Posts Tagged: web

Mobile — 1 Comment
22
Jul 08

Mobile – Tremendous Change and Growth Ahead

One of the suggested topics from my Skribit widget is mobile, what’s new and happening? We all know that mobile is the next big thing, but what exactly does that mean? Well for consumers and businesses alike, it means a radical shift in the way information will be consumed and a shift in consumer behavior.

In the last 12 months, mobile web usage has almost doubled and the next wave is expected to come from Brazil, Russia, India and China. But to what do we owe this growth? Improved technology, from both handset manufacturers and the mobile networks themselves.

So how does this affect the way people will consume information? It’s common sense really. We now enter the beginning of the “micro age“, where information is broken down into relevant and consumable bits of information. This is simply due to the size of mobile devices, but then again, isn’t relevant information all we really seek? Since it is your mobile device and you are on the move, do really have the time to sift through all the noise?

With this surge of growth, three common (but innovated upon) commodities will be demanded by the masses. These commodities are namely communication, entertainment and easy access to information. The race is on to see who will dominate the mobile space, innovation and execution will determine the winner.

Business — 4 Comments
21
Jul 08

Project Wolf – Development Server(s)

I ordered the first development server for Project Wolf today. Choosing a server wasn’t as easy at I thought it would be, as there were many variables to consider. However at the end of the day, after much debating amongst the team, I decided on a local server.

We could have gone with some cheap overseas hosting, but this project is top notch and should be treated as such. Below are some of the points we discussed before deciding on choosing a development server.

  • Cost Effectiveness
    Without a doubt, hosting locally is drastically more expensive when compared to hosting overseas. Not in terms of hardware but bandwidth costs. You are looking to pay anywhere from R93 to R123 per GB (Gigabyte). However, the options to follow justify the local purchase.
  • Operations
    If you look at it from an operational point of view, the majority of our first clients will be South African. We want to be able to deliver true local speed. Why waste time moving from an overseas server to a local server? In demonstration scenarios, you want the service to load as fast as possible, even on a really slow connection. That being said, we will be able to quickly and easily add capacity for the Americas, Europe and Asia as we grow.
  • Testing, Implementation and Deployment
    Having a local server makes life easier and faster. Every single file upload and page refresh happens much faster, add all the seconds up and we save a lot of production time.
  • IP Protection and Security
    The great thing about having a local server, that you are in control of, is that you have legal recourse on SLA (Service Level Agreements), which means it’s easier to protect your service. Another thing I wasn’t happy about was having all our code on a foreign server, which does back-ups to other foreign servers. I want to sleep at night knowing I am in control of our data and that it’s only a drive away.
Business — 11 Comments
20
Jul 08

Project Wolf – Introduction

Last week Thursday, “Project Wolf” was born during one of our weekly team meetings. The project is essentially a new product / service (see SaaS) that will be offered to both businesses and individuals.

At this point in time we don’t want to give too much away, in fact we don’t want to give anything away, but I have to share my excitement. The offering will be available via both the traditional web and the mobile web. Personally, the most exciting aspect of the offering, for me, is that fact that this will be an international product.

Development has been scheduled to start within the next two weeks, as there is a lot of planning that needs to go into this. I hope to keep everyone up-to-date by blogging about the project as we go along. I am really excited and can’t wait to share the finished product with everyone.

Uncategorized — 2 Comments
25
Mar 07

MarketingWeb Gets A Makeover

MarketingWeb
MarketingWeb has received a makeover. MarketingWeb is a great online resource for keeping up-to-date with what is happening with regards to marketing, public relations, trends and branding to mention but a few, in South Africa. They have recently done away with their old design and replaced it with a fresh new one. I am going to take you through a few of the changes I noticed and like.

New Additions:

  • RSS Feeds

    • Finally I can subscribe to MarketingWeb and have their latest content delivered to Google Reader. Saving me time and effort. If they had an RSS feed before, I couldn’t find it then, but I am glad they have made it more prominent now. [MarketingWeb RSS]

  • Forum
    They have added a forum, obviously to encourage discussion an create a community. Their forum is empty as of now, but I am sure in time it will start to pick up and will be host to some interesting debates and discussions. [MarketingWeb Forum]

Changes:

  • Drop Down Menu
    The top of every page now has a drop down menu which makes for easier navigation of the site.
  • Events & Jobs
    The events and jobs sections have both been given more attention. Users can add events, jobs or even a wanted job ad.
  • Home Page
    The home page is much more appealing than the last one. The top stories are more prominent while the latest shorts, jobs and events are displayed in pretty looking boxes on the right. As you scroll down other stories are summarized under their relevant categories which makes it easier to find relevant articles.

Things I Don’t Like:

  • Page Sizes
    The home page weighs in at a hefty 270 kb. The majority of the size coming from the image and javascript files. Their fancy new menu is powered by a javascript file which is around 29kb. While this is fine and dandy for ADSL users because they have the speed to process large pages quickly it is the 56k users who will suffer.

Overall I like the new layout, it’s fresh and clean considering the amount of advertising. Hats off to their design team.

Screenshots of the new MarketingWeb:
MarketingWeb MarketingWeb MarketingWeb