Is This The Best New Way To Promote A Site?

This blog exists to promote our main site, ProductCritic. We're quite open about this and the name of this blog should be clue enough.

As I've written about previousely, we use a variety of strategies to promote the growth of ProductCritic. I've just started to use another method that I'm hoping will help gain some backlinks from the second most popular search engine...Yahoo!

How do you do this? Use Yahoo! Answers. I've started reading some of the questions in the Consumer Electronics category (specifically Cameras, Camcorders, and Cell Phones). There appear to be quite a lot of questions in the form of "Which of these digital cameras is the best?" and "Is the Nikon D40 better than the Canon 20D?"

I provide honest answers to questions that I know something about and provide a link to the relevant products on ProductCritic and their ProductCritic Scores. I believe this can genuinely help people answer their questions while at the same time providing a plug for ProductCritic. I'll know that this isn't just a tactic to merely troll for links when one of the people asking a question picks my answer as the best one that answered their question.

Best of all, this should help raise the profile of ProductCritic since Yahoo will crawl their own site, right?

What do people think of this method? Leave a comment!

Does A Fast Memory Card Matter For Your Digital Camera?

When you buy a new digital camera, they usually include a tiny memory card (e.g. Compact Flash or SD Card) that is big enough for you to immediately try out the camera and fill it with....5 pictures. For most cameras on the market, you will want to purchase a much larger memory card. These days, depending on the megapixel capabilities of your camera, I would suggest a minimum of 512MB or a 1GB card. On my 8 megapixel Canon 20D, my 1 GB card allows me to take about 230 pictures (in jpeg format) before I have to empty the card. Unless I'm specifically taking a day for improving my photography skills, that makes it very convenient to take the camera out for the day and usually not have to worry about running out of room on my card.

Memory cards (of which there are many different types) come in a variety of prices as well. Should you be spending the extra money for these "ultra fast" cards?

Here is a good article from BobAtkins.com that gives you a lot of information about memory cards for your digital camera including which cards to buy and which ones to avoid. Do you need a super fast (60x speeds and greater) card though? His tests show that for some cameras, it makes a huge difference but for others, the camera has a limit on its write speed that even slower cards (12x speeds) can may reacn. The article shows tests from four Canon cameras (the first number is the transfer speed of fast cards and the second is the transfer speed of slow cards):

• Canon Digital Rebel: Fast=1.4 MB/s Slow=1 MB/s


• Canon EOS 10D: Fast=1.4 MB/s Slow=1 MB/s


• Canon EOS 20D: Fast = 5 MB/s Slow=1 MB/s\


• Canon EOS 1Ds mark II = 7 MB/s Slow=1 MB/s

As you can see, if you have a Canon 10D, it might not be worth it to pay the extra money for a super fast card but for a 20D, it would be worth it. Check the specs on your camera to see if it makes sense for you. Of course, you may also decide to spend the extra money just to get a more reliable card. I use Sandisk Ultra II's and have been very happy with both their speed and reliability.

CNET's Overhyped Cell Phones

CNET's Overhyped Cell Phones lists four cell phones that don't quite live up to their hype billing. In no particular order, they are:

• Motorola Q (ProductCritic Score = 77)
  
• LG VX8500 Chocolate (ProductCritic Score = 75)
  
• Bang & Olufsen Serene
  
• Motorola RAZR V3i (ProductCritic Score = 81)

Note that ProductCritic doesn't have a score for the Bang & Olufsen. Although our aim is to have as comprehensive a database as possible, we are trying to target the brands and models that people are actually considering (since that's the whole point of making ProductCritic as useful as possible for people). I've never even heard of the Bang & Olufsen and at a $1000 price point (which CNET calls out), I doubt it's a phone that many people are actually considering.

I actually don't think the Motorola's or the LG are too hyped given their ProductCritic scores but I guess if the hype really points people to a high expectation, then the ProductCritic scores are definitely disappointments. I don't quite understand CNET though, as they are one of the participants in generating the hype in the first place!

How To Buy A Cell Phone

If it's been awhile since you had a new cell phone and you're looking for a new one but are a little uncomfortable PC World has an introduction article about How To Buy A Cell Phone.

The "Big Picture" section of the article is the most helpful as it gives a good explanation of all this talk about 3G, GSM, CDMA and a host of other non-helpful acronyms.

By the way, remember that the iPhone, even though it's supposed to be the hottest thing is not 3G capable which means that the information transfer speeds to it (when you're browsing or if you want to watch streaming video) are slower than what the latest technology allows.

Great, I just blew it. I had stated I wouldn't talk about the iPhone again and only ten days later, I mention it. I guess it's hard to steer clear of the hottest talk amongst the geek (and even non-geek) crowd.

Yahoo Challenging Google Adwords

PC World has an article about Yahoo's revamped Sponsored Search. I haven't tried Google Adwords yet as I'm still trying to figure out what keywords I'd use for ProductCritic. Since Yahoo only has 22% of the US search market vs. Google's 63%, you might be able to buy keywords for cheaper with Yahoo's Sponsored Search. Since you can't use Adsense and Yahoo ads together on the same site (even if they don't appear on the same page), I'm sticking with Adsense until I have a much better sense of what's working and what isn't.

One of the tools I'm using to determine the best keywords is HitTail. I'll provide more details in a followup post detailing some of the tools and sites I'm using the manage this blog and the main ProductCritic site.

Interview With SEO Book Author Aaron Wall

Jonathan Leger has a great blog dedicated to Adsense, SEO (Search Engine Optimization), and Internet Marketing. Yesterday, he conducted an online group Question & Answer session with Aaron Walls, the SEO expert and author of the popular SEO Book.

If you joined Jonathan's list, you would have received an announcement about when the Q&A session was taking place and how to participate. I did not get a chance to do that. Fortunately, Jonathan, who continually impresses me with his professionalism and blog smarts, has posted a transcript of the session.

If you are at all interested in SEO, Adsense, or how to start an online career, I highly suggest you go to Jonathan's blog and read the transcript.

7 Steps To Promote ProductCritic

We launched ProductCritic earlier this month. When you launch a site, you should have no illusions about how long it might take for the site to be "successful". It's completely understandable to create a site just to make money but if that's all you are in it for, then you will probably be disappointed.

If you're going to apply so much of your energy and time into a site (and you will, if you want people to visit it), then ensure that you have what it takes to be in it for the long run. If it's a blog, update regularly, be creative, and spend time with it. For ProductCritic, believe it or not, our main reason for creating it was NOT merely to make some $$'s. Before buying a consumer electronic (like a Digital Camera), I do tons of research to make myself comfortable that I'm spending money on something that I'm going to be happy with. I got tired of keeping track of all the different reviews and not really remembering what different reviewers said about the products. I got even more tired with my friends and family asking me, "what should I buy?" That's how ProductCritic was born.

Now, of course, after launching the site, I do want it to become a site that other people also find useful. So, here's a list of all the things I've done so far to promote the site:

1. Submit to Search Engines - Instead of submitting to every engine I can find, I submitted to Google, Yahoo, and MSN. Right now, about 80% of the visits from search engines come from Google. Doing this correctly is the subject of all the SEO blogs and I agree it's one of the most important things you can do well to promote your site.
2. Started ProductCriticBlog (this blog) - you'll notice that there's no ads on this blog. At this point, the blog's purpose is not to earn money, it is to help promote the main site (ProductCritic).
3. MyBlogLog - A cool social networking site for bloggers. It just got purchased by Yahoo.
4. del.icio.us - I went to add the link to ProductCritic here but, to my surprise, it had already been added by other people who had somehow stumbled on it within days of the site launch.
5. StumbleUpon - Speaking of stumbling upon it, I added ProductCritic here so that once in awhile, someone could just run into the site while actually "browsing" the web.
6. DMOZ - The Open Directory Project - it just reopened for submitting URL's but although I've submitted, ProductCritic is still not yet listed in it yet.
7. SpicyPage - This is a pretty new site that allows people to submit their site and people can vote on it and comment on it.

Finally, I can't stress this enough...make your site useful! It's more important than where you place your ads or what size the ads are. Your visitors are spending a bit of their precious time on your site. Make sure that they get a good return for their investment in time. As long as you are genuine and you try your best to produce high quality content, the site promotion will take care of itself as people tell their contacts about your site.

I'm still pretty new to this, leave a comment for promotion techniques that you've found work for you.

Blog I Never Heard Of Makes $1400 a Month? I Have Hope!

Before I started doing this, I always thought that you had to be one of those hugely popular blogs (like TechCrunch) to make even decent money. I ran across this post from a blog called American Desi Notes discussing his earnings from Adsense and some strategies that worked for him (like using the 336x280 ad sizes).

So far, for ProductCritic, because we've just started, earnings are small but we've definitely had some success with Chitika (probably because the ads are so targeted to the content).

I think that the blog author has a great point in this quote:

Most new AdSense publishers are demoralized by the low clicks and low traffic that they recieve. The one thing that new publishers has a hard time doing is being patient. A web site will not get millions of hits over night.

So, for all you new bloggers, keep going! Keep writing great content and people like me will subscribe to your blog in our reader. I guarantee it. I'm only hoping people find this blog (and the main ProductCritic site) interesting and also subscribe.

Ten Most Popular Cell Phones of 2006

Wirefly is the #1 seller of cell phones and plans in the US. They recently announced their Ten Most Popular Cell Phones of 2006. I've provided the list below and, as usual, the ProductCritic scores associated with each phone.

1. Cingular RAZR by Motorola (ProductCritic Score = 81)
2. T-Mobile RAZR (ProductCritic Score = 81)
3. Verizon Wireless RAZR (ProductCritic Score = 81)
4. Cingular Sony Ericsson z520a/z525a video phones (ProductCritic Score = 80)
5. T-Mobile Motorola v360 (ProductCritic Score = 80)
6. Verizon Wireless Motorola v276 (ProductCritic Score = 77)
7. Sprint Nextel Motorola i850 (ProductCritic Score = 70)
8. Sprint Nextel Motorola i710
9. Cingular Motorola v220 (ProductCritic Score = 65)
10. T-Mobile Samsung T309 (ProductCritic Score = 62)

It's amazing how Motorola just dominates the list and the RAZR rules the top three spots. It was a sexy phone when it was first released and it should be no surprise that it's so popular now that you can probably get it for $50 with a plan.

Additionally, it also shouldn't be surprising to see that as you go lower down the list, the ProductCritic Scores of each phone go down. With most of these phones being so inexpensive with a plan, there really shouldn't be a reason to go with any phone with a ProductCritic Score of less than 80.

Actively Pointing People At Google Referrals

Chaos Laboratory has a post up about how and why Google wants site publishers to actively promote the Google Referral ads. While it is against Google's Terms of Service (TOS) to promote the clicking of Adsense ads on the site (or to even draw attention to them with images or a "click here" pointer, this is completely different for Google Referrals.

Although I can see how this would help the click-throughs of Google Referral ads on your site, I can't help but think that doing this and the other suggestion by Google of "devoting a write-up on the usefulness of the product" goes completely against the reason one should create a site or a blog. People want to read your thoughts and content...not play the game of trying to avoid the ads on your site or not knowing what are actually ads.

This isn't the reason why I decided to remove Google Referrals from my site so if you use Google Referrals, you might find some useful info in the Chaos Laboratory post.

Google Referrals - I've Decided Against Them

In our constant attempt at optimizing the ads on ProductCritic, I tried Google Referrals for a few days. Google Referrals are those ads you see that give you advice to "download Firefox for better browsing" or "download the Google Pack". When a visitor to your site clicks on that ad and actually downloads and installs the application, you get a referral fee.

After having the ads on ProductCritic for a few days (they were located on the left column under the Amazon ad), I decided to pull them. Although, in the three days that they were up, ProductCritic did not get any referral fees from them, that's not why I took them down. The main reason I took them down is that I thought they just made the left column look too crowded and took too much away from the overall clean feel of the site.

This is an important lesson. Don't just put ads all over your blog or your site at all costs as too many ads can distract from the main reason people are visiting your site....for the content! It's not worth it to distract people from your content just so you can make a few extra bucks.

The Evolution Of The Cell Phone

This is an interesting video (TechBloom: Cell Evolve) of the evolution of the cell phone. It makes me laugh because I remember a guy carrying one over his shoulder. He really thought is looked all cool and hip with that huge thing. It had a brown leather case and was about as big as a copy of "War & Peace". Of course, back then, maybe some people did think that was cool!

Highest And Lowest Radiation Cell Phones

CNET has a list of the U.S. 10 highest and 10 lowest radiation cell phones. It's a pretty interesting list showing that if you have a Motorola cell phone (like me) you might want to exchange it. Maybe that's why there's an ache near my hip (where I keep my phone).

Top 10 Highest Radiation Cell Phones:

1. Motorola V195
2. Motorola Slvr L6
3. Motorola V120c
4. Motorola V265
5. Motorola Slvr L2
6. Motorola V70
7. Motorola P8767
8. Motorola ST7868
9. Motorola ST7868W
10. Palm Treo 650 GSM

Top 10 Lowest Radiation Cell Phones:

1. Audiovox PPC66001
2. Motorola MPx200
3. Motorola Timeport L7089
4. Qualcomm pdQ-1900
5. T-Mobile Sidekick
6. Samsung SGH-S100
7. Samsung SGH-S105
8. Sony Ericsson Z600
9. Mitsubishi G360
10. Siemens S40

10 Megapixel DSLR Comparison

The Comparison Shopper has created a detailed summary table of specs for 10 megapixel DSLR's. This is a helpful summary for people contemplating their first DSLR and want the best consumer level that they can purchase.

Below, I've listed the 5 cameras and their corresponding ProductCritic Scores:

• Canon Rebel XTi/400D (85)
• Nikon D80 (91)
• Pentax K10D (88)
• Sony A100 (83)
• Olympus E-400 (82)

The Nikon D80 definitely leads the pack (tied for all-time highest ProductCritic Score with the Canon 20D). The Sony puts in a respectable showing for the first version of their consumer DSLR. I'm surprised by the high score for the Pentax though. Looks like one to check out. Finally, the Olympus is included on Comparison Shopper's list but note that it is not available for purchase in North America.

Faking Context Sensitive Chitika Ads

As you may have seen on the main site, we have added Chitika ads in combination with the Google Adsense ads that were already on the site. Like I mentioned in a previous post, if you use Adsense, you are not allowed to have other ads on your site that are context sensitive (i.e. what is displayed in the ad is deduced automatically from the ad provider spidering the page).

We like the Chitika ads because they are dynamic (roll over them and the tabs change) but in addition to the ProductCritic Score, I keep getting asked to add the price of a product. While we have thought about doing that, it will still take awhile before we can add that functionality to the site. Instead, Chitika can help people who want that info (and help us at the same time).

To make it useful though, we needed to ensure that the Chitika ad was relevant to the product page. Since we already know what product we are displaying, it's as easy as adding a line like this to the Chitika script:

var ch_queries = new Array( "Canon A640" );

This tells the Chitika ad to use "Canon A640" as the keyword. This works great on the site and maintains our Terms of Service (TOS) with Google Adsense because we're the ones who are telling Chitika what product to put in the ad vs. Chitika determine that contextually.

Last Thoughts About iPhone

OK, because everyone else had talked the iPhone to death and I'm getting sick of all the hype and speculation, this will be the last time I blog about the iPhone until it actually comes out and we aggregate the reviews on the main site. I'm only discussing this post because like I've stated in previous posts, it might be a good idea to doubt the hype you read from CES.

CNET's gadget blog, Crave, has an entry entitled "Thirteen reasons to doubt the iPhone hype". Here is a summary of the thirteen points:

1. No 3G compatibility
2. Does Wifi overcome lack of 3G?
3. What's under the hood?
4. Download from iTunes?
5. OSX and multitasking?
6. "iPhone" name?
7. Who's the phone for? Who can afford it?
8. Will the user have any freedom?
9. Extra costs?
10. Another iLock-in strategy?
11. Is the touch screen useful?
12. What's after early adopters?
13. Other factors involved in a cell phone purchase

I believe that there are definitely "hype" elements to all this iPhone talk. Specifically, I'll discuss a few of the points I find valid. My opinion is that the other points I don't discuss are a case of grasping at straws just to get "Thirteen doubts".

Numbers 1 and 2 are key doubts I have. Together with my main concern about the battery and battery life in my original iPhone post, I think this could be a deal-breaker for the iPhone and will prevent it from moving past early adopters. For a "next-gen" phone, it must have 3G if it's going to allow streaming of video! More importantly, 3G and Wifi both eat up the battery quickly. If this is really going to be a "next-gen" phone, you're going to need it to connect up via Wifi and have ability to get speeds to stream video...even if you don't want to stream video.

The other key issue for me is the cost of the phone (#'s 7 and 9). I fully expect regular cell phone manufacturers to continually lower their handset prices until they are essentially free (like the once sexy Motorola RAZR). Will Steve Jobs allow that of an Apple product? When launched, the handset will cost $600 in addition to the contract. I'm sure people will pay that but if it doesn't come down in price as quickly as other phones, I don't believe it will get the support of the next wave of buyers after the initial early adopters.

The final interesting point that Crave's blog entry notes is that point #3 notes the similarity between what's inside the iPhone and the Samsung Blackjack (which received a ProductCritic Score of 74). Still, given the other features, look, and overall sexiness of the iPhone, I'm not sure who really cares about what's inside the iPhone.

Adding Chitika Ads - Pretty Simple!

Google Adsense has one major restriction in their Terms of Service (TOS) that you must honor if you are going to use them. While you are allowed to have other ads on your pages alongside Adsense ads, you are not allowed to use other contextual ads. That is, ad networks that determine what ads to show depending on what they perceive as the content of the page.

On ProductCritic, we have small Amazon affiliate ad on the left panel that is directly targeted to the product review being displayed. That is allowed under the Adsense TOS because we set the appropriate Amazon ASIN for that product (the ad itself doesn't figure out what product to show just by looking at the page).

We had always planned to add Chitika ads to the site as it fits with the products and allows us to provide prices without having to create a whole pricing engine...especially since many other sites already do that well. Chitika ads also fit with the core purpose of ProductCritic in that it helps people make the smartest and most informative decisions (on both quality and pricing) before making a purchase.

Finally, Chitika ads adhere to the Adsense TOS because they are not context sensitive. The Chitika scripts are very easy to understand though so it's quite easy for us (via Ruby code) to assign the right product category and product to the Chitika ad script so that the correct product shows up on each page.

I'll write a post in the future about how the new Chitika ads are working on the site.

iPhone Hype - I Think I'll Wait

At first, like everyone else, I was super hyped about the iPhone. I thought it was the holy grail of handheld devices....one device to rule them all (phone, camera, browser, pda, handheld computer, game machine, mp3 player, and video player).

I have incredibly high hopes for the iPhone but after reading some of the "hands-on" articles like the one from Gizmodo, I've brought my expectations back down to earth.

The phone has the great Apple design and looks great...especially the screen. It's got some amazing functionality and features but it's definitely lacking in some areas.

BabyGotMac has a post entitled "The 5 Weaknesses of the iPhone" which is a start in bringing me back to Earth but my own personal disappointments (without actually having seen or touched the phone) is:

1. No removable battery. What happens when the battery dies? Do you have to send the phone back to Apple like you do when the iPod battery dies?
2. No MS Exchange or MS Office compatibility. Yeah, I understand this is an Apple product but their fight with MS ended long ago. My guess is that a majority of business users are on Exchange and Office. I want to be able to do some work (however small) on my "ultimate" device.
3. It's not a smartphone. I don't want to have to wait for Apple to supply me with upgraded functionality. I want to download and install stuff from the millions of programmers eager to write cool applications for this thing.
   

I guess I'll be waiting a little longer for my holy grail of handheld devices. Apple got real close though. I wonder when these will be on sale in Vancouver so that one of my less cheap friends will buy one?

CES 2007: Should You Listen To CNET's Hype?

CES 2007, the largest consumer electronics tradeshow in the world, is taking place right now in Las Vegas. Each year, CNET does extensive coverage of the products they see at the show. This year is no different with their coverage of CES 2007.

Since most of the products covered are not yet available for purchase, I thought it'd be interesting to look back at CES 2006 and see what CNET chose as their "CES Best in Show" for last year and what the ProductCritic Scores are for some of those products.

In their Cameras and Camcorders category, they chose the Sanyo Xacti HD1 which gets a ProductCritic Score of 61.

In their Cell Phone category, they chose the Samsung ZX20 which fares better with a ProductCritic Score of 72.

What's the moral of this post? Don't get caught in the hype of all the reports coming out of CES. What looks like a "Best in Show" during the show may actually be a dud when the product actually gets released and people get a longer time to review!

Official Launch of ProductCritic.com!

We've sent out the announcement to people who signed up on the site and have officially launched ProductCritic.com.

Need an easy way to determine whether a specific Digital Camera, Camcorder, or Cell Phone is worth it? ProductCritic is a free site that gives you one location to find professional reviews of a particular product. The site also calculates a score of all the reviews and summarizes them to come up with the ProductCritic Score for each product.

If you are currently evaluating a few brands or models and trying to make a decision about which Digital Camera, Camcorder, or Cell Phone to purchase, you will immediately benefit from ProductCritic. You only need to compare the ProductCritic Scores to get a good idea if professional reviewers generally rate one product better than another.

Finally, all the expert reviews of a product are linked from the site so you no longer need to go searching the Internet for all the reviews. You'll be confident that you haven't missed any reviews which could help you make the right decision.

We think you'll find the site as useful as we do.

Sneaky Camera Marketing Tactics

Digital Photography Review (www.dpreview.com) is one of the most trusted camera information and review sites on the Internet (to me, they share the top spots with Steve's Digicams and Digital Camera Resource Page). They have a short post up titled "Stop misleading 'Image Stabilization' labels".

The post describes the tactics some companies take in labeling their cameras as having a "Image Stabilization" or "Anti-shake" feature when in fact, there is no actual physical anti-shake mechanism. Instead, these cameras perform their "image stabilization" by turning up the ISO for some shots. This allows you to take pictures in low-light and therefore, reduce the blurriness but the quality of the image goes way down.

I always wondered about this. I have a Canon 20D with an actual Image Stabilization lens and there are still many instances where it's hard to take a non-flash picture without the blur. The dpreview.com post backs up my suspicions when I see commercials where people are bouncing around the place taking razor-sharp pictures in a nightclub with a point & shoot camera.

Don't believe the hype.

The Best Canon Digital SLR Tutorial Ever!

Like I've mentioned before, although I take much better pictures than I ever did with my Canon 20D (much thanks to the camera and the lens), I could still use a lot of help with composition and the camera settings. I find that I never have the time to take a whole weekend and just take photos and learn from my mistakes.

PhotoshopSupport.com has the best tutorial I've ever read on using a Digital SLR and it's even better that it's focused on Canon cameras. Given that I'm on the computer all the time, maybe I'll be able to pick up a few tips.

Starting Out Like ProductCritic? Read John Chow!

While there are quite a few blogs that I read to learn as much as I can about SEO and what works for an internet site now, one of my favorites is John Chow dot Com. Recently, he offered readers the chance to get a free linkback if you reviewed his blog. Although this isn't technically a "paid post", I am hoping that John adds this review to his list and we get a linkback from his blog which ranks high on Technorati (#1341). This helps raise the Google and Technorati rank of ProductCriticBlog and will hopefully lead to more readers (which will hopefully drive traffic to our main site).

Who Is This John Chow Guy?
You can read about him on his blog but I know that he lives in Vancouver (like me) so maybe at some point we'll get a chance to meet as he does seem like a genuinely nice guy. Also like me, his "real" job is not running his blog but running The TechZone which is a very popular hardware news site (over 200K page views per day) that he started in 1999.

What's Good?
I've been reading his blog ever since I found it on digg and then later read a great post he made about being banned from digg as spam. "Wow", I thought, "how do you get banned from digg?" This was especially interesting to me given that many of his posts are genuinely useful. Here are some key reasons why I like the blog:

• Great posts regarding his experience and knowledge in making it in the dot com business. Making money online is the strength and the "hook" for the blog. He's willing and ready to teach others.
• Very clear and concise writing. The blog is very easy to read and digest.
• Very regular, high quality posts.
• John is very responsive to his readers. He regularly comments on the comments left on his posts.
  

What's Not So Good?
Like I mentioned previously, the "hook" for his blog is about making it in the dot com business. I believe that most of his readers are coming for that (I know I am). So, what do I think that he could improve on his blog?

• He combines personal posts with "dot com" posts. As an example, he makes posts about Dine Out Vancouver (which if you live in Vancouver like I do, you'll know what he's talking about) but many of his readers will simply not care. In another post, he posts pictures of his Pho dinner with his friends.
  
• Although John is obviously successful in monetizing his blog, I believe that he has too many ads in both quantity and type. On his blog, you almost have to battle to navigate through the ads from Google adsense, feedburner, Dealtime, and IntelliTXT (the ones I hate the most).
  

Despite what I think he could improve, he's obviously doing something right in monetizing the blog so what do I know? Anyways, I definitely enjoy reading his blog. If you're starting a blog or a site, do yourself a favor and subscribe to his blog.

HappyCodr - A Showcase Opportunity for ProductCritic

HappyCodr is a site that aims to be the main showcase for sites designed with Ruby on Rails. The guys at Start Us Up! have done a great job in providing a place for Rails developers to promote their hard work.

We're excited to have an opportunity to promote ProductCritic to the rest of the development community. HappyCodr's list of submitted sites is also a great place to see all the great work that other developers are doing.

CNET's Top 6 Cell Phones of 2006

CNET has listed their Top 6 Cell Phones of 2006. Listed below are the phones, CNET's score and the associated ProductCritic score:

1. Sony Ericsson K790a - 8.3 (ProductCritic Score = 86)
2. LG CU500 - 8.3 (ProductCritic Score = 76)
   
3. Nokia 5300 XPress - 8.3 (ProductCritic Score = 82)
4. Sony Ericsson W810i - 8.0 (ProductCritic Score = 87)
5. LG VX8300 - 8.0 (ProductCritic Score = 83)
6. Motorola i850 - 7.3 (ProductCritic Score = 77)

From all the reviews I've read, the best phone is actually the Sony Ericsson W810i (and it would definitely in the running to be my next phone). I think the only real discrepency between CNET and the rest of the reviewers on the net is with the LG CU500 which CNET really likes and which only has an OK ProductCritic Score.

It also must have been a pretty slow year for cell phones for CNET to list a phone with a rating of 7.3 one of their year's best.

Organically Grown Website - Is it Possible?

Before we officially launch ProductCritic, I'm going to see how many people can stumble upon the site without us linking it from anywhere. Besides putting up a tag on TagACloud, I haven't placed a link to ProductCritic anywhere else on the web.

Today though, I noticed two things. First, a spike up in traffic to the site (which I've only told some friends and family about). Looking at the referrals, I noticed that the visits came from a blog called Web 2.0 Magazine. After digging around a bit, I noticed that in a blog entry talking about Web 2.0 sites, a comment had been put up with a link to ProductCritic. That's where all the links came from!

The second interesting thing I noted related to organic growth of the site is that I did a search on del.icio.us and someone had added a bookmark to ProductCritic already! As of this writing, 14 people have saved the url to their bookmarks. I would have thought that most of the 14 people came from the above blog referral but actually the ProductCritic link was entered into del.icio.us before the blog entry comment link. That tells me someone found the site useful enough already to bookmark it.

We're focused on the usefulness of the site. We feel that if the site is useful, people will visit it, bookmark it, and tell others about it. Overall, a great learning experience for us so far.

Flickr's Most Popular Cameras And Their ProductCritic Scores

Flickr has posted a Camera Finder page that charts the most popular cameras used by people to take photos that are posted to their site.

The graphs are quite interesting and shows the Canon Digital Rebel XT to be way ahead of the other Digital SLR cameras. Also, quite amazing is that all of the Top 5 Point & Shoot cameras being used are all of the Canon brand. They are obviously doing a great job on the marketing side and delivering on the product quality side.

As for me, I have a Canon 20D and I love it! For the level of my photography skills, the camera and lens make all the difference in my photos. I don't think I'm much better as a photographer but the camera sure makes up for my shortcomings. For my Point & Shoot camera for keeping with me in my pocket, I have a Canon SD500.

I've provided Flickr's list below along with the scores for the cameras that have ProductCritic scores. Some of the cameras are no longer sold by the manufacturers so there may not be review summaries for all of these cameras on ProductCritic.

Most Popular Cameras in the Flickr Community:

1. Canon Digital Rebel XT (ProductCritic Score = 88)
   
2. Nikon D50 (ProductCritic Score = 86)
   
3. Canon 20D (ProductCritic Score = 91)
   
4. Nikon D70 (ProductCritic Score = 89)
   
5. Canon Digital Rebel

Most Popular Point & Shoot Cameras:

1. Canon Powershot SD400
   
2. Canon Powershot SD450 (ProductCritic Score = 82)
3. Canon Powershot S2 IS (ProductCritic Score = 77)
4. Canon Powershot A520 (ProductCritic Score = 80)
5. Canon Powershot SD300

Most Popular Cameraphones:

1. Sony Ericsson K750i
2. Nokia N73 (ProductCritic Score = 78)
3. Nokia N70
4. Sony Ericsson K800i (ProductCritic Score = 87)
5. Sony Ericsson W810i (ProductCritic Score = 87)