Not only do they have a huge collection of costumes ( I know I am starting to sound like their sales rep, apologies), but they have a funny/sexy video with each costume. So you can actually see the costume in action. This is smart marketing to say the least. I can’t think of anyone not buying this Playboy costume after watching the above video.

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Maki's twitter Profile

Dosh Dosh is an authority blog within online entrepreneurship niche. There is hardly any other blog with such an astute sense for genuine blogging. Maki has in many ways defined how to blog selflessly and intelligently. If you know Dosh Dosh, then you know what I am talking about. If you donot know the blog, wait no more and explore a never-ending world of online business treatise.

Here are the 7 blog posts that are so basic that they are brilliant. All online entrepreneurs and marketers ought to know these principles. Maki puts into perspective stuff we out-focus in a bid to learn more intricate complex business knowledge. So, here are the fundamentals once again:-

An Essential Marketing Principle: Give Before You Try to Get

Maki studied Philosophy and every post reflects the insights of a deep thinker. This post deals with a serious defense mechanism that online shoppers employ to safeguard against fraud and scams. Maki suggests that people are generally suspicious of you as an online merchant. The first reaction is apprehension and not trust. But to initiate a transaction, trust is paramount. The post essays a philosophy of “ Giving to Receive”.

“Give them helpful free content. Give them answers to their questions. Give them a freebie. Point them to tools they need and things they should know. Give them tips they can instantly use in their lives/business. Give them pleasant surprises. Give them interaction. Give them promises you can keep. Develop a history of giving. Be known as a giver.”

Twitter Marketing: Why You Don’t Need to Mass Follow Users

Okay, this is a much-required piece of information in a time when Twitter has grown in leaps and bounds. Hardest of skeptics are twittering their doubts. Theories galore about the best twitter productivity for personal and business use. The important question on a Twitterer’s profile is answered by ‘How many followers?’

Maki answers, why mass-following is irrelevant, a waste of resources, and a spammy habit.

The Ultimate Guide on How to Get Your Website Listed in Wikipedia

We all know the power of Wikipedia. Of late online businesses have learned how to leverage the power of Wikipedia to gain credibility. Any referenced website gets enormous targeted traffic and huge credibility as a trusted source for the topic. There have been NO clear tutorials until this post about how to successfully get a place in Wikipedia. A must read post.

Working on the Periphery: How to Make Any Website You’ll Ever Create a Success

Maki hits upon a very significant but overlooked point that most web owners spend far too much time on their sites. They need to spend some time away from it to develop skills and competency to compliment online activities.

3 Simple Concepts to Follow for a Successful Website or Business

This is a very typical new-entrepreneur resource post. Maki underlines three points to keep in mind while trying to market your web business. A usual rugged solid post.A relevant post on website fundamentals can also be found on my blog.

Ashley Qualls and WhateverLife.com: Case Study of a Teenage Millionaire

“Her numbers are indeed impressive. 17 years old high school dropout. Made more than $1 million. Earns as much as $70K a month. Owns a website that attracts more than 7 million monthly visitors and 60 million page views.”

Viral Marketing on Youtube: A Look at LisaNova’s Sexy Videos

The post illustrates with an example how to make your videos popular online. LisaNova example is really interesting.

I have been unable to rate these posts in any order of effectiveness or brilliance. Please feel free to comment your top 7. Also, what exactly do you think makes Maki such a successful blogger? Look forwardto your comments.

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Liverpool Hope University

I have an unbreakable bond with Liverpool Hope University in Liverpool. I studied for me my PG in Literary Criticism at Hope!!  Well, this review has nothing to do with my MA, but, as I recently stumbled upon the website I knew I have to contribute my tuppence.

Hope's Website

As an educational institution during recruitment season, Liverpool Hope’s target audience are prospective students. It’s not easy to segment all ‘prospective students’ in one group. There are many categories-

• Straight out of school for Undergrads,
• Some university experience looking for a PG course (like me!),
• Mature students with work experience,
• International students, both for PG and UG courses,

Without going in any details, it’s obvious that all the above student groups need relevant information and have different expectations from the University. Most important criteria for most students would be course availability and acceptance. No doubt most students would also want to know how the social life in the city and the university is. International students would want to know about costs.

Student preferences

Mature students would want to know about course usefuless and of course the costs involved. The above graphic should make a blueprint in terms of what info should be reflected on the homepage. Lets ask a few questions keeping in mind the above and Liverpool Hope’s homepage:-

• Does the site appeal to A-level passouts looking for first Uni experience?
• Does the site present professional info about Uni’s industry credentials?
• Does it reflect on WHY an international student should come here?
• Does the site cash-in on the fact that its based in Liverpool ( capital of culture 2008)?
• Is it slick, stylish, professional, thought-provoking, inviting, or, informative?

I had a little look at some of the educational sites. Yale.edu takes you on a slideshow tour of the life at Yale. The tour smartly answers a lot of subconscious queries of prospective students from all groups.On the other hand, Edge Hill University, which is one of Liverpool Hope’s competitor from north-west England, caters to young and slick audience. The home page has a personality and presents that confidently to visiting students.

Liverpool Hope lacks both of these approaches; neither does it present an informative slide-show option which answers questions from most prospective students, nor does it target a single student-group confidently. Apart from these issues, I couldn’t help noticing these problems:-

• The favicon still shows Joomla cms’s icon.( Joomla is a cms which Hope’s site uses to manage content,  but they haven’t bothered to get a customised favicon designed)
• Site is not a valid HTML or CSS document. A cardial sin for a university website!!
• Accessibility statement says, ‘If we can make our Web site more accessible to you, or you have any comments regarding our website please e-mail us at..’ There is no email address on that page, and they expect visitors to request accessibility features. Very proactive!!
• Basic branding debacle: logo on the home page is different from rest of the site. None of the logos are examples of creative genius anyway. The placement on the home page banner is amateur.
• The overall site coloring is boring to say the least with very little use of multi-media use.

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that an alien coming from Mars would date the site to early 2000 on the basis of its look, style, branding and, absence of web 2.0 elements.

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