Author Archive
7 Real Estate WordPress Themes
In need of a Real Estate WordPress Theme? Go no further. Below I’ve previewed 7 and provided links to access them. There are lots of good reasons to choose a Real Estate WordPress theme that has already been built – buying something off the shelf saves a lot of time and plenty of money.
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Straight Talking Study Finds People Are Liars
A research firm in the UK recently polled just over 2,000 British adults on the Web uncovering an inconvenient truth: lots of people aren’t always honest (especially when they can hide their identities on the Internet).
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Internet Gadgets Grip Australians
Nielsen’s Global Consumer Survey is out and finds that 17 percent of Australians have downloaded an app to their mobile phone while 6 percent have conducted a transaction.
It’s all part of the rush to be part of the Internet gadgets movement sweeping Australia.
According to the Survey, tablet computers, internet television and smart phone ownership is set to rise sharply over the next year,with more than 5M Aussies (or 1 in 4) considering buying a tablet computer in the next 12 months.
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‘Smart, Sexy’ Future for Banner Ads, Says Google
The online display market will be a $50 billion dollar business. Half of online ads will feature video, and 75 percent will contain some sort of social element. And the majority of banner ads will be delivered to mobile devices over PCs.
Those were some of the predictions Google executives recently made at the 2010 IAB Mixx conference regarding the “smart and sexy” future for banner ads.
Rich media ads, which are already offered today, are predicted to make up half of all display ads in 2015. And, says Google, half of these types of ads will feature video. Advertisers will pay on a cost-per-view basis.
In other news, YouTube is introducing a True View In Stream ad, whereby Google offers up an ad that is based upon a user’s previous YouTube activities.
If the person skips the ad (which they can do after 5 seconds) an advertiser won’t be charged for the placement.
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Throttle Your WordPress To Improve Its Performance
A great many websites built in WordPress (which is a fantastic content management system for small to medium sized businesses) sit in a shared hosting environment.
If you’re sharing your hosting server with other websites, the price is a lot cheaper than, say, a dedicated alternative however the downside can be server performance and sluggishness with loading your website.
If you can’t afford dedicated hosting (or it doesn’t make sense to your business for some other reason), the good news is that WordPress has a plugin that might solve your problem. It’s called Throttle.
Throttle is designed to manage spikes in server performance. It essentially deactivates plugins that are non-essential while server load is peaking and that means your site (and its server) remains live.
It has an admin page (you’ll find it under settings) that allows you to enable or disable it (while leaving the plugin activated). It can calculate default values for your site.
Download Throttle here or talk to me. (I can download and install for you.)
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StumbleUpon Top 5 Websites
For something a bit different, in this post I’m going to talk about what was hot in StumbleUpon last week.
(For those who don’t know, Stumbleupon is a great bookmarking service and should definitely be a “share” option incorporated in your blog or website.)
Last week, photos were a highlight, including California’s giant sequoia trees (look at this amazing picture) and official-looking historical markers with a political message.
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Google Test Has Major Clickthrough Implications
(See large screenshot here. Source: Blogstorm.)
Google has been caught testing a major new layout to their search results – full page previews of the target site and pale blue backgrounds behind the search results when you hover over them.
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UK Internet Ad Spend Up, Follows Aussie Experience
Spending on internet advertising in Britain grew 10 percent during the first half of this year, due to a boom in ads around online video and social media sites, reported Reuters today, lifting the medium to a record UK market share of 24.3 percent.
According to the biannual report from the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB), the return to double-digit growth for the internet mirrored the general recovery of the entire ad sector.
The 10 percent growth to nearly 2 billion British pounds compared with a growth rate of 4.6 percent in the first half of 2009.
Spending on online display adverts was up 6.4 percent, taking a 19.3 percent share of the medium.
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Who Wants Chris Cooper?
As it turns out, 480 people did, last month in Australia, according to the Google External Keyword Tool.
Someone sent me this screenshot.
Shucks, you’re popular they said.
For a fleeting moment I believed them (until I saw the rest of the searches).
So for the record (and to clear up any confusion), Chris Cooper, Web Freelancer is not the same guy as Chris Cooper, Actor.
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Fiona Mackenzie – Personal Blog, CNN Style
Fiona Mackenzie is a passionate lover of WordPress so when it came to upgrading her existing personal blog to a new look and feel, it was a no-brainer to suggest she continue with WordPress.
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