Avatar News : August 2011
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Greetings All!
We'll kick off with a general update about some changes here at Avatar. As a result of losing our Tuam Street office in the February earthquake and our Wrights Road temporary office term ending, the Avatar team are not currently working from one centralised office. Instead the team will be working from various locations and we'll be meeting with clients at convenient venues.
In this month's newsletter, we check out the benefits of using Skype in your business. It's a great communication tool that's widely becoming the preferred way to communicate with customers and staff. Don't forget to check out our assortment of tidbits and this month's featured websites.
In This Edition
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The Business Benefits of Using Skype
Skype is one of the best apps on the web but, despite being around since 2003, we're surprised to find that a lot of business owners still don't know much about it. It's a simple, inexpensive and efficient way to communicate and the video calling and conference calling features are particularly useful.
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Key Features of Skype
- Free Skype-to-Skype calls
- Video calls
- Conference calls
- Instant messaging
- Screen sharing
- File sending
- Paid options for landline and mobile calls, texting, WiFi and call forwarding
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Business Benefit Examples of Using Skype
- Better team communication
- Easily talk to remote team members 'face to face' using video calling
- Efficient 'face to face' time with customers
- A lot of customers prefer the 'face to face' interaction, so using video calling can provide an alternate option and save travelling time and costs
- Easy conference calling
- When you want to connect with 3 or more parties on a call, the conference calling facility is simple and inexpensive
- Quick communication
- To avoid your communications getting lost in people's inboxes', send your team or customers instant messages that pop up immediately onscreen
- Improved support and demo's
- Share your screen to perform easy tutorials and give improved support
In Summary
If you haven't got Skype installed already, then you should considering checking out the Skype site for full details. Of course, as well as business, using Skype at home is a superb way to keep in touch with out of town friends and family. Skype 'markrocketoffice' at Avatar if you'd like to talk about your web project.
Tidbits
Turning lemons into lemonade. Here's an entertaining blog post from NZS.com about 404 page not found errors. While we're on the topic, have you checked your site for dud links lately? If not, find a link checker you can use.
Get Googled faster. Have you done some major updates to site pages and want Google to update things quicker? Earlier this month Google released the Fetch as Googlebot tool which can speed up your indexing.
Fly like an eagle. Amazing YouTube clip of some crazy Norwegian slopeflying off a cliff, then skimming over rocky protrusions and forest.
The Tree of Life. A visually stunning cinematic epic, with a largely symbolic narrative, that somehow combines a tormented family, celestial bodies, nature, architecture, amoebas and dinosaurs. View the film trailer.
This Month's Sites of Interest
Strada7 – Website design, development and marketing
An online leadership development program that offers first-line managers a blended learning approach of training and support. The Strada7 website was developed using Joomla for content management with a WordPress Blog and using iContact for email list management.
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Merino Mana – Website design and development
Creating the finest quality New Zealand Merino wool baby blankets, hats and wraps, organic cotton sheets and hats. The site runs on WordPress using the Shopp shopping cart plugin.
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Earthquake Christchurch – Website design and development
A site dedicated to helping Christchurch residents to move forward in a productive way by getting answers to questions and voicing opinions. This simple site uses WordPress for content management and Mailchimp for email list management.
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