OpenX is a free open source ad server software developed in the past years by a devoted open source developer community. Their website is www.openx.org . For now, they have the software as downloadable and installable on your server but they are beta-testing a hosted version of it (so you can use it without being necessary to download and install it).

It was started in 1998 by Tobias Ratschiller, the creator of also popular phpMyAdmin (a MySQL database web administration tool). Scott Switzer continued his work building on Tobias’ code. Today he is the co-founder of OpenX Limited, the company behind the ad server software.

OpenX was known as OpenAds, phpAds, phpAdsNew and MaxMediaManager but finally the company settled down for the OpenX name in 2008. The company which is behind OpenX got two rounds of funding: 5.5 Million dollars in 2006 and 15.5 million dollars in 2008 and this means it will have plenty of cash to improve its product and make it top-notch (not that it’s not already).

Over 30,000 publishers and advertisers around the world uses this ad server software platform to maximize their online advertising results. The current version of OpenX is 2.4 with a 2.5 beta version in the works (this review is for 2.4 version mainly).

You can download the current version here: www.openx.org/download

OpenX let you choose banners, campaigns and terms that fits you best. It has a sophisticated tracking system which let you gather statistics and optimize the results.
In short, you can take the control of your advertising without having to pay big bucks to big boys.

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SkaDate is a social networking and online dating software platform supporting videos and photo albums. It can be seen here: www.skadate.com

Ska Date has been developed by Skalfa eCommerce, employing 18 dedicated programmers and support staff. They recently opened their representative EU office in Czech Republic instead usual UK. Besides dating software their other product line is Chuppo rich media applications, which are actually part of SkaDate.

Sites features are customizable from administration module, like Press, Search, Photo, Multimedia, Profile view, Events, Messages, Virtual Kiss, Friends Only Photos, Flash chat, Instant messenger, Photo rate, Profile Rate, Friends Networking, Polls, Ads, Tags, Bookmark, Blocklist, Chuppo Recorder, Forum, Blogs, Password Protected Photos, Profile comments and HTML usage in profiles.

They also offer a hosted version of this software. Check it out here

From administration module was possible to assign cost for each event or leave it as free service. The software supports unlimited membership levels allowing setup events for each level and limiting even the event usage per day or month.

SkaDate supports several payment gateways like PayPal, ccBILL, SecurePay, Authorise.net, SecPay, etc.

The navigation menu was customizable to each member level group so members will see only functions allocated to the membership level.

The administration module allows customization of multimedia and photo parameters, limiting the number of invitations, creating virtual kiss templates, enabling the friends’ network and customizing the profile fields which can be even dependent to each other.

Customizable watermark can be added to photos and videos to protect copyrights.

The product becomes with 18 layout templates and the customer can get additional templates free of charge from their website when those will become available free of charge. I assume that knowing little bit CSS the programmer can write their own templates for the site.

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After a couple of weeks of development we launched MytestBox.com widget!

You can see it in action here www.mytestbox.com/get-widget . Now you can have our reviews on your site or blog, free without any registration required!

The websites or blogs where you will use our widget should be in the technology related field (download sites, software reviews sites, forums, gadgets, tech blogs, software tutorials sites, tech news, social media sites and so on). It should complement your website/blog by offering more value to your visitors.

Soon, we will offer news from the software industry and will have a widget for that too.

If you think you can contribute with reviews (and get paid eventually) please contact us using the Contact page. You can have a look at our review requirements here.

If you are a company and you want your web software to be reviewed please contact us too at the same Contact page.

In the future we want to compile a list of the websites/blogs which uses our widget and publish it here.

Those websites/blogs will get a free link (not nofollow) to them so it may help them in Google ranking.

——— For websites

As you will see the widget is highly configurable from a control panel (Widget Configuration) without reloading the page.

You can play as long as you want and when you are content with the result you can copy the Javascript code from below the configuration panel and paste it on your website (Copy and paste the following code in your page).

If you copy the Javascript code as it is without any configuration then the default widget will be presented. And you see already how it looks on Get our Widget page.

This Javascript code is designed to work for regular websites which are not blogs (usually blogs don’t allow Javascript code to be embedded in post or page. You have to hack the core pages of the blog or blog theme).

——- For WordPress blogging software platform

We have also developed a plugin for Wordpress blogging software platform. Checkout Wordpress here (it’s free to use) and our review about this blogging software platform (video-tutorials included)

It easy to install and use and you can download it from our widget page or download it directly from here. Download the Wordpress plugin now!

These are the steps to make this widget work (after un-zipping):

== Configuration of the widget ==
Go to “Options” page and click on “MytestBox.com Widget Configuration” and then configure the widget using the form provided there and then click “Update Options” (save it).
You can see the configuration in real time.
For more instructions please read README.txt file included in the download.

If you find this widget (and plugin) useful please help us make it popular! Send it to your friends or to people you think may benefit from it.

You can also share this post using Share This feature we have at the bottom of it (Digg it, Stumble it, Bookmark it or send it by email).

Thank you!

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AbleSpace and AbleDating (social network & dating software) has all the professional features that will be enough for you to create sites like YouTube, MySpace or Date.com in one package. I’ll review them a little bit below.

It has been developed by Abk-Soft, US Company with Russian roots and employing dynamic staff of over 30 freelance programmers from Russia managed from US.

Their main product contains lot of interesting modules, like 3D virtual city, Flash technology based profile editor to replace HTML, CSS profile customization, Video Chat, Video Sharing, Friends, Groups, Flash postcards, VoiIP technology based telephone, Flash based chat rooms, Flash games, Romantic virtual 3D chat rooms, Greeting recordings, Classifieds, Photo Gallery, Personal Blogs, Biorhythms, Love Match calculator, Instant Messenger, Mailbox, MP3 Player, favourites, forums, etc.

The administration allows setup the site for various community purposes, allowing three level memberships, affiliate programs, banner rotations, free trial memberships, newsletters, auto approvals, unlimited number of languages, e-mail and phone number automatic filtering, etc. Currently it supports PayPal, WorldPay, GoldPay, 2CO, NetBilling and PaySystems gateways but can be configured to any payment gateway for small fee.

Their templates based architecture allows changing site look and feel instantly using growing number of ready-made templates.

The installation service is free or if you want to do it yourself, its five simple steps following the screen and can be completed in minutes.

The product comes from two versions:

Existing site owners can also buy their 3D city module to any of site for $400.

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