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!