The wiki is one of the most beloved resident documents on the Web. I have written enumerable articles about the various forms and startups for wikis, but Wetpaint it perhaps the most feature filled wiki creator I have tested. Wetpaint has added so many tools and features that it is almost impossible to list them all. However the strength of this wiki creation innovation is that is allows anyone to create quality wiki pages with point and click ease.

From OpenID support and customized navigation to private community instant messaging – this service has left no stone unturned. The UI at Wetpaint is nearly flawless in its fucntion and simplicity as are the navigation and other essential features. I created a wiki page in about one minute using this fast platform, so anyone no one should have trouble beating my time, but best of all it is a free website.

I do not really know why I have not tested Wetpaint before. Out of 350 startups it is a little unimaginable to have missed such a refined wiki tool. This is especially true given my association with Wikia and Mindtouch among others. I must say I am impressed with what the folks at this development have done.

Screen of Wiki settings UI

Wikia is one of my favorite communities as I have said before, but I am not wiki markup expert, so my efforts there have been rather limited. Wetpaint by comparison is a far simpler interface, especially for the first time or novice wiki publisher. Let’s take a look at some of the things any user can do with Wetpaint.

• Easy site creation – Templates and drop-dead-simple editor make building a snap
• Public or private sites – User privacy and choice are fundamental aspects
• Pre-populated Templates – Templates for: classrooms, groups, gamers, sports, book clubs..
• Private onsite IM – Instant messaging for the on-site community
• Navigation tools – Dynamic page organization, clickable tags, site search …
• Build tools – Click and type editing, media integration, templates, widgets, tables, spelling..
• Monitoring tools – Lockable pages, revert pages, statistics, watchlist, move/delete…
• Wiki notifications – RSS updates, email notifications…

The list of features is honestly to extensive to list, but the bottom line is that Wetpaint users (especially those new to wikis) will feel much more comfortable creating wikis there. The community aspect is a big plus already as are other resident features like profiles and customization of a variety of aspects.

Screen of wiki text editor in newly created wiki

Wetpaint is an excellent innovation and one great way for people to get into and utilize the power and fun of wikis. Social aspects, creativity, discoverability and ultimately ease of use are what every community user is looking for in a Web home. I still cannot believe that I let this one slip through my fingers when it came out. Now even an overworked blogger has time to create a wiki.

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Wetpaint – Discover the Wonder of Wikis

Ten Startups with Great Potential

From all the things we review on our blogs, how many are actually useful for something other than… our blogs? Let’s face it: we review widgets, web hosting companies, software, similar websites and other things that might help our “targeted readers” better understand a topic.

Sometimes we review fellow bloggers; sometimes we play a game and publish the results – not because we are showoffs but because… it’s trendy.

What about reviewing websites that had little to do with our corner of the online universe?

It’s my intention to make you aware of their existence and who knows; maybe you’ll find them useful?

Learn Languages Online With babbel

No one seems to know that this website exists. The Alexa ranking shows low traffic. Google didn’t dignify the site with a PageRank and I wonder how many users are actually registered. So I registered to see its capabilities. The site doesn’t give you too many choices. For example Romanian natives might browse away believing that this site is not for them. But if you are fluent in one of the languages supported by babbel and want to learn one of the others, you’ll find out that this is quite a cool tool. I signed up as “English native” to learn Spanish and started with the basics. Babbel allows you to create a profile online, connect with other users, invite your friends and so on. Personally I don’t plan using it as a networking tool, but to learn a new language without needing to buy special expensive software, now that’s what I call a deal!

Put a Contract on Yourself with stickK

If you need some help achieving your goals, stickK is the right place for you. Of course the “lose weight” and “quit smoking” are the stars of the show, but you can also create your own goals and put a contract on yourself to achieve those goals. stickK was developed by Yale University economists and is the result of extensive research in the field. A commitment contract you make with yourself should work don’t you think? So what do say? Ready to put your money on the game?

Free Business Card Designer

This one is fun, free and it does more than its name says. The perfect solution for the DIY designer: you don’t need special design software to create printer-ready business cards. Deyey is a web based application that even allows you to tag your business card and make it “findable” by possible clients. You’ll need to sign up and give it a try. Personally I prefer creating my business cards the old fashioned way (in Photoshop) but the tag feature tempts me.

Be a Star with Glogster

This one is at least entertaining. If you feel the need of creating a “glog” check it out. Online posters (glogsters) are fun. In addition to images they can even get music and videos. Glogster is a cool platform, probably aimed to the teenage market, but I don’t see how teenage fan could hurt. Every once in a while you can relax and unleash your creativity on this site. It’s free, it doesn’t even require registration, but if you do register now, you could win one of 100 tempting iPods.

Plan Events with Planaganza

I’m always amazed by the names and the brand of the Web 2.0. When I hear planaganza I am certainly not inspired to “click.” But that’s probably just me. If you are not a skilled event planner this site probably has the tools you need to become one. At least this is what its creators state. The site will help you plan everything you could think about, from weddings to corporate events. New vendors register every day, trying to send their party products to the planners, but I would recommend the place just for ideas. If you must buy something search first at your local stores. Sometimes the best bargains are right under our noses.

Alphabetizer – the Solution for Lazy List Makers

OK, maybe you are not lazy. Maybe you just want to save some time or you are in a hurry to finish a project. Alphabetizing a list alone will take time. Copy paste is easy, but it’s also a stress factor especially when the data you need to copy and paste comes in large amounts. So let Alphabetizer do at least half of your job. Neat tool, isn’t it?

Modern Medicine – Your Online Resource for Healthy Living

From the “About” page:

ModernMedicine™ is an innovative online clinical decision-support resource that provides healthcare professionals with instant answers to clinical and practice management questions from highly credible and trusted sources.

I took my time and browsed the site for a while and I can already tell you that the quality of the articles is quite impressive. The site is not very young but it already proves its quality and authenticity. Spend some time on it. It’s definitely worth it, if not for the “medical advice” at least for what good online resources should look like.

Got Something To Say? Shout Out!

Outshouts is podcasting with a twist. The catch is that you record your own voice on your favorite audio track, then you click send and voila: you sent a shout to your friends. Here’s a sample:

So what are you waiting for? If you think it’s fun, become a DJ with outshouts. Or… just record your message for your readers and embed it onto your blog. It works.

Redesign Your Appliances

If there’s something you hate about appliances you own – if it’s a matter of design – you can return the bad object to the seller and ask for a refund, throw it into the garbage if the warranty expired, get used to it or complain about it at Redesignme. If you don’t have any complains at all just get it for a good laugh.

Free Favicon Generator

I know designers who still charge up to 40 USD to create a little piece of graphic that ads a cosmetic boost to a URL. These people are acting as if designing a favicon is rocket science or something. Well, it is not and to prove the point, although in the beginning of the entry I said this list will not be related to website development, I give you a free favicon generator. To implement the favicon you create into your WordPress site all you need to do is to upload the .ico image on the main folder on your server and then edit your WordPress theme header and include between the <head> and the </head> the following piece of code: <link rel=”shortcut icon” href=”favicon.ico”>

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The Wakeup Call – Open Your Eyes to the Vastness of the Web

What can you say about change? And what can you do when the “new” involves a complete change of your daily routine? Have you ever been in such a situation, when you make a plan, believe you’ve got it all figured out and live the surprise of not being able to keep up with the rhythm of the change?

And when the change means a new job, which involves relocation in a new town, eventually a town you know nothing about, with a different lifestyle, how are you going to find your way around?

Luckily, we have the Internet. This appears to be the world that has all the answers. We type into the search engines “relocation”, or if you are like me you simple type into your web browser www.relocation.com and voilà: you’ve got yourself a site that stretches all over your monitor with quality information, a moving companies search engine, real estate and moving guides, car and auto transport guides, information on international shipping and so much more.

The design is simple, user friendly, making the search a snap. If we ignore the overreaching, exaggerated web copy (that tells us that “Relocation.com offers the most trusted and comprehensive consumer destination…“ ) and focus only on the benefits of the site, it is easy to conclude that this is, without a doubt, a useful resource.

What I’d still like to see on the site is a user generated part, where the people could share their opinions about certain destinations, services and so on. I mean: if you use one of the moving companies listed on the site, you should also be able to read real reviews, submitted by real people, reviews that will help you determine whether to employ a specific company.

W3C and Section 508 accessibility? The site still needs a lot of work.

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New Jobs, New Towns, New Lifestyles…Relocation

The SEO fever goes on. Yvonne publishes a good, comprehensible list of WordPress widgets on her blog, and some of these tools will help you optimize your site for better search engine listings. Then I have to remind you to download my SEO ebook for WordPress blogs (blogs that run on a WordPress.org platform), which will show you how to do a bit of SEO on your own, without needing to pay for other SEO services.

Now, for business blogs, SEO is a tool that will help you promote your products, services and your brand. In an ideal world the SEO company managing your online presence should also be able to provide brand management systems and social media optimization, (because the Web is now run by the social media).

Unfortunately there are not enough companies able to provide complete services. So each time I find one, although they are my competitors, I’m happy to announce it.

First of all: the best way to do deal with a brand and the SEO needs of the client is to have direct contact with the client. You have to listen and understand the needs of a client and analyze the market carefully to provide the best solutions. If you don’t know the market (especially when you deal with local businesses) you are doomed to fail. If you fail, so does your client. The moment a client fails you lose reputation and there are little chances for you to recover your good name in this highly competitive world.

Now, for UK businesses, Brand Attention seems to be a very good service provider. I’ve analyzed the site and I was pleased to see that the owners of the site (although they still keep their faces and names in the shadows) have a healthy approach to SEO, PPC, Web marketing and so on.

But they have a few drawbacks too. Although they offer search engine optimisation and web design, their site does not validate (no W3C compliance) and fails at the Cynthia test. Hopefully they will consider fixing their problems. I wouldn’t hire an SEO company that is not able to correct its own website and I would never hire a web design company to design a site for me if I see that the code is not compliant. That’s like hiring an English teacher who doesn’t speak correct English. You know what I mean?

A web design can be beautiful but if it is not compliant, the job is not well done. Period.

When it comes to press release optimization, Brand Attention completely misses out the point and the purpose of a press release. I’ll just summarize: press releases should be optimized for good search engine placements, but this is not their main role. Their role is to generate buzz about a company/product/service or brand. Getting links is just a secondary, benefic effect.

This company has right now three job openings: one for an SEO consultant, one for a web designer and one for a web developer. I almost have the itch to apply as both an SEO consultant and a web designer, but I’ll have to pass on this one. I have too many projects on the role and physically no time to do something else. But I hope the links are useful for you.

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SEO Fever, SEO Jobs and Other SEO Issues

I owned before Easter this year a Ford Ka. A lovely little red bug, with big eyes and a lovely style. I didn’t like the color so much – I’m not into red cars. I prefer them navy blue or silver. But I miss it now. It was my car for over two years and right now… every time I see a Ka driving down the road, I keep on repeating to myself: next car is a Ford Street Ka. Navy blue. Or silver.

And now I have to review a website which offers Ford wallpapers and screensavers. And they are cool and all, but where’s my Ford Ka screensaver? OK, I give, I love the Ford Iosis with its sporty attitude, the kinetic design and the exciting dynamics perfectly illustrated by the wallpaper on the Ford screensavers site. It’s cool to see its blue shades that highlight its crisp lines and make this car stand out of the crowd.

The car in the screensaver emanates a science-fiction feeling. “Iosis” is a term that stands for the final stage of the alchemical transformation of metals into gold. It’s an old term, used by writers and artists to describe the apogee of their work. And this is what the Iosis is for Ford too: pure gold.

Yes, it a great car and I love it. I even Stumbled the Iosis wallpaper because it’s really one of the best Ford wallpapers I’ve ever seen – and it has also the best quality from all the Ford screen savers on the paged linked above.

The Ford GT40 image has low quality (low res) and it’s not worth to download: the image is fuzzy, and you cannot even identify the beauty of the lines.

Then the Ford Edge might be cool for those who own such a car. Yet the color chosen for this wallpaper does no justice to the size and strength of a Ford Edge. You’d say I am obsessed with navy blue. Not really. For this car I’d choose black or a very dark, green.

You can get all the four Ford wallpapers as Ford screensaver too.

As I only like the Iosis, I’ll stick to my wallpaper.

And if the site owners read my review, I hope they’ll consider adding a Ford Street Ka for my (and yours) visual pleasure. A silver Ford Street Ka (pretty please!).

So, to make a long story short, on vcars.co.uk you’ll find all kinds of wallpapers and screensavers: from A to V (meaning from Alfa Romeo to Volkswagen). They’ve even got a brand I’ve never heard about: Vauxhall. VCars offers these wallpapers and screensavers in addition to their main service, which is helping you find the latest used cars in the UK. The site has a great design and enhanced search functionality.

Post from: eWritings - Online Public Relations

Do You Like Blue? I Like Ford

Related to the previous review (today I have a thing for mortgages) I give you now a more informative mortgage website: 1mortgagesuk.co.uk.

As you can see from the URL, this site is based in UK too, but it is worth your attention, no matter where you live, because it has a very good structure, abounds in relevant information, has clear terms of service, and much more.

What still bothers me, but it looks like no mortgage website has such a page, or if they do, they write nothing on it, is the absence of the “About us” page. I still don’t know whom am I dealing with? In Germany I’d never even contact a company that lacks this important (to me) information. I am wondering: when are business owners going to learn that the about page is vital, especially for businesses that deal with money?

Anyway, what is good about this site is that it is really written for the users and not only for the search engines. The owners generate enough buzz through blogs and sponsored reviews, which is a smarter technique than by spamming the search engines.

It doesn’t happen often to get the chance to review a site with good web copy. For example, when you read the secured loans page you’ll notice (if you are SEO savvy or if you pay careful attention) that the copy was written by an SEO. But this is irrelevant. What is notable at this page is the secured loan search form, which enables you to find the best lender for your needs. On the same page, scrolling down, you’ll find articles on personal loans and other topics (including homeowner loans).

From a technical point of view, (here I go, obsessing about W3C and DDA compliancy again) the site is excellent! It does validate, it does pass the Cynthia tests.

To make a long story short: this site scores excellent at all my criteria except the “about” category. There’s a real need to know whom we are doing business with. Mortgages are serious stuff: to apply for loans we have to entrust a company with our personal data, private information on our financial status and so on. If we don’t know the people behind a business it is hard to trust the business itself, no matter how great the site, no matter how aggressive the buzz.

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Mortgage Site Review: 1mortgagesuk.co.uk

You know that this is a serious site because you’ll see it hosted on a secure server, and you’ll see all the needed signs that prove that your privacy is safe.

What you might not like about the site is that many pages are still under construction, that some of the subheadings are still market as “H2 line” and that under “about us” there’s basically nothing relevant about them… just a short notice: “Our mortgage advisers are experts in adverse remortgaging.”

The link to Remortgage Guild’s blog leads to a blog under construction too, so there’s not much to see here either. Writers, send your CV to this company, as they might be looking for a professional writer for their blog.

I’m not going to criticize this site, and I am not going to write a longer review either. I like the design and I see the contours of a good business here. For those of you living in the UK this is a good site to bookmark, just in case (maybe you’ll need one day good bad credit remortgage deals).

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A Short Mortgage Review

OK, I give: I’m obsessed with valid HTML. I like to be able to visit fully accessible sites without having to change my browser.

When you see a site like discountsafetygear.com, although you probably don’t need stuff like hard hats or safety goggles (but you certainly need first aid kits in your house, car or at work) and you think that the topic is lame, you still understand that safety is important and you understand the need of safety products.

So the site answers a real need and the owners managed to become members of the Better Business Bureau and even won the Yahoo! Top Service award. This is a women owned business, which says a lot about the customer care and quality of the services too.

But when the site doesn’t validate, when the copyright is outdated, something is missing. And you wonder what. A professional Webmaster to take care of these details? Because we cannot accuse the owners of lack of understanding of the online realities.

The site has a very good structure, way better than the other two sites owned by OnlineStores.com (find my reviews here and here).

This site doesn’t even have so many design problems either (just a small one at the search box, and it takes a skilled designer to notice that).

Well, since I’m paid to give my honest opinion and to give a full critique of the site, I’d also like to add that the web copy is not too brilliant either.

And there’s something else I’d like to see on the site: as safety is an important topic, I’d like to see an “advice” category, where to read expert articles on different professions and the safety measures which need to be taken to ensure proper working conditions.

I have no other crititcal observations to make. I like the choice of colors and the centered layout. I’d say that the landing page is too cluttered, but I see no other way to include all the necessary information on that page. I’d also like to emphasize the importance of keeping a standard all the way through the site by displaying images with the same style and quality.

But this doesn’t raise too many problems and it’s something that could be easily corrected.

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Safety Store Review

UPDATE: Youcansubmit.com is now a business partner of  Pamil Visions. We’ve redesigned the site and rebranded it. We changed the business plans too and the range of services. From now on, all SEO and media publishing solutions offered by YOU CAN SUBMIT are under the shield of the highest online marketing ethics. 

This is exactly the kind of website I warned you against in my The Stuttering Fish…On SEO Quacks entry. This is exactly what you should never do with your website if you are serious about your SEO campaigns!

Don’t fall for their cheap search engine submission prices. You pay for what you get in this case: nothing! I don’t even remember when I last saw something like this and I cannot believe that there are still such services available online. But the SEO novice probably still falls for such crappy warranties: unlimited resubmissions (?!). Even a child knows that this is a “no-no!” Even a child knows that resubmitting your site over and over to a search engine is spamdexing! Black hat. Forbidden!

Then these guys talk about “optimal visitor accessibility.” Useless to tell you that if you try to validate the site either with the W3C validator or with the Cynthia software you’ll see only negative results. Yes, youcansubmit.com sucks. Big time! Any professional SEO will tell you that what they sell is snake oil SEO! Any professional SEO will tell you to run as fast as you can from such a service provider. These guys even try to sell you an SEO package for almost $ 1500!!! They call that optimization, (but since 1996) since five years (as they insinuate) till today they were not able to optimize their own site, they were not even able to get higher Google PR than PR2!

Guess what? The joke goes even deeper. On the very first page they show testimonials… from “satisfied clients” who, after a simple whois search, prove to be … the very owners of youcansubmit.com! Please!

UPDATE: read the comments below for Ron’s explanations.

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You Can Submit? WAY!

Today is going to be a full day. I have a lot to blog about, and I don’t really find a way to organize my thoughts. What should go first? So I wrote the topics on tiny pieces of paper, threw them in a box, shook well, closed my eyes and picked out the first story.

This is about Vision – a company considered one of the leading providers of point of sale products to major corporations. POS systems allow merchants to swipe a credit card, easy card or other similar payment device through and initiate a transaction.

Vision’s most wanted POS systems are manufactured by IBM, Fujitsu, Symbol and NCR.

As an online PR it is important for me to keep up to date with what happens in different industry fields. POS is one of the most profitable niches. I used to work for a company that produced POS components and back then I didn’t have enough time to learn about the industry, because I was in charge of other unrelated tasks. Now that I have to prepare an online public relations strategy for a German client, and coincidentally receiving an inquiry to write about Vision, it’s clear for me I have to learn more.

Vision announced an increase in the demand for service on existing POS systems. What’s interesting is that for economical reasons and environment consciousness many retailers use refurbished POS systems. Vision has the necessary experience and knowledge to assist these retailers.

For example Vision takes an existing IBM point of sale out of the landfill, it refurbishes and re-certifies it, and than it resells it for a competitive price. This refurbished POS doesn’t perform less than a new POS.

Although this topic is not particularly interesting for you, there is one significant aspect: manufacturers become more aware of the importance of our environment and concentrate their efforts into finding and providing environmentally safe products.

So instead of leaving these POS machines into the dump, Vision gives us a clear example of ecological awareness and commitment for a better environment. And that is worth a positive review.

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Environmental-Friendly IBM POS from Vision