Sarasota Web Design Blog

Color Theory - Choosing Your Web Site Colors by Angela Nielsen

noreply@blogger.com (Daryl) — Tue, 27 Dec 2005 14:00:00 +0000

[I found this very interesting web site design article on web color and what the colors mean. I think it can play a very important role in choosing the right colors for a business web site.]

Is the choice of colors for your website and print materials more than just a matter of personal preference? Does it really matter what color choices you make? Will your audience really feel differently because of the color combinations? The answer to all these questions is Yes, Yes, and Yes!

Color is considered emotional, because variations evoke different emotions in people. We all know that green is the color of money, but did you also know that green can symbolize greed, envy, and jealousy? The colors you choose will have a direct effect on how the public perceives your company or product. This can be complicated by the fact that our use of color on the web is now limitless: technology allows us to create millions of color combinations. So how do you choose? This brief article will make it simple to understand the basics of choosing colors.

It's important to understand that every color has a positive and negative set of emotions associated with it, what I call the "color meaning". It's this meaning that will affect your customer's emotional response to your company, brand or product. So when choosing color schemes for your website, or any other media type, you need to make sure you're presenting your company or product with a color that will most likely entice the audience to choose your company or product.

Take a quick break, and go look in your lunch room, refrigerator, or kitchen cabinets at the products we purchase from the grocery store. What color do you see the most of? Chances are, you're seeing red, and lots of it. Just glimpsing into my cabinets, now that I know I'm looking for it, I seem to be thrown in to a world of red products. Chef Boyardee, Kellogg's, Lipton, Carnation, Ragu, Aunt Jemima, Nestle, Betty Crocker, Orville Redenbacher's, Heinz, Pam, all of these brands are jumping out at me with red in their labels. Why? Red is a very "hot" color, and very emotional as well. In studies, red actually has a physical effect on people, increasing their heart rate and causing blood pressure to rise. Red grabs our attention, stirs us to action, and thus is a very powerful color for product packaging.

All colors fit into three categories; cool, warm and neutral. While you can select all of your colors from the same category, it is often possible to achieve a more powerful effect by introducing a color from one of the other groups. Let's take a look now at how colors work together, and what each color may mean to the viewer.

Cool Colors Blue, green, purple, turquoise and silver are cool colors. Cool colors tend to have a calming effect on the viewer. Used alone however, these colors can have a cold or impersonal feel, so when choosing cool colors, it may be wise to add a color from another group to avoid this.

Blue Color Meaning. Positive: tranquility, love, loyalty, security, trust, intelligence Negative: coldness, fear, masculinity

Green Color Meaning. Positive: money, growth, fertility, freshness, healing Negative: envy, jealousy, guilt, disorder

Purple Color Meaning. (purple is a combination of blue and red, so it is found in both the warm and cool categories) Positive: royalty, nobility, spirituality, luxury, ambition Negative: mystery, moodiness

Turquoise Color Meaning. Positive: spiritual, healing, protection, sophisticated Negative: envy, femininity

Silver Color Meaning. Positive: glamorous, high tech, graceful, sleek Negative: dreamer, insincere

Warm Colors Red, pink, yellow, orange, purple, and gold are warm colors. Warm colors tend to have an exciting effect on the viewer. However when these colors are used alone they can over-stimulate, generating emotions of anger and violence. When choosing warm tones, adding colors from another group will help to balance this.

Red Color Meaning. Positive: love, energy, power, strength, passion, heat Negative: anger, danger, warning, impatience

Pink Color Meaning. Positive: healthy, happy, feminine, compassion, sweet, playful Negative: weakness, femininity, immaturity

Yellow Color Meaning. Positive: bright, energy, sun, creativity, intellect, happy Negative: coward, irresponsible, unstable

Orange Color Meaning. Positive: courage, confidence, warmth, friendliness, success Negative: ignorance, sluggishness, superiority

Purple Color Meaning. (purple is found in both warm and cool colors) Positive: royalty, nobility, spirituality, luxury, ambition Negative: mystery, moodiness

Gold Color Meaning. Positive: wealth, prosperity, valuable, traditional Negative: greed, dreamer

Neutral Colors Brown, tan, ivory, gray, black and white are neutral colors. Neutral colors are a great selection to mix with a cool or warm palette. They are good for backgrounds in a design, and also tend to tone down the use of other more overpowering colors. Black is added to create a darker "shade" of a primary color, while white is added to create a lighter "tint".

Black Color Meaning. Positive: protection, dramatic, serious, classy, formality Negative: secrecy, death, evil, mystery Gray Color Meaning. Positive: security, reliability, intelligence, solid, conservative Negative: gloomy, sad, conservative

Brown Color Meaning. Positive: friendly, earth, outdoors, longevity, conservative Negative: dogmatic, conservative

Tan (beige) Color Meaning. Positive: dependable, flexible, crisp, conservative Negative: dull, boring, conservative

Ivory Color Meaning. Positive: quiet, pleasantness, pureness, warmness Negative: weak, unstable

White Color Meaning. Positive: goodness, innocence, purity, fresh, easy, clean Negative: winter, cold, distant

You may be asking, "What is the right color combination for my business website?" While there is no absolute "right" color for your website, you need to understand your target audience, and consider their response to colors, not your own. If your end goal is for them to choose your company or product, then your color palette must appeal to them. There are overall factors that indicate what your audience may or may not like.

The basic target audience factors to consider are age differences, class differences, gender differences and overall color trends.

Age difference is a key factor that should not be ignored. If children and adolescents are your target audience, then they prefer bright, primary colors like red, blue, green and yellow. However, if your target is older adults, they would prefer more muted or darker colors, along with colors from the neutral color group.

Class difference is another key factor in choosing colors. United States research has shown those in the working class prefer colors they can name like blue, red, green, etc. Those that are more educated tend to prefer more obscure colors like taupe, azure, celadon, salmon, etc.

Gender preference is an obvious factor in choosing your colors. Men tend to prefer cool tones like blues and greens, where women prefer warmer tones, reds and oranges. If you have an audience of both men and women, consider mixing some colors from the warm and cool palettes that would appeal to both men and women.

Last but not least are color trends. By definition, a trend means "current style". Choosing currently popular colors may work well for some types of websites and products, but if you want to present longevity and stability, then popular colors may not be the best direction for you. Instead, you may want to consider more traditional colors that stand up over time.

Choosing color is more than just picking what feels good to you, it is about creating a response from the viewer. By knowing your target audience and the effect that different colors can have, you gain a greater ability to determine what colors will work best for your audience.

One final note on color. Viewers on the web can use different monitors, different browsers, and different operating systems. It is nearly impossible to ensure that your colors come across the same on every computer as well as in print. Don't be overly concerned with the differences on varying computers, but do try to be consistent. Whether you're creating a color palette for your company, a brand identity, or product colors, consistency is key. Use the same colors throughout all your marketing efforts to create familiarity with your company or product. Consistency will help instill trust with your viewer.
About the Author

Angela Nielsen is President of NIC Media Group, an award-winning web development company located in San Diego, California. To find out more about Angela Nielsen, and NIC Media, visit http://www.nicmedia.com or call them direct at 888 NIC Media. Copyright 2005 by Angela Nielsen and NIC Media Group

The Greater Sarasota Chamber Of Commerce

noreply@blogger.com (Daryl) — Tue, 06 Dec 2005 04:55:00 +0000

I have just recently signed up my company to be a member of the Greater Sarasota Chamber of Commerce and it has proven to be a very valuable investment to me already in three ways. The first way is through the great networking opportunities provided by each Chamber meeting. I have made some fruitfull contacts in only two meetings that I have attended so far. Secondly, I was able to take advantage of their Business Academy Training class. It was a very well presented class that I garnered some valuable information from and was able to directly apply to my business. Lastly, it has provided a way for me to plug into my community and to connect with what is happening in the beautiful city of Sarasota.

I would recommend membership to the Sarasota Chamber for any business. It offers many pluses to help make your business successful.

Sarasota Entertainment

noreply@blogger.com (Daryl) — Sat, 03 Dec 2005 12:20:00 +0000

Sarasota offers a variety of entertainment options for you to enjoy by yourself or with friends and family. Last night I had an opportunity to go to the Players Theatre in Sarasota to watch the performance of Oliver. It was very well done and highly entertaining. They had a large cast of characters with many of them being children. The musical performance was energetic, captivating and touching.

The story of Oliver shows him as an orphan and his quest to find out if anyone truly loves him. He does discover the love of family as this story concludes. It was thought provoking to me, especially now in the Christmas Season. It made me think about my priorities and what is really important in life – God, my family and friends. It also made me think about how there are other orphans (or lonely people) out there that need the love of family. It has encouraged me to look more carefully for ways to reach out and show the love of Christmas this season.

Sarasota Web Promotion Training

noreply@blogger.com (Daryl) — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 03:43:00 +0000

I had the treat today to attend a seminar put on by the Greater Sarasota Chamber of Commerce on the topic of Web marketing and web site promotion. The speaker was Ray Villares, Co-founder of Gravityfree, a leading Sarasota web site design company.

He hammered home the importance of getting listed and having high rankings on key search engines and web directories. He stated that there are over 750 Million searches performed daily on the web. This is a staggering statistic in size but even with that many searches being performed your web site most likely will not be found if you aren't on the first page of a particular search.

Optimizing for search engines requires several key steps to rank highly. These are not in any particular order but are all very important.

1. Creating your site with W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) web standards which includes building your pages with CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). This allows you to remove your design elements and code from the content of your web page and relocate them on a style sheet. The remaining content is then indexed as nearly pure content helping your web pages become more relevant to the search engines and therefore rank higher.

2. Writing substantial, relevant content for your web site. Each page that you want to rank well should contain over 300 words of text for the engines to index. This will show the engines that there is substantial content on your site and will help you rank higher. You should also plan to have an area or content that is updated on a regular basis. Search engines love to see fresh content being provided and they score you highly for it.

3. Choosing the correct keywords. You will want to select a narrow scope of keywords for each page of your site. Three seems to be a good number to limit yourself to. You will also want to select keywords or keyword phrases that will give you a realistic chance to be successful.

4. Developing quality links back to your web site. A major consideration of Google in ranking pages is the page rank (popularity score) of each page. Your page becomes popular when other people link to your pages. The more you get the higher your pagerank goes.

5. Develop your pages with a narrow theme. Each of your web site pages contains several sections or areas that, when are in harmony with your keywords or key phrases, will make your page highly relevant to the search engines. When this happens your pages will begin rising in the rankings.

Noble Webworks practices safe web site promotion and optimization techniques. We do not employ spamming measures that could get you banned from the search engines. Please contact us for a free consultation in promoting your web site. (941) 727-7018.

Nielsen NetRatings Search Engine Ratings

noreply@blogger.com (Daryl) — Sat, 12 Nov 2005 18:34:00 +0000

By Danny Sullivan, Editor - SearchEngineWatch.com
August 23, 2005

[This shows you the traffic that each search engine brings in. Noble Webworks will work to position you high on Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL and Netscape which accounts for 88.3% of all searches]

The Nielsen//NetRatings MegaView Search reporting service measures the search behavior of more than a million people worldwide. These web surfers have real-time meters on their computers which monitor the sites they visit. This metered information is compiled to produce NetRatings results. Below are statistics about searching from NetRatings provided to Search Engine Watch:

Share Of Searches: July 2005

The chart below shows the percentage of online searches done by US home and work web surfers in July 2005 that were performed at a particular search engine. Internal site searches, such as those to find material within a particular web site, are not counted in these totals. The activity at more than 60 search sites makes up the total search volume upon which percentages are based -- 4.5 billion searches in this month. (read more...)

Creative Fuel: Weaving a Self-Promotion Web

noreply@blogger.com (Daryl) — Wed, 02 Nov 2005 13:03:00 +0000

Are you thinking about making a Web site to promote your business? Or are you dissatisfied with the site you already have? Molly Joss passes on some hard-earned wisdom on day 4 of Creatievpro.com's Self-Promotion Week.

(creativepro.com)
By Molly W. Joss, creativepro.com contributing editor
Thursday, May 26, 2005

[This article by Molly W. Joss is a good reminder that it's a good idea to use professional web design services if you want to have a web site that will impress your clients rather than turn them off.]

Creation isn't always the tidiest process in the world. Sometimes it gets caught in the snarls of daily life or grinds to a halt completely while you earn a living. For years, that was the case with my Web site, which was supposed to be a key piece in the promotional plan for my writing and analyst business.
Long ago, I supposedly learned that just because you can do something yourself doesn't mean that you should. Your time may be better spent doing other things -- things that you enjoy more, make you more money, or don't aggravate you as much. For example, I could change the oil in my car, but I'd rather read the paper while the dealer does it for me. I could also shingle my own roof, but that doesn't mean I'd do the best job.

You think I would have followed this sensible line of reasoning when it came time to create my own Web site. But I didn't, and it took me years to learn the lesson anew. My pain is your gain, however, because my experience can be like a mini-guide for you.

Ask For Help
While I had a Web site before I turned to a professional, it was limp, limited, and an embarrassment. I'm not sure what kept me from turning over the job to a Web designer sooner. Maybe I figured that because I had FrontPage and some design skills, I should do it myself. I should have remembered that a few roof shingles and some nails don't make me a roofer.

It was shame that got me going in the end -- that and a friendly face. At a conference for non-profit organizations, I talked to a nice woman who was holding fort in one of the smaller booths. A few years previously she had started a Web design firm to serve non-profits and small businesses. She showed me examples of sites she'd designed, and then she asked the right question: "What do you want your site to do for you?"

It was the right question because it made me think about the site as a business owner, not as a designer. As a designer, I was only concerned with my site's appearance, and I didn't have the proper skills to create the beautiful design I could envision. So, the creative process crashed. As a business owner, I knew what I wanted to make happen. Changing my role in the project changed my perspective and helped me let go. It also helped that the sites she showed me were clean, attractive, and professional, and that when we talked about fees my heart didn't skip a beat.

Even if you're a wiz at Web design, you can still profit from calling on experts in the areas where you're lacking. For example, your site probably isn't all images. If you're not so good at words, an editor will make sure your site's words are clear and correct.

Enough, But Not Too Much
As a business owner, I wanted a site that would let prospective clients know about me from a distance. They could find out more about me without having to come to me for the information and thus reveal themselves as potential customers. When they were ready, they could send me an e-mail or get my telephone number. It would be, in effect, a big digital billboard. Also like a billboard, it wouldn't include everything.

Would-be clients can quickly find samples of my work and how to reach me.

I made the decision not to include the complete text of my articles. I'd seen too many examples where full text of articles posted on public sites had been lifted, borrowed -- okay, let's be frank -- ripped off. I once got an e-mail from someone in China asking me a question about an article I'd written. When I asked the editor why he was selling the foreign rights without compensating me, he was flabbergasted. Turns out a daily newspaper in China found the article on the Web and reprinted it without permission. After a few letters to the Chinese publishers, the editor gave up and pulled all of the latest content from the publication's site. So, even though I own the copyright or have reprint permission for most of my work, I opted to put limited samples on my site.

To protect my intellectual property, the site includes only small portions of my articles.

I also limit the site's original artwork to one new image every few months. If someone wants to copy it, that's fine with me because I didn't put a lot of energy and time into creating it. As a visual creative pro, you don't have that same option, but you can digitally watermark or lock images so they can't be copied.

A Self-Promoter's Work Is Never Done
I have several items on my site to-do list:

Make sure the site pops up closer to the top of search engines' results pages.
Add my URL to the short bio and credits at the end of the articles.
Refresh images and writing samples.
These tasks will always be on my to-do list, actually, and they should be on yours, too. Self promotion is like a good Web site -- done right, it's a project that never really ends. It's also an important part of doing business, and it's something you need help to do right. I've learned my lesson, I think. I hope.

Read more by Molly Joss.

Follow the Bu$ine$$ Boom!

noreply@blogger.com (Daryl) — Fri, 28 Oct 2005 14:24:00 +0000

Sarasota/Manatee Business Online Magazine
Feature by Kristine Nickel

[This article lists as one of the top 10 business opportunities in Southwest Florida as "ENTREPRENEURS WHO OFFER BUSINESS SERVICES". Noble Webworks is just that kind of business, specializing in providing growing businesses with custom built web sites that are professional and impacting for your visitors and yet affordable for you. We also offer web hosting, search engine optimization and macintosh computer training in the Sarasota and Manatee area.]

Follow the Bu$ine$$ Boom!

Top 10 business opportunities in Southwest Florida's growing market.

It's not your same old Sarasota and Manatee. As the past year of accelerating development—now a whopping $2 billion worth—has demonstrated, the times, they are a-changin'. And that's a refrain very familiar to the most likely candidates for our new urban and suburban pioneers, the baby boomers.

“I think we're going to see a lot of baby boomers. Remember, the first boomers turn 60 next year,” says Sarasota marketing consultant Paulette Kish. “They are entering the point in time when they are deciding how much longer they want to work. They will come into one of the largest inheritances in history; plus, they have considerable personal wealth and savings. That's a recipe for second and third homes. That also has considerable implications for the kinds of services and products they want to have available.”

Sounds like a scenario custom-made for our region. Instinct tells us there's money to be made supporting the new boomer landscape, but we wondered: Just what kinds of businesses will prove profitable? So we polished off the crystal ball and asked several experts just what their prognostications were. Here's their list of the top 10 business opportunities the new Sarasota-Manatee will attract and support.

HIGH-END RETAIL
“Retail is driven by rooftops,” says Kathy Baylis, president of the Economic Development Corporation of Sarasota County. “And the type of retail is driven by the prices of the homes.” Baylis points to the Sarasota Quay and the Isaac brothers' Pineapple Square developments as Sarasota projects that will cater to new residents with pricey home furnishings and apparel boutiques specializing in one-of-a-kind items. And that's good for the entire community, she contends. While not all of us can afford to live in the high-end communities close to upscale retail, we can still take advantage of the amenities. Like Baylis says, “Although I can't afford to live downtown, I can shop there and pretend I'm rich.”

HOMOGENIZATION: THE CHAIN RETAILERS
Whole Foods might just be the tip of the iceberg (and we're not talking lettuce). “Having Whole Foods in place downtown will bring in retail,” says David Brain, associate professor of sociology at New College of Florida. “And the pattern of retail will change the pattern of downtown living.” Charles Alario, president of American Business Brokerage in Sarasota, agrees: “Chain retailers have the survivability. They can afford to subsidize the staff and overhead over the slow months. Unfortunately, big chain operations hurt local business owners because the dollars leave the area, but that's my bias.”

Take it from another relatively small resort city that big money put on the map, Petoskey, Mich. Carlin Smith, the executive director of the Petoskey Chamber of Commerce, recounts his town's experience: “High-end real estate puts you on the radar of the big retail guys, and the locals benefit from having those kinds of services. The key is to find the balance between what's home-grown and what's homogenized.”

ENTREPRENEURS WHO OFFER BUSINESS SERVICES
More than 10 million Americans operate home offices, increasingly from secondary residences, according to national market research firm IDC. “This is a generation who already has begun leveraging their professional equity to start second careers, consulting with old connections while they move to new, more desirable places,” says Kish. “They need an infrastructure to support that-office services, computer services, part-time administrative assistants.”

Baylis agrees: “There is a huge opportunity for entrepreneurs who meet these needs. Home offices are very important, and that can touch everything from high-tech to construction.”

WORLD-CLASS HEALTHCARE
“Our second-home residents absolutely demand the finest healthcare services,” says Petoskey's Smith. “For a city of 6,000, Petoskey has an incredibly sophisticated level of healthcare providers, recognized throughout the Midwest. It's our part-time residents who require it and support it.”

The basics are de rigueur, but the extras have to pass muster as well. “We need to keep on top of the latest innovations in anti-aging,” says Eppard. Indeed, a second (or third) home is also a good hide-out for recovering from that little cosmetic surgery procedure. Anyone need a lift?

FOOD, GLORIOUS FOOD
“There is a huge niche for a caterer to specialize in very small, highly innovative parties,” says Sarasota's king of catering, Philip Mancini, co-owner of Michael's On East. “Entertaining at home is as important as ever, and indications are that this crowd will want high-end. We're talking a single waiter per guest kind of thing.” Says Eppard, “The food thing is huge. Whether it's a chic café or a personal chef, we'll need to have services that rival what these people had in their cities of origin.”

Kish sees a slightly different opportunity. “No one has cracked the code on providing a quality, healthful offering that fills the gap between takeout, which is rarely nutritious, and the expense of a home chef. The super wealthy might have home chefs, but people with million-dollar condos probably watch their everyday food budget,” she explains. “And nutrition is very important on a day-in, day-out basis.”

PERSONAL SERVICES
On everyone's Top 10 lists, personal services run the gamut. “I envision a virtual business in buildings where you send an e-mail to have errands run or summon an aesthetician to come up to do a manicure or style hair,” says Baylis. A concierge-type service—“opening” the condo for arriving owners—is another personal service on the radar screen. “In our communities,” observes Michigander Smith, “the concierge takes care of cottages, houses and condos. Everything from the plumbing to making sure there are fresh flowers and milk in the fridge.”

Kish sees this as an extension of how the recent resident has always lived. “People get in patterns,” she says. “If you always had a massage therapist visit your home for a massage, chances are that will be high on your list of priorities to find a therapist who makes house calls. If not, chances are you'll have other concerns that take precedence.”

ARTFUL ENTERPRISES
All those downtown condos and big new homes in Lakewood Ranch need decorating, whether by an interior designer or by the homeowner with help from a great shop not too far away. “Interior designers will benefit. No doubt about that,” says Eppard. “It will be huge.”

Baylis sees a boon for the arts community in general. “Typically, people in higher income brackets do attend art and cultural venues more than people with less disposable income,” she says. “It has also been my experience that people moving into an area will want to have local art in their homes.”

“I see the arts as benefiting because they already exist,” says Alario. “The art venues, like the theaters and the opera, will not have to start up, just take in more patrons. They're positioned well.” For a community that already has the fourth-highest attendance in the United States at cultural events, that's a prediction that could reinforce Sarasota's claim as a cultural capital.

AVENUES FOR CONNECTIVITY
“Connection is extremely important,” says Manatee County realtor Renee Eppard. And that bodes well for private clubs, philanthropic organizations and institutions of higher learning. “Especially in condos where you don't have a golf course or tennis courts that provide a meeting place for neighbors. Socialization is key and a business that can create a way for people to connect will be important.” Kish says, “I see a huge role here for philanthropy. It provides a way to get connected while appealing to people's altruism.”

Kish also speculates that our institutions of higher learning have enormous opportunities. “This is the anti-aging crowd who crave ways to keep their minds agile almost as much as physical activity. I suspect art appreciation, theology, history—subjects that connect people to the past and delve into the larger questions of life—will be very appealing. What won't be appealing is sitting in an uncomfortable wood chair in a classroom.” New College, take note: Can you get The Ritz get to provide hall passes?

TRANSPORTATION INNOVATION
No, we're not talking about putting bicycles on the front bumper of SCAT and MCAT buses. Although some think the parking situation has been overblown in the media: “The fact that parking is frustrating doesn't make it a crisis,” says New College professor Brain. Others, however, think that even if adequate parking were available, pulling your car out of the condo garage to run errands around downtown will be a huge hassle. “What we need is a car service, like when you go to Manhattan and you hire a town car to make sure you make all of your appointments,” says Eppard. “Nothing as ostentatious as a limo, but a car service.”

Brain has a different slant on the situation. “A mobile valet service would be very useful,” he offers. “I was just in Pasadena, [Calif.], and you can valet your car on street corners in downtown with what appeared to be a city-sponsored valet service operating out of a kiosk, sort of like a hot dog stand. It was very welcome.”

A GREAT CLEANING LADY
“If you could put together a cleaning service with energetic, value-added employees, you could make a killing,” exclaims Eppard. “Everyone I know is always looking for great household help.”

Kish concurs. “The value-add is having the extras; someone who can see what needs to be accomplished, who can call the florist for fresh flowers for the guest room.”

Our Panel of Prognosticators

Charles Alario, president of American Business Brokerage, is a cautious futurist. “We really don't know how long the residents of the newly built condominiums will live here,” he says. “That is more important than who moves here, because the 'how many months during the year' really creates more economic impact.”

Kathy Baylis, president of the Economic Development Corporation of Sarasota County, sees downtown development as a plus for the entire community. “I think our 'new' downtown will draw people who don't live downtown. It's like the chicken and the egg. The real estate brings the amenities and the amenities bring the locals downtown.”

David Brain, associate professor of sociology, New College of Florida, says there's a lack of up-to-date local demographics, which make predictions difficult. “The clear indication is that people are buying these units on spec,” he says. “Who the ultimate residents will be is still up in the air, although I think we could see more younger than older.”

Renee Eppard, RE/MAX realtor and co-owner of Florida Coast Development, sees our downtowns as a huge magnet for the entire community. “Most of the people I see moving here are baby boomers. Regardless of where they decide to live, they want a cosmopolitan mix of amenities that downtown will offer.”

Philip Mancini, co-owner of Michael's On East, is amazed at the level of catering services currently in demand with no end in sight. “This is exciting, but I'm concerned about where we will recruit the service people we will need. And the issue of affordable housing has to be seriously addressed.”

Paulette Kish, president of New Horizon, a marketing consulting firm that specializes in consumer's attitudes and behaviors and business growth opportunities, reminds would-be entrepreneurs to stay focused. “With any product, you have to be able to answer the question, 'What problem is this product solving?'”

Carlin Smith, executive director of the Petoskey Chamber of Commerce, suggests that a distinction be made between being a second-home resort community and a tourist destination. “These people are invested and add so much to the economy. We're talking about many more dollars than someone walking around with an ice cream cone. This economic contribution is at a whole different level.”

Study: RSS Still Not Widely Adopted

noreply@blogger.com (Daryl) — Wed, 26 Oct 2005 04:31:00 +0000

[This article by Chris Sherman, Associate Editor of SearchEngineWatch.com, reveals some interesting statistics about RSS feeds for web sites and blogs. There is definately a segmented targeted audience that follows RSS feeds for their daily news intake.]

By Chris Sherman, Associate Editor of SearchEngineWatch.com
October 12, 2005
New research from Yahoo and Ipsos suggests that although blogs and feeds are trendy among the technorati, awareness of RSS remains quite low among most U.S. based internet users.

The study found that only 12% of all users were aware of RSS, and just 4% had knowingly used the technology for reading feeds from blogs, news sources and other regularly updated content sources on the web (if you're unfamiliar with RSS, see the SearchDay series, What is RSS, and Why Should You Care?).

An interesting twist on those numbers, however, is that 27% of users actually consume RSS on personalized start pages without realizing that it's the underlying technology enabling what they read. Sites such as MyYahoo, MyMSN, and the Firefox browser with its active bookmarks provide easy access to regularly updated RSS feeds with little or no effort from users.

Who's using RSS? Among aware users, the majority are male (71%), between 18-34 (50%), with a college level or higher education (67%) with an average income of $74,000.

What kinds of feeds are people reading?

World and national news are the two most popular categories, with 52% subscribing. Roughly a third of all users subscribe to entertainment, science and technology, weather and local news feeds. Surprisingly, although blogs and RSS feeds are often confusingly interlinked in people's minds, just 22% use RSS feeds to follow blogs.

Why do people like RSS? Ease of use and choice of content are top reasons. Another surprising finding was that just 7% of users liked RSS for its instant updating capability, a core benefit of the technology.

Other stats shed light on how much RSS content is being consumed. Among RSS users, the average number of feeds people subscribed to is 6.6, and on average people spent 4.1 hours per week reading feeds.

The study suggests that users of more advanced RSS aggregators such as NewsGator or FeedDemon might be more likely to subscribe to a greater number of feeds. But the survey also found that even tech-savvy users preferred simpler, web-based feed readers. Unsurprisingly, My Yahoo was the favorite, used by 52%. Firefox's live bookmarks followed, with 47% and My MSN was next, with 27%.

It should be noted that Yahoo has done more than just about any other major search engine or content provider to publicize RSS and make feeds easy to access and consume. The "add to my yahoo" program that allows content publishers to place a button on a page that automatically subscribes a feed to the user's My Yahoo subscriptions has proven quite popular. You can also easily subscribe to feeds that appear in Yahoo web search results.

Yahoo's findings suggest that RSS awareness and usage is static, primarily the domain by savvy internet users. In a study on the state of blogging by the Pew Internet Life Project last January, just 38% of all users knew what a blog was, but 5% said they used an RSS reader or aggregator to get news and information from frequently updated web sites and blogs.

What about the current podcasting craze? Despite all of the hooplah and media giants rushing to join the bandwagon, fewer than 28% of all internet users are even aware of podcasting, and just 2% actually consume podcasts.

The study was conducted on behalf of Yahoo by Ipsos Insight, which surveyed 4,038 respondents during August of this year.

Interview with CSS Pioneer, Christopher Schmitt

noreply@blogger.com (Daryl) — Wed, 19 Oct 2005 03:23:00 +0000

[This is a portion of an interview with Christopher Schmitt by Sessions: Online School of Design. The topic of this article is the advantages of using standards-based CSS design for web sites.]

For a hot new thing, CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) sure is slow off the blocks. First proposed in 1994, first implemented in browsers in 1996, CSS is perennially touted as the successor to conventional HTML-based Web coding. Its ability to use style sheets to control typography and layout throughout a Web site always seemed to make CSS the most efficient, designer-friendly, forward-looking option. And yet myths persist about CSS -- myths that discourage Web designers from getting to grips with the language.
So what's all the fuss about?

We asked Faculty member and published CSS guru Christopher Schmitt. Christopher's so convinced that CSS should be a part of every designer's Web design toolkit, he devoted two lessons in Sessions.edu's updated Web Design I course to creating CSS layouts.

Q. CSS is getting big enough for prime time, maybe even Letterman. What are your top ten reasons we should all learn and start using CSS now?

Christopher: Here's my top ten in no particular order:

1. Build from the ground up to replace traditional Web design methods. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) created CSS to replace HTML tables, font tags, frames, and other presentational hacks of HTML elements.

2. Faster download times. Reduction of file size is about 50% less than a Web page built with traditional Web design methods.

3. Shorter development time. Easily tweak the design of a thousand-page site with just a few edits of one CSS file.

4. Greater control over the typography in a Web page. I'm a type nut, so CSS's ability to control typography better than a wimpy FONT tag is a wonderful gift. No longer do we need to use the font tag or single-pixel GIFs (SPG) to create leading, change font colors, font families, and much more.

5. It's easy to write. You can create and edit CSS as easily as you can hand code HTML.

6. Improvements in accessibility. Using CSS effectively means structuring content with HTML. With structured HTML -- using

tags only for paragraphs, heading tags only for headlines, tables for only tabular data, and so on -- you increase your audience size without building separate versions of your site.

7. Print designs as well as Web page designs. Create presentations not only for Web browsers, but also for other media like print or PowerPoint-like presentations.

8. Better control over the placement of elements in Web page. 'Nuff said!

9. The design of Web pages is separated from the content. By keeping the design in separate files linked to the HTML pages, you reduce the likelihood of your page designs falling apart over time as different contributors add to the Web page.

10. Better search engine rankings. With only HTML used for structuring content in a Web document instead of rigging tags for design, search engines will spider your Web page effectively, and more likely give you a higher page ranking.