We often tour the web to seek for interesting and exciting current stories. Traveling around our favorite online hangouts, we try to stay tuned with the latest buzz.  This week, we’d like to present a few stories that have sparked our interest.

WordPress Plugin Competition

Being WordPress fans and users ourselves, we’re always interested to hear about plugins and features released.  This time we’re excited to read about new plugins announced for the 2009 competition.  Some of these include:

Exploring the World of Google Search

As the Google and Bing battle progresses, Google has recently made its diverse search options even more accessible to online users by dedicating a page where it details a selection of 16 different search features.

Read full story on Mashable

Free People Search Engines

It’s a well known fact that in this closely linked web world, you can now connect with anyone you know or have known, in some distant past.  Care to reconnect?  FinderMind has aggregated a list of 25 Free People Search Engines to find Anyone in the World.

Entertainment & Art

Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland will be released in 2010, but we already got a glimpse at the wonder through some incredible pics that leave us craving for more…  It’s a shame we could not present all the images here, but we encourage you to pay a visit to Huffingtonpost and get a full view.

Exciting news on the front of Kontera publisher payment!

We already offer multiple payment methods to suit your preference.  Now, we’re glad to announce that if you’re using Domestic ACH as your payment method, pay-day will come even sooner. You can receive payment at $75 and cash-in on your Kontera earnings quicker and more often!

The change recently went into effect and can be utilized by publishers who qualify for Domestic ACH payment.

If you are a current Kontera publisher who meets these criteria, we invite you to benefit from this new $75 payout:

1. Login to your Kontera Publisher Center account.
2. Select the “My Account” tab and then follow the “Payment Method” Link.
3. Select the “Domestic ACH” option from the payment method dropdown menu and hit the “Update” button.
4. Please submit all updates to your account’s tax and payout info by the 15th of the month for changes to take effect on  the upcoming payout cycle. Any updates submitted after that date will only be applicable during the next payout cycle.

This change is just one of many to come as we continue to bring you the best  In-Text advertising experience.

Keren Zohar has been with Kontera for over two years, during which she managed HR operations and has overseen many organizational changes that accompanied Kontera’s corporate growth.  It was a pleasure to meet with Keren to learn more about Kontera’s recruitment and get a few tips about looking for a job as well as getting your foot in the door at Kontera.  In Keren’s personal life, she is a proud newlywed, and this is a great chance to wish her and husband the best–all the happiness and success to both.

With the current economic and employment market situation and implications, have there been changes in trends regarding  the way people execute a job hunt?  Anything creative or new you’ve seen?

There’s no question that people see a tighter gap of competition for a position.  We are seeing more applications coming in all the time.  This of course brings a new level in qualifications of experience, education, and other hiring criteria.  I also have found that people are really taking their job search further—they are utilizing and leveraging all their resources; essentially “anything goes”.  People have expanded their job hunts to rely more heavily on social media and online networking as a supplement to traditional means for searching.

We don’t want anyone to feel discouraged, so maybe you can clue us in:  as an HR manager of an online network, what strategies do you best relate with for finding the right candidate?

I search the web and use different recruiting strategies to find good candidates or potential employees.  When using the web, LinkedIn is a very useful tool, as it makes desirable web professionals more accessible and easy to contact directly without the need for a recruiting agency as a middle man. I also join and take part in professional and other relevant forums and in several Facebook groups  that enable me to reach a broader spectrum of candidates.   Like many companies, we also rely a great deal on our current employees and business partners to bring in fresh faces for our team.

Based on your experience, what defines someone well fit for Kontera?

First and foremost, we’re looking for people who have an aptitude for technology and are truly passionate about the web. Kontera  wants individuals who can demonstrate their passion for the web right off the bat.  A team-player attitude and willingness to be dynamic with their position are crucial traits.  Like the Internet, the company is evolving constantly, rapidly, and always presenting a new twist.  Employees should be ready for new challenges and get excited about them.  We work hard, but it’s important for us to keep the office environment fun and light—we’re looking for people who will contribute to making our coffee breaks and lunch time fun.

Since you are the first person to interview prospective employees, I’m sure you’ve seen all sorts of interviews, good and bad.  Any examples or tips as to do or not when interviewing?

Assuming that you want to get hired please turn off your cell phone before the interview begins… Another hint – if you forgot to do so – taking that call is not a good idea either . On a more serious note – there’s the obvious rule of thumb: come prepared!  Research the company you are interviewing with so that you know what you’re getting into and they know you’re serious.  It’s always good to get familiar with the market competitors so you can demonstrate a wider knowledge of the company’s challenges.  Work out your “sales pitch”, explain why you are the best possible candidate for a position, be ready to include facts that will promote your “personal  brand” into the answers you are giving the recruiter. Mention your successes and initiatives, but try not to come off arrogant – balance is key.

We’re looking for confident, energetic people where the resume and personality meet to reflect the way you’ll deal with our work environment.  For the most part,  recruiters are looking for focused people—those that present themselves with confidence and send out a message that they’re the best match for the position.

Bottom line, is Kontera hiring?

Absolutely – we’re always on the lookout for talented people and have recently opened a few positions in our US and Israel offices, which you can read more about in our Careers page.

Reaching more than 100 Million unique users per month, Kontera’s exclusive network features over 15,000 premium and niche publishers.  As many of our publishers know, upon joining Kontera we require that you use our technology as the exclusive In-Text ad provider on your website.  Since we’ve received questions regarding our Publisher Agreement exclusivity clause, we’d like to use this opportunity to describe the important rationale behind this policy.

A Few Words on Kontera’s In Text Ad Technology

Kontera’s semantic analysis technology performs at real time to dynamically hyper-link the words that most accurately represent and predict user-intent and engagement. When a Kontera publisher’s site is loaded by a user, our engines analyze the page to select the most relevant keywords and deliver the ads that provide the greatest value to Publishers, Advertisers and users.

It should be noted that keywords which are already hyperlinked are excluded from this analysis.  This means that keywords marked by other providers are also excluded by our system, allowing less of an opportunity to select the keywords that would yield the highest CPC and best CTR. ContentLink ads present the best performance on pages that contain text, uncluttered by too many links.

From the user’s side – pages which contain too many links compete for the user’s attention and result in an unpleasant user experience.  For this reason we believe that the highest quality and best user experience is the product of a perfect balance between text and In-Text ads.

Which Other Ad Networks Work Side by Side with Kontera?

All non- In-Text advertising networks.  Kontera’s ContentLink ads work alongside Google adsense, YPN, banner ads, affiliate networks, you name it- it works. ContentLink ads compliment all monetization efforts on a publisher’s site.  The best marketing strategy often results from combining two or more monetization techniques to maximize a site’s earning potential.  Explore to discover the optimal strategy for your site.