Web Design Business and Marketing

I was doing some research on internet statistics to plug into my proposal and came across this great website. It gives approximate numbers to the top visited websites on the internet. Below is a screenshot of the top ten visited websites on the internet.

Blurb from Quantcast website

Quantcast is a new media measurement service that lets advertisers view audience reports on millions of websites and services. Only Quantcast combines directly measured audience data with panel-based estimates to deliver accurate third-party metrics and easy-to-read profiles on digital media properties.

Visit the website: Quantcast - Open Internet Ratings

Looks like a great resource!

I just finished reading “Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big” by Bo Burlingham. If you own a small business and are challenged with the pains of growth this book has a different outlook and is a “should read”. Small Giants is written like a study of different great business. The study is figuring what makes these businesses great and different from the bigger corporations. The author explains in the book that each of these extraordinary businesses have something that many other businesses are striving to obtain and that is mojo. Mojo was a word he came up to describe it because it was hard to describe what was different. Bo takes a look at each business and compares to other “Small Giants” to see what are the similarities and pinpoint what the equation is for a “Small Giant”. You will read about great business lead by great people wanting to achieve great things. Each of these businesses was at one point approached about growth, whether it be going public, expanding or creating other locations. It was at this point in time there was a shift in ideas about going big. Each of these businesses refused to grow big are highly profitable and have never look back since. Overall I took a great liking to Bo’s perspective on the subject and really do have a different outlook at how to conduct business. I do advise that you read it and keep it as a reference.

Books I just purchased:

“A Technique for Producing Ideas” by James Webb Young (65 page great read and resource)
“How to Get Ideas (BK Life)” by Jack Foster (Just started reading based on book above)
“Purple Cow” by Seth Godin (Going to start reading after above book)

I visited the Apple website, to catch a glimpse of my baby online hope to have her soon, and noticed the new Christmas commercial on the front page. I can’t tell you how much I love good advertising. Not only do I love good advertising but I love consistent advertising. According to Cartoon Brew the commercial was directed by Drew Lightfoot and character design by Shane Prigmore created at Laika House.

View Video

I will admit that I thought for more than a bit of what the title of this post should be. Yesterday for the first time in a while (long while) my wife and I actually unplugged ourselves from technology. We sat and chatted about life, goals, our kids, our relationship, the future, her dreams, my dreams and my business Web Design San Antonio (shameless plug or unplug to go with the theme here). It was the sweetest and most needed conversation we had in a while.

We both have computers here, she has two (lucky, one for her work), and our week usually consists of Elaine and I switching off with the boys. She needs to make calls and do data entry on her laptop for her job and weekly home visits. I tend to work a lot on the projects that are sitting on my desk or making new contacts. In our off time we are playing, cleaning or watching our boys rule our lives. We have a 4 year old and a 2 year old boy. When the bubs are in bed Elaine and I have our own relaxing outlet. She spends some time on Myspace posting pictures of us or posting a new blog on her website. I tend to create my own list. Updating my twitter, updating mypsace, posting a new blog (which I love guys, so please keep coming back), create some other idea that has been sitting in the back of my mind for a while.

Yesterday I told Elaine let’s not jump on the computers at all, let’s not turn on the tv and let’s just talk. Elaine is the sweetest woman and the best friend that I will ever have.

The point
There are a lot of great things to do online and a lot of great things not to do. Through all the emails, text messages, phone calls, business transactions, social networks please do not forget the things that are important to you in life. Remember to love, remember to create memories, talk with your significant other, play with your kids, laugh A LOT and live life without any regrets. My challenge to you is to unplug yourself so you can connect!

This past holidays meant having a lot of family over, eating till we fell over, then doing it all over again. I also had some downtime and I used it to clean up my office. I went through a lot of old junk. I also went through out dated backup CDs that I created every time I decided to reformat my Windows 98, 500 Mghz, 128 mb ram computer. It was my first love (sorry babe) and I always liked reinstalling windows just because it always seemed to run smoother with a fresh operating system. Anyways back to the story. I found a ton of old files and pictures that were awesome to go through and reminisce. In my findings I found the Tri-Omni website (this website) in it’s earlier stages. I found version 2, 3 and 4 making this current design and purpose version 5.0. I was so ecstatic about them that I decided to republish each version here on my blog. What about version 1.0 you ask? It is missing in action and I am still going through CDs to see if I can catch a glimpse of it. I found resources that indicated its start but did not find any end results of it. If I can not find it I will conclude that it never really launched as my memory does not serve me well. Nonetheless here are the other versions:

Tri-Omni Version 2.0

Tri-Omni Version 3.0

Tri-Omni Version 4.0

Please do not laugh as these were my pre-css days and all designs were constructed by tables. LOL!!!

I recently decided to launch the freelance business I have been doing for years into a full time business. I have been off to a great start and things seem to be shaping up for my business. One of the things I did to launch my business was research. I researched what books and materials were out there that would help me on my way of launching. I came across this kit in my search Web Design Business Kit. The kit is priced at $247.00 dollars on the Sitepoint Website. After reading this book and using the many resources that it has to offer it has paid for itself 10 fold. I am big on figuring out if my money is well spent. I always do a break even point in my head knowing that if I spent “x” amount of dollars on a advertising did it make it’s money back and then some.

In short

Pros: This binder was packed with information about web, marketing ideas and business advice. The book did not only have to do with starting a web business but also how to run a business. The one thing that resonates over and over is that most businesses have poor customer services and that if they would just fix this one thing they would be able to make more money. The binder was also packed with documents that this company uses for its business. You couldn’t get a better bundle of information for this price anywhere.

Cons: The documents provided in some cases seemed to be redundant. For example there is a sample website analysis form that came with the purchase. The questions seemed out of order and some questions were even repeated. I took this 14-page document and rearranged it to fit to 6 pages. But this still beats starting from scratch.

Overall: The binders and CDs were a great resource and starting point for my business. All of the information provided would have taken me months to come up. I was able to get past the creation of the documents and process and just tweak and fine-tune them to my needs. If you are serious about starting a web design business this kit is a must have!

Came across an interview with Jason Fried, CEO of 37 Signals and creator of Basecamp.

Wiki 37 Signals

View interview (BIF-3 Collaborative Innovation Summit)

Say no more and keep it simple!

I am sitting here at about 1:45am. I just finished working on a logo for a client, I glanced down at my to do list and was astonished to find out that I crossed out everything. Wow this is the first time that this has happened. I realized I only had four things on my list today and usually I have like 20. The point is keep your to do list short (realistic) so you will accomplish what you need to. If you do have a long list then prioritize it so you can accomplish what really needs to be done.

Additional reading: Six Slam-Dunk Time Management Tips

Smashing magazine did a great article on date pickers and calendar scripts.

Online Calendars and Date Pickers

We created a content management system for a client that required a date picker be added and one addition I would like to add to the Smashing Magazine article is Clean Calendar by Marc Grabanski. It is a great and easy resource to install.

I follow several blogs that always have interesting stuff to say about web and design (you can view the list on the right). One post I just read was by Rich Quick over at Web Design Book. The blog was whether or not we as web designers should still develop for 800 x 600 screen resolutions. You can read the blog here: Is it time to stop supporting 800 x 600?

I follow Cameron Moll’s website as well and a while back he had a few good articles talking about the support for 800 x 600.

Optimal width for 1024px resolution? and Gridding the 960

Here are some Browser Display Statistics, which is note worthy information.

These other blogs also prove a point about the grid system and how many sections the actual dimension can be divided up into. Quote taken from Cameron’s blog below:

I’ve been using 960 for some time now, as it’s slightly smaller than full width, and it’s divisible by 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 15, and 16 (imagine the grid possibilities).

I made the decision to stop supporting 800 x 600 design about the beginning of the year (I guess I did accomplish one of my new year resolutions). Even designing at this resolution I have clients asking me to design something outside of this area that is pleasing to the eye. One of my clients had a 24 inch monitor and when I went over to his office to view my design it looked empty, but it also didn’t help that he was running his resolution at 100000000 x 10000000 j/k.