What is a Favicon?

Open your favorite web browser and load Google, Yahoo, MSN, Facebook, Wikipedia, and YouTube. Whenever one of these sites loads in your browser, look at the URL bar. Do you notice the small image beside the website address? That is a favicon. The favicon for the above-mentioned sites look like the following:

You can also see that the favicon for this site looks like this:

The term favicon stands for “favorites icon.” It is a 16×16-pixel image (may also be 32×32) that acts like a small badge or ID for a website. It was originally introduced to give distinction to web page links saved or added to Favorites by Internet Explorer users. Through time and as more browsers started supporting the favicon, the favicon’s meaning and use changed.

A favicon is no longer just an icon to distinguish a web page or website from a long list of favorites, although this remains one of its most important functions to date. Nowadays, you will also see a site’s favicon beside the web address in the URL bar. In browsers that support multiple tabbing, moreover, the favicon also appears beside the page title at the top of an open tab.

The Favicon.ico

“But what is the favicon.ico?” you ask. The favicon.ico is simply a favicon in the .ICO format, the file format for icons in a Microsoft Windows system. The favicon.ico is the standard and ideal favicon format because it is universally accepted and supported by web browsers. For instance, while Mozilla Firefox can support .PNG, .GIF (even animated .GIF) and .JPEG formats plus the .ICO format, Internet Explorer has support only for .ICO.

Where do you see a Favicon?

A favicon, if present, can be seen in four places.

• As above mentioned, you will see it in the URL bar and beside the actual website address. Check out the example below:

• You will also see it beside the title of a web page that you have saved to your Favorites (IE) or Bookmark Menu (Mozilla Firefox) folder. Check the example below:

• If you have a tabbed browser (i.e. it lets you open multiple web pages in a single browser window), the top of each open tab should show the favicon beside the site title.

• If you are using Mozilla Firefox, there is one other place where you should be able to see site favicons. If your bookmarked sites in your Bookmark Toolbar have favicons, you should be able to see these bookmarked sites’ favicons below your browser’s URL bar. See favicons highlighted in yellow below:

Creation and Implementation of a Favicon.ico

The easiest way of creating your own favicon.ico is to create an image through Photoshop, Illustrator, IrfanView, GIMP, or any other image-editing software.

1.  Create a blank canvas
   Once you have loaded your software, create a new file. You are not advised to create a 16×16 image to start with as it will be very difficult to design an image that small; create a 64×64, 128×128 or 256×256 pixel canvas instead. The only condition for choosing your initial image size is that it be perfectly square and that you choose dimensions that are a multiple of 16 to minimize image distortion when reducing size later on.
2. Draw your image
   Now, you should draw whatever image you want on your blank canvas. Some people simply fill it with a dark background color or gradient then add a light-colored, simple shape at the center. You can do this easily through Photoshop with its Custom Shape tool and Shapes option. If you want your favicon to be really unique, however, you are advised to create an entirely new image.
3. Save your image
   For the sake of simplicity, give your favicon the filename “favicon”. In actuality, you can call it anything you want. Save the file as a .JPEG or .BMP or .PNG. At this stage, you should save a raw version (e.g. .PSD or .XCF) of your image for editing later.
4. Resize your image
   After saving your image, resize it to the actual favicon size, resample it and convert it to 16×16 pixels. You should use the resample function rather than simple resize so that distortions to image quality will be minimized.
5. Convert your image to .ICO
   To do this in your own computer, your image-editing software should have support for .ICO. If this is not the case, then you may download a utility from telegraphics.com.au/sw/. This plug-in works with almost all popular graphics software; once installed properly, you should be able to see an option to save your file in the .ICO format.One other alternative if you don’t want to download and install the plug-in is to use a web-based .ICO converter or favicon.ico generator. Some of the sites you can visit for this purpose include Convertico.com, Chami.com, Genfavicon.com and Favicon.co.uk. In these web-based favicon.ico generators, all you’ll have to do is upload the image from your computer and the favicon generator will produce a ready-to-use favicon.ico file for you to download and add to your own website.
6. Upload your favicon.ico to your web server or to an image host
   The easy way is to simply upload your favicon.ico to your website’s root folder; in this case, its address will be something like this: yoursite.com/favicon.ico. You may also upload your favicon.ico to your images folder or whatever directory of the site you wish so that its address will be something like this: yoursite.com/directory/favicon.ico. You may also upload your favicon.ico file to an image-hosting site like Photobucket or ImageShack. In this case, the address will be something like http://www.imagesharingsite.com/youraccount/favicon.ico.
7. Direct web browsers to your favicon.ico
   Most browsers can now automatically detect the presence of a favicon.ico file, especially if it is stored in the root folder of the site directory. It is still best, however, to tell the browsers where your favicon.ico file is so that they can fetch it without any problems.  To do this, you will need to do a little bit of coding. If you are using plain html, you should open your index.html file; if you are using dynamic pages like that of WordPress, you should open your header template. Anywhere between the opening and closing notations, insert a line like one of the following codes (from: Wikipedia).

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The Time is Ripe for a Social Networking Site

If you have been anywhere near a computer with an internet connection in the last few years, then you have probably heard of Friendster, WordPress, Orkut, LinkedIn, Flickr, MySpace, Twitter, and hi5.  These are social networks, and their abundance is testament to what the web has become.

This is the web 2.0 phenomenon, folks!  Internet users are not merely searching for information when they go online.  They are not simply looking for merchants from whom they can buy products.  People are not simply logging in to check their web-based email inboxes.

This is the age of user-generated content.  Internet users have evolved from simple passive receivers of information; they are now active contributors of internet content.  They upload their videos in video-sharing sites like YouTube, share their photos in photo-sharing sites like Flickr, promote content they found useful through social bookmarking sites like Digg, write about their lives and thoughts in blogging sites like WordPress.com and Blogspot (or their self-hosted blogs), leave comments in other people’s blogs, throw in their two cents’ worth in forums and, all in all, attempt to leave their own mark in cyberspace for other people to love, hate, like, dislike, comment on, watch, read, and distribute as they will.

If that is the nature of today’s internet use, what makes better sense than to create a website that encourages users to do what they like to do best – interact with others?  This, in a nutshell, is the reason why creating a social networking website is a good idea.

As any domainer worth his salt knows, traffic is the currency of the internet.  If you want traffic to your domains, use your domains to give your target audience something of value.  Give them a social network where they can leave their own mark “for other people to love, hate, like, dislike, comment on, watch, read, and distribute as they will” – an online venue where they can network with friends, acquaintances, professional contacts, or similarly inclined individuals.

To be sure, there are still internet users who are more passive than active or reactive online.  These people would rather watch, read and listen than actively create their own input for other people to appreciate.  However, there are more than enough interactive internet users, and nothing draws them like social networking sites.  Even people who are searching for information on a product or a service usually find their way to social networking websites; they wish to discern the truth in company press releases through the comments and posts made by actual users of the product or service in which they are interested.

The Pros Outweigh the Cons of Developing a Social Networking Site

What then do you get from a social networking site?  Traffic, content that you do not have to pay for (user-generated content), niche focus (if your network is like LinkedIn and has a specific identity), and snowballing referrals are just some of the things that you will get from a social networking website.

In short, a social networking website will give you a platform from which you can:

• Market and sell your products and services if you have your own business
• Market other people’s products and services if you are an affiliate
• Leverage the power of your audience by selling leads
• Earn direct income from membership fees or paid premium services
• Create dynamic, often-changing and massive amounts of content that do not have to cost you a single cent
• Gain valuable insight into how your target demographic thinks, feel and behave; such insight can be used to fine-tune whatever marketing scheme you have up your sleeve or even to earn you some income in consultation fees.

Of course, there will always be arguments against your idea.  Most of such arguments revolve around the issue of profitability.  The following are just some of the objections that your peers are likely to make after you tell them you would like to build your own social networking site:

• You can only make serious money in social networking if you make it big like Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn.  For a while there, in fact, these social networking sites did not make any money at all.  YouTube, for instance, has just recently introduced their monetization scheme, that which involves promoted/sponsored videos.

• Building your own social networking site is one of the most complicated income generation methods online.  If you are not deeply committed to making a success out of your social network, better choose another income generation option.

• You have to be prepared to do a lot of marketing to put your social network on the map.  A buzz is what makes a social network take, and a buzz is what you have to create.

The points raised above are valid.  However, these issues are not insurmountable and should not prevent you from following through with your social networking site idea.

While it is true that social networking sites need to become big to earn big (multi-million dollars of profit), it is not true that a social networking site has to be big to earn.  A small to medium social networking site with a membership base of hundreds or a mere thousand can still earn you a comfortable living.  For instance, if you have a social networking site with a thousand members that pay a monthly fee of $10, that’s $120,000 annual (almost passive) income from your social networking site.

It is also true that building a social networking site is one of the more complicated methods of earning income online.  However, a social networking site’s versatility – i.e. the availability of many income generation opportunities – more than balances this one out.  If you have the time and the commitment, indeed, then putting up a social networking website can also be one of the most lucrative means of domain monetization.

Finally, it is true that social networking websites need to be marketed vigorously to gain acceptance in your target community – but that’s just it!  You do not have to make everyone interested in your social networking site.  You only have to pique the interest of your target community, so your buzz-making tasks are bounded by the size of your target audience.

Why Build a Social Networking Website

To summarize, the following are just some of the reasons why you should consider building your own social networking site:

• Social networking is very popular among internet users.  There’s a large market for social networks.

• If you have your own business, building a social network around it is an effective branding tool and should give your website “addictive credits” – that is, it should make people stay longer and come back often to your website.

• If you have your own website and are building a social network around it, your social network will give you one way of learning about what your customers and would-be customers think about your company and your products.  Your social networking site can become an effective feedback mechanism which can help you improve your products, customer service, and your business in general.

• Social networking sites are ideal for creating a massive database of content.  Online, a large content database means bigger bargaining power with advertisers.  It also means more frequent crawls from search engine bots, and thus higher rankings with search engines.  You will also benefit from long-tail search traffic.

• Social networks, if properly managed and handled, are self-sustaining.  Content is user-generated.  Furthermore, the number of users can snowball given the right base of initial users and effective targeting and marketing strategies.  The nature of social networks is such that members are likely to invite their friends or people who are part of their offline social network to their favorite online social network.

• Social networking sites are very dynamic in character.  The well-designed social network will evolve with their users’ tastes and preferences so that it will always match current trends.  Such a site will lose favor only if the entire social networking phenomenon bombs out.

And there you have it.  If you have time and an idle domain, why not build a social networking site on it?  Done right, you will not regret your decision one bit.