RCRD LBL is a network of ad supported online record labels and blogs offering completely free music and multimedia content from emerging and established artists. All music on the site is free and legally available for downloading when offered. In a nut shell the site is dedicated to legally discovering and sharing music.

All the music they release is offered in DRM-free MP3 format and will work on any personal computer or portable digital music player. Some tracks are offered in an additional format -- enhanced AAC -- which has extra features which are only compatible with iPods and iTunes, but MP3 versions are always available.

You can download and enjoy any music that RCRD LBL post on the site, provided it is being used for personal, non-commercial use. You can do things like make copies of the tracks and put them on all of your music-playing devices, burn them on to mix CDs for your friends, even use them in videos you make, as long as you're only doing these things for strictly noncommercial purposes.

RCRD LBL offer widgets for all of the music on the site, so if you want to post a track on your blog, grab the widget for that track. The artists still get paid, and you save on bandwidth.

Widgets are embeddable mini-applications that perform specific functions. RCRD LBL widgets allow you to stream music, view photos and videos and receive tour and news updates from your favorite bands and labels. It's super easy to download them from RCRD LBL and pass them along to your friends. And every time new content is added to the widgets on the site, it will be added to the widgets you have downloaded and embedded automatically. Pretty sweet, yes?

To grab a widget for Mac OS X Dashboard or iGoogle: Click on the "grab this" button on the lower right corner, pick your app (iGoogle, OS X Dashboard) and then unzip the file using any program like Stuffit or Zipeg. Vista Gadgets compatibility is coming soon!

The only condition is that you're not allowed to make money off of it. If you'd like to use one of the tracks in any way that would be considered a commercial use, you must contact RCRD LBL directly.

Visit the RCRDLBL site

 

Here’s a way to take administrative control of your site without intruding on your user’s experience.

Webjam offers two search tools to use on your network. The first is the Search option. You can add a search module from Modules > Webjam toolbox use this search tool to search keywords on your site. You can also allow users to access the search tool. It’s a fantastic way for them to search your network for blog posts, comments, forums and more...

Once the search box is added to your site using drag and drop or by clicking + to page insert a key word into the search box and choose what to search through. Then decide where to conduct the search.

The second is the Saved Search  which you can set to search for specific key words within any aspect of your network. This will be automatically updated every time someone posts something and offers quick access for you to moderate certain known keywords on your site. The Saved Search will always appear when you visit the page.

Using these to moderate your site.

Set the Search module to private by selecting ‘Edit’ then setting the access to ‘Private’. However we suggest that you may want to set up a full admin page.

To do this:

• Add a new page and name it Admin
• Go to Settings > Page Privacy and make it Private. Now the whole page will be set as Private and only you as the editor or any co-editors will be able to access the information on the page.

Now return to your private page and add a Search module and also a Saved Search module. Use the Search module to keep track of certain things happening each day on your site. Type in the keyword and the search will take you to a new page with all the results displayed. Use these to select the posts that you wish to moderate.

Using the Saved Search is slightly different. Set up your search after clicking the ‘EDIT’ button and choose the query you want to be the first thing that you see when you visit your admin page, this could be banned words, competitors details or something you are keen to see flourishing on your site.When you have everything selected (see image below) click save and the search will appear on your network.

Please be aware that the Search can also be used in general on your site for quick access navigating through blogs, comments and users. The Saved Search is an awesome tool for including recent blog posts with a summary as an activity feed.

Try it.

Grooveshark allows you to search and stream almost any song in the world for free. You can create free internet radio stations and create widgets for you to embed into your site. If you want to embed a single song into your site, you do not need to register with Grooveshark, if you want to create a playlist widget you must sign up and register. Here's my playlist:

1. Visit Grooveshark

2. Search for any song, artist, album, playlist or genre.

3. Select song(s), click the appropiate button to either play it, add to que, get info or EMBED.

4. You can either embed a playlist widget or a single song widget player.

5. Select and customise your player, then click the finish button.

6. Scroll down and copy the HTML code.

7. On your network add a Free HTML module [modules > my content > Free HTML] to your site.

8. Drag and drop the module, click 'add new content', paste in your widgets HTML code and click save.

9. Refresh your page and your widget will be displayed.

 

FOR PLAYLISTS (Registered Users)

Sign into Grooveshark and create your playlist.

At the bottom of the page you will see a film strip display of your selected songs, to the right click on the floppy disk icon and save you playlist.

Go back to your HOME page and select MY MUSIC. Select your playlist and click on the embed icon. Then follow the steps listed above.

 

Enjoy the music!

Now you can create an online shop on Webjam! 

Venda® for Small Business has partnered with Webjam to provide small business enterprises with both an eCommerce solution and social publishing tools. It is as simple as adding a module from the 'Internet services' tab in the modules list.

 

Venda is the eCommerce provider that delivers websites for clients like the British Museum, Arsenal and De Beers - so combined with all the community, engagement and publishing features Webjam gives you - you can create a high-spec but easily manageable social shopping site:

To get started go to: http://www.webjam.com/shopping 

Webinars and Workshops:

We are running a workshop on how social shopping works with Webjam: In this workshop you will learn about Venda's solution for small businesses and how you can integrate a shop on your Webjam network. To register for this webinar please go to:

Friday 19 June 3.30PM - 4.30PM GMT 

One of the things that draws me into a website is how it looks. If it looks good then there is a higher chance that I will browse it for longer. It’s a simple fact that we are attracted to things that are aesthetically pleasing, often before we’ve even looked at the content.

It seems that to make your site look better, you don’t actually need to do much at all. Partly because people spend their whole working day creating beautiful things to give away to you for free and partly because we’ve spent some of our time looking around the interweb for said items.

So we’ve found the best sites to get icons for your own network. Use these icons to link to the various social media pages you may have set up around the web.

My top three icon sites are:

3) http://www.freeiconsweb.com/index.html

2) http://dryicons.com/free-icons/

1) http://www.freeiconsdownload.com/Free_Web_Icons.asp

Simply download the icons and add the images to your site using a rich text module.

Click the image you add and then choose the hyperlink button in the toolbar.

Add the URL of where the image should link to.

And that’s it. Your site should be taking on a rather tasty look.

Tom, our new Customer Support officer, has just written this tip on the forum:

To make sure that your blog content is in the correct font and size. You must follow these steps.

1. Write all content in the Webjam blog editor. Do not write in any word editing software, such as Microsoft Word, and no copying or pasting into the webjam blog editor.

2. Once you have written all of your content, highlight it all, and then select what font (arial) size (10) and in what format (paragraph).

3. Then you must position your text, if you want it aligned to the left of the page click the appropiate button 'Align Left'. Once you have done this, you must then click the 'Align Full' icon.

4. You can then add any links, images & videos.

Hope this helps.

Blogs aren't the most print friendly things in the world, they have strange formatting, loads of unnecessary images and tags up the side. That's all fine when you are scrolling through the page with your mouse. But what if you want to save ink and paper? Well you can with 'printfriendly' a new website designed to remove all the images and tags and print just the blog.

All you've got to do is visit their website www.printfriendly.com and add the url of the blog into the print preview box.

 Click 'print preview'and watch the blog transform into a tasty formatted blog post ready for printing.

Simple and good for the environment too.