St. Petersburg Web Design Blog

Archive for June, 2006

Here’s a list of some of the sites I’ve done for superpages.com Please remember that these are all editable by the client with a web based tool. The appearance could have been changed drasticlly since I designed the web site.

• Tampa’s Gold Club Gentlemen’s Club
• Anglin’s Landscaping
• Couture Painting
• Shapes Fitness for Women
• A Mobile Break Service
• Cunningham’s Pump and Well
• Insurance Marketing Specialists
• Gulf Coast Surplus
• Anteres Diamond Company
• JMI Mobile Detailing
• J. Michael Conaway – Attorney
• James Thomerson Attorney
• Collins And Hensley, Law Office
• Terrence L Ivey, Attorney and Couselor at Law
• AccessIT

Compared to my regular work I consider most of these sites to be sub-par. At this former employer of mine, site quality is not prioity one. Getting as many web sites out as quickly as you can, being nice on the phone and making more “up-sales”.

Service at my own Florida Web Design is far beyond what I could give the clients at superpages.com (they don’t even do photography). And my prices still beat them by a long shot.

There’s a new way for people find travel and hotel and car rental prices from all of the major travel sites with out actually going to each one separately. Actually there are two:

Kayak.com is a new kind of travel search site. We help you find travel deals from other websites.

SideStep.com, the travelers search engine. Find the best bargains from multiple travel sites. With one search!

Online marketplace eBay Inc. is set to unveil a keyword advertising system for eBay sellers to promote auctions on other Web sites, borrowing from the strategies of Google and Yahoo. full story

This can’t be anything but good news for internet publishers. After there are only so many web sites out there that accepts advertising and has traffic and/or search engine position. The demand for this advertising space is sure to go higher now. That means more money in web publishers’ pockets, and another way for people to advertise online.

eBay’s adverting system will differ from regular contextual advertising in that it will link to specific eBay auction items, instead of web pages. No further announcements from eBay about the details of the project such as will auctioneers get or have to, pay extra for seeing their items in the adverts or whether it’ll be random, or chosen some other way.

eBay has said the advertising would be contextual, meaning that it will attempt to advertisements with the perceived content of the web page they are on. They also say that their technology will prevent expired auctions from appearing in the adverts.

A new Web site that aims to transform music industry economics is set to go live on Thursday, giving musicians a major cut of the proceeds while largely freezing out record labels and other intermediaries.

Lala.com, which allows fans to trade music discs for just $1, plus shipping, pledges to give a fifth of its sales to all the musicians, including lesser known session studio players, involved in the making of CDs exchanged on its site.

In a move that is certain to stoke controversy with music promoters, the founder of the Silicon Valley start-up said Lala will circumvent traditional copyright and royalty payment systems to compensate identifiable working musicians. full story

The site works something like an eBay auction exchange as it encourages consumers who sign up for the service to list all the CDs they may want to exchange as well as ones they would be interested in receiving.

Once an exchange is arranged, the recipient pays $1.49, of which 49 cents pays for shipping the disc, leaving $1 for the company for musicians, administrative costs and its own cut.

Lala said 20 cents of each $1 will go into a charitable fund for the musicians. It is looking to pay the musicians via a charitable organization it has set up called the Z Foundation. It plans on keeping 20-30 cents for itself, with the remainder going on administration.

One Economy, a non-profit group that uses technology to upgrade the lives of the poor, said it aims to raise $20 million to start the project, Public Internet Channel.

The site would provide information about such basics as public safety, emergency services, education, health care and jobs.full story

Kind off ironic, considering most of the poor folk I know don’t have internet access. Of course with the $20 million they are trying to raise they could buy a lot of computers.

Alas the honeymoon is over . . .
I’ll tell all about it later and even inclide some potos. Just wanted to let all know I was back from the honeymoon and ready to do business.