| LED Digest 1960: When Biz Owners Go Stupid |
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================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" pair Networks: The LED's Web Host Hosting and Domain Reg. from a Trusted Leader pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it http://www.led-digest.com .............................................. April 21, 2005 Issue #1960 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ====== NEW ====================== --== Database Configuration Suggestions ==-- ~ Reg Charie "...these sites also use a phone in interface that is based on a per minute charge." ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Problems with Web Design ==-- ~ Martha Retallick "I have pretty well given up on the small business market." ~ Kathryn Martyn "Why business owners suddenly go stupid when it comes to the cost of a quality web site is beyond me." ~ Ian Dickson "If I were in Web Design I'd look at IFA Systems business model..." --== Beware of Internet-centricity ==-- ~ Joel Anderson "I sure would hate to ignore half our business by depending solely on our web site." ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== Branded RSS Apps ==-- ~ Tom Aman ======= NEW ===================================== From: Reg Charie Subject: Database configuration suggestions needed Hi LED readers. I have a client that wishes to set up an online business selling photographs and ring tones for cell phones. The online portion of this is pretty straightforward. A database and a user interface that allows for downloads on a pay per item basis. However, in looking at competitor's sites it quickly became obvious that these sites also use a phone in interface that is based on a per minute charge. The customer dials the number, selects a download based upon its code, and downloads to their phone. If anyone knows how to set up the phone interface I would be most pleased to hear their suggestions. Thank You, Reg Charie www.dotcom-productions.com ===== CONTINUING ================================= From: Martha Retallick Subject: Web design Speaking as someone who has been in Web design since 1995, I have a confession to make: I have pretty well given up on the small business market. Why? Well, as Scott Stolz so aptly put it, "Part of the problem [in dealing with this particular market] is that most small business owners do not realize how much work is actually required to build their website... Several projects that were priced 'affordably' in the client's eyes paid me less than minimum wage. Somehow I don't think that it is fair that I get paid that little for the expertise I bring to the table. And if I were an employee, it would have been illegal." Right on, Scott. But what am I doing about this problem? Here's my solution: Instead of going after business in the "low profit, high amount of handholding required" small business arena, I'm focusing my efforts on the institutional and corporate markets. In other words, clients with budgets. Funny thing about those clients with budgets. They're a lot easier to deal with, their expectations are more realistic, and they're not expecting me, their Web designer, to work miracles for them. They also understand that success on or off the Internet only requires two four-letter words: H-A-R-D W-O-R-K Martha Retallick Western Sky Communications Web & Graphic Design http://www.westernskycommunications.com -------- new post - same topic --------- From: Kathryn Martyn Subject: Web design Scott said, > I think if people understood how much work it takes to make > a quality website, they would be more than happy to pay the > thousands of dollars asked, especially if they realized how > much time it would take for them to learn and do it themselves. I've quoted my reasonable rate to build sites and have seen the faces fall when they hear $2000 or more. They were expecting what? $200? Sheesh I'm not going to spend my time working on any project that isn't going to make it worth my while, and yes, I feel my education is worth a fair exchange. I just spent over $200 to rent my son a tuxedo for my son's high school graduation. In case you miss the point that's to wear a used suit of clothes for one evening. It's all relative. People will pay what they think your work is worth, but you must also think your work is worth the price. Remember it's not just the hours it takes you to build a site. Factor in how much it cost to obtain your education, how many years you spent learning, how much you spent for software and tools. How many hours you spend in forums such as this learning, growing, etc. I spent years learning what I know and tens of thousands of dollars buying software like Dreamweaver and Photoshop, digital cameras, computer equipment, etc. Why would I undervalue myself? Quick answer is I won't. Why business owners suddenly go stupid when it comes to the cost of a quality web site is beyond me. They see those idiotic ads for $5 webhosting and think, "Wow, it's so cheap." Good luck with that, I think. I'd love to hear from any business owner who got a five dollar hosting package and made back his investment. Kathryn Martyn, M.NLP Ending Emotional Eating, One Bite at a Time http://www.onemorebite-weightloss.com ------- new post - same topic -------- From: Ian Dickson Subject: Web design (and proprietary RSS) An example of a company doing what I call tailored sites for a specific market. It is more than a simple template, but less than a full bespoke. Result - clients get MUCH more than if they paid for a one off from a designer, and IFA Systems make much more in the long run from subscriptions for work they are no longer doing. (Using centralised databases for generic text and calculators etc means that updates across hundreds of sites are trivial). http://www.ifa-systems.co.uk They only do sites for Independent Financial Advisers, and have a range of base templates that are then configured for each client. A key point is that IFA Systems were IFAs, and the people they use to provide content (me, and others) are also IFAs or ex IFAs. This sector expertise is the key to winning the trust of the potential clients in the sector, and the subscription model demonstrates an intention to provide long term support and development because the clients know that they won't be profitable for the designer UNLESS they stay. If I were in the Web Design business I'd look at IFA Systems business model, and then look for a suitable sector myself - probably partnering with someone with sector expertise to deal with content / law / regulations issues. (For example in UK Financial Services a whole raft of compliance rules have a huge impact on what you can do on the Web and how you do it). I supply IFA Systems with their core text and the calculators. Other people supply other content and plug ins. A graphic designer does the graphics, and IFA Systems do the engineering and make the sales. I'd look for a sector where clients would be high touch, and thus uneconomic for big cookie cutter types, tight walleted re paying for builds, but where the value of a good affordable web site would be clear to potential clients. Final comment - Propriety RSS - I can't think of ANY company or organisation I am so enamoured with that I'd download and install their software so that they could send me messages, or I'd get messages from the world, about them. No doubt there would be a market (I don't watch daytime TV either) but I don't think would be something that most people would adopt. However I CAN see a lot of scope in developing a generic taxonomy that would turn my RSS into exactly what I want. (This was an area that was a key block within CommKit, and is also a very interesting aspect of Drupal, where, for example, I have written a script that creates a user defined taxonomy url based feed by drop down lists which only references a subset of the vocabularies / taxonomies within Drupal. My first PHP script, yea!) Ian Dickson ------- new post - new topic -------- From: Joel Anderson Subject: Internet-centricity We have maintained a web site since 1996 and rank in the top 3 for most major search engines for our business: World Coins. About half of our business is generated through our web site - but that leaves the other half that is generated by direct mail catalogs and advertisements in trade publications. There is definitely a synergy between the direct mail catalogs and the web site. Whenever we mail out a catalog there is a sudden jump in our web traffic and web sales. About 15% of the mail orders from the catalog include items from the web site. Likewise the web site generates a few requests a week for the paper catalogs and we often get e-mailed orders that contains items from both the paper catalog and the web site. Getting a paper catalog reminds our customers to check our web site. >From my conversations with customers and from my own experience, I suspect a lot of people browse the paper catalog on the toilet, while watching TV, or in bed, where browsing the web may not be convenient. If they see something they like they may go to the web to check it out further and perhaps find some other items as well. Also many customers do not have easy access to the web or are not comfortable buying on line. Selling on the web is great - and is cheaper than selling by catalog. But I sure would hate ignore half our business by depending solely on our web site. Joel Anderson Interesting World Coins & Paper Money www.joelscoins.com ==== BILLBOARD =================================== From: Tom Aman Subject: RSS apps > I don't... recall seeing any... sort of customized > RSS "push-to-desktop" software similar to those > developed by the various weather sites... - Greg Cain, LED 1959 First, let's be clear. There is no such thing as "push-to-desktop". That would be VERY, VERY difficult to actually do, considering the number of computers that sit behind firewalls, are connected via a router, etc. Applications (and many exist) that appear to act like this are actually "pull-from-source" - some process running on the user's computer periodically makes a request to the site to see if there is anything new. > I can picture a company developing it's own proprietary > software that is completely branded... that can be customized > to scan and alert only for the types of news / promotions > the customer is interested in... There are already many, many programs that do this kind of thing. Windows Update, that notifies you when new updates are available from Microsoft, is the first that comes to mind. Many virus scanners, such as McAfee, do this so that the scan engine and the related rule files are always current. My spam filter (Spam Inspector) also does this so it always has up-to-date rules. My anti-spyware software (CounterSpy) is yet another. And there are lots more. Some of them are triggered on a time basis (they check the supplier site at regular intervals or at a specified time and frequency - sometimes configurable, sometimes not), others are triggered to check whenever the related application is started (Adobe Photoshop Elements does this). Creating a proprietary program, completely branded and installed as a desktop tray icon, as Greg suggests, is relatively simple task for any programmer. (If anyone really wants such a program, contact me off-list for more details). Convincing users to install such a program is the difficult part. A user should be very selective in his / her choice of programs that periodically check on a timed or specific time basis because, in addition to the space taken in the system tray, they are all using some portion of the system's resources (memory, CPU cycles, etc.) as they require that some background process run continuously. Having too many of these can actually impact the performance of the computer. In fact, one of the "speedup" techniques suggest by various sites and/or computer magazines (such as PC World) is to review and eliminate all unnecessary processes and their related tray icons, if any). From the point of view of efficiency, it then follows that an RSS Reader / Aggregator makes a lot more sense since this allows a single process to check many sites instead of requiring a user to have a variety of processes running, one for each site to be checked. The specialized ones should be limited to those that run for critical items such as Windows updates, virus scanner updates, spam filters, and spyware blockers. To quote the "Answers That Work" site (www.answersthatwork.com), "The trick to having a PC that runs smoothly is to know which background tasks are essential, which are not, and which only need to run sometimes. By managing these processes more intelligently your system can free up more memory, run more reliably and avoid crashes and lock ups." Tom Aman Aman Software http://www.cyberspyder.com ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains Copyright 1995-2005 Orange Wheel, LLC. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "There are no great things, only small things with great love. Happy are those." - Mother Theresa |
