Blogs

During the conversion of our site to Drupal, I learned quite a few lessons that I'm sure will serve me well in the future.

I just had someone ask me the other day, "What is hosting?" and "Do I need it?". If you have a website, the short answer is it's a web server and yes - you need it, but let me elaborate a bit.

A new series on BBC that takes a look at the web and how the web is remaking our world.

Sometimes I take for granted people's knowledge of technical things like content management systems aka cms. Since I deal with setting up these systems on a regular basis I sometimes overlook the fact that non-techs are probably not so familiar with this term unless they already own a site or have used one before.

Therefore, I thought I'd explain what a content management system is for all the folks that are thinking about getting a site but don't know exactly what a content management system is and why they would need one.

In our efforts to keep our customers aware of the lastest and greatest going on in the field of business and technology, We've created a new site to enhance our customers experience when visiting our site. We've added blogging capabilities and we plan to use this to update our site regularly with information and news related to business and technology.

When I sit down to discuss a website with a client, one of the first questions I ask is "what would you like this website to do for your business?" This is usually followed by a long pause and then a "well...we've been thinking for some time that we need a site..." and the next thing they say pretty much tells me where they're at and how much help they need. If you're not able to communicate what you expect from your site when you sit down with a web consultant then that's the point depending on who you're working with that will determine how well you do online.

One of the hot topics in marketing right now is social media marketing. So what is it? Well, your most likely already familiar with a lot of the apps used in social media marketing. These apps include twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, blogs, etc. So again, what's social media marketing? Well, when you use these apps as tools to market your business that when your practicing social media marketing. Social media marketing can have a number of potential benefits for you business. These include increased web traffic, increased conversion rates, increased brand awareness, etc.

I've been using Google's new documents application and I think it's a must have for anyone needing to collaborate more freely with clients and/or teammates. It's called Google docs but they also have a version called Google Apps that's great for businesses and people working personal projects.

Twitter is the new thing now-a-days. Everyone from teens to politicians are all in on the new craze. I started my own account after constantly being bombarded with "how it so important to have a twitter account" conversations. I, however, didn't see the point.

This has changed.

Ever since I downloaded TweetDeck, I'm seeing a whole new way to interact with folks on twitter. I've only been using TweetDeck for the last 48 hours and in that time I've already become a die-hard fan - we'll see how long this last. None the less though, I like it a lot.