Archive for February, 2010

Three Great Free WordPress Themes

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

WordPress is the most popular software for blogs today and it’s for a reason. Or perhaps I should say that there are many reasons for this but one of the main causes surely is that it’s a simple way to maintain a professional appearance on the web. With the help of free WordPress themes anyone can set up a sleek looking website in no time at all. There are a couple themes that stand out a little extra and here are three of them.

Autofocus

Autofocus

Autofocus is a very clean and modern looking theme that is especially designed with photographers in mind. Use this theme if you want to showcase your work in a stylish environment. You won’t have that much freedom when it come the settings but it’s very easy to work with so it shouldn’t cause you any trouble anyways.

Snapshot

Snapshot

This is yet another great theme if you want to showcase your pictures, design or any other kind of portfolio. With Snapshot comes a free voting system which allows your visitors to rate your work. Very cool indeed.

Crafty Cart

Crafty Cart

If you want to sell products directly from your blog, then Crafty Cart is a great free theme to choose. It has somewhat of a retro style and it’s simply an easy manageable eCommerce WP theme. Good stuff!

Posted in Industry insights, Wordpress | 3 Comments »

All the Google Logos

Wednesday, February 17th, 2010

Groundhogs Day

Edvard Munch

Sami National Day

Whatever one might think about Google and its dominant position on the market – they’re at least having fun with their logo. Whereas many company’s stick to one logo for years and years Google is having fun with theirs. Yes, it’s easier for them to play around with the logo than it is for your average business that needs consistency to build the brand into something recognizable and trustworthy but hey… It’s still fun to see. In the two first years as a company Google also avoided altering the logo, with the exception of the burning man logo, thanksgiving and the Holidays but then in the year 2000 things started happening. Visit Google’s website to check out all of their logos, from way back in 1998 up till now, 2010.

Posted in Fun, Industry insights | 1 Comment »

User Review of the Week

Friday, February 12th, 2010

We love to see that so many people are willing to share their thoughts and opinions about their web host’s, helping us to make the market as transparent as possible. However, we do also feel that we have a responsibilty to make sure that the user reviews we publish are not spam from competitors, trying to sink eachother. This is why we ask for the domain and email address when submitting a review – so that we can verify that it’s an actual customer sharing his or her thoughts about their provider. One review that we weren’t able to verify but still like to share is the following:

“A bad company and one of the employees “X” has a grudge against me because I am on disability. Clearly discrimination. Hands down. Who cares if I am on disability? What if you broke your back? You do not know why I am disabled in the first place as well. Many Americans do not have a job too but it was just because I said I was disability. He was fine with me until I mentioned it. Plus, this guy threatened me on AOL about calling CPS on my children. This company provides horrible service and has a big ego.”

Have you ever felt discriminated when buying a service of some kind?

Posted in Industry insights, Reliability | 1 Comment »

Don’t miss the Super Bowl ads!

Friday, February 5th, 2010

Super Bowl

Super Bowl is as you all know just around the corner, 7th of Feb to be exact, and it will of course be interesting to see who wins between New Orleans Saints and the Indianapolis Colts but I know that many people are looking forward to see the ads in-between the game (how often does one look forward to the ads?!!?) as well. The Super Bowl ads are known for being super expensive and also, often, very funny.

This year we will get to see ads by for example Frito-Lay’s Doritos (who topped last year’s USA Today Super Bowl Ad Meter), Mars Chocolate, Homeaway Inc, Diamond Foods and of course GoDaddy (for the sixth year in a row). We recently published an article about the GoDaddy girls and say what you want about their ads; they always manage to create a certain buzz (in lack of a better word). It’ll be interesting to see what they’ve come up with this year…

Posted in Fun, Uncategorized | No Comments »

The YouTube Movie Rental Future Not Too Bright?

Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010

Youtube

I just recently wrote a short post about YouTube entering the rental market with five indie movies that was showcased at the Sundance movie festival. So, how did it go? Hmmm… I don’t think a total view of 2,684 views netting a total of $10,709.16 can be seen as a great success. That’s a shame as I thought that this could be the start of something very good.

Perhaps needless to say but I don’t think these numbers will scare companies such as Netflix and Amazon. YouTube however claims that they were very happy with the test but I just can’t see what they have to be happy over. That it worked? Well, that shouldn’t be the most difficult thing a company that’s already streaming videos. Sure, they weren’t blockbuster movies YouTube has millions of users and now we’re talking about a mere 2,684 views. The future of their rental service is difficult to predict but I sincerely hope that this wasn’t the last we will hear about it.

Posted in Industry insights | No Comments »