Fenix Blog

State of the Web 2008

Mon, 12 Jan 09 17:15:00 UT

John Allsopp has put together the data from his extensive State of the Web 2008 survey. In it you will find details on who was surveyed to set context, the browser / os usage claimed, and answers on the use of technology such as:

Markup usage
CSS and other presentation technology
JavaScript, Ajax, and the DOM
Flash, Silverlight and embedded content
Backend systems

John and Scroll Magazine have a nice conclusion: In this first of its kind study, over 1200 web professionals from across the globe, in a broad range of industry sectors and organization types, were surveyed on the browsers, operating systems, development technologies and practices they use when building web sites and applications.

Some surprising results from the survey include:

nearly half the respondents use Mac OS X Leopard, and over half use a non Windows Operating system. Windows XP still outweighs Windows Vista among these users by a factor of 4 to 1 as their operating system of choice
just a small majority, less than 5%, use any version of Internet Explorer as their primary browser, while Firefox dominates as the browser for choice, with over 60% market share. Safari 3 follows with 21%, and the much talked about Chrome on just 4%
only a tiny handful use Internet Explorer 8 beta as their browser of choice
despite the hype of the iPhone, less than 20% of respondents use the mobile web, and a similar number develop sites optimized for mobiles

Web Development technologies
When it comes to web technology use, standards based and open source technologies dominate.

Only 3% of respondents say they never validate their sites while 70% say that they frequently or always do.
Only 10% of respondents say they use tables for layout, while well over 90% use CSS for styling their pages.
35% of respondents say they use microformats in their markup.
95% of respondents use JavaScript, and of these, almost all use libraries.
JQuery is the dominant library used by some way, with 60% of respondents saying they use it.

With plug-in technologies, Flash continues to dominate, with a market share of around 60%. Silverlight still has a lot of work to do to catch the long time industry leader, with a bare 2%, little more than the Real format. Apple’s Quicktime has a surprising 20% of the market. Java applets have all but disappeared from the toolset of these early adopter developers.

On the back end, open source accounts for the majority of technologies used. Among server operating systems Linux at nearly 60% is used more than twice as often as Windows at 28%, with Unix also well represented at 17%. Even Mac OS X, which is usually far down survey lists for server OSs, is used by 5.5% of respondents. Apache at 70% is the dominant web server, with IIS at 23%.

Over 90% sites are database driven, with the open source MySQL at 70% and PostrgeSQL at 10% together accounting for the significant majority of sites by respondents. Microsoft’s SQL Server at 22% and Oracle at 9% were the other widely used database systems.

When it comes to server side programming languages, PHP is the most commonly used, at 63%, with JavaScript at 55%, ASP.NET at 17% and Python at 15%. Despite its flavor of the month status, Ruby comes in at 14%, with Java at 12%, indicating that the language which came to prominence with the rise of the web is well and truly being challenged from all sides when it comes to web back end development.

Transcribed directly from: http://www.webdirections.org/the-state-of-the-web-2008/

Marketing Activities You Can Use in a Recession

Thu, 08 Jan 09 19:30:00 UT

Marketers are well known for working within a budget to develop their marketing campaigns. Some budgets are big and some budgets are small. But the ability to get a little for a lot is going to get even trickier as budgets wane due to the current economic recession.

What tactics should you focus on during this time? The ones that give you the most “bang for your buck.” And the best bang is anything online.

All Hail the King - the Rise of Video

Mon, 10 Nov 08 21:15:00 UT

Video is making a comeback. With the recent popularity of sites such as YouTube, and the adoption of modern technologies, video is experiencing an increase in popularity. Corporations are beginning to add it to their marketing plans and are beginning to look at ways of incorporating it into their marketing mix.

Interestingly, the use of video by corporations has been largely influenced by a “grassroots” video movement. The mass popularity of YouTube, a site whose content is generated by a community of users, is one motivating factor in this trend. This online community has launched discussions concerning the corporate use of video in boardrooms across North America and the world.

To be clear, I am talking about the use of online video . Shooting a video and putting it on DVD for distribution or broadcast at conferences isn’t where it’s at. The opportunity to put video online is the real opportunity.

Example
Consider the Will it Blend? series by Blendtec. Terribly clever and frighteningly popular, this is a super example of a corporation using video as a means of marketing their product, reaching new markets / audiences and expanding their brand. We assume this translates into increased revenue, but that has yet to be confirmed.

The Will it Blend? series is its own campaign. You can still visit the corporate BlendTec website for information on their blenders, recipes and more. But it has an obviously more corporate feel. By launching a separate campaign for the Will it Blend? series BlendTec has used video in a masterful manner. Spoofy, funny, relevant, professional – these videos are engaging, informative and support the brand. They continue to be of interest to people as they use relevant events to create new video segments (i.e. blending the iPhone, blending Seth Godin’s book).

It’s worth noting that the Will it Blend? segments also appear on YouTube and are posting 5+ million hits per segment.

It is also worth noting that the segments are professionally produced. As “spoofy” and grassroots as they may seem, these are nothing less than professional productions.

How do you determine whether video is right for you? Let’s consider some of the best practices around online video coupled with some historical data:

- video on the web is not new but is experiencing a surge of interest due to demographic shift (younger audiences are demanding video format), technology and the emergence of sites like YouTube

- historically the main issues that have impacted the use of web video included plug-in issues and bandwidth. These have both been alleviated with: 1) Flash video being the de-facto standard which does not require a plug in to view when using Windows XP, MAC OS or Vista and 2) hi-speed internet availability and adoption by web users

- the onset of sites such as YouTube have made video more and more popular for communicating messages of all kinds – corporate, comical, musical, political and so on. The sound byte is still by far the most powerful communication tool, and video offers this capability and more. What YouTube has done is made the “sharing” of video content ubiquitous, so more people are apt to see your video message. By ensuring millions see your video, millions are now becoming increasingly expectant of this type of message delivery. This bodes well for corporate use of video

- video works well when conveying virtually any type of content. It allows the human element to be at the forefront and it is perfect for the communication of emotionally compelling content such as testimonials, personal stories, corporate / VP level messaging, successes and so on. Using video in this capacity makes the content more “real” to the user, which in turn makes them identify and relate to it better than other mediums

- as opposed to DVD or VHS delivery, web video is global in reach and has a shelf life that is virtually endless. Historically corporate video was placed on DVD or VHS which limited its viewing reach. As mentioned, sites like YouTube along ,with improvements in technology and bandwidth, have allowed corporations to make full featured video content available online and to the masses

- while there are instances where production values can be equivalent to consumer levels, audiences are far more accepting of professionally produced materials. The use of professional talent, professional lighting and video recording equipment specifically impacts the overall general impression of a video piece

- Web video is becoming a powerful online communication vehicle. The use of web video by the political party leaders leading up to the recent election was unprecedented. Postings on YouTube channels, and party websites showing recent campaign visits, party messages, political ads and more had never been accomplished until this election. The NDP site allowed a tool that would let you embed their video pieces into your website. All illustrating the growing ubiquitous nature of web video

When planning your marketing strategy for 2009 consider the use of video and the power it has to convey a message like no other medium. Whether it is a corporate overview, a product demo or a spoof campaign, the use of video can touch an audience in a manner an email, e-newsletter or whitepapers cannot. Consider using video as a means of distributing a press release, news release or e-newsletter.

But remember, to be successful you have to put your video online. The DVD sitting on the bookcase behind you isn’t helping your business. Online video is King.

Source: thanks to Pat McGowan of inMotion for his contributions to this article. Article developed by Jennifer MacKinnon and Pat McGowan.

Social Media Marketing – Who’s Using it and How

Mon, 10 Nov 08 21:15:00 UT

This article lists some well known brands using social media tools and strategies. This might give you some ideas regarding how to implement social marketing tools into your own marketing strategy. Some of these are terribly clever and very innovative. Enjoy.

Blendtec is famous for its bevy of inexpensive “Will It Blend” videos posted on YouTube and shared by millions.

Adobe maintains a list of interesting company related websites and conversations on the social bookmarking site Delicious.

Best Western sponsors a blog,“On the Go with Amy,” where the author travels the country writing about her experiences.

Cadence recently relaunched its website that now prominently promotes the company’s community.

Cisco hosts 12 blogs addressing a variety of audiences for their global business.

Coca-Cola Conversations is a blog written by company historian Phil Mooney that focuses on Coke collectibles.

Dell leverages a variety of social media platforms for customer engagement, including an island in the virtual world of Second Life.

Ford publishes news releases with lots of multimedia content and employs a social media news release format to display them in their newsroom.

Fujifilm recently launched a social network to build a community of photo enthusiasts around its newest camera.

GM uses blogs to communicate directly with its customers around topics ranging from design to green tech.

H&R Block created a Facebook fan site to aggregate its social media activities, engage customers and offer tax advice/resources. HP used Twitter to power a scavenger hunt at a recent conference.

HSBC built the HSBC Business Network to connect entrepreneurs using blogs, videos and forums.

IBM was the first large enterprise to embrace employee blogging and now boasts thousands of blogs related to every facet of its business.

Intel has also developed many social media touch points with its software communities, which includes blogs, Twitter and virtual worlds.

Intuit sponsors the Tax Almanac wiki, where anyone can find and contribute to this resource for tax information.

Jeep connects with customers via a community page with links to photos on Flickr, the company’s MySpace and Facebook pages and a list enthusiast groups.

JetBlue employs social media as part of its training for JetBlue University, as this video explains.

Johnson & Johnson uses this blog to show another side of the company, with frequent video posts and interviews.

Lenovo launched “Voices of the Olympics Games” to aggregate posts from the athletes competing in Beijing.

Marriott CEO Bill Marriott posts regular updates and stories from his travels to Marriott properties around the world to fuel the content for this entertaining blog.

McDonalds maintains a blog to highlight the company’s corporate social responsibility efforts.

National Geographic uses Google’s new virtual world, Lively, to bring people together around its new show, LA Hard Hats.

New York Times is beta testing a Firefox add-on that allows users to share and comment on stories through a decentralized social network.

Nike started a social community on Loopd to connect athletes interested in surfing, BMX bike racing and similar activities with the brand.

SAP sponsored a global survey of social media professionals to learn more about social media worldwide.

Sears partnered with MTV to create a social network around Back to School shopping.

Southwest Airlines employees share their stories and communicate directly with customers through the “Nuts About Southwest” blog.

Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz’s blog is the example most often cited for what the CEO blog can be.

Starbucks started MyStarbucksIdea so that customers can submit ideas for the company which are then voted on by other users, the best of which will be implemented by the company.

Toyota started its own virtual world to promote its products in Japan (site is in Japanese).

Visa launched The Visa Business Network application on Facebook to connect small business users and to help them promote their businesses to a larger community.

Wells-Fargo blogs target two audiences; one examines the company’s history and the other is for students interested in getting their finances in order.

WWE has a Facebook application, among other social networking tools and widgets, to bring fans closer to the action.

Xerox blogs address several of the company’s core B2B constituencies.

Zappos uses Twitter for employees to communicate with Zappos customers about their shared love of footwear AND the CEO has his own tweet

Source: transcribed from Mashable July 2008 article, author Aaron Uhrmacher, located at: http://mashable.com/2008/07/23/corporate-social-media/

Building a Web Presence – Selecting a Content Management Solution

Thu, 23 Oct 08 17:15:00 UT

Building a Web Presence – Selecting a Content Management Solution

There are many factors to consider when selecting a Content Management Solution. Obviously the first question you should be asking yourself is “do I need a content management solution?”

At the very least, if you have content that requires updating on a regular basis, then the answer is yes. And, with the emergence of Web 2.0, social marketing, online communities and online business automation, most of you are likely doing a whole lot more (or what to do a whole lot more) with your website than simple content updates. Choosing the right CMS can not only make the tedious task of publishing content to your website easier, it can also become the platform on which you can unify and integrate all aspects of your online business.

So, you need a CMS. Where to start? In order to make the right decision you have to consider a number of key criteria including what type of functionality you need both now and in future. Ask yourself the following questions to start:

What type of content will you be managing? Do you require dynamic content? (i.e. News, Events)
What type of site updates do you need to undertake routinely (content, layout)?
Is there user generated content? Does it require moderation? (i.e. Discussion Boards, Blogs)
Do you need to manage multiple databases? (i.e. product catalogs, mailing lists)
Do you need/want a blog, RSS feeds, e-newsletter, other social marketing tools?
Do you have an external database that you need to connect to?
Do you require a secure area for member/client access? (i.e. Extranet, Channel, Intranet)
Do you need personalized content?
Do you need to integrate forms/leads/data into a 3^rd party application (i.e. Sales Force)?
Do you need business automation?
Would you like to unify your web environments?
Do you need to manage an online community?

Once you’ve answered these questions, presumably you have scoped out what features/functionality you require from your CMS. If you’ve answered yes or maybe to most of these, then you no longer need only a CMS. You require a platform on which a CMS sits that is customized to allow for additional functionality (rarely does an “out-of –the-box” CMS do everything listed above).

The next set of questions helps you determine which type of content management solution is right for you. There are a number of different options available. We have categorized them into 4 types:

1) Single feature content management solution: these solutions are generally tailored to serve a very specific need – like publishing an image gallery, blog, podcast, forum, etc. (i.e. WordPress)

2) Off the Shelf solutions: a collection of functionality generally tailored to serve a particular industry. This category is wide and includes products that are inexpensive (i.e. Ektron, Marqui, Contribute) to more robust, but pricier products (RedDot, Sharepoint, Team Site). Proprietary solutions from individual web technology companies also fall into this category.

3) Open Source content management solution: Similar to “off the shelf”, but have the added benefit of low (or no) up front cost, and the ability to custom tailor the features and functionality (i.e. Drupal, Joomla, Plone)

4) Custom CMS solutions: commonly built on web application frameworks (such as Ruby on Rails, CakePHP, Django) and provide total flexibility since the application will be customized specifically for your organization. Obviously, these are the most cost intensive options.

Single purpose solutions are typically used when publishing a specific type of content. These solutions are typically used for blogs and give the user a WYSIWG through which they can update content and allows for content categorization as well. These solutions are typically low cost or free and are fairly easy to setup and maintain. A common pitfall with using these systems is that they operate in a silo – if you add more single purpose systems to your website down the line, they commonly don’t know how to talk to each other which often forces your users to remember multiple usernames and passwords to access the different sections of your website.

Off the shelf solutions can provide more features such as dynamic content, password protected areas, unique user content and more. These tends to be a great industry specific solution and are a good fit for small organizations that are looking for a dynamic website, a user friendly interface and do not expect to require more customized features. These tend to come with a monthly or annual fee and could require software installs on your organization’s network.

Your Personal Online Community

Wed, 22 Oct 08 20:00:00 UT

Creating online environments aimed at connecting a group of users with a common interest -- this defines online communities as we know them. We sign up for something we like and we go to that environment often to connect, share, collaborate, discuss and more. What if you could create your own social networking community? One that was exactly what you wanted and included only the people you wanted, if desired.

Welcome to Webjam and Ning two of the more popular, free, online services that allow you to create your own personal space on the web and connect with your friends, family, colleagues. You select the topics and resources that interest you and build your very own website or network. Whether you want to:

manage a hockey team
share your passion about a subject
write a professional blog
showcase your creativity
talk about issues that concern you
share your life with family and friends

These services let you express yourself and connect with others. They let you do literally anything online from discussion forums, photos, video, blogs and widgets to adding members, friends, events, groups and managing your profile.

Everything you do can be consolidated into this one environment – your own personal network.

Webjam has taken this one step further with their Branded Service which allows you to create a branded environment for your members. Example: Cosmo Wedding Communities which lets anyone planning a wedding sign up and create their own wedding site, featured on this brand.

What’s the difference? I
f you’re wondering how this differs from something like Facebook that answer lies in the “custom” nature of webjams. Instead of joining a large, already established online community with millions of users, Webjam and Ning allow you create your own custom experience – your topic, your friends, your content, your groups, your photos, your videos….you get the idea.

Facebook is a one-size fits all solution. Ning and Webjam are best described as the ability to create your own MySpace, Facebook, or Youtube -- but around any topic you want, with whatever set of features you want, and as public or private as you want

The Stats
In March 2008 Ning surpassed 200,000 social networks on its platform. With 1000 new networks per day being added, Ning expects to have hit the 300,000 mark already. Ning calculations are based on 0.5%+ day-over-day growth of number of new networks on Ning.

That’s just the networks.

In terms of users, Ning is seeing a 1.0%+ per day increase. Over 70% of Nings networks are active (used within the last 30 days) and there are more social networks on Ning than there are on the Internet as a whole.

Summary
For most of us, managing our corporate online environment is part of our daily tasks. Companies invest in their web presence and have the money and financial ability to purchase products and tools to make their websites effective business tools. But for those of you who actually leave the office at a reasonable hour, and have a life outside of work, the opportunity to use the Internet to share your passion is often limited due to financial constraints and segmented into either a blog, or Flickr, or Youtube, or Facebook.

Not anymore.

Go ahead and start your son’s hockey team site or your daughter’s science club online. Communicate with family across Canada and the world, promote your band or save the earth. Share those wedding plans with everyone!

The Newsroom and Web 2.0

Thu, 25 Sep 08 01:30:00 UT

The Political Parties aren’t the only ones using the web as a means of information and influence for this election. The news media (broadcast, print) are a traditional means of information gathering by constituents. But many are using this election as a means of engaging Canadians and creating two-way conversation.

The Canadian Elections and Web 2.0

Thu, 25 Sep 08 01:00:00 UT

October’s upcoming election is just around the corner and it’s exciting to see how the candidates are using the web, and Web 2.0 social marketing features, as a platform to generate interest, awareness and as a means of persuasion.

The use of social media by Barack Obama in the US Presidential elections is setting the stage for our Canadian candidates. With everything on the line, and the Prime Minister’s job at stake, let’s check in to see who’s doing what online.

And more importantly, who’s winning the Web 2.0 race.

Fenix launches new website!

Mon, 22 Oct 07 18:00:00 UT

We have been working very hard over that last several years and now we want to show you the results of all this hard work. We have launched our new site that showcases our work, our clients and also includes some great information on industry issues and topics. The new look and structure was redesigned to make information easy to find for our users and present our work in a way that demonstrates the full depth of services we offer.

This new site is really just the beginning of new developments at Fenix. We are very excited about the future and are looking forward to new challenges and opportunities. Check back with us often we will be updating our blog and the site with new information regularly.

SEO 101

Mon, 22 Oct 07 17:38:00 UT

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can sometimes be an after-thought for some marketers. It is difficult to find the time to devote to something that isn’t seen or read by a user. It’s not a Flash presentation that demonstrates how a product works or graphics that support the brand. It is, in my view, much more powerful than that.