Content is huge. Especially if you don’t have a strong domain, content is one of the most important factors in whether or not you achieve social media traffic and link success. Although checking Digg regularly is the best way to see what content works, the general principles are just as important to acknowledge.
Articles meant for Digg, or most other social sites for that matter, tend to do well when adhering to a particular time-honoured equation. Actually, the same equation applies to just about all web content, and - y’know what? - just about anything else in the universe. I’m as serious as I am mysterious. Alright, a clue:
How about a more realistic clue? (nothing to do with Wal*Mart) (more…)
The following is the first of a six-post series covering the main aspects involved in hitting the Digg.com front page. NVI CEO Guillaume Bouchard will be presenting a synthesized version of this series at PubCon 2008, November 11th, in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Each of the first five posts addresses one main Digg success area, with the final post a recap and evaluation, with expectations, metrics, and global suggestions. The first post concerns the domain.
The basic equation is simple:
Digg homepage = tons of traffic = backlinks = more traffic.
Or, Digg homepage = tons of traffic = branding, or ad impressions, or warm feelings.
Regardless of your bottom line, there are few web targets that couldn’t be hit a little easier with a whack of visitors.
But if you’ve been using Digg for some of your social media endeavors, you might have noticed quite a few changes lately. Namely, you haven’t been hitting the homepage as often, if at all. So why is this? (more…)
There’s so much sweet and delicious video content out there, most of the time with no easy download link. The videos are in flash, after all. What to do?
FLV files are generally much smaller than AVI and MPEG files. You sacrifice sound and video quality for the fast load time and the ability to stream it online. A number of people like to talk about the great difference between CD sound and vinyl or MP3 quality versus CD. FLV video quality compared to AVI format is much like comparing a Harley Davidson to a tricycle in terms of speed. However the fact that FLV is much more compressed it is much easier to store online and much faster to load on your computer.
I noticed something the other day while I was cleaning up my system. Every time we watch a flash movie on our computer it is saved to our temporary internet files. I was in the internet options in Internet Explorer. If you notice in the temporary internet files section there is a settings button. I clicked it and came upon a “view files” button. When I clicked that a window popped up displaying all the content I had viewed that day. It is possible to rip from the internet the flash videos you have streamed directly on to your hard drive. It is also important to note that the video must be loaded in its entirety before you can copy it onto your hard drive. This is of course not a new feature but I was unaware of it and I thought I would share it with those who are still in dark on how to rip a flash file.
(more…)
Empty bravado had kept tensions bearable, fear filling every gap in thought and talk. This was what they wanted, wasn’t it? The bait was set, and a confident enemy surged in swift response, ready to rush and crash. Scouts had returned with reports of the massive numbers stampeding, and a question crept into minds of all that stood waiting: would it hold?
Nope.
How many times have you found a link on your favorite social news site only to click it and find the server unresponsive? Too many times, most of you will say. This problem is far from uncommon, and unfortunately, it’s too often neglected by the marketing crowd, ready to just put a link up and wait for the traffic to roll (read: pile, avalanche) in. The reason is simple: the servers cannot deal with the insanely high amount of hits it gets from Digg, Reddit or any other popular UGC/social media site. So how do you fix that bitter-sweet problem? Is there even a solution, or are you doomed to watch your servers get trampled by the onslaught? Worry not, NVI is here.
There are several solutions. None of them actually guarantee that your server will withstand a Digg push and homepage - in war, there are few certainties - but they will all help. In the examples, we will use a traditional popular setup: PHP 5, Apache 2, MySQL 5 running on a Linux (assuming Debian) server. Feel free to ask questions in the comments - we’ll do our best to explain how you can use our methods in your environment. Obviously, one of the best ways to ensure your server will resist incoming traffic spikes is optimize your (already clean) code, but it’s probably the most difficult, too, and the one you have least control over. (more…)
Here’s a video that Agustin found on the “Interwebs”:
Erik talks about his attempts to find love on the main social platforms to promote his own website, Famous Last Nerds. Those guys are well-known in the funny videos field since their participation on the Robot Chicken stop motion animated show in US.
Link sex doesn’t exist yet but link love does 
So here’s my gift for your genius viral video!
So the new Propeller design just came out. My god. No, it’s not April 1st. It’s a design so bad it wouldn’t even be plausible as the poster-child for bad design. Ok, maybe not that bad. Just kidding - it IS that bad. “What were they thinking,” is the appropriate cliché. See/click on the photo below for my in-depth analysis. (more…)
