Category Archives: Platform Profiles

Overview: LivingSocial is a e-commerce website that offers “Deals of the Day” for local and national companies that post specials on the service. The site, which was launched in 2007, also offers exclusive access to special evenets, travel packages, virtual storefronts, and even takeout and delivery services. Price: LivingSocial is free for members who use  Continue Reading »

Overview: Etsy is a e-commerce website that specializes in providing a marketplace for small businesses that sell homemade goods or vintage items. The site was launched in 2005 and was ranked in the top 200 sites on the internet by Alexa in 2012. The site boasts a community of more than 15 million buyers and  Continue Reading »

Overview: Marchex is an advertising network that specializes in mobile and pay per click advertising. Marchex has local advertising services that include call distribution and call analytic services. They also have a publishing network of more than 200,000 owned and operated websites, including being connected to the networks for Google and Yahoo! Price: Advertisers on  Continue Reading »

Overview: Dailymotion is a video sharing website where users can upload, share and view videos. The France-based website is the second largest video sharing site, behind YouTube. The site is available in 34 countries and translated into 16 different languages. In 2012, it was one of the top 50 websites in the world. Price: Like  Continue Reading »

Overview: Google AdWords is the online advertising product created by Google that is the company’s main source of revenue. AdWords offer a variety of pay-per-click advertising methods, such as cost-per-click (CPC) advertising, cost-per-thousand-impressions or cost-per-mille (CPM) advertising, and site-targeted advertising for text, banner, and rich-media ads. AdWords is for website owners, who can make money  Continue Reading »

Overview: Manta is a online directory for small businesses and professionals seeking to network. The site reports millions of unique visitors each month and acquires more than new 3,000 business members each day. Price: A basic listing on Manta is free, but they also have premium memberships that offer various ways to help professionals promote  Continue Reading »

Overview: PayPal is an e-commerce solution for business that acts as an intermediary for all payment transactions. Their online money transfer system is the de facto internet currency because it provides electronic alternatives to older paper systems for transferring money (i.e. checks and money orders). Price: PayPal charges a free for all transactions though the  Continue Reading »

Overview: WordPress is a content management system that allows web designers to build websites of various complexities on top of a template. The template allows for highly customizable websites with easy-to-use backend publishing tools. WordPress also has hosting for blogs that use the platform (though it’s not required), where the blog is given a URL  Continue Reading »

Overview: Blogger is a service that allows user to publish blogs that are generally hosted on a site at a subdomain of blogspot.com. The service was started in 1999 by Pyra Labs but was bought by Google in 2003. Blogs using Blogger are very popular and the blogspot.com domain is one of the top sites  Continue Reading »

Overview: Photobucket is an image and video hosting website that allows users to create slideshows, scrapbooks, group albums, and to share their content with others. The service was started in 2003 and is now the default photo sharing platform for Twitter. Price: Photobucket offers free and premium accounts. Free users have limitations on photo size,  Continue Reading »