Avatar News : June 2010

Greetings! As World Cup Fever sweeps through the nation, we tackle some issues that will help your site score. We kick off talking about the evolution of business sites and building online communities with Joomla. Check out our 25% discount off your site updates offer, only available if you contact us before the end of the month. We sense a Mexican Wave coming on. Our jQuery technique of the month is the jQuery Captify plugin, a great tool for adding captions to images. Before the final whistle blows, don't forget to check out our selection of tasty tidbits and this month's site of interest.

In This Edition

• Building Online Communities with Joomla
• 25% Discount Off Web Site Updates
• jQuery Technique of the Month
• Tidbits
• This Month's Site of Interest

Building Online Communities with Joomla

The evolution of how business web sites are used has been fascinating. In the early days it was just about getting a brochure online. Then we all started realising that you had to market a web site to attract visitors there. Subsequently it became clear you had to do more than just drive traffic to your site, you had to measure ROI, convert visitors to take action and generate repeat visits.

These days, many serious online players are focusing on the next level - building an online community. Some key benefits of having an online community on your Web site are:

• Build brand loyalty by providing a useful online service
• Repeat visitors will be effortlessly drawn back to your site
• Use the community to discuss new products, services and deals and gather feedback
• Enhance your site's business networking potential
• Sell more products and services

With the popular Joomla content management system, you can build your own Joomla online community (or Joomunity) using tools such as Community Builder. Some good points of Community Builder include:

• Users can display and organise data in a structured and personalised way
• Sites can grow increasingly larger on relatively low spec hosting servers
• You don't have to be computer savvy to create an online community
• User profiles are simple to create and they can be integrated easily into the community
• Minifeeds allow users to follow each other and keep up-to-date
• Community Builder is free and open-source

If your site uses Joomla and you would like to talk about ways to develop an online community then get in touch with us.

25% Discount Off Web Site Updates

If you've been putting off those site design or content updates, now is great time to move that job up your priority list.  Procure a site update service with Avatar before the end of June, then contact us and simply say the magic words "June Newsletter Discount" and we'll take 25% off our usual hourly rate.

jQuery Technique of the Month

jQuery Captify Plugin - jQuery Captify is a plugin that displays simple, semi-transparent image captions on an image when it is rolled over with a mouse. Captify is easy to use and a discrete way of including captions with images. It's a great way to add a point of difference to your Web site, without compromising on design. View an example of a jQuery Captify Plugin.

Tidbits

Mayday! Mayday! Or Caffeine? Many Web site operators were shouting Mayday! Mayday! over May's major Google changes. Numerous sites lost 10% to 50% of their traffic, where as other sites gained a bit. Google has confirmed that they've implemented a new update that they're calling Caffeine that is a major shift in their ranking / indexing system.

Jim's Pancakes. A delicious site that's sure to please. Check out these fun, unique and yummy pancakes and get some funky breakfast ideas!

Brightening Lives. This solar-powered LED light bulb is about the same size as a standard household light bulb, but has the potential to significantly decrease the cost of lighting in disaster-struck areas and the developing world. Equipped with four solar panels and made from impact resistant plastic, this LED light bulb is a safer and more sustainable lighting option.

Hybrid Airship. The U.S. Army is currently building a hybrid airship weapons system the size of a football field that will be used for surveillance and reconnaissance.

This Month's Site of Interest

Shoppa Pad (Web site design and development) Shop smarter with Shoppa Pad. The easy-to-use grocery checklist is designed to make grocery shopping easier and help you save time and money. The Shoppa Pad site uses jQuery Flip on the home page to create the flip animation, the Fancybox jQuery extension for hover effects and jQuery scripting to assist with calculating orders.