The RSS Education Center is designed to teach the intricacies of RSS feeds and podcasting, in simple and easy-to-understand terms. NotePage, Inc. has always been proactive about RSS education, and assembling these resources in an easy-to-use learning center made sense to further the adoption of RSS and Podcasting. The resource is freely available to all, and can be accessed at RSS Education Center

Getting setup on Twitter is not terribly difficult. There is a slight learning curve in regard to Twitters culture and tweeting practices, so it is a good idea to monitor the posts for a few days before you jump in and begin tweeting, just to get a feel for the community.

How to Twitter

When using SQL2RSS the publisher has complete control over the content in the resulting RSS feed. Administrators and publishers control the database query which allows them the flexibility to determine what data is inserted into the RSS feeds from the database.

The SQL2RSS script allows users to easily convert information that is stored in a database into an RSS feed, for syndication and distribution.

More on SQL2RSS

Read More: Instant Banner Maker

When using RSS2SQL script the publisher has complete control over the content in the resulting database. Administrators and publishers control which RSS feed fields are used in the database, giving them the flexibility to determine what data is inserted into the database.

Heat map of MasterNewMedia homepage created with Feng-GUI

Website usability testing is indeed a critical component of any effective online publishing strategy. When properly utilized, usability testing allows you to effectively scan and rapidly identify which are the critical issues to be addressed in your web publication that can improve legibility, the time visitors spend on your website or the ability to turn offers for products and services into actual conversions.

In fact, what’s the point of having valuable content under your hood if your readers cannot easily discover it, share it and put it to effective use?

To be of immediate “use“, let me share first with you a simple set of basic tasks you can follow to start testing and reviewing the usability of your own website:

1. Identify a critical goal: Likely, you have multiple goals for your website. The first step is to focus on the most critical. Is it sales? Is it traffic? Is it help people find something?
2. Use Personas: Create typical users profiles to best focus on potential needs and expectations of a fictional target group. Is your website addressed to experts in the filed or to a general audience? Do you want to attract loyal readers or occasional stumblers? Which age / sex / location are your users?
3. Carry on critical tasks: After identifying your goals and creating typical users profiles (Personas), you want some friends, readers or volunteers, to carry on critical tasks on your website to identify areas for improvement and weaknesses. Is the sale process straightforward? Can people download your content easily? Are your blog posts easily shareable on social media?
4. Collect the data: While your users go through a set of pre-determined tasks and perform specific actions on your website, you need to closely observe and report where they hesitate, step back, or remain confused by what they see on your site. Better yet, you can use a dedicated usability tool that collects absolute or relative data that can help you characterize the behavior of your testers.
5. Review your analysis: Once you gather this data, you need to group it in clear-labeled groups (i.e. navigation, layout, functional flow, error handling, etc.), so that you can easily review and analyze all of this information and then find the ideal strategy to make your improvements.

Now that you know what are the key steps needed to start a website usability test, what you really need is knowing which tools or services are available out there that you can immediately put to use to support, speed up and professionally organize those very tasks.

But how can you identify and select which is the most appropriate website usability testing tool for your specific needs, competence level and budget?

To help you get started right away, this guide provides you with a set of individual reviews, a comparative table and a comprehensive mindmap to help you select your ideal free website usability testing tool.

Please note that these free usability testing tools have a limited range of features. For example, they do not allow you to record the screen of your testers or engage them in screen-sharing sessions unlike professional usability testing solutions like TechSmith Morae, which will be covered in a separate upcoming MasterNewMedia guide.

Now that I have warned you about the limitations of these free website usability testing tools, here below are the specific selection criteria that I have used to compare these different services:

• Testing approach: a) Test the usability of your website by inviting specific users to share their feedback, b) analyze analytic and statistical data.
• Analytics: Generate automatic analytical data from each website usability testing tool to evaluate the the quality of your website design and user interface.
• Visualization of user behavior: Visualize the behavior of your visitors by analyzing where they click or look (via mouse tracking) on your website and which path they follow to carry on specific tasks.
• Usability report: Generate a comprehensive report that contains all the analytical data gathered by the usability test.

Free Website Usability Testing Tools - Comparative Tables

*Google Website Optimizer, Google Analytics and Yahoo! Web Analytics are not proper website usability testing tools. However, I decided to include also these tools in my comparison because you can use them for free and gather valuable insights on your user behavior.

Free Website Usability Testing Tools

1. Usabilla

   

   Usabilla is a free usability testing tool that helps you analyze and improve the design of your website, mockup, sketch or image. With Usabilla you can track and visualize users clicks and also perform qualitative analysis asking single users specific questions like: “Which element of this page attracts you the most?“. Throughout the whole process, your users can provide you written feedback on specific content components they find ambiguous or difficult to utilize. At the end of the test, you get a detailed report which collects all the data and insights gathered. Usabilla is available in 16 different languages.
   
   http://usabilla.com/

2. Loop11

   

   Loop11 is a usability testing tool that involves actual users to analyze and review your website. Loop11 is free for one website usability test; you just need to provide a simple task to a user and then let Loop11 start tracking and visualizing user interaction. At the end of the usability testing session, you can access comprehensive reports that show task completion rate, time spent on each task, common fail pages, paths and a detailed analysis displaying the path followed by the user.
   
   http://www.loop11.com/

3. Fivesecondstest

   

   Fivesecondstest is a free tool to run usability tests on your website so that you can identify design ambiguities or interface issues. You can upload a screenshot of your web pages and then ask users which part of your design they liked most or ask them to click on specific parts of your design and share their feedback. You can either rely on invited guests or make your design public for random user evaluation. Once you get you are finished with your usability test, you get a detailed report to review the results. No live annotation.
   
   http://fivesecondtest.com/

4. Google Analytics

   

   Google Analytics is a free web analytics solution that you can also use to test the usability of your website. By gaining automated insights and data about your users and their browsing behavior you can generate custom reports that will help you evaluate if your website is really useful and easy to navigate. You can even enhance all data charts and graphs on Google Analytics by using written notes that will help you focusing on specific items or sets of data. Google Analytics requires a Google account.
   
   http://www.google.com/analytics/

5. Google Website Optimizer

   

   Google Website Optimizer is a free website testing and optimization tool that can help you improve the design and usability of your site. Google Website Optimizer can help you compare and test different website layouts by showing each one to a separate group of visitors. This way, you can analyze which design and specific elements inside your pages lead to higher conversion rates and need to be improved. Google Website Optimizer requires you to sign-up for a Google account. No analytics.
   
   http://www.google.com/websiteoptimizer/

6. Yahoo! Web Analytics

   

   Yahoo! Web Analytics is a free online analytics service that you can also use for website usability testing purposes. With Yahoo! Web Analytics you can gather insights on the demographics of your users and their interests, and then leverage this data to improve the design and interface of your website. You can also measure website conversions by visualizing users behavior on specific actions performed on your web pages and then generate custom reports to collect and review the data. Interactive notes can also be added to your graphs and statistics. The service requires a Yahoo! account.
   
   http://web.analytics.yahoo.com/

Originally prepared by Daniele Bazzano for MasterNewMedia, and first published on March 8th, 2010 as “Website Usability Testing: Guide To The Best Free Tools And Services“.

From the BlogCatalog Community Blog

This week LotusB has shared some great information about Twitter and WordPress with us. Cheryl enlisted the help of Joel Williams from Blog Tech Guy to give us some information on what a splog is and if bloggers should be worried about them. If you happened to miss these posts, here’s your chance to check them out.

Twitter: A Blogger’s Best Friend
10 great twitter apps that bloggers can use to promote their sites.

Splogs: What are they and should I be worried?
Fin out what in the heck a splog is and if bloggers should be worried about them.

WordPress Gives Blogs A “Push”
Find out about WordPress’s new PuSH service and how to use it.

Our Recent Favs

Google Buzz: Twitter Killer?
By qwerty2k
In the face of it Google Buzz should be a Twitter ‘killer’ for the want of a better term, it has the IT behemoth that is Google behind it which in itself gives the service wide coverage and credibility right off the bat. It has a more advanced featureset than that of twitter, supporting threaded conversations, instant updating so need to refresh, pictures and video embedded into the posts rather than having to use 3rd party sites such as twitpic.
Continue reading at http://techandcover.com…

Come For The Creepy Porn, Stay For The Conversation
By Stuart Foster
Seen any malicious links lately? Been surprised when you click and are brought to CNN or NY Times?
In case you’re wondering, no, your Norton Anti-Virus software didn’t just become self-aware. You’ve probably just stumbled upon the beauty and genius that is ShadyURL.
ShadyURL takes your nice, happy url and turns it into something like this: http://5z8.info/peepshow_s2c6c_how2pipebomb. (Ha, I wouldn’t feel comfortable clicking that either.)
Continue reading at http://thelostjacket.com…

What Makes A Blog Compelling
By LIz Strauss
It’s a favorite question. Getting people to come and stay is what I do, and talking about it is almost as much fun. I might have said it in a slightly more corporate way, but what I answered was basically this.
Humanity is what’s compelling. We’re all hungry for a connection that makes us feel real. Quality content that serves real human needs served up by a real human being is the combination of three things: head, heart, and practical meaning. Put them together and a blog — or rather one who writes it — can make a reader feel inspired, moved to action, and wholly alive.
Continue reading at  http://successful-blog.com…

Getting to Know You

BC Username: legbamel
Blog Title: The Not-Pop Jukebox
My Blog is About: I blog the fantastic and obscure music to which I listen every day.
My hero is: David Dye, who gets to combine his love of music with interviewing and listening to lesser-known and indie artists from across the musical spectrum.
If I could start another profession right now I’d be: …a radio DJ or I’d have sponsors for my blog and create a radio show to go on it every day.
On a lazy day: Of course, I listen to music on my lazy days. I also read, write, and play with my family and pets

Kevin Weil, a member of Twitters analytics team, said in a blog post that Twitter users were writing 5,000 tweets per day in 2007, 300,000 per day in 2008 and 2.5 million per day in 2009.

Mostly everyone in the Blog Catalog community is aware of the basic rules of blogging; hosts, tags, comment management, etc.  Bloggers also know that the lifeline of their blog is the Really Simple Syndication (RSS) tool.  It’s what pumps our magical thoughts out into the world for hungry readers to grab and devour.  But until recently, RSS could take up to several hours to actually update its feed, which would put bloggers who may want to capitalize on “hot right now” topics behind.  Enter PuSH, or to use it’s given name (and my personal favorite) PubSubHubub.

What is PuSH?

PuSH is being introduced by none other than blogger favorite, Wordpress.  The Los Angeles Times reports that this new tool will virtually “push” updates to RSS readers in real time, making new posts immediately available for readers to access content through feeds.  This tool will not change the way readers who access blogs by going to their actual site are able to receive updates. Posts to blog sites will be available in real-time as they always have.

This tool comes on the tail end of the social networking wave which has boosted access to new content, and created a hunger for instant updates.  Sites like Twitter enable links, videos, pictures and of course, random ramblings to be sent and viewed within seconds.  Now that same concept is available for the blogging world.

How to use the new service

For bloggers using Wordpress.com, there’s nothing to do!  The service was live March 3rd and it’s in working order behind the scenes.  For those who use Wordpress.org, you can download the PuSH plugin from the Wordpress.org directory or by clicking here.  You can also find more information about PubSubHubub at Google.

Those of you who use other blog hosting sites, this might be a good time to look into switching over.  Of course Blogspot isn’t usually too far behind with updates and new inventions so keep checking!

Personally, I can’t wait to get my blog post out this week on Blambloozers to see how it will effect my stats.  PuSH is definitely one small step for Wordpress and one giant leap for our bloggy little world.  What are your thoughts on the new update?

For more ramblings from Lotus B. check out Blambloozers @ www.blambloozers.wordpress.com

Photo credit: Kheng Guan Toh

Disruptive innovation is a term used in business and technology literature to describe innovations that improve a product or service in ways that the market does not expect, typically by being lower priced or designed for a different set of consumers. (Source: Wikipedia)

Disruptive innovation happens when a breakthrough development opens new and unexpected scenarios for future development and / or improves an existing product.

Scott Anthony, author of the book The Innovator’s Guide to Growth, points out that is not necessarily a new technology that drives disruptive innovation: “many times the technology is quite trivial. It is the business model, the way a company organizes and acts that drives disruption“.

To support this statement, Scott provides two examples. Walmart and the Nintendo Wii:

• When Walmart opened its first discount retailer in 1962, it was not doing something special by selling goods that were different than its competitors. What Walmart did instead, was to revolutionize its business policy by focusing on very low prices and on discount retailing.
• Instead of introducing games with better graphics, Nintendo has made it simpler and more accessible to play a videogame by introducing the Wiimote, an innovative game controller. Nintendo has consciously tried to target the non-gamers, and by doing so, it has greatly expanded the market for videogames and started to lead the future path of the gaming industry.

In both these examples, technology is either not relevant or very marginal to create disruption, whereas is the ability to solve real problems or to address new audiences the key to create effective disruptive innovation opportunities.

In fact, for Scott disruptive innovation generally occurs in those markets where some kind of constraints inhibit developments, and when specific needs of customers are not properly addressed. When such barriers to consumption are torn down, you are effectively creating space for disruption to take place.

If you want to know how you can facilitate, identify and enable disruptive innovation inside your organization, you will hear about some interesting and inspiring stories in this video interview with Scott Anthony himself.

Here is what he had to say (full video and transcription):

How To Spot Disruptive Innovation Opportunities

Duration: 8′ 32”

Full English Text Transcription

Paul Michelman: Hello I am Paul Michalman, director of content for HarvardBusiness.org and we are joined today by Scott Anthony.

First off: What is disruptive innovation?

Scott Anthony: Disruptive innovation is a particular type of innovation that occurs when an innovator brings to a market an innovation that is:

• Simple,
• convenient,
• accessible,
• affordable.

Changing the game. Contrast this to sustaining innovations. Innovations that take what exists and make it better.

A disruptive innovator transforms existing markets and creates new ones by playing the innovation game in a fundamentally different way.

Paul Michelman: Does disruptive innovation have to be big? Does it have to be a major change in the landscape?

Scott Anthony: Disruptive innovations will result in major changes, but they do not often rely on technological breakthroughs.

In fact, many times the technology is quite trivial. It is the business model, the way a company organizes and acts that drives disruption. Think about discount retailing for a minute.

When Walmart opens its first discount retailer in 1962, it is not selling goods that are different than its competitors. But what it has done is it has created a new way to organize an act, that allows to make money at low price points, drives change in that organization.

Oftentimes it is not the technology, it is the business model.

Paul Michelman: OK, can you give us another example that shows the difference between disruption and sustaining innovation?

Scott Anthony: There are dozens of examples throughout history of this pattern taking place. Whether it is the personal computer, Google’s auction model, eBay’s online model, what P&G has done with Swiffer and Febreze… but a real interesting recent one is from the videogame industry.

Contrast the Sony Playstation 3 to Nintendo’s Wii product.

The Playstation 3 is a technological marvel. The best gameplay you can find, great graphics, Blu-Ray disc in the player. It is aimed at the hardcore gamer, the most demanding consumer in the market.

Nintendo has innovated in a very different way. Instead of introducing games with better graphics, Nintendo has made it simpler, made it more accessible.

The big innovation is the controller. I actually happen to bring my Wii controller with me because I am a pretty big fan. This controller has an accelerometer in it, which allows it to measure motion along multiple dimensions. If you want to play baseball, you pick it up and you go like this. You want to bowl? you go like this.

Nintendo is consciously trying to target the non-gamers. And by doing so, it has greatly expanded the market for videogames, by reaching people that Sony would not even think about targeting.

Not winning by doing it better, but winning by doing it differently.

Paul Michelman: Who is responsible for coming up with disruptive innovation ideas and should companies have a disruptive innovations department?

Scott Anthony: We really think everyone within an organization has the ability to come up with disruptive ideas.

To work inside an organization, senior management does really have to lead and create appropriate organizational space for disruption to flourish, because if there is not that space, corporate antibodies will take even the best idea and force it to look like what has been done before.

You do need to have simulators to create space for disruption, but really any innovator inside the company and outside the company can come up with a spark that turns into a disruptive idea.

Paul Michelman: Help us get our minds really around the “how-tos” here. How does a manager starts thinking about disruptive innovation? What are the questions he or she should be asking?

Scott Anthony: There are a couple of questions that we found to be really helpful to begin to identify opportunities for disruptive innovation.

1. Look for markets where there is some kind of constrain that inhibits consumption. Where is there something that makes it difficult for people to solve problems in their lives? Sometimes they do not have skills, sometimes they do not have money, sometimes they cannot access the solution and sometimes it just takes too long. Find one of those barriers to consumption and see how you can obliterate it.
2. Try to identify where people have important unsatisfied jobs to be done. Where is there a problem that a costumer faces that they cannot adequately solve today? If you can find that frustrated costumer and ease their pain, you oftentimes have the tickets to disruptive innovation.
3. Then after you have looked for constrained consumption and targeted that job to be done, think about how you can play the innovation game differently.

Remember it is not about doing it better. It is about making it simpler, cheaper, more accessible, more affordable. That is what disruption is all about.

Paul Michelman: Do you always have to satisfy a need or can part of this be creating a need? Because I do not see the Wii satisfying a hole in the market.

Scott Anthony: It is a really good question.

You do not oftentimes have to be able to target something that a costumer tells you they want. In fact, the costumers can very rarely articulate these specific things they want or need.

What the Wii does is make it so much more accessible and so much more affordable for people to enjoy videogaming, that the market begins to expand.

Sometimes you cannot even talk to the customer. You have got to trust your intuition and judgement, put something in the marketplace and begin to see how it plays out. This can be a very scary concept for managers who are hone to rely on data.

Data unfortunately only exists about the past . Sometimes you need to use intuition to identify an opportunity and go create your own data.

Paul Michelman: OK, we have established the planes you should be thinking on. Now let’s look at how we, within our organizations, uncover these jobs that need to be done, these opportunities.

Can you walk us through some of the areas we should look at for the biggest opportunities?

Scott Anthony: There are a couple of tips that I can provide to help people get this right.

1. The first is to think about the markets that they are going to analyze.

   Looking not necessarily at the most demanding customer today, but thinking about people who are relatively undemanding, or people who are not consuming anything at all. Look to those markets to begin the exploration for disruption.

2. Then, as you begin that exploration, use a bunch of different techniques to understand those pinpoints in the market. Focused groups can be a simple way to begin a conversation with your customers.

Customer observation can be really powerful, because sometimes the customers simply cannot tell what they want.

Sometimes you have got to give customers something. A very early prototype and let them co-develop the product or service with you.

Sometimes you have got a more detailed, qualitative research to really pinpoint what are the points of frustration in the market and where there are opportunities to do things differently.

The key is always put in the customer and their problem at the center of the innovation equation.

Paul Michelman: Do you always have to be daring to be successful in disruptive innovation?

Scott Anthony: It is a really good question.

A lot of times organizations hesitate to push for disruptive innovation, because it sounds kind of scary. They think they have got to invest hundreds of millions of dollars. There is lots of risk. They might rip their organization apart.

But what we found is that the best way to get to a disruptive end point, is to get a simple small first step. Invest a little, learn a lot. Do not spend a huge amount of money upfront, because the only thing you can be sure, is that your first strategy is wrong.

If you invest too much too soon, you are locking into a path that is fatally flawed.

In fact you can move forward in ways that do not require huge amounts of money, that do not require huge amounts of risk, and then iterate your way toward success.

Paul Michelman: Scott Anthony. Thank you very much.

For more on Scott’s ideas on innovation visit his blog on innovation insights at HarvardBusiness.org.

Related Resources on Disruptive Innovation:

• Disruptive innovation
• Predicting the next disruptive innovation
• Disruptive innovation can lead to new ways of thinking
• Prof. Clayton M. Christensen interviewed by Howard Dresner

Original video interview by Paul Michelman for HarvardBusiness.org and first published on October 20th, 2008 as “How To Spot Disruptive Innovation Opportunities“.

About Scott Anthony

Scott Anthony is currently president of Innosight. In the past he has worked with Fortune 500 and is now a member of the board of directors of Media General. Scott is also the co-author (with Harvard Professor Clayton Christensen) of Seeing What’s Next: Using the Theories of Innovation to Predict Industry Change and he is the lead author of The Innovator’s Guide to Growth: Putting Disruptive Innovation to Work.

About Paul Michelman

As director of content for HarvardBusiness.org, Paul Michelman manages the original content of the web site, including its blog network. He is the executive producer and host of the HarvardBusiness IdeaCast, and a frequent contributor to HarvardBusiness.org’s Conversation Starter blog. Paul was formerly director of programming and production for Captivate Network.

Joel Williams, the Blog Tech Guy, joins us this week to help us understand splogs and why we should worry about them.

Lately, I’ve been receiving multiple trackbacks from the same ISP.  Different blog post titles, but all pointing to one of my popular blog posts.  I became suspicious and contacted Joel to find out what to do.

Splogs – What are they and should I be worried?

by Joel Williams

What is a splog?
Splogs – meaning spam blogs – come in a few flavors, but have the same goal of making easy money. The most common are “scraper sites” where they take content without permission from other blogs and repost them on their own site, essentially competing with your own exact post by way of copyright theft.

Often, they have adverts on in order to create ad revenue for them. They can also use these posts to gain better ranking for the splog by linking back to their “real” sites to help build valuable backlinks to the sploggers main site(s).

The ease of RSS feeds can make this system highly automated with software searching for selected relevant keywords in thousands of feeds and scraping this content onto their own site as if it is their own.

In 2007, it was reported that 56% of all blogs are splogs. Though the number varies wildly by source (and are often estimates), apparently on Blogger as many as 70% of blogs may be splogs.

I’ve been splogged! Is this a compliment?

You could look at it that way! On one hand the splogger (or the splogger’s software) has deemed your article useful and relevant enough to include on their own site. So congrats, you’re writing stuff people might want to read!

On the other hand it may be taking traffic and revenue away from your own site.

Does it matter if it’s a splog? I get a backlink, right?
Often not, if the article is completely devoid of accreditation and links. Sometimes I only notice these due to my Google Alerts notifying me. Often though, you do get a backlink, and even for a time this may be worthwhile.

Usually due to the number of links on these sites and articles which are available elsewhere, search engines catch on very quickly and will devalue the ranking of that site.  Often, splogs are set up on expired domain names that still have search engine ranking.

The splog may be appearing before your own post on search results pages and depriving you of traffic (and potentially revenue).

How do I know if I’m on a SPAM site?

• Usually, the first notification you get is a trackback from the splog telling you your post has been mentioned on a blog. The easiest thing in the world is just to ignore it, if it looks like a strange splog, but it could also be from a genuine site.
• Does the article contain any commentary text before your content?
• Is the full text of the article shown?
• Is there any accreditation to you or your site?
• Are all the other posts on the site taken from other sites too or are there original articles on there?

Ways to reduce the impact of splogs
There are a few things that you can do to reduce the impact of splogs, though it depends on how bothered you are by them. While none of the below is in any way legal advice (you should get some professional qualified advice if concerned) some suggestions are:

- Publish a Summary RSS feed rather than Full Text. In WordPress this is easy under Settings > Reading, and a splog site will not pull the full article if it is scraping your RSS feed. However, it will also affect genuine RSS readers who may prefer the full text version.

- Install the RSS Footer plugin. Here you can add a copyright notice to your footer, or even a message stating that if this message is seen on another website it may be stolen. It will also appear to normal RSS readers so be careful with your wording.

- Set up a Google Alert for your RSS Footer message so in the event that the links are stripped off your post and you don’t receive a trackback, you will still be alerted.

- Send a cease and desist letter to the owner of the website (check WHOIS) and you can also copy in the web host and domain name registrar.

- You can also file Digital Millennium Copyright Act notices with the major search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing.

Next time you see that strange trackback in your blog, don’t ignore it, it could be a splog costing you money.

Joel Williams runs Blog Tech Guy and is a blog technical guru, particularly in setting up, customizing, maintaining, fixing, managing and promoting WordPress blogs. He also trains people on how to earn an income blogging and selling products online.

My name is Cheryl Ragsdale. For more blogging tips from expert bloggers, visit my blogging tips page or catch up with my mad adventures in my efforts to live a healthy, juicy life.  Drop by and say hello! You can find me here at ThatGirlisFunny.

photo credit splogspot

It must be a year of new beginnings, because my life is currently filled with people who are either getting married or having babies. I’m doing neither (already married, don’t want babies), but nonetheless I am often asked about what’s hot for bridal wear or where one can shop for stylish maternity fashion. Honestly, I don’t know the answers. So I turn to talented bloggers to clue me in so I can be a source of information for my friends. Here’s what I found out.

Bridal Fashion
From Romantic Wedding Dresses to hair accessories to cake toppers to bouquets, Beautiful Bridal offers so many ideas and tips to keep you inspired and on-trend. The author, Kathy, has years of experience in the bridal industry so readers receive keen insight into what is guaranteed to be a most memorable event.

Meanwhile at Wedding Gown Town, view gorgeous photos of haute wedding dresses. Even if these gowns fall outside of your budget, they will certainly give you grand ideas. I especially adored the post on wedding dresses from Carolina Herrera.

[Image from Wedding Gown Town.]

Maternity Fashion
Speaking of Bridal Fashion, did you know they make bridal maternity dresses? According to the blog Maternity Clothes, they do. In fact, at Maternity Clothes, you can also find out about formal maternity dresses and maternity clothes that the celebrities wear.

At What Clothes to Wear, Blog Catalog member andrewmcd blogs about Five Maternity Clothing Ranges for Spring Summer 2010. But my favorite has to be Stella Maternity News, where you can not only find out the hot trends on maternity wear, you can also find baby shoe recommendations and cool diaper bags for dads. This blog is for the hipster mom for sure.

[Image from Stella Maternity News.]