Social Media Tools

BLOGS

wordpress.org: hosted by yourself

wordpress.com: free hosting

Blogger: (Google) losing in popularity (e.g. limited templates)

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Free WordPress Themes

(when chosing make sure they are at least WP 2.7 compatible and have RSS ready)

Free Themes Directory: wordpress.org Atahualpa, iNove, Precious, Beauty, bbv1, fun: colors

Free WP Themes: www.freewpthemes.net

Tom Stardust: stardust (fluid width)

ulfpettersson.se Modern

wpthemespot.com Agregado

Sadish Bala: wpthemepark.com

Sadish Bala: themes.sadish.net – UnLimited, CityScape, Vidiyal, Emerald

templatesbrowser.com Rounded V2 blue edition, Leaves: Beast-Blog, (Not so) Fresh, good for text: Blue Zinfandel Enhanced, Freshy, Japanese Cherry Blossom

themes2wp.com SoA: Shining Glow

clone24.com Orange Simple Scheme Mag, NewsNow

Warpspire Hemingway

Watch out: DO NOT use wordpressthemebase.com (their themes have malware links, hidden spam links, break the GPL and break copyright)

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WordPress Themes

Elegant Themes $20 elegantthemes.com PureType, ColdStone (no RSS)

WPzoom: Eventina

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Search blogs

IceROCKET: www.icerocket.com: you can subscribe to a search result: “Results RSS” (store the searches in your Reader)

Technorati: blog search engine and source of information on the blogosphere (ubmit your blog here)

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MINI BLOG: twitter

twitter: 140 character posts

Shorten URLs

TinyURL

bit.ly: if you sign up it allows us to track how many people click on these links (thanks to Sambodhi Prem)

is.gd

Upload photos

yFrog

twitPic

Organise Twitter

Search Twitter: subscribe to a particular search “Feed for this query“

TwitterFall: see the twitters drop like a waterfall, check on Trends. Click on a trend to just get the twitters of the selected topic.

TweetDeck:  connect with your contacts across Twitter (even multiple accounts), Facebook, etc.

WeFollow : Find celebrity, or favourite musician to follow

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FOTO and VIDEO UPLOADS

YouTube: for videos

Vimeo: good for  long videos

flickr: photo sharing

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NETWORKING

facebook: most popular

LikedIn: professional networking

myspace: losing subscriptions but still popular for Musicians

Virb: social network, photography portfolio and band’s website

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SOCIAL BOOKMARKS (Favourites on-line)

Delicious

Digg

Stumbleupon

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RSS READERS

NewsGator (Outlook)

FeddDemon

Active Refresh

Newzcrawler

SharpReader

Google Reader (free)

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Updates on Google search results

www.google.com/alerts: subscribe with search terms as phrases in inverted commas in this form: “socal media”. Instead of having them sent to your email address (as per default) they can go to “Feeds,” which means it will go to your RSS feed reader.

Website for a photographer

I was given a link to a video talk by Grover Sanschagrin of PhotoShelter by a client for whom I am preparing a website. I want to jot down here what I have learned from it – at least what concerns me as a web designer (there are other suggestions which the photographer will have to follow up by himself).

The talk is backed by a survey of clients who use photography: art directors, web and print designers and agencies. It was interesting to see that over half of those surveyed use Google or Yahoo to look for photos,and quite a considerable amount search in Flickr; but more than half buy directly from the photographers.

Some of the most important points for a photography website:

DESIGN
- clean design (not overdesigned)
- photos quick to upload (5 sec.)
- easy, simple navigation
- email address visible on all pages (no forms)
- phone number visible on all pages
- background preferences: white, black, dark gray, light gray
- preferred size of slide (width): 700-900px
- preferred presentation: big picture and clickable thumbnails on side or bottom, or whole page with thumbails
- search images by keywords (this for a bigger website than what we have in mind now)
- download available with right-click (for comp)
- descriptive names of pictures
- flash to be used only if html webside runs alongside (for SEO)
- ability to copy link to a photo or gallery
- NO slideshows
- NO automatic browser window resizing

TEXT SUGGESTIONS
- location of photographer (although travels as well)
- captions – but not essential
- list of clients (maybe phase II)
- case studies (maybe phase II)
- prices (maybe phase II)
- newly added (maybe phase II)

PHOTO MATERIAL
- no duplicate / similar photos
- watermark only small at bottom of image
- show something special (experiment)
- on photo file include metadata info in file with contact details

UPDATES
- frequent photo updates (through webdesigner if static website)

I am going to collect the photopgraphy websites I like on this delicious link.