The internet plays such an important role in our day to day lives, but what would the web be without its famous websites? Domain names like Google and Youtube are known by hundreds of millions of internet users around the world. But what exactly are the most popular sites on the web? Here is our top 15:

1. Google

It is no surprise that Google tops our list at number one. Google is by far the most popular search engine, accounting for nearly 2/3’s of the overall market share.

2. Facebook

If any site has the capacity to rival Google in terms of popularity, then it is Facebook. Facebook’s meteoric rise in the last five years has seen it jump to number two in our list. Everyone has a Facebook page, from little kids to grandmas.

3. Yahoo!

Despite falling from number two, Yahoo! remains at a respectable third place in terms of internet popularity. The continuing success of Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Finance and Yahoo! Messenger are the chief reasons why Yahoo! has been able to keep up with the big boys of the web.

4. YouTube

If there is one site that epitomizes the nature of the internet, then it has to be YouTube. Any user with a Google account can log in and share his videos with hundreds of millions of people from all parts of the world. It is an incredible site the truly deserves its place in the top five most popular websites.

5. Twitter

If Google and Facebook epitomized the internet in the early 2000’s, then Twitter is the icon of the new decade. Twitter has enabled millions of people to share information instantaneously.

6. Wikipedia

The concept behind Wikipedia is extraordinary. An open-source encyclopedia where any user can alter and improve any wiki entry.

7. MSN

MSN has fallen out of the top five, but with Hotmail still popular it will be hard for it to drop out of the top fifteen completely.

8. Amazon.com

When it comes to buying online, it is hard to beat Amazon.com. With its user based ratings system, you can safely purchase almost any item you can think of – from automobiles to vintage dresses.

9. eBay

eBay is an incredible website. It provides a platform for millions of people to buy and sell items online. Who can forget the time when a piece of toast that resembled Mother Mary sold for $28,000!

10. Bing

MSN’s search engine is at number ten and can be a great alternative to Google and Yahoo!

11. Craigslist

Craigslist provides local classifieds for housing, items for sale, jobs, personals, services, and events.

12. AOL

The AOL search engine is another great way to find what you’re looking for on the web.

13. WordPress

WordPress has made it so easy to setup a great looking blog. You don’t need to know any XHTML or CSS, just upload the WordPress files to your dedicated server and away you go!

14. Ask Jeeves

Have a question? Well Ask Jeeves is the number one question answering service on the web. It is especially popular with high school students and younger internet users.

15. LinkedIn

LinkedIn is one of the most important websites for businesspeople around the world. It is a great way to network with people in your industry.

The 15 Most Popular Sites on the Web is a post from: Digital Pacific Company Blog

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In order to get the most out of Twitter, it is a good idea to integrate it with your current website or blog. While using Twitter on it’s own is a method for building up your online brand and making business contacts, integration helps to increase awareness of this other forum for web visitor and website owner interaction. There are a few great ways to make this Twitter integration happen, but using them will depend on the type of website or blog you have.

Twitter Widgets

If you log in to the Twitter website and click on the link in the footer called “Goodies”, you will reach a page that links to Twitter widgets. In this section, widgets can be created that you can then embed into your website’s code. This will automatically update as your Tweets update, meaning you can possibly gain more Twitter interaction if a website visitor sees the widget and becomes interested.

Below is an example of our twitter profile widget. You can easily change the appearance and dimensions using the online customisation settings.

These widgets are able to display either your latest tweets, search results, favorite tweets or list of tweeps. After choosing your preferred method of display, there are various options to customise the look and feel so that it can fit into the website without being overwhelming to the overall design. The widgets work for HTML and CSS based websites, as well as blogs and those sites driven by a CMS.

Plugins, Extensions & Modules for CMS

Content management systems have a number of additional features that can be added on through either plugins, extensions or modules, and it just so happens that there are some that work to integrate Twitter.

WordPress, for example, has a number of Twitter plugins available for blogs, such as:

• Twitter Widget Pro
• Jr_Twitter
• My Twitter

The Joomla! extensions directory lists:

• Jtweet
• Easy Twitter Status
• akTweeter

Drupal users can integrate Twitter using the:

• Twitter Pull
• Daily Twitter
• Tweetbacks

Once installed and activated into the content management system, they should seamlessly display Twitter content on the website.

Classic Buttons & Icons for Any Site

If neither of these options works as your integration method, there are still the classic Twitter buttons and icons that let web visitors know you can also be found on Twitter. This method works for any type of website or blog. The “Goodies” section of the Twitter website features a list of these buttons in addition to the widgets, but many icon resources on the web provide much more fun and imaginative icons that really make a mark. The Twitter Icon Factory is one such resource, and it alone contains over 60 pages of unique designs to choose from. See below for some examples.

All three options are great ways to integrate Twitter into your website, but we’re sure there are many more. Let us know if you have any interesting methods for integrating Twitter with your website by leaving us a comment.

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How to Integrate Twitter With Your Website or Blog is a post from: Digital Pacific Company Blog

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And the winner of a brand new iPhone is Twitter user @jetprint!
Congratulations! We hope you enjoy the wonderful prize heading your way.
A huge thank you again to all who entered.

Digital Pacific is a specialist in small-to-medium organisation requirements and offers a range of Australian hosting services including reliable and green hosting (plans from $4.90), domain names (.com.au for $34.90),
virtual private servers and dedicated servers to businesses and entities Australia wide.

Retweet for a Chance to Win an iPhone
Digital Pacific is giving you the chance to win a 16GB iPhone 3GS just by clicking the black retweet now button! How simple is that? Once you use this special retweet button, you will get one entry into a draw at the end of this month for the wonderful prize. With Christmas just around the corner, this iPhone will surely make you or someone else on your list very happy.

All I have to do is retweet this? Is it really that easy?
Yes, it is that easy. All you have to do is click the black retweet now button on this blog post. After clicking the button, you will need to login to your Twitter account. Simply tweet the automatically generated code by selecting the update button, and you are now in the draw!

Can I retweet multiple times for multiple entries?
Sorry, but you may only be entered into the draw one time, but you can certainly retweet this message as many times as you want!

What if I don’t have a Twitter account?
That’s ok. If you don’t already have a Twitter account, you can get one issued immediately for free at http://www.twitter.com. You can then use the retweet button to enter as normal.

When will I know if I’ve won?
The entries will be accumulated through December 15 2009, and the draw will occur soon after. We will notify the winner via Twitter.

Best of Luck!

Digital Pacific

This contest is open to Australia residents only.

Win an iPhone – Digital Pacific Retweet Competition is a post from: Digital Pacific Company Blog

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Twitter’s simple and open platform has resulted in the creation of numerous Twitter applications and tools by those wanting to harness the benefits of this social networking system. The Twitter tools just keep coming, and with so many out there now, it’s hard to choose which ones to actually use. To help with your research, here are some cool Twitter tools you might not know about.

Hootsuite – Hootsuite is very cool, and if you manage multiple Twitter accounts, or have multiple users accessing one account, this program is perfect. The website displays all the various streams on the same page, such as your replies, direct messages and search streams. Hootsuite allows Twitter users to set up tweets to send at a specific time, and it allows you to check your click activity over time.

Twitpic – Twitpic is a site that lets you integrate photos into your Twitter account. All you have to do is log in with your Twitter information, upload photos and display. Twitter will automatically pull in your photo, as well as any comments to them, as individual tweets. Twitpic also lets you track the number of times an image has been viewed.

Twtpoll – Twtpoll is another great resource for Twitter users who are looking for insights and feedback. Users simply log in with their Twitter account and create polls, which are then tweeted out to their followers. Twtpoll allows users to customise their polls page if they desire, and it tracks comments and re-tweets. Even better is the embed feature that makes it easy to display polls and poll results on other websites.

Tweepsearch – Tweepsearch is a tool that allows you to find more Twitter users by being able to search the Twitter bio section easily. Or, this tool can be logged into with a current Twitter account to let users search the bios of the people they follow or are following them. The creator has also integrated the ability to follow or unfollow directly from the search results!

TweetMeme – The TweetMeme website lists popular link tweets from Twitter with the number of times it has been re-tweeted. Basically, the site is a resource, such as Digg, where each re-tweet is like a vote for the link’s popularity. The tweets are organised on the site by category, making it easy to sort through the vast array of information presented on Twitter every day. The tool also provides a TweetMeme button that you can embed in your website or blog to help users re-tweet information they found useful or interesting.

These 5 Twitter tools are but a fraction of the options out there, but they should get you started. We at Digital Pacific dabble with these tools in particular, but what about you? Let us know what your favourite Twitter tool is and why by leaving a comment below.

And don’t forget to follow @digitalpacific on Twitter!

Some Cool Twitter Tools You Might Not Know About is a post from: Digital Pacific Company Blog

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Finally, Digital Pacific has joined the ever-growing group of businesses taking advantage of Twitter.  To receive updates on latest DP news, products, and just plain bits of life from around the office, add @DigitalPacific to your friends list.

New to Twitter?

You’ve probably heard all about it from one person or another by now – a business partner, a friend, or maybe even your mum – and have finally decided to create your own user name.  Don’t just let it sit there.   Use those tweets (update messages) and your Twitter profile to your advantage.  Here’s a brief run-down of how to start using Twitter to help you build your web presence:

1)    Build an interesting profile. In the Twitter world, a profile can act like a business card, so make it interesting, valid and unique.  For starters, make sure the Bio section includes keywords that other Twitter users might search for in order to find people to follow.  Good keywords will increase your followers, and thus your connections in the web world.  In addition to the Bio, use the background image to your advantage by throwing in photos and text relevant to what you are marketing (yourself or a business).  If interested in learning more about this process, TwiTip offers a rundown with great examples in their article Make a Good Impression with a Custom Twitter Background.

2)    Build up a friend and followers list. So you have something to say, but no one to listen?  Search for friends that might be tweeting information of interest to you, and you will quickly find that they will often be interested in what you have to offer as well.  Just by friending people, the followers list will grow.  This, in conjuction with a great profile, will draw attention so when you do have something to say, people will hear.

3)    Tweet regularly. The more you tweet, the more people will pay attention to you.   But, it’s not just about tweeting, it’s also about the RT, the @, and the DM.  Twitter facilitates the passage of information and news in short, concise updates of 140 characters or less.  To help with this you can re-tweet (RT) what someone else has already said, respond to (@) specific tweets, and even inquire further with a direct message (DM) to another user.  Getting involved will only help to build your presence.

4)    Include a link to your Twitter updates on your website/blog. Let the world know that you are now a member of this new and interesting social networking tool by including a link on your website or blog.  For example, bloggers can add a widget, like this one by Alex King, that automatically pulls in your latest Twitter updates, sort of creating a mini-blog within the blog itself.  Website owners can simply add a link to their twitter profile.

Again, this is just a basic run-down of how to get started in the Twitter world, but as you can see it is definitely an easy process that can genuinely benefit someone wanting to build a web presence.   Don’t forget to add @DigitalPacific to your friends list, and we’ll make sure to return the favor.  We are very interested in seeing how our customers are making use of their web hosting and prospering on the web.

Twitter Buzz is a post from: Digital Pacific Company Blog

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