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Vox, a blogging community that is owned by Six Apart, the same people who use to own LiveJournal decided to close Vox in what is a quick closing, versus Yahoo!’s gradual close of GeoCities in 2009. Vox plans to phase out their services on September 30, 2010.

Vox was known for their free service that offered a variety of modern and clean templates for bloggers to use. Versus other services (even in comparison LiveJournal), it was very limiting. However, it was a community that served its purpose.

Vox is encouraging users of their service to venture to Typepad, but I am encouraging users to sign up at WordPress.com, especially if they are planning to become a serious blogger. Why? More freedom, more flexibility in the service, a friendly community, and a constantly updated software.

It just makes a lot more sense. WordPress 3.0 had well over 10 million downloads on WordPress.org for self-hosted bloggers (meaning they have their own domain and own web hosting account), which does not include the amount of WordPress.com hosted users.

A long time ago I tried out Vox on a whim as it was a curiosity at the time. I never did anything with it as I just did not find the community as put together like LiveJournal. In fact other than a few people here or there telling me that they used Vox was the only way I knew people actually used it. While I may never have been a loyal user, I am sure there were many. It is sad to see a good service go, but I hope that in closing that we can find better opportunities for bloggers out there.

WordPress does have a Vox importer plugin.

However, I would recommend bloggers who have used Vox to not use their suggestion of signing up for Typepad.

Digg has been a wonderful place to social bookmark articles and share with others, but after the Digg version 4 upgrade announced by Kevin Rose on August 25th, there has been an enormous amount of negative responses.

The social bookmarking site now allows more emphasis on followers, rather than the merit of articles. Some users are reporting that the new version will need a new iPhone application. On the Digg Facebook Fan Page, any visitor will immediately see a flood of negative responses.

Is it enough for people to move to Reddit, the social bookmark site for spammers? Yeah, that was harsh… but it is true.

Social bookmark sites have always been one sort of site where your article was king, rather than who followed you. The majority of people commented at your site, but used the remote button to vote or ‘digg’ your article. Digg is merely changing it up and adding the social network side.

Personally, I am not keen on it. I do not have too much time to visit digg and converse with people. I do that at Facebook and Twitter. I already social bookmark articles like crazy every day after the fact I commented. While I do not like the networking aspect because I have no time for it, I do like that if I do get a chance to visit, that I can find my friend’s articles a lot easier.

The design looks nicer of course. As a web designer I cannot deny that. I will still use Digg as I usually do.

What are your thoughts about the Digg version 4 update?

Recently I read Ann Smarty’s article, How to Identify Email Hoaxes and Scams. I have done a lot of work to identify and prevent receiving mail through tweaking my own inbox. Spam Assassin is a great program, but because of people being clever enough to put together programs to mass spam and how they word their emails, sometimes it is nearly impossible to identify them.

Here are 5 major key factors that an email is spam.

1. Sender’s name. The dumbest spammers or the ones that are trying to not use as many dubious ways to contact you may have a funny looking sender’s name. Or if it is written like a letter, it might not even coordinate with the name signed at the bottom of the email.
2. Email Address. Although email addresses can be masked these days, email addresses are a big key factor in knowing if an email message is spam.
3. Subject. This can be tricky, but because of widespread computer viruses in the past that have taken advantage of many people over the past years if you are getting any email that says “hi, “Hello”, or has your name in it… it is possible it is spam. In fact, I have found that it is more than likely to be the case.
4. Content. Skim the article. If it is asking you to do something, even if someone used your contact form, it could be spam. I get loads of people contacting me for sites in my network offering to do some type of service to enhance the site. A lot of times, there is no reference to their professional site.
5. Links. If an email seems legitimate, but you are not sure, and there are links, hover over the link and see if it coordinates with the site being advertised. PayPal, Bank of America, Chase, and many more have had people create phishing scams that the email looks so cleverly legit until you hover over the link.

Attachments may or may not be important, however some spammers are using graphics on products or services they are trying to advertise. They could also potentially be a virus. This is not always the case, but it should be mentioned at least.

In general, it is important to not open email you do not recognize. Those who are lucky enough to have Spam Assassin or another anti-spam program can attest to the fact that you will get email that will come through. It is important to either delete or mark it as spam immediately. Use your inbox filter for any persistent spam to put email in the trash so you can guard yourself from even viruses.

What other advice do you have for people needing help identifying spam or hoaxes?

I was reading How To Breaks 100K Alexa Rank? on Another Blogger and found these to be a good start for people wanting to get their site rolling on Alexa.

I am going to reveal how you can have an Alexa rank better than 100,000. However, before I go into it, you do not always have to sign up for Alexa. It is nice to do and you can share a nice brag badge. I signed up, but my site was listed long before I even signed up. I do though recommend just in case so you can make sure your site ‘s information is accurate.

Now that I have said that, here is how you can build your site’s rank.

1. Update frequently. I try to update once a day, sometimes even twice a day. Other days I may skip every so often.
2. Return comments. CommentLuv is a great plugin to install and give you an idea through comments what your visitors are talking about. You never know when you might blog and give them credit for prompting you to continue the conversation on your own site.
3. Encourage readers to subscribe to your newsletters and RSS feed.
4. Promote your site on social networks and social bookmark sites.
5. Make sure you strategically put the important parts of your site that you want people to view in a manner that catches their eye. It does not matter if it is half way down your page when scrolling… if it looks interesting, people will at least click.
6. Focus on developing parts of your site that Alexa says people are searching for by keyword.
7. Write great content! No one is interested in the same exact thing that maybe a couple hundred sites have said. Think outside the box and write a new angle that will deliver unique, interesting, and valuable information.

While you may think this is really easy, it is not. It does take work. While there are other ways people monitor their traffic and site’s progress, Alexa is indeed a great tool – and it is free too!

In the end, the point is to bring attention to your site, particularly what you want them to see first.

I recently re-activated my sign up form for MailChimp (by the way, please sign up… it is in my sidebar.) This was after being asked more times than I can count on where to sign up.

Feedburner is nice, but it is not a substitute for Mailing Lists. For some, you might be hesitant to try your hand at starting an email marketing campaign. You might think you have nothing to sell, but as I have said in the past, you are selling something, even if it is free advice.

You want to attract people back to your site and email lists can do that. A weekly list is nice and unobtrusive. You can include recent posts, a few featured posts, product information, and some extra tidbits of information.

People who are really interested in your site will subscribe and keep returning to see what goodies you have. However, if you have nothing to remind them… well, they are just going to eventually forget. It is just something that happens and that is not always your fault, no matter how memorable you have made your brand to be. People need reminding.

Some of the mailing lists out there may be a bit daunting price-wise, especially for beginners. I use MailChimp, which is pretty nice considering your first 500 subscribers are free. There are others like Aweber and GetResponse. Hopefully in the future I can get a post out that compares each auto-responder side-by-side.

Do you use an auto-responder or mailing list? If so, what advice do you have for newbies?

Web Hosting is one of the first thing you should care about, it’s the foundation. Foundation should be strong and healthy in order to get long term benefits. During selecting web host companies, one should always remember that buying hosting is the first step that will determine your blog/website popularity. A good web hosting company will give you secure blog and weak hosting will give you weak blog.

1. Price

Price is the first thing you should care about. Newbies can’t afford expensive web hosting plans.  If the web hosting company you are going to select is providing limited features as compare to price, then don’t go for it. Search the web for all web hosting features and prices and then decide to select your hosting company.

Currently I am using HostGator because of its superb features and reasonable prices.

2. Support

As a newbie, you must select a web hosting company that provides Live Chat and 24 hours customer services. In case of any problem (example: blog hacked, crashed, log-in info lost, etc..) instant customer service is needed. During selecting web host don’t forget about this.

3. Promotions

Check previous promotional offers offered by the web hosting company. If one is good in term of Prices and Support + Offering Promos, then go for it. Promotion offers are normally related to renewing your existing package, free domains, free IP, free email clients, free software etc…

4. Reputation

Well it may be possible that a web hosting company will have all the above qualities, but still you can’t decide whether to choose or not. You will have to check if the company has its own blog, uses social media,  optimized for search engine, created official profiles etc. Such factors will tell you that the company has good reputation and people trust on their service.

The above tips will help you to decide if a web hosting company is good for you or not. Think strategically and go for things that give you benefits for long terms. Hope these tips will help you in deciding a better web hosting company.

For those who have been with web hosts for a while, what other tips do you have for newbies?

During my studies, it was clear that companies that basically took over a whole market of products were considered a monopoly. In the United States, it has been a law against companies becoming monopolies since the early 1900s.

However, does that also include companies that conduct business online, and more so… how far can the old Sherman Anti-Trust Act extend?

Yahoo!, Google, and now Facebook are all big kahunas in acquiring smaller internet companies.

Yahoo! has been known to acquire companies and eventually burn them to the ground – like GeoCities. Google just likes to buy and play their name in front of the product, like Google Feedburner. Facebook… well… they just like to buy and shut out competition. Facebook bought FriendFeed and recently it acquired NextStop. Facebook is looking to have its own version of FourSquare.

Sorry, but even though I am not as active on FourSquare… why in the heck would I use Facebook to check in anywhere considering they do not have the best privacy for users?

Facebook is the #2 site online in Alexa and and is one of the most powerful tools for social media marketing. However… are all these acquisitions profitable ventures for Facebook? Or will they crash and burn like some of the programs both Yahoo! and Google have let die in the past 15 years?

What do you think?

There are many tools online that business and blog owners can benefit from using. However, I have decided to share at least 12 basic tools online that you should be aware of.

WordPress

If it were not for WordPress, there would probably be not as many creative sites. Why? Because WordPress has shown itself to be quite flexible, easy to customize, and quite user-friendly. It is also something free to download and use to your own advantage. There are other content management systems and blog platforms, but WordPress has shown itself to be even an affordable method to building a site for even business owners.

Google Webmaster Tools

This free service has been a great way for helping webmasters build a good foundation for their website. It allows the user to look at how Google looks at a website and ranks it. It also allows the webmaster to know when something is seriously missing from a site.

VistaPrint

I think this is a great service because it is cheap and for bloggers who attend social events like conferences, a business card really becomes necessary. I walk away with dozens of cards from business owners, and bloggers alike every time I go to a conference.

Google Analytics

This allows you to monitor your site traffic for free. All the answers to making sure you are retaining your visitors or successfully directing them to where you want them to go can be found. In using Google Analytics you can even fill the need for those missing places that people are trying to search for on your website that might not be anywhere else online.

Alexa Rank

Although Alexa is not in depth with producing statistics, it is free and does a great job of telling you how your site is doing in a numerical ranking system. The smaller the number, the better your site is doing. You can even get bounce rate, traffic stats, and some general information on what type of people are visiting and what they are looking for on your site.

Aweber
This is a newsletter software system that people are using to help market their websites and businesses. It is not free to use, but there are many people who have successfully built great marketing campaigns.

MailChimp

MailChimp, like Aweber is also a newsletter software system. They do have a free plan that allows up to 500 subscribers, so for those starting out, this might be a nice starting point before investing further into email marketing campaigns.

CrazyEgg

This is a premium traffic tracking system for site owners who need the nitty gritty details on what exactly their visitors are doing on their website. The details are so precise that they even provide a “heatmap” for each page you monitor. This heatmap allows you to see where exactly your visitors have been. Check out the CrazyEgg overview for more details.

Woopra

No, this is not some strange shoutout to Oprah. Wooprah is a traffic analytic system that delivers real-time stats. There is a free program up to 30,000 visitors. After that, the member should upgrade their package.

Freelancer.com

Got a project? Your site needs a new look? There are a lot of freelancers eager to do the job at Freelancer.com. A lot of the jobs are affordable and you are a little more protected when using their Escrow system for payment.

If you are a freelancer yourself, it is free to join and only costs when you accept a job. The fee is very minimal too.

Google Feedburner

There are a lot of people finding it more convenient to read your site through RSS. No site should be without the option of signing up for an RSS feed.

Remember the Milk

Have a long to-do list? Remember the Milk actually can be an easy way to put a list together online… even from your phone. The task manager integrates with apps for the iPhone and Android. It also integrates with Gears, Google Calendar, Gmail, Twitter, and Blackberry!

What other tools do you recommend?