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What is the Most Powerful Web Tool Now?

Posted by acousticguitarist • 3/20/09 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: best web tool

I'm trying to decide what are the most powerful things on the Web now.

Some examples would be MySpace, Facebook, Digg, StumbleUpon.

What I mean is if a person had minimal web skills, a blog or site and wanted to catapult themselves into a much broader audience.

What is the most affective way of doing it?

Thanks in advance Tony

User Comments

3/20/09

acousticguitarist

Oh...this is interesting

www.online-college-blog.com/index.php/tips-and-tools/100-powerful-web-tools...

but it's not what i mean

[reply]
3/20/09

timethief

Please expand because I don't consider social networks and "tools" to be the same thing. Currently, provided that you have an optimized blog with unique content then your ability to rise to the top, so to speak, is a function of having many "friends" in many different social networks at the ready, who will immediately vote your posts up, and/or re-tweet them to their "friends" upon receiving the links to your posts. In essence, twitter (a tool) and your broadcast range, as well as, your 'freinds" broadcast range within social networks is what now determines success.

For example:
46% of the Digg Front Page is Controlled by 50 Websites
soshable.com/digg-whitelisted-sites/
The importance of mutual friends on Digg
onecoolsite.wordpress.com/2008/10/17/the-importance-of-mutual-friends-on-di...
Top 100 Digg Users Control 56% of Digg’s HomePage Content
www.seomoz.org/blog/top-100-digg-users-control-56-of-diggs-homepage-content

[reply]
1. 3/20/09
  
  acousticguitarist
  
  thanks
3/20/09

acousticguitarist

Hi Timie

Maybe another word is possible. Although I recently made up the term "Ïslands" on the WORLD wide web, I also would call them tools because they are really just web apps/ software , the same as any other bit of software, whether they be on a local machine, a server or a shared app.

I'm more than happy to take suggestions if it can help get me a some good answers.

In this, I'd also have to include email marketing, and maybe I should have said Internet and not web

Thanks Tony

[reply]
1. 3/20/09
  
  timethief
  
  I still don't get what you are after.
  Twitter is currently the most powerful "tool" for broadcast range (4.5 million users) including bot accounts which automatically generate messages. Such Twitter accounts can be set up to monitor website availability, to republish headlines of a news site or to indicate which songs have been recorded to name only a few examples of usage.
3/20/09

ophase

I think all the well-known tools are powerful and effective separetely.
Because they don't share the same market.And they can not. That's the way how they became powerful.

One can create a free blog in blogspot then he/she promotes it by Facebook, stumbleupon, twitter,...etc. Then he/she decides to buy a domain name and he/she installs either a wordpress or Joomla/Drupal/Mambo depending on the content that will be published...and so on. One indiviual person uses almost every kind of these tool.

I think we should talk about power of the new technologies behinds these tools: PHP, ASP, .Net, Ajax, RSS, JSON, JQuery, Flash, Silverlight, Air,...etc.

[reply]
1. 3/20/09
  
  acousticguitarist
  
  thanks.
  
  But the average user cannot use AJAX, Flex, php etc...
  
  and i don't know anyone who uses silverlight, but I appreciate yo mentioning them
3/20/09

acousticguitarist

If you only had ONE tool (network or anything) to drive a million visitors to your site, what would it be. Assuming when they got there everything was in order.. good content etc

Someone may say Google, someone Youtube

etc...come on, dotcha speak astrayan

[reply]
3/20/09

ophase

Ha oK, i got it now..

I think it's Youtube.

Since visuality is the most effective thing, A good blogger can use its power very well. We all know there are people who become famous just bcs their youtube videos.

Tony, do you have youtube videos also??

[reply]
1. 3/20/09
  
  acousticguitarist
  
  my youtubes are coming...I'm going to approach differently. I've only done a test but I think using other video aggregators with Youtube are very powerful.
  
  Youtube looks like the most powerful but I'm still not sure. But if that was targeted properly, it would be possible to dominate any market at all, beyond a doubt
  
  In fact, having said that, I wonder why I bother loking for other options and spending days testing everything else that happens on the web. But to rely on google tools is dangerous.
2. 3/21/09
  
  OneMuslim
  
  @Ac, I hope to see you playing guitar and sing a full country song ..
3/20/09

polybore

Polybore would be tempted to say Google because that is where most of the traffic for their blog comes from.

However that would be too boring even for polybore. So how about a browsers bookmark. The mega sites get their traffic from the bookmarks on peoples browsers.

If you can get your site onto a million bookmarks or favourites then you are well on the way to get that sort of traffic.

So the trick is creating content that people want to keep going back to so much that typing in the url becomes a chore, or googling the name likewise, instead a couple of clicks on the browser and they are there.

[reply]
1. 3/20/09
  
  acousticguitarist
  
  thanks, content is not a problem for me. I'm heading towards a quarter of a million visitors, and although my content is good I think there is a lot more too it.
  
  I'm just curios what other people are seeing/experiencing having results with
  
  I appreciate the feedback Poly
3/20/09

fearless21

It is only powerful if your target customer/consumer is using it. First you must find out what they are using. I recently surveyed our customers/potential customers and found out that the largest percentage 30% were using Facebook. Only 3% are using Twitter. In my case, Facebook is more powerful for communicating with my target consumer.

[reply]
1. 3/20/09
  
  acousticguitarist
  
  yes true.. targeting
2. 3/21/09
  
  fearless21
  
  The key is to segment (the consumers) , target (the ones to whom your product would be appealling) and position your site/product (in a way that they will find appealling) and then choose the vehicles that would be best suited for reaching them. Who cares if Twitter reachs a zillion people if non of them are interested in acoustic guitars.
3/21/09

witewood

Youtube I think. It broadcasts to a wider audience, and can be also a referer of traffic. That said, it depends on your subject. But for music blogs, I think youtube is good, also related forums.

[reply]