Say No To Outsourcing!

June 21, 2010

I get at least 5 inquiries every week from web development outsourcing companies in India. All of them make the same promise: use our quality web developers for your projects and save money. My response to these companies is always the same - NO!

Let me explain.

Over the years, working with offshore companies has always appealed to me. The US dollar, even at its low point, can buy so much more in India, so it seems like a no-brainer to work with these companies. But that is where the real challenge begins.

Language barriers, time barriers, work ethic and lack of accountability issues make dealing with these companies far more difficult - and ultimately more expensive than dealing with independent developers in the US. And it keeps the US dollar where it belongs. You truly do get what you pay for.

So, the answer continues to remain NO! I remain loyal to my Florida based group of programmers. They are not cheap, but they are outstanding at what they do.

John Delaney
Principal/Chief Instigator
Integrity Tech®

Geolocation Matters!

The mobile phone in your pocket is now about so much more than mere conversation. Email, the web and maps have become basic parts of any new mobile, and those technologies are starting to come together.

Facebook asks “What’s on your mind?” and Twitter wants you to tell it “What’s happening?” but new social networks are focusing on a different question: Where are you? Services such as Foursquare, Gowalla and Rummble allow you to “check in” at bars, restaurants, clubs, the local Mall and even your office so that your friends know where you are. You can use services on your mobile phone to find places that have been recommended by your friends, or by strangers.

Now the big players are getting in on the act. Google released a location-based service, Latitude, a while ago and its new social platform, Buzz, can track locations, too, and Twitter has begun to experiment with geolocation features. AT&T plans to enter the fray soon with Buzz.com (not to be confused with Google Buzz). According to reports, Facebook will begin allowing its 400 million users to share their location later this spring.

The days of people sitting in front of desktop machines at home are over. Sales of mobile devices, laptops and netbooks have overtaken those of bulky stationary computers in the last few years. The power of processors now allows us to use smaller, more mobile hardware to perform the same tasks. So, if people use their hardware on the go, we should bring our systems to them.

Giving the user content that is relevant to the physical space they are in at the moment makes a lot of sense. We are creatures of habit. While we love the reach of the Internet, we also want to be able to find things in our local area easily: people to meet, cafes to frequent, interesting buildings and activities to learn about.

For those of you that have still not joined the internet age, you now run the risk of falling even further behind competitors that are now beginning the move from traditional websites to mobile content delivery and geo-location advertising. As the mobile internet continues to grow, so geolocation will grow with it. It’s here to stay – and it knows where you are, too.

Contact us today to get a complete consult on getting your business on the web.

941.584.7417

Idiots, er, Barbarians at the Gate

Every day we are confronted with companies that continually do their clients a major disservice because they are uneducated in their chosen profession - web design. Most wouldn't know simple search engine optimization if it bit them firmly on the butt. These same people just don't know all the nuances of web delivery products, and therefore misinform clients, to the clients detriment.

Case in point: WordPress

WordPress is one of the Internet's secret superstars. It IS NOT exclusively for personal websites. And it IS NOT just a blogging platform. Well known companies like eBay, Yahoo, Ford, Sony, CNN, People Magazine and many more, use WordPress to deliver content to users worldwide.

Most web developers are frightened by WordPress - primarily because they don't "get it" and it threatens the income they earn from keeping your website up-to-date. Yet, your site can be a valuable tool, beyond your wildest dreams when using WordPress. Beyond the capabilites of uneducated web developers. Consider this:

• WordPress is scalable: WordPress is one of the few CMS platforms that serves trillions of pages daily, and if sites such as CNN, The Wall Street Journal and ZDNet are surviving perfectly well with their WordPress engines humming, your site will be fine too. Your site may not be as big as these, but WordPress is capable of growing with you.
  
  
• WordPress is Search Engine Friendly: Aside from the truly excellent All-in-One SEO pack, WordPress sites are well understood by Googlebot; and are one of the easiest types of sites to optimize. One of the most arduous parts of SEO is the mechanical, step-by-step routine of getting pages ready, and almost all of this is handled automatically. If every site was built on WordPress, the missing Title and Description attributes that we find on 50% of the sites we analyze would actually be there.
  
  
• With WordPress, you and your team can edit content: Web designers and home builders have one thing in common: they make more money out of changes you make to the original design. I know clients that were once accustomed to paying $80 per hour for simple edits to their websites - costing them thousands of dollars per year, which is quite frankly just shameful. This is truly like barbarians at the gate! With WordPress, you can hire a designer and SEO firm, set up the platform, and then make changes to pages, posts and layouts without having to cut checks. Editing WordPress pages is just like editing a Word document.

WordPress makes you focus on content. And in 2010, content is king. Static websites are DEAD!! Any web developer that tells you otherwise is guilty of stupidity at the highest level.

Contact us today to get a complete consult on using WordPress to deliver your business content on the web.

941.584.7417

IE6 users, it’s time to move on!

In late December 2009, we announced to our 8,000 plus hosting customers and to our many development clients, that we would stop supporting Internet Explorer 6 on January 1, 2010.

This move was based on many factors, but primarily that IE6 was a security and developers nightmare. It was replaced by Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 over three years ago, and upgraded again in March 2009 by Microsoft's new IE8.

If you are still utilizing IE6 in a corporate setting, the following two links are to must read articles on the subject. In fact, one plainly says "Any IT professional who is still allowing IE6 to be used in a corporate setting is guilty of malpractice."

• It's Time to Stop Using IE6!
  
• Should I dump Internet Explorer?
• Will Switching from Internet Explorer Make You Safer?

Attitude is Everything!

As we enter this new year, the use of effective internet marketing has reached critical mass when related to the success of any business. Although the attitude towards web marketing has changed over the years, many business owners are missing the point and continuing to WASTE their precious marketing dollars on dead or dying media.

The days of just "having a web presence" are behind us. In fact, they are long past. In today's digital marketplace, traditional businesses are separating themselves from their competitors with high quality, attractive websites. Ones that deliver visitors value and substance.

In the next month we will begin to display website comparisons for our visitors to review. Nobody is safe - from the Chamber of Commerce to local service providers, we will analyze their sites and give a comparison view of a similar business that "gets the internet."

What we are venturing to do is to turn the market on its ear, and let business owners know that the way they have always done business won't work in this economy or in this digital age. It's an attitude that is being adopted worldwide.

Back in 1985 I heard Zig Ziglar say that the results we get in life are based on 90% attitude and 10% skill and knowledge. Charles Swindoll said something similar -  "I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me, and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you ... we are in charge of our attitudes."

What is your attitude towards change? What is your attitide towards growing your business? What is your attitude towards surviving in this economy? I'm hoping the answer may challenge you to keep a good attitude and make the changes in your business that are necessary to survice in the 24-7 digital age.

Warm wishes for a great attitude in 2010, from our family to you and yours!

John Delaney
Principal/Chief Instigator
Integrity Tech®

Must Read Web Stats

The days of developing websites for the majority of internet users is now officially over - cross platform and cross browser compatibility are more important than ever.  Developing websites for all users should be the goal of all web development companies.  Consider the following statistics based on July 2010 internet usage:

• 46% of internet users use a web browser other than Microsoft's Internet Explorer - 30% use Firefox.
• 76% use a screen resolution of higher than 1024x768 pixels.

FREE Web Hosting!

Integrity Technology Group is now providing FREE website hosting for non-profit organizations in the Sarasota, Manatee and Charlotte county areas.  To be considered for this offer, your organization must be certified by the IRS as a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation with primary offices in Sarasota, Manatee or Charlotte county.

NOTE:  This offer does is not valid for private, public or charter schools.

For details and to discuss this offer, please contact us...

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