I read about this site in Alexa's blog, where Geoffrey Mack had this to say about it:Contagious Media Showdown is an experiment in creativity and the seeming random nature of viral content and the way it spreads across the Internet. Take for example the Hamster Dance or Peanut Butter Jelly time -- remember those? There is no formula for why those sites become popular. People just start forwarding
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Student's start-up draws attention and $13 millionFrom the article:It is not easy capturing the attention of Jim Breyer, one of Silicon Valley's leading venture capitalists. But Mark Zuckerberg, a 21-year-old Harvard student, managed to do it with a Web site that has attracted 2.8 million registered users on more than 800 campuses since it began in February 2004. Breyer was so taken with
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If nothing else, you may want to scan through this site and see if it gives you any ideas: UI Patterns and TechniquesFrom the site:Each of these patterns (which are more general) and techniques (more specific) are intended to help you solve design problems. They're common problems, and there's no point in reinventing the wheel every time you need, say, a sortable table -- plenty of folks have
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This is an in-depth and fairly scientific paper, but if you are interested in understanding the impact of blogs it is something that you should read: blogs and buzzFrom the article:Blogs are hot. Two Pew surveys conducted in early 2005 show that 16% of U.S. adults (32 million) are blog readers. After a 58% jump in readership in 2004, this number marks a leveling off within the survey’s margin of
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There are many cases where the appropriate art or photography can completely change the look and feel of a Web site that you create. Taking your own digital photographs is one easy way to obtain them. When I started HowStuffWorks I did my own photographs and created my own simple illustrations, and that worked just fine. A picture paints a thousand words, and it does not need to be an
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This is a place to look for web design ideas: CSS Beauty | CSS Design ShowcaseFrom the site:CSSBEAUTY™ is a project focused on providing its audience with a database of well designed css based websites from around the world.It's purpose is to showcase designers' work and to act as a small portal to the css design community.If you are "in need of inspiration", you have come to the right place.Some
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If you read the post entitled An example of resonance, you know that the little movie described in that post created the word "Googlezon". Once this word was created, people started to use it and it began to show up in Google. If you now look up the word "Googlezon", Google will tell you how many pages in its index contain that word. Click here to see what I am talking about:Google Search:
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One problem that many sites have, especially at their inception, is that visitors do not know how the site works or what they are supposed to do. Today's example shows you an excellent way to solve this problem:Fundable.orgWhen you open the site, you see a nice, big, front-and-center graphic that explains how the site works very simply and cleanly. It takes about 10 or 15 seconds for the
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Blogging, as in SloggingFrom the article:Serious bloggers, I realized, aggressively report a pet issue, updating their sites throughout the day. They scavenge the Internet for every shard of information on a hot topic, like John R. Bolton's chances of becoming ambassador to the United Nations or Tom DeLay's ethical troubles.There are several interesting insights like these in the article.
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If you have looked through Lesson #8 and decided that it is time to create a custom web site, then there are two things that you are going to need at the very minimum to get started:A domain name for your site. A template of some sort for your siteWe will talk about domain names in more depth in the weeks to come, but in general you should try to think of a word or phrase that describes your
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In Lesson #6 we discussed the process of picking an idea. There simply comes a time in your life when you decide to create a Web site, so you pick an idea and start down the road.Once you have picked your idea, the next question you face is, "what sort of structure should I use to contain my site?" That depends on the type of site that you are creating. Look back at The different types of Web
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If you start a web site, and if you publicize an email address somewhere on your web site, and if your web site becomes at all popular, then one thing is for sure -- you will get email. Lots and lots of email in some cases. In my case, one of the things that forced HowStuffWorks to become a business was the amount of email I was receiving. There simply was no way for one person to process all the
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This article demonstrates that it is possible to make money with blogs:A Blog Revolution? Get a GripThe article talks about Nick Denton, who is the creator of Gawker Media. The article points out that: Gawker.com gets about 1 million visitors a monthFleshbot.com gets about 2 million visitors a monthGizmodo.com gets about 1.5 million visitors a monthCheck Alexa for details on traffic. See Lesson #
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In Lesson #4 I talked about resonance. Here is a great example of resonance at work:GOOGLING THE FUTUREThe article talks about a flash movie created by journalists Matt Thompson (of The Fresno Bee) and Robin Sloan (of Current). The movie happens to be resonating with journalists, and journalists are spreading the word through articles. One of these articles appeared in my newspaper today, which
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At some point in the WebKEW process, you are going to arrive at the place where it is time to pick an idea and create a web site. In general, one of two things is going to happen when this time comes:You will be struck by the idea for a new web site that is so compelling that you MUST create it.Over a period of time you will accumulate a set of ideas in a blog, on a sheet of paper, in a Word
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As you are browsing the web, you will see web sites that appeal to you. Maybe you like the theme of the site, or the site has a feature you like, or you find a page that sparks an idea. It can be very helpful for you to save these ideas in a list so you can refer back to them. There is a very easy way to create the list, if you don't mind it being public:Get the Google tool barStart a blog on
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A little mid-week inspiration:Getting your business startedIn the web space, Alexa is a great source of ideas. That is why Alexa is Lesson 1 and Lesson 1a.
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As we discussed in Lesson #3, it is possible to make money with web sites these days. The amount of money you can make depends on the number of visitors who come to your site. Obviously your question then becomes, "How do I attract visitors to my web site?" If you think about it, you realize that there are a number of ways that visitors can find their way to you:They can search for your site in
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Here is a very interesting article on "rethinking" that is occuring in the internet community right now:It's a whole new internetFrom the article: "If you're not yet amazed, inspired, and a little anxious, you might want to consider it. Then get a good night's sleep and perhaps take a rejuvenating vacation. We're going to look back at Spring 2005 as a milestone. Watch closely, ladies and
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In this post I mentioned that HowStuffWorks had to become a business at some point. And the question was asked, "Why did HowStuffWorks have to become a business?"It's very interesting how this happens, and it has happened to a lot of people. When you start your web site, you typically begin on some kind of $15/month virtual hosting account (more on these accounts next week). If your site starts
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What we have here is an amazing web success story. Do NOT ignore this post - read it carefully because there is a lot to learn. There was an article yesterday in the paper about a knitting book. This article (written by Marcy Smith Rice of the N&O) is not something I would normally read, because I have no interest in knitting. But here is the amazing paragraph from the article that got my
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There are two reasons why you would spend the time that it takes to create a web site:You enjoy it. For example, you might enjoy bicycling as a hobby and you enjoy writing about it to spread the word. You have read How to make a million dollars and you are thinking about starting a web site as a business -- specifically to generate revenue.When I started HowStuffWorks, it began strictly as a
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The question was asked yesterday, "I read your post on celebrity blogs - Can a normal person make any money on a blog?" Another way to phrase the question would be to ask, "Is it possible to create a blog that gets any kind of traffic?" The answer to this question depends on a lot of different factors, one of the most important of which is resonance. We will begin discussing resonance next
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This is a nice article on "thinking big." The example it uses has to do with small web design firms, but the principles discussed in the article can be applied to just about any small business -- it is a general call-to-action for business owners:Why Small Web Design Firms Should Think Big
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[This is a follow-up to Lesson #1 - Using Alexa]The question was asked, "If you know that a web site has a rank of 1,000 on Alexa, what does that mean in terms of real traffic? How many visitors a month is that?"The way you figure that out is by calibrating alexa. Many sites will publish or announce their "unique monthly visitors", and by finding several announcements like that you can determine,
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