Sunday, April 26, 2009

Cheap keyword-rich domain names for sale

Yes, I am actually going to try to sell some domain names through my blog. I registered these because my registrar offered a discount when you bought five or more domain names. They're unique domain names with plenty of keywords, but I simply can't use them all. Here's the list:

They're only one hundred dollars each, and they've got plenty of valuable keywords. Why not get one for your web design, programming, or software development business?

Monday, April 6, 2009

Google Trends: A powerful market analysis tool

It's not often that I find something to do that's both educational and incredibly addictive. However, Google Trends fits that description perfectly. I could spend hours scouring the data for market trends and checking the health of websites and industries. Essentially, this free web services gives anyone free access to the market data of the most widely used search engine in the world.

After spending only five minutes gazing at all the pretty graphs, I found an interesting trend. When I looked at the data for "nintendo wii", I noticed that the graph was on a general decreasing trend. I know that the Wii's popularity has steadily increased from its release, so I was puzzled by this result. However, a look at the graph for "wii" showed a more predictable upward trend. I believe that this incongruity between the search terms is caused by the public's increasing awareness of the Wii. As more and more people learn about the Wii, fewer and fewer use its full, formal name. Of course, this conclusion is strictly speculation, but it's an interesting theory, nonetheless.

Google Trends can turn anybody into a market analysis guru with access to possibly the largest consumer interest gauge in existence. You could use this service to pick which field of interest to study in, find the next big web service wave to ride, or pitch your web service to venture capitalists. However, one thing you won't find on Google Trends is this blog. It lives up to its name.

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Social networking for lazy bums

Although I greatly enjoy software development, I don't enjoy researching of social bookmarking site interfaces just to let people share my blog's content. Luckily for me, I found AddThis, an incredibly easy-to-use social bookmark widget that's compatible with more services than I could possibly imagine. It's free to use, but you have to sign up for an account at AddThis.com before you can use it. Fortunately, that free account supposedly grants you access to analytics on who bookmarks your site and how (I haven't tried it out yet).

This free web service is an incredibly easy way to add social bookmarking to your site: I had it set up on my blog in about ten minutes. Now I've got more time to devote to real programming challenges!