S.O.P.A. is a new initiative that gives domain registration companies the power to shutdown websites and even take the domain of a website if they have possible stolen images or content. Obviously we need to stop people from stealing content but giving the power to shutdown domains and businesses over a image that might or might not have a stolen image.

This is a huge issue and needs to be stopped. The first step is let these businesses know you do not support giving them the power to take a business over a picture maybe not being used correctly.

There is a way to stop content thieves but this is not the way! This will give too much power to the registration services.

Godaddy (Blacklisted before for stealing domains and adding hidden fees.)
60 Plus Association
ABC
Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies (ASOP)
American Bankers Association (ABA)
American Federation of Musicians (AFM)
American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA)
American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP)
Americans for Tax Reform
Artists and Allied Crafts of the United States
Association of American Publishers (AAP)
Association of State Criminal Investigative Agencies
Association of Talent Agents (ATA)
Beachbody, LLC
BMI
BMG Chrysalis
Building and Construction Trades Department
Capitol Records Nashville
CBS
Cengage Learning
Christian Music Trade Association
Church Music Publishers’ Association
Coalition Against Online Video Piracy (CAOVP)
Comcast/NBCUniversal
Concerned Women for America (CWA)
Congressional Fire Services Institute
Copyhype
Copyright Alliance
Coty, Inc.
Council of Better Business Bureaus (CBBB)
Council of State Governments
Country Music Association
Country Music Television
Creative America
Deluxe
Directors Guild of America (DGA)
Disney Publishing Worldwide, Inc.
Elsevier
EMI Christian Music Group
EMI Music Publishing
Entertainment Software Association (ESA)
ESPN
Estée Lauder Companies
Fraternal Order of Police (FOP)
Gospel Music Association
Graphic Artists Guild
Hachette Book Group
HarperCollins Publishers Worldwide, Inc.
Hyperion
Independent Film & Television Alliance (IFTA)
International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees (IATSE)
International AntiCounterfeiting Coalition (IACC)
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW)
International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT)
International Trademark Association (INTA)
International Union of Police Associations
L’Oreal
Lost Highway Records
Macmillan
Major County Sheriffs
Major League Baseball
Majority City Chiefs
Marvel Entertainment, LLC
MasterCard Worldwide
MCA Records
McGraw-Hill Education
Mercury Nashville
Minor League Baseball (MiLB)
Minority Media & Telecom Council (MMTC)
Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)
Moving Picture Technicians
MPA – The Association of Magazine Media
National Association of Manufacturers (NAM)
National Association of Prosecutor Coordinators
National Association of State Chief Information Officers
National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA)
National Center for Victims of Crime
National Crime Justice Association
National District Attorneys Association
National Domestic Preparedness Coalition
National Football League
National Governors Association, Economic Development and Commerce Committee
National League of Cities
National Narcotics Offers’ Associations’ Coalition
National Sheriffs’ Association (NSA)
National Songwriters Association
National Troopers Coalition
News Corporation
Pearson Education
Penguin Group (USA), Inc.
Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA)
Pfizer, Inc.
Provident Music Group
Random House
Raulet Property Partners
Republic Nashville
Revlon
Scholastic, Inc.
Screen Actors Guild (SAG)
Showdog Universal Music
Sony/ATV Music Publishing
Sony Music Entertainment
Sony Music Nashville
State International Development Organization (SIDO)
The National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO)
The Perseus Books Groups
The United States Conference of Mayors
Tiffany & Co.
Time Warner
True Religion Brand Jeans
Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC)
UMG Publishing Group Nashville
United States Chamber of Commerce
United States Olympic Committee
United States Tennis Association
Universal Music
Universal Music Publishing Group
Viacom
Visa Inc.
W.W. Norton & Company
Wallace Bajjali Development Partners, L.P.
Warner Music Group
Warner Music Nashville
Wolters Kluewer Health
Word Entertainment

Link to list

Link to wiki

Internet Traffic

The first part of the equation, internet traffic, is possibly the most fought over and hardest part of affiliate marketing. It is best summarized as the quest to get those elusive surfers to your site. Traffic is the foundation of e-commerce and no website is successful without it. There are two fundamental ways people can find you online. The first and most popular is through a search engine.

Search Engines

When most consumers go online to find a product or service, they use a search engine. Popular search engines include Google, Yahoo, and Msn to name a few. Generally, the consumer will go one, maybe two pages deep in their search for a website they’d like to visit. Logically, the better your rank in a search engine, the more consumers that will come to your site. Because surfers won’t go 10 pages deep in a search engine’s results, site ranking is VERY competitive.

SEO

There are two ways to get ranked with a search engine. The first is referred to as SEO (search engine optimization). This is by far the most competitive (and profitable) route. Google, for instance, places a great amount of emphasis on your website’s links. The more links you have going out and coming into your website from other “like” websites, the more “relative” your site becomes. Consequently, the more relative your site is, the higher your page rank. There are numerous other ways to optimize your site for SEs. Our team will be happy to give you with this and point you to more resources.

Pay Per Click (PPC)

The second method by which a website can get ranked with a search engine is using a pay-perclick (PPC) campaign. Above, you can see the PPCs on the right side of the google page. Instead of competing for page rank, these listings pay to get listed here. PPCs are beneficial, because the owner of the ad ONLY pays when someone clicks on their listing. So you’re only paying for surfers to come to your site who’s interests were sparked by your ad.

Most PPCs allow you to write your ad and bid on different keywords of your choice. For example, if you are running a penis enlargement review site, you might choose keywords like “longer penis” or “penis extension”. You could then bid on the keywords, specifying that you’d be willing to pay $0.20 per click. Submit your ad and away you go. Again, a word of caution. If done poorly they can take you to the cleaners. A good rule is to make sure you get sales before buying PPC.

Alternative Traffic Marketing

There are virtually no limits to where you can get traffic for your website. You can set up reciprocal links with other like websites and trade traffic (this also helps your SEO). Email campaigns, as long as they are targeted and are not spam, can work well. Snail mail mailers, flyers, and traditional advertisements can also work. Just like building your site, be creative in its promotion. This helps you stand apart from the crowd and will lead to more traffic to your site.

Product Promotion

So once you have the surfer in your site, what do you do with them? Your task is to get them to want to click on the links to our sites. Different affiliate programs have different ideas on how to do this. A lot of it depends on the products or services that they offer and the site having call to actions done correctly.

Product Matching

A big part of affiliate marketing is matching the products you promote to the site you run. If you can do this well, you can convert well.

The Informative Site

The second and more successful way to market a product is to build your website around it. An example of this is a review site. This kind website is devoted to giving the surfer as much information as it can. It gives information about the different types of products available and then reviews the different products that are out there. It will usually pick one of the products (the product with the best website – OURS!) to be its number one pick. Surfers will come to your site, become educated on the subject and move on through your link to buy a product.

This type of site is successful for a few different reasons:

1) People like to shop around. This site gives them the opportunity to shop around without ever having to leave.

2) Information builds trust. The more information you have in your site, the more the surfer will perceive your site as an authority. Trust = conversions

3) Penis Enlargement, for example, is possible. However a lot of people don’t believe it. Yet, they are still perusing your site in the hopes that it is. The more informative your site is, the more likely you’ll convince them that they CAN enlarge their penis. This will lead to more sales.

4) If you slap an enlargement banner ad on a website that has no relation to penis enlargement at all, the majority of your click-trough’s will come from surfers satisfying their curiosity, not because they are genuinely interested. The informative site mitigates this and ensures only quality surfers get through.

An informative site can be built for ANY product out there. It may take a little more time than throwing a banner up on your site, but your effort will be amply rewarded.

The Psychological Sell

The following tips are meant to help you sell your surfers on the products you are reviewing. The more you pre-sell them before they get to a product site, the higher your conversions will be.

1) Identify your audience
Ask yourself who are they? Most importantly, why are they at your site? What are their fears and what are they hoping to accomplish? The answers to these questions will enable you to write your site’s text with your specific audience in mind. The more your text speaks to them, the more likely they are to buy.

2) Identify your audience’s problem and exploit it
It may sound bad, but you want to foster a feeling of insecurity in your surfers. You must include a section on the problem your surfer’s are there to fix and it’s hazards. Highlight what happens if the problem goes untreated and its detrimental affects. Convince you surfer that it is imperative that they fix this problem.

3) Assure them that their problem is treatable
Fairly self-explanatory, but let them know there is help on the way.

4) Include as much info as you can get your hands on.
The more in depth you go, the more the surfer will trust you as an authority and get lost in your site’s information.

5) Include specific information about each product you review
Again, gains trust.

6) Build their confidence
Once you have selected a product as your #1 pick, include information about it’s guarantee, the company’s reputation, etc. Shout from the rooftops why this is the best product out there. A word of caution – do not bad-mouth any product. It’s negative, amateur and unprofessional. Read “Website Development” for more website tips…

PPC Campaigns – Product Promotion the Easy Way

Reviews.

The benefit of this new system is that instead of having to build your own informative site, we’ve done it for you!
This system is now available to you to use in any way you wish. If you are using a PPC campaign, you can plug your affiliate code and special link directly into the PPC ad’s url. Surfers will click on your ad, go to our feeder site, move on to our product site, make their purchase and you will always get credit. You can also use our feeder sites as supplements to your own site. Add a link or menu option on your site and link it to our feeder. Our site will do all of the work for you by educating your surfer on our HUGE range of products. You’ll get credit on any product they buy.

Website Development

There’s no arguing it, there’s a lot that goes into developing a quality website. Hundreds if not thousands of books have been written on the topic. Here, in a “do’s and don’ts” format, we’ll give you a few of the most important features your website should incorporate.

Do’s

1) What is your mission? Every company has one and so should you. It doesn’t have to be complex, just figure out what you want to accomplish through your site. If you want to promote ClearPores with an information site, your mission could be something like this –
“Create a website that will inform consumers in a clear and concise format about how sleep works, causes of insomnia, the detrimental effects of losing sleep and include reviews and suggestions of products that are available that can help cure sleep disorders.”

2) Just like writing a paper in college, map out what you want to do first. Get a good idea of the layout of the site, where buttons and images will be located, and how you’re going to organize your information. Once you have an idea of this on paper, move onto doing the html.

3) Make information easy to get to and organized logically for your surfer. One word – usability. Nothing is more frustrating than being on a website and not knowing where to go.

4) Check out other product websites, including your competition, and see what they are doing well. The best places for website ideas are other websites.

5) Spend time on your text. Anyone who is interested in your website and wants to use it as a source of information will read your text. Make sure you spell check, grammar check, and use your words to your advantage. The text is what will sell your surfers on trusting you and using the products you recommend.

6) Post your site on forums and let other take a look at it. You’ll get some great advice on what you could do better.

Don’ts

1) Do not use too many colors. The more colors you use, the more amateur your website looks. Amateur = no trust = no conversions.

2) Do not use too many fonts, same reason as above.

3) Do not make a website that is one looooooooong page. Again, amateur.

4) Do not have HUGE blocks of text. Break up your text with key points. Use headers, bulleted points, etc. for the major statements you don’t want your readers to miss. Surfers will skim through looking for your main points and will be more likely to read your text if you spice it up and make it look interesting. Besides that, breaking up your text makes your site look better.

Alright, now you’ve got the basics. There’s a lot to know about this business and always something new to learn. It’s a dynamic marketplace and those who survive, learn to roll with the punches. Learning, changing and adapting are the keys to making it. If you’re trying something and it’s not working for you, stop, get some advice and try something else.

If your company sends out an e-mail newsletter to customers, you may find yourself suffering from a new problem I call “spam trap poisoning.”

Spam traps are e-mail addresses that antispam groups post on the Web but don’t use for sending e-mail. Instead, these addresses lie in wait until they’re found by “harvester” programs. These harvesters are key tools for spammers: they scan millions of Web pages, scooping up every e-mail address that’s visible.

If a spam trap receives any e-mail, therefore, antispam groups assume the message must be spam. This can automatically put the IP address on a “blocklist” that keeps the sender’s messages from getting through to some mail servers.

Unfortunately, spam traps are starting to bite legitimate businesses. I’ll explain how and what you can do about it.

How Spammers Can Poison Spam Traps

I discussed spam trap poisoning with Julian Haight, the director of a controversial blocklist called SpamCop.net. In an interview, which formed the basis for my column last week on SpamCop, Haight said he’s reduced his reliance on human spam complainers and has dramatically increased his use of spam traps. “80 to 90 percent” of the reports he receives are now generated by such bots, he explains.

Spammers, however, are learning how to discover which e-mail addresses are spam traps. How can this injure your company’s reputation and e-mail deliverability?

• Spam Traps Lead To Swift Blocklisting. Because spam-trap addresses can react immediately to any e-mail they receive, as little as a single message can add a sender to a blocklist within minutes. Spammers don’t much care about one individual source of spam being blocked, of course. The top professionals in the spam business use a massive network of hundreds of thousands of PCs they’ve infected with Trojan horse programs that actually send the spam. Some infected PCs may be blocked, but spammers have many others that aren’t.

• A Process of Elimination. Because the biggest pros send millions of junk e-mails a day, they can segment their lists and send messages through different computers to try to identify spam traps. If one sender was added to a particular blocklist at 10:00 a.m., for example, it was probably due to a spam-trap address that received a piece of spam after 9:30 that same morning.

• Poisoning the Spam Traps and Your Company’s Good Name. By watching mailings that are sent out on subsequent days, spammers can soon isolate a few addresses that are almost certainly spam traps. The spammers then sign those addresses up for legitimate e-mail newsletters to ruin the effectiveness of the spam traps. Now the addresses are receiving legitimate e-mail, not just spam.

• Reliance on Spam Traps Backfires on Blocklists. To best “poison” the spam traps, spammers use the newsletters of the most respectable companies possible. When mail servers that use blocklists start to reject mail from these large, respected brand names, the blocking services lose credibility. Many end users had wanted to receive those company’s mailings and blame the blocklists for being wildly inaccurate.

If your company’s newsletter is used in these exploits, the pain can be severe. Your routine e-mail messages can suddenly start to bounce — or simply disappear, deleted forever by mail servers that blindly relied on the blocklists.

Choose One: A Terrible Problem or a Horrible Problem

Haight is adamant that companies can avoid damage to their reputations by requiring all newsletter subscribers to “double opt-in” as opposed to “single opt-in.” He also considers double opt-in to be a requirement because it prevents one person from signing up another person’s e-mail address to an unwanted list.

Let’s take a closer look at what single and double opt-in mean:

• Single Opt-In. A single opt-in newsletter allow customers to sign up by entering their e-mail address in a Web form and clicking “Subscribe.” The publisher usually sends an immediate message welcoming subscribers and telling them how to unsubscribe if a mistake has been made.

• Double Opt-In. This method, also called “confirmed opt-in” or “verified opt-in,” doesn’t initially send any newsletter to customers who subscribe. Instead, the subscribers receive a message saying they must “verify” their e-mail address. The message usually instructs the recipient to click a hyperlink or generate some kind of e-mail response.

There’s a big problem with double opt-in, however. The newsletters of most Fortune 500 companies don’t require it, because a huge number of customers simply don’t understand why they have to verify their address — “I just gave it to you, it’s valid, you idiots.” Other consumers don’t respond because they’ve been told never to follow any instructions that an e-mail requests, as a precaution against “phishing.”

“I’ve seen the rate as low as 40% confirmation,” says Paul Myers, publisher and editor of TalkBiz News, a newsletter for business owners. His own publication, which uses double opt-in, has a very targeted audience and gets almost 100% confirmation, he says. But he doesn’t believe double opt-in should be a requirement for every company. “There shouldn’t be any reason why people miss the mail they want because they didn’t understand the confirmation process — or that one was required.”

The Battle Over Opting-In

Anne Mitchell is CEO of ISIPP (the Institute for Spam and Internet Public Policy), a whitelist organization that works with Internet service providers and spam filtering companies. “The push for double opt-in was really by the antispammers, not the ISPs,” she says. “They [the ISPs] don’t care how you build your list, as long as you don’t send spam.”

ISIPP maintains online scoring systems that are used by SpamBouncer and other antispam filters. One ISIPP scoring formula for trusted senders gives a maximum of 90 points to those who require double opt-in. But single opt-in newsletters can still achieve 80 points. The difference is small — because single opt-in newsletters aren’t spam.

As far as the percentage of cases in which one person is subscribed by another person to a single opt-in newsletter, the number is “miniscule,” Mitchell says.

How Many Mistakes Are Made, and Who Makes Them?

AWeber Communications is one of the world’s largest e-mail service providers. Literally thousands of different customers use the firm’s technology to send opt-in e-mail newsletters, according to company CEO Tom Kulzer.

AWeber requires the double opt-in method for new subscribers to get its own newsletter, Kulzer says. But his firm allows its individual publishers to choose to use either double opt-in or single opt-in. “More of our customers use single opt-in, fewer use double opt-in,” he explained in a telephone interview.

Confirmation rates for the double opt-in newsletters he’s monitored range from “nearly 100%” to “as low as 20%.” Meanwhile, cases in which an innocent person has been signed up to a single opt-in newsletter without consent are very rare, in his experience. “We see that maybe once a month,” Kulzer says.

“Usually the only time we see problems with somebody maliciously typing in someone else’s address is vehement antispammers who are signing people up to a list,” he continues. “When we track that down, the newsletter’s been sent to a ‘postmaster’ account that only these [extreme] antispammers would know about.”

Conclusion

You’re caught between two awful choices. If you require a double opt-in policy for people to subscribe to your company’s newsletter, you may lose half of more of the people who want to sign up for it. That’s bad customer service. On the other hand, if you use single opt-in, as most companies do, anyone can add spam-trap addresses to your database of subscribers. Your company could suffer e-mail deliverability problems for days after every issue of your publication goes out — activating the blocklists each time.

The answer is to carefully monitor which blocklists point to or don’t point to the IP addresses that your company uses to send mail. OpenRBL.org is one free service that allows you to enter any IP address or domain name to see whether it’s on any of 30-some real-time blocklists.

If your company does get whacked by a blocklist for a few hours or days after your newsletter goes out, use some of the same tricks that spammers use to identify spam traps. Segment your e-mail list into 24 groups at random. Send mail to each group, one hour apart throughout the day. If one group triggers a blocklist, segment it even further until you’ve isolated the potential problem addresses.

Finally, consider dropping subscribers who, according to your server logs, haven’t clicked a hyperlink in months — they could be robots disguised as ordinary newsletter readers.

This is a very interesting article with the president of DWHS (Domain Web Hosting Service) calling the reasons to stay away from cheap bulk hosts like Godaddy, Hostgator, and Dreamhost. Worth the read, especially if you have a business website!

DWHS claims to the best or I should say the most advanced web hosting service available yet charge the same as bulk hosts.

Click here for the full article: DWHS calls out cheap hosts

Check out our new twitter updates page for CEO’s. Have a favorite CEO you want added? Contact us here

The new page at MarketingSpot.com allows you to see all of the listed top CEO’s Twitter posts all at once. It also filters out the replies and junk so you just get wind of the good stuff. “This is a fun page to leave open on a second screen” Says DWHS Inc. President, Charles Yarbrough. You can get lots of great information in real time without running a full program or getting stuff you don’t need from other Twitter update sites.

Check out the new Twitter CEO Posts here.

We will also add a link at the bottom of each page.

Twitter has acquired TweetDeck, an application for organizing the display of tweets, for more than $40 million in a mix of cash and stock, according to sources close to the deal.

TweetDeck has been the subject of speculation about deals for months. TechCrunch surfaced reports, citing a $40 million-$50 million acquisition. The deal has yet to be announced, but papers finalizing the deal were signed Monday.

Although Twitter reps weren’t available for comment, the company’s PR account tweeted, “For all those who might be curious, we continue to not comment on rumors.” Betaworks, a key investor in TweetDeck, was not immediately available for comment.

Twitter has been known to either downplay third-party apps or acquire them. In the past, Twitter has scooped up popular Twitter iPhone app Tweetie, and partnered with photo add-on TwitPic as it launched its new interface.

After a management shakeup, with co-founder Ev Williams out and Jack Dorsey back as head of product, the company is focusing on building and owning Twitter’s most compelling features and interfaces.

In February, reports surfaced that UberMedia, the leading developer of apps and Web-based services for Twitter users and other social media platforms, was in talks to purchase Tweetdeck.

But the deal never closed.

Around times of the talks with UberMedia, Twitter suspended UberMedia’s UberTwitter and twidroyd, two popular apps used for mobile Twitter access, citing policy violations

Facebook slowly becoming known as the do anything for money internet business attempts to hit Google below the belt but gets caught.

It seems like the ongoing rivalry between Facebook and Google has taken a turn for the subversive. Last night, a spokesman for the social network confirmed to the Daily Beast that Facebook paid a top PR firm to spread anti-Google stories across the media and to encourage various outlets to examine allegations that the Mountain View company was violating user privacy. The PR firm, Burson-Marsteller, even offered to help blogger Chris Soghoian write a critical op-ed piece about Social Circle — a service that allows Gmail users to access information on so-called “secondary connections,” or friends of their friends. Social Circle, in fact, seems to have been at the epicenter of Facebook’s smear campaign. In a pitch to journalists, Burson described the tool in borderline apocalyptic terms:

“The American people must be made aware of the now immediate intrusions into their deeply personal lives Google is cataloging and broadcasting every minute of every day-without their permission.”

Soghoian thought that Burson’s representatives were “making a mountain out of a molehill,” so he decided to prod them about which company they might be working for. When Burson refused to spill the beans, Soghoian went public and published all of the e-mails sent between him and the firm. USA Today picked up on the story, before concluding that any claims of a smear campaign were unfounded. The Daily Beast’s Dan Lyons, however, apparently forced Facebook’s hand after confronting the company with “evidence” of its involvement. A Facebook spokesman said the social network hired Burson to do its Nixonian dirty work for two primary reasons: it genuinely believes that Google is violating consumer privacy and it also suspects that its rival “may be improperly using data they have scraped about Facebook users.” In other words, their actions were motivated by both “altruistic” and self-serving agendas, though we’d be willing to bet that the latter slightly outweighed the former. Google, meanwhile, has yet to comment on the story, saying that it still needs more time to wrap its head around everything — which might just be the most appropriate “no comment” we’ve ever heard.

Facebook Buying Out Skype? $4 Billion Deal Was Being Talked About. Now the hammer has been dropped and the winner is Microsoft at 8.5 Billion (yes billion). We just hope Microsoft doesn’t screw things up, skype is near perfect.

After rumors that first Facebook and then Microsoft were in talks to acquire Skype, the latter announced that it has acquired the VoIP giant for $8.5 billion in cash.

Skype will be integrated into Microsoft devices and systems such as Xbox and Kinect, Xbox Live, the Windows Phone, Lync and Outlook, Microsoft said in a statement. The company has pledged to continue supporting and developing Skype clients on non-Microsoft platforms as well.

The deal, which was spearheaded by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer with assistance from Charles Songhurst, the company’s head of corporate strategy, was completed Monday evening, AllThingsD reported earlier.

The acquisition is an expensive one for Microsoft. Not only is it the largest price Microsoft has paid for a company in decades, Skype is not yet profitable. Despite revenues totaling $860 million last year and operating profits of $264 million, the company lost $6.9 million overall, according to documents filed with the SEC. And the company carries $686 million in debt.

Much of the company’s appeal rests in its largest user base of 663 million, 145 million of which use Skype monthly (Update: Microsoft says Skype has 170 million regular users), and 8.8 million of which are paying customers.

There is one clear set of winners here: Skype’s investors. A group including Silver Lake, Index Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz and the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) Investment Board purchased the company from eBay for $2.75 billion in September 2009.

In August, Skype filed for an IPO but put plans on hold after Tony Bates joined the company as CEO in October. Bates will take on the title of president of the Microsoft Skype Division and report directly to Ballmer.

Locking down the social network jungle can be hard.

Here is 6 tips to staying on track:

1. Don’t Ignore Trends
2. Push Into Your Competitors Territory. Pick Fights With The Big Guys
3. Be A Businessman (or Woman) First
4. Stand By Your Brand
5. Be Adaptable
6. Stick To What You Know or Go With Your Gut

Social News is a great way to promote your site. If you have the time create a account on each of these sites and submit your story to it. It’s guaranteed link and in some cases you can create buzz. If you prefer head over to Freelancer.com and post a job for about $50 to have someone do it for you.

General Social News Websites

1. Reddit: Popular social news website with a large user base. Covers a wide range of news. Includes several topical sections called subreddits, which focus on specific topics like programming, science, politics and business.

2. Digg: The largest and most popular social news website on the internet. Covers all topics including politics, entertainment, technology and general news. Includes a separate video and image section.

3. Propeller: A social news site that covers all topics from technology to politics and entertainment. Operates in a similar fashion to Digg.

4. Fark: A community news site which allows users to comment on news articles. User submitted links will be posted on the main page once they are approved by the administrators.

5. Slashdot: Primarily a tech news site, Slashdot also covers topics like books, games, politics and entertainment. Users can submit stories and they may be published after editors approve it. A popular site that can send a large amount of traffic.

6. Metafilter: A community weblog which allows users to share links and discuss interesting websites/topics. Moderation is done through editors as well as peer pressure in order to prevent gaming.

7. I am bored: Covers general topics with a strong focus on weird and offbeat news. You can submit a link which may be posted after the editors approve it.

8. Mixx: A general social news sites which has a category for all types of news. Topics covered include business, entertainment, sports, health and tech. Includes the ability to create groups to share news with other users.

9. Removed

10. Newsvine: A website consisting of community-driven news stories and opinions. Users have their own blogs and can write articles, save links to external content and vote/comment on other user stories.

11. PageRanked: A general social news site that with a large website owner userbase. Topics covered include entertainment, sports, politics and internet news.

12. Linkfilter: Covers all sorts of news. All links are posted and moderated by users. Links can be ranked on several levels: clicks, votes, age, or a combination of all three called points.

13. NewsCloud: A general social site with a focus on news in all topics. Similar to Newsvine, each user has their own blogs and can publish content to be voted up by other users.

14. Hugg: Hugg is a social news site with a strong focus on environmental issues. Also includes other categories like politics, science, fashion and technology.

15. Plime: A general news site which features a wide variety of topics ranging from religion and sports to technology or business. Odd news performs best in this community.

16. C2NN: An active social news site with a variety of topics including environment issues, business, politics, animals and offbeat. Similar to Hugg in focus but much more populated and active.

17. Kirsty: A general news site with a focus on fashion, entertainment and design on top of other topics like technology and food. Has a strong female user base.

18. Nowpublic: A participatory news network which focuses on citizen journalism. Each user has their own individual profile blog/page and can upload videos, images and news stories.

19. Stirrdup: General social news site with four broad categories: politics, technology, news and entertainment.

20. Searchles: A hybrid social news sites which covers all topics. Includes a video section and offers personalized filtering features and the option of joining groups made up of other users with similar interests.

21. Linkinn: A social news site that specializes in pictures and video. Covers a broad range of topics, particular offbeat and weird content.

22. Earthfrisk: Covers topics like humor, politics, entertainment and business. Combines a social network and group features with digg-style news voting.

23. Truemors: A social rumor news site which focuses on the publication of “true rumors that are relevant, informative, and interesting.” Users can post links anonymously via text, voicemail, web or email. Editors moderate content.

24. StumbleUpon: A social network and browser toolbar which allows users to channel surf the internet. Technically not 100% a social news site, although users can submit webpages to be rated by other users.

25. Linkswarm: Covers a wide range of topics from celebrity gossip to funny media, science and politics. Focuses on pop culture and bizarre news as well.

Here are social websites which focus on a specific niche. For best results, only submit to them when your site falls within the same niche or covers the same topics. Or else you’re likely to be marked as spam.

26. Sphinn: Sphinn is a social site for search and interactive marketers. It’s designed to allow you to share and discover news stories, read and take part in discussions, discover events of interest and network with others.

27. Dzone: DZone is a free link-sharing community for developers. Other topics commonly featured include web design and programming.

28. Tweako: A user-powered site and social network with a focus on guides and tutorials in all categories like computing, technology, and the Internet.

29. Autospies: A social site that focuses on automotive news, car reviews, auto show photos and videos.

30. Design Float: A social news site for design-related content. Topics covered include business, freelancing, advertising, digital art and branding.

31. Ball Hype: A site that aggregates content from thousands of sports blogs. Users can submit stories and votes will determine if they make it to home page.

32. YCombinator Hacker News: A news site that focuses on technology, startups, business and entrepreneurship.

33. SWiK: A community driven resource for people who use open source software.

34. Buzzflash: A user driven progressive political news website that allows you to submit political stories.

35. DNHour: DNHour.com is a user-powered news portal built specially for the domain name industry. Most members are generally from the domain name industry, which includes domain name owners, companies or professionals.

36. PlugIM: PlugIM is a user driven internet marketing community. Topics covered include search engine optimization, products, business and marketing.

37.Showhype: Operates in a similar way to Ballhype. Stories come from two sources — users and aggregated content. Users can also submit a link to a story that they’ve found or write their own article on ShowHype.

38. Small Business Brief: A niche social site which focuses on small business news. Topics covered include marketing and sales, website development, management and entrepreneurship.

39. Hypediss: Social news site with a focus on design, fashion, urban culture and art.

40. Chictini: Product-oriented social site which a focus on new trends and styles. It’s possible to submit news stories although most of the submissions feature products from online retailers.

41. DotNetKicks: DotNetKicks.com is a community based news site that focuses on topics like NET development techniques, technologies and tools including ASP.NET, C#, VB.NET, C++ and Visual Studio.

42. Lipstick: Reddit-style social news site for celebrity gossip.

43. Hubspot: Social news site for marketers, entrepreneurs and business professionals.

44. Winelifetoday: A niche social site for wine lovers. Topics covered included news and opinion articles to do with wine.

45. iliketotallyloveit.com: Allows users to publish and share products with the broader public which they find cool, innovative, exceptionally beautiful, or just weird. Included with every item is a link to an online shop where it can be purchased.

46. Wordsy: A niche social news site for people who love reading and books. Topics covered include small presses, fiction writing, authors, book awards and poetry. (Note: Wordsy has suspended its site since Dec 2008)

47. Value Investing News: A niche social news site that covers stocks and investment news. A small but active community.

48. Teenwag: Focus on celebrity gossip. A hybrid social network with digg-style voting. Users can submit links to be voted up by other users.

49. Muti: Muti is a social bookmarking site inspired by reddit and Digg but dedicated to content of interest to Africans or those interested in Africa.

50. Tip’d: A social media site for finance, investing, and business topics. Tip’d users vote on stories they like by clicking the ‘Tip it’ button that appears next to each story, and then can comment by pressing the ‘Discuss’ link below the story.