February 2006
By Ann Siegle, Tria Partner

Happy Valentine’s Day!
Warm wishes for a happy Valentine’s Day. We’re so pleased you’re our client.

Michigan Brewer’s Guild Winter Beer Fest in Old Town — 12-5pm Feb 25, 2006
http://www.michiganbrewersguild.org. Food and live music in conjunction with Old Town on Ice celebration. More info at http://www.oldtownmainstreet.org/
Old Town on Ice is a progressive restaurant/business sampler, open to all ages. The beer fest is open to those 21 and older. I’m a huge aficionado of handcrafted beers and will be attending — would you like to join me?
Clients may park for FREE in Tria’s parking lot — simply e-mail us to let us know what vehicle you’ll be parking.

Web Content Management Systems Defined
You’ve probably heard of Content Management Systems (CMS) for web sites. Or if you have not, you wonder, how can I maintain my own web site easily, without being a tech person? Simply put it is a content editor for clients that provides an easy-to-use interface for editing copy and adding photos/products to their web site. Most of these interfaces work a lot like Microsoft Word, and do not require that you know how to code HTML. You can point-and-click to insert photos, link to PowerPoint documents or PDFs. Most CMS fall into one of two categories: proprietary or open source.

Here at Tria, we have one of each type of solution. I’ll explain each of them in detail.

1. Dreamweaver Web Publishing System (proprietary CMS):
We use the industry-standard Dreamweaver Web Publishing System for about half the site development projects we undertake. Many clients already are familiar with this solution. Clients can purchase Contribute ($149 — ask us about our site license for your location), which makes editing and updating as easy as typing in your URL and hitting Edit, and then hitting Publish when you’re done editing. Some of our smaller clients who have sites maintained by one or two people use this.

This is a proprietary (someone else owns it) solution. To redesign your site you would need to have Dreamweaver or hire a developer who does. Fortunately, many clients have this and many web developers do too.

Other proprietary CMS solutions, and there are many of them, are ones that are developed in-house by programmers. If your current web dev shop has one of these, you will not be able to move your web site to another location, because it requires their CMS to move also, which they won’t allow. In order to move your hosting to another location, you’d have to have your site redone (we can help you with this if this is your dilemma), which can be costly.

2. Joomla (open source CMS):
Joomla (formerly called Mambo) is powerful open-source (free) software that enables clients to maintain and edit their sites via web browser. You can see a demo of this in action by clicking here. Joomla is fully editable — our programmers can add any feature or customization you require.

It stores your site’s information in a PHP database, so templates (designs) can be changed quickly, without redoing the entire site! This includes the navigation buttons and links as well. About half our clients choose, or grow into, this option. This CMS solution is FREE with your hosting package, though these sites generally take more time to develop initially. If you are using Mambo 4.5.3 or Joomla 1.04 or higher, we can develop new templates for you to refresh and update your site’s overall look and feel — then you can continue to make your own edits as needed.

This CMS solution can also be migrated to ANY server, should you not be happy with your current hosting provider. Joomla is compatible with virtually ALL web server types — any server that can run a PHP database is compatible. Plus, programmers (around the world) continually upgrade Joomla; new features and updates happen around the clock. Moving your entire web site content is as simple as downloading and moving the database.

If your current web site does NOT afford you the benefit, and ease, of maintaining your own content, please give us a call. You could be maintaining your own site weekly or bi-weekly for maximum marketing effectiveness.

Newsflash: AOL and Yahoo to Charge Senders for Broadcast E-mail
(Yes, that could be you— the new E-mail postage and its implications)
Both AOL and Yahoo have announced they'll be charging e-mail senders $2.5 to $10 per thousand e-mails sent, to guarantee delivery. You can be sure Google and other free e-mail services will be doing the same soon.
In a nutshell, senders of bulk e-mail (some of you) can opt to pay to send special delivery to AOL and Yahoo e-mail addresses. Touted as a way to end spam (it won’t — you can still send e-mail to Yahoo and AOL users, but will be subject to the same spam filtering it is now), it’s really a way for companies to gain priority in a recipient’s in-box (and for ISPs to make even more money).

We don’t think this will apply to many of you — yet. But if this system takes off, the potential exists for there to be two classes of e-mail — unfiltered and filtered. On the user end, why would I ever want to receive unfiltered e-mail? So marketers will end up having to pay to gain access to anyone’s mailbox in the future.

This effectively ends the whitelist system that most large ISPs and e-mail service providers have relied on in the past — the same system that gets your e-mail accepted if you’re using whitelist providers like Constant Contact.
What would be the threshold for individual users of e-mail? I shudder to think; most of you who know me well know I make exceptional use of e-mail <grin> Personally, I don’t think that the cash system will work for individuals (some tried early on and failed), but marketers surely will pay to reach your in-box. For more information:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/internet/03/05/spam.charge.ap/

Web Hosting Services
(the shameless commerce section of this e-mail)
When you have trouble with your e-mail, imagine that you could pick up the phone, get a human being who knew your name, and all about your web site, and could help you any time you needed help? That’s just what you’ll get when you host your web site with Tria’s Web Host Service.

Our web hosting offers clients the ultimate experience. From basic hosting, to e-commerce, mailing-list management, site statistics for marketing analysis, bulletin board and chat systems, our hosting packages can go from basic to full service depending upon your needs. All at very attractive package prices.
Hosting packages are on virtual servers, with 24/7 support. Clients can have us set up e-mails and maintain site services, or, through the control panel/administration area, maintain their own server features like e-commerce, mailing lists and e-mail accounts.

Plus, whenever you like, you can call our office, or our evening after-hours number and get Ann or Linda to help you with configurations, trouble shoot problems or walk you through your web statistics. You won’t have to press one and hold for tech support. We’ll be there for you whenever you need it — evenings and weekends included! Click here for further details on pricing and available options.

Thinking of design & marketing night & day,
Your friends at Tria,

Linda, Ann, Tina and Barb

If you want more information on these articles or anything else related to design or marketing, please e-mail us at contact@triadesignfirm.com