the sephone blog

One of the greatest challenges in web development is the need to cater to a number of different web browsers when developing a site. Although all the major browsers do essentially the same thing, each tends to have its own… well, quirks.

It’s difficult to paint a clear and accurate representation of the browsers people currently use. We can’t very well ask every site visitor, “Hey, you there! What browser are you using?” (Not everyone knows the answer to that question.) It’s important for us to know, though, because it shows us what people use to view our sites and how the trend may be changing over time.

Luckily, Google Analytics, a tool we install on many of our sites, provides a fairly good picture of browser usage. For the sake of transparency, I’ve gone through six of our largest sites and looked at browser usage among them. While this information may not be helpful to you personally, it allows developers make key decisions about the sites they build.

The data below is from six Sephone sites in June 2008 and June 2009. These sites appeal to a general population and include real estate, tourism, news, education, and other markets.

We hope to do this periodically to establish a better perspective of browser trending over time. Developers: are you seeing the same trends? Business owners: have you considered a browser switch?

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Met a new client today and while discussing the ins and outs of content, design, architecture, etc - of course, we came around to Search Engines-

The site in question, (names have been removed for obvious reasons),  had not been changed in many, many years, thus, the site  was not ranking very well.  We did not go into details regarding how the site if- updated more frequently would assist in results ranking, because he stopped me before I opened my mouth-

“It ain’t gonna happen-  I don’t have the time,  It ain’t gonna happen”

OK-  I am a firm believer that the client is always right-  but our clients expect us to bring our expertise to the table, don’t they?  Sephone is a firm believer to share opinions, not force opinions. Sharing what you know and what we know, makes us succeed and faster. Since we fell on deaf ears, we decided to post this on our blog to get it out there anyway.

We all know the adage “Time waits for no man”-  Right?  This goes even more for the Internet-

Time waits for no website-(neither does Google).  If you do not spend time to manage or promote your site today, then tomorrow there will be more competition and it will be more challenging than ever.  Maybe, depending on your business - too late?

In order to stay relevant, timely and  competitive you need to be seen-  Depending on the type of business you are, or the services you provide to the pool of customers you want to wade in, as this is a dynamic pool, the answer is similar-  You need to be seen and you never know when someone is looking for you.

Simply stated-

• if your entire business is virtual then you need to get it as exposed as much as possible, within reason and within your budget (and time is money too, so social media efforts need to be realistic also).
• if your business is regional or local to any degree, you need to focus on that region or locality.

Exposure in this case is visibility to your target audience, whether through links, banner ads, traditional advertising, or in this case Internet Marketing, Social Marketing Services and SEO.

This includes traditional internet methods as well as socially based methods.  [It can also be extended to traditional 'print' advertising too.]

Your Website is your initial exposure to new clients- Your Online Brochure;  If it is not current, then you could be losing business.  Even if it appears to be dated, but isn’t; the perception is you are still using the 2003 catalog and not today’s calendar.

This goes for layout, info and images.  (info includes, text, press releases, testimonials and references).  If it is not current, you could be losing business, ooops I said that already, but it is worth stating again.

So, if YOU dont have the TIME for your business- why be IN business?   Now perhaps what the client really meant was:

“I don’t have the time to make updates to my web site, or the ability to make the updates or the “Know-How” to make updates;”

The response to that is- then find someone, an individual, a Company or LEARN how to make these changes; and you don’t need to know HTML!

That is where we come in with datAvenger  (see http://www.datAvenger.com ), but more on that later-

In addition to keeping your website current- there are other ways to do that, that can help-  If you BLOG, use FaceBook, Twitter or other social networking tools like YouTube-  these can be referenced on your website that show timeliness!  And these DO NOT HAVE BIG COSTS Associated with them-

This is  where time IS on your side as it is more YOUR time that you are already spending while doing these things that can be merged into (or linked) to your site!

So why not benefit from it and gain some well earned points and “‘cred” on the Internet for your business?

If you don’t Tweet, use FaceBook, etc-  you can still have a ‘presence’ but use someone to help you get started.  That can be a friend or someone like Sephone.  We can help you get started and then when you do feel comfy about it and you will, we can turn it over to you to keep fresh- but we are always here to help.

We don’t usually have “hit you over the head” posts like this with a sales pitch but in this case we (Joe) couldn’t help himself without offering any assistance- so please forgive us (him). And remember- Sephone is a resource for these services and you may have access to your own resources-

Therefore, we encourage our clients to consider timely updates to their sites, Search Engine Marketing and Social Media Services, no matter who does it.

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“Hmmmmm, click, click, click, hmmmmmm, click, click, click…” repeat.  That is the sound of an over excited Marketing person in 2009.

Marketers have always had a tendency to jump on the bandwagon of some latest craze and pound it to death.  I can say that because I am one to the core and with the advent of social media the buzz is louder and the clicking sound is that of a smoking keyboard or cell phone with all of “those people” talking to each other agreeing and singing the praises of the ideas that are exchanged between them.

Sound familiar?  But are the Marketing people the only people “getting it?”  Is this all a fad that will fade away like the Cabbage Patch Doll?

Being from Maine, Maine folks are known for not appreciating a lot of “fluff,” also we adapt to things that most need attending to, like shoveling the driveway, taking a friend to a doctor’s appointment, making sure the bills are being paid.  IMPORTANT stuff.

Right now Social Media, just may not seem that important and it is okay to feel like that, but it is July (almost) and the snow shoveling is a few months away, make part of your summer reading articles in periodicals that can give you the quick info you really need to know!

First take a quick 3 minute look at this video.

Then here are 3 quick things to read that may help you make sense of it:

1. Twitter a 140 character exchange between people from the mundane to the very important.  This article is from the periodical “The Week.”
2. Something  from a “traditional” type media about Twitter is an article in Business Week and its effect on recent events in Iran, certainly one type of media did not change life in Iran, but the fact when used along with “the old fashioned way” of doing things it helps support what was all ready happening.
3. Facebook isn’t necessarily only something your kids use to keep track of their friends whereabouts, it is really creating some unique opportunities for businesses to advertise to “specific” demographics at very reasonable costs.  Business Week has an interesting article here.

We know you don’t have time for this.
We hear this all the time.

If you want to promote your business yourself and not pay for yellow page ads (which are becoming dinosaurs) and daily news papers, (depending on which one you read, readership has declined in some cases nearly 75%).  How do you know someone, the RIGHT someone even sees your ad?  Cash a bit tight these days? Think again about Social Media.

If you have a rainy day (which so far this summer, it seems like all we have had is rainy days), go to YouTube.COM and search for “How To” or use other keywords to learn about things you may have questions about.  YouTube isn’t just a collection of senseless videos, there really are great things there - and if your business wants to produce something that you want the world to know about, here is your free way to promote it.

Also, looking for something to talk about with your nieces and nephews, or grandchildren?  Ask them about their facebook page or about how they text to keep in touch with their friends.  You may be surprised what you can learn and where you can learn it!

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In today’s online world, search is essential. How many times per day do you head to Google to find something on the web? Google’s reign on the search market is pretty clear: the site handles roughly 75-80% of U.S. search traffic. But is Google always the answer?

Over the last couple of months, the search landscape has really caught on fire. New services are trying to chip away at Google’s lead by offering a different set of results for search queries. Here’s a brief look at three of these sites that may help you find the information you need more quickly.

Bing

Microsoft recently launched a massive rebranding campaign for its Live Search, renaming the engine to bing.com. Bing follows in the footsteps of other mainstream search engines of Internet past; in addition to general web results, Bing also provides local, image, and refined links based on your search. Microsoft has held one of the top three search spots for quite a while, and Bing is the corporation’s latest attempt to grab a bigger slice of the pie. Here’s a search for Maine on Bing.

Twitter Search

Looking for something a little more recent? Twitter Search may be what you need. A Twitter search will yield results posted by Twitter users over the last month or so. It’s a great way to know what people are saying about something in an up-to-the-minute way. We’ve previously offered some Twitter searching tips if you’d like to try a search or two. Here’s a search for Maine on Twitter search.

Wolfram Alpha

If you’re looking for data, check out Wolfram Alpha. Wolfram Alpha will give very context-sensitive results: everything from statistics to graphs to maps, depending on your query. Here’s a search for Maine on Wolfram Alpha.

What are your favorite ways to search the current landscape of the web?

Technorati Profile

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Here at Sephone we’ve had two content management products for quite a while: datAvenger and datAvenger lite. datAvenger lite has always been our basic content manager, and datAvenger provided more options for companies that need more control and flexibility. (We have a product comparison of the two products available on our site.)

With some of the latest additions to these products, we’ve realized that the names of these applications don’t reflect the companies aren’t as accurate as they could be. If you’ve visited the admin area for a datAvenger/datAvenger lite site today, you may have noticed that we’ve rolled out a name change to both applications. Here’s what you’ll see:

• If you’ve been working in datAvenger, your content management application is now called datAvenger Pro.
• If you currently use the latest version of datAvenger lite (the one with the blue header bar), your application is now simply called datAvenger.

You’ll see these changes in the text of the application, the logo, and references to the applications on our sites.

There are a few key points to keep in mind for this transition.

• The people who visit your site won’t be affected by this change at all. The only changes you’ll see are in the administration area of your site.
• The administration area will remain the same other than references to your application’s name. This change does not affect any functionality.
• Your invoices from us will reflect the name change, but the amount you are billed will not change. This is only a name change, not a pricing change.

Thank you for your understanding during this transition. Please contact us if you have any questions.

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TechMaine hosts a technology awards gala every year to award various Maine technology companies.  This year, Sephone is a finalist in three categories.

• wabi.tv in Arts and Entertainment
• dempseychallenge.org in Non-Profit
• themainemarketplace.com in E-Commerce

We wish the best to all of the other finalists.

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Although we spend a lot of our time on our site management applications (datAvenger lite, datAvenger, Hula, etc.), we also do quite a bit of custom application work - projects for a specific client that allow them to do a specific task for their company. The web apps we build often replace a process that’s been used by a business for years: maybe a complicated paper trail, a messy bulletin board in someone’s office, or a manual transcription from paper forms into Excel.

We often hear from our clients that these applications save a lot of time in their daily routine, but sometimes there’s a learning curve as the business transitions to a new system. We completely understand this; after all, we’re used to providing businesses and organizations with improved ways to do a core part of their work.

When we develop an application for a company, we’ll often provide a version of the product for the company to use prior to its actual launch. These versions might not have every feature that’s planned for the final release, but they’re usually used by one or two people to help understand how the product works before it’s actually switched on and used by everyone. The product testing periods are a great time for you to give us your feedback about the application. If something doesn’t make sense to you, we can discuss what changes we could make before the product’s final launch.

As we often say here, nobody knows how your business works better than you do. We want to help your business succeed, and your feedback is valuable as you use your application. When the final version of your application launches, we want it to save your company time and money.

Photo by Anne Oeldorf-Hirsch, released under Creative Commons.

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What is RSS

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a way for web sites to relay their newly published content to you. It’s often used by blogs or news sites and very widely supported.  Rather than going to a website to view the content, the content is “pushed” to you.

Why would I use RSS

Instead of having to visit several websites to view their content, those same sites can just send their updates to you via RSS. This would enable you to just check one place for new information instead of going to numerous other sites.

It can help cut down on spam as well. With email, the sender decides if the recipient wants the message; with RSS, the recipient decides if they would like the information. Therefore little to no spam comes through RSS feeds.

How do I know if a site has a feed

In most browsers, an orange icon, similar to the one in this post will appear around the address bar.  By clicking on it, you can see the feed.  Sometimes you will see a link on a site called “RSS” or “feeds” as well.

How do I use RSS

You are going to need a feed reader. The feed reader is an application that subscribes you to the updates.  This application wiill pull RSS feed data into one place for you to view.  We can write volumes about the numerous applications, but we are going to stick to the basics.

Web Browser Based

A web browser based feed reader is one that you use with your web browser. Your web browser is what you view the internet with, like internet explorer, firefox or safari.   With your browser you go to the feed reader site, login, and it will show you your feeds’ content.  Here are a list of popular feedreaders.

• Google Reader
• Blog Lines
• My Yahoo!
• News Gator

Most of these are easy to setup and use.  Plus they can be used for any computer that has internet access.  The rest of these need to be linked to a single computer.  If you don’t know which one of the below feed readers to use, try one of these.  I personally use google reader.

Vista Based

Windows Vista has it’s own way of dealing with RSS feeds.  Here are the basic steps.

1. Open Internet Explorer by clicking the Start button and then clicking Internet Explorer.
2. Go to the website that has the feed you want to subscribe to.
3. Click on the feed button
4. Click Subscribe to this Feed.
5. Type a name for the feed and select the folder to create the feed in.
6. Click Subscribe.

Once you are subscribed it will show in your internet explorer.  You can now add the feed to your vista sidebar or to your windows mail program.

Outlook

Inside of Microsoft Office, Outlook provides RSS functionality.  If you have outlook installed, by clicking on the feed icon in the address bar, Outlook will subscribe to automatically.

Thunderbird

If you have Thunderbird installed, it makes a great feed reader.

1. Go to the “File” menu and select “New -> Account”. Alternatively, you can go to the “Tools” menu and select “Account Settings”, and click on the “Add Account” button.
2. In the dialog box that pops up, select “RSS News & Blogs” and press the “Next” button.
3. Enter an account name, press the “Next” button, and finally press the “Finish” button. This new account will now appear in the folders pane in the main Thunderbird window.
4. Right-click on the account name in the folders pane and select “Manage Subscriptions”.
5. Click on the account name in the folders pane, and then click on the “Manage Subscriptions” link in the main Thunderbird window
6. Go to “Tools -> Account Settings”, click on the account name in the left-hand pane, and then click the “Manage Subscriptions” button.
7. click the “Add” button
8. enter the URL for the feed into the box
9. click “OK”

Apple Mail

1. Choose File > Add RSS Feeds or click the Add (+) button at the bottom of the sidebar, and then choose Add RSS Feeds.
2. Browse and select a feed you’ve bookmarked in Safari, or enter or paste the URL of a new feed. To search feeds you’ve bookmarked in Safari, start typing in the search field. To select from a list of bookmarked feeds, Shift-click to select feeds that are next to each other in the list; Command-click to select feeds that are not next to one another.
3. If you want RSS feeds to be included in your Inbox, click “Show in Inbox.”
4. Click Add

What are some feeds I can start with

• Sephone Blog
• Maine.gov has dozens of feeds
• WABI TV-5 Central Maine news

Nearly all blogs and news organizations have RSS feeds as well.

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Well another year has ticked  off since IMG (Interactive Marketing Group http://imgproductions.net ) and Sephone (http://www.sephone.com) decided to ‘merge services’.  What did/does that mean?

IMG and Sephone have not merged Companies; We are still two separate Companies operating independently, but because of the common desire to offer the best services we  can to our customers- we have come together to extend each others services to Our now combined customers.

IMG is still the local leader in Portal sites such as

http://www.MaineAutoMall.com, http://www.MaineGuide, http://www.JobsInMaine.com

Sephone is still the leader in website design, application development, content management, e-commerce and  hosting solutions

When you call IMG for updates to your website, Sephone provides that service to you- but you are still an IMG client because of your long-term relationship AND the fact that you have a presence in MaineAutoMall or  MaineGuide and have all of the others services like JobsinMaine too;  PLUS  WE HAVE WENDY!!

Sephone offers its Maine clients the opportunity to include themselves in one of the States top Portal sites to promote their business, with MaineGuide.  MaineGuide.com is a TOP referrer to Travel & Tourism related businesses in the State for the last 12 + Years!

In addition, Sephone & IMG have http://www.maineevents.com  a FREE Calendar Service for Maine businesses, organizations, and individuals.   In October ‘08, we launched http://www.NJhappenings.com and in February ‘09 http://www.FLhappenings.com

So- Happy Anniversary To John, Wendy, Scott, Kelly, Joe and the rest-  BUT also- to our collective clients too!

Sephone is credited for  online products such as,  datAvenger, the new datAvenger Lite, hulaCart, BroadcasterNow and other applications as well as Custom Development for clients across the U.S..

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Have you ever wondered if people are talking about you on twitter.  There is a relatively simple way to tell.  Search.twitter.com is the place to go.

To put it very simply, search.twitter.com is like google for twitter and works much the same.

One of the very covenant features of this search is that the results can be tracked via a feed.   Once I have this twitter search in my feed reader, any time somebody mentions me on twitter, I see it.  This feed is available near the top right hand side of the search results.  It’s the RSS icon, that says “Feed for this query” right next to it.  For those of you who don’t know much about feeds, go back and read our feed reader article.

To really get the most of the this functional I recommend you use the plus and minus signs.  Plus means that the search must contain that word and minus means that the search results must not contain that word.  For example say I wanted to search for tweets that had  ‘cream’ but not ‘ice’, then I would search from “-ice +cream“.

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