I also added the Community link which allows the Ventrino community to share information, photos, videos, create groups and friend one another in a similar fashion to Facebook.  Twitter can be integrated and in time Google Plus too.

The website is built with open source and free to use code as well as commercial Joomla components.  These include:

• Joomla 1.7 – The Content Management System
• WordPress – The Blog
• Artisteer – The template creation tool (not just WordPress and Joomla)
• JomSocial – provides most of the community code
• RSJoomla! – Form creation tool, Firewall, SEO

Occasionally some old fashioned hogwash is regurgitated and described as “the new new Internet business model” or words similar to that. A couple of weeks ago newspapers announced they were going to start charging for access to read articles on their website. It makes you wonder who makes these decisions, surely no one who actually surfs the net could possibly think their material will be worth squat if it cannot be shared by Internet users such as bloggers and twitter publishers. Who will ever know they wrote anything behind their paywall?

They tried this before too. One of the papers announcing this new move is one of the papers that failed in 1999! What short memories they have or are they not mentioning because of the bad karma it would bring? Who knows. The only thing we know for sure is this won’t work. Why? Well if they hide their text behind a paywall Google won’t index it. If Google don’t index it then no one will know they wrote it. If they allow just Google through like the idiots at Expert Exchange then all you need to do is click the Google Cached link beside the link and you have the full story for free. End of.

If they could provide a compelling reason for people to pay up and read, en masse, they may have found a new business model, but honestly, the only reason I read papers online is I don’t like ink on my fingers.

Dear Albert,

I decided not to respond to your sarcasm and threats for these reasons:

1. It is not one of ours.  Check the top of the invoice, it has a different company name
2. Calling me a cupid stunt does not incentivise me (Edited for family readers)
3. I am sorry “file permissions are incorrect” does not make any sense to you.  There is no need to let me know if you find a better way to say it
4. I do not like you.

I was going to leave 4 out as its getting personal, but it is in direct response to your question why I do not respond to your messages instantly.  Perhaps if you were Kimberly Stewart asking me on a date you’d have better luck.

If you are truly tired of living in Jerk City, If you don’t want every day to be a walk down Asshole Avenue, then learn to be civilized, learn to be reasonable.  Or don’t as there is no point sending ducks to eagle school.

Regards,
Jake

Today a forum member posted comments from twitter support after they refused his API application:

Hello,

We apologize for the inconvenience, but we do not allow personal branding of Applications with Traffic Exchange URLs. I should also inform you that all of our external links from tweets are tagged “nofollow,” as such, tweeting from that source will not improve your search index ranking. If you are using that webpage as a landing page while you build a separate application, I recommend changing your APP URL to one that describes your application or organization appropriately, if your application is legitimate we will reconsider your suspension.

Regards,
Brian
API Support

I find these comments somewhat curious, although I do not know what question was asked by the traffic exchange owner their reply is reminiscent of the Stormpay “autosurf” fiasco a few years ago where all traffic exchanges were demonised by association.

An esoteric group of authorities have now tainted an entire industry, a popular one that has existed for a long time, because they don’t like it or perhaps see it as a threat.  Google, Twitter, Blogger and sadly even the SEC to name a few.

What is so different between twitter and traffic exchanges?  They both encourage people to share ideas and websites, albeit in different ways.  Traffic exchanges have not sprung up overnight to make twitters life difficult (not that they could) and have been serving a growing number of customers since the early 90′s.  It begs the question why twitter believe they are a legitimate application and a traffic exchange is not?

What does “legitimate” mean, does this mean a traffic exchange is illegal or are they referring to what a traffic exchange maybe used for?

A user can add a link to illegal content in a traffic exchange, but they can do the same on twitter so what’s the difference?

There is one obvious difference, for every succesful traffic exchange their is a proud owner making a profit, something the two owners of twitter have yet to achieve.  Each traffic exchange owner has an emotional connetion to their business and consequently does everything in their power to keep it legal.  I bet the ratio of passionate owners to users is a lot healthier than twitters!