Some interesting facts/reasons to use social technology:
• 3 out of 4 Americans use Social Technology
• 2/3 of the Global Internet Population visit social Networks
• Visiting social sites is now the 4th most popular online activity (ahead of personal email)
• Twitter’s monthly growth rate in the first month this year was 1382%
• The number of minutes spent on facebook each day is over 5 billion.
• If Facebook were a country, it would be the 8th most populated in the world just ahead of Japan.
Many of your customers are already using or learning how to use social media right now!!!
• 93% of social media users polled believe a company should have a presence in social media
• 85% polled believe that a company should go further than just having a presence, but should also interact with its customers
Hmmm….Interesting….
• Millions of people are creating content for the social web right now
• Your competitors are already there
• Your customers have been there for a while and they’re looking for you
Just some food for thought from your favorite web agency, Keylex ;)
…with a little help from the good folks at: BusinessWeek, Cone Business in Social Media Study, Mark Zuckerberg, Nielsen-Global Faces & Networked Places, and Forrester-The Growth of Social Technology Adoption.
Now Uncle Chet’s no Financial Advisor, but he likes to think he knows a thing or two about investing. “Discount” would be Chet’s middle name (if his middle name wasn’t already Billy-Bodean). Last weekend, Chet saw an Ad in Trigger Weekly that he couldn’t resist. It turns out the local Gander Mountain was having a blowout sale on the “Varmint Hunter” optical crossbow fixture—Only $19.99! He couldn’t believe his eyes. Chet couldn’t pass up such a deal, so on Saturday morning, we waited in the parking lot for the doors to open at 9am and fought the stampede to the hunting department. After avoiding a scuffle with a gentleman twice his size, tripping over a rack of camoflague, and nearly being impaled by a misplaced fishing pole, Chet managed to acquire the last remaining Varmint Hunter Optical Crossbow Scope on the shelves!
Fast forward to Saturday morning, Chet and his trusty dog Jed made their way out to the backwoods to hunt stray panthers and perhaps squirrels if panthers were too difficult to locate. After only 15 minutes of waiting, Jed spotted a crow and Chet lined up for the shot. Squirrels and panthers could wait. The Varmint Hunter could not. Chet released the first arrow and missed. He tried again…miss. On his third try, the Varmint Hunter cracked, snapped, and fell off the cross bow. Chet headed home disappointed and without a single worthy catch. The Varmint Hunter was a flop.
When it comes to cheap disposable deals, Chet knows best. When it comes to doing it right the first time, Keylex knows best.
Cloud Computing is one of the most intriguing offerings in enterprise web hosting. Unlike traditional hosting where one or more dedicated servers are used to operate a website, cloud computing is essentially piggybacking off large-scale infrastructures such as Amazon EC2 and The Rackspace Cloud. The advantages of cloud computing are compelling; no longer is it necessary to ramp up servers for anticipated traffic spikes, manage the plethora of server security challenges or hassle with backup solutions. The downside is that cloud computing by and large has proprietary languages and databases which is not adaptable from platform to platform. While companies are scrambling to establish standards and some are creating adapters that make traditional sites compatible with cloud computing, there is still no good way to push an existing website to cloud based without extensive architecture changes.
In truth, the cloud concept is far superior than traditional server hosting and simply porting websites over doesn’t utilize its true strength. One example is Amazon’s SQS, a clever system that queues server requests so that if a server is running slow, the request waits until the resources are available. This eliminates many simultaneous processes from bringing down the servers and also solves the problem of interrupted connections, where a query is sent for processing and the connection is dropped before the query is returned. Traditional database queries drop the request if the connection is lost, where is SQS queues the request until the connection returns.
Here at Keylex we’re taking a wait and see approach. With all the advances of cloud computing, the stability is not up to par with our standards. Besides the intermittent downtime that is proving a lot less reliable than dedicated servers, the cloud environment is very restricting. We like to RDS into a server, tweak settings and have the flexibilty to pinpoint issues when they arise. Until such time as cloud computing fully matures, we prefer to keep our perfect record of uptime perfect.
Our theme at Keylex this summer is “Suspense.” Expect the unexpected. We’re working hard to create different and exciting solutions that will make a splash in the marketplace. The bigger the splash, the better. You could say we’re the heavy-set fellow at the deep end of the pool who’s taking position for an award-winning belly flop. If you’re looking for a website built from the ground-up or just a long overdue makeover, now’s the time to get your feet wet.
Uncle Chet is well aware that when ZZ Top wrote “Every Girl’s Crazy for a Sharp Dressed Man” they were talking about him. A self-proclaimed fashionisto, Chet can tell the difference between a BugleBoy and Osh Kosh B’Gosh stonewash denim without flipping a tag. He loves to give advice on texture/pattern do’s and don’ts such as: DO wear your hunting cap as an accessory to your lumberjack flannel. DON’T sport a t-shirt with more than 3 Looney-Tunes on it unless the characters are Wile E. Coyote, Sylvester, and Marvin the Marshin. (Which we all know is a combination that does not exist.) Uncle Chet is a regular mustache-clad Ralph Lauren with a comb-over.
Keylex also appreciates dressing the part, but you won’t find us donning anything with an Elmer Fudd screen-print. We stay on top of recent trends to ensure that your site is current and sends the right message the the right audience.
When it comes to matching tube socks with a tank top, Chet knows best. When it comes to pairing strategy with seamless execution, Keylex knows best.
Bloggers and Forum dwellers alike have been buzzing about the “Bing.com commercial” and prophesizing about how “Bing is gonna be better than Google” and “Bing.com will kill Google.”
Ok, everyone relax. Microsoft’s latest “Bing” engine has not yet proved itself to be Google and might not be ready to compete just yet, but it’s a different taste of web search engine. Does it have potential? Sure, but at this point, to most people it’s something new with a catchy name, and that is exciting. (Somewhat of a deja vu of a certain election held this past November, perhaps?)
Bing is the young, fresh, sophisticated new kid on the block. Besides being easy to pronounce, Microsoft is marketing Bing as a “decision engine,” differentiating it from it’s competition. The commercials are straight forward and effective. So much so, that people have been quick to jump on the bing wagon (pun totally intended). All joking aside, we’re not so quick to dump our beloved Google for the flavor of the week. However, we will be trying out Bing and getting back to you soon with our thoughts.
A Microsoft search engine, huh? Let’s see if we can keep it from freezing and crashing the world wide web!
The economy has created an “Economic Step-Down” where businesses and consumers are purchasing products and services at a level lower than they are accustomed to. Fortune 500 companies are stepping down from the Big Four accounting firms to the “Big 100″, end of lease Lexus owners are stepping down to Infiniti, and Starbucks junkies are convincing themselves that Dunkin’ Donuts coffee is just fine. Once look at Mercedes homepage message and you know they’re suffering from the wrong end of step down syndrome.
Companies can take advantage of this trend by stepping up their client base to the step downers. Nearly every business in America is re-evaluating their vendor relationships and finding alternatives that offer the same or similar products at a lower cost. If you offer products or services that you know will save companies money, now is the time to pitch to them. Office supplies, insurance, IT and yes, even web development. So take this opportunity to step up to the plate (pun intented) and make a cold call to a company that can step down to your services. They may be surprised how they are actually stepping up!
One thing we can all be sure of is that our Senior Creative Director knows his design. As for making a peanut butter & jelly sandwich…ehh…
A few months back his computer was making a racket and he decided to “investigate.” After removing the side of his computer tower, he noticed the cooling fan was humming and thought to himself “What smart thing can I do to quiet the noise so that I can get back in the zone?” He looked around his office for the perfect muffler and voila! - A red Bic pen. He stuck the pen into the fan, stopping it and the noise it was making. Now let’s just say that sometimes being creative doesn’t help a situation.
Months passed and plenty of creative work was done in peace and quiet. Until last Wednesday. In the middle of a project, out went the power on the designer’s desktop. It turns out the ol’ pen-in-the-fan trick worked too well. It actually managed to kill the power supply to the whole computer.
Luckily, our Lead Developer is also handy with hardware and performed a brain transplant on the tower. The photo above is a testament to one of his many talents.
Moral of the story: Creative: Forget moonlighting as a Computer Repair Man and don’t quit your day job!
What’s great about Hulu’s take on marketing and advertising is that they focus heavily on their product and what they do best. They leave the communicating to the communicators and know that the product will say the rest. It’s a recipe for an attractive and successful brand!
