Robin Good: Here's a useful guide by Martha Rotter to 10, among many others not listed here, tools and "frameworks" that can be utilized to create slick online digital magazines.
Robin Good: If you are looking for an easy and fun way to generate and customize your own QR Codes, QRhacker.com provides a simple interface just for this.
With QRhacker.com you can decide whether your QR Code is a text, a url, a phone number, a VCard with your contact details or a gateway to provide WiFi access.
You can also customize the background and edit each individual pixel of your QR code any way you want.
Once you are done you can save and download your ready-made QR Code and start sharing it with the world.
Robin Good: OnSwipe is a great service that allows anyone to easily generate an iPad-compatible version of their blog, that is beautifully designed and extremely easy to access and navigate.
OnSwipe provides a free online dashboard in which, after you have registere yourself, you can set up any number of content sections based on RSS feeds or other content channels you have access to.
OnSwipe does all the rest.
What you need to do on your end is to place a tiny JavaScript snippet into your web site home page HTML code and from that moment on, iPad-based visitors will be served your web site "special" version, organized around the sections and feeds you have previously provided.
To get an idea of the final results looks like check also this other video clip: http://youtu.be/BpBg9BM2FKU
Try it out now on any site. I have tested it and it does work flawlessly.
Robin Good: If you are wondering which service to use to get your content out into an eBook in a professional-fashion, you may want to check this very informative comparison table that FoliumBookStudio, a new service in this space, has published on its site.
From this comparison table you can tell side-by-side who is the best when it comes to choosing between Lulu, Smashwords, Book Country, BookBaby, PublishGreen and FoliumBook for the production and distribution of your own eBook.
The FoliumBookStudio is an interesting new solution providing the option of a free trial, and a number of extra features that the other services do not offer.
In short: ICE is an open-source customizable JavaScript library, created by the New York Times newsroom, that will allow you to track changes in any element that is "contenteditable", or in a TinyMCE or Wordpress text editor."
From a review on ICE by Poynter.org: "When you’re working in a collaborative environment as we and a lot of journalistic organizations are, you really need that ability for multiple people to touch a piece of copy, and for those changes that everyone has made to be catalogued and archived and shown, so that there’s a record of who’s done what to who, when. …
No one on the Web had such a thing, because most bloggers, when you think about that, are smaller operations than most newsrooms."
"Changes made by different users are marked with strikethroughs or highlights.
A user can press a button to accept or reject a particular change or all of them.
It looks a lot like revision tracking in Microsoft Word."
Right now ICE will work with WordPress and TinyMCE. The Times also has released the code on Github so that other developers can integrate it into other publishing platforms and modify it if they see fit.
Robin Good: Project Argo is collection of tools and best practices for building topic-focused sites in WordPress.
Funded by grants from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Knight Foundation, Project Argo offers optimized templates, plugins, code and a several good tutorials for independent web publishers targeting a specific news topic or theme.
"If you're building a website that will feature frequent topical posts in a variety of media types, the tools we've built and the lessons we've learned are yours to use and extend."
Among the key immediate benefits Project Argo offers are:
- a set of WordPress themes optimized for niche-reporting web sites. (see the four themese here: http://argoproject.org/theme.php )
- a collection of plugins optimized for use with the Argo framework, such as the slideshow plugin or the Jiffy Post plugin which makes it quick and easy to embed links, photos, videos and rich media on your site using nothing more than a source URL. (check the plugins available here: http://argoproject.org/plugin.php )
- code and tutorials originally designed and targeted targeted at enabling small independent web publishers to curate and report on news about specific topics of local interest.
From the official site: "Funded by grants from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Knight Foundation, each site is produced by a full-time journalist-blogger (or, in some cases, a combination of full- and part-time journalists).
Now anyone can create stunning iBooks textbooks, cookbooks, history books, picture books, and more for the Apple iPad.
From Mashable:
"Apple announced a new iBooks Author App on Thursday that makes creating an Apple ebook a drag-and-drop process.
Using the app, which was announced at the same time as a new textbook experience for iPad, users can drag a Word file into a book creation space.
The app automatically determines the best way to lay out the book and creates appropriate sections and headers.
Users can then drag and resize images within the text and add definitions, photo galleries, movies Keynote presentations and 3D objects.
Users can preview their books on their iPads or publish them directly to the iBook store."
N.B.: iBooks Author is designed to be used with the iPad and published in the iBookstore. After the user is satisfied with the proof, the book can be published using iTunes Producer directly into the iBookstore.
*Users can also export PDF copies of the book if they want to distribute something in a more traditional way (or need non-interactive galleys).
TheInterviewr is a tool to schedule, record and archive audio interviews.
Designed for journalists, it allows you to schedule phone interviews, add notes and questions you want to ask. It also manages the recording, saving and online backup of your audio recorded file.
Free to use, the Intreviewr uses Twilio to power the recording of phone calls.
After entering your and your interviewee phone number, both will receive a call at the scheduled time and the conversation will automatically be recorded. Right after, you will be able to download the full recording and play it back. (Recordings are kept for free for up to 6 months).
Right after that, a new page is generated for you in which you can start immediately writing, pasting or importing any text. Edits are automatically saved although there is a save button available for you.
There are three types of editors that you can use: Plain, Rich Text or Code.
A menu link make it easy for you grab the URL of your newly created web page container and share it with whomever you want. Each page created with kl1p has an integrated unique characterizing QR code.
Generate a printed book from your blog by simply selecting a few options and letting FeedFabrik do the rest for you.
FeedFabrik can hook up with major blogging platforms such as Blogger, Wordpress (hosted and self-hosted), Typepad and Tmblr as well as photo sharing sites Picplsz and Instagram and can convert selected contents (you can specify a date range) to be formatted and printed as a physical book with cover, full table of contents and everything else you expect in a traditional book.
Once you have connected FeedFabrik with your blog, you are offered a number of options to configure the content to be published and the layout of the book.
The standard and only format available now is the A5, with both soft or hard-covers in black and white or color. Only one font is available right now and you can select which posts to incude only on the basis of a date range. The order of posts can be set to standard or reverse chronological order.
Three types of paper are available plain white paper, plain creme paper and photo quality paper.
FeedFabrik provides the user with three final output options:
1) printed Book - starting at 7.45€ ($10)
2) PDF Book - 4.95€
3) PDF Proof - FREE
The print proof PDF file is a file that shows your book just like we send it to the printer. It is perfect to make sure that everything looks like you expect. The printed book will look the same. The print proof file has crop marks around the content which are used to cut the printed pages out of the larger print sheet.
You can order any number of print books: one or a hundred, and they will be shipped to you from Europe.
Scribr is a new service which makes it possible for anyone to publish a print book that includes all of the best content and images from their selected social accounts.
Scribr lets you plug in your social media accounts – Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, Tumblr and Foursquare – and create a printed book of all of your updates, photos, check-ins and posts. You can also include your Instagram photos, but only if they are shared on your Facebook or Twitter accounts.
How it works: Connect your accounts, and then choose between two options.
a) Either generate a book with all of your posts for any given year, or
b) determine the time frame and which items from each account you want to include.
At the moment you can include or exclude your personal Scribr diary, Facebook photos, likes and notes, all Flickr images, Foursquare checkins, Tumblr photos, text, and quotes, and of course, all of your tweets.
More services will be added in the future, including Google+, Posterous, 500px, and native Instagram support, as well as support for RSS feeds.
"The book itself, which will cost you $45, looks pretty impressive. The glossy cover has a magazine feel to it, while the matte paper will show off your yearly photos beautifully."
Scribr books are printed in vivid full color on 80-pound matte "snow white" premium paper, and perfect-bound in a glossy customizable cover.
Plot.io is a new web-based software that helps you visuliaze, plot and make sense of large amounts of data, without requiring you to download, install or setup any software at all (no Flash, Silverlight, Java or plug-ins required).
You simply point to an existing database resource or upload a text file and Plot.io immediately reads all your data while providing you with intuitive and easy to use tools to visualize it.
As a matter of fact there are nearly limitless visualization possibilities available to the user.
Robin Good: Silk is a new web-based web publishing platform which allows anyone to easily create information-based websites, that can leverage to the max the use of structured information and tags inside the published content.
"In Silk, adding structure to content is as easy as writing it. This structure can be searched, aggregated and visualized, making it a breeze to find information."
Everyone can make a Silk site and start adding pages with text, images and links.
Key features:
- Tags: facts in your text can be tagged.
- Collaboration: you can let multiple people work on your site by inviting and managing site editors.
- History: history versions are kept of each web site edit executed, so that going back is easy.
- Domain mapping/hosting: You can run Silk on your domain, just adjust your DNS settings and you are done.
- Look and feel: Moreover, your site can be styled any way you like it. You can have your own CSS to determine background, colors and fonts to match your style.
- API - available API set
N.B.: Custom styling and Silk on your own domain are paid options.
Robin Good: PressJack is a service which allows you to utilize any RSS feed to create a professional-looking digital magazine which you can host directly on your own web site.
If you are looking for a way to make better use of the resources you curate, share and bookmark online, or for a way to create extra value for your newsletter subscribers PressJack may offer a very interesting proposition.
By using PressJack it is in fact very easy to aggregate into a beautiful-looking magazine content coming even from multiple feeds and to "edit" only those stories and items you think are of most value. (You can accept or reject individual stories, edit their content, and the specific images that will be published).
For this capability alone PressJack provides an excellent way to "curate" your own content stream while producing a richer and more focused content item.
A free version of the desktop software (PC - Mac) that allows you to see how you can build your own digital magazine, is immediately available on the home page of the site.
There are three versions of PressJack one of which is fully free. This free version allows you to create and publish up to 3 digital magazines at a time on your website. The magazine does contain a few ads, but I must say they fit in quite nicely without disrupting or diminishing the overall output quality. This version does not support reader statistics.
Robin Good: Quipol is a new free service which makes it extremely easy for anyone to create a one-question poll to be rapidly published online.
Once you have filled out your question text, some context and provided an image to go with your poll, you are set to go. The poll gets immediately published on its own unique URL, like this one: http://quipol.com/j5QCmQY0 while you get also a snippet of JavaScript code that you can use to embed the poll on any site or blog.
Readers can vote up or down and comment as well.
Created polls can still be edited with Quipol even after having been published, and can be deleted at any time.
Robin Good: You have probably seen this cool little widget at work on many sites already, and have probably been wondering, how could you get that on your web site too.
Well the answer is simple: The Slide by SimpleReach does it all for you, and at no cost. It recommends related posts without asking you much in return.
It can increase pageviews and the time web visitors spend on your web site.
Robin Good: OnSwipe is a brand new service which allows any web publisher to instantly create a beautiful-looking iPad magazine by simply providing the references to RSS feeds, Twitter, YouTube/Flickr channels and more. OnSwipe does the rest.
The service is extremely simple to use. Just go to OnSwipe.com, click Get Started, and one registered you only need to provide the URL or name of your different content or social media channels.
OnSwipe also helps you select an appropriate design layout theme, that will be used to display your content on your iPad output.
Once you have setup all of your content sources, OnSwipe provides you with a snippet of JavaScript code to place in the head tag of your web site. iPad-based web site visitors visiting it will automatically "see" the "optimized" OnSwipe view.
You can also setup a custom domain such as robingood.onswipe.com for your iPad aficionados.
Very promising. 9/10
N.B.: The service looks like it has been freshly baked and there are a few things that may not work yet as expected. I am myself testing it and trying to understand how to make it work.
Robin Good: With no need for registration, no set-up, and no installation requirements Checkthis makes it as easy as it can get, to publish a web page of multimedia content on the web.
As soon as you click the Create a Page button, you can start immediately adding a main title, text, and any type of additional content including images, audio, web links, lists, video, maps, tweets and more.
The appearance of the page can also be customized somewhat by changing the background image and specifying colors for each one of the content components present on a page.
Other features include the ability to make your web page "private" or public, and whether it will "expire" after some time. Only in the case you want to keep your web page "private" you will need to login into Checkthis by using Twitter/Facebook or Google as sign-in intermediaries.
SlideDeck is a Jquery-compatible add-on (adaptable to any site) as well as a WordPress plugin that allows you to organize content, images and more into professionally-designed sliding decks.
Wappwolf is a new service which allows you to completely automate a broad number of typical image editing tasks as well as related conversion and publishing or uploading needs.
Wappwolf is pre-loaded in fact with a growing number of pre-set actions that you can customize to your needs. These include basic tasks such as image resizing, converting and uploading to cloud services like Dropbox or Flickr.
Available pre-set web publishing tasks include "summarizing" documents, converting them to PDF and translating them to other languages.
shortText.com is a simple tool to post text online, with minimum fuss. You type your own text and you can publish it instantly, including links to images or videos, to a real web page.
(Free urls will remain active as long as it is visited at least once in 6 months by anyone, after which we may purge the URL for others to use it.)
Warning: once you post something, is posted. No way to swtich back.
shortText also allows you to reduce the size of any text to 140 characters so that you can post it on Twitter. It does so by keeping the long text on shortText.com.
ShortText allows to keep a page private and to turn on or off the use of comments.
No sign ups, no sign in are required.
The service is completely free and it is ad supported.
Onepager is an free online service targeted at small business owners who want to create a one-page professionally-looking website without having any technical skills.
Onepager lets you indeed create a one-page only website in a matter of minutes by providing you with basic templates that you only need to edit and customize with your text and images.
The user can select hat type of information modules to publish on the site among a list of available options.
A map of your location, address and contacts info, social media links, newsletter signup are among the several modules immediately available.
The site can be immediately paired to an existing domain you own or matched to a new website domain.
An analytics functionality is integrated to provide basic information about website traffic and visitors.
No technical skills are required to use Onepager.
Mashable writes: "The objective of the website can be found in its name: It provides easy, one-page websites for small businesses to fill out their hours, provide information for social media, and even invite fans to sign up for a newsletter.
All of this construction is done through the company’s modular content blocks, which can be organized into single or double column layouts.
The result is a straightforward yet customizable page-builder that offers the brass tacks of the company’s business."
DoNanza is a web-based service that allows anyone to create a professional-looking presence on the web, by providing a simple web site structure where to publish basic info, links to social media, recommendations, a portfolio section and more.
Nel titolo hai un errore, correggilo: "porfolio" dovrebbe essere "portfolio"
Quando metti il tuo nome, se lo metti all'inizio, non metterlo in parentesi su una riga da solo. Scrivilo seguito da due punti e dal testo che hai scritto tu personalmente.
Se no, se usi i testi di qualcun altro, mettili tra virgolette, e referenziati alla fine, tra parentesi come "newsmaster" o "curatore".
MadMagz is a webservice that make it easy for anyone to publish a Web / PDF / printed magazine by providing professional-looking templates with sample content which can be easily edited and personalized with your own.
Though there is one free option, most templates cost $9.99 to be used.
Once the magazine has been edited and prepared it can be sold online at a price of your choice.
In the case of the printer magazine format, it can be set in A4 or A5 size, and when readers order and pay for a copy, it is expressedly printed and sent to them via standard mail.
For the PDF version you need to pay $9.90 and then it is your to do whatever you want.
The web version is completely free.
By making it extremely easy to work on existing professional-looking formats MadMagz is a great publishing solution for someone who, while having great writing abilities, has no competence or skill in creating a professional-looking publication or guide.
Sharing your scoops to your social media accounts is a must to distribute your curated content. Not only will it drive traffic and leads through your content, but it will help show your expertise with your followers.
Integrating your curated content to your website or blog will allow you to increase your website visitors’ engagement, boost SEO and acquire new visitors. By redirecting your social media traffic to your website, Scoop.it will also help you generate more qualified traffic and leads from your curation work.
Distributing your curated content through a newsletter is a great way to nurture and engage your email subscribers will developing your traffic and visibility.
Creating engaging newsletters with your curated content is really easy.
To get content containing either thought or leadership enter:
To get content containing both thought and leadership enter:
To get content containing the expression thought leadership enter:
You can enter several keywords and you can refine them whenever you want. Our suggestion engine uses more signals but entering a few keywords here will rapidly give you great content to curate.