Yakiji (Yah-key-jee)

• Some eCards – eCards for when you care enough to hit send. A fantastic collection of eCards that say it how it truly is.
• DZone – Fresh links for developers. It’s a “Digg” like website for coding and web development.
• 10 Things to Consider When Choosing The Perfect CMS – A major task like choosing a CMS is often skewed by sales pitches and lopsided marketing tactics from CMS companies. This is a great rundown on the basic principles of choosing a CMS.
• Open Source CMS – Try before you install. A nice little website that allows you to test out some basic open source CMS’s.
• What is your Google Analytics IQ? – Whoo-hoo! Google Analytics now offers an online course. $50 to take the test.
• CNBC Gives Financial Advice – Gotta watch this! This is one of the most viral web videos jumping across the web over the last couple of weeks. Jon Stewart tells it how it is.
• Xinu Returns – A site that tells you how socially connected your website is.
• Post Rank – Measure Audience Engagement.
• Clear and Effective Communication in Web Design – Thanks from Smashing Magazine on this one.
• Realtime Twitter Search Results on Google – I usually don’t recommend GreaseMonkey downloads but this is a huge exception. This download embeds Twitter search results into your Google search. Since Twitter has been argued to have the most up-to-date search results, this is a fantastic add-on.
• Check User Names – Finally ready to dive into social media (cough – Chuck)? Well you’re going to want to make sure you have a unique alias that you can build your own personal brand. Find out here.
• Idiot’s Ultimate Guide to Building Your Own Computer – I am a firm believer in that if you are a tech enthusiast, you should try to build your own computer at least once. Here’s a great place to start.
• Forrester is Wrong About Paying Bloggers – Forrester got attacked from all angles after posting an article about the benefits of paid blogging. The point of the attack was because they highlighted the benefits of paid blogging while not emphasizing the risks involved – example: websites can get blacklisted by Google. Read on…

Some great links to start your week out with bang!

• PopURLs – Need a quick fix on the latest web buzz. This fantastic site grabs the top items from some of most popular tech, social, and news sites and compiles it into a neatly laid out “plate of information goodness”.
• Twitterfall – If you’re still scratching your head on the whole idea of Twitter, then I don’t blame you. What I’ve come to learn is that the tools around Twitter are really what makes it great. Twitterfall is a tool that was built to filter out tweets across all of Twitter. It’s amazing for Reputation Management, Tweetup discussions, and real-time updates for major events. The main Twitter trends are in the left window. Yesterday’s big trend across Twitter was #snowmageddon, which was the big snowstorm we received last Thursday.
• Fireclick Index – I always encounter clients who ask me to give them an idea of how their website is doing in comparison to other companys’ websites. While it’s tough to give a good answer on this, I found some great benchmark metrics which I can pull out when needed. Fireclick (a web analytics vendor) has created a publicly available index providing benchmarks for key web analytics metrics that it has collected from all of its customers.
• [viral] Colbert Dials Up the 1997 Internet – This awesomely viral video from a Colbert Report has been floating around this week. “I did some pretty embarrassing things in 1997, but it all pales in comparison to what the internet was doing in 1997.”
• Read the rest of this entry »