Abstract: There was a time when the computer was the most sought after technology in the business and then came the internet. While the internet is moving towards its maturity the mobiles are attracting development as well as business community. SMS is very popular way of communication in Europe, Asia and Latin America. SMS marketing is gaining popularity because of its high reachability, accuracy, economical and accessibility in comparison to internet marketing, email marketing and telemarketing.
Description:
SMS abbreviated from Short Message Service is a service that enables short messages of generally no more than 140-160 characters in length to be sent and transmitted from a mobile or web. Text messaging enables information to be sent to groups of people quickly and conveniently. In case of printed media and other types of marketing such as television or radio, the consumers must for instance, listen to the radio or watch the television for the ad to reach them. Whereas for bulk sms advertising the mobile handset are normally always switched on to receive a message. The users receive their messages as soon as the phone is in the wireless network. There are three possible ways the mobile communication can happen: mobile to mobile, mobile to web and web 2 mobile.
Some of the advantages of SMS marketing are:
• The personal nature of mobile phones makes SMS marketing a very powerful tool.
• Mobile users mostly keep mobile on them all the time - meaning they can be effective for time sensitive messages.
• Users are inclined to read virtually every sms they get - unlike email and other means of advertising.
• Bulk SMS marketing is very economical and one can send thousands of text messages to consumers at wholesale prices.
• Bulk sms also saves time – instead of writing a message and then sending it to each mobile subscriber, one message is created and then sent to a whole group of subscribers.
• Tracking of SMS delivery and responses is very easy.
• Delivery of the text messages is almost instant.
The major areas where SMS marketing is used are banks, drink firms, entertainment and leisure venues. SMS are even used for the registration, bank transactions, m-commerce or mobile payment and for customer feedback. As a marketing tool, SMS text messages are used in many other ways also. Marketer can also build a brand name by sending the sms to wider audience by using company name as sender id/name. Also the product keyword as a sender name can be more effective if your company intends to sell something directly.
Short code SMS service which is usually five digit number can be used to record the customer response or gauge the popularity of the product. It can also be used as money making service just like pay per click- PPC in case of internet marketing. Also some sms marketing website offers free sms service in which 80 characters are used by site visitor and 80 characters by the advertisers. This is useful for both members as site visitors get the sms for free whereas advertiser can reach the sms receiving end effortlessly.
Although SMS services has its own disadvantages like sms is limited by 160 characters and do not disturb registry under the law, it is undisputedly the most economical and effective media of marketing and has potential to reach millions in minutes. We will see more and more companies opting for the sms marketing in near future. Although SMS marketing it’s just a starting, mobiles will offer lot more in near future.
Dhaval Patel is an entrepreneur from India. He runs online marketing and search engine optimization etc firm called dasinfomedia. Check out his blog for more information.
Friday, January 2, 2009
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Wordpress Installation Tutorial
Wordpress has always been admired and used for its simple and user friendly approach. Wordpress installation is easy DIY process by using its famous 5 minute installation!!! Ideally you should have domain name and database ready hosting account on you to start the installation.
Description: We need to make sure that we provide word press package the platform it needs in order to run smoothly. You need to check few things with your webhost before we proceed to installation.
Things to check before installation:
• PHP version 4.3 or greater
• MySQL version 4.0 or greater
• FTP access
• The Apache mod_rewrite module
You can ask your website hosting company about all the above requirements and if they don’t provide then you ideally need to choose another webhost. You will also need the FTP client to upload files. My favourite FTP cients are Filezilla and Fireftp (Firefox extension) and guess what both are free to use.
Famous five minute WordPress installation:
• Download and unzip the wordpress package. You can download the wordpress’ latest version from www.wordpress.org.
• Login in to your webhost account and create a new database with the MySQL user who has all privileges for accessing and modifying the database. Make sure you write down the username, password, database name and hostname for the user that you just created. You will need these details during installation.
• Rename the wp-config-sample.php file to wp-config.php.
• Open the same file that you just renamed. Within that file you will see the following:
define('DB_NAME', 'wordpress'); // The name of the database
define('DB_USER', 'username'); // Your MySQL username
define('DB_PASSWORD', 'password'); // ...and password
define('DB_HOST', 'localhost'); // 99% chance you won't need to change this value
You need to change the default information in the wp-config to include your database information. Make sure you do not remove the single quotes.
define('DB_NAME', 'wordpress'); // The name of the database
Change the “wordpress” to the actual name of your database that you were given when you set up the database i.e. define('DB_NAME', 'devblog');
define('DB_USER', 'username'); // Your MySQL username
Change the “username” to the username you were given when you set up the database.
define('DB_PASSWORD', 'password'); // ...and password
Change the “password” to the password you were given when you set up the database.
define('DB_HOST', 'localhost'); // chance you won't need to change.
If you were given information for the database host, you will likely need to change the “localhost” to the data you were given when you set up the database. If you were not given this information it is very likely you can leave this set to localhost.
Once you have completed the above, SAVE the changes you have made.
• Upload wordpress files using the suggested FTP clients.
• Point your favorite web browser to start the installation script.
If you placed the Wordpress files in the root directory, you should visit: http://mysite.com/wp-admin/install.php
If you placed the Wordpress files in a subdirectory called blog, for example, you should visit: http://mysite.com/blog/wp-admin/install.php
• Enter your Weblog title and your e-mail address in the fields provided by web based wordpress installer.
• Once you have followed the instructions on each new window, your blog will be created automatically for you. Make sure to save the user name and password provided.
That's it for the basic Wordpress installation!!! You are ready to log in! You will see the default wordpress theme in the front end of your website. You can change the look and feel of the website by changing the default theme to custom wordpress theme.
Dhaval Patel is an entrepreneur from India. He runs online marketing and search engine optimization firm called dasinfomedia. For more information please visit our Blog
Description: We need to make sure that we provide word press package the platform it needs in order to run smoothly. You need to check few things with your webhost before we proceed to installation.
Things to check before installation:
• PHP version 4.3 or greater
• MySQL version 4.0 or greater
• FTP access
• The Apache mod_rewrite module
You can ask your website hosting company about all the above requirements and if they don’t provide then you ideally need to choose another webhost. You will also need the FTP client to upload files. My favourite FTP cients are Filezilla and Fireftp (Firefox extension) and guess what both are free to use.
Famous five minute WordPress installation:
• Download and unzip the wordpress package. You can download the wordpress’ latest version from www.wordpress.org.
• Login in to your webhost account and create a new database with the MySQL user who has all privileges for accessing and modifying the database. Make sure you write down the username, password, database name and hostname for the user that you just created. You will need these details during installation.
• Rename the wp-config-sample.php file to wp-config.php.
• Open the same file that you just renamed. Within that file you will see the following:
define('DB_NAME', 'wordpress'); // The name of the database
define('DB_USER', 'username'); // Your MySQL username
define('DB_PASSWORD', 'password'); // ...and password
define('DB_HOST', 'localhost'); // 99% chance you won't need to change this value
You need to change the default information in the wp-config to include your database information. Make sure you do not remove the single quotes.
define('DB_NAME', 'wordpress'); // The name of the database
Change the “wordpress” to the actual name of your database that you were given when you set up the database i.e. define('DB_NAME', 'devblog');
define('DB_USER', 'username'); // Your MySQL username
Change the “username” to the username you were given when you set up the database.
define('DB_PASSWORD', 'password'); // ...and password
Change the “password” to the password you were given when you set up the database.
define('DB_HOST', 'localhost'); // chance you won't need to change.
If you were given information for the database host, you will likely need to change the “localhost” to the data you were given when you set up the database. If you were not given this information it is very likely you can leave this set to localhost.
Once you have completed the above, SAVE the changes you have made.
• Upload wordpress files using the suggested FTP clients.
• Point your favorite web browser to start the installation script.
If you placed the Wordpress files in the root directory, you should visit: http://mysite.com/wp-admin/install.php
If you placed the Wordpress files in a subdirectory called blog, for example, you should visit: http://mysite.com/blog/wp-admin/install.php
• Enter your Weblog title and your e-mail address in the fields provided by web based wordpress installer.
• Once you have followed the instructions on each new window, your blog will be created automatically for you. Make sure to save the user name and password provided.
That's it for the basic Wordpress installation!!! You are ready to log in! You will see the default wordpress theme in the front end of your website. You can change the look and feel of the website by changing the default theme to custom wordpress theme.
Dhaval Patel is an entrepreneur from India. He runs online marketing and search engine optimization firm called dasinfomedia. For more information please visit our Blog
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Wordpress → Drop-in Slideshow
Strictly speaking, this is not a plug-in. Instead of being uploaded and then activated, it only needs to be uploaded (with Wordpress media uploader, no less). But doesn’t even need a Wordpress installation to work. Will pick up all big enough images from a folder at hand and play them in a full-frame random slide-show fashion.
This one started as just another one of Wordpress gallery plug-ins. The general idea was to spice up WP gallery with a semi-customizable slide-show to play a set of images. As if there are not gazzillion similar and mostly better plug-ins already. But when one is a tweaker, one tweaks. The same story as with this very blog, which evolved from a long line of more and more minimalistic web pages. Following the ultraminimalistic approach slide-show application itself came down to a blank page with only two buttons (and even those text-only) used to navigate back and forth through a list of images.
See drop_in_slideshow.php in action.
The very essence of presenting images in a slide-show fashion is for images to cover as much screen area as possible and demand as little user interaction as possible, thus making all shadowbox and light box effects unnecessary. After gladly abandoning light-box model, I still had to pass image-related data (file names, titles, captions, descriptions, …) to this slide-show app, making thing much more complicated than necessary, but then it occurred to me: returning image file name in form of a search parameter will cause Wordpress to happily auto-navigate to a post or page with that particular image, with no additional work on my part. Slick, isn’t it. And as a side effect, this took care of another problem: somewhere along the way there was a minor mishap of a misplaced bracket which caused a perfectly good Wordpress Slide-show plug-in to go berserk all of a sudden. So to get back into saddle, all I had to do was strip the code down to a bare minimum and put it’s plug-in variety on hold for a while. Besides, the code is always much much better when written from scratch for the second time. So if you expect to be needing a proper plug-in of a kind, just stay tuned.
Instalation, drop-in (standalone) mode
* extract the two files from drop-in-slideshow.zip into a folder with images
* point to http:// your_web_page /…/ your_pic_folder/drop_in_slideshow.php
Instalation, Wordpress mode
* upload the two files from drop-in-slideshow.zip with Wordpress media uploader
* point to http://your_web_page/…/uploads/drop_in_slideshow.php
Notes
* When using with Wordpress, auto-navigation does not work for images inserted via gallery shortcode.
* Since Drop-in Slideshow fits images to browser window, you don’t have to worry about user screen resolutions and can upload images a little bit bigger than expected user screen resolution. Still, keep an eye on image sizes as there’s only one thing worse than small images: the slow ones.
* Starting with Wordpress 2.7 media uploader creates one additional image size (large), which is exactly the one to insert into your posts. This will cause Drop-in Slideshow to play each image two times, making it a double random slide-show. Presented like this it almost sounds as a feature...
Source:
This one started as just another one of Wordpress gallery plug-ins. The general idea was to spice up WP gallery with a semi-customizable slide-show to play a set of images. As if there are not gazzillion similar and mostly better plug-ins already. But when one is a tweaker, one tweaks. The same story as with this very blog, which evolved from a long line of more and more minimalistic web pages. Following the ultraminimalistic approach slide-show application itself came down to a blank page with only two buttons (and even those text-only) used to navigate back and forth through a list of images.
See drop_in_slideshow.php in action.
The very essence of presenting images in a slide-show fashion is for images to cover as much screen area as possible and demand as little user interaction as possible, thus making all shadowbox and light box effects unnecessary. After gladly abandoning light-box model, I still had to pass image-related data (file names, titles, captions, descriptions, …) to this slide-show app, making thing much more complicated than necessary, but then it occurred to me: returning image file name in form of a search parameter will cause Wordpress to happily auto-navigate to a post or page with that particular image, with no additional work on my part. Slick, isn’t it. And as a side effect, this took care of another problem: somewhere along the way there was a minor mishap of a misplaced bracket which caused a perfectly good Wordpress Slide-show plug-in to go berserk all of a sudden. So to get back into saddle, all I had to do was strip the code down to a bare minimum and put it’s plug-in variety on hold for a while. Besides, the code is always much much better when written from scratch for the second time. So if you expect to be needing a proper plug-in of a kind, just stay tuned.
Instalation, drop-in (standalone) mode
* extract the two files from drop-in-slideshow.zip into a folder with images
* point to http:// your_web_page /…/ your_pic_folder/drop_in_slideshow.php
Instalation, Wordpress mode
* upload the two files from drop-in-slideshow.zip with Wordpress media uploader
* point to http://your_web_page/…/uploads/drop_in_slideshow.php
Notes
* When using with Wordpress, auto-navigation does not work for images inserted via gallery shortcode.
* Since Drop-in Slideshow fits images to browser window, you don’t have to worry about user screen resolutions and can upload images a little bit bigger than expected user screen resolution. Still, keep an eye on image sizes as there’s only one thing worse than small images: the slow ones.
* Starting with Wordpress 2.7 media uploader creates one additional image size (large), which is exactly the one to insert into your posts. This will cause Drop-in Slideshow to play each image two times, making it a double random slide-show. Presented like this it almost sounds as a feature...
Source:
What if Automattic Began Charging To Use WordPress?
Most Content Management Systems, such as MovableType and ExpressionEngine, come with a hefty price tag attached to them. One of the biggest pros and reasons most people use WordPress, is because, well, that price tag is no where to be seen. But what if WordPress.com started charging a monthly fee for hosting with them and using their app? Or what if WordPress.org started charging for personal and commercial licenses? Would you continue using WordPress and support them for their outstanding hard work?
In a way, I would almost like it better if WordPress charged to use their application. I honestly wouldn’t mind paying, oh let’s say, $25 a month for, let’s say, unlimited downloads. Or even $10 per license.
How would this help WordPress and the community?
Help cover project and company costs
Imagine how much it costs Automattic to run WordPress? They all work extremely hard and I bet it ain’t cheap. Matt Mullenweg also does a fair bit of traveling around the globe to attend WordCamps and such. Hosting Servers, plain tickets, computer gear, Wii games, and everything else it costs to run a company… it all adds up!
Filter out spam sites
I’ve come across quite a few spam sites in my day, that are powered by WordPress. If Automattic charged for WordPress, this could minimize the amount of spam sites that popup everyday. This may not directly help the community, but in the long-run, it may.
Make WordPress look more professional
…Especially in the eyes of our clients. Many freelancers, and Web services use WordPress as the back-end for their client projects. In my case with WPCoder, it’s what we specialize in, so we only do custom WordPress theme coding. Some clients don’t like using WordPress because they see it’s free and open-source, which for some reason, is unacceptable.
I actually decided to Tweet the question “What if WordPress Cost Money? Would you continue using it? Or switch to another free CMS?” and the general notion I got was that most people wouldn’t even think about paying for it, and would instead switch to Drupal, MovableType, or ExpressionEngine. Hmm..interesting!
Conclusion
I’d like to hear what the rest of ya’ll gotta say. Would you mind paying for WordPress? And well, at least WordPress has been free thus far, and will most likely continue in that direction. We can thank Automattic for that!
Source:
In a way, I would almost like it better if WordPress charged to use their application. I honestly wouldn’t mind paying, oh let’s say, $25 a month for, let’s say, unlimited downloads. Or even $10 per license.
How would this help WordPress and the community?
Help cover project and company costs
Imagine how much it costs Automattic to run WordPress? They all work extremely hard and I bet it ain’t cheap. Matt Mullenweg also does a fair bit of traveling around the globe to attend WordCamps and such. Hosting Servers, plain tickets, computer gear, Wii games, and everything else it costs to run a company… it all adds up!
Filter out spam sites
I’ve come across quite a few spam sites in my day, that are powered by WordPress. If Automattic charged for WordPress, this could minimize the amount of spam sites that popup everyday. This may not directly help the community, but in the long-run, it may.
Make WordPress look more professional
…Especially in the eyes of our clients. Many freelancers, and Web services use WordPress as the back-end for their client projects. In my case with WPCoder, it’s what we specialize in, so we only do custom WordPress theme coding. Some clients don’t like using WordPress because they see it’s free and open-source, which for some reason, is unacceptable.
I actually decided to Tweet the question “What if WordPress Cost Money? Would you continue using it? Or switch to another free CMS?” and the general notion I got was that most people wouldn’t even think about paying for it, and would instead switch to Drupal, MovableType, or ExpressionEngine. Hmm..interesting!
Conclusion
I’d like to hear what the rest of ya’ll gotta say. Would you mind paying for WordPress? And well, at least WordPress has been free thus far, and will most likely continue in that direction. We can thank Automattic for that!
Source:
Goals of the Re-Design Process
Goals of the Re-Design Process
Re-designing a website is more than just giving it an improved new look. The successes and shortcomings of the existing site are invaluable in knowing how to truly improve the site and make the re-design worth the time, effort, and cost.
Like any site design/development, a clear set of goals and purposes should be established to direct the project. Without knowing specifically why the site is being re-designed or what needs to be improved, you may wind up with a better looking design, but it is unlikely to be more effective for the business or for the users.
I’m currently in the very early stages of re-designing a website for a client that needs a fresh look and some usability improvements. The client is a service provider and the existing site has been effective at attracting new business, but the site has grown and usability has suffered because the navigation can be difficult, and because the most important content isn’t consistently prioritized and featured throughout the site. In general, the site could be more effective for both users and for the business. The design needs to be updated and the income-generating services that drive the business need to clearly be the focal point of the website.
This situation has led me to evaluate the re-design process and how it should be approached for both the designer and the client/website owner. Throughout the post we’ll look at some steps and key points in the process and why they have a big impact on the end result.
Source:
Re-designing a website is more than just giving it an improved new look. The successes and shortcomings of the existing site are invaluable in knowing how to truly improve the site and make the re-design worth the time, effort, and cost.
Like any site design/development, a clear set of goals and purposes should be established to direct the project. Without knowing specifically why the site is being re-designed or what needs to be improved, you may wind up with a better looking design, but it is unlikely to be more effective for the business or for the users.
I’m currently in the very early stages of re-designing a website for a client that needs a fresh look and some usability improvements. The client is a service provider and the existing site has been effective at attracting new business, but the site has grown and usability has suffered because the navigation can be difficult, and because the most important content isn’t consistently prioritized and featured throughout the site. In general, the site could be more effective for both users and for the business. The design needs to be updated and the income-generating services that drive the business need to clearly be the focal point of the website.
This situation has led me to evaluate the re-design process and how it should be approached for both the designer and the client/website owner. Throughout the post we’ll look at some steps and key points in the process and why they have a big impact on the end result.
Source:
JavaScript Logic: WordPress Plugin
One of my biggest gripes about many plugins (and even some themes) is how JavaScript is handled. Many times, it’s loaded on every page of your site without the need for it.
There’s also potential conflicts between different JavaScript libraries and other scripts. It can be problematic having many different scripts loading at once.
This plugin allows you to conditionally load JavaScript files. I stole the idea from Widget Logic (which is an awesome plugin).
How to use this plugin
I’ve included a full readme.html, so I wouldn’t have to add too many instructions to this post. To conditionally include JavaScript, you need to understand how WordPress conditional tags work. There is no other way around that.
You can load many of the scripts packaged with WordPress, those included with the plugin, or an external JavaScript file.
Here’s what the plugin settings page will look like (click image for larger view):
WordPress Plugin: JavaScript Logic Settings
Some things to note about this plugin
This is an early beta release, so it’s not fully developed. There’s the likelihood of a bug here or there. All files selected in each JavaScript set will be uploaded (choosing one won’t overwrite the others).
The settings page will also be located under Appearance > JavaScript Logic. I done this because my next plugin will be Stylesheet Logic to compliment this plugin. Plus, I’m usually tinkering with theme settings more than anything.
If you want to see it in action, notice that I’m conditionally including thickbox with has_tag('gallery') on the single view of posts with the Gallery tag.
If you have ideas, I’m certainly open to hearing them.
Source:
There’s also potential conflicts between different JavaScript libraries and other scripts. It can be problematic having many different scripts loading at once.
This plugin allows you to conditionally load JavaScript files. I stole the idea from Widget Logic (which is an awesome plugin).
How to use this plugin
I’ve included a full readme.html, so I wouldn’t have to add too many instructions to this post. To conditionally include JavaScript, you need to understand how WordPress conditional tags work. There is no other way around that.
You can load many of the scripts packaged with WordPress, those included with the plugin, or an external JavaScript file.
Here’s what the plugin settings page will look like (click image for larger view):
WordPress Plugin: JavaScript Logic Settings
Some things to note about this plugin
This is an early beta release, so it’s not fully developed. There’s the likelihood of a bug here or there. All files selected in each JavaScript set will be uploaded (choosing one won’t overwrite the others).
The settings page will also be located under Appearance > JavaScript Logic. I done this because my next plugin will be Stylesheet Logic to compliment this plugin. Plus, I’m usually tinkering with theme settings more than anything.
If you want to see it in action, notice that I’m conditionally including thickbox with has_tag('gallery') on the single view of posts with the Gallery tag.
If you have ideas, I’m certainly open to hearing them.
Source:
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Freedom for Revolutionize - Open Source Customization
Consistency is crucial to be productive in the business and delivery of quality products & services! To retain consistency in the delivery of quality products there must be elasticity in performing various business activities at standard intervals of time according to modern business trends, whether it is offline or online business.
Rule of novel implementations, integrations and modifications is essential if you want longtime survival in online business industry. Open source customization provides you tools to implement this rule according to your own needs. There are some popular open source products that allow customized features to develop flexible websites as well as makes changes in the existing websites, such as Zen Cart Customization, Joomla Customization, X-Cart, Drupal CMS Customization, Os Commerce and Mambo Customization. All these products of open source are free under GNU General Public License.
Various prevailing products of open source technology are being used in number of business areas, and online shopping cart is one of the area of business where open source provides perfect products to make the shopping cart work error free and simple. Os Commerce is oldest open source product serving the online business industry for shopping cart needs of numerous online stores whereas Zen Cart is popularized due to its long list of features in providing shopping cart solutions. Recently Magento commerce has shown its presence with active support of development community. Due to its full set of useful features it is getting popular to get used for customized inventory management, it offers very spontaneous software structure, it is integrated with set of analytics & reports and integrated with Google analytics making it special.
Set of customized features, integration properties, upfront cost, totally customized structure and active community support offered by open source products are becoming boon for online business industry as its saves precious money and helps in cost cutting for existing online business with integration of appropriate features according to need.
Source:blogger
Rule of novel implementations, integrations and modifications is essential if you want longtime survival in online business industry. Open source customization provides you tools to implement this rule according to your own needs. There are some popular open source products that allow customized features to develop flexible websites as well as makes changes in the existing websites, such as Zen Cart Customization, Joomla Customization, X-Cart, Drupal CMS Customization, Os Commerce and Mambo Customization. All these products of open source are free under GNU General Public License.
Various prevailing products of open source technology are being used in number of business areas, and online shopping cart is one of the area of business where open source provides perfect products to make the shopping cart work error free and simple. Os Commerce is oldest open source product serving the online business industry for shopping cart needs of numerous online stores whereas Zen Cart is popularized due to its long list of features in providing shopping cart solutions. Recently Magento commerce has shown its presence with active support of development community. Due to its full set of useful features it is getting popular to get used for customized inventory management, it offers very spontaneous software structure, it is integrated with set of analytics & reports and integrated with Google analytics making it special.
Set of customized features, integration properties, upfront cost, totally customized structure and active community support offered by open source products are becoming boon for online business industry as its saves precious money and helps in cost cutting for existing online business with integration of appropriate features according to need.
Source:blogger
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