What is Rupert Murdoch up to?

Posted by Ken Davis - under News 2 Comments

Over the past week there has been a bit of buzz online about Rupert Murdoch’s plans for the future of News Limited’s websites. In a recent interview with Sky News, Rupert said he was thinking about removing his websites from Google and placing his news articles behind a paywall, available only to subscribers of his websites.
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Tags: Google, search engines, Social Media, Twitter

The Satisfaction of Leaving

Posted by Ken Davis - under Jimmyweb No Comments

Ok, so I might be drawing a long bow to say that this post has anything to do with web design and development, but bear with me.

I’ve been banking with the same regular, normal bank since I was a child. There’s never been any real  incentive to change banks, no matter how frustrating the bank behaves, because, well basically, you still end up using another bank. Its kind of like voting. It doesn’t matter who you vote for, you still end up with a politician! In this case, it doesn’t matter who you bank with, you still end up having to deal with a bank.

Well that’s all changed.

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Tags: brand management, reputation management

Beyond the web - Real world analytics

Posted by Ken Davis - under News No Comments

Anyone who has used Google Analytics knows just how awesome and useful the software can be.  Anonymously tracking users to your website, gathering data on site usage, discovering traffic trends, Google Analytics is a wonderful tool for any business on the web.

After doing some Analytics work for a website today, I started thinking about how brilliant it would be if businesses could use the same data in the real world. Some kind of geo-tracking analytics that could give real-time, real world feedback to businesses.

Could this be the future?

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Tags: analytics, search engines, Social Media, Social Networking, Twitter

10 tips for businesses starting out with Twitter

Posted by Ken Davis - under Writing 3 Comments

There’s been a lot of buzz about Twitter recently in the media, so its natural to want to know what all the fuss is about, and learn more about how Twitter might benefit you, both personally and in business.

I thought it might be a good idea, to put together a quick beginners guide to Twitter for our clients, and a list of my top 10 tips for using Twitter in business, to help you understand the basics of Twitter, and how you can use Twitter to help your business.

So what is Twitter?

Twitter is a social communication network that asks the question: “What are you doing now?” Users can answer via the Twitter website, sms, mobile phone application or a desktop application. Twitter updates (commonly referred to as ‘tweets’) have to be under 140 characters in length.

Its natural to think that you couldn’t possibly say anything meaningful in 140 characters, but the quality of communication is actually quite surprising, once you become familiar with using Twitter. Unlike writing a blog, Twitter is a great place to tell the world what you’re thinking before you’ve had a chance to even think about it.
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Tags: brand management, client, copy writing, online marketing, reputation management, Social Media, Social Networking, tips, Twitter

Agile Design - Quickly moving from Photoshop to CSS

Posted by Ken Davis - under Design 1 Comment

I recently read a post over at 37 signals about why the designers there skip Photoshop in the design process and I found myself agreeing with most of the conversation. There are some good reasons for designing this way, along with some good counterpoints.

The Photoshop mockup just isn’t a website.

A while back I used to always fully develop a design in Photoshop, with all the polish and finesse that could possibly fit into a flat two dimensional image and present the design to the client for approval.

This worked reasonably well when the only real interaction was the click of a hyperlink or perhaps a drop down menu. You could explain the functionality, describe the interaction and hope the client had the imagination to perceive the concept clearly enough to approve it.

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Tags: Design, Photoshop, SEO, tips

Tessuti – an online evolution

Posted by Ken Davis - under Case Study No Comments

Like most businesses, Tessuti Fabrics started its online evolution by carefully crawling up to the edge of the Internet, and sticking a big toe into the unknown. Its first foray into online representation was a small static site. In just over 12 months, we’ve helped transition Tessuti from that simple, under performing website, to a well respected, dynamic online presence.
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Tags: Case Study, client, Design, Jimmyweb, SEO

Writing copy for your new website

Posted by Ken Davis - under Writing 1 Comment

So, you’ve finally nailed down the design, production is underway, your new website is coming together just the way you planned.

And now you start thinking about the copy?

As web designers, we often find ourselves giving the same advice to our clients, so here is a list of our top tips for writing copy for the web. (more…)

Tags: copy writing, SEO, tips

A New Beginning

Posted by Ken Davis - under Jimmyweb 1 Comment

So this is it, we’ve finally taken the big jump - leaving our jobs to make Jimmyweb our fulltime endeavour. It’s been a long time coming and the challenge has always been picking the right time to make our move.

Some are saying that with the economy the way it is, it is a silly time to do it, but we are confident that we can make a go of it. In some ways, the economic downturn offers oppotunities to obtain new business by offering a better product at more cost effective rates than larger agencies can offer.

Its definitely a very exciting time. Everything we’ve done over the last five years had been building towards the day when we would go full time. Over the years we’ve connected with great clients that I know are cheering for us and recommending us to others. (more…)

Tags: Jimmyweb