Emerge Inc. Blog

We at Emerge are very pleased to welcome Maegen Hurtado to the staff as a full-time team member.

Maegen will be the Lead Programmer and Visual Artist for our division focused on working with small to medium sized businesses with a goal of improving their business through the use of Internet technology, such as Web Development, Hosting and Interactive Marketing. She will also be assisting our programming team on the Custom Development side of Emerge.

Maegen brings not only expertise in visual design and content management systems, but also extensive knowledge and passion for video and social media strategies that will expand our deliverables for our clients.

We are very excited to welcome Maegen to our team!

Yesterday, we wrote that website speed now affects Google search results. Even before this change from Google, speed had impacts that could affect the financial performance of a website.

Shopzilla realized a 5% – 12% lift in top-line revenue. You can read the details in this article from the O’Reilly Velocity Conference. Or view the presentation:

Last Friday, Google announced that site speed now impacts search ranking within Google. In the case of two sites, all else equal, the faster site will be ranked higher in Google. Site speed reflects how quickly a website responds to web requests/

Not Much Weight – Yet

According to Google, “While site speed is a new signal, it doesn’t carry as much weight as the relevance of a page. Currently, fewer than 1% of search queries are affected by the site speed signal in our implementation…”

But, Google has long been a champion of Internet speed. I’m sure this weight will increase over time to encourage site developers to continuously improve the speed of their sites. Remember, the more pages we view, the more ads we see. And, since Google dominates online advertising, faster Internet is in their best interest.

Speed Analysis

Emerge is creating a speed analysis option for clients. We will use multiple tools to test the speed of your site and create a prioritized list of upgrades that will increase the site’s speed. If you are interested, please email me at Ed@EmergeInc.com.

Normally, I wait a few months before buying the latest gadget, read the reviews and generally let my emotions settle down and my logic take over. But with the iPad, I went for it, stood in line (only about 90 minutes) on launch day and began using it within an hour of release.

Following are my initial thoughts after 72 hours of ownership:

• As with all Apple products, the packaging was minimal and well designed. I’m a fan of the ‘Designed by Apple in California’ imprint.
• The display is unbelievable – crisp, clear and bright. The only issue is the reflection when outdoors.
• The size is perfect. Easy to hold. Websites fit and are readable.
• The weight is a little heavier than I expected, but it is a good trade-off for a long battery life.
• For books, I’ll still probably use my Kindle because it is easier to hold and change pages with just 1 hand. Although I like that my Kindle books can be synced with the iPad, including the page I’m currently reading.
• The touch interface is very intuitive.
• The NPR app is one of the more interesting early apps. 3 rows slide right to left to show the different news stories available. Plus access to live and archived audio from hundreds of NPR stations around the country.
• The iWork for iPad suite (keynote for presentations, Pages for documents and Numbers for spreadsheets) are well worth the $10 each. In addition to the productivity benefits, they provide insight into how touch interfaces will be used in future applications.
• The keyboard will take some getting used to. It is a little small for normal typing and without the feel of the keys, it is hard to be confident your typing the correct letter without constantly checking (Apple does offer a full size keyboard attachment).
• The inability to edit Google docs is probably the biggest challenge I face right now with the ipad.
• Interacting with social media sites facebook and twitter are excellent. I prefer the web version to the mobile version for both sites.
• The speed is very acceptable both on my Wi-Fi at home and at the office.
• No camera means I can’t use it to video skype with my brother overseas, but other than that, it isn’t that important to me.
• The lack of multi-tasking is an issue. I have a short attention span and on the computer always work with multiple applications and web browsers running.

NOTE: I purchased the 16GB Wi-Fi version and the apple cover. With tax it came to a little under $600.

Overall, I’m very impressed. I still need to more fully integrate the iPad into my workflow, but I can already see a number of uses that make it well worth the investment.

In a conversation last week with a good friend about how the Internet could be used to increase collaboration in regards to volunteers and volunteer projects, we hit upon the idea of adding a wiki page for each project that would enable the volunteers to share amongst themselves.

We quickly realized that many people probably aren’t familiar with a wiki. They may have used Wikipedia, but not a wiki in general.

From Wikipedia – A wiki ( /ˈwɪki/ WIK-ee) is a website that allows the easy creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor.

The excellent people at Common Craft created the following video which explains the power and benefits of a wiki.

On Friday, April 2, 2010, LorainCounty.com user power_surgin posted in the Lorain Forum:

This week sheriff’s sale of real estate list 46 properties in Lorain.
Commonly known as: 668 Broadway ave

To find this information, power_surgin read through the Lorain County Sheriff’s Sale of Real Estate information. On page 22 of 47, the information appears.

Four days later, on April 6, the local newspaper picked up on the story:

Morning Journal: Lorain County Commissioner Ted Kalo’s downtown Lorain building up for sheriff’s sale on May 5

Public access to valuable government data creates a necessary level of transparency and enables many eyes to view and review the actions of the government.

Open Government Data Principles (source)

Government data shall be considered open if it is made public in a way that complies with the principles below:

1. Complete – All public data is made available. Public data is data that is not subject to valid privacy, security or privilege limitations.
2. Primary – Data is as collected at the source, with the highest possible level of granularity, not in aggregate or modified forms.
3. Timely – Data is made available as quickly as necessary to preserve the value of the data.
4. Accessible – Data is available to the widest range of users for the widest range of purposes.
5. Machine processable – Data is reasonably structured to allow automated processing.
6. Non-discriminatory – Data is available to anyone, with no requirement of registration.
7. Non-proprietary – Data is available in a format over which no entity has exclusive control.
8. License-free – Data is not subject to any copyright, patent, trademark or trade secret regulation. Reasonable privacy, security and privilege restrictions may be allowed.