What’s New

We have just relaunched the totally rebuilt site, www.tasteofguilderland.com. Many new and exciting things are going on in our area, so it was time to do a complete site makeover. What’s up in town? We have the soon-to-be-famous Guilderland Restaurant Week coming up in July. You won’t want to miss this. We also have the stunningly popular Souped Up On Guilderland returning for a second year in October.

Details for both events will be on the site soon.

We had an exciting weekend here. The great new Web site for The Vermont Inn was launched. You can see it at www.vermontinn.com. This site incorporates some features and techniques that are rather interesting. One is the design is influenced by The Vermont Inn’s printed brochures. Of course, you can never get the view on the monitor to match ink on paper exactly. The trick then is to make the effect accurate. The idea is that if the visitor sees one, they should see a similarity to the other.

Some of the behind the scenes technical elements are interesting, too. The site is designed to be updated easily and be found on search engines quickly and easily.

Visit the site today and check it out!

We launched the new Web site for the Guilderland Chamber of Commerce a couple of days ago. If you have been keeping and eye on the GCC site you know that we have given it an update or two over the last few years. It has been very popular with all sorts of special features. But the new site represents improvements of several degrees over the previous versions.

When you go to the site you will notice that it has a new layout. This modern design is more in tune with what Web users have come to expect. It is easy to navigate, streamlined for quick downloads, and is very easy to read. In addition, we also have fully upgraded some “behind the scenes” functions that will allow the site work be found easier on search engines and operate properly with a wider range of the new browsers.

One thing that general visitors will find helpful is the way that registration for all events has been integrated into the site. You can now RSVP for the events on the GCC Calendar and even pay any fees online. Membership can be started or renewed on the site. In fact, it is possible to order the free Chamber publications. Included are the Guilderland map and the Business Directory.

Visit the Guilderland Chamber of Commerce site today.

The headline above is a bit confusing, but accurate. So let’s get a definition and explanation by way of example.

When we talk about conversion on a Web site what we usually mean is that we want our visitors to the site to be converted from mere observers to something else. If you are selling gourmet dog treats you want the visitor to convert from browser to purchaser. Pretty easy, eh?

But the problem that we have with Web sites is that they do not offer the give and take elements of an in-person conversation. That means if you make a statement on your site the reader can only judge your intent by that statement and not by other elements such as your tone, facial expressions, or follow up questions and answers. If you use a phrase on your Web site that offends somebody, or does not clearly convey your meaning, then you risk a failure to convert.

Here’s and example of what I am talking about. Recently I had the occasion to investigate Web sites for small hotels and bed and breakfast inns. This was a rather fun project. One very difficult thing to do is to express the atmosphere of an inn on a Web site. Let’s say that we have a dock-side inn located in a small seaside town that has a strong historical connection to ships, shipping, fishing, and all things wet. Let’s also imagine that the inn is decorated in a nautical theme, although it could easily be decorated in something such as Early American style.

The Web site could strive to duplicate the personal experience and theme by using colors and graphical elements associated with sailing ships and world travel. Perhaps the logo might be a sailing ship combined with a compass rose. If there is a predominate color at the inn that color might be duplicated on the site. In other words our Web site becomes an extension of the inn, and if people come to the inn you want them to say, “Oh, it is just like I imagined it after I looked at the Web site.”

So far, so good. Here’s where it gets sticky.

One of the inn sites I visited used the phrase “smoke free.” “Smoke free” is a term that is in common use. In fact, it is a very standard type of phrase that we see everywhere. Because smoking now has a very negative connotation, by saying that an establishment is smoke free we are almost saying that the establishment doesn’t allow in that sort of low-class riff-raff that would stink up the place, spit on the floor, and eat the pillows.

It is different that if the operative sentence is something such as, “Because of state law we are a smoke free establishment.” In this instance the onus is on the state which causes every public space to be smoke free. It suggests that there is not necessarily a judgment against the smoker, but, hey, it’s the state, and, well, you know… that’s just the way they are.

But when an establishment simply says “smoke free” it suggests, as the TV commercials do, that if you are a smoker you stink, and that you are not welcome at the establishment. In some ways that is OK, smokers are a relatively small segment of North American society, and there are other place where they can go and contaminate the wallpaper.

Unfortunately, the Web site I was checking used not only the smoke free phrase, but another one is stunningly close proximity. The line on the site said, “Smoke free. Pet free.”

Oh, now that is really bad! This simple structure of two sentences creates a very poor impression for the visitor. Not only do they not want smokers, but they don’t want your little dog, too! Smokers stink, cat owners stink, and we won’t have any of that in here, thank you very much.

In person or on the telephone it would be possible to say to a potential customer that, “I am sorry but we don’t allow pets.” Or, “We do not have animals on the property so that our visitors with allergies will be comfortable.”

On the Web site, however, the browser misses the tone and feeling of the conversation. Still, it is possible to write a statement that is far friendlier than “Pet free.” People have very strong attachments to their furry pals, and being smoke and pet free is not making those people feel good about your inn.

The lesson here is that on a Web site every sentence, every phrase has to be examined closely for meaning and tone. You cannot risk missing a conversion because of poorly selected words.

You may be wondering if there is an easy way to offset the cost of your Web site. The fact of the matter is, the actual cost of a site isn’t very high for most businesses. You can get perfectly acceptable Web hosting in prices ranging from about $15 per month to $25 per month. There are a couple of host companies are are significantly less, but still do a perfectly good job.

Compared to the cost of electricity, gasoline, and Adobe software (ahem!) your Web hosting fees really aren’t all that much. But when you begin to add it all together it just becomes another nickel in that phrase “nickel and dime to death.” But unlike electricity and Adobe software (ahem, ahem) it is often possible to get a few bucks back on your hosting.

Many Web host companies offer you a couple of options that can help lower your fees. Once common technique are referral credits. When somebody signs up for a hosting program with your host company and tells the firm that you have recommended them, you will get a credit. This credit is often one month of free hosting. It doesn’t take many referrals for you to get a sizable chunk of your year’s hosting for free.

Another common technique is to place and advertisement on your site for your host service. Using a click-through tracking technique you may receive either credit or cash for each registration that comes through your site. You just have to make sure that the advertisement will not detract from the purpose of your own business.

The key is to ask your host if they have such programs. Usually they are listed on the host’s own Web site, so it is worth checking it out.

Does it work for me? You bet! I have one site that has received three months of free Web hosting this past year alone. That represents a 25% decrease in the yearly cost of the site’s hosting, and, as they say, that’s not bad.

This is a rather special entry because the computer I am using is somewhat unusual, even though it is famous. But, first I must note the passing of Arthur C. Clarke.

Arthur C. Clarke died last week. He is, of course, well known and respected as a science fiction author. News stories have always mentioned him in connection with 2001: A Space Odyssey. But he wrote much more than that.

Back in about 1970 or 1971 I was lucky enough to attend a Clarke lecture at the University of Puget Sound. During the lecture he discussed things such as satellites in geosynchronous orbit. These satellites would, he said, transform communications, education, and entertainment. By combining receiving dishes, solar panels, and batteries Clarke predicted that it would be possible to bring high quality education in remote villages in places such as India.

Over the years I have marveled at how all of the things that Mr. Clarke talked about came to pass. He was a true visionary and an inspiration to many. Which brings me to the computer that I am using now.

This computer is the famous XO that is made by the One Laptop Per Child program. The intention is to give these computers to children in developing countries around the world. It is a stunning piece of equipment and very kid friendly.

The XO runs on Linux and comes with a stunning collection of software for productivity, learning, and fun. Right now I am connected to the Internet by WiFi. The only trouble is that the keyboard is kid-sized so my fingers like to tap two or more keys at a time. The misspellings you see are largely due to finger size.

Because the One Laptop people have a vision of helping children through technology it is appropriate to combine comments on the XO with thoughts about Arthur C. Clarke. His 1946 idea of communication satellites, and using solar panels to power receivers, are part of the infrastructure that makes up the Internet today. The ability for children to get on the Web from remote locations is due to Mr. Clarke’s vision and the determination of people, such as those at One Laptop, who came after.

OK, so far we have been discussing how power travelers harness the power of the Web to make their trips easier. Now we will take a look at how to make your next airline flight more comfortable.

One of our favorite Web sites is Seat Guru at www.seatguru.com. Visitors to this site select their airline, aircraft, and then a seating diagram comes up. The diagrams have details about which are good seats, poor seats, and which to be aware of. It is very neat!

Unlike the airline seating diagrams, those at Seat Guru are reviewed by real travelers. You will not find a warning on an airline diagram that says a particular seat may be cold because it is near an emergency exit or that the seats don’t fully recline because it is against a bulkhead. But at Seat Guru you will find all that and more.

Particularly useful are the details about the seats themselves. You can discover how wide they are and what the pitch is in the class you intend to fly. If you need extra leg room you may find that 31 inch pitch is not enough. The ability to avoid 17 inch wide “mini-seats” is especially helpful.

Seat Guru is definitely a site you will want to visit before you book your next trip.

Well, so far we have discovered a couple of ways to track flights and use the Web to obtain important information. That is pretty standard stuff. But there is at least one other way that the power traveler can harness the Web to his or her advantage.

I encourage anybody who is interested in travel, airlines, airplanes, or local news to visit the site for Live ATC at www.liveatc.net. ATC stands for Air Traffic Control and through a network of volunteers it is possible to listen to radio traffic between the ground and aircraft in the US and beyond. Depending on the airport, it is possible to select from approach and departure controls, or ground control.

Do you even wonder what is happening when your airplane in the line for take off? Have you ever heard your pilot say that they weren’t sure when they’d be allowed to proceed to the runway? By visiting LiveATC.net you can often find out what is going on. A few months ago I knew somebody who was delayed at Newark while the aircraft waited for clearance to take to the runway. I “tuned into” the Newark tower and heard when that flight was cleared.

LiveATC.net is definitely one of the most interesting travel oriented Web sites. Check it out before your travel the next time.

For travelers one of the best things about the Web is the ability to use online services to make a trip easier. There are a number of tools that are useful for both travelers and the people who are associated with them, such as friends, family, and co-workers. Among my favorite sites is Flight Aware at http://flightaware.com.

Flight Aware is not only handy, but it is fun, too. It is loaded with flight and airport information. From the home page you can track the flight of your choice by entering the airline and flight number. There is even an option for tracking a flight even if you don’t know it’s number.

You can also track a specific aircraft by entering the tail number. Some people have favorite (or least favorite) airplanes, and it can be interesting to see where the aircraft is now. A few months ago I flew between Seattle and JFK on a Boeing 757. Three or four months later it turns out that I was on the very same airplane from Chicago to Seattle. I wonder where that 757 is now?

Flight Aware is also very handy for checking traffic at the airport of your choice. Enter your airport’s code, such as ALB for Albany or SEA for Seattle, and a list of incoming and outgoing flights appears. Included are both scheduled and current flight status. A high level of detail is available including the type of aircraft, flight status, and maps that show the location of flights in the vicinity of the airport.

Some while back I noticed that at about 10:04 every evening an airplane flew over our house. It was a regular as clockwork. But I couldn’t see what company was flying the jet. A check of Flight Aware showed that the flight was a cargo flight carrying the overnight deliveries from ALB to an airport in the midwest. Now that is a handy Web site!

Are you a “power traveler?” Power travelers are those people who seem to spend more time in airports and on airplanes than in the office. You know who they are, you have seen them with their notebook computers smoking away and they search for wireless connection. Even if you are not a power traveler you can harness the Web and use it to your advantage.

One of my favorite tricks is to use the automated notification services that most airlines and many travel sites offer. For instance, if you register with Orbitz they will call you or send an email message about three hours prior to departure. The message will tell you the status of your flight, including the departure and arrival gates if that information is available. Recently I traveled from Albany to Los Angeles via Cincinnati. When I turned my cell phone back on after landing in Cincinnati, Orbitz had already left a voice mail message telling me about my next flight and what gate I had to get to.

Most airlines offer these same type of notification services if you register with them. Check your carrier before your next trip.

I recently overheard a rather extensive telephone conversation in the Philadelphia airport. Our flight had a delay, and the speaker was trying to explain how the person on the other end of the call should check the flight’s status. She told that person to go into her email box, find the message from the airline, click such-and-such link, and so on.

It is really much simpler than that. If you go to the home page of your favorite airline you will almost always find a link labeled “Flight Status” or something similar. Click that link and enter the flight number. Many airlines have flight search tools that are handy if you do not have the flight number.

There are also a number of very handy third-party online flight tools. In the next issue we will discuss some of them. Stay tuned…

We have recently completed the yearly updated of www.karlsstoneart.com. Karl Hufbaur is a distinguished artist who works in stone. He is located in the Pacific Northwest, but uses materials from all over the western area of the United States. Karl has numerous pieces in place throughout the country.

We encourage everybody to visit this fascinating Web site and see Karl’s latest work.

Well, we’ve done it again. A brand-new Web site for Oxford Realty Associates has been launched and you can visit it at www.oxfordrealty-ny.com. The site has four key ingredients. One is, of course, that you can learn about Oxford and their associates. Visitors will find all the necessary contact information. The second ingredient is the ability to search the Multiple listing service. This is very handy if you are looking for property in our region.

Another component of the site is the enhanced communications options. You can ask Oxford to provide information regarding your current home’s value, have them keep an eye out for a home that meets your needs, or to ask questions you may have. In addition, there is a live “chat” window so that you an send them a message directly from any page on the site. They will be able to respond quickly.

The last feature will be of interest to nearly anybody. The site has comprehensive links to mortgage vendors, local educational institutions, governments, and other organizations.

Visit the site today.

Once again the Interactive Media Center at the University at Albany’s Library is offering free classes. While these classes are open to the public, they are a limited number of seats and they tend to fill up fast. Topics include Photoshop, Web page building, movie making, and many other. You can see the entire list and register online by visiting http://library.albany.edu/imc/signup_form.htm.

It has been a very busy few weeks here in The Famous Web Basement. Things are hopping and very soon some new sites will be launched, so stay tuned! Recently, in the process of creating some of these new sites and updating existing projects we have been adding some important new features. Among the most interesting is integrating instant messaging, also known as IM, into the Web pages.

IM has been around for many years. Various services offer it, such as AOL, Yahoo, MSN, Google, and others. The original idea was that the user would have a circle of “friends” all using the same service. A central database kept track of which users were logged in. Once you were connected you would be notified when one of your “buddies” logged in. Then you and your buddy could “chat.”

The weakness was that it wasn’t possible to send or receive messages between different services. As a marketing plan this was pretty good. A good plan for the services, that is! For the users it was a bit weak. One option was to sign up with multiple services, but it could be rather difficult to manage the accounts.

The solution came about in the form of centralized third-part services. These services have the ability to connect to many IM systems. Let’s say that you have accounts on three IM systems so that as many of your friends, family, and customers can chat with you as possible. Rather than log into all three systems and have to deal with three different windows, you log into the third-party service which automatically connects you to your three IM systems. You only have to manage one window and everything is relatively easy. One such third-party system is Trillian at www.ceruleanstudios.com.

This set up is very handy for businesses. IM can be a method to improve your customer service and enhance contact with clients. But what happens when clients do not have IM accounts? Obviously, they do not have the ability to IM you. There is a solution that is almost sure to interest you.

If you have been doing online banking or visited other Web sites for business that are highly customer service oriented you know that there is ofter a “chat window” on the sites. The window allows you to type a message directly on the Web page and then receive a reply from the customer service agent in the same window.

Now you can install the same type of window in your Web page. Several of the IM services offer “widgets” that you can place on your page. Recently we have have installed the widget from Meebo, wwwe.meebo.com, on two Web sites. Meebo is a third party service as described above.

Visitors to the sites do not have to subscribe to Meebo or any particular IM service. In fact, they do not have to subscribe to any service at all.

Why use a widget on your site? Well, if you are like most businesses these days you have several communication options. These include telephone, fax, and email. An IM widget opens one additional line of communication between you and your clients. Best of all, these widgets are free. Fancy online chat systems are no longer reserved only for the “big guys” with pockets that are deep enough to afford custom programming and installation. Now just about anybody and have a online chat at a remarkably low price, free!

The blog is now 10 years old. “Blog” is a shortened version of the term “Weblog.” In the early days the blog was primarily a method for diarists to tell anybody who was vaguely interested what they kind of bagel they had to eat in the morning and what they did on the way to the dog park. Now blogs are regularly subjects for CNN pieces and area important extensions of many newspapers’ reporting techniques. There are humor blogs, political blogs, industry blogs, and blog blogs.

The question that many business owners should ask how can they use blogs as part of their business plans. Let’s take a look at the options. Blogs can be used as a method of communicating with customers and clients. That is the most obvious way of using them. But the software that manages the blog can be used as a tool to keep a Web site up to date. In the first instance, the blog is a way for the business owner to tell about new products, sales, technical tips, and, yes, Website launches!

For this type of communication the blog can be hosted on the business’s own Website, or it can be hosted on a third-party service such as Blogger. Does it make much difference? Maybe in some instances it does, but for most small businesses it does not. One reason for this is that hosting a blog on one’s own Website require management of the software, such as making sure it is up to date and spam proof. Using a third-party service is much easier because the service makes sure the blog works. The user can customize it for appearance and layout. A simple link can be added to the business’s Website that sends visitors over to the blog.

Blog software can be installed on many Websites so that the blog is hosted directly. Software such as WordPress is an excellent choice as it is easy to use and relatively easy to install for those who understand such things. Check with your host to see if they have the option of installing WordPress (or other software) for you.

In some circles blogs still have a negative connotation. In such cases having a “blog” for your business may not be such a good idea. The solution is to customize the appearance of the blog so that all “blog references” are removed. The blog then becomes a content management system. For instance, many people who read the What’s New section of this site, as you are doing now, do not know that this is blog software in action. Most references to a blog have been removed. The benefits to using this a a content managements system is that the What’s New section can be updated anywhere, anytime, from any computer.

An additional advantage is that many blog software packages, such as this one, offer RSS feeds. RSS (Really Simple Syndication) allow your visitors to subscribe to your blog. When your blog is updated they are notified and can immediately read your latest postings.

Can anything be better that that?

The new Web site for Stuyvesant Plaza was launched today. This is a very exciting project and can be viewed at www.stuyvesantplaza.com. Stuyvesant Plaza is this region’s premier destination shopping center. It feature great upscale stores, shops, and restaurants. The site itself has links to various businesses and maps that show the location of each.

Visit this fascinating site today.

The latest project from Roger Lipera Web Design & Consulting is an exciting new Web site for the Law Office of Margaret C. Tabak. This site is at www.tabaklawoffice.com and is ready for your inspection.

Check it out today!

We recently launched a very interesting Web site at www.ingersollplace.com. This site is for Ingersoll Place Assisted Living in Niskayuna, New York. What makes this site special is that we worked very closely with Brownstone Graphics of Albany.

The crew at Brownstone created the totally fantastic graphics while we turned their visual art into the Web pages that you see on the site. It is a real treat to work with graphic artists as talented as those at Brownstone Graphics, and I am sure that you can see that when you visit the Ingersoll Place Web site.

I am very pleased to announce that I will be making a presentation at the upcoming Guilderland Women in Business Breakfast meeting on Thursday, November 29. The meeting time is 7:45 and the presentation begins at 8:00 am. I will be on the program with Mark Grimm of Mark Grimm Communications. We will be discussing Marketing with Media and on the Web. We will be taking questions from the audience.

The event is at the New York State Nurses Association on Western Avenue in Guilderland. For more information, details, and to register please call 456-6611, the Guilderland Chamber of Commerce’s line.

It has been a very busy month in The Famous Web Basement. We just launched an exciting site for Bertino Consulting at www.bertinoconsulting.com. Bertino consulting comprises Joseph Bertino and Anne Nafsiger. Needless to day, all the details are on the site. But the short version is that they are experts in the field of medical research and consulting.

Check out this site today.