by Jason Kincaid on Mar 7, 2010
In the wake of Apple’s sudden decision to remove nearly all “sexy” applications from the App Store, we’ve been hearing that the company is also clamping down on so-called “cookie-cutter” applications — iPhone apps that are built from templates using one of the many app-building services available. This would be yet another major change for the App Store, as it already features thousands of such applications. And, perhaps more important, quite a few companies have sprung up to facilitate building iPhone applications. I’ve reached out to Apple to ask if they’d like to clarify their stance, but given their lack of transparency in the past, I’m not betting on getting anything definitive. To try to get to the bottom of the current situation, I spoke with multiple developers (some of whom wished to remain anonymous) to find out what Apple was telling them.
Between the developers I spoke to, the consensus was this: Apple doesn’t appear to be opposed to ‘app generators’ and templates per se, but in the last month or so it has started cracking down on basic applications that are little more than RSS feeds or glorified business cards. In short, Apple doesn’t want people using native applications for things that a basic web app could accomplish. For some of these services that’s bad news, because that’s exactly the sort of application they produce; any new applications they submit are going to get rejected. But all hope isn’t lost for them, provided they can make their apps more useful.
Last April, I did a post about Google Local business. This weekend, I picked up my daughter from her hair appointment. The salon was beautiful and the folks working there were fantastic. The owner asked me what I did for a living and I told him I helped companies with their online marketing.
We were standing at a computer and he shared with me that his point of sales provider also did his website. I asked him to search on Google for “Hair Stylist, Greenwood, IN“. Up popped up a nice map with all of his competition… but no entry for his salon. I walked him through publishing his business on Google Local business and it took all of 10 minutes.
Since we came out of the caves, every new technology has been greeted with alarm and disdain.
When we invented fire, people moaned that we’d forget the art of making salads. When we invented the wheel, people moaned that we’d forget how to walk. And when we invented the internet, people moaned that we’d forget how to think.
The difference is, the internet moaners might be right. The 2008 report Information Behavior of the Researcher of the Future, commissioned by the British Library and the Joint Information Systems Committee, found clear evidence of the negative effects of internet use.
Keeping up with the new jQuery plugin releases and developments sometimes feels like a full-time job! Every other day something new and better crops up that catches the eye and you think yourself “Wow, that looks good, I could use that!“.
For this post I have collected 25 of the best newly (or, pretty close to new) released jQuery plugins, and every time I do a post like this the plugins seem to get better and better and push development boundaries further and further away.
I hope you find these plugins useful.
25 Amazing and Fresh jQuery Plugins – Speckyboy Design Magazine
Meetings are rubbish—and other anti-business-as-usual musings from a maverick tech entrepreneur
By Jennifer Tanaka Author Jason Fried
Jason Fried seems like a nice enough fellow, but then he starts arguing with you. Well, not exactly arguing with you but gently poking holes in your working assumptions. For example, you might expect that someone who majored in finance would have done so in order to run a future company. “I just thought I’d be good at it, so I could graduate from college,” the 35-year-old says breezily. “My parents were paying, so they made me finish.”
Fried, who grew up in Deerfield and moved back to Chicago after college, did end up starting his own company—37signals, which makes web-based productivity software for small businesses. Founded by Fried in 1999 with two partners (Ernest Kim, who now works for Nike, and Carlos Segura, the well-regarded Chicago graphic designer), the West Loop–based venture has since become a real maven among tech companies. In 2004, after a few years as a web-design company, 37signals released a software product called Basecamp, an online project management program that it had created to use internally. A couple of years later, Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, contacted 37signals and soon after signed on as its sole minority investor. Today, the 16-person company has more than three million customers across its suite of six products.
Do you feel lucky, punk?
John Schuster in an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) expert in Chicago.
Working with professional businesses and organizations world wide.
Effective search engine optimization is equal parts art, science, and EXPERIENCE, so I sat down with industry veteran Joe Laratro to get the dish on what matters most in SEO. Joe is a recognized and leading expert in the Search Engine Marketing industry, and regularly speaks at industry events like Webmaster World, SMX, and Search Engine Strategies. He sits on the advisory board and is the lead moderator and speaker for PubCon.
SEO Wins & Sins: 5 Questions with Industry Leader Joe Laratro | Search Engine Journal
The Law Office of Jeffrey Friedman, P.C. concentrates in the practice of personal injury and wrongful death cases.
Their office is conveniently located in downtown Chicago. Jeffrey Friedman is committed to providing zealous representation to those people who have been injured by the wrongful conduct of other people or businesses.
Chicago Personal Injury Attorney – Law Office of Jeffrey Friedman, P.C.
Canonical has revealed the style of the new default theme that will be used in Ubuntu 10.04, the next major version of the popular Linux distribution. In a significant departure from tradition, Ubuntu is shedding its signature brown color scheme and is adopting a new look with a palette that includes orange and an aubergine shade of purple.
Ubuntu’s distinctive brown look dates back to the very first version of the distribution, which was released in 2004. Although the style has evolved considerably since then and new colors like orange gradually gained a foothold in the desktop palette, brown has been the dominant color of Ubuntu’s default themes for the past five years.
By Jeff McKinney
The weak economy hasn’t kept Betsy Emery from picking up new clients for her Web design and development firm.
The owner, president and CEO of Tellus, Emery invested $275,000 last year to enhance her company’s online software to boost the number of visitors and consumers making purchases on her clients’ Web sites. In return, Tellus reaped more than $1 million in new contracts in 2009.
“With the negative forces in today’s economy, the return we’re getting shows that people are relying on online growth and cost efficiency for survival and continued profitability,” Emery says.
Her firm mainly designs Web sites for retailers locally and nationally to complement their brick-and-mortar operations. It provides software that precisely categorizes products or services a company has to sell, increasing the likelihood that consumers shopping online will find them.
Economy doesn’t hamper Web site designer | cincinnati.com | Cincinnati.Com
$20 for “ALL WEEK pitchers of sangria”
(Oh, and IE8 Isn’t So Bad!)
So the guy who consistently prevails Pwn2Own, a competition where hackers demonstrate exploits for sport, says that Flash, which is installed on about 98% of computers on the internet, unifies all browsers in insecurity, and that IE8, an Internet Explorer browser, in case you’re having trouble unfolding that acronym, now ranks among the safest in its category. The slightly better news is, despite inherent insecurities that he doesn't bother to elaborate on, mobile smartphone platforms are relatively secure as compared to their desktop counterparts. So there’s that.
By Callum Chapman
In this ultimate collection, we bring you a massive selection of great Web design tutorials from all over the design community. All of the tutorials use Photoshop for the main application. By the end, you should have a pretty good idea of where and how to start designing for the Web.
If you’re already an experienced Web designer, don’t ignore this post. Even the most talented and professional designers can pick up tips and tricks from others. After all, design is a field in which no one knows it all.
The Ultimate Collection Of Brilliant Web Design Tutorials – Noupe
Update your status on Twitter to pay somebody. Fill in the boxes below and click Tweet, and we’ll show you how it’s done.
by Paul Kirkup Posted on February 28, 2010
Google is a search engine. Wrong. Google is a reputation management tool.
If asked anything, whether about a band, shop, company, name or place, what is the first thing you do? Google it. Even your grandma Googles it now. It officially became a verb in the Oxford English Dictionary 4 years ago. It is undeniable that information a Google search brings back can dramatically affect your opinion.
But have you thought about what happens when someone Googles you? Most people probably haven't tried (do it now, see what happens, I’ll wait!). Chances are about 6 people you share your name with pop out of their respective social networking profiles, probably one or two of the results is yours. 123people.co.uk may well be there too, this is a site designed for searching out people and will bring together any profile you have on Facebook, MySpace, etc as well as any mentions of your name in the news (even if it not actually you), indeed that scathing review you left on Amazon 3 years ago, and the wish list you made when you where 15.
The world that surrounds the topic of Web Design is home to many debates and opinions on best practices or generally how things should and shouldn’t be done. While many of these opinions are accepted and taken on board by everyone, there are some that end up being split into two opposing camps. One camp will provide an expert opinion for one side of the argument, while the other contradicts with an equally valid argument. Let’s take a look at the five most popular debates; the ones that often end up developing into digital riots with opinions flying like arrows across the vast no-man’s land known as the comments section.
By Paul Demery
The right web site design can make all the difference in e-commerce. Retailers at the Internet Retailer Web Design & Usability 2010 Conference took home lots of tips on how to stand out from the crowd.
Good web site design is all about making it easy for consumers to shop and increasing the likelihood they will buy—and return to buy again. The many ways that can be accomplished was the subject of the Internet Retailer Web Design & Usability 2010 Conference in Orlando last month.
“Web design plays a critical role in the customer engagement process,” said John Thompson, senior vice president and general manager of BestBuy.com, the flagship e-commerce site of multichannel consumer electronics retailer Best Buy Co. Inc.
Chicago Web Designer – John Schuster
John Schuster is a freelance and contract professional web designer, developer and information architect working in and around Chicago Illinois.
The Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance is a major initiative between our companies to create a competitive choice in search for advertisers and consumers. The combined scale will assist both companies in speeding the pace of innovation to improve the search user experience, as well as help advertisers get better results and help improve monetization for partners.
When the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance is implemented, both companies will continue to have differentiated consumer search experiences. However, Microsoft will manage the technology platforms that deliver the algorithmic (powered by Bing) and paid (powered by adCenter) search results.
Yahoo! and Microsoft will each provide customer support to different advertiser segments: Yahoo!’s sales team will exclusively support high volume advertisers, SEO and SEM agencies, and resellers and their clients. Microsoft will support self-service advertisers. In addition, Microsoft adCenter will be the platform for all search campaigns.
Yahoo! & Microsoft Search Alliance – Official News on the Deal
25 Feb 2010 08:45 GMT – Lawyer Firm Marketing Tip: How do attorneys and law firms benefit from Google Local Search
Dallas, Texas – If you are a business owner, chances are you get your business from online local searches conducted by people in your city or state. If you are Texas based law firm or an attorney who is practicing in Chicago, the best thing for you to do is to attract the locals in your city.
For the most part, these are the people who are actually searching for an attorney’s service when they have become injured in a car accident or are looking for a divorce attorney. Whichever the case may be, targeting the right set of clients would be the best way to generate more business for a law firm.
Similarly, if you are an Albany traffic ticket attorney, it is recommended that you target the residents of Albany or the state of New York in order to accurately focus on your target market.
As an initial web marketing strategy, it is beneficial for business to rank higher on the search engines for the area where you conduct your law practice. Narrowing down your target market to a specific local area would help your legal practice to gain web visibility both locally and nationally. Ranking for local search results is easier and you could get first page ranking faster.
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