Article Understanding Twitter by Mark O’Brien on August 4, 2009 I have to admit, I've been quite skeptical of Twitter for a long time. When Bryn Mooth joked about Twitter being insignificant during her opening greeting at the HOW Design Conference a few weeks ago, I found myself agreeing - not with her intentionally tongue in cheek delivery, but with the face value of what she was saying. I had been using Twitter via my iGoogle page for quite some time. This interface only lets me see the last few posts from those that I'm following, and I wasn't really getting much from it. This all changed during my time at the conference though. Read Now About
Article The Most Important Person on the Team published on July 31, 2009 While not being the most glamorous or high-profile position, the Quality Assurance (QA) role is the most important person on any web development team, and it doubly so here at Newfangled. Without them, our websites would be riddled with bugs, projects would never get finished on time, and everyone would generally be in a sour mood. Here, I hope to detail out what exactly these QA people do, and why I consider them the most important people in the room... Read Now About
Article Prospect Experience Design Paper Prototyping published on July 30, 2009 Despite all the tremendous benefits using an HTML based, interactive prototype (which we will sing praises for til the end of time), I often find that if we begin with HTML alone, we're more likely to cling to a certain layout simply due to the time (and pride) put into crafting a complex HTML structure. This is why I begin nearly all template layouts with a number of hand drawn sketches or whiteboard layouts before we even begin with HTML. In this post, I'll share an example of how paper prototyping played a critical role in how we approached a redesign for winwithoutpitching.com. Read Now About
Article The Future of the Web, Part 2 by Christopher Butler on July 29, 2009 Imagine touring Paris, guided in real time on your phone by a custom walking tour you created using data from the web. Holding your phone up to the bistro on the corner, a menu as well as reviews from other travelers pops up on the screen, which you briefly scan before deciding to stop for a bite. Before walking in, you pause and reach into your pocket for your debit card, which recognizes your biometrics and holographically displays your current balance. It's a bit less than you remembered. Well, the bistro is a bit pricey, but you had a cheap breakfast... Read Now About
Article Prospect Experience Design Guest Post by Eric Holter: A Critique of the Currency Marketing’s Website by Christopher Butler on July 28, 2009 Now that Eric, our former CEO, is off to new heights in his career, I've invited him to contribute a few guest blog posts. This is the second of a series that will be published in the coming months... Tim McAlpine founded his agency in 1990. But it wasn’t until 2003 that he took the bold step to re-position The McAlpine Group (their former name) as Currency Marketing, a specialized Credit Union marketing firm. It’s rare that creative firms overcome their initial terror at the idea of such focused positioning. Fears of opportunities lost or being passed over for other kinds of work (not to mention the fear of boredom from doing “just one thing”) often give agencies pause. It’s sometimes easier for agencies to warm up to the idea of positioning the way Tim did at the time, by maintaining two “brands.” In 2004 Tim created Currency Marketing for credit unions and Passport Marketing presumably for everything else. But three years later the fruits of Currency Marketing’s positioning were so profound he dropped Passport and now enjoys a laser focused specialization, which gives him valuable expertise and a leading position in credit union marketing... Read Now About
Article 301 redirects, the Newfangled way. published on July 27, 2009 This blog post will explore what a 301 redirect is, why we use them, and how to set them up with Newfangled CMS. Newfangled generally advises clients to use 301 redirects when transitioning from an old website to a new website. What is a 301 redirect? A 301 redirect is when a URL : http://www.oldsite.com/old_post_about_product is redirected to http://www.oldsite.com/old_post_new_URL Read Now About
Article What Are You Listening To? by Christopher Butler on July 22, 2009 I've been enjoying many posts lately that fit into the "recommended reading" category- posts that list links to articles and/or books and explanations of why they're worth checking out (it's a content strategy). But I also listen to many audiocasts and would love to know what people in my network are listening to; I bet there's some great stuff out there that I don't know about. To break the ice, I thought I'd try putting out a list of audiocasts that I've been listening to lately and what I like about them... Read Now About
Article What I Read This Week by Christopher Butler on July 22, 2009 (Technically, this is what I read last week; it's just late going out. Just sayin') In preparation for Part 2 of this past month Read Now About
Article Prospect Experience Design Guest Post by Eric Holter: A Critique of the Talstone Group Website by Christopher Butler on July 22, 2009 Now that Eric, our former CEO, is off to new heights in his career, I've invited him to contribute a few guest blog posts. This is the first of a series that will be published in the coming months... The Talstone Group is heading in the right direction with their website. They’ve already done the hard part, choosing a bold and narrow positioning statement (they specialize in healthcare marketing). They also have a site platform that includes a news section and blog so they have the means to employ a solid content strategy. But they seem to stumble in implementation of a content strategy that accords with their clear positioning. Read Now About
Article Building a WordPress Site published on July 20, 2009 We've been working on Newfangled's first WordPress site! Read Now About
