June 30, 2010
The LAMP Technology Stack
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.
June 28, 2010
How To Speed Up a Website
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.
April 30, 2010
How To "Follow Companies" on LinkedIn
Starting today, you can be in the loop on new developments, potential business opportunities or even job opportunities by following companies of interest to you.
Learn how to follow companies and I'll share some quick links for creating your own company profile so others can follow you.
March 23, 2010
How To Build a Mobile Website
While most of us working in technology companies are aware of the mobile Internet tsunami, many businesses have yet to embrace the technology by publishing a mobile version of their own website.
Do you have a mobile version of your website? Are your customers asking you for one?
I believe we've reached a critical point where businesses must have at least a brochure style mobile site to explain to mobile visitors who you are and how you can serve them.
After two years of accessing Facebook, Twitter and now FourSquare almost exclusively on my iPhone, I realized it was time that our company, Voices.com, created a modest mobile website. Here's how we did it, and how you can too, in just ten simple steps.
January 14, 2010
Voices.com Moves Into The Convergence Centre
You and your colleagues are invited to the official Opening Event of the new Convergence Centre at 999 Collip Circle at the University of Western Ontario Research Park, London Campus.
The event will include a formal opening planned for 1:15pm, along with an open house throughout the afternoon that will allow tenants, guests, and members of the public a chance to drop-in whenever they are available. We'll provide food and music, tours of the new building, and we will have talks by Windermere Manor's Writer-in-Residence, Christine Walde, and artist Troy Ouellette about their work and cultural activities happening and planned for the Research Park.
Click through for all the details...
August 21, 2009
Twitterforce
The team at Voices.com is the first company to use TwitterForce to manage Twitter conversations directly within Salesforce.
We've been able to import entire tweet conversations with one click. Specifically, we can create leads, cases, and solutions from tweets.
The set-up was simple. Like other Twitter monitoring applications, we just defined search terms and monitored Twitter search results for those terms.
Finally, and most importantly, we can now engage our customers and industry people by sending outbound tweets with case solutions or custom messages.
July 18, 2009
Twitter Verified Accounts
It's real. Tonight I confirmed the existence of Twitter Verified Accounts, a much needed add-on for businesses, brands and celebrities to communicate to users that they are the real deal.
As Twitter describes the new service, the purpose of Twitter Verified Accounts is to prevent identify confusion and establish authenticity.
March 17, 2009
Salesforce Launches New AppExchange
Today, marks the launch of the redesigned AppExchange, a online application store for business users where they can extend the functionality of Salesforce.
As many of your know, I'm a strong advocate of Salesforce for both small and big business. In fact, we started with the Professional Edition focused on the Customer Relationship Management elements and have since upgraded to the Enterprise version and have taken advantage of the full suite of tools.
Many of those tools have been found in the AppExchange, including Salesforce for Google Apps, Salesforce for Google Adwords and Salesforce Mobile.
January 16, 2009
Download the Audio from President Barack Obama's Inauguration
On January 20, the United States of America will inaugurate its 44th President, Barack Obama. President Obama will be the first African American to hold the office, and will step into the White House in the midst of a trying economic situation and panoply of unresolved international issues.
December 30, 2008
5 Second Usability Test
We've explored usability before, but today, I found a tool that makes website usability testing a snap!
A new app, most appropriately called Five Second Test allows website designers to upload a screen shot of a page, invite participants to view the page for exactly 5 seconds, then type in what they remember from the page.
Take the 5 Second Usability Test now.
May 31, 2008
Blogging 101 - Tips for Effective Business Blogging
There has most definitely been a shift in the media landscape, from traditional media including newspaper, radio and television to online media. The most prevalent of the online media sources are blogs.
What Is a Blog?
Weblogs, web logs or simply blogs, as they are known, are easy-to-use websites (no HTML knowledge required), where you can quickly post thoughts, publish articles and interact with people. Blogs are typically accessible to any Internet user.
Blogs are Exploding
Technorati is now tracking over 50 million weblogs and about 120,000 new weblogs are being created worldwide each day. That's about 1.4 blogs created every second.
Businesses can take advantage of this powerful communications medium, starting with a few simple steps to get involved today.
March 23, 2008
Web Applications Improve with Greater Bandwidth and Better Security
There's been some discussion regarding software developers exploring new ways to bridge the gap between desktop and web applications.
Development tools such as Adobe AIR and Mozilla Prism are the two most notable players. To get a feel for what can been done, Adobe had published a nice gallery of applications.
Let's face it, the only reason desktop applications are still relevant is because of bandwidth and security.
March 22, 2008
How To Create a Sitemap (For People and Search Engines)
Sitemaps have been around since the advent of the Web and used primarily as a way to list all the pages on a particular website.
Nowadays, sitemaps have other purposes such as organizing web content by topic, showing the search engines which pages you have created and developing a linking structure that emphasizes specific areas of your website over others.
But just how do you make a sitemap? And, how do you get that sitemap into Google, Yahoo! and MSN? That's today's topic and for the webmasters and entrepreneurs out there, I think this article will be quite refreshing.
February 18, 2008
Why Online Resources Add Value and Create a Competitive Advantage
"The customer is king" is one of the older cliches of modern business. While its never exactly false, the phrase usually pays lip service to the idea of customer experience rather than listening to feedback that results in change.
How does an online business make the most of customer feedback? One avenue to explore is the development of downloadable content, specifically audio, video and text resources that truly add value and give customers the experience they've asked for.
January 11, 2008
How To Import Your Del.icio.us Bookmarks into Your Google Account
This tutorial covers how to export your Del.icio.us bookmarks by saving an XML file to your desktop, then importing that file into your personal Google account or your corporate Google Apps account.
You'll be amazed at how easy it is to do. Let's get started.
January 7, 2008
Voices.com Moves Ahead in Fast Company's Fast 50
Each year, the challenge generates thousands of entries and tens of thousands of comments from around the world, and results in high-profile recognition of 50 leaders, innovators, and technology pioneers. This year's challenge promises to be bigger and better.
September 14, 2007
Fall 07 Release Exclusive Preview
With the academic year underway, I'm beginning to see evidence that fall is upon us. Besides the leaves changing color and the back to school sales, months of development is wrapping up and we're ready to show you what we've been working on.
July 3, 2007
FeedBurner Goes FreeBurner
After the recently acquisition of FeedBurner by Google, we're seeing some early changes to the service. As of today, two previously premium services, TotalStats and MyBrand are now free.
June 11, 2007
Voice Over in the Google Era
As we share last week, the VoiceCoaches Marketing Expo was an overwhelming success. If you weren't at the Expo, here was our presentation, available for you as a PDF download.
December 12, 2006
TechCrunched
The dream of every web company is to be featured on TechCrunch, the industry-leading blog that covers start-ups, venture capital and technology. Overnight, TechCrunch did a great story, albeit controversial, about Voices.com and Google Audio Ads.
November 30, 2006
How Google Audio Ads Work
Have you seen the Google Audio Ads PowerPoint presentation? Get an insiders look at how Google Audio Ads will work for advertisers. Here's Google's pitch.
November 17, 2006
Like.com & Voices.com - Simple Names Work
Recently I've come across a few new start-ups that have acquired simple domain names in an effort to explain to their users what they do, while being memorable at the same time. Hearing these stories validates our investment in Voices.com as one of the best business decisions we've made to date.
November 2, 2006
CBC's Dragon's Den Goes Web 2.0
Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to pitch our business to a panel of high profile Venture Capitalists. I refined my 60 second pitch, and prepared myself to handle foreseeable objects. We didn't land the initial investment, however I'm glad at least one Web 2.0 company did. Here's their story...
September 22, 2006
A Web Service from Sketch to Screenshot
Ever wondered how other developers create their web apps? I've scanned in sketches from the initial development of Voices.com
September 21, 2006
Developing a Web 2.0 Application
So, you have an idea for the next killer Web 2.0 app. That's great, but where do you go from here? Learn how we attack product development and how you can follow a simple and fool-proof system.
September 19, 2006
Web 2.0 Definition
As promised, we'll discuss the concept of Web 2.0. My definition for Web 2.0, in short, is the next generation of Internet applications, business strategy and the underlying technologies that enable conversations and contribution to the online community.
September 11, 2006
What's "The Biz" All About?
I've read blog posts by other entrepreneurs and industry critics raising a question. Does the world need another blog? I'd like to refine that question. Does the world need another web 2.0 blog? My short answer is "yes", and here's why.
September 10, 2006
Re-Branding Your Company
Here's the behind the scenes story of why our team decided to change our name from InteractiveVoices to Voices.com and how it could help you with your re-branding strategies.
