Matt Mullenweg was the mind behind Wordpress. WordPress is used by more than 18.9% of the top 10 million websites as of August 2013.
Wordpress is a plug-in, and theme based blogging site, and is the largest in the world.
The following are the big plug-ins for 2014 for:
1. Google XML Sitemaps This plugin should be mandatory for all websites. It is so essential; it is absolutely a must have item. This plugin will automatically create and update an XML sitemap for you. This allows search engines to quickly and easily index your website, which will greatly increase its performance in searches. If that wasn’t enough, the plugin will notify the search engines every time you publish new content. When setting up a new WordPress site, this is really the first thing you should include.
2. WordPress SEO by Yoast< This plugin walks you through every possible step to optimize each and every piece of content you publish. The plugin will let you know if your content is fully optimized, and if it isn’t, the plugin will tell you what changes need to be made in order to increase the optimization. This plugin is great regardless of whether you are new to SEO or if you’ve been working with it for years. Even the most seasoned veterans can overlook things. Additionally, with the changes in Google algorithms, the rules of SEO change pretty frequently. This plugin can easily be updated, keeping you up-to-date on all changes.
3. Premium SEO Pack This plugin is loaded with features and data and from what we understand you can now use it alongside SEO by Yoast although that’s not recommended. What I like about this one is all the additional tools it packs in, things like video sitemaps, media smushit to reduce image sizes, and a local seo module. Premium SEO Pack sells for $35 on CodeCanyon.
Prezi is a Hungarian software company, producing a cloud-based presentation software and storytelling tool for presenting ideas on a virtual canvas.The product employs a Zooming User Interface (ZUI), which allows users to zoom in and out of their presentation media, and allows users to display and navigate through information within a 2.5D or parallax 3D space on the Z-axis. Prezi was officially established in 2009 by co-founders Adam Somlai-Fischer, Peter Halacsy and Peter Arvai.
It is a great tool which I have used on a couple of occasions, with great success. The transitions are great and work intuitively.
It's not as good reading about it, it's better to see it in action:
Prezi has raised over $14 million in venture capital to grow its business. However, despite rocket-stick growth and a massive user-base that just passed 30 million, the company has not used a single dime.
Which doesn’t mean the company won’t, of course.
“The only reason we haven’t dipped into the investment is that the user growth has been so strong that it has exceeded all our expectations,” co-founder and president Peter Arvai told me this week. “But absolutely, as soon as we find investment opportunities, we will invest.”
Prezi
Prezi user growth
The key is cognitive science, Arvai says. Prezi’s visual mapping presentation style works by combining two important elements about how we learn and remember information: we remember landmarks, and we combine landmarks with direction or action. That spatial relativity is something that, cognitive scientists say, enhances our ability to store and recall data.
And it was almost an accidental discovery.
“It’s something we didn’t know ourselves as we launched the company,” Arvai says. “I’m learning it now as I’m talking to more and more cognitive scientists.”
Prezi’s current 30 million users is a 50 percent increase in just six months, and 1.5 million new users are currently joining the company every month, Arvai says. The software is huge in education, with special pricing for schools and districts — my kids are using it all the time — but it’s also making a significant impact in business.
As we all know, LinkedIn is a professional space for people to network and generate contacts, and find the necessary links to develop business ideas, or their businesses already.
Joining groups on LinkedIn is a great way of expanding your contact list and making new connections. It allows you to converse with other users with similar interests. Seek out a group that is related to your career or interests and be vocal in it, make contributions and talk to users within the group. An easy way of talking to people with the same interests and career.
Not only should you follow your favourite companies and brands to keep up to date with their movements, you should follow your rivals too. This helps you be more aware of the competition and see what other businesses within your sector are up to. This can help you decide where you should focus and what your next steps should be.
Spotify is a subscription based streaming service, however in December 2013, subscriptions for use on mobile phones was made available to non subscribers. This was both a smart move but costly in my opinion as it has allowed other, more advertising based, companies such as Pandora to make more of an impact on the music industry.
The founders of Spotify are Daniel Ek & also Martin Lorenzton, and was launched back in 2008.
Here is an interesting Interview regarding the future of Spotify with Daniel Ek.
Here's a breakdown of the two leading streaming players of the industry. Source: qz.com
Spotify is already exploring ways to bundle its service with other subscription products to expand its reach. It recently struck a deal with News Corp to grant subscribers to the Times of London newspaper 12 months access to its premium service for free. Remember when Twitter started cleaning up its house a few months before it filed IPO documents last year?
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The Twitter analogy could prove instructive here. Spotify’s financial losses mounted last year, despite surging revenue growth. But as Twitter’s IPO last year shows, US investors have a ravenous appetite for growth, and are prepared to pay top dollar for businesses with promising value propositions that are nonetheless losing money. With 6 million paying subscribers and 23 million active users, Spotify falls into this camp.
Path was launched in November 2010 and is a form of social media, through sending photos and messages to friends and family. It's all about sharing content
Path is a bit more like a private Facebook, with more of an exclusivity based business model, as users are limited to a reach of 150 friends, this makes for a very interesting, but limiting concept, but it has seemed to work so far.
Here are some ways in which Path could be used for Businesses:
1. Personal-Professional Network Like many people today, their online and social network lives virtually intertwine personal and professional interests. Twitter and Facebook are basically mass-media channels now, and somehow should be treated as such. But Path can become the social network of your closest business associates and confidantes, of which you can share more about you or your business, even sharing confidential issues with your trusted circle, or asking for feedback on certain issues or ideas.
2. Industry Contacts If you’ve worked for years in a certain industry, you’ll be bound to know personally almost all of your key competitors, and even becoming friends to an extent. And many times, an industry-wide back channel to discuss issues that might impact a whole industry would become much more beneficial for the industry in general. Let’s say there’s a new tax law that would have significant impact on your industry – discussions on Path would help find the best solution and leverage the industry’s lobbying group. Another example would be, top executives sometimes like to update each other on what they are doing, although they are competitors – just so they can plan better, and or even just to share information. This can be done effectively on Path.
3. Industry Gossip Any industry is not without gossip – from the funny to the serious. Using Path with a select group of industry people can be a place to trade rumors, gossip or even clarify things, and serve as an unofficial ‘exclusive industry news’ channel.
4. E-commerce Virtually any social network known to man has been penetrated by e-commerce, by some kid trying to sell t-shirts to stores setting up virtual storefronts on chat forums. Path could become that exclusive store with select members, where only the most exclusive stuff is sold to. Example: a gadget store has a rare, new product to offer; they would offer that product to their exclusive early-adopter club on Path before offering anywhere else.
5. Exclusive Content Let’s say I was an artist or musician – I could offer my most recent work to my Path friends first, either for feedback or as a reward for the most hardcore fans. I could even charge a yearly membership for people who want to get this exclusive content, and approval on Path would depend on payment. The content could range from web art, web comics, music, videos, photography, news… anything.
According to Business Insider, there are six social media jobs that are going to explode in 2014: SEO Specialist, Social Media Strategist, Online Community Manager, Social Media Marketing Manager, Social Media Marketing Coordinator, and Blogger or Social Media Copywriter.
Forbes outlined the top seven social media trends it predicts will dominate 2014. The most interesting? MySpace will make a comeback, Google+ will “become a major factor” and there will be more micro-video.
PR Daily took a look at 10 social media moments in 2013 that it believes are precursors to major trends in 2014, including Oreo’s tweet during the Super Bowl, Facebook launching hashtags, and Pinterest’s makeover. Source: Business Insider
