“Leadership is over-gloried… Being a first follower is an under-appreciated form of leadership. The first follower transforms a lone nut into a leader. If the leader is the flint, the first follower is the spark that makes the fire… There’s no movement without a first follower ”

(via Permuto)

I’ve always been a fan of Universal Everything since introduced by my then art director Nic. Inspirational. From small sized videos to large scale installations. Mind you, some of the works are interactive animations too.

Here it is some really cool works in their 2010 showreel.

Posted via web from drnoor’s posterous

Note to James Mok. If you’re still there, good work dude. If it’s someone else, good work still.

Posted via web from drnoor’s posterous

No doubt we been busy. And since returning back into Draftfcb KL, I’ve asked a lot if some of the processes we undertook was done well enough and if not, how to make them better.

What struck hard was how some things worked well on it’s own, but not with others. And even more, that some items were very much done the way traditional advertising agencies do. In a traditional world. With traditional tools. Like any traditional agency would.

But ‘traditional’ we’re not. We are in a state where most our campaigns will be centered around Digital. Or at least, have a digital component to it. So let’s move forward. Let’s take a step up. Because as much as we would like our clients to have the brevity to jump into digital, we as an agency should play the vanguard and be trailblazers in this world. Especially in the areas of ideas, tools and services.

Let’s face it. If we are to conceptualise digital solutions for clients, we should first be proponents of them. Why preach the merits of social media and power of the hive if we ourselves have not gotten wet with online collaboration tools and how these trigger user behaviours? I’ve faith some of you are using them already. But some is not enough. I’d like all of you to use it.

So in 2010, we will change how we do things. We will now be the hive. And leverage off the power of the others to create, conceptualise, ideate, design, produce, track, manage and deliver projects better.

Here are the online collaboration tools that I recommend you to use now on.

Your own Blog. Just like this one; brainiacsatwork.com

A blog does not have to be complex. It can be as simple as a image based portfolio site. As a digital creative, it would show the exact opposite of how good you are if your book is in the outdated portfolio case. A blog also shows that you are passionate about digital. You and I will never be a top notch blogger with millions of visitors. But having one shows that you understand how the basic ecosystem of social media works. It does not have to be self-hosted. There are many blog services out there. Blogger, Posterous and Tumblr are some top options.

Wordpress

There are many blog engines out there. I recommend Wordpress. It works for the most basic to the most advanced user. It can be a simple one image per page photo gallery (a portfolio site) or the media giants like CNN. Thousands of modules expand wordpress into a powerful social media engine. It connects to everything your digital content will ever need. Alternatives are MovableType, Joomla and Drupal.

Shared Online Calendar

This is a must for everyone in the team to use. Simple, easy and fast way to update staff movement and availability. So for team members not already subscribed to it, please do so.

ActiveCollab

So far, the best self-hosted Project Management and Tracking tool. This will be installed on the upcoming draftfcb.com.my website and will be central to all of our project creation, tracking and delivery activities. Clients will also be given access so all change requests can be listed and added on as tasks. Alternative to this is 37Signals Basecamp.

Box.net

Must use for file sharing between group members. One of the best and most simplest free file sharing services accessible via online or mobile. Each user get a free 2gb shared drive which probably won’t be used up if managed smartly. Folders can be private or shared and sharing can be control to groups or individuals. Group members can also collaborate in the management and file synchronisation. A log screen shows the activities that has taken place in files or folders. Alternative to this is dropbox.

DimDim

Web meeting and conferencing made easy and free. With screen and/or presentation sharing. As good as Skype with benefit that it does not require an account. Not a must but strongly recommended for virtual meetings.

Skype

Without doubt, the best web to web conferencing software. Now also with screen sharing so presentations can be shared to entire group. Drawback is that it requires a unique Skype login and some clients do not have these. However, this is a must for internal staff and members. Alternative is Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo Messenger.

TickSpot

Bonus! This is more reporting than collaboration. TickSpot is a very good way to update and enter your timesheets. Free for individuals. You create an account and enter from anywhere. When ready, export them into CSV format so these can be inserted into the Excel timesheet entry sheets. It’s the enter from anywhere that makes TickSpot a service that I use often.

Conclusion

So there you go. A full set of online and web services that can be immediately used to make 2010 a more productive year through better collaboration and ways to share ideas. In no way are the above services we will use from now onwards are the best in class but they are all hand-selected after comparing and using many of the alternative and or complementary options.

CNN

Twitter

Yahoo

WordPress

The White House

MSN

Network Solutions

Reuters

XBOX

ESPN

Posted via web from drnoor’s posterous

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Retailers are embracing social media like never before this holiday season. More than half are including it in their marketing strategies, up drastically from only 4% in 2007, according to a new survey out from BDO Seidman. Of those who reported plans to use social media, 76% are focusing on Facebook, 50% on Twitter, 14% on MySpace and 14% on YouTube. Ten percent said they expected to utilize each of those outlets…

We look at five social-media strategies that are getting it right and five that could use a little — or a lot — of improvement.

Social-media strategies we love …

–> BEST BUY
Even its commercials have a social-media tie-in, featuring its Twelpforce Carolers offering gift advice. (Its YouTube channel offers behind-the-scenes footage of actual employees trying out for the Twelpforce Carolers.) The retailer also has a robust Facebook presence, featuring several exclusive applications such as Hint Helper, Secret Santa, Idea Giftr and, coming soon, Christmas Morning Simulator. The Hint Helper will drop personalized hints to friends and family via a cookie placed on their computers. While Best Buy’s application section is robust, it could do a better job of leading the conversation on Facebook, as opposed to simply responding to customer complaints. Still, when it comes to customer interaction, Best Buy has it down on Twitter. Its handles @bestbuy and @twelpforce, not to mention CMO Barry Judge’s own handle, @bestbuycmo, all do a stellar job.

–> EBAY
The online retailer kicked off the holidays with a free WiFi offering on Delta flights over Thanksgiving, which earned plenty of mid-air tweets of appreciation. Those following eBay on Facebook or Twitter have also been rewarded with up-to-date sales and promotions data (for example, a Zhu Zhu pet giveaway to the first 100 visitors at the eBay pop-up store). On Facebook, eBay leads the conversation with sales news or by posting content from popular sites such as Chow. And its Twitter handles @ebay and @ebaydailydeal are completely holiday themed. The former supports the retailer’s mobile boutique, which is popping up in 12 cities this holiday, and the latter gives out hints about its “12 Days of Deals” program, which features a new item with limited availability at a deep discount each day. Both Twitter feeds are streamed onto ebayholiday.com. Also, there are streams of texts and tweets featuring holiday gift wishes.

–> JCPENNEY
JCPenney uses its Facebook page as much for customer service as for marketing. When customers post complaints or praise to Penney’s wall, the retailer jumps in to address them , offering personal assistance and thanking customers for posting their love for the brand. It occasionally posts video content and links to buyer guide CheapToday.com. Another tab on its Facebook page links to a follow-up to “Beware of the Doghouse,” the 2008 video from Saatchi & Saatchi that drew millions of views, as well as a new website from North Kingdom. (The new “Doghouse” site is in itself a user-generated fest and users can post that content back on Facebook.) Fans can also participate in an online giving tree, and view designer collections and sale items. On Twitter, the brand tapped blogger and tweeter @SavvyAuntie to disseminate sweepstakes and sale items on Cyber Monday to her nearly 12,000 followers.

–> TOYS ‘R’ US
With Shaquille O’Neal, Toys ‘R’ Us will donate $1 to a charity for every new Facebook fan. Shaq even tweeted about the promotion — what he called the “Shaq-a-Claus” challenge — to his more than 2.6 million followers. The brand also appeals to parental nostalgia on Facebook, providing audio and surveys on the old-school jingle “I don’t want to grow up.” Mixed in with callouts of discount products, polls have a substantial presence on the brand’s wall, with queries on favorite board games or Disney characters. The page also contains coupons to use in the brick-and-mortar stores. On the customer-service front, Toys ‘R’ Us is an exemplar brand for responding to fans and managing customer reaction. On Twitter, the brand used tweets to drive traffic to Facebook with offers of online discounts for new fans. While the brand responded to a few customer tweets, next year they should Twitter more in this way.

–> WALMART
Since the last holidays, Walmart has gone from no holiday traffic from Twitter to being the most-visited retail site during Black Friday and Cyber Monday after Amazon. With nearly a dozen Twitter handles, the brand addresses topics from music to customer service and calls out deals online. The biggest retailer in the world dubbed the week following Thanksgiving “Cyber Week” and used social-media channels to drive traffic to its online specials. On Facebook, the brand features apps to support U.S. troops and generate wish lists, as well as sections that aggregate commercials and photos. While we can offer Walmart lots of advice for its social holiday next year — get into the conversation on the comments wall; Facebook isn’t a broadcast channel, it’s a chance to foster conversation with customers. The brand does a good job with holiday-themed articles, such as “Using Leftovers,” that offer advice and don’t just shill.

… and those that could use some improvement

ABERCROMBIE & FITCH
It’s hard to believe that a teen retailer has such a lack of involvement in the social-media space. The initial link on its Facebook page is for an A&F casting call looking for models for its back-to-school and holiday campaign — in 2010. Its current holiday print ads are posted, though there are no other mentions of holiday products, gift ideas or promotions from the brand. There’s also no response to customer comments, though admittedly the majority are positive. Still, with a following of more than 540,000 fans, many of whom are asking for a store in their area, it’s clear that A&F is passing up a major opportunity to engage this group. Similarly, a Twitter account, @AbercrombieNY, boasts a respectable 7,591 followers even though it hasn’t tweeted since July 11.

AMAZON
Twitter and Facebook drove more total traffic to Amazon than any other retailer on Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday, according to data from Experian Hitwise. But even with all that traffic, the brand is pretty absent from social media with a holiday-specific effort, and seems to be resting on its laurels as an early adopter in the space. Amazingly, the e-tail giant does not manage an active Facebook page; its last updates are from September 2008. Amazon’s traffic from Twitter actually dropped more than 30% this Black Friday, and on Cyber Monday it only saw a 1% bump. The brand maintained its steady clip of lightning deals and product call-outs on Twitter, but holiday-specific content was isolated to links to the retailer’s many blogs and a smattering of Cyber Monday mentions.

KOHL’S
Admirably, Kohl’s committed to increasing its investment in digital and social media by 25% this holiday season. On the social-media front, the retailer said it planned to seed consumer blogs with merchandise giveaways, leverage its Facebook page and maintain its partnership with Stardoll, an online community. Where Kohl’s falls down is on Facebook and Twitter. The Facebook page is noticeably devoid of holiday content and deals, though it has posted its holiday commercials and a link to its homepage, which touts “25 deals of Christmas.” But, with nearly 900,000 fans, the retailer is missing out on an opportunity to speak directly to consumers about its sales, promotions and exclusive products. Instead, the Kohl’s page seems to be merely doing its best to address a portion of the hundreds of complaints posted by disgruntled holiday shoppers. And on Twitter @Kohls_Official there was an inexplicable gap in tweets lasting from 12:28 a.m. on Nov. 26 until 8:59 a.m. on Dec. 1, the entirety of the Black Friday weekend and Cyber Monday shopping period.

OLD NAVY
The sparse holiday messaging and unanswered consumer complaints on Facebook are a far cry from the engaged fans that were breathlessly posting about how to find deals through the retailer’s interactive circular just a few months ago. The week after Black Friday, an outdated tab on the page continued to promote GobblePalooza, which ran from Nov. 26-28, and the most recent video content, posted about five months ago, promotes tank tops. Similarly, the last videos posted on the brand’s YouTube channel are from eight months ago. Third parties have also taken to piggybacking on Old Navy’s nearly 350,000 fans, promoting their own products on the page. Old Navy’s Twitter page, @OldNavyOfficial, is similarly sparse, with one-way communication about deals linking to the brand’s home page. The brand’s Supermodelquin Twitter pages were also eerily quiet through the biggest shopping weekend of the year.”We currently have content up from prior campaigns as record of our overall campaign. We will update our holiday content shortly,” said a spokesman.

TARGET
Target, a brand touted for its current, youthful appeal, is conspicuously quiet in the social-media space and serves as a prime example of the damage unchecked social-media pages can cause. While it’s created a forum for Facebookers to comment and contribute their own photos and videos, the brand seems deaf to negative comments and fans’ personal promotion. Target broadcasts videos and articles without ever responding to comments such as “extremely disappointed in Target’s customer service. ” Some customers use the fan photo and video section to promote their own agendas — one fan posted a YouTube video and a link to his not-at-all-retail-or-holiday Facebook page. “Some customers have had enough with all the non-related content on the page. “Could you please remove/delete the trashy posts on your site?” asked one fan. The brand does maintain a daily deals Twitter handle, which also tweets to consumers without responding. The main Target Twitter account does a better job of addressing its followers, but only totaled three tweets during Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Posted via web from drnoor’s posterous

Josh Warner is president and founder of Feed Company, which promotes and distributes brand videos, including campaigns such as Levi’s “Backflip,” Ray-Ban’s “Catch” and Activision’s “Bike Hero.” In three years, Feed has seeded more than 100 videos across the social web.2009’s crop of top viral video advertisements show us that people are willing to embrace a host of creative approaches on the social video Web, from beguiling mini-films, to user-generated advocacy, to YouTube celebrity endorsers, to elaborate commercial-grade productions. That’s good news for creators.

Regardless of the approach, the key for marketers is a solid understanding of what a brand is, who is the brand’s audience, and what moves them. Strangely enough, this formula sounds like traditional advertising. This year’s Top 10 is certainly a glimpse of how the viral video ad business is evolving, and as marketers, what we can learn from that evolution.

1. Inspired Bicycles

Advertiser: Inspired Bicycles
Ad Agency: N/A

Why it works: Inspired Bicycles’ team rider Danny MacAskill scales fences in and around Edinburgh, Scotland. The video is as mesmerizing as its hypnotic soundtrack from music group Band of Horses. It’s a solid example of how a brand pursuing a niche market – mountain bike trailblazers – can reach the masses with a brilliant viral video execution.

2. SIGNS

Advertiser: Schweppes
Ad Agency: Publicis Mojo and @RadicalMedia

Why it works: A love story with few words, Signs compels you to watch until its poignant end. It conclusively dispels the myth that viral video executions must be short and gimmicky to grab your attention.

3. Piano Stairs

Advertiser: Volkswagen
Ad Agency: DDB Stockholm

Why it works: “Take the stairs instead of the escalator and feel better” is something we hear but didn’t often see until this sly video from Volkswagen appeared on the Web. It’s part of an inspiring campaign, The Fun Theory, that encourages people to come up with fun ways to “do good.” The video itself did well indeed, imbuing Volkswagen with a fun new ethos and racking up millions of views in the process.

4. BooneOakley.com

Advertiser: Boone Oakley
Ad Agency: Boone Oakley

Why it works: Boone Oakley, an ad agency from Charlotte, North Carolina, uses an interactive YouTube video to tell its story and showcase client work. Audacious and attention-getting, it puts the young company on the short list of ad agencies who get it.

5. Hosting Your Party

Advertiser: Microsoft
Ad Agency: N/A

Why it works: This is the ultimate anti-viral: a video that generates millions of views simply because of how profoundly it misses the mark. Comments have been disabled, but all you have to do is talk to someone you know who’s watched it to know why it was so generously passed around.

6. YouTube HD Camera Trick Challenge

Advertiser: Samsung
Ad Agency: Viral Factory

Why it works: One cunning way to get people talking about and sharing your video is to make them wonder how you shot it in the first place. Samsung went to great lengths to protect the “trick” in the video for their new HD camera phone, which got tech geeks riled up to try solving the puzzle. Geeks happen to be the audience most likely to buy the HD new camera phone, which is why this video makes our Top 10.

7. United Breaks Guitars

Advertiser: Dave Carroll
Ad Agency: N/A

Why it works: A traumatic experience for one flyer becomes a public relations disaster for United Airlines, when musician Dave Carroll uses a YouTube video to vent frustrations after his guitar is damaged at Chicago O’Hare airport. The takeaway: Viral video is a wonderful tool for consumer advocacy because chances are you’re not the only one who is upset. In this case, United was inundated with additional complaints after United Breaks Guitars.

8. All the Single Babies

Advertiser: singlebabies.com
Ad Agency: User Generated

Why it works: The huge popularity of this video, a baby dancing to a Beyonce (

) song, is channeling ad revenue and donations into his college fund. This quick reaction to a YouTube hit shows us the toddler’s dad has moves of his own — something sluggish advertisers can learn from.

9. Guy Catches Laptop with His Butt

Advertiser: MSI Computers
Ad Agency: N/A

Why it works: In much the way Airplane parodies disaster films, this cheeseball video spoofs last year’s viral video hit Ray-Ban’s Guy Catches Glasses with Face. The inside joke is why we picked the video for this year’s Top 10. If you’re not on the web, you don’t get it. But for the millions who saw Ray-Ban’s video, it’s a wink and a nod, and an ironic sign that the viral video medium is maturing (or not).

10. JK Wedding Dance

Advertiser: Jill Peterson and Kevin Heinz
Ad Agency: N/A

Why it works: A couple’s wedding entourage dances down the aisle to Chris Brown’s (

) song “Forever,” springboarding this video into viral history (at least for ‘09). Instead of stripping the video of its music — something copyright owners are permitted to do on YouTube — Sony used its popularity to sell more Chris Brown albums

Posted via web from drnoor’s posterous

Ikea released a catalog in its U.K. iPhone app today withless-than-wowing content, a call for feedback and a curious threat to only hand down updates to users who download version 1.0.

While the app is little more than a portable, digital version of a paper catalog — users can only flick through pages of the 2010 catalog and pinch to zoom — the retailer and its “brand entertainment” agency, Cake, are asking for update suggestions via voicemail, Twitter and e-mail. But it looks like only people who download the app now will get to see new capabilities when they come through.

“There are plans to quickly improve and develop the app but only in conjunction with customers who choose to download it,” says a note on Cake’s YouTube channel, where the above demo video for the app is posted.

So far, tweeters appending the hashtag #ikeaappideas have suggested GPS navigation store maps, in-app commerce, info on new food menus at stores and augmented reality to put furniture in users’ homes.

Posted via web from drnoor’s posterous

1. Business as Unusual

In 2010, prepare for ‘business as unusual’. For the first time, there’s a global understanding, if not a feeling of urgency that sustainability, in every possible meaning of the word, is the only way forward. How that should or shouldn’t impact consumer societies is of course still part of a raging debate, but at least there is a debate… More »

2. Urbany

Basically, in thriving mega-cities, whose economic and cultural power already often surpass that of entire nations, inhabitants’ identities will be closely tied to a city’s culture, its brand, its heritage, its ‘being’. This means that for big brands, delivering city-specific products, services and communications that truly incorporate a city’s character, will be a great, human and fun way to pay respect to urban citizens around the world… More »

3. Real-Time Reviews

We recently highlighted NOWISM*, and while that mega-trend in its entirety should be on your radar for the next 12 months, let’s dive into one sub-trend that will be truly disruptive: the rise of REAL-TIME REVIEWS.
In short, with even more people sharing, in real time, everything they do**, buy, listen to, watch, attend, wear and so on, and with even more search engines and tracking services making it easy to find and group these ‘live dispatches’ by theme, topic or brand, 2010 will see ready-to-buy consumers tapping into a live stream of (first-hand) experiences from fellow consumers… More »

4. (F)Luxury

In 2010, luxury, and what it means to a bewildering number of ‘consumer segments’, will remain in flux.

So how will luxury brands fare in the next 12 months? What will define luxury over the next few years? The answer is ‘luxury will be whatever you want it to be’. After all, what constitutes luxury is closely related to what constitutes scarcity. And, beyond the basic needs, scarcity is in the eye of the beholder, especially those beholders who are desperately trying to be unique. Now that there are so many more ways to be unique than just buy the biggest and the most expensive, how about luxury constituting… More »

5. Mass Mingling

More people than ever will be living large parts of their lives online in 2010. Yet, those same people will also mingle, meet up, and congregate more often with other ‘warm bodies’ in the offline world.
In fact, social media and mobile communications are fueling a MASS MINGLING that defies virtually every cliché about diminished human interaction in our ‘online era’… More »

6. Eco-Easy

While the current good intentions of corporations and consumers are helpful, serious eco-results will depend on making products and processes more sustainable without consumers even noticing it, and, if necessary, not leaving much room for consumers and companies to opt for less sustainable alternatives to begin with… More »

7. Tracking & Alerting

First of all, ‘TRACKING & ALERTING is the new searching’, as it saves consumers time, makes it impossible to forget or miss out, and thus ultimately gives them yet another level of control. Count on everything being tracked and alerted on (there’s more than FedEx packages!): from friends (MASS MINGLING!) to enemies to fuel prices to flights to authors to pizzas to any mentions of oneself… More »

8. Embedded Generosity

GENERATION G(ENEROSITY). It was big in 2009, and it will be even bigger in 2010. In particular all things EMBEDDED GENEROSITY. It incorporates all giving initiatives that make giving and donating painless, if not automatic (after all, pragmatism is the religion.
On top of that, with collaboration being such an integral part of the zeitgeist, expect lots of innovative corporate giving schemes that involve customers by letting them co-donate and/or co-decide… More »

9. Profile Myning

What insights can we possibly add to the avalanche of intelligence available on where social media is going? Here’s one modest attempt: the importance of owning and making the most (financially) of personal profiles… More »

10. Maturalism

Let’s face it: 2010 will be rawer, more opinionated, more risqué, more in your face than ever before. Your audiences (who are by now thoroughly exposed to, well, anything, for which you can thank first and foremost the anything-goes online universe) can handle much more quirkiness, more daring innovations, more risqué communications and conversations, more exotic flavors and so on than traditional marketers could have ever dreamed of. In short; audiences in mature consumer societies no longer tolerate being treated like yesteryear’s uninformed, easily shocked, inexperienced, middle-of-the-road consumer… More »

(via: TrendWatching)

Jessica Faye Carter is an award-winning author and columnist. Her company, Nette Media develops social media technologies for women and multicultural communities, and she blogs at Technicultr.

The expression of community has changed considerably since the emergence of social media technologies, but its basic foundation — the notion of individuals exchanging information, ideas, and opinions — remains firmly intact. Today, one of the most widely-used tools in developing these types of exchanges online is WordPress, the popular blogging and publishing platform. Part of its appeal is the ease with which users can build advanced functionality into their sites with plugins. If you’re interested in building a community around your site, there are plenty of third-party add-ons that can help create one.

These 10 WordPress plugins add features that will help you to engage your user base.

Highlight Your Best Content

1. Featured Content Gallery – If you’re not an expert in programming or design, Featured Content Gallery makes it easy to highlight images, posts, or pages anywhere on your site. It comes with a sleek and contemporary design that is fully customizable through the WordPress dashboard, so that you can integrate your highlighted content seamlessly with the rest of your site.

2. Popularity Contest – Your users will want to know what’s popular and interesting to their peers in the community and the Popularity Contest Plugin can help. It keeps track of the most popular posts and pages on your site and acts as a leaderboard that directs users to the most active content in your community. You can customize the point values assigned to user actions on the site, such as comments or views, and display the results easily in a widgetized-sidebar.

Facilitate User Engagement

3. Viper’s Video Quicktags – Including video in your community is easy using Viper’s Video Quicktags. Just enter the URL of the video in the prompt box and see a preview of the video right on your screen. Then specify the dimensions and other customizations you’d like to add and see your final product before saving it into your post. Supported video sites include YouTube, Google Video, Vimeo and others.

4. WPtouch – Part of keeping the community vibrant means letting your users take it with them. You can go mobile with your community using WPtouch and avoid building a mobile website or the costs of developing an iPhone application. You can control the mobile user interface by allowing the browser to automatically route users to the interface of your choosing — your site or the WPtouch interface, which looks similar to an iPhone app. You can also show or hide post excerpts and customize the icons and general appearance of your mobile site.

5. Disqus Comment System – Nothing stops a potential commenter in their tracks faster than having to set up a user ID and password in order to leave a message on your site. At the same time, most of us would like some sort of authentication process we can use to identify and correspond with other users as we develop our communities. The Disqus Comment System allows users to engage with your site using their Twitter, Disqus, Facebook, OpenID or selected other accounts. This prevents users from having to set up new accounts while allowing for authentication. Bonus: the Reactions feature allows you to include the social component of user feedback into your comments.

6. Customize Your Community – Customize Your Community (CYC) provides some useful options for those building communities in WordPress. It allows you to re-brand the WordPress pages for registration, logging in/out, and lost passwords, as well as the user profile pages. In addition to giving your community a standardized look and feel, CYC helps with a long-standing navigational issue in WordPress: it automatically directs “subscribers” to their profiles and bypasses the WP backend entirely.

Measure on the Fly

7. Clicky

– While Google Analytics provides you with a long-term perspective on your site metrics, Clicky gives you instantaneous feedback. The dashboard includes traditional site metrics, but also offers cool features, like “Spy”, which pinpoints the location of current visitors on a map. It’s an easy way to get a snapshot of your site’s current activity and, in conjunction with Google Analytics, gives you a comprehensive overview of your site’s activity.

Improve User Navigation

8. Breadcrumb NavXT – Your users aren’t exactly Hansel and Gretel, but they still may occasionally need help navigating your site, particularly if it’s content-heavy. Breadcrumbs are usually located just below a site’s primary navigation system and look something like this:

Home » Dance Music » Saint Etienne » Method of Modern Love

Breadcrumb NavXT, the successor to Breadcrumb Navigation XT, improves your site’s navigation by building this kind of virtual breadcrumb trail for your users to follow. This way, users will know where they’re located on your site. This plugin may require customization, depending on your theme; check out the Advanced Options section of the plugin’s homepage for additional instructions.

Monetize It!

9. Advertising Manager – If you were previously using the Adsense Manager plugin, you’ve probably noticed that it hasn’t been updated in a while. That’s because it has been succeeded by Advertising Manager, which is recommended unless you are using WordPress version 2.5 or earlier. The renamed version supports a broader group of ad networks in addition to Google AdSense, such as Adify, AdBrite, and several others. It also imports your AdSense Manager settings, for users of the previous plugin.

10. WP125 – Do you prefer a more hands-on management style for your advertising? WP125 allows you to do everything from arranging the ad display so that it fits your site design to setting timelines for ads (they can be removed automatically or manually at expiration). It also provides a placeholder for empty ad space, which you can switch to your own customized version.

Do you have another plugin that’s been helpful to you in building your community? Share your favorites in the comments below.

(via Mashable)

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