Want to create that Web 2.0 look without the hassle?

You probably do, because once something becomes popular, everyone wants to copy it. Even squeeze pages are getting a Web 2.0 makeover!

The problem is, it looks like a Web 2.0 look would take work. You need a striped background, logo reflection, rounded corners, star bursts, and a “beta” attached to your logo. And that’s just for starters!

But since Web 2.0 is sooo popular with the “in” crowd, free tools to give you that required 2.0 look are popping up everywhere. Here are 25 that will transform your site the easy way:

Backgrounds

1: Stripe Generator creates striped backgrounds with or without gradients; no Photoshop skills required.

2: Tartan Generator (from the creators of Stripe Generator) lets you make cool tartans that work as page backgrounds.

3: Gradient generator for doing gradients in page backgrounds.

4: Gradient generator is… another gradient generator.

5: Tile Machine makes tiled backgrounds with various designs.

6: Background Image Maker has a few options for background images.

Layouts

7: Full Layout Generator which actually creates the framework for a Web 2.0ish site.

Rounded Corners

8: Rounded Cornr makes rounded corner images.

9: Google’s rounded corner generator makes neat rounded corners, too.

10: Even Corner Shop does too!

Image Effects

11: Reflection.js is a little piece of Javascript that will add reflections to all the images on your site.

12: Canvas Corner uses a little Javascript to add nice rounded corners and drop shadows to images. (more)

13: DropShadow lets you easily add a drop shadow to your picture.

Logos

14: Logo Creatr will create a sweet 2.0 logo and even add the word “Beta” to it. (It doesn’t matter if your site is 3 years old - if you want to be Web 2.0, you have to be in beta.)

15: Web 2.0 Styler makes nice 2.0 text logos, with more color options than Logo Creatr.

Buttons, Badges, and Icons

16: My Cool Button is a way to make, well, cool buttons.

17: Buttonator makes buttons, but you have to pay $10/month for it.

18: Button Boost is another site that will boost your button skills.

19: Glassy buttons does buttons although they’re not quite a 2.0 level.

20: RSS Buttons is another button maker, but for those small, rectangular buttons.

(There are a ton of these. Blogflux button maker. Button maker. Brilliant button maker. Pixel Button. RSS Graphic Tool.)

21: Feed Icons provides those neat orange RSS feed icons in multiple sizes.

22: Starburst badges are another variety of image that is virtually required for a Web 2.0 look.

23. Tabs Generator will create sleek tabs for you.

Cool Ajax Stuff

24: Loading icons using Ajax are also required for all Web 2.0 sites to tell the visitor “not only is this page loading, this page is loading with style.” You might even want to slow down your page loads so that visitors can admire these neat icons even more.

25: Prototype Windows are neat Ajax pop-up windows. I’ve seen them used nicely by designers for showing larger images of past projects, but I have a feeling internet marketers will use them to get past pop-up blockers.

26: Transparent Messages are great for displaying little confirmation notices without loading a new page.

27: Grey Box is an Ajax pop-up window that lets you display content, including other sites, beautifully.

There you go. More than twenty-seven resources to make your Web 2.0 transition easier!

Now for the fun stuff:

2 Resources That Didn’t Make The Cut

28: Web 2.0 Button is another button generator with various backgrounds that will make for a great Web 1.0 logo that everyone will laugh at.

29: Hot Shadow can create a custom Google search engine with a logo, but you can also just use it for creating text effects. Or will you be the next Google?

And here’s some further reading for those of you willing to put in a little elbow grease:

Further Research

Mini Ajax
A collection of all kinds of neat Ajax tools to do just about anything, from file uploads to website heat maps.

Web 2.0 Header Tutorial
Making your own header, including a logo and navigation bar.

Web 2.0 Logo Tutorial 1 and Tutorial 2
Doing your own logo.

Mashable
The source for anything web 2.0

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I’ve mentioned a few things about social bookmarking before, from putting buttons on your blog to some social bookmark submission software, but never written specifically about a service called OnlyWire.

I would go as far as to say that OnlyWire is the best social bookmarking site there is, and get this - it does not store your bookmarks and it doesn’t let you socialize!

But it does something even better…

It allows you to submit your bookmarks to 19 real social bookmarking websites with just one click. (Well I guess it’s two clicks because you have to confirm the submission, but that’s a lot faster than submitting to sites individually!)

It works like this:

1. You sign-up at OnlyWire.com
2. You fill out your profile with login details for your various accounts for the other social bookmarking sites.
3. Drag the OnlyWire submission button onto your bookmarks toolbar.
4. Then just start using the OnlyWire button instead of individual buttons.

Like magic - your bookmarking becomes 19 times faster!

That one click will submit the page to Backflip, Bibsonomy, Blinklist, Blogmemes, Blue Dot, de.lirio.us, del.icio.us, Diigo, Furl, Jots, LinkRoll, LookLater, ma.gnolia, Markaboo, Rawsugar, Shadows, Simpy, Spurl, and Wink.

At each submission, you can pick out the title and tags, and you can choose which services you’d like to use (just in case you don’t want the bookmark listed on every single account.)

Like I said, it’s fast and easy and great. The only complaint I’ve heard is that it’s not natural to have your site bookmarked at all these sites under the same title (i.e. anchor text.) I don’t really see a problem with that though, because the title field defaults to the page title of the web page, and I imagine that most people just use that default title. So it actually would be natural to have a lot of social bookmarks under the same anchor text.

But if you don’t like it, whatever. It works for me

[This post originally appeared at InternetMarketingSucks.com]

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Now that StumbleUpon has been acquired by eBay for something like $75 million, I was expecting to see quite a few knock-off websites vying to be the next StumbleUpon. But for some reason, I haven’t seen much of anything. (Which is a surprise when you look at the number of Myspace and Youtube clones.)

But I did stumble upon (pun intended) a site called SiteShuffle.

The SiteShuffle homepage states:

SiteShuffle is the NEW Web application that turns your HOMEPAGE into a WEBSITE PLAYER, and gives you the ability to FF or REW through a LINKLIST of your favorite WEBSITES.

PLUS, get automated RECOMMENDATIONS for other sites, based on your similarity to other users in the SiteShuffle system.

Sounds like fun. And quite similar to StumbleUpon, if you think about the recommendation part. It even has a toolbar and a button, just like SU.

The button is just like any other button, like the ones I have in the sidebar on this blog like “Add to Technorati.” SiteShuffle says it is the only “dark and dangerous” button, but I’m not sure where they came up with that. Must be part of their branding…

As for the toolbar, it looks like you could use SiteShuffle without it, whereas StumbleUpon really requires the toolbar for it to be worthwhile. The SS toolbar will help you add URLs to your shuffle list, but mainly I see it as a way for them to keep SiteShuffle fresh in your mind. I guess the fact that you can see your own list or search for something just from the sites in your list is useful (but not totally necessary, especially if you already have 5 toolbars in your browser.)

The site looked promising enough, at least as far as promoting my site to other people, so I went ahead and signed-up.

I started by adding some of my favorite sites to my list. Now when I get to my SS homepage, I can easily FF or REW through my list (using neat buttons) just like they promised. When I get to one I like, I just click its title or the launch button.

(Click the thumbnail to see a larger version of my homepage.)

And that is what SiteShuffle boils down to. It’s not bad, but it’s not that intuitive.

For example, I still don’t know how to get my recommended sites. I keep searching their site and still can’t figure it out. All it says is “add sites to your list and we’ll give you recommendations based on what other people like.” That would be great if it gave me any recommendations!!

Perhaps no one else has listed webmaster sites like Digitalpoint and DoshDosh? Am I the only internet marketer on there?

SiteShuffle has been around well over a year now and I don’t have a clue what their user base is, but the site has a PR6 right now despite an Alexa rank of about 1,225,000. Perhaps if there were more webmasters, the Alexa rank would be better, because webmasters are more likely to have the Alexa toolbar installed. Anyway, back to business…

SiteShuffle does offer an API, which could be a big part of their future success. If people build add-ons or integrate it into their own sites, it will increase SS’s competitive advantage to help ward off future competitors. Kind of like how the Facebook platform is making headlines right now.

Last but not least, the affiliate program. Just what I was hoping for!

Actually, I had no clue how they could work an affiliate program into this type of service, but they did it, and they did it in a very smart way. If someone signs-up through your referral link, your site is automatically added to their SiteShuffle list! Nice and sneaky!

It looks like you don’t even have to be a member of SiteShuffle either. Hell, you could hate SiteShuffle, but display their banner just to market your website!

That’s smart because a) they are making it very simple for you to promote their website, and b) they are providing you an incentive by letting you promote your site at the same time!

Overall I think SiteShuffle is a decent site, although it leans more towards social bookmarking than website sharing (which is what made StumbleUpon so great.) Maybe SiteShuffle is actually a Del.icio.us competitor.

I bet we could call it stum.blicio.us instead!

Now go ahead and sign-up for SiteShuffle by clicking here.

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Catchy title, huh? Everyone wants to possibly save time and increase traffic

What we’re looking at is a new piece of software called Web2Submitter, and it helps automate the process of submitting your web pages to social bookmarking services. It’s common knowledge to most webmasters that they can get traffic by submitting their sites to these sites like Digg, Del.icio.us, and Reddit.

I didn’t think it took very long to do so, but maybe it takes a long time for some people, and that’s why this software came out. I can only poke fun at it in a few ways, as it might be a handy tool for some people. And unfortunately, the sales page doesn’t make totally outrageous claims that you’ll get rich overnight by using this software!

However, I picked out a few good tidbits from the sales page audio!

The first one was that this software is “not a spam tool.” It’s not a spam tool just like Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird, or another email client is not a spam tool. Unfortunately, unscrupulous people can easily use it to spam! This might not be the worst form of spamming, but it’s a nuisance. It will just lead to more spam on all the bookmarking sites, like I mentioned when I wrote about the crap that is submitted on StumbleUpon.

Next they say that “not many internet marketers are using these methods.” I beg to differ! Almost every blog i read these days has rows upon rows of social bookmarking buttons. There are Wordpress plugins that do this easily, along with a “Digg This” plugin for Digg submissions. All you have to do is click those buttons for easy submission to each bookmarking site. Or better yet, just let your readers submit for you!

I don’t have much else to complain about though. I guess the good thing is, it’s not some get rich quick scheme. It could be used legitimately, like one of those semi-automated tools for article submission. So it might save you some time. If that’s worth $47, then go for it.

It doesn’t make any real claims other than saving time and getting some links to your site. It’s assuming you’re taking the long way to submit your sites to these Web 2.0 places by logging-in and all that. I just use the buttons that i already have on my websites, so for me, it wouldn’t save that much time. I don’t spend 7-8 hours per week doing this already, but if you do, you have two options:

1) add the buttons to your site and submit via those (or just wait for your visitors to do it for you, which is what i prefer to do - and it takes no time on my part!)

2) buy this software and try it out; hopefully it saves you time.

If it sounds like the tool for you, here’s the link: Web2Submitter

If not, no big deal. I’m happy I read the sales letter because I learned about Only Wire, a free social bookmark submission service. It submits your page to 19 social bookmarking sites at once, saving you plenty of time.

Note: The Web2submitter link is an affiliate link. Why? Because I figured it’s possible to use this without spamming, and it’s only a time-saving software tool to help automate something you should do anyway. I don’t use this personally, so I don’t know if it’s any good or not, so it’s not actually a recommendation to purchase. But, the sales page gives you a demo so it’s no secret what you’re getting. And if you’re not satisfied, you can ask for a refund. If they don’t give you one, go straight to ClickBank and they’ll get the refund for you. And c’mon, I’d like to make a little extra spending money for myself! Wouldn’t you do the same thing?

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