From my perspective, it appears that the Canadian technology sector has turned the corner and is now back on the road to prosperity. This doesn't mean within the next few weeks or months that we'll be back to the heyday not seen since early in 2000, but we're now back on the road of steady growth as those companies who put off new investment in hardware, software and IT development are starting to open their purse-strings and take advantage of the deals that are out there today
Not only have I been busy during the early part of 2003, but so has my company K'nechtology. In January of this year, I became a regular columnist with American web based magazine "Digital Web" (http://www.digital-web.com) and with WindoWatch (http://www.windowatch.com).
Digital Web Magazine is an online magazine intended for professional web designers and is a throwback to the early values of the Internet and web, where information was published for the good of the greater community with no real goal of turning it into a for profit business. Revenues are generated by minimal advertising and user donations. The writers, editors and publishers with the goal of creating a better world wide web donate all their time. My regular column which focuses on the business side of the Internet is called "$ and Sense of IT". My first two columns are titled:
With a third column entitled "Adding Value through Search Engine Optimization" is due out within the next few days. This column addresses the issues adding value to web site design through search engine optimization.
WindowWatch is an on-line publication, which targets Microsoft Windows users, with interesting articles, software reviews, tutorials and more. I have currently published two software reviews (See Software Reviews for links to these reviews).
In addition to Digital Web and WindoWatch, I still have my regular column in Computer World - Canada. With the following recently published columns:
I had the privilege of attending this conference, which afforded me the opportunity to sit down with some of the worlds leading experts on search engine optimization, and representatives of the various search engines. Two primary themes came out this conference. First was the desire of marketing departments from all over the world to ensure that their sites get listed high in the search engine results and how one goes about doing that. And the second theme was the search engines desires to replace lost ad revenues with the new concepts of paid for inclusion and paid per click (site sponsorship).
Virtually all search engines now include some form of sponsorship where you pay to get your site listed in the first few spots. While this may seem like a simple thing, depending on the search engine, you still need to take advantage of standard techniques for getting listed high as you'll be competing against other sponsors for the same few spots. Who gets to be number one, is a complex formula of how much they are willing to pay per click (PPC), how much they are willing to pay per month, the click through rate (how many click per display) and other factors depending on the search engine. Seems complicated? Yes it is, if you want some guidance on this for your web site, please give me a call.
Over the past few months, K'nechtology has been on the go and involved in several web site redesign projects including:
SF Group - http://www.sfgroup.ca
The SF Group is a medium sized accounting firm based in Toronto, Ontario with affiliations throughout the world. They adopted a base design from their International affiliation and went on to modify the base design to not only be more flexible to their users, but to have valid and standards compliant code. They made the bold decision after a careful review of who was using their site and the browsers used by their target market to drop support for Netscape 4.7 and other non?standards compliant browsers. The site is built entirely in XHTML with all pages passing W3 validation. This decision allows the site to display information in a more effective and efficient way.
Unicash - http://www.unicash.com
Unicash operates several corporate owned and franchised cheque cashing and other financial service outlets in Ontario. The redesign included making their site more search engine friendly and the addition of new content. With the redesign, we were able to increase Unicash's ranking in major search engines like Google, MSN search and others from about number 40 or 50 to number 1 on the target key phrase. With the improved ranking we were able to significantly increase search engine generated traffic and when combined with the new and improved design, increase the number of phone calls and visits to the numerous outlets.
NewinHomes - http://www.newinhomes.com
Working with the Toronto Star's business partner New Home Buyers Networks Inc., we successfully re-launched the largest searchable database of new home construction in Ontario. The re-launch was in the works for several years with myself only getting involved for the last few months to ensure the final release worked the way it was supposed to.
Sing Tao New Homes - http://www.singtaonewhomes.ca
Following the successful re-lauch of newinhomes.com, I was once again teamed up with New Home Buyers Network Inc. to overhaul their new application to now support multiple languages. The first non-english version (a tradional Chinese version) of their site was launched on June 7 in conjunction with Sing Tao Canada's largest Daily Chinese Newspaper.
We've completed reviews of Family Tree Maker and Adobe's Photoshop Album 1.0
We've completed our review of the latest upgrade to the defacto standard for hobbyist to professional genealogists. Overall this low cost upgrade is a worthwhile investment with some significant improvements including the ability to save family trees to PDF formats for sharing with family from around the world.
The complete review is available on Windowatch.com. Read it now at http://www.windowatch.com/2003/april/family_tree_maker9_4.html
Adobe Photoshop Album 1.0
This is by far the best software product I've ever reviewed. In fact, I haven't been able to put it down, since I got the pre-release reviewers copy back in January. This is a must have for anyone with a digital camera. The software features include the ability to: organize, fix minor problems, print, share and archive your digital photos.
The complete review is available on Windowatch.com. Read it now at http://www.windowatch.com/2003/june/psalbum9_6.html
We are currently completing a review/comparison of the latest version of Web Trends versus March 5's Analyzer. In this showdown, we'll see if the rich features of Web Trends can out-gun the speed of Analyzer.
I hope you've enjoyed this newsletter, please forward it to anyone you think might enjoy reading it. If you were forward a copy of this newsletter and would like to subscribe to future issues, please visit http://www.knechtology.com/news/subscribe.htm and subscribe.
For more information on any of the topics or products referenced, please feel free to contact me directly at this e-mail address. Just to remind you that my services and the services of K'nechtology Inc. are always available to help you with your technology strategies, IT project management and Internet/web development needs and software reviews. Links to previous newsletters, columns and product reviews are available on www.knechtology.com
