B6S.net

I started doing “this” back in 1997.

“This” means creating websites, promoting them and monetizing on the traffic (as opposed to creating websites for other people’s business need). It’s a pretty common business model for most of us.

The Age of Webmasters

Back then, we were called webmasters.

As a webmaster, you were expected to have a variety of skills, including:

1. Web Design
2. HTML coding
3. “Advanced” coding skills (or at least how to hack away at javascript)
4. Search engine optimization know-how (it was pretty basic back then)
5. Social media skills (at the time, it was participation in online forums mostly)

We were jacks of all trades. We had to know how to work with Photoshop, flash, HTML editors (or the code itself), run newsletters and much more.

Oh, and we had “websites” – remember those? Just good ole’ HTML web pages, where you had to change the HTML code and re-upload files via FTP to keep them up-to-date.

The Age of Bloggers

Things sure have changed!

Websites today are complexed dynamic creatures, relying on a variety of technologies to deliver unique customized pages to each visitor. They do a lot of clever things. One of them is that they allow users to interact and leave their own key-print.

What’s more, design standards have changed. You can no longer get away with cheesy web pages with animated gif’s for a background (thankfully, I may add!) Visitors expect a higher level of usability and an overall sleek look. To a great extent, design has become the realm of professional web designers and coding these smart sites has become the domain of professional coders.

These changes brought along the CMS’s, or Content Management Systems. And these beget Wordpress – a fully customizable and relatively easy-to-use CMS.

So, what’s left for us, content publishers? Well, mostly, but not only, creating content.

We write, we promote, we interact with the net. We have the ability to quickly and easily update our websites.

In fact, our websites are now called blogs, and we call ourselves bloggers.

So, How About You?

I still consider myself a webmaster first, and a blogger second. I still enjoy tweaking code and design and I still create static web pages too.

I think the title I prefer the most is a web publisher.

How about you? Are you a blogger? a webmaster? something else?

Haven’t done  a news & views roundup in a while, so time to check my RSS reader folders and link to some good webmasters reading material.

Search Engine News

Bing’s Stefan Weitz: Where Is Search Going? Weitz provides some interesting insights about the future of search engine development, and no, social media is not the main topic he discusses here.

The Buzz Not Quite Dying Out

But it’s taken an interesting turn over the past week, as more people got upset with the perceived breach of their privacy. Google Getting Wrong Kind Of Buzz:

The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) has filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) alleging that Google’s new social networking service Buzz violates federal consumer protection law.

Of course, it didn’t take long for this headline to show up: Class Action Complaint Filed Over Google Buzz

Google responded by saying  “With Buzz We Failed To Appreciate That Users Have Differing Privacy Expectations”

Pete Cashmore provided a nice overview of Buzz, taking into account both the privacy issues, in his CNN column:

Google Buzz: What is it good for?

Still mad at Google? You may like this article published on Gizmodo:

How To: Escape From Google’s Clutches, Once and For All

Facebook

I enjoy Facebook as much as the next person, and apparently both me and the next person have been complaining about it being slow and at times unreliable. Looks like Facebook was listening:

How Facebook Became Twice as Fast (But Still Not Fast Enough)

Can’t have the good without the bad. That annoying Farmville game seems to be going stronger:

FarmVille Wins Social Networking Game of the Year Award

FarmVille Surpasses 80 Million Users

I really hate Farmville. It’s not just the annoying messages in my stream, but the very nature of this game displaying the false idyllic facade of farms, when in reality, the food production industry is a big-money cruel machine of mass production at the expense of animal welfare.

If you dislike Farmville for this or any other reason, you may need this -

HOW TO: Block FarmVille on Facebook

Other Stuff

Google Maps Adds Businesses in 30 African Countries

Ok, you may not be visiting Africa anytime soon (or maybe you will be), but I appreciate the fact that Google is taking the time and effort to do this. Google Earth/Google Maps were invaluable to me on our last big family trip in the US. It just feels good to know that the same kind of information is available elsewhere as well.

I try to make this part of my daily routine (not always successfully): going over the latest headlines for webmasters. To do that, I subscribe to feeds I like and those I think are important (such as Tech Crunch and Mashable). Going over them today, I figured I’d share some of the gems here. May or may not become a regular feature – let me know if you like the concept.

Some thoughts on SEO – blogger Chris Dixon shares some thoughts about SEO. An interesting debate follows in the comment section about content vs. promotion with some good SEO tips thrown around for good measure.

A million stamps licked … and counting – Google Wave’s official blog reports the one million invites landmark. My biggest problem with Wave when I signed up was having no one to wave with. Things have changed and it’s quite noticeable when I log into wave. Still need a Google Wave invite by the way? I have a bunch of them available here.

Some more Google News – Matt Cutts provides a quick overview of some of Google’s latest updates including Google Goggles and the new real-time search feature.

Report: Bing Searchers Still More Click-Happy Than Google Searchers When It Comes To Ads – Tech Crunch reminds us that when it comes to Internet marketing traffic from Bing, Yahoo and AOL can be much more valuable than tech-savvy Google traffic.

Google Now Personalizes Everyone’s Search Results – Danny Sullivan covers the new personalized search results in Google in great detail, including screenshots. You should also take a look at what the webmasters community is saying about it in the SEORoundTable’s summary of forum responses.

Mashable’s Social Media Guide for Small Businesses – this welcome summary is an awesome link to have. Know someone who needs a hand with Social Media marketing? Just send them this link.

This is it for now. Hope you enjoy the links – leave me a note with your thoughts.

I’ve started a Twitter account for my B6S persona here, in addition to my regular twitter account @israelimom.

http://twitter.com/bs6 – in case you want to follow me.

However, do not expect me to automatically follow back. I so don’t believe in feed bots accounts that follow other  just for the follow back. If you follow me and I don’t reciprocate, read my blog post about Who NOT to Follow on Twitter, posted earlier this year on my Israeli Mom blog.

When it comes to webmasters, keep in mind that you are dealing with, hopefully, a more sophisticated crowd. Spam just won’t work.

With that in mind, I’ve come up with a list of Twitter Do’s and Dont’s for Webmasters:

Do

• Read other people’s tweets.
• Interact and reply to tweets.
• Tweet your original thoughts and ideas about web development.
• Post links of interest with your own input injected into the tweet.
• Tweet about new blog posts and new projects, with a clear title or added explanation.

Don’t

• Spam with product offers – we all know where to look for products.
• Send out automated ads – if I see a tweet about teeth whitening I will block and possibly report spam.
• Add RSS feeds of other sites to your Twitter account. I know how to add Mashable and TechCrunch to my Reader, and I can follow them directly if I want to.
• Repeat the same tweets promoting your blog posts numerous times. Once or twice is enough.
• Post endless links with no input of your own – what’s the point?
• Post links with no text – smart people just won’t click them.
• DM people with offers or links. That is just pure spam.

I am on Twitter because I want to interact with fellow webmasters. I want to network. I want to learn new things. If your account does nothing but those things listed under “Don’t”, you can be pretty sure I won’t follow back.

I hope you join Twitter for the same reasons I did. It is both effective and fun when done right.