3 Steps To Responsive Design Browser Testing
By David Ciccarelli
April 6, 2013
At Voices.com, we're working on a massive responsive web design project. In fact, this blog has already been done in responsive design, so ahead and adjust the browser size to see the content automatically reformat to the size of your browser. Neat eh?
How did we do that? What testing was involved? Find out the steps we took and the tools for browser testing responsive web design. I've listed my favorite tools, a link to a document on responsive web design that I shared with our customers and even screenshots of the charts and data analysis we conducted. Let's take a look!
Google Planning Audio Ads in Streaming Music Service
By David Ciccarelli
September 9, 2010
Audio ads will become the next step in Google's advertising network, according to sources. The service will support the Android streaming music that Google VP of Engineering Vic Gundotra announced and previewed at Google I/O.
Susan Wojcicki, Google vice president of product management, wrote a blog post in February 2009 describing Google's exit from radio but plans to explore online streaming audio. "Instead we will use our technology to develop Internet-based solutions that will deliver relevant ads for online streaming audio," she wrote. "We are dedicating a team of people at Google to explore how we can best add value for advertisers, broadcasters and listeners in this emerging advertising space."
How a New Breed Of Small Businesses is Harnessing the Power of Emerging Technologies
By David Ciccarelli
September 8, 2010
A small seafood restaurant attracts new customers with virtually no marketing budget. A four-person iPad case manufacturer generates more than $1M in revenue in four months with only four employees. A voice-over company is able to connect thousands of artists with opportunities, all without expensive hardware and software. A law firm increases access to key information while dramatically reducing technology-related costs and risks.
And these four companies are hardly unique. A new breed of small businesses is using Software as a Service (SaaS), free and open source software, social media and networks, mobility, cloud computing, and other emerging technologies to do things simply not possible even five years ago.
The LAMP Technology Stack
By David Ciccarelli
June 30, 2010
The technology stack that Voices.com used to build and maintain its web application is known as LAMP which stands for Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP (or Perl or Python). Used together, they represent the most popular and most powerful form of web servers and website hosting.
How To Speed Up a Website
By David Ciccarelli
June 28, 2010
For a web-based service that helps to make the world sound good, we've been focused on speed as an element of design. After 12 months of hard work, we've achieved a 10X improvement in page loading times. This means it's ten times faster navigating the website, uploading and download audio files.
Voices.com's page load time has been reported as fast as 963 ms, which is ten times faster than the 15.30 seconds previously reported by Pingdom, a web site monitoring and measurement service.
In today's article, I'll share with you a number of tools that we used to achieve these improvements in page load time.
History of the Voice Over
By David Ciccarelli
June 16, 2010
Reginald Fessenden, a Canadian inventor, was a brilliant mathematician and excelled in academics. Being enamored with the invention of the telephone by Alexander Graham Bell, Fessenden set out on a quest to develop a means of remote communication without the restriction of wires - thusly "Wireless" as it was to be known later.
In 1900 Fessenden set out to work for the United States Weather Bureau. During this time, the first voice over was recorded in 1900 by Reginald Fessenden who reported on the weather during a test.
Reactions to Male and Female Voice Overs
By David Ciccarelli
June 13, 2010
A lot of thought goes into the "right" voice for every advertisement. This, is primarily the role of casting directors. Certainly the tone and timber of a voice are two things that can help sell the product or service. But, probably the most important question every marketer must answer is, should the voice be male or female?
These are some of the findings of a new Adweek Media/ Harris Poll, survey of 2,194 U.S. adults surveyed online by Harris Interactive.
Statistics, Market Research and Analysis
By David Ciccarelli
June 11, 2010
Collectively, we work in an industry with eight decades to its claim and one that has undergone a phenomenal series of changes. Estimated to be a $12.3 billion industry world-wide, voice-overs and language services penetrate all forms of both media and new media, touching the daily lives of nearly everyone in Western culture.
You're likely already aware that voice-overs is a huge market, but by global standards many would consider it a niche market. And, like other niche markets it is often difficult to find market research, statistics and analysis in support of this growth industry.
Today, we've published market research on key areas of growth. It's literally a page from our marketing plan, so save yourself the time of doing your own research and enjoy these statistics.
Why Marketers Should Use Voice Overs in Flash Videos to Improve Engagement
By David Ciccarelli
June 10, 2010
There are many reasons to use voice-overs in Flash videos on your website; one of the most important is to improve viewer engagement for increased sales. If you're currently using Flash videos on your website's landing page, that's great. You can add a voice over to the Flash video so it will catch your visitor's attention and hold it.
Numerous studies have been done on the correlation between the human attention span and what captures an individual's attention and keeps it (Download Word Document). These studies have found that combining sensory elements, such as visuals and sound, will increase your retention rate and keep visitors on your site for longer periods of time.
What Apple iAds Mean for Voice Talent
By David Ciccarelli
June 8, 2010
Steve Jobs presented at the World Wide Developer Conference in San Francisco and introduced the new iPhone 4 which boasts of several new groundbreaking features, such FaceTime video calling and Retena Display, the next generation of high resolution displays for the popular mobile phone.
Aside from the new iPhone, Jobs revealed two important facts that show their commitment to dominating the mobile market. First, the launch of the iAd mobile network and second a sizable commitment from a roster of global brand willing to engage customers in a new way, though the innovative iAd format.
iAds combine the emotion of TV advertising with the interactivity of Internet advertising, giving advertisers a dynamic and powerful new way to bring motion and emotion to mobile users.
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