A little start-up inspiration for all of us

I ran across this link on ValleyWag and thought it would be a little inspiration for the little start-up guys in all of us.

Linkorati Linkage: Where the Web 2.0 stars got started

7 things to make your website appear more web 2.0

Awhile back I ran across a quote somewhere that stated "Web 2.0 is not a place but its a state of mind" and that does holds very true. The web technoligies behind web 2.0 websites like Digg, Twitter, and Flickr are nothing new but the way in which they are being utilized and their archeticture is. For the most part these sites use a combination of AJAX and CSS to deliver more of an interactive experience to the visitor.

Below I have listed 7 things that will make your website appear more web 2.0:

1. Implement related widgets into your site that offer visitor interaction
2. Use AJAX in combination with your web forms and search features
3. Add a social feature or promote your existing profiles on other social networks
4. Setup a blog and actually use it (dead blogs are no good)
5. Add videos, photos, and podcasts for multiple mediums of content (which can go mobile)
6. Offer your own widget to tie your site into other websites and social networks
7. Create a mobile friendly version of your website for cell phones and other mobile devices

Amazon to shell out $100,000 big ones

Yesterday Amazon announced their AWS Start-up Challenge which will reward the winner with $100,000 in cash and AWS credits. They are searching for the next "hot start-up" which utilizes AWS solutions as a key part of their infrastructure or business application.

Contests like this are becoming increasingly popular these days. Back in July PayPal held their own developer challenge rewarding $10,000 to the winner of that contest.

I am game....I could sure use an extra $100k how about you?

The Current Battle Front

When it comes to the internet experience there are two enormous giants standing face to face in Silicon Valley which are Google and Yahoo. Running frantically around them are many much smaller villagers who are gnawing at their ankles in an attempt to somehow hurt them and bring them down to their knees.As both of these giants have learn though in the recent years sometimes these smaller villagers can inflict enough damage to where you have to acquire them and use them as your weapons to reclaim lost ground. Two prime examples would be Yahoo’s acquisition of the photo sharing site Flickr (~$40 million) in 2005 and Google’s acquisition of the video sharing site YouTube ($1.65 billion) in 2006. Both of these acquisitions were key and sure stirred up a lot of dust and dirt in the sunny California valley.

So What's Next?

• Google needs to continue to focus on the further advancement and development of its video sharing monster YouTube. With Hulu.com, a video-on-demand joint venture of NBC Universal and News Corp, set to go into private beta in less than one month this may prove to be YouTube's toughest rival yet since its expected that Hulu will also offer video sharing like YouTube.
• Yahoo as a partner of Hulu needs to be ready to implement Hulu's video content as soon as its out of beta.
• Yahoo needs to forget about social networking for now. With their past bids for Facebook being rejected they are just too far out of the race in my opinion to start something new that could even come close to competing with Facebook, MySpace, or even Orkut for that matter.
• Google by the way what exactly is Orkut? The only reason I know its there is because I saw it on the menu.

13 Tips For A Successful Forum

A few years ago I started a website/forum called 'Ride The Red' which served as an online community for Honda ATV owners and was strictly dedicated to the Honda brand. Overall it was a great learning experience and I am kicking myself in the rear everyday for selling that site when I did. Below are what I believe are 13 tips for a successful forum.

1. If you can afford a VBulletin license then I highly recommend doing so because of its superior functionality. If not then alternatives like PHPBB will most certainly do the job as well.
2. Until members signups and traffic are at a steady growth keep the number of categories to a minimum. Having too many categories at launch will make the forum seem bare.
3. For each category you create use descriptive keywords not only for the title but for the description as well. This will be useful for both visitors and the SE's.
4. Keep the ads and banners to a minimum until members and traffic start to grow. Having too much on launch may make the members feel that you are only trying to make money.
5. To get the ball rolling initially hire a forum posters to post on good related topics.
6. Start new threads daily on your own that are based on interesting topics. This will help encourage members to post.
7. Create a newsletter system to help keep the members coming back. I even went as far as sending "We have been missing you..." emails to members with low visits and post counts to try and get them interested again.
8. Have a 'Member of the month' feature. This helps others learn about the others in the community.
9. Provide product reviews and sell advertising space to generate more revenue. I was able to get approx. $800+ worth of free parts for my atv just for contacting vendors and asking for a free product to do a review on.
10. Stickers for some reason stickers were a BIG hit! I gave each new member a sticker upon signup and then sold additional stickers cheap just to cover the cost.
11. T-shirts were also a BIG hit. Just something to help spread the word or url in this case.
12. Put a descriptive link in your sigs at other related forums.
13. Choose additional moderators wisely. I selected a few members who really stood out and were experienced. Two of which were actually certified Honda mechanics who found their way to my website.