Sidengo Lets You Build A Website And Embed It Anywhere

March 14, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Sites like Flavors.me, About.me, and Retaggr let you create a landing page for you as an individual or as a professional. You get to include links to your social networking profiles and your portfolios, and essentially, it’s your single-page business card on the web. It is convenient and efficient especially if you have a lot of profiles on different sites and you want to list them down in a neat and attractive fashion. This approach is used by Sidengo, but instead of offering a landing page to users, it lets you create an entire website.

What does Sidengo do?

Like About.me, Flavors.me, and similar landing page builders, Sidengo focuses on letting users build pages without requiring technical skills in design and coding. Unlike the sites mentioned, Sidengo lets users create a full blown multi-page website as opposed to a single landing page. Other than that small detail, the process for building something remains the same: use a WYSIWYG editor to customize text, links, and images to a page and create additional pages if necessary.

For people who want a simple website, Sidengo makes it possible to establish one without hiring web developers or learning how to write code. Anyone who knows how to use a computer can essentially build their very own website in minutes.

What is included in these “simple” websites?

You can have your pages collect data from your visitors via Wufoo.com forms. Photo galleries, video streaming, Powerpoint slide viewers, and social media integration can all be added to your Sidengo website. Now you know that this really isn’t just a landing page builder.

Aside from building the actual website, you can add a favicon and use your very own domain for it. There’s even an iOS icon included so you can have your website stand out from the rest of the Internet. As for hosting, you don’t have to worry about that either. Reliable hosting is included in all Sidengo accounts.

What makes it different from other similar easy website builder services?

Sidengo may sound like your garden variety website builder with an exotic name, but it offers a feature that makes it worth looking into at the very least. This feature lets you embed your entire Sidengo website in any place on the Internet that you can think of, including Facebook. Yes, you can embed your entire Sidengo website in your Facebook Page, letting your page stand out from the rest.

How easy is it to use, really?

Even if you’re not used to WYSIWYG website builders, you can rest easy as a tutorial runs when you first access your website after signing up. It basically shows you all the sections of the builder that you will need to build your website. Once you’re used to the whole builder, you can build more websites without creating a new account as Sidengo allows for multiple sites per account.

How much does it cost?

For now, all Sidengo accounts are free. It won’t be free forever, though.

The Bottom Line

Having full control over one’s website is essential for some people, especially if they are running highly dynamic sites like online stores and news sites. However, for people who simply want to deliver content in a more streamlined fashion, not to mention they’re doing it in a straightforward manner, Sidengo is a must-try.

Filed Under: new sites Tagged With: ,

Enter Your Very Own Web Control Room

March 4, 2012 By Leave a Comment

If you’re a business owner and you rely on several web services to monitor your growth and progress, you will probably reach the point where opening individual websites and different dashboards would seem too much. These overwhelming odds can put more stress on your already hectic day. Don’t worry though because the Internet gods have heard your pleas for assistance and conjured Web Control Room.

What is Web Control Room

Web Control Room is a free service that gathers vital information that you need to monitor your business from multiple services that you would otherwise have to check out individually on a daily basis. With a 1-page summary for your different tools, you can get a clean and easy to peruse report on the different aspects of your business which could include the number of people opening your newsletters, the number of people visiting your website, your server uptime, and more.

What are the services supported by Web Control Room?

While still on its beta stage, Web Control Room already has support for 7 different systems:

  • Google (Search, Feedburner, and Analytics)
  • MailChimp
  • Klout
  • Pingdom
  • Xero
  • SiteUptime
  • AWeber

The service is working on adding more systems to its supported list but for now, you can already get a total of 9 different 1-page reports in one place.

What kind of reports do I get?

Instead of just pulling data from different systems, Web Control Room actually presents this data in a more useful manner. Using charts with different colors, you will get to view the important pieces of information you need in a clean and easy to understand interface. Instead of analyzing every single bit of available data from the service you are using, you’ll get to see what matters most in improving your business by way of concise visuals.

How can I access Web Control Room?

You can of course access your Web Control Room by going to the website using your trusty old web browser on your desktop or laptop computer. However, it would be very convenient if you can also access it via your mobile phone, right? That’s exactly what you can do thanks to the mobile version of Web Control Room. There’s no app to download and install. You just need to use your smartphone’s web browser to go to the Web Control Room website and it will automatically serve you with a mobile version of the standard web interface. This mobile version lets you view your reports in an easier and more comfortable way.

Signing Up and Setting Up

It’s obvious that the focus of this service is ease of use. It’s clean interface and dead simple process of signing up and setting up reports make the whole experience only take up a few minutes of your time. You can sign up using your Facebook, Twitter, or Google accounts if filling out a small form is too much work for you. Adding reports is just as simple as you only need to fill out a few fields to set up the services.

The Bottom Line

Web Control Room has a lot of room for growth and right now, it’s not as essential as it promises to be. However, once it brings in more services, it could potentially be one of your everyday business essentials.

Filed Under: new sites Tagged With: ,

Pinterest for Men

March 4, 2012 By Leave a Comment

We’ve all seen the facts, observations, statistics, and outright claims that Pinterest, for all intents and purposes, is still considered a website for women. Even with the site skyrocketing in popularity, men generally still can’t get into the whole pinning thing. Everybody notices that and a few enterprising entities took it upon themselves to create basically Pinterest clones but marketed to manly men. Meet Manteresting and Gentlemint.

Manteresting

As the name suggests, this is a site for interesting man things. Before you jump to conclusions, this site is safe for work and it is not about the man things you are thinking about. In their own words, Manteresting is where you get inspired by awesome content, share manly things with the community, and view what other members are posting. Does that remind you of a website that rhymes with Winterest?

Like Pinterest, you collect things from all over the Internet and curate them in your very own page. However, instead of pinning things on boards, you nail them on workbenches. It is the clone-iest clone of a popular site you can find. There’s nothing here in terms of functionality that is radically different than Pinterest. The only thing that sets itself apart from Pinterest is the content itself.

Gentlemint

Like Manteresting, Gentlemint aims to focus its content more on manly things. Instead of things like pretty little dresses, endless photos of shoes, and quaint little houses, Gentlemint brings you content like bacon, sports, and Ron Swanson. In terms of functionality, it’s pretty much the same “pin/nail stuff on boards/workbences” process found in Manteresting and Pinterest.

The Difference

Other than the cleaner and smoother interface of Gentlemint, the only obvious difference between the two manly Pinterest clones right now is that Gentlemint is still in closed private beta while Manteresting has opened its doors wide open for everyone from day one. Manteresting actually addresses this issue in the manliest way possible: a message that states “Invites are lame! Get started today.”

Their Advantage Over Pinterest

It all comes down to type of content, which depends entirely on the preferences of its users. Pinterest users have already established the type of content on the site which is obviously affecting how possible new users see the site. For men who want to get into the whole pinning craze, there’s a good chance that they would get turned off by the really feminine content on Pinterest and turn to other services like Manteresting and Gentlemint to provided the awesome content they are craving for.

Their Disadvantage Under Pinterest’s Iron Rule

Manteresting and Gentlemint, unless they offer something new and different, will eventually lose their steam. Once men figure out that Pinterest does not necessarily have to be a girl thing, they will eventually warm up to it just like how women warmed up to Facebook after it was dominated by men for a few years.

The Bottom Line

For now, Manteresting and Gentlemint are basically gender-bent clones catering to the obvious fact that the majority of Pinterest users are female. It would be interesting to see if they can move beyond that and become something more than just Pinterest for Men.

Filed Under: new sites Tagged With: , ,

Qwips: Add Your Voice to Your Social Conversations

February 5, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Sometimes, it’s hard to communicate what you are actually feeling by simply using tweets or Facebook status messages. As for photos and videos, they can be vibrant and colorful but they can still lack your true voice — your actual voice. This is where Qwips comes in.

What is Qwips?

Qwips, simply, is a service that lets you add 30-second voice recordings to all kinds of social conversations you have online. Whether it is tweets, Facebook status messages, photos, videos and even email signatures, you can give them an entirely new dimension with 30-second voice introductions, voice-overs, rants or anything you want to add to tell the story with your own voice.

The Problem with Voiceless Conversations

While you can say everything you want to say within the limit of 140 characters or a photo on your Facebook Wall, it lacks one of the most important elements of human conversation — the human voice. By adding your own voice in your online posts, you add more personality and depth to your online conversations.

Social Voice for Your Online Social Life

Qwip allows you to add a 30-second voice recording to all kinds of online posts including photos, videos, tweets, emails, comments, reviews, SMS and more. Different websites can have embedded Qwip recorders that allows you to record your voice without leaving the site. Even without these embedded recorders, you can simply provide the URL to your recorded messages whether you are posting a blog comment, a Facebook status message or a photo of that strange-looking dog you saw at the park earlier.

How Does It Work?

You only need a working microphone to use Qwip. You don’t even need to register an account to record your 30-second messages, but if you want to keep a record of all your recordings, registering an account is recommended. You just need to record your voice using the simple recorder and get the URL for it. It is now ready to be shared and to accompany your online posts.

Publisher Tools

If you want to use Qwips to publish your recordings directly to your website or blog, you simply need to add your domain in the MyWebsites section of your account. By adding Qwips to your website, you can get its additional benefits for publishers that include increased revenue, Qwips activity monitoring, better social sharing and deeper engagement.

Social Listening

Bringing the complete social experience to your online activities is one of Qwips’ goals, so in addition of recording your voice messages and hearing other people’s messages on websites and social networks, you can also follow other people on Qwips to listen to all of their recordings in one place.

Go Mobile

Qwips makes adding your voice to your social online interactions much easier by providing an iPhone app. The app offers all the features you need to record and share your scintillating 30-second recordings wherever you may be. You can download the app for free.

The Bottom Line

Adding emotions and expressions to your usually lifeless online posts is a better way of communicating online. If you’re interested in adding more life to your online conversations, give Qwips a try.

Filed Under: new sites, social media Tagged With: ,