I've been working on my hobbysite www.mototravel.be over the last months, and found a number of practical "cloud-based" tools that have a surprisingly high level of professionality at a low cost or completely for free.
Mad Mimi email marketing
What: A tool with limited features but everything you really need for sending out professional emailings and following up on results.
- Embedable registration forms for your site
- Wonderfull drag and drop interface for building mailings
- Seamless integration with google analytics configured in literaly 6 seconds
Cost: Variable depending on the number addresses stored
URL: http://madmimi.com/
Animoto
What: Builds great looking slideshow-movies based on a set of pictures you upload, wich can then be embedded on the site.
Highlights:
- Get the same presentation in HD at a small cost
- Add royalty free music in a click
- If you pics are somewhat chronological you can really tell a story (e.g. unpack party )
Cost: Free for web-use, pay for high quality movies
Site: http://animoto.com/
Addthis
What: An embedable button for bookmarking the site on all major social sites.
Highlights:
- Also includes a send to a friend link
- Provides stats on clicks and what people use this link for
Cost: Free
Site: http://www.addthis.com/
Yuntaa.com
What: An online storage solution that gives you loads of space and great sharing features. Also comes in handy to backup you complete disk:
- First 1 Gig is free, unlimited space if you need it
- Yuntaa manager automatically backs up your complete disk (Windows only)
Cost: Free under 1 Gig, 9,99 euro/month for unlimited space
Site: http://www.Yuntaa.com/
Routeyou.com
What: A routing tool that makes it easy to map out a tourist (car, bike, foot) and add information to this route. Next the route can be embedded in your site.
Highlights:
- Shows icons with additional information you added, including pictures
- Shows a graph with altitude differences
- Has intelligence build-in to automatically choose the most interresting route for your
Cost: Free
Site: http://www.routeyou.com
Lefore.com
What: A hosted forum solution with a reasonable number of customisation possibilities.
Highlights:
- Setup procedure takes about 10 minutes
- Has a traditional look but also a more modern look that is more upto today's standards.
Cost: Free, but they include google ads so it's difficult to add your own
Site: http://www.lefora.com/
Google docs integration
What: Use pages you update through Google Docs in your site by including the HTML published version of that page.
Higlights:
- Take advantage of the collaboration power of Google Docs to update your site with multiple people
- Changes happen instantly, no "publish-process" needed.
- I use RapidWeaver as a webbuilding tool and it has a plugin that used the API to included Google Docs pages seamlessly.
Cost: Free
Site: http://docs.google.com
Google analytics
What: Professional visitor statistics for your website
Highlights:
- Advanced segments let you compare the behaviour of different types of visitor groups
- Seamless integration with Mad Mimi
Cost: Free
Site: http://www.google.com/analytics/
Google maps
What: Embed maps of whatever in the world on your site.
Highlights:
- Choose map or sattelite picture integration
Cost: Free
Site: http://maps.google.com/
YouTube & Vimeo
What: Host your movies for free and embed them in your site.
Highlights:
- Profit from the traffic on these sites to promoto your stuff and attract traffic to your site. I guess YouTube is better for this, but Vimeo has better quality and a nicer player to embed.
Cost: Free
Site: http://www.youtube.com http://www.vimeo.com/
+ some revenue generators
- Google Adsense
- Bol.com ads
- Tradedoubler ads
- Amanzon.co.uk ads
