John Chow vs Shoemoney RSS competition

RSS is now one of the most valuable metrics on the net. Increasing your RSS subscriber count is a measurable way to show the popularity of your site. As RSS is an opt in way for readers to view your site contents, they can easily stop being a subscriber at any time.

It shows how far RSS has come when John Chow and Shoemoney start a competition to see who can get the most new subscribers in a month. Notice how it wasn't a competition to get the most traffic or the most subscribers to an email list but who can get the most RSS subscribers.

Why RSS subscribers

John and Shoe are both canny marketers and know the value of RSS. RSS is a transparent metric that shows a loyal readership. If a site starts to slide in it's content then readers will no longer subscribe. They would rather gain an RSS subscriber than an extra visitor.

Whilst the challenge is a bit of fun there is also a serious reason John and Shoe have gotten together to run this little competition. At the end of the competition they will both have a larger loyal subscriber base. This competition has gained them a large number of new subscribers which generally means more revenue for them.

This post is from the Newsniche website and should not be reproduced elsewhere. Why not subscribe to the RSS feed and get this information delivered straight to your News reader.

Read More

Sony Fondles New DS with One Hand, Bitchslaps with the Other [Nintendo]

In the wake of Nintendo's announcement of the DSi, Sony reached out and asked if we'd like to discuss the event and get their side of the story. Sony talking about Nintendo? How could we resist?? So... Read More

Snap + AddThis = Shared Snap Shots

Snap + AddThis = Shared Snap Shots
Today, we are very pleased to announce a new partnership between Snap and AddThis. You’ve seen them everywhere…Snap Shots are a great tool that allows you to look at web sites/pages without clicking on the links. Now, you can not only look at these web sites/pages, but you can also bookmark them and share them with other [...]

Today, we are very pleased to announce a new partnership between Snap and AddThis.

You’ve seen them everywhere…Snap Shots are a great tool that allows you to look at web sites/pages without clicking on the links.

Now, you can not only look at these web sites/pages, but you can also bookmark them and share them with other people with just a few clicks. See the AddThis ‘Share’ button in the sample Snap Shot below.

When you click the button you can now bookmark and share the Snap Shot via Email, Digg, Delicious, Facebook, MySpace, etc:

Enjoy! See you around the Snaposphere!

-Dom

The value of an RSS subscriber at 30 dollars

Have you ever wondered how much each subscriber to your RSS feed is worth. Well according to Mark over at 45n5 that magic number is currently $30. Mark arrived at this figure by dividing the price blogs have recently sold for by the number of subscribers to the blog.

I have previously made predictions about RSS playing a more important role back in October 2006. It looks like RSS is now an important metric to measure the success of a site and it is also starting to play a larger role in deciding the monetary value of a blog.

RSS subscribers and their value

Although Mark's use of RSS as a measurement of value was just a bit of fun it does show that RSS is a valued metric. A year ago most webmasters and readers would not have placed much if any value in the number of subscribers you have.

As RSS becomes a more valued metric the value of the RSS feed itself will grow. There are going to be more advertisers willing to buy advertising in an RSS feed and the value of RSS will grow. This is because many RSS subscribers do not click through to the website itself but use the feed to consume the content.

This post is from the Newsniche website and should not be reproduced elsewhere. Why not subscribe to the RSS feed and get this information delivered straight to your News reader.

Read More

ArcConvert 0.52a

ArcConvert 0.52a
A free and easy to use tool which converts archives into different compression formats. A free and easy to use tool which converts archives into different compression formats. (read more)

How to style an Atom Feed

How to style an Atom Feed
In order to have browsers render an XML Atom feed into HTML such that it is far easier for users to read, there are two things you must create. The first is an XSL stylesheet which instructs the browser on...

Matt Cutting Assistant 1.0

Matt Cutting Assistant 1.0
The Matt Cutting Assistant will calculate all of the matt dimensions with no effort.

About Matt Cutting Assistant The Matt Cutting Assistant will calculate all of the matt dimensions with no effort. This widget is ideal for any artist, or framing store. To use: - type in the frame dimensions. - Type in the desired opening. - Add a bottom weighting if desired. - Click Evaluate. All the matting dimensions show up on the sample matt. No more tedious math.

3 things you really want to know about RSS

3 things you really want to know about RSS

I have been doing some digging into the statistics for Newsniche to try and discover what you are really interested in when it comes to RSS. So I have come up with the imaginatively titled 3 things you really want to know about RSS. So here are the most wanted to know things about RSS in reverse order.

RSS publishing tools

The third most popular topic is on RSS publishing tools. Rather than an article this is a section of the site dedicated to letting you know how you can publish RSS on your site. Being able to publish RSS on your site means that you have a constant stream of updating content for your readers.

Which is the best RSS feed reader

The second most popular item on the site is an article on Which is the best RSS feed reader. You certainly want to know which is the best way to read your feeds. This is not surprising as RSS is all about being able to have information from your favourite sites available to you without having to visit every you like frequently. Why not subscribe to their feed and have the content come to you.

Using Javascript to display RSS

I guess deep down everyone wants to display RSS using Javascript as the number one most read article is Using Javascript to display RSS. This is an article I wrote ages ago showing you how you could easily place content from an RSS feed on your site using a snippet of Javascript. That is so 2006.

This post is from the Newsniche website and should not be reproduced elsewhere. Why not subscribe to the RSS feed and get this information delivered straight to your News reader.

Matt Cutting Assistant 1.0

Matt Cutting Assistant 1.0
The Matt Cutting Assistant will calculate all of the matt dimensions with no effort.

About Matt Cutting Assistant The Matt Cutting Assistant will calculate all of the matt dimensions with no effort. This widget is ideal for any artist, or framing store. To use: - type in the frame dimensions. - Type in the desired opening. - Add a bottom weighting if desired. - Click Evaluate. All the matting dimensions show up on the sample matt. No more tedious math.

Kinara widget for Kwanzaa is here!

Kinara widget for Kwanzaa is here!
We're finished the Kinara widget for Kwanzaa!!!!

A new candle is lit for each day of Kwanzaa. Click on "Get this widget" to put it on your page!

Get this widget!

Paris 0.1

Paris, watch the great City - Vive la France.

About Paris Paris, watch the great City - Vive la France !

Read More

Critical Bug Fixed: "'mt_pluginmanager' doesn't exist"

Critical Bug Fixed: "'mt_pluginmanager' doesn't exist"
It took me far too long to track down a simple error a number of people were reporting with Plugin Manager, but I did track it down, and did finally manage to fix it. Long story short, the deployment mechanism...

VelaClock Deluxe 2.1.9

A world clock widget that can be configured to display the time of sunrise/sunset, daylight duration, phase of moon, and more.

About VelaClock Deluxe A world clock widget with a highly configurable user interface. VelaClock Deluxe has all the features of the standard version, plus: - Change the current date: a Change Date pane provides the ability to view information for any day in the past or future (from 1932 to 2020). This allows one to determine sunrise, sunset and twilight times for days in the past or future. In addition, one can determine moon rise and set times as well as phase for any day. This is great for photography and outdoor events. - Add user-defined places: to add a new place to VelaClock Deluxe, launch a small utility application from the back of the widget to specify city, country, time zone and a latitude/longitude point. Daylight Saving Time rules are historically accurate. Full Description: Besides displaying local times, users can quickly display the time of sunrise, sunset, or twilight, duration of daylight, current phase of moon, time zone information, and much more. The interface can easily be configured to use a minimum amount of screen space or, if the user wishes, multiple lower panes can be opened to display more information and take up more screen space. The top pane of VelaClock displays a list of cities and corresponding local times. For more detailed information about the currently-selected city, the user can choose whether to display up to four additional panes (each pane has a full and a minimized version).

Read More

Shiver Me Timbers!

For the fans of Captain Jack!...

A SpringWidgets Pirates of the Caribbean countdown clock to put on your profile or blog!

Those of you who have seen my MySpace profile and noticed the skull and crossbones that I use as my profile picture, you have probably figured out that I'm a big fan of pirates.

So much so that I figured that we just had to create a countdown to what will probably be, in my opinion, the biggest movie of the year . . . Pirates of the Caribbean!

Being somewhat piratical ourselves, the team can really relate to the need for blue ocean waters, treasure and wearing silly three cornered pointy hats.

By the way . . . take a look at the bottom of the widget...

Fans of our widgets will notice that the "pop" button has moved from the upper right to the lower left of the widget and it now has a couple of friends, an "options" button and a SpringWidgets logo.

Don't worry, the Pop button will still give you one click downloading of the widget to your desktop if you have the SpringWidgets application installed . . . we just moved it so that it would look better on some of the odd shaped widgets that we are seeing in the gallery.

If you take a moment and click on the options button, you can see that we have added in a few, well... "Options" to the widget. You can now copy the code directly in the widget, download the widget from the menu, jump to the customize/share it page and learn more about the widget you are looking at.

I hope that you like the changes and find that the added functionality enhances your widget experience. If you like the widget and have a moment, stop by our community page and send a note to the team letting them know.

I'm going to go dress up like a pirate now and try and find some buried treasure.

-Don Read More

Optical Illusion Of The Day

This Widget pulls the latest illusion from Mighty Optical Illusions website (www.moillusions.com) and shows it on your desktop. If you click on the image, browser takes you to that particular illusion's description and comments. Read More