Webfusion

This month we’re rolling out one of the lowest .ME domain name prices on the market, and recently spoke with developer Bruce Marler about the extension. Bruce is building out a network of ME sites through his company Localtek which is expanding to help bring small and rural businesses online.

You recently launched Oklahoma.me after the success of its sister Missouri.me site. How has working with local business owners and consumers shaped your views on the potential for the ME extension?

When we first came up with the concept for our community site platform and branding using the .ME extension we felt confident that the .ME extension would resonate with the general public. Well, to say the least we have been proved correct. We continue to get amazingly positive feedback on using .ME from people that are not from the tech industry, in other words, real consumers and business owners.

As a matter of fact just recently we had the VP of Marketing for a very large regional bank stop a presentation to talk about how great the .ME extension is for branding, this is a very conservative company and to have a company such as that talk about how .ME works great for geo and community level branding says a lot.This is not the only time something like this has happened but this example goes along way.

Did you have a particular vision when you began investing in ME domains? Did the personalization aspect draw you to the extension?

ME was really one of only a few extensions that had been repurposed that actually made sense, it is pronounceable, short, and extremely brandable. Although in the beginning I had planned to use the .ME names I acquired during landrush as an investment the names I selected were based on the ability to use them for community and personalization. .ME is perfect to create a personal brand. There really is no better extension for this, as a matter of fact I invested in several first name .ME domains just for this reason.

Major brands such as Wordpress (WP.me), Universal Pictures and Facebook (FB.me) are now using ME domains for promotions – how do you think businesses can use the extension to create memorable brands?

-With .ME you can create a perfect call to action or verb related site with a name that makes an impact, people remember it.

-You will see more of this, I am already starting to see .ME showing up in searches I make for different terms I have searched for, they are being developed and I truly think this is just the beginning.

- Call to action names have always been popular with branding, now think about having it attached to a domain extension that makes them personalize the action being requested and it takes it one step further.

Dot ME has come a long way from its origins as the country code of Montenegro in the past few years – where do you see the extension heading in the near (and far) future?

- The extension is going to grow in popularity for both personal branding and for company branding initiatives. Our plans are to take our state geo platform and launch in many more states which takes the brand to a end user level and not just the tech crowd which are typically the first people that see new extensions like this.

- With the reaction we have had from real customers and end users there is no doubt .ME is here to stay, with the hard work the .ME registry is doing it will only take it further.

- Add to that the fact that Facebook, Wordpress, and others are using the extension and the millions of people they have as users and this extension, more than any other new extension, has the ability to soar in popularity due to the comfort level people will have with it as it is already part of their everyday internet lives.

We’re big fans of applications that improve the organization and planning for web development projects. So, when we came across Less Projects (at new project tracking software app from the fine folks at Less Everything), we wanted to learn more. We recently spoke with Steven Bristol, a leading Ruby on Rails developer on the how less is more when it comes to project management:

WF: When compared to other apps such as Basecamp what sets Less Projects apart?

Basecamp is a great product, and the folks at 37signals are top notch, but these two tools really approach the problem of project management from very different perspectives. Basecamp is centered around messages and communication between client and consultants. The problem for us is that we don’t want to talk to our clients that much. We want to talk to understand their needs and then we want them to get out of our way so we can make something extraordinary for them.

Less Projects

So for us, Basecamp has the wrong emphasis. That’s exactly why we created LessProjects. The focus of LessProjects is getting things done and letting you know how much more you have to do in this iteration and to do that it has to be easy to manage iterations. It’s a task based system where tasks are assigned to iterations. Each task has a status, can be assigned to someone and can easily be moved between iterations. There is also the sticky notes view where you can see your wall of tasks as if you had push-pinned them all to a wall yourself.

WF: Your team uses Rails – how has Ruby allowed you to improve the effectiveness of your applications?

I’ve been writing Rails since 2005 and we use it almost exclusively here at Less. Since why Rails is better/great has been discussed ad nauseum, I won’t bore you with it again here. I’ll just say: Rails is better, Rails is faster, Rails is more secure, Rails feels like home, Rails feels like it loves me (the developer).

WF: Less Projects features a clean, intuitive design – how did the front end and back end development process work in tandem?

My partner, Allan Branch, is a designer, and I am a developer; we both do pretty well with UI. LessTimeSpent.com started as an Allan project where Allan did the design for the whole site and then said “See what I’m trying to do? Now go make it work.” LessProjects started at a Steve project and every time I tried to explain the UI to Allan or any of the Less Guys, I just got blank stares back at me. So I built it, basically as it is today. Then Allan came in and designed it (recently Allan updated the design but the UI is essentially the same). That’s how it goes at Less. Either we work together, as we did with LessAccounting.com, or one of us takes the lead and the other jumps in later.

WF: We really like your saying, “Be Yourself. Be saintly. Be Love.” – how to you recommend developers keep their projects organized, enjoyable and, most of all, effective?

The most important thing to do to achieve these goals is to stay focused. Only check twitter and gmail twice during your work day. If a lot of people IM you, turn it off. The next level of focus is to really know what you want, and build only that. If you only have a vague idea, start building anyway, but only start if you are comfortable with the fact that you will throw some large parts of your work away when you realize that your vision has shifted. The most important part of job satisfaction is launching something. If you don’t ever get to launch then you are the tree in the forest that fell and no one heard you. Even if it’s scary to launch, do it. If you’re wondering if your app is ready to launch right now, then it is. Don’t worry, no one’s going to look at it anyways (not at first). Launch it and feel good. That’s what we did with LessProjects, we launched it when it was little more than a glorified to do list. We launched a few more times since then and we’ll launch a few more before we’re done. We still consider LessProjects an Alpha version. It’s been out for almost a year and it’s still free (pretty soon it won’t be free). Stop what you’re doing right now and launch. And then go celebrate.

If data is king then quality charts are the visual equivalent of Presentation Zen. We recently spoke with Torstein Hønsi, development manager at Highcharts, a web-based charting application:

How did the idea for Highcharts come about? What real world projects influenced its inception?
Back in 2003 I purchased a weather station for my private website and was unhappy with the charting software supplied. I wanted something dynamic but at the time all Flash solutions were expensive and I wasn’t too happy with the idea of urging my low-tech readers to install a plug-in. So I set out building a JavaScript solution bases on div pixels, which soon was abandoned due to the slow rendering and memory consumption.

The next effort was JavaScript tooltips laid over a chart image created by JPGraph. A good solution, but it showed the need for a native JavaScript charting solution. When vector graphics finally were available in all common browsers two or three years ago, the time was in to give it a go. By that time I had my own company, and development on Highcharts has been going on for the last two years. The configuration syntax and functionality has been inspired by projects like JPGraph, FusionCharts, AnyChart, amChart, Flotr, Ext JS and MooTools. Highcharts enables web developers and entrepreneurs to quickly set up and maintain a visual report without actually understanding much of how JavaScript works.
What are the advantages to using Javascript for the application over client side plug-ins such as Flash?

Flash is a proprietary technology, and many developers hesitate to become dependent on one specific vendor. Moreover, Flash and other plug-ins like Java or ActiveX require the end user to install a plug-in in their browser. Although Flash is very common in today, it will still confuse first-time users.

Highcharts can replace Powerpoint in a website environment. It is limited to run in a webpage, but as more and more software – including presentation programs – is becoming web based, Highcharts is the ideal data visualizer.

What are your future plans for Highcharts?

We are currently working on methods for updating the charts dynamically after render time. For example by appending a point to a series while shifting one off the screen, we will have live charts. Imagine getting refreshed data over an Ajax connection for monitoring some remote value. The next great update is to allow saving the chart as an image. In standard browsers this doesn’t raise any technical problems, but in IE the vector graphics are drawn using VML which can’t be converted directly. The solution will be to use the Chrome Frame to generate the images in IE. But as this doesn’t comply with our philosophy above, we will probably also add an option to generate the image at our servers. Other features on the roadmap are wrapper components for PHP, ASP.NET, .NET and JSFP.

As agile software development has gained prominence in recent years, a number of apps have emerged to organize the process. Webfusion (WF) recently spoke with Manuel Morales (MM), the creator of Team Trick which is a Ruby-based scrum platform where development teams can chart their progress:

WF: Agile development has taken off in recent years – what do you see the main advantages over traditional processes? How has your own development experience influenced the project?

MM: Software development is such a complicated an unpredictable thing that an agile approach fits way better than waterfall. Agile lets bright teams shine. The way agile responds to change seriously boost productivity, makes the client more satisfied with the final results and reduces failure odds. What else can you ask for?

WF: How can Team Trick help teams working to improve code and reduce project times? Your app has integrated graphical dashboards – how can project managers use this to evaluate the progress toward their next release?
MM: TeamTrick saves time automating the most tedious tasks of Scrum like burndown chart and sprint planning estimations.In addition to that, the project dashboard demonstrates in a blink how well is your team doing in terms of productivity and estimations.
Scrum is usually implemented with post-its on a board. This works great for in-place teams but becomes a problem as soon as project members start working outside of the office. You can work around this with tools like Google docs. But TeamTrick provides additional features like the mentioned above.

WF: You built the application on Rails – how do you see the advantages of Ruby versus PHP?

MM: TeamTrick wouldn’t have been possible without a good framework behind. Learning Rails in developing TeamTrick has been a really enjoyable experience. Mostly due all the good practices and concepts I learned with it. Like Don’t Repeat Yourself, Test Driven Development, the MVC pattern, etc. About the Ruby vs. PHP vs. Java question: Ruby is really pleasant for the programmer. But that’s not the most important thing. I value much more a good framework and an excellent community.

WF: Where do you see the feature of web apps headed in the next few years?

MM: Companies are going crazy about location based apps. And it seems obvious that we are going to see revolutionary apps in this field. Augmented reality is impressive. However, it’s easy to be confused and start thinking that people will use your app just for being location based. What I’m sure is that mobile phone compatibility will become essential.

Working with remote teams on coding projects is easier than ever thanks to the growth of collaboration tools and open source version control software. Webfusion (WF) recently spoke with the creators of PHP Anywhere (PA), a web application designed to make PHP team projects easier to manage:

WF: Tell us a bit about where the idea for the project came from – what tools was the team using before you created the app?

PA: The idea came from our co-founder Vedran Jukic, who did a lot of php freelance work at the time but was often away from the office. So he need a way to get his work done without dragging his laptop with him all the time – shortly after that the idea of PHPanywhere was born.

WF: Many developers collaborate internationally – how does the interface allow for multi-lingual communications?

PA: Currently PHPanywhere does not support any type of communication between users (this is planned for a later date) but PHPanywhere does support all encoding formats, so no matter what language you use – you can use PHPanywhere.

WF: What has your team learned since your launch in 2008? How has the project roadmap evolved?

PA: We have learned quite a bit, mostly about UX, and what we need to do to make our users more satisfied. So we are now constantly in contact with our users letting them guide our roadmap. As for the evolution, it is evolving more or less as planned; here and there we reach a “bump in the road” but nothing serious.

We see web based applications taking a major piece of the software market in the years to come, because they are cheap (often free), allow mobility, and of course  the release of web-based OS – Chrome will just make this happened sooner.

If a picture is worth more than its relative bandwidth in words, then Tom Sprows’ new social answers application QPixl is poised for an impressive growth curve. Webfusion recently spoke with Tom about his iPhone application, the mobile development process and how to effectively innovate in the social space:

QPixl is a unique name – how did you go about selecting the domain? Tell us a bit about the background to the idea and implementation for the site.

I wanted to get a name that blended pictures and questions. My first ideas were Qpics/Qpix/Qpic but all were taken. I was having lunch with a friend and discussing my different name ideas. We started to brainstorm and QpixL was brought up. We thought it was catchy and a decent domain name (and only 5 characters!) We did a quick domain
search and found it was available.

I always liked sites such as Answers.com and Yahoo! Answers but they seemed boring. Also, they lacked a mobile component and social network integration. I was looking for an internet connected iPhone project to consider and decided I would make my own Q/A site with pics.

You have both an iPhone and a Web App – how did the development process for each differ? Do you have plans to produce an Android application?

The iPhone app is written in objective-C (Apple’s proprietary iPhone language) and the website is written using C#/Asp.net. I wanted to learn objective-C and thought by bringing both C# and objective-C together it would be a pretty good challenge. It was!

I have a bunch of plans for the site that will make QpixL available to any Smart phone with a camera and access to email. So at this point I am not considering an Android application.

QPixl adds a multi-media element to popular sites such as Yahoo Answers – what separates you from your competitors, and which innovative features do you have planned for future releases?

My biggest features that separate me from the other competitors are as follows:
- A heavy mobile component
- Questions with pics!
- Social network integration (Ask your friends for answers)
- Serious and not so serious questions (”How do I look” type questions)
- The ability for people to answer questions without having to sign in.

Phase II of QpixL will be coming shortly. I am focusing more on the web site of QpixL. Here is a sample of some of the features:

1. - Ability to log into the site with Facebook Connect
2. – Profile creation (QpixL.com\Spiderman)
3. – Ability to upload pic/questions via email, iPhone and website
4. – Geolocation (Google maps integration to see where the question/pic was asked)
5. – Posting to many more social sites
6. – Categories
7. – Scoring and Fans
8. – A Cool/hip Q/A community.

How does QPixl approach social integration? How do you see open standards in social networks changing, including more open APIs (such as Twitter recent implemented)?

The goal for QpixL is to become a community for asking questions. I want to be able to send questions/pics/vids to any social site. Then bring the users back to QpixL. Open APIs make this possible. There will only be more sharing the more social networks open up their services.

What advice can you offer to beginning web developers who are looking to start building their own apps?

Don’t just dream it. Build it.

While traditional real estate markets may still be under water, the market for websites is starting to heat up. The New York Times recently profiled the topic, citing the rising trend of entreprenuers moving into the space. We recently spoke with Zach Tyler (ZT) at Blarket (blog + market) about his new website marketplace start up.

WF: How did the idea for the Blarket app come about? Which other sites or ideas inspired the development?

ZT: I’ve been selling blogs for a few years now. About a year ago I started thinking about building a new website marketplace because at the time there was only one solid marketplace which was on Sitepoint.com. At the time, Sitepoint’s marketplace didn’t offer anything special so I knew it was a market I may be able to disrupt. While gathering some information for my new project I came across Flippa.com while it was still in beta. I thought it looked great, but then I noticed the new payment structure. $20 plus 5% commission. I knew that wouldn’t go over well with the frequent buyers and sellers so I decided to build a new marketplace with a flat fee that offered more than Flippa could.

WCan you share some insight into how you came up with the Blarket domain name and what is means exactly?

When looking for a domain I debated going with something generic like “sellandbuywebsite.com” for SEO reasons, or go with something short and memorable. I contacted a few domain owners with related domain names but all were too expensive for my budget. I spent the next couple of days brainstorming and eventually thought of Blarket, which initially meant “Blog Market.” Although Blarket isn’t just for blogs, the domain hadn’t been taken, and it was just too good to pass up.

Your site features a clean, easy to navigate design – how did you approach the site architecture and front-end development?

I had designed the first mockup of Blarket, but let’s just say my design skills aren’t superior. Once the backend details had been completed, I met up with two amazing graphic designers at my college and they worked with me to build the current design. We wanted to build an attractive and vibrant website that was clean and simple. We removed a lot of the clutter on the homepage and showed only the most important details, with other details available through the info button. We put all the personal function like profile access, and messaging in the dark bar at the top of the header, leaving the rest of the site mainly for browsing the marketplace. I’m extremely happy with how everything turned out, I like to think I accomplished one of my many goals, which was to build the nicest looking website marketplace.

What separates Blarket from other sites on the web such as Flippa, and what new features can we expect in the next year?

The biggest difference between Blarket and Flippa is the payment structure. Blarket charges $30 for a website to be listed with no commission. Flippa charges $20 plus 5% commission. Blarket is sticking with the flat fee because it’ll entice more valuable websites to post because they can save hundreds. I think it’s important to have a marketplace that charges for a listing. It creates a sense of friction between the poor and quality websites. Most of the site marketplaces are free, but you’ll find that most have a bunch of spammy sites marked up too high because they have nothing to lose.

I have a bunch of interesting features I’m going to add in the future. I ultimately want to make Blarket a community for buyers and sellers. Right now profiles are very bare, but soon they’ll be statistics on every buyer and seller with success badges that can be earned as one builds their account. I’m also adding RSS to the listing category’s for those only interested in say, forums. I also plan on developing a site verification and escrow system so every transaction is completed safely. I don’t want to give away to much, but there’s definitely some exciting features that will be added in the near future.

As much as we love the poetry of code, it’s important to connect in the real world. Webfusion recently spoke with Matthew Smith (MS), who heads up the development team at Flexvite, a new web app that aims to help busy individuals find a time to meet. In contrast to traditional invitations, Flexvite allows friends to vote and collaborate to find a time and place to meet, so you don’t have to miss another episode of Myth Busters (spoiler: turns out, science wins.)

WF: How did the idea for the project come about? Did the development process for the program flow naturally from your experiences as users of competing products?

MS: The idea came about from personal experience and pain trying to figure out which days were best for busy people to get together. I saw the problem in 2 different places initially. The first was my wife and her friends negotiating a good day for their monthly girls night in (dinner party). Because of everyone’s busy schedules, it seemed to take 15-20 e-mail replies, and generally was very tedious for the organizer to resolve.

I also experienced a similar problem as I was trying to put together an iPhone developer group for the
first time. It would be our first one and I had no good way to poll the group for what day was best without the traditional hassle of all that e-mail back and forth or without sticking my thumb in the air and selecting a few random dates. Thus the idea for Flexvite was born.

We like portmanteau (flexible + invite) – how did you hone in on the domain name Flexvite? Did you consider any (epic) alternatives?

I considered lots of different alternatives, but Flexvite really jumped out as a brand and amazingly the domain name wasn’t taken, so I seized it! Since choosing the name, the only problem I’ve had is that if I speak it to fast it’s hard to hear the ‘v’ in Flexvite. Maybe it’s just my voice/tone, but people always seem to think I’m saying ‘Flexfight’ which starts a whole different conversation Try to say it three times fast and you’ll see what I mean.

How does Flexvite integrate into various social networks? Do you have plans to incorporate APIs from Facebook or Twitter for social sharing in the future?

At the moment we have a very minimalistic integration with Twitter and Facebook, but there are big plans for the future, so stay tuned!

As you approached the project, did you encounter any technical challenges with development? What innovative features have you implemented (or planned) for the app?

Flexvite is built and hosted on Google app engine. That has had it’s ups and downs, but overall I’m very happy. We have implemented several innovative features for the product including:

1. Giving the user the ability to specify a rough ‘range’ for when an event should happen (as opposed to making you pick specific dates)
2. Making voting so intuitive that you can confidently send it to anyone, and
3. Creating optimized algorithms that automatically close/set an event as soon as reasonable.

Your site features clean, intuitive design and content elements – how did you integrate the design and branding process in with the development of the application?

The design is something we’ve constantly iterated on based on user feedback, but what you see today is basically an evolution of a design I scratched out in a notebook and subsequently prototyped as furiously fast as I could. It’s a been a wild ride so far, and I’m looking forward to continuing to hone Flexvite into a valuable tool for getting people face to face.

Bringing a web application from idea to reality takes a diverse set of skills. Drew Wilson (DW) at BuiltItWith.me has introduced an app to help developers who are looking to connect with like minded coders or designers. Webfusion recently spoke with Drew, who is an artist as well as an entrepreneur who has worked on projects including the Titan Javascript framework to the Firerift CMS, about the project as well as his overall approach to development:

WF: The site has a unique concept and domain name – where did the idea for BuiltItWith.me come from? What influenced your decision to use a .me domain?
DW: The idea was to create a web tool that would connect designers to developers to build cool apps together, and it wasn’t until after a day or two from starting development that I decided on the name I was going to use.

I wanted to communicate what the site was all about from the name itself. So Build It With Me was easy to come up with. I wanted to keep the domain as short as possible, and also wanted the domain to be the name itself. The “.me” domain extension fit perfectly. I also own: bldw.me for shortening my URLs.

How does the site improve upon traditional ways for developers to connect, such as forums?
I built this site out of a problem I have faced many times in the past. How do I find a legit developer who “get’s it” and enjoys development to the extent that they build things on the side. I didn’t want to just get someone who works a 9-5, I wanted someone who enjoys building things. Craigslist, oDesk and the like had tons of “developers”, but it was hard to find anyone who would be interested in building something in their spare time. That is what sets Build It With Me apart from those guys, we will always focus on designers and developers who build apps.

We will not become a job hiring platform. The way Build It With Me has been setup makes it easy to find designers or developers interested in what you want to build. You don’t have to post a job/project request and wait to hear back (like you would on a forum). You can quickly and easily search through everyone on Build It With Me to find exactly who you are looking for.

How have your own experiences in web development influenced the structure of Built It With Me?
I built Build It With Me for designers and developers. Since I am one of them, I think they will benefit the greatest from the app since it was made for them. I knew I could make this tool the way that I would like to use it, and other designers and developers like me would enjoy the experience in using it. So I didn’t have to leave my natural train of thought too much when designing the application, because other designers and developers share my same train of thought when it comes to user experience.

Build It With Me only took 9 days to complete from initial idea to launch. As a result there are many features still left to be added. I’m super excited about the upcoming features, they will make connections much easier, and hopefully streamline the process of building cool things together!

Modern web development requires a variety of skills, and many developers opt to work with outside professionals to help complete the process. Webfusion recently spoke with the development team at Spudaroo, led by founder Kate Hiscox (KH), which is a new development site which helps connect webmasters with help:

WF: Spudaroo is a unique name – how did you select the domain?
KH: I’m the founder of Spudaroo.com and a Brit. I was looking for something a little more 2.0 so quirky, memorable with a brand element that we could build upon – in this case the Spud character. We always say “use your spud” in the UK which means “use your brain” – that probably crept in there too!

Your site features a unique layout – which web design trends inspired your approach?
I designed the site with Felix our graphic designer. However, the initial design concept came from a project we held on 99Designs.com. We wanted to be true to the spirit of crowdsourcing in addition to integrating as many API solutions as we could so 99Designs was my first port of call for the logo and then the header and footer. Footers with an element of fun are starting to creep into 2.0 design and I’ve always liked Miro’s landscaped footer.

Spudaroo competes with sites such as Guru.com and others – what separates your site from the pack? oDesk, Elance, Guru and PeoplePerHour.com require that you choose an expert based on the proposal they submit. Spudaroo.com requires experts to submit a completed version of your needs before you make a decision. Experts read your project brief and submit completed material in a read-only format for your feedback. You rate their efforts and request the changes you would like to see. The process continues and when you are satisfied, you receive your completed materials in a file format of your choice and we handle payment on your behalf to the successful expert.

Spudaroo.com is about time efficient projects for both the buyer and the expert. Proposals take time, are clunky and often have to be verified. We are about making projects flow smoothly from concept through to delivery. Experts benefit from working with buyers that are engaged and focused on reaching a satisfying conclusion, resulting in a well defined, time efficient project with guaranteed payment.