Squidoo - Filtering Service

Squidoo.com (03-19-06)
Google PR: 5
Alexa Traffic Rank: 3,515
Google Indexed Pages: 207,000
MSN Backlinks: 17,377
Backlinks Pass PR: Yes
Niche: No

Squidoo.com was registered in June of 05' by Red Maxwell. I believe Squidoo would most appropriately be categorized as a filtering service although it has potential to become much more. Members are able to choose from several different modules that have either predefined content or customizable content.

I would not consider Squidoo, by any means, a cookie cutter website. The customization level of many of the modules is unmatched in the industry. The site is continually adding new features while offering above average support.

Currently Squidoo is in beta. Once they launch they will be offering a very nice profit sharing system. Users will be able to profit from direct sales generated from their lenses. A portion of the sites total profit will also be distributed to the top lens masters.

Digg.com - Social Bookmarking Site

Digg.com (03-19-06)
Google PR: 7
Alexa Traffic Rank: 432
Google Indexed Pages: 6,980,000
MSN Backlinks: 419,275
Backlinks Pass PR: Yes
Niche: Technology

Digg.com was registered in Febuary of 2000 by Allindom. The wayback machine shows activity for the domain as early as 98’ with their current system available in January of 05’. In my opinion digg.com is the most prominent social bookmarking site available today. A single digg has the ability to bring 20+ unique visitors with some articles pulling several thousand diggs.

Simplicity is great but I personally prefer a feature rich system. Digg’s base system is simple enough for anyone to use and they offer several advanced features. My favorite is their Digg Spy option. This is a real time display of all articles that are being dugg and flagged.

New Feature: Add Digg News to Your Site.
If you have a technology site this is an excellent way to provide your users with real time quality content. This is very much like an RSS feed that is displayed on your site instead of through a feed reader. It is possible to convert an RSS feed into html but this is far more convenient. I definitely plan to use this feature sometime in the near future.

del.icio.us - Social Bookmarking Site

del.icio.us (03-18-06)
Google PR: 8
Alexa Traffic Rank: 484
Google Indexed Pages: 3,900,000
MSN Backlinks: 430,133
Backlinks Pass PR: Yes
Niche: No

del.icio.us is a subdomain of icio.us which was registered in May of 2002 by Yahoo. Supposedly there have been social bookmarking type sites online since about 96'. Not counting networking sites I believe del.icio.us was one of the early major players. (correct me if I'm wrong)

The simplicity of del.icio.us must account for at least a portion of their success. There is absolutely no fluff. You sign up, tag your favorite pages and thats about it. An algorithm is used to rank each page within the tags. By far the most important factor is the sheer number of users who bookmark an individual page using the tag.

Like anything else, there are a few ways an internet marketer can exploit a system like this. I find some of these methods to be largely unethical. If you would like to use web 2.0 sites as a promotional tool first you need to write solid content. Afterwards I find it absolutely acceptable to submit your article to several social bookmarking sites once with a modest number of relevant tags. From there your article may gain popularity and be thrust into the lime light. If its not please don't artificially increase your popularity. Instead focus on improving the quality of your content.