This website has over 350 videos for kids with loads more content in the pipeline. The site is built on BigCake’s WordPress framework and we were able to build in some very cool integration with the Ooyala video platform. The team did a great job.

Check it out here: http://www.jellytelly.com/

Check it out here: http://bgcke.com/tn-advent

Enter their sweepstakes to win 1 of 100 great prizes:  http://bgcke.com/tnbible-sweeps

Today In A Manger is BigCake’s first end-to-end book project providing a full suite of self-publishing services. Bob’s dad Ian Strachan is the author of Today In An Manger – An Advent Devotional. The book offers 25 short devotionals which dive deep into the Christmas story. Order your copy here.

We used our own customized BigCake WordPress theme and Foxycart to handle the ecommerce. The site also uses a cool Scribd embed which allows readers to experience the book right on the site.

The store contains several purchase options including a physical copy of the book, an autographed copy of the book, an e-book version and a bulk ordering option.

Checkout the site and let us know what you think!

The new store is scheduled to go live in June 2010. We will post a link here when the store goes live. It looks amazing!

SQUARE - The card reader plugs into your audio jack

Square is an insanely easy, low cost way to take credit card payments.

In my humble opinion, I think this will be the mobile innovation of 2010. The biggest impact will be on small and medium sized retailers. I don’t think large companies are nimble enough to switch to something that’s this new, even if they can see the benefits.

For small businesses, the attraction will be the ease of setup, mobility, and connectivity that Square provides to the customer. I think medium sized business will be attracted by those things as well as the competitive fee structure.

One of the founders of twitter, Jack Dorsey, launched this start-up last year, and this week their iPhone app went live on the iTunes App Store.

Now anyone can use their mobile device (iPhone/iPad/Android phone) to take payments anywhere. It uses a small card reader that connects to the audio jack on your phone. (!?!) Signup is simple and free.

Square can let you know if someone is a repeat customer who may be entitled to a freebie – like punch cards do now. Square will also donate one cent of each transaction to the charity of your choice.

Square’s card processing fees are:
2.75% + 15¢ for swiped transactions
3.5% + 15¢ for keyed-in transactions
There are no activation, gateway, monthly, early termination, or hidden fees.

You can track all payments online & send receipts to customers electronically. No paper.

Square will automatically send your money to your bank account when your account balance exceeds $10. It can take 1-2 business days (depending on your bank) for the electronic transfer to clear.

It’s like kind of like Paypal on the go… but cooler. And cheaper.

One concern I have is for vendors that have a large volume of transactions every day. How much physical strain will all those swipes put on the smartphone’s headphone jack? I assume that – at some point – someone will develop a standalone bluetooth reader that will make swiping cards even easier.

LINKS:
https://squareup.com/features

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSzsFAJAKHI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBieYjxUj5Q

Check out http://dreamhousekings.com

A Few of Shopify’s Features

Check out their full feature list.

You do have to develop the store theme using Shopify’s custom ‘Liquid’ design code, and it does require some creative work-arounds to achieve a level of customization, but the community and support around the platform is good. The number of plugins for Shopify is still small but I hope to see more added this year. We have talked internally about developing a social media one and a reporting one, we’ll see…

BigCake Media has some great experience building out these stores on Shopify, and our customers have been really happy with the design and the platform. Check out these these 2 sites we did most recently:

http://store.whatsinthebible.com

http://store.allthingsconverge.com (under construction – see design below)

You can update your twitter, facebook, facebook pages, linkedin, myspace and many more, all from a single place. Ping was recently purchased by Seesmic who have developed a number social networking clients for various mobile, desktop and web-based platforms. I’d expect to see Ping.fm integrated pretty tightly across the Seesmic platforms in the near future.

Check it out!

It got me thinking, what would Social Media flavored ice cream taste like?

Plain vanilla with lots of nuts?

Neapolitan with rainbow sprinkles?

Tutti Frutti mixed with Rocky Road?

What do you think…?