Zemanta, which Jonathan picked up on last year in his five sources for free and legal images feature, has just announced that its technology is now available for both Safari and Chrome.

This means that users who’ve elected not to use Firefox or Internet Explorer can now have access to Zemanta’s content searching and sharing services. read more

If there was any iPhone app out there with the potential of dethroning Byline as the gReader champion, it would have to be Feeds.

Developed by Prime31 Web Design, Feeds introduces a number of features absent from the competion, including one feature missing from the mighty Google Reader web app itself (which will be detailed below).

Although its name may sound generic (at least compared to names like Gazette, Byline and Doppler), the Feeds app is far from bland and may end revolutionizing not only the gReader apps, but other RSS apps as well. read more

You might have seen StumbleUpon has expanded their share feature to allow you to send a stumble to all your friends.

At first this looks cool, obvious and useful … but I wonder if StumbleUpon will regret it? read more

Marc Andreessen’s Ning, the patform that allows you to create easily your own social network, has unveiled a new Ning.com.

“Everyday millions of people are discovering new social networks across the Ning Platform,” said Gina Bianchini, CEO and co-founder of Ning. “The new Ning.com makes it even easier and more natural for members to see a real-time snapshot of the latest activity on their social networks on Ning as well as discover new social networks across the Ning Platform.”

The new Ning.com expects to benefit the creators of social networks on Ning with better discovery by millions of prospective members, as well as higher recurring usage by existing ones. Here’s a more detailed explanation straight from Ning’s blog.

Tim Ferris obviously want more followers on Twitter, because he’s “bribing the world” with his $3/follower promise. Problem is, you won’t be getting the money, American public schools in need will, thought DonorChoose.org. Ferris donates $1/follower, and “an anonymous supporter” matches that with another $2/follower, which breaks down to $3/follower. So you’d be doing a good thing, following Tim Ferris on Twitter while this campaign is rolling, which is until 50,000 new followers have been gained. That’s $150,000 for a good cause. And you could always unfollow later down the line.

Should the extra money to the schools not be enough to convince you, Ferris is also doing a competition where you can win a MacBook Pro and some other stuff. Check out his post for more, and do follow him. I will.

I have sold my fair share of blogs, although I’m most definitely not among the worst blog hustlers out there. Every time I have indeed decided to part with a blog, or any other website for that matter, I’ve done what I could to find a good buyer. Not all manage to do so, blinded by the hopes and dreams of the buyer, or just by the wad of dollar bills offered. There’s a really nice post on that up on Webmaster Source, which comes down to this advice:

If you ever end up wanting to sell a well-established blog for some reason, think of your readers. Before you just sell to the highest bidder, put up a post asking if any of them would like to buy it. Someone from your community is more likely to keep it going. Shop it around to some blog networks or other bloggers on the same topic, maybe.

So true, so true. Read the whole thing here.

The Blog Herald WordPress News that I’ve been producing weekly will soon be changing, evolving naturally into something that meets the needs of the Blog Herald readers and editors. For over two years, every week almost without fail, I’ve brought you a summary of the news from around the WordPress Community. That’s over 110 issues stuffed with a ton of WordPress news, tips, resources, Plugins, and Themes. It’s time for the next step and we want you to be part of the process.

Before it changes too much, I’d like to talk about how it developed, and the choices made along the way, as it may help you if you produce your own newsletter, news digest, or similar report on your blog.

Like any major publication, and this weekly WordPress News is major weekly publication, it must be constructed with a plan and agenda, evolving slowly as the needs and production changes.

It must also serve two key purposes. It must educate and inform the readers, and serve the needs of the company it serves.

Help us improve how we deliver the WordPress news to you. read more

In “How to Find Your Tribe in One Word” by Liz Strauss, she wrote about how it is too easy to feel separated from society by the actions often not of our choosing.

Lots of folks have lots of reason for feeling we’re on the outside.

It’s almost overwhelming. The world can seem to be one huge tribe and we can seem to be the only one who’s not a part. Of course, that’s flawed thinking. Ever met a group of people who could agree on anything huge for very long? The whole world is too big to hold a meeting about who belongs.

It’s not how the world sees you. It’s how you see yourself that counts.

When I was young, my mother taught me to choose my friends wisely. As an innocent, I thought this meant I should pick better, smarter people, i.e, the popular kids. While it is important to be known by the “known” people, what she explained was a bigger principle. You are judged by those you keep company with.

Among all the social media tools I’ve been exploring in this series, this is one of the most important ones: understanding the influence others have on you to help define your social influence. read more

The Online Publishers Association (OPA) announced a new initiative designed to help stimulate creative advertising on the Internet that meets the needs of marketers. With the announcement comes the commitment from a group of OPA members to implement new interactive and display advertising units across their websites.

The proposed new advertising units are:

• The Fixed Panel (recommended dimension is 336 wide x 860 tall), which looks naturally embedded into the page layout and scrolls to the top and bottom of the page as a user scrolls.
• The XXL Box (recommended dimension is 468 wide x 648 tall), which has page-turn functionality with video capability.
• The Pushdown (recommended dimension is 970 wide x 418 tall), which opens to display the advertisement and then rolls up to the top of the page.

The initial participating OPA members, with reach of 108.3 million visitors, are: BabyCenter, Bizjournals, Bloomberg, BusinessWeek, CBS Interactive, CNN, Conde Nast Digital, Discovery Communications, ESPN, Forbes.com, FOXNews Digital, IDG, iVillage Network, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Meredith Interactive, msnbc.com, MTV Networks, NBC Universal, New York Media, The New York Times, Reed Business Information, Reuters, Time Inc., USA Today, Wall Street Journal Digital Network and Weather.com, with more OPA members to be announced.

The Envato blog network continues to grow. The most recent addition is a blog called The Netsetter, focusing on launching startups, edited by co-founder Collis Ta’eed himself. This from the about page:

With the barriers to starting your own online business getting lower and lower, there’s a growing class of online entrepeneurs that I sometimes call the net set, kinda like that old term the jet set – which doesn’t make much sense any more now that I think about it. From that term came the name of this blog, because I hope that you dear reader are a fellow netsetter!

Nice name, and an interesting blog so far. It does make me wonder how big the Envato network can actually grow?