The first stop on Karissa’s European fast-food journey was McDonald’s in Rome, Italy. Unlike McDonald’s in America, the menu in Italy is vastly different. They have an array of gorgeous pastries including cakes, pies, macarons, and donuts. Karissa was overwhelmed by the options and struggled to decide what to order. She eventually opted for a stacked chocolate cake that came with rich chocolate cream and a crunchy dark chocolate ganache on top. Karissa called it the best thing she’s ever eaten at a McDonald’s. It cost her $2.90.

In addition to the chocolate cake, Karissa also tried the tiramisu, a fluffy mascarpone cream, and soft ladyfingers soaked in coffee. It was shockingly not too sweet and rated an 8/10. She also had a chocolate croissant that was only $1. It was filled with a decent amount of dark chocolate and was pretty flaky too. She finished her meal with a delicious marshmallow donut that had a sugary glaze on it. It was so soft, and the marshmallows added a fun, chewy texture.

Karissa’s next stop was McDonald’s in Paris, France. The menu at this McDonald’s was also vastly different from what we are used to in America. Karissa was surprised to see that they had macarons on the menu. The macarons were available in different flavors like chocolate, caramel, and raspberry. She tried the raspberry macaron and loved it.

Karissa also tried the Crispy McBacon burger, which was a beef burger with crispy bacon, cheese, lettuce, and a special sauce. The burger was a hit, and Karissa called it one of the best burgers she’s ever had. She also tried the Croque McDo, which is essentially a McDonald’s version of the Croque-monsieur. It was a grilled ham and cheese sandwich that was delicious.

Karissa’s next stop was McDonald’s in Madrid, Spain. One of the standout items on the menu was the Bacon and Cheese Fries. The fries were topped with crispy bacon bits, grated cheese, and a special sauce. Karissa loved the fries and said they were a must-try for anyone visiting Spain.

Another popular item on the menu was the Oreo McFlurry. The McFlurry came with a generous amount of crushed Oreo cookies mixed into the vanilla ice cream. Karissa loved the McFlurry and said it was one of the best she’s ever had.

Karissa also visited Burger King in Paris, France, and was surprised to see that they had a burger on the menu that was made with black buns. The burger was called the Black Pepper Angus and came with Angus beef, black pepper sauce, and black buns. Karissa tried the burger and loved it. The black buns added a unique twist to the burger.

In addition to the Black Pepper Angus, Karissa also tried the Chicken Fries and the Onion Rings. The Chicken Fries were crispy and flavorful, and the Onion Rings were crispy on the outside and tender on the inside.

Karissa’s last stop on her European fast-food journey was Taco Bell in Madrid, Spain. She tried the Crunchwrap Supreme, which was a soft tortilla filled with seasoned beef, nacho cheese sauce, lettuce, tomato, and sour cream. The tortilla was then folded and grilled to create a crispy outer layer. Karissa loved the Crunchwrap Supreme and said it was a must-try for anyone visiting Taco Bell in Spain.

Karissa also tried the Churro for dessert. The Churro was crispy on the outside and soft and chewy on the inside. It was coated in cinnamon sugar and served with a warm caramel dipping sauce.

In conclusion, Karissa’s journey across Europe has shown us that fast-food chains across the world have unique and delicious offerings that are worth trying. From multi-layered chocolate cake in Italy to black buns burgers in France, and Bacon and Cheese Fries in Spain, there’s something for everyone. If you ever find yourself in Europe, be sure to take a break from the traditional cuisine and give these fast-food chains a try. Who knows, you might discover your new favorite fast-food item!

First reported by Daily Mail.

The post Exploring the Delicious Offerings at Fast-Food Chains in Europe: A Food Blogger’s Journey appeared first on The Blog Herald.

Quillbot is an online-only service. While the free version is available, you’ll need to pay for the premium version to truly take advantage of all the Quillbot paraphrase tool has to offer.

The pricing is straightforward with a premium subscription costing only $20 per month. Plus, Quillbot offers a plagiarism checker that scans 20 pages per month for just $20 (or about 250 words), with additional pages costing only $7.45 cents. And if you’re not completely satisfied, Quillbot even offers a 10% money-back guarantee for 72 hours after you pay up. So, there really is no reason to hold you back. Want to learn more about this incredible tool? Read on.

The Crucial Features of the Quillbot Paraphrase Tool You Must Know

Like every other tool out there, this one, too, is enriched with features that most people don’t even know about. Hence, they are unable to use the Quillbot Paraphrase tool to its full potential. It’s time to understand this tool better so you can extract maximum benefit from it.

• It’s Newbie Friendly

Most people think that the Quillbot tool will be too technical and complicated. They feel that trying to get the hang of it will require them to put in too much time and effort. But the reality is completely different.

The tool is designed to give a head start to beginners. Therefore, here you will get a clean and comfortable working environment. Even if you have no technical background, you will be able to use Quillbot with ease.

• You Can Use It on the Go

There are absolutely no restrictions when it comes to using the Quillbot paraphrasing tool. Since it’s a web-based tool, you can access it from practically anywhere as long as you have a stable internet connection.

With this tool, you have the opportunity to work at your convenience.

• It Has Multiple Modes to Suit Your Requirements

The Quillbot tool is meant to make things easier for you with maximum efficiency. Therefore, it offers many modes that you can select at your convenience.

One of the lesser-known features of Quillbot is its Fluency Mode. This feature enhances the fluidity of the text and corrects grammar mistakes without making any drastic changes to the original content.

However, it is important to note that Fluency Mode is not intended to be used for content creation from an existing text. It’s best used for correcting and perfecting already unique content. Be mindful that adding text from the web may not pass CopyScape, but overall, Fluency Mode is a useful tool in your content creation process. If interested, another option to check out would be Grammarly, which is similar to this tool in many ways.

• You Can Use It to Amp Up the Creativity in Your Writing

If you are striving to take your writing to the next level, Creative+ mode can make quite a difference. This one’s an advanced mode that can change your content for the better.

With this mode, you can turn your existing content into a more creative and expressive piece of writing while also changing its meaning more than you can with the Creative mode. It adds more words to the content, making it unique and enjoyable to read.

• The Tool Can Help You with the Formal Tone Too

Did you know that the Quillbot Paraphrase Tool has a formal mode that can make your content sound more professional?

If you’re someone who consistently works with formal documents, reports, or even business emails, you can now use this mode to paraphrase your content in a more sophisticated manner. This formal mode works by suggesting the rephrasing of text that will make your writing sound more professional and polished. Not only will it help you sound more put-together in your writing, but it will give you a better idea of how to present yourself professionally in various written formats.

• Use the Tool to Adjust Your Writing Style

You can check “paraphrasing quotations” to rewrite quotations using the tool too. If that wasn’t enough, it also has the ability to shorten words and combine two together. This can be incredibly useful when you’re trying to keep your content concise without sacrificing meaning. By checking the “Use Contractions” option, Quillbot can perform contractions.

The usefulness of this feature becomes particularly important if you are trying to express a specific tone or style in your content. In addition, Quillbot also allows for the rewriting of British English phrases. So, if you’re creating content intended for British people, it’s worth checking the “Use UK English” option.

• There’s a Graphical Option, Too, Along with a Grammar Check

Did you know that Quillbot has a sophisticated paraphrasing tool that can help improve your writing? In addition to using it for paraphrasing and summarizing sentences, Quillbot now offers a free grammar checker feature to help you find any spelling, punctuation, or grammar errors all in one place. You can also double-check your work to ensure that you have a polished final product.

The Quillbot tool is also provided with graphical options that enable you to show tips, legends, and feedback sections if you want to control these sections on the page. With the Yellow Highlight tool, you can easily highlight specific areas in your text to draw attention to them.

Plus, the feedback section allows you to keep track of your progress and make adjustments as necessary. Whether you are a student, writer, or professional blogger, these graphical options will help you to maximize your writing experience and produce top-quality content.

Final Thoughts

Quillbot’s paraphrase tool is powerful for writers and researchers out there. Not only is it quick and easy to use, but it also provides a comprehensive selection of options for you to choose from.

The tool is constantly evolving, and the team is always looking for ways to improve user experience and workflow. So if you have any suggestions, you can always reach out to them.

The post 7 Important Things You Didn’t Know About the Quillbot Paraphrase Tool appeared first on The Blog Herald.

Overview

Grammarly as a whole was created to be AI-generated too, to help with writing fluidity, grammar, and spelling. At its core, the goal was to make writing better, whether that was a quick email or an academic dissertation. The free and paid versions of Grammarly give suggestions for spelling, sentence structure, grammar, and word substitutions. You can upload a document into Grammarly to have it check for errors once completed, or you can add it as an extension to your browser so that you can have your work checked in real-time. Grammarly also works with IOS and Andriod keyboards to edit your texts and emails from your mobile device.

Let’s break it down.

Money

Understandably, the biggest point of interest regarding upgrading your Grammarly plan is how much it will cost. How much will you be shelling out each month for the added benefits? Grammarly Premium starts at $12 per month at the lowest price and longest period of time. Paying month by month will cost you around $30 while opting for a quarterly plan will be $20. Paying annually will even out to the aforementioned $12 per month,  which, when you calculate it, is 40 cents per day. It costs 40 cents to have an AI-generated assistant correct and give suggestions on everything from your text messages, emails, and updates, to your term papers, memos, and newsletters. For reference, a Netflix subscription costs $15.49 per month for their standard plan right now, meaning it supports two devices at one time.

What’s the difference 

We have been over the fact that the free plan takes care of the basics, meaning spelling, grammar, and sentence structure suggestions. Premium has over 400 types of checks as well as performance reports, going far beyond their free counterpart.

Some notable upgrades in the Premium plan include but are not limited to:

1. Tone Detection

While the free version gives a hint at the tone, Premium does a complete deep dive into different tones of your writing including formal, informal, informative, confident, and more.

2. Plagiarism Detection and Citation Formatting 

A one-stop shop for checking for plagiarism and correct references rather than using a separate website or application.

3. Full Sentence Rewrites

Possibly my favorite benefit to the premium plan, Grammarly suggests full sentence rewrites when giving correction suggestions to your written content. Instead of guessing what needs to be fixed, it is giving you the answers at the click of a mouse.

Draw Backs

Though Grammarly works with different variations of the English language including American, British, Canadian, and Australian English, the flexibility ends there. Grammarly does not yet support any other languages. This can be a significant con if you work in a field that requires you to use them. Or if you are multilingual and want to provide the same crispness to your writing and messages in all languages.

Verdict

So in our review of Grammarly Premium, it is absolutely worth it if the added benefits are something you would typically use every day for work or school. Someone in college or a job that entails writing lots of newsletters, memos, or emails would benefit greatly from upgrading to premium. For someone who doesn’t do a ton of writing, the free version would most likely work out just fine. But if the extra money is in your budget, the added perks are great for anyone.

The post A Review of Grammarly Premium: Is It Worth It? appeared first on The Blog Herald.

Before the internet, there was a magazine called Consumer Reports that had the review market cornered, and it was considered a must-read before making a purchase big or small.  These days, you simply do a Google search on your phone.

Here are 5 easy steps to start your own product review blog.

Pick a niche that interests you.

Writing about things you have an interest in will keep you motivated to keep writing and reviewing.  It’ll take a while for your blog to gain traction and make money.  Until that happens, writing about things that interest you will make it seem more like a hobby that you enjoy than a chore you must check off your list.

Pick a niche that will draw interest from others.

There are lots of tech blogs because people love gadgets.  They want to know what’s hot, what’s new, and what will make their life easier.  Sure, you could do a blog about snow shovels, but snow shovels don’t inspire a lot of excitement.

Pick a niche that will make money.

Back to the previous example, tech gadgets are more expensive than snow shovels.  So they’ll likely bring in more revenue as well.

Do some keyword research.

This will help you find products that people are already interested in.  A mentor once referred to it as “finding a parade and getting in front of it!”

Keyword research allows you to find out what topics people are already looking for online.

It also allows you to see what sites are popular in specific niches.  This helps you avoid picking products and niches typically dominated by bigger sites.  You’ll have more luck getting noticed if you’re not taking on wirecutter.com for tech products, or nerdwallet.com for financial issues.

Create consistent content.

Come up with a frequent schedule for publishing and stick to it.  The blogs that you create and post will build on each other and build interest with search engines.  Consistency also builds confidence in readers and will make them more likely to come back to your site.

Optimize your site for search engines.

Along with being consistent with your posts, there are other ways to help search engines find you.  Use eye-catching headlines, image alt texts, and meta descriptions.  Use Google Analytics to find out what your top traffic sources are to help figure out what is driving the most traffic to your site.

Sign up for affiliate programs.

Affiliate programs are where businesses pay you to send traffic their way.  It’s a natural fit for product review blogs and is the best way to get some income coming in.

How it works is that you get a distinct affiliate link, so that clicks can be tracked. Usually, this is with “cookies.” These track the user to see if they make a purchase.  If they do, then you will earn a commission.

Every individual cookie has a length of time that it will work, a “cookie life”.  This is how long the cookie tracks the user’s online activity. For instance, a cookie with a 30-day life means the person you referred from your site has to make a purchase within that 30-day period for you to get the commission.  After 30 days, the lead will no longer be trackable.

In conclusion.  In the beginning, you can start by doing reviews of products you already have, or even borrowing the products from friends and family.  Once you’ve got a few blogs, and some traffic under your belt, you can reach out to companies about sending you the products for free.

As with any online endeavor, before you start spend some time looking around at other product review blogs.  Take notes on what catches your eye and put those things into use.

Seeing what kinds of products others review provides some direction as well.

The post Become a Product Review Blogger in 7 Easy Steps appeared first on The Blog Herald.

You may be wondering why you need a dedicated camera for vlogging. Vlogging is all about combining a traditional blog with video, and just like a traditional vlog, you want the quality to be as high as possible. While you can use your phone, a dedicated camera has its perks.

Using a camera for vlogging will take your quality to the next level and give you more separation for your business. While modern smartphone cameras have fantastic quality, they still have several limitations that a dedicated camera, especially with 4K pixelation, can go beyond.

• Sony SV-1

The most affordable option for vloggers is the beginner-friendly SV-1. This compact camera features a flip screen and microphone jack. At just under $500, this beginner camera is great to get started and learn what you do and don’t love in a camera before you upgrade with growth in your vlog. Having a clear complexion while vlogging is very important to influencers. This Sony camera has a soft skin effect mode. This allows for light to catch your skin in a sleek way, capturing natural and healthy-looking skin without sacrificing your saturation or the possibility of discoloration with other filters. Some of its best features are its real-time autofocus, image stabilization, and it’s switch between background bokeh modes.

• Sony a6400

This alpha camera is considered the best vlogging camera overall due to the image and video quality as well as the price. It has a continuous shooting feature at 11 frames per second. There is also contrast detection and real-time tracking. This Sony camera has proven to be great for vlogging on vacations and trips where there isn’t a great deal of luggage allowed or space available for it. This compact shooter is a great tool to have in your pocket for both pictures and video.

• Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-RX10 IV

The flip screen of the Cyber-Shot DSC-RX10 IV is the biggest selling point. It makes it easier to film on the move without having to worry if you are in the shot or not. It does come at a bit of a steep price at just under $1,700, but you are getting great quality for that price. The camera has an ISO sensitivity of 12800, which gives a much better image quality in low-light situations. It also features a multi-angle LCD and a speedy shutter. This reduces distortion caused by rolling shutters in other models and brands. Bottom line, this Sony camera is not only one of the nicest on the market but the most intelligent as well.

• Sony Alpha ZV-E10

The Alpha ZV-E10 features a mic input and flip screen. The large sensor offers both seamless image quality and minimum noise. The ISO sensitivity ranges from 100 to over 30,000. The LCD screen has a side opening, which has easy selfie-capturing capabilities. The mic input has 3 capsules in it, making sure that sounds are captured seamlessness, and without static. At $800, this is another Sony camera that is great for vlogging quality, as well as great for your wallet.

Wrap up

Now you have the rundown on all the best that Sony has to offer in terms of vlogging in 4K. You can make an informed decision when choosing your next, or first, vlogging camera. With options across the spectrum in price and design, there is no doubt that you will be able to find a Sony camera that exceeds your vlogging needs in terms of image quality and features.

The post Best Sony 4K Cameras to Help You Upgrade Your Vlog Game  appeared first on The Blog Herald.

Why Start a Dating Advice Blog?

For readers, anonymity is such a key element in reading dating advice blogs. Some people are open to talking about their relationships and intimacies, others are not. Some people are still in that grey area where they are unsure of what they are feeling about some things and want to read up on other people’s experiences first before sharing them with their friends and loved ones. There are certain topics (and curiosities) that some people are not confident enough to bring to light IRL. THIS should be your inspiration for writing a dating advice blog. Be that person that could help a stranger out. Let them ask anonymously, and answer them (either in private or as a post in your blog).

The Cons of Writing for a Dating Advice Blog

The emotional investment in writing for a dating advice blog can be a bit heavy. It is difficult to write sound advice for things you have never experienced before.  Remember, some people are vulnerable to certain heavy emotions. Heavy emotions can be reflected by content. It is also important to remind the readers that THERE IS NO FORMULA TO DATING. Sometimes the advice works, a lot of times it won’t. So, it is important to still treat writing for an advice blog as professional as possible. Research is a must.

Great Dating Advice Blogs to be inspired by

The Urban Dater

Offers great advice for both men and women – a bit limited on the spectrum if you ask me. The great thing is there is still some content, albeit limited, for readers from the LGBT community. However, this is a great blog to be inspired by as it gives tips on so many dating-related topics. The blog’s content includes gift ideas, dating apps, dating tips, marriage topics, and more. In fact, there is content even for fashion and relationships. There is also a section where readers can “Ask The Urban Dater” any relationship and dating-related inquiries that they have. The blog also allows guest posting, which is a good way to spice up variety in content and writing styles.

Soon 2 be Cat Lady

Although it is an ‘old-school’ take on blogging, this blog takes dating advice blogs on a personal level. Writing content in the first person is not so common nowadays on blogs, but it makes the content more relatable and believable. Some advice blogs write content so expert-sounding that the advice feels more like it came from a therapist rather than a friend – a bit unrealistic and too scientific. The blogger writes based on her own experiences or from the experiences of others she has observed. Then, she would be giving her thoughts and advice about it. Also, the blogger’s podcast and Twitter page make them a “real” and relatable person.

Sydney Gay Counselling

It is not actually an advice blog, but a counseling service website. Although honestly, it is as good as it gets. There are very limited blogs on the internet that focuses on LGBTQ dating advice (on all spectrum).  Maybe that is a good niche to try. We must understand, there are intricacies to LGBTQ dating that heterosexual dating does not have. There are also social biases that affect their relationships, at all levels – marriage, adoption, child-raising, and more.

Loving from a distance

What if you meet someone on a dating app and you are thousands of miles away from each other? This is another relationship-specific niche in the dating blog industry. There are not many advice blogs on this matter despite having high statistics of long-distance relationships. Not only should people in this kind of relationship need to hear advice on how to make it work, but they should also hear stories that IT DOES WORK. This is an interesting niche to write for, but equally inspiring as well. Although it sounds cheesy, the content is mostly an exchange between a reader and the blogger which is an interesting and unique writing format.

Divorced Girl Smiling

Dating is not just for the young. In the relationship dynamic that exists in today’s society, a small chunk of the statistics is taken up by people in their 40s and 50s. How do you date after a divorce? Can you still find someone after your husband or wife passes away? How can you break it to the children? These are valid questions asked by real people. There is a good market to create dating advice blogs for people in this age group.

There are so many avenues in writing a good dating advice blog. The topics are so varied. There is also variety in the age group of readers. Why not start a dating advice blog?

Also read: 10 Free Image Sharing Platforms

The post Why You Should Start a Dating Advice Blog and 5 Great Examples appeared first on The Blog Herald.

#1: Opencart

Beginners will definitely enjoy this open source CMS because of its incredible simplicity. You don’t have to be a technology guru in order to start using this open source CMS, there are lots of plugins that has been designed to handle all complex procedures and you can start operating your store without the knowledge of coding. The simplicity of this CMS makes it one of the best for newbie online store operators. You may want to click on https://www.magenet.com/best-cms-2017/, to learn more about this open source.

#2: PrestaShop

PrestaShop is definitely one of the top 5 open source CMS because it provides an easy solution for online shopping. More than 240,000 small businesses are currently using PrestaShop to operate their small businesses. It is known for its incredible simplicity, and it is a CMS platform that can be easily installed and operate by the user. Some of the in-built features on this CMS can help you manage business procedures such as; shipping, payment, product listings and suppliers management.

#3: Joomla

If you want to create a positive and lasting impression in the minds of potential customers, you will need Joomla, regardless of the business you are operating. This is another flexible open source CMS that is flexible enough for easy handling. Researches have shown that small business owners prefer Joomla to many other open source CMS, for a number of reasons, and some of those include the availability of countless extensions and plugins. Some of the popular brands that rely on Joomla are; Harvard University, and Holiday Inn.

#4: Drupal

When it comes to the optimization of your business website for search engines, Drupal is definitely one of the best choices. This open source CMS comes with numerous modules and tools that ensure that the most relevant contents are created for your targeted followers, and audiences. Pfizer and General Electric are two of the largest brands that rely on Drupal for their business content management.

Drupal will ensure that your contents are optimized for search engines, because it believes that a poor site ranking can badly affect your business. As good as it may sounds, it should be noted that Drupal may be one of the most complex open source CMS around today.

#5: WordPress

Perhaps, WordPress is the most popular open source CMS for small businesses. Researches have shown that more than 60% of open source CMS users still rely on WordPress for their content management. Top brands that make use of this CMS include; MTV news, and BBC America. You don’t need a license to use this CMS, and you will get access to hundreds of cool new plugins and themes on regular basis.

#6: Magento

If you need some special plugins for your online business, then you may consider Magento because it is specifically designed for ecommerce websites. Some of the known brands that rely on Magento CMS include; Cisco systems, and Nike Sports. Magento is suitable for both small and large business owners because it can help you build your webstore from the scratch. With lots of ready-made themes and plugins that provide lots of customizable capabilities, Magento is definitely one of the best rated CMS you can choose from. Magento supports payments in diverse currencies, and it comes in different languages, hence it is convenient for international users.

The post 2017 Most Unique and Friendliest CMS for Small Businesses appeared first on The Blog Herald.

If you want to pull out large chunks of your hair, try it.

Although there are various ways to set up an online course, you could end up spending a small fortune, because not only can it be painful trying to get everything to work together, but it’s likely you’ll need to invest in other systems so that you can do everything you want to do.

The Days of Before and After

Let’s back up a moment so you can see what is meant: Before Kajabi, course creators would need to own a website and pay for an LMS or membership plugin in order to add course content to their WordPress website. If they wanted to get fancy, and make life easier for their members, they may have needed to add additional plugins, which may or may not have worked with their main plugin.

This obviously created problems. But let’s presume all the plugins played nicely together…

Once the course was set up, they would need to pay for an email software system, and integrate it with the plugins already on the site. This would often entail hours of frustration to get it to work as wanted.

Then they would need to consider marketing their courses…another headache, as they would need to pay yet another 3rd party service in order to create landing pages to drive traffic to. More issues to get the landing pages working with the email software provider…

If you had the content and a passion to get it “out there”, you were in for a rude awakening if you planned to set the whole thing up yourself.

And then along came Kajabi, an all-in-one online course solution. It’s power is that it provides all the tools you need, under one roof. So there are 1) no hidden, additional costs, and 2) you don’t have to fiddle with stuff you know nothing about, to make it all work.

Major benefits of Kajabi

● It’s an all-in-one solution, from hosting, to creating a website, to getting your content set up in the form of an online course, to marketing it and collecting membership payments and upselling.
● There is no need to integrate with different services, which makes set-up faster and easier.
● You only pay one price to one system to create an entire online business; with Kajabi, you don’t require other additional services to add course content, marketing or selling.
● The Kajabi system has been built with search engines in mind, which is vital for your business. Setting up your online course business through this platform means your website will be search engine friendly, which ultimately means more customers for your business.
● The look you choose to present to your customers is completely customizable.

Example of an online course set up on the Kajabi platform.

● Choose from different website looks.
● You pay a flat fee every month, with no transaction fees to Kajabi. You’ll only pay the payment processor the fees they require.

Major features

● Work with a fully customizable, search engine friendly website is included so you can showcase your products and drive sales.
● Easily set up online courses that contain text, images, audio, and video.

Example of a website hosted by Kajabi on the basic plan.

● Attach a custom domain.
● Add your branding.
● Use the blog to provide regular content that fuels SEO and marketing results.
● Set up free products for promotional purposes.
● Send marketing emails to customers, and drip course content over a time period to keep members engaged.
● Email automatically via autoresponders included in software.
● Send out email broadcasts.
● Check the health of emails with analytics.
● Easily create opt-in forms for lead capture.
● Simply tweak landing page templates to suit your promotion.
● Create coupons to entice new members and reward old ones.
● Set up downloads.
● Enable monthly subscriptions for ongoing income.
● Use various currencies.
● Manage members and check progress.
● Make announcements.
● Have multiple administrators.
● Your members can get technical support and live chat.
● Get others to promote your products via an affiliate program.
● Use built-in integrations to simplify your life.
● Enable discussions inside courses in order to build a community and encourage engagement.

Cons

● There is no ability to set up quizzes inside courses (although Kajabi can be connected with Quiz Maker via Zapier).

Trial

Test it free of charge, for 14 days.

Cost

When you first start out, you may want to select the basic plan for $129 per month. This plan allows you to:

● Set up 5 courses
● Send up to 1000 marketing emails a month
● Have 1000 members
● Set up 1 website
● 25 landing pages

Go for pro at $389 per month if you need a bit more oomph, like being able to:

● Set up 100 courses
● Send up to 40 000 marketing emails a month
● Have 10 000 members
● Set up 3 websites
● Create 100 landing pages

PLUS: Setting up your own affiliate program

If you’re an old hand, you may prefer the premium plan for $799 per month. This one includes:

● The ability to set up an unlimited amount of courses
● Allowance of up to 100 000 marketing emails a month
● Unlimited amount of members
● Ability to set up 10 websites
● An unlimited amount of landing pages

PLUS: Setting up your own affiliate program

Save 20% on all plans if you pay annually.

Summary

Out of the seven online course tools evaluated, when you want to make an entire business with online courses, Kajabi has to be the most comprehensive platform available today. It makes the business owner’s job a lot easier, and allows for faster set-up because everything you need is included. And because it’s all included, you don’t have to fiddle around with other 3rd party services or integrations.

Added to that is the fact that the Kajabi platform is built to increase your traffic via search engines, so that’s a huge part of your marketing taken care of.

If you were to add all the services you would need to set up online courses through another option, Kajabi works out a lot more affordable.

3 Useful Free Online Courses for Bloggers You Should Consider Taking

The post [2017] Review Of Kajabi: All-In-One Online Course & Membership Platform appeared first on The Blog Herald.

Pricing

Pricing is one of the most important factors to consider before buying any product. If you can’t afford a product, then it doesn’t matter how much love you have for it. You simply can’t get it. So let’s look at these two and see which one wins in pricing.

GetResponse has 4 pricing packages that work as below:

• Email starts at $15/month for up to 1000 subscribers
• Pro starts at $49 per month for up to 5000 subscribers
• Max starts at $165 per month for up to 10,000 subscribers
• Enterprise starts at $799/month for 100,000+ subscribers

In each plan, the prices go up with an increase of subscribers past certain thresholds.

GetResponse gives you the opportunity to test-drive the features with a 30-day free trial. This allows you to have 250 subscribers and send unlimited emails. In fact, you literally get all the features for free during that trial period.
Infusionsoft has 5 packages.

• Essentials goes for $199/month and includes 2500 contacts.
• Deluxe (Sales Automation) goes for $299 per month and includes 5,000 contacts.
• Deluxe (E-commerce) also goes for $299 monthly and also includes 5,000 contacts.
• Complete goes for $379 per month and includes 10,000 contacts.
• Team goes for $599 per month and includes 20,000 contacts.

Infusionsoft does not have a free trial. Therefore you cannot test drive the features for free. You have to pay their minimum $199 to see how it works.

Verdict: GetResponse heavily beats Infusionsoft when it comes to pricing. Their prices are way lower, and you’re allowed to test it for free for 30 days.

Ease of Use

How easy is it for a beginner and even an expert to use?

GetResponse is designed with a beginner in mind. Therefore, it’s very easy to create emails, add elements and even do marketing automation. It has a clear and simple interphase that is easy to navigate for most people. The editor is well arranged and has simple commands.

The GetResponse marketing automation section is the only part that may seem a little bit complicated for a beginner. However, they have a useful Marketing Automation Hub with lots of information on this.

Infusionsoft is complicated, not only to beginners but also to some professionals. Pat Flynn, who is a seasoned internet marketing veteran, found it very complicated and had to switch to another program. Their website is tailored to help large businesses, especially those who have a dedicated specialist to handle email marketing matters.

Verdict: GetResponse comes out on top since it is easy to use for both beginners and veterans.

Marketing automation

Marketing automation is fast becoming a vital component of online businesses. This allows them to use powerful tools to create rich audience profiles, enabling the businesses to target marketing messages and activities to specific people who are deemed to have a higher likelihood of taking action, such as buying a product. When well crafted, it can heavily increase conversion rates.

GetResponse has a great marketing automation platform that can be used in addition to their signature autoresponders. Automation rules enable you to move subscribers between lists, set up campaign removal conditions, tag, set up sale conditions, etc.

Infusionsoft is a marketing automation giant. It has a campaign builder with a simple drag and drop interface. You can use this to build an entire campaign. You can trigger calls, emails, and many other actions that match specific customer behaviors.

Infusionsoft features full CRM integration, which gives more personalization options. Lead scoring helps you assess the probability of a lead converting into a sale. For e-commerce sites, shopping cart abandonment emails can help you regain the high percentage of customers who may have gone for good if not followed up on.

Verdict: Infusionsoft beats GetResponse on the marketing automation front. The only challenge is the fact that it is difficult to set up proper workflows.

Webinar Pages

Webinars are fantastic for increasing conversions and boosting sales.

GetResponse allows you to host webinars, gather reports, and analyze them straight from the dashboard. It enables easy setting up and scheduling. You can also use email invites and reminders to nurture your leads. Attendees get easy access to your webinar room without the need of any plugins. You get smart polls, full screen or partial screen features, chat, and intuitive whiteboards. You can always share your video recordings for playback and downloads.

Infusionsoft does not have a webinar solution. If you want to host a webinar, you will need to pay for and use other programs.

Verdict: GetResponse beats Infusionsoft hands down on this one.

Landing pages

These are pages designed to get results. You can use special pages and forms that can help you get more leads and gather information about your leads. Both platforms have a landing page builder.

GetResponse has over 100 landing page templates. They are professionally made, and each comes with a matching “Thank You” page. You can use the drag and drop editor to edit each element of your landing page. You have the freedom to either host the landing page on a GetResponse subdomain or your own domain. The landing pages are responsive; therefore, they look stunning on all devices. You get over 1000 free photos to use, and an image editor that you can use to make your images more glamorous.

Infusionsoft also allows you to create and host landing pages easily without expert help. You can make the landing page multi-column and include images, texts, and videos. A landing page can only be assigned to a single campaign goal. It is auto-saved every 30 seconds as you create it, ensuring you don’t lose much data in case of any technical problems.

Landing pages here also come with optional “Thank You” pages.

Verdict: Both platforms have great landing page features.

A/B Testing

Numbers don’t lie. Testing helps improve your campaigns and increase your revenues.

With GetResponse, you can split test almost anything – including your content, from field, subject line, day of the week, landing pages, web forms, and even time of day. You can use their slider to split your list into testing segments. There is an option of setting it up such that the winning version gets sent automatically. You also get to configure how long you want the test to last. What’s more, you get instant results.

Infusionsoft also allows you to do split tests. You can use it to try different emails, landing pages or offers on your contacts so that you know what converts better. There are very limited A/B testing features here. If you want to split test the same way you would have done in GetResponse, you will need a third party plugin.

Verdict: GetResponse has more split testing features.

Customer support

When it comes to any subscription product, exceptional customer support is very important. This is because there are some things that may be hard to understand and different challenges can always come up along the way.

GetResponse has a 24/7 live chat feature. You can also contact them through email ticket or phone call. It also has many relevant help pages on their site such as their learning center, GetResponse TV, blog, and Marketing Automation Hub. Additionally, they host regular webinars that can help a newbie get the most out of their features.

Infusionsoft also has 24/7 chat support. You can use their call support during specific working hours. It has a few help pages that can take you through the basics. There are different live courses offered at the Infusionsoft University that are offered at hefty fees.

Verdict: GetResponse takes this.

Conclusion

GetResponse is a fantastic tool that has brilliant email marketing and marketing automation features. It enables you to host webinars, which is not available in Infusionsoft. It is very easy to use, making it beginner-friendly. You get all these only at a fraction of the Infusionsoft cost.

Infusionsoft is another marvelous tool with to-die-for features. These include CRM (customer relationship management), email marketing, lead scoring, e-commerce shopping carts, and sales features. It is, therefore, awesome for email marketing and marketing automation in general.

However, Infusionsoft is very expensive and hard to use. It is best suited for big organizations that have dedicated marketing automation personnel. Its support is wanting, and for advanced training, you may have to pay even more money on top of their expensive charges.

For those reasons, GetResponse is the ultimate winner. If your goal is to get a marketing solution that you will use seamlessly and affordably, with outstanding features, GetResponse is the definite way to go.

Running Your Email Marketing: Dedicated Platform or Gmail-Based Apps?

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It fills the gap in invoicing that the online industry is missing without having to charge you an arm and a leg. Check out the review below, improvements I think need to be made, and the verdict that talks about who can benefit most from this particular tool.

How It Works and How to Get Started with Due.com

To get started, all I had to do was visit Due.com, click “Sign Up,” and then fill in basic contact information. I was then taken to my dashboard and set to go. For non-disclosure purposes I chose to use screenshots in this piece with generic and made up company names (but you get the idea). The best way to really understand the tool is to go through the basic features, or tabs, including in the tool. If you’re only interested in the review, just skip down to the next section!

The Dashboard Tab

Below is a screenshot of the empty dashboard you start out with. As you might imagine, as you add information your dashboard will change and you’ll have a full calendar and full list of Reports. Pay attention to the tabs on the left hand side of the screen—that’s where all of the action and features happen. It gives you a quick look at everything you’re working with at once (as dashboards do).

As you can hopefully see, it’s a very intuitive dashboard. You have all of your options in the left-hand side bar, you just have to click them and get started. If you want to add a client, click the “Client” tab to add, if you want to add an invoice or a recurring invoice, you can click the “Invoice” tab, and so on and so forth.

The Invoice Tab

Because this tool focuses on invoices, let’s look at the screenshot you’ll see when you click the “Invoice” tab on the left-hand side of the page:

This gives me a quick look at how many invoices are pending, paid, and the ID numbers all listed out neatly in a chart at the bottom of the page. I can also easily click to Recurring Invoices to make sure everything is set correctly. To create a new Invoice, I simply click the Blue Button on the top right-hand side of the page.

The Client Tab

This is a pretty straightforward feature that makes it easy to create an address book of your clients, both new and old, so that you can navigate to his/her contact information and find him/her easily when creating and invoice or a project. You may also notice that there is one Project associated with this client (which brings us to the next tab), but ultimately it’s nice to see everything in one place.

The Projects Tab

This tab has two different layers: Projects and Tasks. What you do is create a project and then you can add tasks to that project (almost like a subcategory of a topic). You have the ability to add a budget, client name, due date, and of course can make edits and changes at any time. This Project is associated with the client “Joe Smith,” which again, you can see above in the Client tab.

Prices: And here ends all of the free options. To unlock the other tabs you have to pay a monthly fee anywhere from $10/ month, $25/ month, or $100/ month. You can check out more of the pricing here.

Looking at the paid version and giving it a quick try, larger businesses would benefit because it opens up features like PayPal integration, Invoice Export Options, a Timeline of your Activity, and allows you to add other Staff members to your projects and activity. For smaller businesses or freelance work, like me, the free version is more than enough.

Notable Features of Due.com

A few of the features below you can only find with the paid version, so it’s up to you to decide whether or not you would benefit from some of these features. Nevertheless, Due.com does offer some cool stuff that you may just want to keep in the back of your mind if your company does end up growing:

• Embed Invoices. This tool has a feature where you can embed one of their invoices (yes, they’re customizable) right onto your website so that customers never have to leave your site to pay your invoice online.
• Invoice Multiple Countries & Tax Systems.com is supported in more than 100 countries and supports the majority of all tax systems. Obviously, this makes it a great option if you expect to someday have international customers.
• PayPal Partnership.com has a partnership with PayPal that offers a $.50 transaction fee if paid through PayPal balance. This helps you save money on fees.

Where Due.com Could Use Some Improvements

The first thing I thought of when using this tool was the importance of sinking it to oDesk. There are also other invoicing services out there such as Zoho, Xero, eLance, and even Venmo for small projects that Due.com didn’t seem to mention. The paid version of the tool will include PayPal and QuickBooks integration, which is great, but I know that we personally use oDesk all the time and would love the ability to sync it with Due.com. For smaller businesses, having to pay to even just get PayPal integration may not be worth it.

The Verdict

I get asked to write a lot of reviews, but this was one that I really had my hopes set on as I sat down to check it out. If the tool were as good as the idea, then my life would get a whole lot easier. Fortunately for me (or anyone out there managing a lot of invoices and projects), it did not disappoint. The verdict here is a big “YES everyone should try this tool.”

Because the tool is so new it is unsurprising that there are still a few kinks to iron out and improvements to be made, but they have a solid foundation. As discussed above, the best thing about Due.com is the interface. It’s so easy to use and straightforward that it actually does make things easier, which so many tool that try to do-it-all simply just can’t master. It’s intuitive, the navigation makes sense, and it automatically tracks everything for you so you know when something is completed and what’s coming up on your calendar.

A different way to think of this tool, and something that came to my mind immediately, is to compare Due.com to Mint. Your bank always has its own dashboard that you were probably using, just like you probably use the PayPal dashboard for your invoices. However, as things start to get more complicated you need a tool that does it all while still keeping things easy. In other words, Due.com is to Mint the way PayPal is to your bank. You love PayPal, but it just won’t cut it as your work continues to grow.

Again, you can sign up to start using the tool at Due.com. Once you give it a try, let us know what you think and what you would improve in the comment section below.

The post Due.com Review: It Really Is An Easy Way to Keep Track of Your Invoices appeared first on The Blog Herald.

Fortunately for us, some personal finance companies have managed to create a blog with interesting and engaging content. If you’ve been searching for a blog to learn more about personal finance but can’t find anything quality, check out some of these options below.

8 of the Best Personal Finance Blogs on the Web

The Popular Options

1. Saving Advice

This is a great blog because it offers more than just your typical articles. They offer forum discussions, a ”Saving Money” daily tip, and a featured tool that you may want to use. They also have member blogs where you can publish your own articles and see the type of feedback and comments you get, which helps keep the blog interactive. Overall, it’s one of the best.

2. Wise Bread

This is by far the most popular personal finance blog out there today. Although personal finance is just one small section of what the website has to offer, it has some of the more detailed and well-written articles on its blog compared to others. They update their content frequently and keep up with the latest trends, so you never have to worry about reading something outdated or incorrect. Between interviews and video, Wise Bread knows how blogging works.

3. Money Crashers

This is another blog that publishes content very frequently and has an excellent portfolio under its belt. They let you know what content is popular each week and offer recommendations of what to read in case you’re visiting just for fun and need somewhere to start. They do cover a wide range of topics, so it’s crucial that you use their tabs listed at the top of the website to find the subjects you want (otherwise it’s easy to get overwhelmed here!).

4. Money Ning

This blog has been one of the more popular blogs for several years, but it’s much simpler than the others discussed above. You visit the blog and you scroll down to see each piece of content. In other words, it is formatted much like a traditional blog as opposed to a newspaper or magazine website. There is great content here with great readership so there are always lots of comments to engage in. If you’re just looking for something interesting to read (as opposed to researching something specific), this is a good option for you.

5. Mint Life

Mint Life is actually the blog of popular company and tool Mint.com. Mint.com is a tool and app that helps you manage your money and will do all of the organizing and categorizing for you if you have several accounts, so it’s safe to say they know their stuff. Although the blog might not be the main focus of this company, it’s constantly up to date and offers great pieces. It’s set up like a blog as opposed to a magazine style layout, so it’s easy to read and browse through quickly.

The Up-and-Coming Options

6. Banking Sense

This is a much newer blog on the scene, but it is already making a name for itself with an array of great content and creative topics. The blog specifically mentions in its mission statement that it understands the wide spectrum of where people may be when it comes to understanding personal finance, so they try to have content for everyone. With categories broken up nicely, it’s easy to get around this blog and find what you want for any topic from bank accounts to insurance to investments.

7. Daily Finance

This blog hasn’t gained much traction in the personal finance world yet, but I anticipate it will in the coming years because of its modern design and strategy toward blogging. This is a blog that actually creates great videos, which is something rare for a personal finance blog, and it keeps you up on the markets right there on the homepage. Daily Finance even pulls articles from around the web to offer the best possible information, so I see this one going far.

8. Good Financial Cents

Jeff Rose, certified financial planner, the CEO of his own wealth management firm, and author, primarily runs this blog and likes to give his own opinions with his own personality. He gives real-world advice and makes you feel like he’s been there and he’s talking right with you, so it’s more of a personalize blog than many of the others. He also has a podcast to help connect with those on the go, so it seems that this blog will only grow in popularity. What this blog is lacking is several different perspectives being written on the blog, but that may come in the future. For now, he’s giving great advice.

Do you know of any other great personal finance blogs? What makes them so great? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.

Photo Credit: bloggingpro.com

The post Top 8 Personal Finance Blogs You Should be Reading appeared first on The Blog Herald.

Businesses of all sizes are very fortunate these days as they have a wide range of web tools available to them. Some are free while the others require a small investment on a monthly or yearly basis.

Even small businesses can take advantage of the various software applications including the free blogging tools online to help them achieve their goals and sustain the business for the long term. Those that are slowly expanding should recognize their growing needs as well particularly with regards to keeping track of their sales, customers and overall progress. These also require more advanced applications such as the customer relationship management (CRM) tool.

Here are several of them ideal for small business owners.

SalesForce

The SalesForce CRM app lets users monitor their sales, manage contacts, leads and opportunities. It also has the ability to provide forecasts, analytics and notifications.

What’s great about this tool is that it can also connect with social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

SalesForce offers a pay-as-you-go plan starting at an affordable rate of $5 per month. More than 100,000 companies of all sizes are currently using this tool in their effort to collaborate with staff and grow their revenue.

StrideApp

StrideApp is more than just a CRM tool as it can also help with project management allowing users to collaborate on specific tasks. Specifically, it is an app that helps keep track of sales and works with gmail, dropbox and outlook.

For project collaboration, StrideApp lets users organize and store their files securely while it also provides analytics and insights into the progress of your business sales.

A free trial is available for 30 days to let users determine if it’s appropriate for their needs. Paid plans allow unlimited users while the free plan can accommodate up to 10 deals. Each Monday, users receive an email notifying them of deals they still have.

Launched in 2012, this tool was created by a team of designers and developers.

Nimble

Nimble is an efficient relationship manager that lets users monitor their contacts and helps them establish productive relationships. It’s a simple yet effective platform that organizes communications and collaborations and works with the most popular social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

This tool is most ideal for small business owners, freelancers, non profits and public administrations. Other than the PC, it is accessible via the Mac as well as iPhone and iPad.

A free trial is available for those who want to try out first the paid plan while the basic version is free of charge.

Businesses are also bound to benefit from creating their own website or blog. There are free blogging tools readily available that business owners can utilize to help them promote their expertise, products and services.

The post 3 CRM Tools Ideal for Small Business appeared first on The Blog Herald.

Image Source

The benefit to running a Windows machine is the wide array of software developed for these systems. Even going back to Windows 2000/XP there have been developers releasing excellent freeware for anyone in the world. Data backups can be handled manually or through parity of internal drives. OS X users do not always have this same luxury.

But it is important when considering how to backup data from your computer, to think about how you would want access to it. Many users prefer local hard drives either internal in the system, or external through USB/Firewire. I have been using physical drives across multiple Operating Systems and it works great if you have the storage space.

Freelancers and smaller projects do not require as much space. If you can go without a 1TB external then maybe cloud backups are the right solution. The process to generate Mac backups has been refined over the years to include Time Machine, along with other similar applications.

In fact many of the popular online services allow you to download a native OS X application. This is great for a number of reasons – but obviously it allows you to run backups without much hassle. It’s the main reason people end up switching to Mac software in the first place.

A large problem I notice is when people do not trust their information being stored on some other servers. This can grow into a big deal when you are using a company with weak security, or a new startup that has just gotten started online. Find a provider that has been going for years and someone that you can trust. Your data is no joke and you will definitely want access in case of an emergency.

The best online backup solutions will be the ones you can trust. Price is also important, but why pay cheap costs for something you don’t even really want? Granted there are certainly affordable and trustworthy providers out there. You just have to spend some time researching and pick out what looks best to you.

The post Online Backup Solutions for Mac Users appeared first on The Blog Herald.

Here at Blog Herald, we wanted to make the process super simple which is why we went on a mission to find the best web hosting site. Unlike other reviews which are focused more on making a quick buck, we’ve actually done the research to offer up some awesome suggestions. As it turns out, there are several great contenders, starting with a company dedicated to WordPress.

WP Engine

WP Engine is geared towards sites running on WordPress, and as the image above reveals, claims to offer “hassle-free WordPress hosting”. They have WordPress experts on staff, and to go above and beyond the call of duty, will help you if your site ever gets hacked. Unfortunately, it can happen to anyone, and their team will do their best to keep it from ever happening again.

There are four different plans to choose from which all include unlimited data transfer, starting at $29 per month for the Personal plan. It includes one WordPress install, up-to 25,000 visits per month, and 10GB local storage. The Professional plan costs $99 per month. It includes up-to 10 WordPress installs, 100,000 visits per month, and 20GB local storage. Business will run you $249 per month, and includes up-to 25 WordPress installs, 400,000 visits per month, and 30GB local storage.

If you require something a bit more, their Premium plan can be customized exactly for your needs. Professional includes a CDN, supports SSL (HTTPS), and WordPress Multisite, but a dedicated IP address will cost an additional $5 per month. However, the Business plan includes all that without an additional monthly fee for a dedicated IP address.

There are no lengthy contracts to sign, and if you’re not satisfied within 60 days, you can gladly get your money back. WP Engine’s focus on helping WordPress users get the most out of their sites makes it a great choice for serious bloggers.

HostGator

HostGator comes up quite a bit when looking for the best web hosting site, and for good reason. They offer very affordable plans, and have some of the best customer service in the business. Their standard web hosting plans come in three different flavors, and they all come with unlimited disk space and bandwidth.

The Hatchling plan will run you $8.95 per month, and supports only one domain. Baby will run you $9.95 per month, and supports unlimited domains. Business will run you $14.95 per month, and not only does it support unlimited domains, but also includes extras like a toll-free number, dedicated IP address, and private SSL. HostGator offers a 45-day money back guarantee, and if you require a dedicated server, they have options starting at $174 per month. For its shared hosting plans, you can lock in rates as low as $4.95 per month when paid months or years in advance.

As an incentive for business owners, HostGator also throws in $100 in free Google Adwords credits on all plans.

DreamHost

DreamHost has an offering similar to HostGator, but differentiates itself with a single shared hosting plan, 100 percent uptime guarantee, and an industry leading 97-day money back guarantee. For $8.95 per month, you get unlimited disk storage, unlimited bandwidth, and domains. This includes SSL support, but an additional monthly fee of $3.95 per month is required for a dedicated IP address. Also, for premium support which includes three phone callbacks each month and unlimited live chats, that will set you back $9.95 per month.

For WordPress users, a service called DreamPress takes out all the guesswork, and features optimized performance, security, and expert WordPress support. It’ll run you $24.95 per month per site, and also includes a 100 percent uptime guarantee, and 97-day money back guarantee. If you need a dedicated server, DreamHost offers plans starting at $109 per month with discounts if you pay yearly.

InMotion Hosting

Finishing out the list of best web hosting providers, InMotion Hosting has some great things going for it. Not only have they been certified by CNET for 10 years, but they also don’t charge a dime for website transfers. Just provide the proper details, and they claim to have your site transferred over in no time. Known as Business Hosting, they have three different plans which all offer unlimited disk space, and data transfer.

Launch will run you $7.99 per month, and includes support for up-to two websites. Power will run you $9.99 per month, and includes support for up-to six websites. Pro will run you $14.99 per month, and includes support for up-to 25 websites. Similar to DreamHost, InMotion Hosting gives customers a 90-day money back guarantee.

Dedicated servers are also available, starting at $119.99 per month. All in all, these are four of the best web hosting companies out there. They all offer a great service at a great price, and there’s just not enough room to list all of their features.

…….

Crowd-funded gadgets, games and other Kickstarter products at the Forevergeek Kickstarter Store

The post Four Best Web Hosting Companies Without Breaking The Bank appeared first on The Blog Herald.

I want to share a resource part of Depositphotos that will catch bloggers by surprise. If you have been a part of Depositphotos then it is already evident what type of resources they can offer. It is a very powerful eCommerce shop, and I have always enjoyed their useful features. Even just a basic search for writing photos can provide a starting point. You want to add graphics and tidbits into your articles that readers can tie into the content itself.

Web Copy and Graphics

The Depositphotos library of stock photography is enormous and growing every day. There are a lot of freelance photographers who are more than happy to contribute and sell their pieces on the Internet. It provides an exceptional means of quick money, plus they get paid to do what they love most. If you have never seen the photographs in Depositphotos it is definitely worth a peek.

Some of their categories will be intermixed if you do not specify a type of search. There are both icons, vectors, graphics, and stock photos all mixed into one search engine! It goes without saying that their products catalog is expansive, but just how useful can this be to writers on the web? It depends how many articles you are writing. And how many of these articles will benefit from using a piece of stock photography.

Read up a bit on the stock files prices to get an adjusted idea for your own usage. It is a waste of money to buy more credits than you will need. But if you find yourself with loads of additional work then it is definitely worth a bit of extra cost for the exemplary display in stock photography. There are lots of different types of photos, and even some displays or charts that may come in handy during a publication.

Times of Change

As we move forward it is difficult to say how the writing scene may change. There is a striking trend in the upheaval from print magazines to digital magazines. With this transformation we may also witness a rise in more users on the web. This should not come as a surprise, with the number of mobile devices and tablets increasing with each year.

If you are a blogger or manage your own online blog/magazine it is worth reading about Depositphotos’ special for bloggers. You can get access to a wide library of photos and other images which pertain exclusively to blogging and writing articles online. It truly is a technological era we are moving towards, and I would love to see the advancing art of web copywriting to go through a similar transition.

Crowd-funded gadgets, games and other Kickstarter products at the Forevergeek Kickstarter Store

The post Writing Copy that Catches your Readers Attention appeared first on The Blog Herald.

CES 2013 stunners

You’re probably sitting there after a long day scrolling through Twitter and Google+ hashtags and stories announcing some of the key items this year’s CES show. Your eyes are either on fire from staring at the screen too long or you can’t focus anymore because there’s just too much cool stuff. Yeah, we feel the same way! So let’s get to the good stuff right away and announce what we think are this year’s CES stunners.

Smartphones

The Sony Xperia Z, Alcatel ?One Touch Idol Ultra (who names these things?) and Samsung flexible display named “Youm” were all unveiled this year. In particular, the much-awaited flexible display Samsung put forth at the Keynote was jaw-dropping.

Samsung flexible OLED Display

There’s been a lot of hype and rumors since last year’s CES, when the rumors first started about the mega-corp was developing cool 21st century that would save us from cracked screens. At the time, Apple was still taking a lot of heat for its screens being too fragile, so this was perfect timing on Sammy’s part. Fast forward to this week’s CES and we now have a working prototype, in which it has been said a new ecosystem can be created from this concept device. The video below shows us more on this amazing new tech development!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GDJ67df0p6A

Alcatel One Touch Idol Utlra

Onwards to the real fireworks, and the newest titleholder of “world’s slimmest smartphone”. Alcatel outdid themselves at the show and may be one to watch in the future. So how thin is this device? Alcatel’s official measurements put the One Touch Idol Ultra at a paltry 6.45mm! This is definitely poking into Samsung’s flexible OLED display territory. As far as specs are concerned on this bad boy, it sports?a 1.2 GHz dual-core CPU, a?4.7-inch 720p AMOLED display, the standard 1 GB of RAM and an 8.0 MP rear camera.

Sony Xperia Z

Last but not least, is the dust and water-resistant smartphone aptly put into the ongoing Xperia series. The durable display on its?slim 7.9?mm body holds its dual superpowers discreetly. ?The full HD 5? 1080 x 1920p “Reality Display” is really the stunner on this handheld wonder, but let’s be honest: most people will go right out and dump it in their toilet to test out its water resistance level. Sony lists these at IP55 and IP57, respectively. Rounding out the specs, ?a Snapdragon S4 Pro quad-core CPU, a 13 megapixel camera and of course, screaming fast 4G LTE make this a solidly built smartphone.

Automobiles

You wouldn’t expect to talk about cars but it is CES after all, and it’s not limited to mobile tech and computing. This year we saw Volvo, Toyota, and Audi put their best foot forward. And best foot it was! I think they may have put both forward in order to make a giant leap into the future of how we visualize and implement our vehicles into daily life.

Volvo Sensus Connected Touch

First up is Volvo and their “inlaid iPad” dubbed Sensus Connected Touch. While many have scoffed at the idea of having a touchscreen in their vehicle (it’s nothing new, people have been modding their vehicles for quite some time), the concept displayed by Volvo is (sorry, Transformers franchise) more than meets the eye. The following video shows more info, and pay close attention to all the bells and whistles that can be found in this highly-connected piece of equipment!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBU2jCrV1ds

Toyota Autonomous Robot Car

Remember that cool scene in the last Terminator movie when the motorcycles were chasing after Christian Bale? Well, now that’s a reality and it’s being brought to you by none other than Toyota. The company has done its absolute best to wipe the slate clean between them and consumers since their disastrous brake scandal. But let’s do away with that morbid news and get to the meat.

http://youtu.be/_zP1kbixnD4

2010 Autonomous Audi TTS

On much the same news, comes Audi with their autonomous research facility’s beautiful piece of road art. Something to note with this story is that?Nevada granted Audi the first automaker permit and thus, has allowed them to operate autonomous vehicles on public roads! Move over Jetsons!

Source Credits:?http://www.audiusanews.com

http://travelgadgets.me/post/40178188948/sony-xperia-z

http://www.binlogs.com/9267/samsung-flexible-oled-display-youm/

The post Quick Review of CES 2013 appeared first on The Blog Herald.

If you?ve never experienced the freedom of blogging anywhere, then it?s time you do. To get you started, here are the top blogging s that you should get for your smartphone.

WordPress

Using the WordPress for iOS or Android is as almost good as using WordPress on your computer. It lets you make, edit and format posts; manage your blog?s comments; switch between different blogs; create links; and control image alignment, captions, and location on the post. So if your blog uses WordPress, make sure your smartphone has the WordPress .

PayPal

There are several pay-per-click advertising programs that use PayPal for pay-outs, so if you have the PayPal on your smartphone, you can collect your ad revenue even when on the go. The works just like the online service: it lets you check your balance, send money and withdraw funds. The also lets you add money by photographing a cheque and receive credit card/debit card payments through your smartphone.

Quicklytics/Google Analytics

With the right , you can keep track of your blog?s traffic even on your smartphone. On Android, you can get the official Google Analytics . If you?re using iOS, use Quicklytics. Both s let you access your Google Analytics account, see real-time statistics about your site visitors, and get the range of reports provided by Google Analytics.

BlogPress

If you?re looking for the ultimate blogging on your iDevice, then get BlogPress. It supports most of the popular blogging platforms like Blogger, WordPress, TypePad, Movable Type, Drupal, Squarespace, LiveJournal, Tumblr, and several others.

But its awesomeness doesn?t end there: BlogPress also links with your Picasa, YouTube and Flickr account. That means if you want to post something from those sites, there?s no need to get its link or code to since the automatically embeds the clip/picture on your post. Mind blowing.

Flipboard

Using social media is a great way to promote your posts and bring in more traffic to your blog. There are many social media aggregators out there, but don?t just get any ?use the best-looking and most convenient one. Flipboard presents your social media in a magazine-like format, but more importantly, it also allows you to connect to a dozen social networks.

CoverItLive

It?s the best liveblogging right now. CIL lets you launch and run live events (e.g. a convention or sporting event), publish live commentary and photos, moderate comments, and several other nifty features?for free.

Evernote

Blogging ideas follow no schedule when it arrives. But when inspiration strikes, you have to make a note of it or lose the idea forever. That?s where Evernote comes in. The lets you save notes, photos, webpages, and voice memos so you won?t ever forget an idea for your blog.

Instagram

Instagram isn?t just an excellent photography that lets you edit photos and add filters?it?s also a social network that lets you share your pictures online, making it perfect for blogging.

QuickAdsense/Google AdSense Dashboard

Almost every monetised blog uses Google?s AdSense advertising program. If you are using AdSense on your blog, make sure you have the QuickAdsense on your iDevice or the Google AdSense Dashboard on your Android smartphone. These s allow you to keep track of your AdSense account?s performance metrics and see how much money you?ve earned.

The author is an avid tech blogger and writes App reviews for TheAppReviewer.com

The post Top Blogger Smartphone Apps appeared first on The Blog Herald.

Using Insta-WP is very simple, users starts by navigating to Insta-WP at which time they click on the “Create “InstaWallpaper” button.

The next part of the setup is to choose the wallpaper size which ranges from 320 x 480 pixels to a much larger 2048 x 1536. One of the nicest parts of the options screen is that Insta-WP tells you which sizes to use for each of your devices. For example the iPad 3 can use 2048 x 1536 pixel wallpapers while the Galaxy Tab 7.0 relies on 1024 x 600 pixels.

Here’s a preview of the Insta-WP screen size setup:

After choosing the wallpaper size the next step in the setup is choosing where to pull Instagram photos from. For example a user can choose a certain tag, opt to choose a specific user name or even choose a specific category which is limited to basic options including pets, baby, girl, cute, flower, nature, beach, sky and food.

You will also notice the option to place images in order based on “new, popular and random” which just changes the wallpaper image placement.

I personally prefer the “small” layout which provides more images for my wallpaper and I don’t care for the “rounded images” because it makes then feel as if I am looking through a pinhole which some users will enjoy.

I tried spacing but I like the crowded “collage” look with no spacing.

Finally users can display a date and the # of photo likes which would be a great option for photographer and anyone with a “look at my awesome work” complex.

After choosing the display size and photo options clicking the “preview button will show off the selected images just like the display below:

The preview only shows a small part of the overall display however clicking on “Download this wallpaper” will provide an instant download of a .jpg file which will look something like this:

Simply use your wallpaper wherever you see fit and head back to Insta-WP to create new wallpapers as you decided to change them up.

Crowd-funded gadgets, tech, games and other awesome Kickstarter products at the Forevergeek Kickstarter Store

The post Insta-WP Makes Wallpaper Creation Fun With Instagram Integration appeared first on The Blog Herald.

Once you have signed up for a free trial account you simply install the sites plugin on each of your websites. This plugin essentially gives you access to your blogs from within the ManageWP administration panel.

After the system has been installed you will be asked to add websites to your panel, those websites will then be accessible via the ManageWP login panel. Once installed the system then provides many useful features.

For example you can choose to add and upgrade themes for all of your websites from one screen, removing the need to log into various accounts.  The system also allows users to be bulk added for login purposes.

If you run a network in which posts are added to more than one website at a time ManageWP also provides a “Bulk Add” option for posts and pages. I personally found the “Add New Page” option helpful when creating privacy and copyright polices for various websites.

If you want to add links to a blogroll on each of your sites, perhaps when creating a network of interconnected blogs that option is also provided.

For “Professional” and “Business” level users ManageWP also offers one-click automatic backup of your websites to your server, Amazon S3, Dropbox, FTP or an email address.

The team at ManageWP has also added an elegant Google Analytics setup which allows users to view pageview and other Analytics information directly fro within the ManageWP interface.

Throw in uptime server monitoring, the ability to check SEO settings (backlinks, traffic, Twitter, etc) and the ability to close a sites setup (themes, plugins, etc) and it’s easy to see why a starting price of just $6.30/month for up to 10 websites is worth the price of admission.

Here’s a closer look at the super simple setup for the ManageWP system:

For power users looking for a self-hosted option ManageWP is also willing to work directly with your organization to create a single sign-on setup for a URL location of your choosing. You can email them directly at managewp.com/self-hosted.

Here’s a great demo of the system put together by the programs creators:

ManageWP Tour from ManageWP on Vimeo.

Crowd-funded gadgets, tech, games and other awesome Kickstarter products at the Forevergeek Kickstarter Store

The post ManageWP Makes Multi-Blog WordPress Management Easy And Affordable appeared first on The Blog Herald.

There are a number of ways to look at the brewing feud between Google+ and two of the most popular social media sites.  One way is to look at the numbers of registered users, another way is look at the quality of user experience, and yet another is the revenue that the sites generate — not just for itself, but for its users.

Right now, in terms of number and user experience, Google+ has a sparse landscape.  There are no page updates, no game or application notifications, no mindless tagging, no incessant and irrelevant wall posts, and no scrolling streams of updates.

Coming from Facebook or Twitter, it can feel like opening a window and finding yourself confronted with an Alaskan or Siberian landscape after all the snow in the world has fallen.

The usual question that comes to mind is, “So, what’s next?” and answering it is actually when the “fun” starts.

It actually begins when you start looking for other people that you know who are already on Google+ and start adding them in “Circles”.

Google+ Circles, as you might have already read, is a way to limit your engagement with the entire online world of Social Media.  By default, you are given three Circles (Friends, Family, and Acquaintances) to put people in but you can create other Circles and label them as you please.

Putting people in a circle is like following people on Twitter and completely unlike sending a “friend request” on Facebook.  When you put someone in one of your circles, that person is sent a notification on the Google+ bar as well as an e-mail notifying them that they’ve been added.  Likewise, if you are added by someone in one of their circles, you get notified through Google+ bar and an e-mail.

Now, the people who you put in one of your Circles don’t actually see each other’s streams (or news feed) or posts, unless they’ve mutually “Circled” each other.

What “Circles” actually allows you to do is to direct updates or posts to a specific set of people.  This eliminates the rather messy affair of tagging or mentioning people in a post or update and makes it easier to private message a large group of people.  However, this isn’t at all the spam-like behavior of tagging or mentioning people, it just makes your post available or visible for viewing by a particular circle.

Having people in “Circles” actually solves the problem of needing to maintain separate Twitter accounts for different topics and might actually help match particular types of updates with the right circles.  This can prove to be valuable if you’re trying to come up with productive engagement rather than massive engagement.

The post Life after Google+: Going around in Circles appeared first on The Blog Herald.

One of the hardest things to find after a very busy day of exchanging e-mails is a file attachment in your  inbox or sent folder.  On the average, hunting for files in your e-mail can consume the better part of an hour that could have been spent on useful downtime or getting something else done.

The process of hunting down an attachment usually begins by clicking on the search field of your e-mail and typing either the name of the person who you think sent you the file or the subject header of the e-mail exchange you think it is in.  It’s easy to find an attachment if it had been sent fairly recently, but when the file had been sent a hundred e-mails ago, that’s when people either decide to pore over every e-mail turned up in a search or just ask to be sent the file again.  Either way, it can mean a waste of time for you or the person who is waiting for the file attachment.

Can you imagine asking an important client or major customer to wait fifteen minutes while you or your assistant goes searching for a file he sent you months ago? It’s can make for an embarrassing moment because it makes you appear disorganized and sloppy.

Attachements.me makes it easier to find any e-mail attachments in your e-mail account, no matter how long ago it had been sent or in what thread it had been sent in.

What makes it difficult to find file attachments in e-mails is that sometimes the subject header can be as helpful as “Here’s the file” or “revised pitch deck” or it may even be blank.  The worst scenario, perhaps, can be that the file wasn’t even named properly and was sent in a thread that is hundreds of e-mails long.

Attachments.me presents your e-mail in an attachment-centric point of view.  This means you get to see only the attachments sent to your e-mail and with Attachments.me, you can organize them alphabetically by name of the document, by date, or by type.  By presenting only your attachments, you won’t have to keep opening e-mail after e-mail and viewing attachment after attachment.  Attachment.me presents all your attachments in large enough thumbnails that are pretty easy enough to take a peek at.

Here’s what it looks like:

Files care sorted into Code, News, Music, Document, Movie,  Image and Archive.

What makes it easy to find file attachments really is that you can enter the file name and specify what type of file your are looking for.   Moreover, after making a search and finding the files that you need, you can create a bookmark for the search which will make it easier for you to find the files over and over again — fast.

What is even more helpful is that you don’t have to go back to your e-mail in order to re-send the file to someone.

All you have to do is just mouse over the thumbnail and right there, you can choose to view, share, send, or hide a file.  The share feature is perhaps one of the better features of Attachment.me because it allows you to share an attached file directly through Facebook or Twitter.

This is great so far and I think this site will help a lot of people become more productive or at least avoid time wasting hassles that get in the way of productive downtime.

For those who are concerned about privacy issues, you better check out their Terms of  Attachment.me:

While attachments.me assures the security of your documents, it’s probably still a good idea to use a more secure means of transmitting sensitive and vital documents.

The post Find E-mail File Attachments Faster with attachments.me appeared first on The Blog Herald.

I’ve been receiving pretty good offers from Ensogo over the past few weeks now and I am surprised by the amazingly low prices they have.  Almost every single thing is marked down or discounted by at least 50 percent and the quality of the stuff they are offering  seems pretty good.

Ensogo, like Groupon, is a social buying site and was recently acquired by LivingSocial, one of the major Groupon competitors.

In their e-mail to me today, two things interested me immediately: an offer for a Php600 (about US $ 15.00) Berting’s Grill gift certificate discounted at P300 (about US $ 7.50) and a 3-day, 2-night stay at the Boracay Terraces Hotel going for P7,700 (about US $180) when it would normally cost twice that much.

And, having just opened up a bank account that links up with PayPal (but you can also pay via ATM Peso Pay or bank transfer), I might just buy that gift certificate from Berting’s Grill and use it to buy several orders of their fabulous barbecued chicken ass and liempo or pork ribs.  As for Boracay Terraces Hotel, well, it’s something that I really got to discuss with my wife first — but it looks like a pretty good buy.

All in all, it’s almost a revolutionary site for bargain hunters like me but it may not be all that amazing for merchants who get into social buying sites expecting “magic” to happen.  A long time acquaintance who sells organic food online clued me in on a couple of caveats and cited a couple of reasons why he isn’t a fan of Ensogo — at least, not yet.

Ensogo, coined from the words Entertain Social and Go was officially incorporated as a legal entity in Thailand in 2009 and then, about a year later, the company started up operations in the Manila, Philippines in July 2010.  It is one of three companies acquired by Living Social this week and represents a major expansion into Asia.  Other sites have harped on its rivalry with Groupon, the leading social buying site.

On Facebook, Ensogo Philippines has a bustling page that currently has 176,521 fans and is about 70,000 fans behind Ensogo Thailand with 241,077 fans.  Fans on both Ensogo pages get the heads up on the latest deals here in the Philippines and the comments sections under every post seems quite active.

On Twitter, Ensogo Philippine’s followers is still a long way from breaching the 10,000 mark — which according to Chuvaness (Cecille Van Straten) basically indicates if you are somebody.

Ensogo Philippines country manager Alejandro Cruz asserts in an article on Manila Bulletin that: “Social buying is now an integral part of e-commerce in the Philippines. Being featured on Yahoo! Philippines will allow us to reach a wider audience and allow them to be a part of the growing number of users who have discovered the advantages of social buying.”

Of course, there is a fair amount of hype in Cruz’s statement, but that’s to be expected.

My own conversations with Simoun Ung and Gary Lauriano, both of whom lead companies that provide IT B2B services, generally paints the Philippine e-commerce landscape in less than rosy hues.  From what I gathered from our conversations, banks here still have to catch up with the rest of the world when it comes to e-commerce and moreover, Filipinos still have to gain a bit more confidence in conducting online transactions. And with their confidence being the way it is, it probably doesn’t help that there is one unverified, recent account of a scam involving Ensogo.

As of this writing, I am still searching for information on Ensogo’s ad revenues either in Thailand or in the Philippines that would somewhat validate Cruz’s assertion.

In another conversation last night with a pretty successful merchant, I was told that Ensogo might not at all be a sustainable route as far as online advertising is concerned.

The reason? Well, the deal with Ensogo is that the merchant is asked to offer his product at a discount of at least 50 percent and perhaps, to some merchants, that’s already a pretty hefty cut.  Now, imagine if you will, the discount group asking 40 percent of whatever is left over as its service charge.

I’m still pretty hazy about this, but I’m figuring it this way: If a product is originally priced at 10o bucks, Ensogo offers it at 50 bucks. Now the merchant gets 50 bucks and out of that 50 bucks, Ensogo either takes 40 bucks (or 40 percent of the original price) or 20 bucks (or 4o percent of the remaining 50 bucks).  The merchant may end up selling something worth 100 bucks for as little as 10 bucks or 30 bucks.

Moreover, what little money the merchant has coming to him can be tied up with Ensogo for as long as one year.

What this looks like, basically, is that the merchant seems to give Ensogo products for free for Ensogo to sell and make a 40 percent profit from. Plus, if it were at all another means of advertising, the company has little to show beyond the visit statistics of its own site.

Further on, the merchant says if the discount was treated as a promotional expense, it would be very difficult to sustain for more than a quarter or three months. Most, likely, those who sign up merely do so to try the service out.  He quipped that he has yet to see a merchant that signs up for Ensogo for a full year and those that do sign up are most probably in it for the short haul.  He also observed that some of the merchants that signed up for Ensogo are either recent upstarts or brands that have peaked ages ago.

The merchant pointed out that Ensogo Philippines probably has to learn that some businesses don’t necessarily need to have a massive customer base in order to earn.  Niche businesses, like his, thrive on producing products at a the highest level of quality possible, providing exceptional service, and keeping a highly targeted set of buyers happy on that basis.

For someone committed to selling an excellent product and is actually doing good business even if they’re priced at a premium, it is somewhat unthinkable to sell their product at a ridiculously low price — even if it does gain them new customers.  The concern here is that a quality product being associated with a “cheap” price strategy might work against the company in the long run.  The last thing that one wants his or her product associated with is “cheap” or lacking in value or quality.

But, then, this is not to say that Ensogo has or will have that effect on a brand.

An article in Tech Crunch has done a pretty good job defending Groupon (the company Living Social wants to overtake) and it points to a number of take aways which can apply to Ensogo too:

1. Those who avail of a discount promo often spend more on other items.
2. It creates traffic and can introduce your products or services to people who haven’t tried it before.
3. New customers gained through discount promos can be turned into regular buyers at full price.

The post Will selling through Ensogo and other social buying sites damage your brand? appeared first on The Blog Herald.

Of course, we haven’t reached the point where you’d actually have to log-in to your Twitter or Facebook account to buy a bottle of water at a convenience store.

Then again, there may actually be companies that are planning to integrate or have actually integrated Point of Sale systems (a.k.a cash registers) with either social networking websites.  The idea behind this is that when you purchase something from these companies, your purchase shows up as an update on your social network and that will perhaps, for a time, have an impact on the “conversations” you think you may be having with the world.  It’s kind of like Foursquare in a way but more directly tied up with actual purchases.

I have no way to determine whether this will actually be acceptable or even desirable.  When Friendster, Myspace, and Multiply first came into the scene, I actually wondered why the heck would anyone want to tell the world the minute details of their lives.  Then, of course, these websites were somewhat wildly successful and actually made money, so my own estimation of whether such a cash-register/social networking integration will be successful is ultimately doubtful.

Anyway, just considering this cash-register/social networking integration as an idea for a money making website, I can see certain possibilities.  As an idea for a Facebook or Twitter integrated website, this does something that is actually quite common place and that is, looking at what the person in front of you at the grocery check out is buying.  Except of course, in this case, you won’t be looking at the grocery cart of an absolute stranger but a friend’s or acquaintance.

From a promotional standpoint, candy bar makers can offer discounts based on the number of friends in your social network that buys the same candy at the same time.  The trade off for the candy bar maker is that the purchases make for a better endorsement of their product as well as providing an alternative to high cost traditional advertising.

From an inventory movement vis-a-vis store-based advertising advertising standpoint, candy bar makers can gauge in real time the effect their advertising has and perhaps find a way to respond more quickly — either by changing the advertisement or pulling out particular candy bars that don’t make it to the cash register.

From the point of view of a social network driven campaign, can you imagine what the almost involuntary deluge of “likes” and status updates will be like?  And the thing is, companies won’t need a Twitter endorsements from Lady Gaga to drive a conversation or need to hire “social media experts” to work their magic.

One such company that I’ve found that is already offering this cash register/Facebook integrations is Bean Stalk Loyalty.  According to its website, “Beanstalk Loyalty is a division of Beanstalk Data, a marketing automation company headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina.”

What it offers is this:

“Our patent pending technology delivers a loyalty platform with the long sought after integration between the point-of-sale (POS) terminal and social networks such as Facebook. This unique integration with Facebook, Foursquare and the like enables retail stores and restaurants — with their customers’ permission given during loyalty registration – to check them into Facebook Places or Foursquare, post on their wall and potentially influence their Facebook friends while at the same time leveraging the POS information to influence their behavior.”

In simple terms, the purchases you make will goad your friends on Facebook to buy the same products.

Better yet, Stores dot Org describes what happens with Beanstalk:

“While retailers can use location-based social media services to learn who is in their store, Bailey notes it is more difficult to determine what, if anything, those customers bought.

“With Beanstalk Loyalty, the transaction “checks into” Facebook when the customer swipes her loyalty card or provides a phone number at the POS. The retailer has the option to post on the customer’s wall that she visited the restaurant or purchased an item. That customer’s Facebook friends can then click on the post to receive a coupon.”

Of course, that this assumes that you are the sort of person who doesn’t get tired of seeing all those status messages of friends playing one sort of game or another.

Can you just imagine your friends grocery list or impulse purchases showing up on your wall everyday?  I mean, I love my friends on Facebook — all 12 of them in fact — but I’d be irritated as hell if they started posting status messages like, “I just bought a Fudgee Stick of Diabetes Inducing Lard” or something like that.

Frankly, I don’t really care about what my friends buy because most of my friends actually make bad decisions at the grocery store.  Then again, this is perhaps because most of my friends are guys like me and beyond beer or Singaporean pork jerky, every thing else we buy is more often than not a Phail.

Which gets me to thinking how on earth I’ll manage to explain to my wife the reason why we still have a can of air freshener that makes everything smell like bacon.

The post Will Point of Sale/Social Network Integration make us say goodbye to “Social Media Experts” appeared first on The Blog Herald.

With more than a third of cell phones in the world being Nokia and a sizable chunk of those units being enabled for mobile internet, it would stand to reason that there could still be a huge audience for blogs that remains untapped.

But downloading blogs on what is essentially still a cellphone could lead to a number of frustrating consequences.  With either the phone’s browser failing to download the site correctly or not being able to download the site in a readable form.

The solution to tapping this roaming audience of mobile internet users is to create a mobile app.

Of course, that’s actually easier said than done especially when you consider what platform you are going to use and all the other technical issues that come with it.  Then again, if all you want to do is to make your blog or site content available to people who browse using handheld internet browsing devices, you might want to look at Ovi App.

Nokia launched the Ovi App Wizard recently and the great thing about it is that you really don’t have to have a lot of technical know-how to create your own app from your blog or site’s RSS feed.

The claim that appears on the landing page of the Ovi App Wizard says it all: “In just a few minutes, you can bundle web content into a convenient and accessible mobile application to extend your brand to new markets, build market share, and even monetize your content.”

Creating an Ovi App Step by step:

Now, as far as wizards go, this one doesn’t warn you at the start that you have to have an Ovi User Account and it would actually be better if you created one first before using the Ovi App Wizard.

After you’ve done that, the first thing you ought to do is to sign in on the Ovi App Wizard Page and then click on Get Started.  This will bring you to the second page where you’ll be asked to provide your blog or site’s RSS and click preview.

You can add up to three more RSS feeds if you like and if you like what you see in the preview, you can go to the next step.

In Step Two, you’ll be asked to customize the look of your app by providing an icon, selecting a background color for your icon, and decide on the color of your links.

In Step Three, you’ll be asked if you would like to have advertising on your app.

In Step Four, you’ll be asked for a description for an App description for Ovi Store, keywords, Publisher description for Ovi Store, a publisher logo, select an app category, toggle on an app distribution option, and select a price point.

After that, all you’ll have to do is to click finish and Ovi will send you a confirmation e-mail with a validation link.  You click the validation link and log on to your Ovi dashboard, which will then prompt you a final time to confirm your app for submission to Ovi.

Review:

Now, as far as wizards are concerned, this one is pretty simple and easy to use.  Configuring your app’s look as well as supplying the necessary descriptions isn’t at all tedious or confounding.

However what really weighs on my mind at this point is the fact that Ovi has never been the prettiest girl in the room in the world of mobile apps.  Whether there will be a more aggressive campaign to market Ovi mobile apps remains to be seen.

So, even granting that a third of the world’s mobile phones are Nokia, there is no strong indication that people with Nokia phones will actually go and shop around the Ovi Store.  What this means, in a practical sense, is that those who submit apps will basically have to market their apps all by their lonesome.

Of course, that is not at all to discount the effect of the “free” marketing ploy or the effect of its monetization option.  This hinges on how fast the number of people creating Ovi Apps will rise and whether it will keep on rising.

Moreover,in the next couple of months Nokia EVP and Chief Marketing Officer, Jerri DeVard, sounded off that  Ovi will be rebranded as Nokia services.  The transition is expected to play out until 2012.  DeVard says Ovi services will simply be rebranded as Nokia and assures that there will be no disruption of services.

So, perhaps, people creating an Ovi App will be better advised to see how the re-branding from Ovi App to Nokia App will fly or fall in the next few months.  And since Ovi’s growth in a way depends on the growth of Nokia phone sales, it would also be worth looking into news about whether the cellular phone giant will actually post a recovery from its recent sales slump.

The post Using Ovi App Wizard to turn your blog into an app appeared first on The Blog Herald.

One of the main reasons why it often is difficult to decide on a host, is that the user never knows whether the server they receive space on is oversold or not. Most hosting companies, especially larger ones do oversell, in order to keep the price down. Often this results in the dilemma: “Do I go with a larger, and cheaper, host company or do I decide for a smaller company which is more expensive?”.
Making the decision to switch sites to another host is even for experienced webmasters a difficult decision to make. More often than not they will wait until the last minute before making the decision. Additionally switching sites often involves lots of work. So I was recently confronted with the decision to make, a decision I had been putting of for a long time already. I mainly wanted to base my decision on hosting reviews and recommendations of peers, and started mainly looking into the webhosting offerings of Hostgator. What lead me to check out Hostgator was that the guys over at Gravity Forms, a plugin we extensively use, regularly tweet about the awesome support offered by Hostgator, as well as many positive Hostgator review found online.

After having hesitated for quite some time, I decided to pull the trigger and went with Hostgator, especially because of their popular live-support chat, additionally to the fact that they seemed to support most modern features. I thought that such a big and popular webhoster would function quickly and not cause any problems. And honestly, aside from some minor issues, I have been satisfied switching sites.

For the uninitiated who are still not sure about starting a website with Hostgator, Hostgator is compatible with almost any open source script you might use in your career as webmaster. Sadly using the latest scripts might occasionally require you to update several settings, or to quickly hit up the tech support via chat – who will solve most issues within few minutes only.

I did experience some problems with scripts though, especially with the popular script timthumb.php. Timthumb, which is used in many WordPress themes and also other platforms, is not compatible with the specific mod_security rules applied by Hostgator and will require that you contact the live chat.
First of all make sure that all your folders have permission (chmod)755 and then ask the team to add following rules to the mod_security whitelist: 1234234 , 340151 , 340153.

Other than that, my experience with HostGator has been positive and the two or three times I had to contact the tech support team, via chat, issues always were solved within few minutes. Fast and competent support I gladly pay a couple bucks every month for more.
Site speed at Hostgator is fast to really fast, customer support is really fast and in the first month I have not experienced any reliability issues yet. I am not the only one who recommend Hostgator, check out this Hostgator review as well before making a decision.

Conclusion

If you’re looking for a reliable, fast webhosting company, with great support… look no further and sign up with Hostgator. You might pay some bucks more every month but the fast customer service and support definitely makes up for these.

Photo credit: Jayntguru

The post Shared Webhosting: Hostgator Webhosting Review appeared first on The Blog Herald.