Monthly Archives: September 2010

BuySellAds Coming to OS X Applications

This has been in the works for awhile, but Mac AppStorm is reporting that BuySellAds is finally putting ads in OS X applications. If you have a Cocoa application, you can use an API to inject ad zones into your application. The ad zones appear in the BuySellAds marketplace just like any website, but the ads will be pulled-into your program. Bodega and the Kiwi Twitter client are both using the ads.

This is something that I have been wanting to see for some time. We have already seen a few free internet-connected applications, such as Evernote and Tweetie for Mac, supported by Fusion Ads and The Deck. It’s cool to have BuySellAds, a less exclusive network, offer a similar option to developers.

My big question is: will this work for iPhone apps? Cocoa and CocoaTouch are similar frameworks, and it would be interesting to see BuySellAds as a potential competitor to iAd and AdMob. (iAd is simply perfect for the iPhone, though. Plain banners can’t quite compete in that regard…)

Readability: Remove Web Annoyances

Despite the efforts of web designers everywhere, the internet is still full of badly-designed websites that frustrate readers. Over-crowded content areas filled with widgets, overloaded moving banner ads and the dreaded 5-page article that could easily fit on one; you probably run into at…

BlogBuzz September 25, 2010

JSONView: View JSON Data in Firefox

JSON is a popular way to format AJAX responses, as it’s more compact than XML and essentially a JavaScript object, but it can be a real pain to work with due to uncooperative browsers. It’s easy enough to view XML in a web browser,…

Are iPhone Apps Part of the Web?

It’s pretty obvious that I have a significant interest in iPhone apps and their development. I like to cover the subject here, despite the fact that the site is called “Webmaster-Source” and not “iPhone-Source.” Why is that? I think mobile applications are as much…

Blog Tip: Solve a Common Problem

Here’s an easy way to write a blog post that will rank well in search engines and net you some quality traffic: solve a common problem. Find the answer to an issue that plagues many people interested in your niche. Supply a solution in…

BlogBuzz September 18, 2010

An Explosion of Instant Search Sites

Since Google rolled out Google Instant, there has been an explosion of search mashups created by enterprising developers. First there was YouTube Instant, for which the creator was offered a job at Google. Next came iTunes Instant, which lets you quickly search the iTunes…

WordPress Trademark Donated to the WordPress Foundation

Automattic, the company behind the WordPress.com service and much of the development of the WordPress software, has donated the “WordPress” trademark to the WordPress foundation. The foundation was launched by Matt Mullenweg, who of course is the founder of Automattic and the WordPress project.…

Google Storage for Developers: An Attempt to Compete With S3?

I just happened upon an interesting new Labs service from Google: Google Storage for Developers. It’s very much like Amazon S3 in concept, but from Google. It’s a cheap, pay-as-you-go file storage service that could be used for anything from backing up data to…