The Network

The NTugo Network now has a better caching mechanism, offering better performance and more flexibility in display. Network Blogs and NTugo Blogs are parsed and their headlines dumped into the database, to be displayed in their usual places. They are joined in the NT Network by Syndicated Blogs, sites that haven’t formally joined the NTugo Network, but were hand-picked by our staff to be included in some of our locations. The Syndicated Blogs are designated a lower priority and don’t show up in as many places, but are used to round-out some areas.

The Blogs

The NTugo Blogs have all been redesigned, and now have a common theme. The new designs are cleaner and less busy. They’re based off the same root design, but each has it’s own unique twist.

The home pages of each blog now display posts from the NTugo Network (NT Blogs, Network Blogs, and Syndicated Blogs) that are in the same category.

Authors now get 100% AdSense revenue from the posts they write, if they add their Publisher ID to their profile. If you’re a decent writer, and have experience blogging, feel free to submit an application. You’ll also get a link back to your website in the brief bio at the bottom, so here’s a good chance to promote your blog a little, and maybe make a little ad revenue. A quick post every week or two couldn’t hurt.

Go explore, see it all for yourself.

Okay, okay. Part of the reason is because the NTugo Blogs aren’t updated as often as they could be, due to lack of frequent writers, and time constraints on my part. Meanwhile we have a growing network of quality blogs that could use some more exposure. It just seemed like the space on the homepage could be better utilized this way, by combining the NT Blogs with the Network.

Partly built to search through the entire NTugo Network, the search engine is a “mashup search” that works well for everyday searching as well. Not just an ordinary search engine, it shows thumbnails of the pages alongside their entries in the results, as well as some extra results off to the side (news, videos, and books, at present).

The changes have increased performance, helping you get faster loading times, and have made things a little more secure.

If you notice any bugs (which may have been caused due to the switch), please leave a comment.

Really, you need a way to organize web apps, and other sites you use frequently, into a central place where you can easily jump to the sites/apps you need. That’s what the NTugo Webtop is for.

Just make the webtop your home page and you have easy access to your web apps, and other sites. Like with MyNT, your webtop has a special URL (http://www.ntugo.com/webtop/you.html) for instant access without logging in.

Currently, features include

• Icons for quick access to any online email service.
• An “IM” icon (which currently leads to Meebo.com).
• Easy access to Google Docs.
• A window showing your most recent Del.icio.us bookmarks, and a search field.
• An “RSS Reader” icon for checking MyNT, or other RSS readers.
• Quick Google searches.
• A menu containing up to 10 frequently-used links.
• Customizable Webtop-Wallpaper.
• “Home Window” with news items (General, Tech, NTugo Network, and Custom).

Try it out. Visit www.ntugo.com/webtop/ for the sample webtop. Log in with your NTugo Account and you can view/customize the page (and get the URL for your personal webtop page).

If you have any ideas for new features, or improvements, leave a comment or send-off an email.

TubeLog brings you the best of YouTube, or it will anyway, once we get some more posts added.

Do you have an AdSense account? Now our bloggers (apply if you like writing) can enter their publisher IDs in their blog accounts, and make 50% of the ad revenue on the posts they write. We show your ads half of the time, and ours the other half. We figured that it was a good idea to give something back to our writers.

By now, you’ve probably heard of the NTugo Network. If you’re blog is accepted, a link to your blog and RSS feed will be added to the network page (which all network memebers are required to link to), excerpts of your blog’s recent posts will be featured on the network page, and headlines on the NTugo homepage. We’re even working on a Wordpress plugin that shows the Network headlines on your blog sidebar.

The ‘Network may not give you a “rush of traffic” (which BlogRush promised, and didn’t deliver), but it can benefit your blog in numerous ways.

Head over and take a look at it live!

You may be wondering why all of the blogs are being redesigned. There are two reasons.

1. We’ve been planning to give each blog a unique design from the start.
2. Having different themes will allow us to implement an interesting new feature for the benefit of our bloggers.