There is a new and promising Social Bookmarking concept on the net. Its called Thoof.com and they provide a social bookmarking version of personalized news. I think that is some sort of play on the concept of Proof Reading, but I’m not sure.

The concept is that you can read stories and not only show your interest, approval or lack of approval in those stories, but you can alter the description and the write up that go along with that story. Future or other readers will then vote up or down on whether your recommendation of changing the description, title or tags helps the story or not.

Once you submit the story your story gets a ThoofRank button like the one below that relates to an article I wrote titled “Funny Numbers Playing on iPhone Sales?“

The submission process is easy and not half as intimidating as that of a Digg or Slash, but not so simple that its worthless either like Delicious or BlinkList either.

I do like the concept of the group/social edit function and if you watch the video demo at their site you will get an interesting look at how they bring information to you, socially.  I suspect there is a little bit of potential for group think, but in general it seems to take a couple steps past some of the issues that plague Digg.com.

Page Popularity for Site: 9% [?]

I have been using a number of tools to test my websites, web pages and web designs for several years now.  I keep a long list of these tools in my bookmarks in my browser.

For about a year now I have been meaning to organize these bookmarks and write up an article to share the list and the tools with other web designers, programmers, web masters and or bloggers.  I just never got around to it.

Fortunately, on the internet no great idea remains unique for very long.

Aviva Directory put together a list of 31 website tools that happens to include all of the tools on my goto list plus a half dozen more that I wish I had had a year ago.

Accessibility

In particular they have an excellent section of tools listed covering accessibility.  In the United States website accessibility has not been a major concern.  However, in the United Kingdom its actually the law.

I have a number of readers and visitors from the UK and upgrading and improving my sites to comply with accessibilty requirements is one of my major goals for 2007.

Not only is it good for SEO and good for compliance, but its good for your readers.  I don’t think any website owner or bloggers wakes up and thinks to themselves, “I’d like to make my site less accessible today.”

Browser Simulators

I’ve used a number of browser simulators over the years but I also really liked the concept of Browsershots, which takes snapshots of your website rendered on several different browsers.

Missing Tools

The article definitely covers its bases, but I’d probably also throw in some type of keyword density tool.  I’m always looking for a better tool in this regard, but I do regularly use a tool from SearchEnginePromotionHelp.com (yeah its a long domain name, but that doesn’t bother me if the tools work).

Page Popularity for Site: 20% [?]

I came across an excellent resource providing information on 100 different online resources and tools for freelancers.

I wanted to internalize the information in a way that I could rapidly work with in multiple settings in the future if I ever needed to find the right tool for the job. So of course I mindmapped out the tools listed, plus I added in the tools suggested in the comments and I added a bunch of my own.

Now I have a great starting point for the future whenever I need to build up the list or find something I need quickly. I linked back to the original article from my MindMap Central topic and I created sub maps for each of the categories identified. This kept each category of items viewable at a single glance.

I’ve provided snapshots of these maps below. For more details about each of the tools I suggest a quick visit over to the site yourself as it really does have a great deal of information.

In the meantime, I did this experiment in part to internalize the info as I mentioned, but also in part to find a more rapid way of mindmapping this type of information from primary sources on the web. I hope to find more efficient ways to achieve this goal in the future.

Page Popularity for Site: 49% [?]

If Google is banishing your content to the “supplemental index” gulag you might just have this problem … and need this solution!
Great article.

Each time I consider this problem I keep thinking that we are fixing something that isn’t broken. Google is the problem here not the website owners. Google is essentially missing important information on the web that their google bots have mistakenly dumped into a supplemental file (reminds me of a ‘I will file it later stack that never gets filed’).

If Google doesn’t get around to getting a better grip on this, their search engine results will continue to degrade and eventually the market will offer up some company that can do the job more effectively (again).

It would also seem that Google already has some of the technology to deal with this scenario present in Google News. Instead of penalizing a site for perceived duplicate content, Google should offer up an alternative option with these listings with a link in their results like ‘All 1,534 Pages of similar content’.

If I am searching the web and I find the version of content that Google deems to be correct, its possible and often likely that Google is wrong. I’d much rather have the ability to drill into a look up of other sites with similar content and find the source (possibly the primary source that isn’t as search engine friendly).

From a webmaster’s perspective this is a great article, from a web researcher’s perspective it shows the failing of Google to get things right and opens the door for competition. Isn’t it about time someone knocked off the king of the hill for search? Its been a few years now. . .

read more | digg story

Page Popularity for Site: 12% [?]

Here’s a useful site! Its called UrbanFonts and they have thousands of fonts that you can download for free to your computer whether its a Mac or a PC. They have a great selection available to choose from to Download Free Fonts, but the cool thing about their website is the simple solution they have employed to show people their fonts.

A user only needs to hover over their main menu section and a pop up image appears as they hover showing what the font looks like. I found this interface to be extremely easy to use and understand and helps you find exactly what you are looking for quickly.

(in the image above you can see the pop up image next to my hand cursor. The pop up reads OLD FASHIONED as I hover over the link to the Old Fashioned font selection.)

Plus, below this quick selection menu they also display in larger boxes many extra artistic styles and fonts that you do not find in too many other places. I found my self thinking that these fonts if captured as an image would make excellent Logos for websites, blogs and even some product labeling.

Its a great little website with a terrific selection and the interface is what makes it useful. Too often I’ve seen font sites, or discs or downloads, but if they are too difficult to navigate then they are worthless. This site is nice, clean and easy to move around and use it to full effect.

LoudLaunch - Compensating bloggers for their unbiased opinions, reviews, and analysis. View the LoudLaunch campaign release this post was based on.

Technorati tags: Urban Fonts, Free fonts, download free fonts, a damn mess image

Page Popularity for Site: 7% [?]