasty little button. Take 5 minutes and add this feature to your site. Sure can't hurt, and you just might get a new stream of traffic. BTW- It's Free.
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Industrial Classifieds
http://www.industrialclassifieds.com
Set up to help Businesses do Business on the Internet. They offer Business to Business and Business to Consumer listing and cover over 150 different categories and all segments of business. Currently they offer a FREE 3 month ad listing of up to 50 words to help build up their database.
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Have you subscribed to the Link-O-Matic CheckMate newsletter? Jess and his staff have done a great job with their new newsletter. It has a strong focus on e -promotion and e-marketing. Absolutely worth the read.
To subscribe, send the following as the first and only line in the body of an email message to mailto:majordomo@linkomatic.com
subscribe checkmate
