Could the number of your twitter followers add to the value of your business on sale?
‘A new lawsuit values a Twitter follower at $2.50 per month and argues that each one belongs not to the tweeter, but to their employer.’
Designing for Dyslexics
Interesting article with tips for accessibility for dyslexics. Wondering if white text on black backgrounds is also a problem for these people, like black text on white backgrounds.
Social Media Engagement is Essential
Latest stats on Australian usage of social media show that it is imperative for businesses to become involved, savvy users. Let Sibagraphics know if you need any assistance becoming engaged in social media – we can help.
Twitter for Business 2
Information supporting the use free social networking program Twitter in business is proliferating.
Paul Rasmussen has some very useful tips:
Follow industry leaders who post links to important resources and influence conversations
* Post questions for quick answers and answer others’ questions to establish your credibility and expertise
* Create links to your Web site or blog (don’t over do it!)
* Keep up on the buzz in your industry
* Network with like-minded people.
Twitter takes only a few minutes to set up and using it could prove to be one of the best business decision’s you’ve made. You can use your mobile phone to update your tweets and the immediacy of the medium means it can be used as a convenient instant contact and support facility for your customers while you are on the move.
WordPress directions at #wordcampau
#wordcampau participants were lucky to catch up with advances in the popular, versatile blogging software, WordPress with a keynote address by Matt Mullenweg, the developer of WP. WordPress 2.7 will be available in December with loads more features. Matt alerted participants to a new WordPress template http://monotonedemo.wordpress.com/, where page colours and widths alter according to the colour and size photos which are added – could be a winner for a photography site. He tantalised the audience with a reference to the WordPress 2.6 Maxtrix Easter Egg.
The impending release of collaborative plugin BuddyPress was foreshadowed, an innovation set to energise and transform WordPressMU (the multi-user version of WordPress) with social interaction.
The beauty of WordPress is the user friendliness of its CMS (Content Management System), its extensibility with a wide choice of plugins, easy to read Help section and ready availability of templates. A collaborative networking facility will be the icing on the cake.
The online presentation was nifty, demonstrating the versatility of WordPress with integration of video streaming via Stickam, photos via Flickr and the inclusion of a Twitter stream using Monitter.
Other useful hints – collaborative tool ProjectPier, SlideShare, a site for sharing online slide presentations and of significant interest to businesses, the WordPress e-Commerce Plugin highlighted by developer Dan Milward.
Twitter for your Business
Here’s a list of useful links to help businesses use the social networking tool Twitter to explore new marketing methods and enhance communication with suppliers, clients or customers.
Twitter for Business : 10 Things To Consider Before You Get Started.
How Twitter will change your business
Getting the Hang of the Twitter Culture
Social Media for Accountants Presentation
Twitter your Vids with Ffwd, if you dare
Australian CEOs are using Twitter – read their feeds and discover how Twitter is implemented in their businesses.
Twitter Business | The Business of Social Media
Lots of Twitter Tools to augment your tweeting experience
More Twitter Tools
Follow Sibagraphics on Twitter.
Once you have set up your twitter, follow @Twitter_Tips for handy hints on improving your use of Twitter.
Social networking tools and customer complaints
Please feel free to add your Twitter related link in the comments section of this post!
Firefox 3.0 upgrade
Leaving a reasonable time for addons, extensions and themes to catch up, we’ve now installed Firefox 3.0.
Immediately, an anomaly appeared on the front page of the Sibagraphics site – a bottom scroll bar. This turned out to be from the top flash animations, one of which was floated right and the other left from id css instructions within the objects themselves.
This was simply solved by removing the ids and putting them in divs around the objects!
The site validates and is similar in all browsers, even the annoying and insecure IE6 which 24% of viewers worldwide still apparently use. Many of these would be corporate users who have unique company software reliant on that dodgy old M$ version.
Rather than use the M$ Virtual PC software in order to run two versions of IE, we found the very handy free Tredisoft solution, which will install standalone versions of IE from IE3 – IE6 if desired. Works a treat and naturally is not bulky and cumbersome!
New Wallpaper – Peacock and Flowers
Enjoy some of the new wallpaper we’ve added to our collection, from our recent photographic adventures in our own backyard.
These include two photos of Alistair, the peacock which has adopted us, a lovely white bauhinia, a butterfly obscured in a shrub, and a delicious elegant hippiastrum.
WordPress upgrade to 2.3
Another quick and easy upgrade to the new Dexter model of
Flash Intros
The latest Site Reference newsletter reiterates the important rule we’ve known and abided by since we began our business in 1998 – DON’T USE FLASH INTROS no matter how much clients may insist, grovel and beg.
“Please, don’t use a Flash intro on your website. You’d think everyone would realise they’re a bad idea by now, but every web designer still gets clients who just don’t seem to realise that Flash intros are universally mocked and hated. Don’t be one of those people.”
Here’s a list of some of the reasons why flash intros and indeed why pure flash sites should be avoided at all costs.
- Flash intros delay site visitors finding what they came for.
- Gratuitous animation is superfluous.
- Without html content, people without flash enabled will see nothing on visiting your site. Neither will search engines.
- Flash design breaks the browser back button.
- People who need to increase text size because of bad vision will not be able to do so with text integrated in flash. Use of html allows people to choose larger or smaller text sizes if they so desire.
- Link colors don’t work so you can’t see where you’ve been and which links you’ve yet to visit.
- The Find in Page browser feature won’t work.
- Text translators won’t work.
To counter these problems, when animation is required and actually adds something to a site, we always include descriptors within the flash object tag, title tag, and noscript tag. The web page also will have ample text content including text navigation.
Just say NO to flash intros! (and to flash only sites).