Wired Studios Inc. Blog

In a recent post on their blog, the company dwolla illustrates how they are different than the existing traditional payment methods.  This definitely  helps to clarify what dwolla attempts to do.  I have to admit, I am not ready yet to implement this but I am getting closer and closer.  The fees certainly beat those of Paypal and such, which are about 3% per transaction. $.25 sounds a lot better. It almost sounds too good to be true. And yes, keeping more of my money sounds attractive too.  I’ll be looking out for their next post with episode 2 of their info-graphic.

Traditional Payment methods vs Dwolla network

There is a fascination trend according to  fast-company. They call it : the radical simplification of everything.  

According to their article, The only companies or products that will succeed now are the ones offering the lowest possible level of complexity for the maximum amount of value.  We couldn’t agree more.  A while ago there was a buzz word called: minimalism and while it is still around, simplicity is not necessary synonymous although it is related. Just like minimalism, simplicity requires a higher level of understanding to create an effective product or experience.

I have always been wary of companies that market their SEO services with guaranteed results.  Maybe they found a new trick that gives you high rankings on google but now that Google has rolled its algorithm update called Penguin, which aims to catch websites that spam its search results or go against google’s guidelines to skew their rankings in their favor.  I always tell my clients, I am not a SEO expert yet but if it sounds too good to be true and it requires little or no work, it probably is a scam.  As far as I know so far, following guidelines and build proper semantic pages is the best and organic way to increase your rankings.  Use logic and common sense when you choose a SEO company.

Here is a list of 7 great examples of successful responsive web design

1. Breakingnews.com – actually a startup from within msnbc.com – is great, live-aggregating stories from multiple news sources. 
2. ChoiceResponse allows you to create one-click reply emails 
3. CSS-Tricks is a web design community that we use for reference from time to time.
4. Lancaster University’s is a world-class centre for teaching and research and is located on a beautiful campus in the North West of England.
5.  Sony - no introduction needed here.
6. Starbucks has always been on the cutting edge and this is no exception.

I always recommend to have your computer and browsers up to date for security and reliability reasons. Things move so fast now a days that waiting for the newest release to be stable is not an option.  By that time, yet another release will be out.  Now, Firefox 12 stream lines the update process and improves their developer tools. If you’re already using Firefox there’s no need to do anything, you’ll be automatically updated later today. All updates will be performed in the background without the need of user interaction making it more reliable and secure.  Mozilla finally gave in to the complaints by its fans and followed Google Chrome who has been doing this for a while now.

Facebook has recently announced that its HTML 5 site has twice the amount of users compared to is iOS and Android users combined. This doesn’t create a sense of urgency for apple or google but Facebook is pushing through by creating a group called W3C community group, which google and apple haven’t join.  Facebook also released a tool called open source Ringmark mobile browser testing suite that shows how many of the core capabilities necessary to build HTML5 apps does a browser support.

I am very interested in the payment methods available and I have written about Dwolla before.  It seems to be getting some traction. Although obviously the giant PayPal is making huge progress with the introduction of mobile payments, to compete with Square, Dwolla tries to build on the weaknesses of the current system.  Dwolla transactions under $10 are free and anything over $10 is only $.025. Dwolla is able to accomplish this by eliminating steps in the process and eliminating the credit card and going straight to your bank account. Sort of like an online debit card without the need to enter any 16-digit credit card number.

As the popularity of platform and avenues to market your product increase, you will always find the overnight “social media experts” and the “SEO experts”, in truth things are happening so fast that I don’t think anyone is an expert but programs like these from Facebook make it a little easier not to get burned by shady “gurus” like the article from tech crunch explains.

I am always looking for easier, innovative and reliable products to suggest to my customers.  E-mail marketing is usually the logical step once the site is up and running. After all, you want visitors to your site right. The most popular email marketing solutions, such as MailChimp, MobileStorm, Constant Constant among others provide helpful tools to accomplish a successful e-mail marketing campaign but other products such as Mailjet are worth checking out. Currently, I use SendGrid which works great but keep your eye out for Mailjet. Other similar products are Postmark, and Mailgun.

Web design is more than just a screen with a bunch of code and images. We perceive human presence as we navigate the site and experience a feeling of connection and comfort.  We describe a site by human characteristics and personality.