Ottawa & Calgary Web Design + WordPress + Drupal + Social Media + iPhone Apps | Armadillo Studios Inc.

Early last week, Team Armadillo was more than happy to launch the official campaign web site for our good friend Troy Wason.

Troy is seeking the Calgary Vice President position for the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta. As a great friend of the company, we were more than willing to help his campaign team create a unique web site that would reflect Troy’s progressive and forward thinking philosophy. Using a combination of web fonts and the campaign’s minimalistic branding, we set about to create a site that would provide a clear and direct message to potential voters. As usual, this WordPress powered web site also showcases the campaign’s social media elements, while also allowing the campaign team to keep potential supports abreast of the latest events through the intuitive Content Management System.

We here at Armadillo Studios want to wish Troy all the best on the campaign trail and are excited to add TroyWason.ca to our growing portfolio of political campaign web sites.

About a week ago, Team Armadillo Studios was approached by Darren Harmon and our friends at WMS Communications to help with a new project. Darren was looking for a fresh new look for his band’s web site (http://harmonband.com) to coincide with a headlining gig at a local Calgary-based charity. So, armed with a tight timeline and a great new client, the team at Armadillo Studios set about revamping the band’s main site in time for the big show.

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Armadillo Studios Inc., is very proud to announce that we are not only a major sponsor, but acting as the online technical support for the 1st Annual Calgary Seniors Walk. The Calgary Seniors Walk is being put on by our good friends at the Canadian Legacy Project, a great Calgary based non-profit that we have been working with for a few years. As you can see from the event’s web site, it’s sure to be an exciting event:

The 1st Annual Calgary Seniors Walk will take place on Thursday, August 30th on Stephen Avenue Mall in support of the Golden Age Club (www.thegoldenageclub.com). This unique walk event will take place during the lunch hour and will cover the four blocks on Stephen Avenue Mall in downtown Calgary with the goal to raise awareness and much needed funds for The Golden Age Club. The Golden Age Club offers a variety of social, recreational, health and outreach programs for Calgary’s seniors population.

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It is with great pleasure that Armadillo Studios announces our new Facebook Fan Page.

As you can see our new Facebook Fan Page is a fully customized site, which aims to show the playful side of Armadillo Studios and to also demonstrate the potential power of the Facebook Fan Page. We built all the elements of the Armadillo Studios landing page using FBML (Facebook Meta Language), a new cannon of design code which allows page owners to dramatically enhance the Facebook experience for their fans.

But Why Launch a Fan Page Now?

Some of you may be asking, why is a Web Design and Social Media outfit only jumping on the Facebook Fan Page bandwagon now?

To answer that, let’s look quickly at the Facebook platform.

When Facebook first started gaining some traction with the college crowd, it created a unique subsection for people to organize called Groups. As everyone now knows, Groups allow up to 5,000 users to band together to show their admiration for a wealth of topics. But the major flaw, with Groups, is that it was quite difficult to connect with your followers. Without a constant level of interaction between groups and their followers, most groups faded into the distance.

Now fast forward to the beginning of 2009 and Facebook is set to launch a new system called Fan Pages.

Fan Pages are Group pages on steroids – no limits on membership, the ability to post new content directly into your fan’s activity stream and the ability to customize the layout. When they first launched many organizations made the switch instantaneously, but one of the hidden elements of the new customizable elements was the ability to create new pages using FBML (Facebook Meta Language).

In recent months, FMBL has undergone a series of dramatic enhancements to the point where those who are familiar with the language, can now utilize this new tool to fully customize the Fan Page experience.

FMBL and The Future of Fan Pages

It’s because of the evolution of FBML that we felt it was time to create a new identity for the company on Facebook.

With FBML, organizations can now build a unique identity on Facebook which is akin to their own goals – something that will standout from the competition. These tools now allow users to create their own mini-web sites within Facebook. And with the unprecedented growth of Facebook in certain demographics, it is now more important than ever to make a great first impression.

Because of these developments, we believe that Facebook Fan Pages are going to be a powerful new tool for companies and community organizations. And while we think our own page is pretty darn fan-tastic, here are some examples of what can be done with Facebook Fan Pages:

• The New England Patriots
• Bullfrog Power’s – Pay More For Energy Campaign
• Gerry Loves Records – An indie record label out of Edinburgh
• Victoria Secret

So don’t just take our word on it, some of the biggest players in the internet industry are already taking note.

Fan Pages & Your Company

The beauty of Facebook fan pages is that they can built for a fraction of the cost of a regular web site and they also allow you a direct connection to your fans (via streaming your updates directly in to your fan’s stream). So if you like what you see with our own Facebook Fan Page, send us a note at info@armadillostudios.ca.

If you get in contact with us to develop a Fan Page by July 15th, we’ll give you an introductory discount of 20% on our development rate.

As previously mentioned SXSW is long over and the overviews are starting to roll in. As usual, I’m a little late with my final blog posts. So instead of waxing poetically about the conference, here is a run down of some of the links that you should have a gander at. They cover the entire spectrum of the conference, from influential thinkers to upcoming design techniques to new tools for business:

Social Media Thinkers & Shakers

• Chris Brogan and Julien Smith, the two brains behind the exceptional book Trust Agents. If you are involved with building an online brand or personal brand, invest in this book.
• Washington DC Visual Information collective JESS3.
• Uber-entrepreneur Gary Vanyerchuk, who is an amazing inspiration for people looking to build a Company brand.

Web Typography

• Samantha Warren a fantastic designer who is pushing the World of Web Typography, with some great poster based design.
• Jason Cranford Teague wrote a book called Fluid Web Typography, which is a fantastic and straight forward break down of the up coming shift towards Web Typography.

Interesting Takes On SXSW and Design Culture

• A Graphical representation of the SXSW Conference thorough a series of Moleskin notebook sketches
• Unhappy Hipsters, a collection of Wallpaper magazine photos with unhappy hipster commentary

New Tools For Everyone:

• Wufoo.com a simple web site that allows anyone to develop simple and stylish web forms.
• Mapscripting.com, which is a pushing the boundaries of what Google Maps and Yahoo Maps can do for small businesses.
• Grasshopper.com is an inexpensive Toll Free phone office service for small businesses. (There is also a Canadian Equivalent called RingCentral which Canadian businesses should check-out)
• Launch’s take on Leave Your Job Start An Agency, the feedback to our talk from SXSW
• From our good friend Andy at NonImage, is the amazing Invoicing app called FreeAgent, which will revolutionalize how freelancers control their own books.
• OneForty.com the ultimate resource for Twitter apps to leverage for your business.
• A great presentation on the power and beauty of Co-Working and how it will change our own way of working. If you are interested in coworking in Calgary check out Coworkyyc.com.

Well, now that SXSW 2010 is over and everyone has begun shoring up their own conference overviews, It’s about time I finish off the last two posts on the conference.

So with out further adieu, here’s my take on the other big topic at this year’s festival. Yes, friends without question the big showdown of SXSW 2010 was between geo-locational social network superpowers GoWalla & Foursquare.

The big guns were definitely brought out to play, as each of the two superpowers fought for the affection of the influential first adopter crowd. In laymen terms, they were coveting the nerds.

The idea being that, if you win the Nerds (First Adopters), they’ll return to their home town and influence others to join the network. Now to preface it, both foursquare and gowalla were predominant at the ’09 version of the festival, but this was the big year. iPhones and Smartphones were are as common as underwear at SXSW and pretty much everyone at the conference was already using one of two power house apps. But the key for these two start-ups was to convert the nerds to their own service. To come out one top and create the next Twitter Effect.

So after all the final software updates, redesigns, secret badges and super, super duper checks-in were completed, who won?

The Big Winner Is…

Well, this may come as a shock, but I would have to venture that Austin based GoWalla was the slight winner. Which for those following the Geo-Locational Network apps battle (or even this web site) will see as a bit of shock.

Foursquare has been the it company for this new section of the Social Media spectrum for over a year, with predominant deals with national and local media outlets and a buzz that’s rivaled Twitter. But, with an ill-timed redesign roll-out and some glaring downtime issues, Foursquare seemed to miss a golden opportunity to squash the competition. Rather than blowing the socks off of the crowd, it left with a small whimper of excitement. Instead, smaller GoWalla was able to keep rolling with a crisper interface design (just look at those gorgeous icons) and leverage the cool small guy vibe to win over a majority of the nerds. By the end of the five days, most dedicated Social Media Enthusiasts and Insiders were gravitating towards GoWalla and away from Foursquare.

What this means for the future of Geo-Locational Networks is something that will play out shortly, but for the future if you are looking to expand your business into the Foursquare network, it would be best to keep one eye on GoWalla as you start to build your strategy. (Don’t worry, they are both fairly interchangeable) Foursquare will still maintain it’s buzz and significant edge on users, but GoWalla made a solid impression.

The question for the future will be, was it enough to sway a majority of the First Adopters and their friends to make the switch.

Much will be said about yesterday’s keynote speaker with Evan Williams. Unfortunately, most of it will revolve around the horrible nature of the interview format and the mass exodus from the panel. But the big news is that Twitter has officially launched a new development platform, which will allow more web site integration for web site owners.

In laymen’s terms, Twitter is trying to compete with Facebook’s Connect (That blue button that you see everywhere) to allow seemless integration of twitter accounts into 10 major web sites. Essentially, this will make Twtter as easy to integrate into web sites as Facebook Connect is. Which will be an incredibly interesting revelation to watch and will alter how information is shared on Twitter.

But what does it mean for smaller web sites with smaller budgets?

Eventually, this tool will allow a more seamless integration of twitter into your users viewing patterns. Which in turn will mean that it will be even more important to have an established Twitter presence for your company, blog or non-profit organization. With a simple click, users will be able to tweet directly to your company’s twitter account without having to bounce back to there twitter tools. It’ll streamline the ability for users to interact and comment on your web site, giving your blog or news posts better interaction with your potential clients.

Now, this is all based on one talk, but it something to keep an eye out for and shoudl be more of push to integrate your business with Twitter.