Images on this site were compressed using e-Vue MPEG4 technology in 2001, which was groundbreaking at the time for its DRM component and higher compression than JPG, however e-Vue is no more — we are transitioning these images to JPEG for 2004.
Google.com has also announced a similar free site search tool, although it does not yet include the extensive reporting features of Atomz.com. On the other hand, having Google spider your site regularly could be a benefit to marketing your site since Yahoo! and several other major search portals are now deriving much of their search results from the Google database.
Atomz.com offers extensive reporting on keywords used and how often,
so you can track most popular search topics.
Virtual Bookmarks
One of the many ways Web site owners have strived to promote return visits has been to include links on their pages that say "bookmark this site/page," and for Internet Explorer users there is an automated way to do that with a Javascript or server-side script. Unfortunately, this is not always effective, and many visitors don't want to add to their already cluttered bookmark file unless the site is absolutely critical to their life in some way.
Many start-up companies claim to have come up with a better method, and this is the so-called "virtual bookmark." While there are now dozens of such services, most are only interested in revenue partnerships with the big sites like c|net or Lycos, and won't even talk to the average low- to medium-traffic Web site owner.
What does a "virtual bookmark" do? It provides you with the ability to put a link on any page on your site, and then visitors can add that link to their bookmark accounts, which are hosted remotely on the service provider's system. It's also an easy way for someone to send the page to a friend at the same time as bookmarking it. For the site owner, it's transparent, and encourages more bookmarks because the service usually has better organization tools than the browser's built-in bookmark or "favorites" system, and the bookmarks can easily be shared with friends and family whereas your local bookmarks cannot. Plus, travelers, students, or people who share the same computer can access their personal bookmarks anyplace as long as they are connected to the Web.
Responding to the need for such a service to be made available to anybody, Backflip.com has come up with a clever business model. You first sign-up for their affiliate program, and then Backflip.com generates a custom link for your site. Whenever anybody signs-up for the free service from your site, you earn a $1 commission. Backflip.com makes its money from folks who access the virtual bookmarks account then see advertising from sponsors. There is no cost to the site owner. (Editor's Note: as of 2001, Backflip.com has discontinued their affiliate payment program.)
Backflip.com promotes a fun, community feel, and encourages people with special interests to share their bookmarks "publicly" on the Backflip.com Web site. Many popular content-driven sites like Salon.com and Ticketmaster.com are now using Backflip on their pages to promote people coming back to useful content, and to recommend content to friends.
In practice, it's very easy to use and add to your Web site because the same code is used site-wide and doesn't need to be customized for every page.
Hello Community
When I decided to build a new Web site for my interest in electronica music (e.g., Orbital, Tangerine Dream, Boyracer, etc.) I envisioned including a chat room, free E-mail, message boards, and similar features that would provide a sense of community. So-called "community features" are valuable because they encourage input and participation by each site visitor about things that visitor is interested in. A good example of this is a message board, with segregated topics. If somebody has a question about whether a certain band (using my music site example) is worth seeing in concert, other visitors can post a response. This type of interactivity is great because it adds a depth of content to the site that does not require input from the site developer once it's set-up.
Free E-mail is neat because if your site has a cool name it's more fun than the major free E-mail services, or a boring AOL account (keypuppy@yourdomain.com is much cooler than bob13200@aol.com). It's also useful for a site owner because it keeps the site name in circulation, and every E-mail sent by your "subscribers" includes a link to your Web site. This was one of the early forms of what is often called "viral marketing." Basically, other people are promoting your site every time they send E-mail. Plus, it's actually a useful service for your site visitors because they can retrieve their E-mail anyplace just like a "@hotmail.com" account. And, as a bonus, when the person logs-in to their E-mail remotely, they do it from your site—again, bringing them back to your brand or community.
In my case, I simply did not have the time to purchase and install all the technology to accomplish my goals for this "non-revenue generating" music niche Web site, which is essentially a side hobby of mine. After doing some research, I discovered Everyone.net, which provides all the services I wanted to offer as simple plug-ins to my site—and once again, it's all free. After signing-up for Everyone.net, I was able to immediately start offering free E-mail with my music site domain name, start developing a chat-room, and message boards.
Everyone.net makes it very easy to edit the look of your pages, which run on their server, so that your page colors and logos are consistent. In most cases, visitors won't notice they've gone to a different site because the content can match exactly. Everyone.net makes its money on this deal by running a banner ad on the page where you sign-in to get your E-mail. The very cool thing about this company is that, unlike some others offering similar services, Everyone.net offers to share the advertising space with you on a 50/50 basis. This means that you can run an advertisement of your own (or an affiliate banner) on an equal footing with their advertisers when your "subscribers" log-in to retrieve or manage their free E-mail. (Editor's Note: Everyone.net powers the free @DigitalAuthor.com e-mail accounts.)
The one technical requirement is regarding the free E-mail system. To be able to use this feature your Web server (or hosting provider) must support what's called "changing the MX command" on the server. This basically forwards all incoming E-mail from your own E-mail server to the Everyone.net E-mail system. Once done, you cannot use any local E-mail services such as auto-responders, vacation messages, or E-mail boxes. Also not all hosting providers support this option. Luckily, in practice, Everyone.net makes it easy to enable this by sending instructions directly to your hosting provider on your behalf, so your involvement is usually simply confirming your instructions with your hosting provider.
Globalization
Most "World Wide Web" sites in place today are, ironically, not designed for the "world" at large. Typically a Web site is created in one language reflecting the national origin of the site owners. Increasingly, as the world becomes more and more wired, the importance of language translation and regional editions cannot be underestimated.
One approach, vs. building multiple site versions, is to utilitze an automated translation system. A couple of years back, you could link directly into Alta Vista's experimental BabelFish site, which would translate your site (powered by SysTrans). Now, however, you can only send someone to the translation page and then your visitor must put in your URL—obviously not very user-friendly. Google has added some built-in translation options to their search results, and these are actually quite good.
Translation Experts Ltd. lets you create a link from your site directly into their translation system. InterTran, short for Internet Translator, is a free Web translation service that can translate single words, phrases, sentences, and entire Web pages between 767 language pairs.
