1. Pixel2Life

Pixel2Life is the largest tutorial search engine on the web. Here you’ll find almost any Photoshop tutorial you can imagine as well as tutorials for web development, audio editing etc.

2. Good-Tutorials

Good-Tutorials is the largest source of tutorials on the web today. It has been featured on the BBC, SkyNews, TechTV (now G4), in the British magazine iCreate, PC World, and has been linked to by thousands of sites, blogs and forums.

3. PSLover

Although not that big, PSLover is another great resource for finding and submitting Photoshop tutorials. Categories make it easier to find the tutorials you’re looking for.

4. Tutorialized

Tutorialized is one of the biggest tutorial sites on the web and offers a really wide range of tutorials pertaining to graphic design, web development, databases etc.

5. TutorialVault

Tutorialvault focuses on collecting and archiving the best graphic and coding tutorials on the internet. While a large part of their database features tutorials from the Adobe Family of programs, they also have a vast list of CSS, PHP and 3D tutorials.

6. Capital Tutorials

Capital Tutorials is a relatively small community with 5000 Photoshop tutorials submitted.

7. Tutorials Garden

With over 7000 tutorials submitted, Tutorials Garden, is a neat place to submit your tutorials.

8. DesignBump

DesignBump is a site where you can submit any type of news related to design. However it can be a perfect place for submitting web design and coding tutorials.

9. Tutorials Expert

Tutorials Expert started its operation on 20th Sep 2006 with lightest and fast loading interface design on a dedicated server line. As many similar websites on the web, tutorials expert’s core theme is to provide public users with good quality tutorial links.

10. Photoshop Lady

Photoshop Lady aims to collect the best and free Photoshop tutorials around the internet. All of the high quality photoshop tutorials are categorized into 3D Effect, Abstract Effect, Drawing Effect, Photo Effect, Text Effect, Texture & Patterns and User Interface Design.

11. PSD Top

PSD Top is an internet tutorial index catering to graphic designers, webmasters and programmers, with over 6000 tutorials listed in 40 categories. PSD Top aims to collect the best and free Photoshop tutorials around the internet.

12. FS Tutorials

13. Tutorial Kit

Tutorial Kit is a comprehensive resource of Adobe Photoshop tutorials and tips to help users of all skill levels reach their full potential. The tutorials are updated daily from different authors and sites so that you won’t have to spend hours searching the web for them yourself.

14. Pxleyes

Pxleyes is the place for graphic artists. They are just an awesome community with one common interest – a lot of passion for computer graphics. They have contests, prizes, and of course the reason why I’ve included this site –  a tutorial section where everyone can submit their tutorials.

15. Tutorial Index

Tutorial Index is another source for free online tutorials covering Photoshop, Flash, 3D, PHP, HTML, SQL/MySQL and other topics. It’s possible find here some unseen and interesting tutorials/articles.

16. CG Links

CG Links mainly focuses on computer graphics related tutorials however you’re free to submit your photo effect and web design tutorials as well.

17. CG Tutorials

CG Tutorials seek to index all computer graphics tutorials in order to give authors publicity and to give everyone an easy way to find the tutorial they seek.

18. Learn AI

Learn AI is an Adobe Illustrator devoted tutorial search engine where you can find almost any tutorial you need. Though Illustrator isn’t commonly associated with web design they do have a web design category in which you can find some tutorials for creating UI elements.

19. Photoshop Roadmap

Photoshop Roadmap is a Photoshop dedicated website where besides tutorials you can also find resources, brushes and inspiration.

20. Design Float

DesignFloat is a web community for web designers and web developers similar to DesignBump.

21. Tutorial King

Tutorial King aims to collect high quality Photoshop tutorials. With around 200k visitors per month it’s a considerable place to submit your web design tutorials.

22. Toxic Lab

Toxic Lab offers free tutorials and instructions for web development software. They have over 150 000 unqiue visitor each month.

23. Tutorials Room

Tutorials Room is a fast growing tutorial site where you will find hundreds of Photoshop, Flash, coding and other tutorials.

24. Web Design Library

Web Design Library is an internationally referenced resource that provides a platform for the dissemination of design thinking and research. It covers all theoretical and practice-oriented aspects of the effective, efficient and attractive presentation of information on-line.

25. Best Photoshop Tutorials

Best Photoshop Tutorials is an amazing resource for people who enjoy using Photoshop.  The site strives to publish the best Photoshop tutorials, brushes, and inspirational articles.

I remember those times when I had to dig through my browser’s history to find an image I wanted to show my friend. Then I started to wonder – is there a tool with which I could save all my bookmarks, organize pictures, write my notes and access it all immediately from multiple devices? After some time and research I came across Zootool. Ever since then I’ve been a die-hard Zootool fan. I use Zootol mainly for collecting images, however when writing this article I found some other outstanding tools with which you can quickly save, and organize, your notes and thoughts. In this article I’ve collected 15 of  the very best tools on the web to collect, capture, organize and brainstorm your bookmarks, images, notes and thoughts.

1. Zootool

Zootool is about collecting, organizing and sharing your favorite images, videos, documents and links from all over the internet. They are a small, bootstrapped startup, located in Mannheim, Germany. Driven by a passion for design, web, code and all kind of nerdery, they are working hard to built the most awesome tool for geeks like us.

Get the Lasso

Add the Lasso button to your browser to save your favorite images, videos, documents and webpages in Zootool.

Collect

Build your own little library of interesting things you find on the web. Use the Lasso in your bookmark bar to store new images, videos, documents and webpages in seconds.

Organize

With its intuitive interface your Zoo is simply the best place to keep your stuff organized. Beautiful thumbnails make it super easy to browse your entries and with our tag and pack system you can be sure that your Zoo stays tidy forever.

Share

Sharing web content has never been easier. Setup your Twitter, Friendfeed, Delicous or Tumblr account and share all the stuff in your Zoo with your friends out there.

Tools

Besides lasso Zootool also offers other types of tools like ultra-fast page saving and an even more comfortable way to share images on Twitter. There’s also a mobile version of the site and a WordPress plugin to include your recent Zootool entries in your blog’s sidebar.

2. Evernote

Evernote’s goal is to give everyone the ability to easily capture any moment, idea, inspiration, or experience whenever they want using whichever device or platform they find most convenient, and then to make all of that information easy to find. From creating text and ink notes, to snapshots of whiteboards and wine labels, to clips of webpages, Evernote users can capture anything from their real and digital lives and find it all anytime.

Capture Everything

Chances are, if you can see it or think of it, Evernote can help you remember it. Type a text note. Clip a web page. Snap a photo. Grab a screenshot. Evernote will keep it all safe.

Organize

Everything you capture is automatically processed, indexed, and made searchable. If you like, you can add tags or organize notes into different notebooks.

Find Anything Fast

Search for notes by keywords, titles, and tags. Evernote magically makes printed and handwritten text inside your images searchable, too.

Web Clipper

The Evernote Web Clipper let you save interesting stuff you see on the web. No more bookmarks, tabs, or open windows. See something you like, clip it and you’ll have it forever.

3. Trunk.ly

Trunk.ly keeps track of the things you like. By connecting with your social networks, Trunk.ly monitors and collects the links that you find interesting across the social web. More importantly, it indexes the web pages these links point to and builds a personal search engine, so you never have to tag or describe a link again, you just search and Trunk.ly will find it again for you.

Trunk.ly has connected to my Twitter account and imported all my shared links. It works like a library where I can return if I want to find something I’ve shared in the past. You can also add tags and notes. Trunk.ly has it’s own bookmarklet, sharing button and a blog widget.

4. Instapaper

A light simple tool to save web pages for reading later. We discover web content throughout the day, and sometimes, we don’t have time to read long articles right when we find them. Instapaper allows you to easily save them for later, when you do have time, so you don’t just forget about them or skim through them.

Instapaper has it’s own iPhone app so you can read your unread articles while you’re on the train, bus or just standing in a row.

5. 280daily

280daily is quite possibly the future of consistent journaling and the easiest way to create a searchable archive of your life. It’s like a private Twitter where you have to sum up your daily activities in 280 characters or less. You can use it to write a journal, makes business notes or simply keep track of what you’ve been doing. Some features:

• Set up an email notifications so you wouldn’t forget to write an entry each day
• 280daily is also optimized for mobile devices so you can easily write your entries while driving in bus, for example
• Export your entries to PDF file to keep a local version of your notes
• Graphical statistics. Keep track of your entries visually
• Search. Quickly locate a day from your past

6. Thoughtboxes

Thoughtboxes is a simple tool that helps to organize your thoughts so you can make things happen. Thoughtboxes has a very simple system to keep everything organized. You have a train of thought, which is a main topic, and then you have a bunch of boxes, which are your lists of thoughts within that topic.

Keep track of To-do’s

See everything you need to do, all on one screen. Check things off as you complete them, or delete them from the list all together.

Remember details

Sometimes you need to organize complicated things like going on a trip. Thoughtboxes gives you the flexibility to separate different thoughts and keep everything neat and tidy. You can minimize boxes that you aren’t currently working on to tidy up your page.

Brainstorm a new idea

Thoughtboxes is great for laying out all of your ideas in one place. You can also put links in your boxes for quick references. When you have many streams of thought, you can hide them on the top of the screen to clean up your page.

7. Shelfster

Shelfster is an app that helps bloggers and journalists to collect and organize notes. It aims to match journalism organizations with passionate contributors, creating collaborative environments for targeted content. With Shelfster you can:

• Collect, upload and collaborate with journalism organizations
• Build your profile and portfolio
• Publish, promote and monetize your content

The Shelfster Desktop Tool is a research and writing tool that allows you to quickly gather your ideas and information from the web or from documents on your computer and write articles. All information can be organized using specific tags and is stored in your online account. Shelfster also has an iPhone application and bookmarklet.

8. Historious

Historious saves you time by helping you find webpages you saw before. Bookmark sites with a single click, then find them again by searching for any word in the content of the page. Some features:

• Bookmark your favorite sites with just a single click
• Search your historified sites using a simple search box
• Historious always keeps a cached version of the page you historified
• Historious creates your personalized search engine containing the sites you specify

9. Diigo

Diigo is a cloud-based personal information management system. Diigo provides you a tools on all major web browsers, Android, iPad and iPhone to help you to access a variety of information. Diigo is research and collaborative research tool on the one hand, and a knowledge-sharing community and social content site on the other.

• Highlight and add sticky notes on webpages
• Archive pages forever and make them searchable
• Organize your items by tags or lists
• Search and access from anywhere, anytime

10. Blinklist

BlinkList is a powerful productivity tool that makes is much easier for anyone to share and save their links for later. They give you a browser button to save web pages you like in one click.

Never lose a page again

With BlinkList you can save a local copy of any web page on your computer. That way, even if the web page disappears, you will always have a local copy that you can get back to later.

Discover web

Once you start saving more web pages, BlinkList will automatically start recommend you web pages that you are likely interested in but have not yet discovered on your own.

Find links instantly

BlinkList has a lightening fast search engine that will help you find the links that you are looking for in the fraction of a second. You can search through your links faster than you can search through Google.

Read articles offline

With BlinkList, you can save your favorite articles and web pages and get back to them later even while you are offline

11. Licorize

Licorize is a minimalistic and fast to-do manager that you can feed with your bookmarks and web updates. Licorize begins as a bookmarking tool, providing a non-intrusive “add bookmark with one click” functionality. It is integrated in browsers, with plugins, extensions and bookmarklets, provides readability features, multi-tagging, site thumbnails and more as evolution of bookmarking.

Transform and curate

Beyond bookmarks, Licorize provides built-in types to classify information, which have specific behavior and are hence more refined than simple tags.

Your web life timeline

Licorize can also be a complete timeline of your web worker lifestream: it synchs with Twitter, Evernote, DropBox, RSS, LinkedIn, Instapaper, ReadItLater, E-mail… And you can access it all from your mobile.

Collaborate and share

Anybody can join your projects – it’s easy. The limits of “just tagging” bookmarks become clear once you want to share work and ideas on the “bookmark” collection: you need to define to-do’s, distribute things to be done, discuss ideas.

Manage real work

Licorize goes beyond simple tagging in a variety of ways. Licorize supports sharing certain collection with certain users, supports to-do lists, priorities, Kanban boards, weekly reviews, weekly work view, even recording work and monitoring costs.

12. Skloog

Skloog is a tool where you can easily create shortcuts to all of your favorite sites, bookmark pages that you’d like to refer back to at a later time and organize and arrange all of this information so that you can access it instantaneously.

13. Favilous

Favilous provides you with two bookmarklets which you add to your browser favourites bar to save webpages or mark them for reading later. You can then navigate to all your favourite web pages through Favilous using a number of different views, like the one on the left. All your bookmarks are in the cloud, backed up and available anywhere. Forget about synchronising across multiple browsers.

14. Springpad

Springpad gives you a place to quickly and easily save anything you want to remember. Take a note, create a task, scan a product barcode and look up the book your friend mentioned. The best part is that no matter where you are, Springpad is there with you to make sure you don’t forget something worth remembering. Just think it and Spring it, and it’ll be there for you when you need it.

Smarter way to save

Not only is everything you save automatically synced across your mobile devices and any browser, but Springpad also automatically uses the power of the internet to add useful information and relevant offers. From reviews and price drops to showtimes and reservations, Springpad keeps on working for you even when you’re not thinking about it. Isn’t that how it should work?

Organize

Springpad automatically categorizes everything you save and gives you powerful organizational features. Tag anything. Create notebooks to separate your home life from your work life or plan trips and special projects. Use the board to visually plan your next steps. It’s as flexible as you’d like it to be.

Place in the cloud

Think of Springpad as your own place in the cloud – a high-powered internet-connected personal database of everything that’s of interest to you, even if you’re not ready to do something about it right away. Everything is automatically synced between your mobile devices and the web for instant and universal access.

15. Netvibes

Netvibes is a free web site that lets you personalize your web experience. Take everything that matters to you while online — newspapers, blogs, weather, email, search, videos, photos, social networks, podcasts, widgets, games and funny applications — then bring them together in one single page, your personalized Dashboard. Make this Dashboard automatically update every time you open it. That’s what netvibes does. And it does so much more.

Squidoo is a fast growing website that allows ordinary people to build their own pages with unique themes. The page is called “lens”, and each user is called a “lensmaster.” Squidoo is also a community where you can post your ads and can even share your profit to other ads like google ads and amazon ads by posting their ads to your page for related sources. You can custom your post the way you want it to appear on the page by just basic clicks and simple text typing. Squidoo is also known for building link wheels which is a good method of driving traffic to a site.
Today we will focus on Squidoo and learn the basic steps in building Squidoo lenses. Here are the basic steps in building a Squidoo lens:

1. Sign up For an Account

The first thing you will do just like other websites is to create your Squidoo account. The process is very simple. You only need to follow simple instructions and supply the basic info about yourself. Then just click the button continue.
Congratulations! You already have completed the first step and it was pretty simple.

2. Create a lens

After the registration process, the next thing you will do is to create a lens. Just click on create a lens button.Now you can be called a “lensmaster.”

In creating a lens, there are a lot of things to do. We will take the process step by step.

3. Lens subject

You must think of a subject which is related to your products or its up to you to decide for a better subject. You can also use the brand of the product or you product keyword.

Just supply the information and proceed to  the next step.

4. Lens Title and URL

Think of a better an interesting title and pick your URL, the link where your lens can be located.Then pick a category for your lens and choose for the choices of the contents of your lens.

5. Lens Keyword

Pick for the best keyword for your lens to help people find your lens.
You can add 3 more keywords for your lens and then you will be ask to type captcha code and click done button.

Now you already have created your lens.

6. Organize your lens

This will be the most interesting step in creating your lens. This is where you will custom your own page on how it will appear publicly.

You can organize you modules and add it to your lens.

Create and set up your module by simply supplying the needed information.

Click save and you can also edit it if you want to change it.

Your module has been saved already.

You can add images, videos, news,RSS, comment box and other ads from Amazon and Google.

7. Publish your lens

If you have done organizing and designing your lens, you can view the preview of your lens. If you think it looks good, then you can publish it.

Congratulations! You just have completed your Squidoo lens.

Squidoo Tips

1. After publishing you may have to wait for 48 hours. If after this time your Lens is still showing as a grayed out symbol, try the following.
2. Change the Title of all modules so that it represents the contents better. If you still have something called “New…” change it.
3. Remember to Edit the “Introduction and Contents Tool” and select “Table of Contents” and tick the “On” button.
4. Link to as many other webpages and Lens as possible.
5. After you get the Green approval Symbol, you can add your Lens to other suitable Lens, which provide a module for you to add your information. The old Groups on Squidoo have been converted into Lenses, so you will have to carefully select other Lens as your partner.

If you have any tips, please send details and I will added them here.

Don’t forget to update your Profile page, this gives you a lot of opportunity to add links to Blogs, Lenses and web url’s, that is where you add your photo.

A lot of tools has been developed over time and some of them can really  relief your Twitter experience and automate some time consuming actions.  That’s why I collected some great tools sorted in categories, which you might find extremely useful for using Twitter – find more targeted followers, track visitors – who is following, not following, deadbeat users, clean your account – ah..check what we have on table this time yourself! 

Follower Tools

1. Mr Tweet

Mr Tweet is your personal Twitter assistant. Discover great people you might want to follow, join communities and share your Twitter buddies.

2. TweetBeep

Get regular updates to your email with conversation trackings, mentions, followers. You can even keep track of who’s tweeting your website or blog.

3. FlashTweet

FlashTweet is a Twitter application that simplifies the process of acquiring more targeted followers. You can add multiple Twitter accounts to your profile, discover who you are following that is following you back, mass follow users based on search terms and location, unfollow multiple friends at once, schedule tweets in advance to run throughout the week, insert RSS feeds that will automatically tweet the title and link of your blog or another site.

4. Friend or Follow

Useful and easily usable tool to see who’re you following, that’s not following you back and conversely.

5. WeFollow

Enter tags and find new people to follow. You can add yourself to the database too.

6. Nearby Tweets

Find new people to follow based on location.

7. Tweepler

Tweepler is a much needed and more intuitive way of processing your Twitter followers. It allows you to quickly browse trough people you might be interested in, then follow or ignore them.

8. Tweepsect

See user’s followers and those he follows to determine who is stalking the user and who the user is stalking

9. Twitter Friends Network Browser

Browse trough your friends, your friend’s friends and so.

10. Twitter DMer

Twitter DMer is a tool to impress your followers with individually customized DMs.

11. Twit Cleaner

Analyses the people you follow, identifies the time wasters, spammers, bots & those who’ve quit Twitter.

Stats

1. Twitter Grader

Twitter Grader is a free tool that allows you to check the power of your twitter profile compared to millions of other users that have been graded.

2. Tweet Stats

Get detailed stats of your tweets.

3. Twitter Analyzer

Analyze someone’s tweet stats, popularity, reach, hashtags, subjects and more.

4. Twoorl

Get all neccesary stats about your acount. It’s still in beta, so you’ll have to follow @twoolr_beta.

Trends and Topics

1. Tweetmeme

Find most popular links in Twitter, sorted in categories.

2. Summize

Search for tweets, keywoard, users and much more.

3. Topsy

Search engine powered by tweets.

4. Trendistic

Trendistic is a tool that allows you to track trends on Twitter, similarly to what Google Trends does for Google searches. It gathers tweets as they are posted, filters redundant ones and compiles the rest into one-hour intervals.

Tweets

1. Twuffer

Twuffer allows the Twitter user to compose a list of future tweets, and schedule their release.

2. GroupTweet

GroupTweet turns a standard Twitter account into a group communication hub where members can post updates to everyone in the group using direct messages. When the group account receives a direct message from a group member, GroupTweet converts it into a tweet that all followers can see.

3. Twiddict

Twiddict sends your tweets to Twitter even if it’s down.

4. Runt.ly

Runt.ly is the easiest way to create short blog-style posts to share over Twitter and other micro-blogs. Runt.ly posts can include linked photos, embedded videos and more.

5. Bigtwitt

BigTwitt will create URL for your long tweet and then you’ll be able to post it.

Bloggers

1. Twitter Feed

Add RSS feeds and it automaticcly posts the headlines to Twitter.

2. Twitter Tools

Twitter Tools is a plugin that creates a complete integration between your WordPress blog and your Twitter account.

Sharing

1. Bit.ly

Shorten URLs, share them, track them.

2. Twitpic

Upload and share photos on Twitter.

3. Twitvid

Upload and share vidoes on Twitter.

4. Twittload

Free file hosting for Twitter.

5. Twitter Music

Find and share music on Twitter.

6. Twitsay

Record voice message and post it to your followers.

7. Twitcam

Broadcast live, your followers can see you and you can chat with them. After that video will be saved in archive.

Twitter Clients

1. Tweetdeck

TweetDeck is your personal browser for staying in touch with what’s happening now, connecting you with your contacts across Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and more. Connect with your Facebook and MySpace friends directly from TweetDeck by updating your status, posting photos or videos, commenting, liking and groups your friends to make it easier to follow only those you really want to see what your friends are doing by creating columns for each of your groups of friends. Available also on iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.

2. Seesmic

Available on almost all most popular platforms, one of the best Twitter clients. Update and view multiple social networks in one efficient but powerful application customized to your needs.

3. Destroy Twitter

DestroyTwitter is a compact though robust Twitter application built to run on Mac, Windows, and Linux using Adobe AIR.

4. Tweetie

Available on Mac and iPhone. Great software with a lot of features.

Other

1. Ping

Update your  social networks all at the same time.

2. Screenr

Easily create screencasts with web based recorder and tweet them to your followers.

3. Tinychat

Create a Twitter chatroom or video conference.

4. Twt Poll

Create free polls and get annswers from Twitter users.

5. Twibbon

Twibbon is the easiest and most powerful way to promote awareness of your cause on Twitter.

6.

Twitpay

Send funds to other Twitter accounts.

7. Tweetmart

Think of tweetmart as classifieds for Twitter. It is a free an easy way to buy and sell “stuff” or search and post jobs on Twitter.

8. Backupify

Backupify provides daily automatic backups, archiving, and export for all your social media and SaaS data.

Learn how to use social media sites more effectively, think about SEO and how to monetize your site a lot better! Maybe you will find courage and right advice how to start new project and earn online? Keep reading those blogs, put their techniques in action and I am sure your new or existing project will become a lot more successful!!

1. SocialMediaExaminer

Social Media Examiner is a free online magazine designed to help businesses discover how to best use social media tools like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to find leads, increase sales and generate more brand awareness.

2. Soshable | Social Media Blog

Great site sharing all the latest news and tips in social media community.

3. Chris Brogan

Chris Brogan is President of New Marketing Labs, a new media marketing agency, and home of the Inbound Marketing Summit conferences and Inbound Marketing Bootcamp educational events.

He works with large and mid-sized companies to improve online business communications like marketing and PR through the use of social software, community platforms, and other emerging web and mobile technologies. For more information on this, please contact Chris directly.

4. SocialMediaToday

Social Media Today LLC helps global organizations create purpose-built B2B social communities designed to achieve specific, measurable corporate goals by engaging exactly the customers and prospects you most want to reach.

5. Mashable – Social Media Section

I think Mashable doesn’t require any introduction, they cover everything happening in social news section. Check out their social media section to get only tips and latest buzz there.

6. ViperChill

Very inspiring story and blog of Glen – “one of the few people who makes a living online without doing it by teaching you how to make a living online. Because of that, you’ll find no ads and no affiliate links here. It’s all about the content and helping you as much as possible. As it should be.”

Sounds good? Articles are very exciting and great discovery for me!

7. TwiTip

TwiTip is about capturing some of the lessons that I and others have been learning about Twitter and how to use it more effectively. It covers Twitter Tips of all varieties including Writing for Twitter, Branding, Growing a Following, Corporate Tweeting and a lot more.

Any project Darren Rowles puts his mind in is a huge success and this is not an exception.

8. Dosh Dosh

Dosh Dosh is a blog offering internet marketing and blogging tips, alongside social media strategies. Best consumed by bloggers, entrepreneurs, web publishers, marketers, freelancers and small business owners. Only downside – this blog had last post on December 14^th, 2009.

9. BrianSolis

Brian Solis is Principal of FutureWorks, an award-winning New Media marketing and branding agency in Silicon Valley. Solis is globally recognized for his views and insights on the convergence of PR, Traditional Media and Social Media. Considered one of the original thought leaders who paved the way for Social Media and PR 2.0, Solis is co-founder of the Social Media Club and is an original member of the Media 2.0 Workgroup.

BrianSolis.com is among the top 1.5% of all blogs tracked by Technorati and is ranked as one of the leading voices in the Ad Age Power 150 index of worldwide marketing bloggers. Solis is also the publisher of bub.blicio.us, a popular lifestyle and technology blog,  and is also a contributor to TechCrunch, BrandWeek, and Mashable.

10. Social Media Explorer

Social Media Explorer is the online home and blog of Social Media Explorer LLC, which is also a consulting company. You will find a lot of valuable social media and online marketing related information here.

11. ConvinceAndConvert

The Convince & Convert blog is recognized as one of the best marketing blogs in the world by AdAge, Junta42, Alltop, Social Media Today, Scribnia, and a host of other arbiters of that sort of thing. Jay Baer has a huge experience working in this field, he definitely has much to say!

12. Altitude Branding

Amber Naslund is a social media and marketing practitioner, and the Director of Community for Radian6 social media monitoring. There, she’s responsible for client engagement, community building, and helping companies build sound strategies for social media listening, measurement, and engagement.

She’s spent the last 15 years or so working with businesses of all sizes, from the Fortune 50 to startups and local nonprofits, and has enjoyed a diverse career as a fundraiser, client services professional, corporate marketing director, and an entrepreneur.

13. Copyblogger

Copyblogger was founded in January of 2006 by Brian Clark. Brian is a writer/producer, entrepreneur, and recovering attorney.

Brian built three successful offline businesses using online marketing techniques before switching to a producer model that involves building, monetizing, and occasionally selling online media properties.

Copyblogger has over 100,000 subscribers and more than 240,000 unique monthly site visitors.

14. Kikolani

Kikolani is about the art of blogging – blogging tips, social networking strategies, and other useful information to help bloggers become more successful in blogging. Kristii is really one very, very friendly soul and I have seen her doing great on social networking, she is my friend as well!

15. The Future Buzz

The Future Buzz is a blog about web marketing/PR strategies, spreading buzz in the blogosphere and building long-term visibility for your brand, business, and art on the web. Bloggers, marketers, freelance writers, entrepreneurs, artists, small business owners and public relations professionals will all benefit from the content here.

16. Web Ink Now

Web Ink Now is written by David Meerman Scott, author of BusinessWeek bestseller “The New Rules of Marketing and PR” which is published in 24 languages.

He writes about how marketing and PR have changed because of the Web. Many of his posts include information on how to use social media, online video, news releases, blogs, podcasts, viral marketing and online media to reach your buyers directly.

17. Scott Monty

Scott is a marketing and communications professional focused on the digital industry — specifically on social media. His career spans a number of industries such as healthcare, pharma, biotech, travel, automotive, tech, and communications, and includes a wide range of clients, from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies.

18. SocialMedia.biz

19. Marketing Profs

It’s a rich and trusted resource that offers actionable know-how to help you market your products and services both smarter and better. Entrepreneurs, small-business owners and marketers in the world’s largest corporations make up its 360,000 subscribers, making it the largest in its category.

Through the MarketingProfs Web site, newsletters, conferences, seminars, forums and so on… they will help you navigate your way to market your business and keep you informed of the newest and best tools.

20. Collective Thoughts

Their team seems to be professional, articles very interesting and valuable, definitely worth subscribing and reading!

21. BritoPian

Michael considers himself a student of social media and community building. He has worked for major brands in Silicon Valley (HP, Yahoo! and Intel) and was instrumental in driving social media programs and campaigns emphasizing authenticity and long-term relationship building.

22. DaveFleet

DaveFleet.com is about communications, public relations, marketing and social media, and the areas where those topics intersect.

23. Socialnomics

Socialnomics(TM) is a blog designed to cover the latest trends in social media.  It primarily focuses on covering the latest news on social media and what it means for users and businesses, often taking irreverent view points of a popular topic.

24. Search Engine Journal

Search Engine Journal, established in 2003, is a 6-year-old publication of Search & Social Media, LLC, which specializes in a community approach to the reporting of search engine news & the sharing of Search Engine Marketing knowledge & tactics.

25. Networlding

Melissa is President of Networlding, a consulting, training and coaching organization specializing in helping individuals and organizations harness the power of social networks to leverage brand.

26. Conversation Agent

Conversation Agent is ranked among the top 25 marketing blogs in the world on AdAge Power150. Handpicked by Fast Company as Expert blogger, Valeria is on the Advisory Board of SmartBrief on Social Media and a co-author of The Age of Conversation, a groundbreaking eBook collaboration by 103 of today’s top marketing writers.

27. Techipedia

Tamar Weinberg is a freelance writer and author of The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web (O’Reilly, July 2009) who specializes in social media consulting and strategy, blogger outreach, reputation management, and search engine marketing (SEO, link building, and Pay Per Click Marketing).

28. Danny Brown

This blog talks about everything from social media, PR and marketing to making the most of the various online tools and communities. It’s aimed at everyone.

29. Danzarrella

Dan Zarrella is an award-winning social, search, and viral marketing scientist and author of the O’Reilly Media book “The Social Media Marketing Book“. He has a background in web development and combines his programming capabilities with a passion for social marketing to study social media behavior from a data-backed position and teach marketers scientifically grounded best practices.

30. Very Official Blog

Very interesting analysis and topics covered in this VERY official blog! Well, not so official but worth reading for sure.

31. MoblogsMoproblems

Mack Collier is a social media consultant, trainer and speaker. He has been actively immersed in social media since 2005, and in that time, has helped advise, teach and consult with businesses of all shapes and sizes on how they can better connect with their customers via these amazing tools and sites.

32. 180/360/720

Learn marketing here, how to advertise your site and many, many more valuable daily tips and ramblings.

33. DigitalBuzzBlog

Featuring the latest digital ad campaigns, hot new websites, interactive marketing ideas, virals, industry news, social media, insights, and other great digital trends from all over the world.

This article is mostly covering just social media sites, though it lightly touches to marketing niche as well, if there will be positive feedback I will go and make article just about marketing blogs. Enjoy!

I have also made 25 social media icons for 1stwebdesigner readers. But take a look at the tutorial first, then you may download those icons for free.

1. Make A Rounded Rectangle

The size and the color of the rounded rectangle is completely up to you. In this tutorial, I am using 10px radius for the rounded rectangle.

2. Give Effects

3. Add Some Text & Logo

In this example, I am using Futura for “SUBSCRIBE” word and Verdana for the rest. Once again, you may choose your own fonts and elements to be added on the rounded rectangle. I used Futura & Verdana simply because they are my favorite fonts.

Please note that I am using RSS logo from Iconspedia, which can be downloaded for free here. Feel free to download it as it is free to be used on personal and commercial project.

4. Add Effect On The Logo (optional)

Do you notice that there is difference on the subscribe logo? This is optional one, you may apply this effect if you want.

5. Important!

Remember to remove background layer before saving your file as .png format. You must save this as .png format if you want to place your button on colored background.

Download PSD file & Fonts

I believe some of you want to apply this effect. I am providing psd file for all of you who wants to apply this effect instantly, without following steps that I’ve explained. I have also provided Futura & Verdana to be downloaded for free.

Some Example That I Already Made

These are some of the buttons that I have made using this cool effect. If you want to see where I used them, just visit my blog. I placed RSS and Twitter button at top sidebar. I have also used Stumble Upon button at the end of every article.

1WD Social Media Icons Pack By Albert Lie

Actually, not all of them are social media icons. I add some icons like friendster, blogger & skype just for fun only.

License: This icons are licensed under GPL v2. You are free to do anything with them. The only requirement is to keep them free for users. There is no attribution link needed and you are allowed to use them in your personal and commercial projects for free.

I hand picked those 50 Twitter backgrounds, while I was browsing through like 200-300 twitter pages – these all were the ones which caught my attention. Interesting to notice, not all of favorites are really colorful, but even subtle, clean and elegant but still stood out. In my opinion the best case is to create what suits you in the meantime thinking about usability and readability – but light designs with few colors included to make design shine seems to be the best case! What’s your case?

1. @nicholaspatten

2. @chrisspooner

3. @bongobrian

4. @bartelme

5. @abduzeedo

6. @boagworld

7. @cameronolivier

8.

9. @DesignerDepot

10. @digitalmash

11. @graphicidentity

12. @mmpow

13. @ArteWebdesign

14. @cheth

15. @KrisColvin

16. @marcelsantilli

17. @Ubikwitusrex

18. @rodneireiz

19. @just4theALofit

20. @Chryseiss

21. @oxygenna

22. @luciana_luz

23. @tonypeterson

24. @showcasemark

25. @XquiziteLizard

26. @HungryGirl

27. @elianarod

28. @davewilhelm

29. @nbawiileague

30. @LisaWorsham

31. @Go_Media

32. @Doubleolee

33. @theleggett

34. @Farrhad

35. @chadmcmillan

36. @myklroventine

37. @nullvariable

38. @Genuine

39. @imagedesigns

40. @marekuk

41. @Krftd

42. @ramesstudios

43. @rafalmeidaf

44. Pudny

45. @Alyssa_Milano

46. @andysowards

47. @binojxavier

48. @sharebrain

49. @Scarletbits

50. @nymphont

If your exclusive and unique background is not in this list, then feel free to share it with us in comments section!

We are sorry about ones we didn’t include, but hey, here is a quick thought –  add your twitter names in comments with description why people should follow you! Just hope you enjoy this article and we all can leverage from great new friends to talk with!

1. @1stwebdesigner (Dainis Graveris)

Website: http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/

Of course, shameless self promotion!

Web-designer, who decided to dedicate his life to design few years ago. Now living happily ever after! Add him if you are web design fan!

2. @smalonedesign (Stephanie Malone)

Website: http://www.smalonedesign.com/

Graphic Artist. Creative Director. Skilled Copywriter. Design Diva.

3. @ronicadesign (Veronica Domeier)

Website: http://www.ronicasdesign.com/

Freelance designer of print & web. Photographer, adventurer, Apple fan.

4. @r27 (Rajesh Pancholi)

Website: http://www.r27.co.uk/

R27.CREATIVELAB. Design & Visual Communications.

5. @nicholaspatten (Nicholas Patten)

Website: http://www.nicholaspatten.com/

Video Editor, Graphic/Web Designer.

6. @mlane (Mike Lane)

Website: http://mlane.net/

Senior UX Designer near Minneapolis, MN with 15 years experience in creative Web and Graphic Design.

7. @Minervity (Richard Darell)

Website: http://www.minervity.com/

Web/Graphic Designer/Developer.

8. @mayhemstudios (Calvin Lee)

Website: http://mayhemstudios.com/

Self-Proclaimed Media Ho, Designer Guy and Twitter Addict.

9. @logocritiques (Erik Peterson)

Website: http://www.logocritiques.com/

Logo Critiques blogger, Graphic designer, Web designer.

10. @justcreative (Jacob Cass)

Website: http://justcreativedesign.com/

Graphic Designer, Logo Designer, Web Designer, Blogger, Creative Thinker, Social Media Nut, Freelancer, Link Sharer.

11. @jasonsantamaria (Jason Santa Maria)

Website: http://jasonsantamaria.com/

Designer by day, designer by night.

12. @gracesmith (Grace Smith)

Website: http://postscript5.co.uk/twitter.htm

A 26 year old Freelance Web and Graphic Designer in love with web standards and social media. An unashamed Apple Fangirl.

13. @chrisspooner (Chris Spooner)

Website: http://www.blog.spoongraphics.co.uk/

A creative Designer, avid Blogger.

14. @bongobrian (Brian Paulowicz)

Website: http://pauloworks.carbonmade.com/

Web Designer, Graphic Artist.

15. @bartelme (Wolfgang Bartelme)

Website: http://bartelme.at/

User interface graphic designer from Austria.

16. @artistech (Artistech Newmedia)

Website: http://www.artistechnewmedia.com/

Dynamic Design & Production for the Web, Print and Video based in Kelowna, BC, Canada.

17. @anthonywoods (Silver-Solutions)

Website: http://www.silver-solutions.co.uk/

Web and Software Application Developer / Web Designer.

18. @AndrewKelsall (Andrew Kelsall)

Website: http://andrewkelsall.com/

Graphic Designer, Creative, Logo, Print and Web Design, WordPresser, Tech-head, Blogger and Mac user.

19. @abduzeedo (Fabio Sasso)

Website: http://www.abduzeedo.com/

Graphic/web designer and blogger.

20. @bittbox (Jay Hilgert)

Website: http://www.bittbox.com/

Business Owner, Designer, Blogger, Web-enthusiast.

21. @bluewavemedia (Kimberly Beaven)

Website: http://www.bluewavemedia.ca/

Web, development, marketing and media firm.

22. @boagworld (Paul Boag)

Website: http://boagworld.com/

Founder of web design agency Headscape, host of the boagworld web design podcast and author of the website owners manual.

23. @bokardo (Joshua Porter)

Website: http://bokardo.com/

Founder of Bokardo Design, a design consultancy focusing exclusively on social web applications.

24. @cameronolivier (Cam Olivier)

Website: http://www.cameronolivier.com/

A designer/developer at theClassifieds.co.za

25. @ChadEngle (Chad Engle)

Website: http://fuelyourcreativity.com/

Graphic Designer, Editor at FuelYourCreativity.

26. @chriscoyier (Chris Coyier)

Website: http://css-tricks.com/

Web designer.

27. @cjgraphix (Collin Robinson)

Website: http://www.cjgraphix.com/

Freelance web designer and developer.

28. @clagnut (Richard Rutter)

Website: http://clagnut.com/

A web site producer living in Brighton.

29. @corePHP (Zen Penguin)

Website: http://www.corephp.com/

Professional Web Development & Graphic Design.

30. @cssglobe (Alen Grakalic)

Website: http://cssglobe.com/

Web designer and developer.

31. @davidlano (David Lano)

Website: http://www.davidlano.com/

Web Developer, Blogger.

32. @DesignerDepot (Webdesigner Depot)

Website: http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/

Webdesigner Depot is one of the most popular blogs about web design trends, tutorials and much more. It’s run by Walter Apai, a web designer from Vancouver.

33. @designshard (Max Stanworth)

Website: http://www.designshard.com/

Lover of Typography, Web Design, CSS, XHTML , Illustration.

34. @DesiznTech (Kawsar Ali)

Website: http://desizntech.info/

A web designer who also likes blogging.

35. @dustinbrewer (Dustin Brewer)

Website: http://dustinbrewer.com/

Freelance web designer.

36. @idesignstudios (Selene M. Bowlby)

Website: http://www.idesignstudios.com/blog/

Web Designer and Front-End Web Developer. Specializing in creating Custom WordPress Themes.

37. @jophillips (Jon Phillips)

Website: http://spyrestudios.com/

Designer.

38. @leonfernandes (Leon Fernandes)

Website: http://www.leonfernandes.com.au/blog/

Freelance Web Designer Specialising in Search Engine Optimisation and Search Engine Marketing.

39. @Othella (Amélie Husson)

Website: http://www.vitali-software.com/blog/

26 years old French girl living in Germany, freelancer, wordpress guru, web designer, internet geek, Mac user, crazy about ITs, books.

40. @RussAdams (Russ Adams)

Website: http://webdesign.fm/

Web design blogger at WebDesign.fm.

41. @sethjenks (Seth Jenks)

Website: http://sethjenks.com/

Student of marketing, design, and SEO who is working to make an impact on the world.

42. @sh3n3rd (Mitsi McKee)

Website: http://www.rockfishinteractive.com/

Web Designer – Rockfish Interactive, Founder – Evil Tomato Media.

43. @simonashley (Simon Ashley)

Website: http://www.gotripod.com/

A web designer and developer, systems architect, new media scientist, technologist, web entrepreneur, amateur quantum enthusiast and coffee aficionado.

44. @tonychester (Tony Chester)

Website: http://onwired.com/

Owner of OnWired. A progressive web design and development firm in North Carolina. Also running YourWebJob.com and PleaseCritiqueMe.com.

45. @veen (Jeffrey Veen)

Website: http://veen.com/jeff/

Founder.

46. @Aisleone (Antonio Carusone)

Website: http://www.aisleone.net/

A graphic designer.

47. @arronlock (Arron Lock)

Website: http://www.brightasblack.com/

Dedicated graphic designer.

48. @behoff (Brian Hoff)

Website: http://www.thedesigncubicle.com/

Graphic designer.

49. @digitalmash (Rob Morris)

Website: http://digitalmash.com/

Product designer at HiiDef Inc.

50. @imjustcreative (Graham Smith)

Website: http://imjustcreative.com/

Freelance logo and brand identity designer. Iconic, typographic and minimalist tendencies. 25 years experience.

51. @jasonwalz (Jason Walz)

Website: http://mzltd.com/

Art Director, Graphic / Web Designer, Video Editor.

52. @snookca (Snook)

Website: http://snook.ca/

A creator of striking designs, impeccable markup and code, and forward-thinking ideas and applications.

53. @vpieters (Veerle Pieters)

Website: http://veerle.duoh.com/

A graphic/web designer living in Belgium.

54. @meyerweb (Eric A. Meyer)

Website: http://meyerweb.com/

CSS and HTML expert.

55. @pearsonified (pearsonified)

Website: http://www.pearsonified.com/

A Web developer who specializes in building detailed, robust WordPress themes.

56. @collis (Collis) Website: http://envato.com/

Working at Envato where he helps making awesome websites!

57. @bleikamp (Ben Bleikamp)

Website: http://www.bleikamp.com/

An interaction designer and product manager.

58. @DavidAirey (David Airey)

Website: http://www.davidairey.com/

Graphic designer.

59. @problogdesign (Michael Martin)

Website: http://www.problogdesign.com/

Web designer, specialising in blog design.

60. @michaelcastilla (Michael Castilla)

Website: http://wpcoder.com/

Owner of WPCoder.com.

61. @redwall_hp (Matt Harzewski)

Website: http://www.webmaster-source.com/

Blogger, web designer, writer.

62. @arthurbrownjr (Arthur Brown Jr.)

Website: http://www.arthurbrownjr.com/

A web designer and marketing communications professional focused on creating the best online and offline experiences possible. Building engaging websites.

63. @zeldman (Jeffrey Zeldman)

Website: http://www.zeldman.com/

Author, Designing With Web Standards 3rd Ed., zeldman.com. Founder, Happy Cog studio. Publisher, A List Apart magazine. Co-founder, An Event Apart conference.

64. @randaclay (randaclay)

Website: http://randaclay.com/

Freelance designer.

65. @cameronmoll (Cameron Moll)

Website: http://cameronmoll.com/

Designer, Speaker, Author.

66. @andybudd (Andy Budd)

Website: http://www.andybudd.com/

User Experience Designer, partner at @clearleft and curator of @dconstruct and @uxlondon.

67. @simplebits (Dan Cederholm)

Website: http://simplebits.com/

A designer, author, speaker. Founder and Principal of SimpleBits.

68. @danbenjamin (Dan Benjamin)

Website: http://hivelogic.com/

Broadcaster, writer and developer.

69. @mollydotcom (Molly E. Holzschlag)

Website: http://molly.com/

Well-known Web standards advocate, instructor, and author.

70. @adactio (Jeremy Keith)

Website: http://adactio.com/journal/

An Irish web developer living and working in Brighton, England.

71. @clearleft (Clearleft)

Website: http://clearleft.com/

User-experience design agency based in Brighton, UK.

72. @mezzoblue (Dave Shea)

Website: http://www.mezzoblue.com/

A Vancouver local and a freelance designer.

73. @orderedlist (Steve Smith)

Website: http://orderedlist.com/

Architects user interfaces and web designs.

74. @ryancarson (Ryan Carson)

Website: http://carsonified.com/

Internet entrepreneur and founder of Carsonified.com.

75. @blogdesignblog (Vinh Le)

Website: http://www.blogdesignblog.com/

Blog designer.

76. @ilovetypography (I Love Typography)

Website: http://ilovetypography.com/

Founder of ILT (I Love Typography), WLT, & TypeNuts.com. Graphic designer, writer, typophile, bibliophile.

77. @keylimecreative (keylimecreative)

Website: http://www.keylimecreative.ca/

Professional Graphic Designer.

78. @andyjacobson (Andy Jacobson)

Website: http://andyjacobson.com/

A NYC based Graphic Designer/Communications Consultant who has been running his own studio since 1993.

79. @VladGeorgescu (Vlad Georgescu)

Website: http://vladgeorgescu.com/

User Experience Designer.

80. @Brandstack (Brandstack)

Website: http://brandstack.com/

The World’s Biggest Brand Marketplace. Buy and Sell high quality, original logo designs and domain names.

81. @stevensnell (Steven Snell)

Website: http://vandelaydesign.com/blog/

Web designer, blogger, and freelance writer.

82. @aaroni268 (Aaron Irizarry)

Website: http://www.thisisaaronslife.com/

Just a simple guy who likes to make pretty, usable stuff.

83. @blogdesigner (Mike Smith)

Website: http://www.madebyguerrilla.com/

Running a startup @GiantThemes and a full time web designer for @madebyguerrilla who loves MMA and blogs @gfreelancing.

84. @spencerfry (Spencer Fry)

Website: http://spencerfry.com/

Running Carbonmade with other fine folks. And Burstoid.

85. @graphicidentity (A u d e e)

Website: http://graphic-identity.blogspot.com/

Graphic Identity Blog author. Logo, graphic, web designer.

86. @creativeworld (Leon Poole)

Website:  http://www.creativeworld.com.au/

Owner of Creative World. Blogging on: Web design, Graphic Design, CSS, XHTML, Flash, Theme Design (WordPress, activeCollab, Magento).

87. @939design (939 Design)

Website: http://www.939design.com/

Web and Graphic designer.

88. @alexdesigns (Alex Harris)

Website: http://alexdesigns.com/

Ecommerce Creative Director. Web Design & Online Marketing.

89. @mirkohumbert (mirkohumbert)

Website: http://www.designer-daily.com/

Swiss graphic and web designer.

90. @Woork (Antonio Lupetti)

Website: http://woorkup.com/

Pro Blogger, Founder of woorkup.com.

91. @seanHodge (Sean Hodge)

Website: http://aiburn.com/

Graphic Designer, Web Designer, Vector Illustrator, Blog Editor, and Writer.

92. @tkadlec (Tim Kadlec)

Website: http://www.timkadlec.com/

A web developer living and working in Wisconsin.

93. @adii (adii)

Website: http://adii.co.za/

Entrepreneur, co-founder of WooThemes and general creator of Rockstar Awesomeness!

94. @corymiller303 (Cory Miller)

Website: http://corymiller.com/

Web Design, WordPress themes & entrepreneurship – Founder of iThemes.com & WebDesign.com.

95. @bgardner (Brian Gardner)

Website: http://www.studiopress.com/

Internet consultant. Founder/CEO of StudioPress and AgentPress.

96. @wpcandy (Michael Castilla)

Website: http://wpcandy.com/

Founder & Creator of WPCandy. A front-end developer, currently living in Miami, Florida.

97. @elmofromok (Chad Henderson)

Website: http://www.elmofromok.com/

Web designer, writer and podcaster from Oklahoma.

98. @elliotjaystocks (Elliot Jay Stocks) Website: http://elliotjaystocks.com/

A designer, an illustrator, a speaker and an author.

99. @MitchellMckenna (Mitchell McKenna)

Website: http://mitchmckenna.com/

Software Developer, Web Designer.

100. @stillframe (Brad Smith)

Website: http://stillframe.com/

Co-founder of Virb.

101. @larissameek (Larissa Meek)

Website: http://www.larissameek.com/

Creative Director at AgencyNet based in Los Angeles, CA.

102. @smashingmag (Vitaly Friedman)

Website: http://www.smashingmazine.com

Vitaly Friedman, editor-in-chief of SmashingMagazine.com and Noupe.com, online magazines dedicated to designers and developers.

Time passed, and I needed to update my article, add more links, delete old ones because I have been promoting EVERY article in these sites. Now this promotional article consists of 70 sites, but again I wasn’t sure how all links work – I mean how much traffic they return. And now you will hear why this article is so outstanding and extremely valuable for every design-related blogger! Since I’ve been submitting all my article on those sites this whole time, I have also very precise statistics based on several months.

Now I completely reviewed whole article and here TOP 53 sites are arranged in ascending order – from the most valuable websites to less ones. Unique visit count and information is based on my Google Analytics latest 3 months statistics. At the end I added several new and unverified but promising promotional websites.

Needless to say I will update this article regularly, so be sure to bookmark it for later reference! This is really assured list because I’ve tested it and I can tell – these sites really deliver impressive traffic! If you need that traffic – go ahead and take it now! I give you tools, you just need to realize them in the same way I did!

1. StumbleUpon* ( 160,154 unique visits)

StumbleUpon is no different – you need a lot of friends, good network to bring traffic. But if you have that all, again it totally pays off 10 times. You should have few powerful stumbler friends as well, who could discover or maybe even share your stories – returning you with easy traffic in that way!

2. Digg* (80,214 unique visits)

Certainly not easy traffic, but when you get the first time of Digg FrontPage you will never doubt it’s power and beautiful traffic income source. Building community takes a lot of time, so be sure you build contacts with few power diggers in your niche.

3. SmashingMagazine + Noupe (74,494 unique visits)

*Updated: in the next day, when I published this article SM and Noupe took off their user news and now there are only SmashingNetwork news in sidebar, so for most of us, this traffic isn’t available more.

Since now SM owns Noupe, their design news are now tied together. This number is not so accurate because I am on SmashingNetwork and get traffic from their features as well, but certainly worth submitting – 2 in 1!

4. Twitter* (22,119 unique visits)

Seems like now Twitter is getting even more popular as it is – if it is possible! It’s good to have powerful account or powerful friends with big networks to share your links with.

5. CSSGlobe* (7,528 unique visits)

If your links will be accepted in this site, you will get serious traffic regularly! This site is my big discovery, I was surprised how valuable it is and what kind of traffic it can deliver.

6. Facebook* (6,574 unique visits)

You need here to think seriously about community building or fan page, because it can really be good traffic income source.

7. DesignBump* (5,921 unique visits)

8. Dezinerfolio (3,678 unique visits)

9. Design-Newz (3,436 unique visits)

10. WebdesignNe.Ws (2,709 unique visits)

11. InstantShift (2,525 unique visits)

12. CSSDrive (2,145 unique visits)

13. DesignrFix (2,083 unique visits)

14. Devsnippets (1,831 unique visits)

15. Designm.Ag (1,692 unique visits)

16. Dzone* (1,400 unique visits)

17. Abduzeedo* (1,381 unique visits)

18. Psdfan (1,337 unique visits)

19. Reddit* (1,308 unique visits)

20. TripWireMagazine (1,219 unique visits)

21. DesignMoo* (1,185 unique visits)

22. DesignYourWay (1,171 unique visits)

23. DesignFloat* ( 1,003 unique visits)

24. 10Steps.sg (948 unique visits)

25. ShareBrain (942 unique visits)

26. Graphic-Design-Links* (753 unique visits)

27. Hongkiat (735 unique visits)

28. InspiredN (733 unique visits)

29. TheDesignMag (686 unique visits)

30. SpeckyBoy (570 unique visits)

31. BlogFreakz (557 unique visits)

32. FuelYourCreativity (521 unique visits)

33. NaldzGraphics (516 unique visits)

34. DesiznTech (499 unique visits)

34. TheWebBlend* (342 unique visits)

35.ZaBox* (383 unique visits)

36. MyInkBlog (250 unique visits)

37. ScriptAndStyle (249 unique visits)

38. CSSLeak (209 unique visits)

39. WhoFreelance (207 unique visits)

40. PVM Garage (151 unique visits)

Envato network

41. PSD.Tutplus (1,019 unique visits)

You need to submit in those 3 sites articles one by one, because spam filter somehow work between these sites, I mean if all three pages are open you need to refresh page to get valid CAPTCHA numbers.

42. Net.Tutplus (550 unique visits)

43. Vector.Tutplus (538 unique visits)

Fresh additions:

I will add here constantly new websites I will find or our readers will suggest and test it myself so I can drop out worthless sites out and put great websites higher in main list.

44. KnowteBook

45. GraphicMania

46. PSDeluxe

47. ChethStudios

48. CypherBox*

49. AnimHut (right sidebar)

50. PSDVibe (right sidebar)

51. DesignNussion

52. Styletime

53. DesignInformer (right sidebar)

If you know more VALUABLE promotional sites or links, where we could submit articles, let us know and I’ll consider about showcasing that site as well here!

She said: “Well, why you don’t write about that as well? Your site is full of roundups, some tips in such cases could be useful as well!”. Right and so I took paper and actually wrote down my ideas! This is very short article, but I am expecting you to add your ideas as well! What can we do to get out from daily work flow, from struggling, get organized and feel good?

1. Take a rest

Take a walk out to breathe some fresh air and get work a little bit out of your system or even better look at all from aside to rethink your strategy, future goals and things you could change or do to get better what are you working on.

2. Read design related book

I bet you have several books in your bookshelf you always wanted to read but never got time! At least I have a lot of them, now is a great time to remember about them and use your free time to do what you love to do!

3. Watch Video Tutorials

Again if you are obsessed designer like I am, you certainly should have to be 30-40gb video tutorials you downloaded a while ago, but never got time to learn them! Usually in busy work-flow we forget to learn tools first, we just need to get job done, but if you continue to learn and evolve your skills, you will suddenly discover some more different ways and techniques, how to achieve necessary outcome much faster! It’s amazing how much we still don’t know after many years working in design niche!

4. Create a new design, artwork

It really helps if you store your favorite designs, photos, artworks on local hard-drive for later use, so you can get inspiration also when you have no Internet connection. Anyway you can spend hours playing with effects, fonts, textures, artworks – to perfect your skills.

5. Take a pencil, paints and paper

Take your time and enjoy how creative you can be while sketching or drawing – do something different to enjoy your life even more!

6. Go And Meet Friend

Such things happen to everybody – in all rush, sometimes we forget about really great friends, so this time be first to call them out! If you have some good friends in your own design niche, it’s even more useful – you can meet up, exchange opinions and get fresh ideas. I really evaluate such friends, where we both can contribute in some way from each other.

7. Get out and start to do some sport

We spend a lot of our time in front of computer, but we shouldn’t forget about our health – it’s more worth than anything! Start to do yoga, play football, volleyball, swimming, run or find out where is the nearest gym from your home! You will definitely feel better each day, I assure you!

8. Listen relaxing music

Get lazy, relax, watch movie, listen music – you earned it! Whole life doesn’t consist from rush, struggling from lack of time. Take your breathe slowly and enjoy selfhanded free time!

9. Go out to museum, exhibition – any creative and inspiring place!

Find out if there are any interesting exhibitions, design conferences happening in your town and again get out!

10. Organize, clean up your workspace

It may happen to all of us – while we are working hard, we are creating mess around us and slowly it’s affecting our work-flow as well. Our environment changes us as well as people around you. Maybe you need to change also how your furniture, computer, lights are organized?

11. Organize, clean up your desktop

Sounds obvious, but you cannot imagine how much you waste time while searching through numerous folders necessary file or image, when you could easily organize everything! Clean up desktop, create folders, move files to appropriate directories! Very helpful in daily work-flow!

12. Create organized schedule

In all rush you sometimes forget things you must do? Create schedule and get used to it, definitely will help to organize your daily workflow and you will feel much better, it’s about organizing your life! Article I created a while ago could actually help you as well – Plan Your Daily Schedule: Useful Resources.

13. Don’t do anything!

If you are always running and running you should enjoy something different as well – watch movie, sleep a little bit longer – don’t make it as regular habit, but from time to time it’s really relaxing!

I would love to hear your advices how you enjoy and spend your free time, what you do to get out from struggling in your work and where you find inspiration to keep on doing what are you doing!?!