05. PSD Tuts (Tie)

Founder(s) - Unknown
History - PSDTUTS is a blog/photoshop site made to house and showcase some of the best Photoshop tutorials around. We publish tutorials that not only produce great graphics and effects, but explain in a friendly, approachable manner.
About the Brand - A strong thematic cohesiveness throughout their family of websites.
Alexa.com Ranking - 14,664
Other Properties - audiojungle.com, flashden.com
Ideas for Growth - Their team has successfully created a design and tutorial blog, the audio search engine and a monetized flash resource site. They should take the business model they used for Flashden.net and apply it to resources for AfterEffects or Premier. Alternatively they could create a portal for scripts like Hotscripts.com

05. Colour Lovers (Tie)

Founder(s) - Darius A Monsef IV
History - The founder says, “Our site is edgy, revolutionary, and works from the bottom up, not from the top down. It represents a new way to think about color and design. Our approach is based on the open source and common license concept. We gather creative professionals into an online community where they can share ideas about color and influence others.”
About the Brand - ColourLovers relies primarily on user generated content. It takes images uploaded to it’s service and parses those images for color data. Users can then share patterns, color palettes and monitor color trends of popular magazines. The brand is the application and the focus (color). The logo is basic and unforgettable otherwise. The ‘proper’ english “u” in Colour could be also be considered part of it’s branding because it’s distinct.
Alexa.com Ranking - 14,438
Other Properties - Colourlovers Store that sells t-shirts, NoteCards, MiniCards & Stickers
Ideas for Growth - Darius built a social network around one of the elusive aspects of design, color. He also made a useful resource for designers trying to come up with color schemes for their websites. He might try doing the same thing for fonts or extend his cadre of color enthusiasts into a network of fashion or product designers.

04. Brusheezy

Founder(s) - Unknown
History - Brusheezy is a website where you can find yourself alot of high quality Photoshop Brushes and Patterns too, there is also a resource section that points out books and other resources that are good for learning and enhancing the Photoshop Package itself. All Brushes should work on all versions of Photoshop unless otherwise stated.
About the Brand - The ‘eeZy’ brand is strong because it’s so unique, fun and recognizable. The slogan “Stupid name. Good ________” is equally memorable. All the sites in their network feature similar logos and similar designs which is smart. Unfortunately the owners don’t seem to understand branding web products, as it’s not always easy to get from one site to another without know what you’re looking for in advance.
Alexa.com Ranking - 9,293
Other Properties - vecteey.com, flasheezy.com, and fresheezy.com
Ideas for Growth - All of these offerings essentially occur in walled gardens. The Eezy Group may want to do the obvious and consider building a social network around their content. The apparent partnership with GoMedia is smart. If the owners of the Eezy brand are also the owners of GoMedia or partners in the company, they’ve got the right idea. They use free content to sell premium content. If I were them I’d work on building a cohesive brand for both divisions and expanding my offerings from just content for design programs to plug-ins and upgrades.

03. Smashing Magazine

Founder(s) - Smashing Magazine is maintained by Sven Lennartz, the owner of the Dr. Web Magazine and Dr. Web Weblog and Vitaly Friedman, the creator of The Web Developer’s Handbook and the book author of Praxisbuch Web 2.0.
History - Founded in September 2006, Smashing Magazine delivers useful and innovative information for designers and web-developers.
About the Brand - Smashing Magazine is one of my favorite places on the internet. They offer great tutorials, articles, resources and information related to graphic design, web design, and typography. Their logo (a tilted “S” in a square) is strong, easily recognizable and memorable.
Alexa.com Ranking - 8,524
Other Properties - jobs.smashingmagazine.com
Ideas for Growth - Smashing already covers design and design resources better than almost any blog out there. The next obvious step is to try a printed publication along the likes of ComputerArt, Photoshop User or Layers Magazine. Or, perhaps, they might try similar product devoted to cinematography and filmmaking.

02. Mashable

Founder(s) - Pete Cashmore
History - Mashable is a social networking news blog. With allegedly over 5 million monthly pageviews it ranks among the most popular blogs on the Internet. Mashable regularly writes about MySpace, YouTube, Bebo, Facebook, and Xanga, but it also reports on less high-profile social networking sites. The website also features its own social network, customized profiles, and MySpace layouts.
About the Brand - While Mashable has done very little to expand beyond it’s current offerings the name is probably one of the most easily recognizable on the web. Thanks to appearing in Mashable vidcasts, founder Pete Cashmore, has become something of a ‘web celebrity’. Partnerships with companies like Aux Interactive and ACS SEO make Mashable a great resource for companies looking to develop their ideas.
Alexa.com Ranking - 3,490
Other Properties - Mashmeets and Events, Mashcodes, fr.mashable.com, my.mashable.com
Ideas for Growth - Mashable is all over the place offering free software products, a thriving social network, design resources, social media news, industry information and a whole lot more. It seems that much like the Carsonified people, Mashable is targeting the event planning and tradeshow world next. What’s next? Mashable’s social network places an emphasis on user content and social links. I think they “get it” enough that they’ll target creating more social media applications.

01. Sitepoint

Founder(s) - Matt Mickiewicz and Mark Harbottle
History - SitePoint is a fast growing online media company and information provider targeting the Web professional market, specifically Web Developers and Designers. The company has five major revenue streams: advertising and sponsorship, content-based products both online and in retail, software, and more recently streaming video subscriptions and classified listings.
About the Brand - As you can see from their Alexa.com rating, Sitepoint is in the upper-echelon of heavily trafficked sites on the internet. Pulling four digits on Alexa equal hundreds of thousands, if not millions of hits, daily! Of course traffic alone doesn’t equal a strong brand. Sitepoint.com has created their brand by offering an easily identifiable site good advice, great tutorials and tips that range in topics from development, to operating a small business to design tips.

Their ‘Marketplace’ (think Craigslist for web developers) is one of THE most popular places for people to list jobs and recruit talent (for both longterm and shortterm projects). It’s also the #1 place to buy and sell web property. Their Marketing Kits (otherwise known as e-books) benefit users as well as generating some healthy revenue. Beyond that they’ve extended their brand offline with a strong publishing division. They recently spun off their marketplace for designers into it’s own site 99Designs, brilliantly giving it a slightly different look so as to appeal to creatives.

It’s one of those companies that pretty much does everything well to the point where each of their products are healthy competition individually as it they are combined. For that Sitepoint.com is given the undisputed crown!
Alexa.com Ranking - 1,817
Other Properties - 99designs.com, Sitepoint Publishing, Reference Point
Ideas for Growth - I can only dream of being in a position where I can make the decisions that move a site like sitepoint.com! Still there is one frontier that I think SiePoint is already well poised to exploit…. software development. If they could spin their huge userbase into a market for a web software product they’d be a HUGE problem. More likely though, they’ll next take their brands to the mobile market offering ebook downloads and streaming media.

This list was compiled and ordered by relevancy as well as their influence on the design community at large. I looked at each groups branding, site design, logo design, the strength of content and resources offered. I also looked at the number of properties each had. Alexa rankings were used to estimate site traffic although a high Alexa ranking did not always equal a higher ranking on this list. I did all this so as not to appear to be biased towards any particular blog or group.

To get on this list entities needed to be web based (so as to exclude existing magazines with high print circulation) and they had to be generally accepted by the public as being pretty damn awesome. This list by Just Creative Design is a more comprehensive list of everything that’s out there for designers. These sites are the 500-pound gorillas of the design community and are incredibly successful (and many of them are incredibly lucrative for the owners).

10. WP Designer

Founder(s) - Small Potato
History - Small Potato says “I started Wpdesigner.com back in May 2006 because I was not happy with the quality of free WordPress themes at that time and decided to learn how to create one for myself and release it for free. Gradually, Wpdesigner turned from a simple place where I release free themes into a blog, which covered WordPress tips, tutorials, and general web development topics. Along with more than 50 free WordPress themes, I managed to put together a series of articles on how to create a WordPress theme scratch, which is the most popular series of this blog.”
About the Brand - Wpdesigner.com was recently sold and the new owner Pawel Ciszewski better stay on his game because he could really ruin what has become an incredible resource for Wordpress Designers and users. The original logo was amateurish but the choice of colors and the design of the site is what branded it so well.
Alexa.com Ranking - 84,743
Other Properties - Theme Club upgrade that is $5 per year offers exclusives that normal users don’t get
Ideas for Growth - I’m not sure what Small Potato was thinking when he sold what had become one of the most well liked Wordpress theme sites on the net. He had a solid business model with the Theme Club and a lot of fans. I suggest the new owner focus on branching out into custom design and theme’s a-la-cart for purchase while continuing to release exclusive free themes to Theme Club members and free themes for the general public.

09. Design Flavr

Founder(s) - Andrew Greig
History - DesignFlavr is a breed of website that hopes to deliver the latest and freshest art and design straight to you with no frills and no hassle. The concept behind this website is to help support the vast and ever growing number of Designers and Artists that reside here on the World Wide Web.
About the Brand - The logo is one of the weakest on this list. They’ve got a leaf for their logo which initially strikes me as having nothing to do with the nature of their work. The minimalist layout, however, can easily be used to brand other sites.
Alexa.com Ranking - 102,463
Other Properties - none
Ideas for Growth - DesignFlavr should move into the niche network of DIY, aspiring fashion designers. Their UI would be great for rating outfits and fashion photography.

08. Bittbox

Founder(s) - unknown
History - Bittbox has been offering free resources for Photoshop for atleast two years now.
About the Brand - While Bittbox itself doesn’t have that impressive of a brand, the reach of the site and it’s impact on the design industry has been MASSIVE! A quote from one of the owners, “It’s always nice to see people put BB freebies to good use, but there’s no way to spot them all. I was flipping through Rolling Stone over the weekend and spotted some of my Illustrator brushes (teardrop foliage) in an ad for Bonnaroo 2008, a huge music & arts festival in Tennessee.”
I too hacve spotted their resources all over the place from flyers and business to TV commercials!
Alexa.com Ranking - 22,750
Other Properties - Outside of a solid Flickr Group, nothing.
Ideas for Growth - It’s unfortunate that the Bitt people haven’t expanded and if they have, it’s unfortunate that they haven’t realized the power of associating their other ventures with BB. Outside of the obvious (a Design firm) I suggest the Bitt people move into a land so far unknown to them….motion graphics. They could give away scripts and resources for Adobe Premier and other programs like Avid and FinalCut.

07. ThinkVitamin

Founder(s) - Ryan and Gillian Carson
History - I’m not sure how long it’s been around but in March 2007 Vitamin won the SXSW Award for Best Educational Resource.
About the Brand - Largely discusses web applications and the development of social media applications. The site has a very distinctive look much like all the work of the Carsonified design team does. Outside of ThinkVitamin the Carsons also coordinate the massive Future Of web conferences that happen around the globe and use content recorded there to create insightful and useful podcasts.
Alexa.com Ranking - 132,185
Other Properties - carsonified.com, futureofwebapps.com, futureofmobile.com, futureofwebdesign.com and dropsend.com
Ideas for Growth - The Carsons are already media planners, web developers, bloggers and event planners there isn’t much left they don’t do! That said, I think their inevitable next big push should be into Branding, PR and Marketing, after all, they’re already experts!

06. Behance Network

Founder(s) - unknown
History - unknown
About the Brand - Behance has created a solid brand around beautiful professional and minimalist design. The logo itself, is excellent looking somewhat like an element on the periodic table. They’ve got a web magazine, a new social network for designers and incredible shop of unique and well designed products!
Alexa.com Ranking - 117,857
Other Properties - behance.net (social network), creativesoutfitter.com (store), and behancemag.com (web magazine)
Ideas for Growth - If I were in charge of Behance my next target would be the fashion industry tapping my social network of designers for ideas similar to threadless.com

Read Part 2

Naysayers who pronounced that social media is nothing more than a fad may have to think twice. Universal McCann released a report on social media trends based on their worldwide survey. This is the third wave of this ongoing study of active Internet users (those who go online everyday or every other day), and the results show that from the first survey in 2006 to the latest one earlier this year, key markers have gone up across the board.

Video. It’s the fastest-growing social media platform. Asked if they’ve ever watched clips online, 82.9% responded with a “yes”, in contrast with the first survey in 2006 when it was only 31%. The current figure translates to roughly 394 million pairs of eyes – a huge market by any standards. Curiously, people are also shedding their passive restraints. From just over 20% last year, 38.5% of users have now uploaded clips on video-sharing sites.

Blogs. Second only to videos in terms of reach, 72.8% of active Internet users read blogs, personal and otherwise. That’s 346 million readers, and 21% of them said they visit blogs every single day. In terms of content generation, 184 million readers said they also write on their own blogs. That’s 38.7% of the population, in comparison to last year when it was a little over 30%. Another form of blogging content generation is leaving comments, and this year 54.8% of those surveyed said they’ve done so – much better than last year’s 43%.

Photos. Sites where users can share their pictures also gained in their popularity. A good 63.2% revealed that they’ve visited one or more of these sites, up from around 53% in 2007. Among different media (video, text, audio, images), users seem to be most eager to share photos with 52.2% having uploaded their snapshots online.

Social Networks. One of the most closely followed platforms right now, 57.3% of active users indicated that they’ve created a profile on a social network. This is a big jump from the 36% gathered from the year before. The global picture isn’t a two-prong battle of MySpace and Facebook, but a much more segmented regional market.

It’s clear from all this data that people are becoming engaged in online discussions and letting their voices heard. All over the world, the trend is towards participation, from places like the Philippines, to India, to the Netherlands, to the US. The next generation will grow up differently from all of us, who were raised in one-way consumption of the TV, radio, movies and newspapers. Doubtless, this emerging powerful media has a huge potential for businesses. However, they have to adapt and do it quickly to capitalize on this trend, or they may very well go the way of the dodo.

RSS feeds and backlinks allow almost anyone to view any promotional articles that you publish on your blog. These articles can be about your latest products, the latest market trends, or awards received by your business. Blogs are very helpful, especially if you want to reach a wide audience that’s targetted enough to send some business leads your way.

Blogs are generally favored by search engines

Search engines love 3 things: organized content, regular updates, and a lot of backlinks. When you have a regularly updated blog, it’s easy to maintain these 3 things that search engines are looking for when it comes to website ranking. Having a good website rank is very important to your business, especially since customers tend to find your site first over your competitors.

Blogs strengthen communication with leads and customers.

Blogs provide customers, suppliers, distributors, and business owners with a way to build a strong community. Business owners are given a chance to connect with a wider audience, and to show their know-how and expertise to their customers. When you successfully build a community using your blog, it’s easier for potential customers to trust you with their purchases. Your blog can communicate to your target market that you are knowledgeable and serious when it comes to your market.

While having a blog for your business provides you with an affordable web presence, the best argument for blogging is that you can easily build trust and confidence among new and returning customers. And as your business blog grows in popularity, your small business will be bigger than ever.