NOMOS has been very busy piecing together the components that make up a successful offsite SEO strategy definition process, articulating the strategy our clients needs in clearer and more modular steps. One of the first fruits of this labour is the fact that we can now offer comprehensive offsite SEO services to any client in Dutch, German and English. In contrast to the run of the mill link purchasing schemes passed off as a comprehensive strategy elsewhere, NOMOS will actually have people write and submit articles, work in social media to get you noticed, list your business on boards, and generate very specific, relevant incoming links for your domain. The beauty of this solution is that it is not mechanized, and it does not just focus on links. It does a lot more. It does so much more that we recommend using at least our Medium offering for three months, and we will guarantee results. We know guarantees are usually bull, but in this case we will keep working until we have realized what we have promised, and we will require no additional compensation for it.
In addition to these great offsite SEO offerings we are now also creating Magento based apps for iPhone and Android. Through use of standards and other predetermined patters we are able to quickly and successfully create these apps for you, leveraging Varien's ability to get your apps through the store acceptance path for both iOS and Android. If an app is not what you are looking for, but rather a mobile website, we have you covered as well.
Last but not least we are now able to rework existing sites with no CMS into sleek, CMS based sites using open source tools. For the majority of sites we can convert your site to use this new functionality for just a few hundred Euro's.
In the last couple of months there has been a very interesting change of focus going on at our company. Where we started out helping mom and pop shops get online, then continued with Ecommerce solutions based on open source software that in some cased were hugely successful, lately we have been helping some of these customers in their defense. Defense against what you say? Other “entrepreneurs”…
Here is a rundown of the most common security issues we encounter and some common solutions. Obviously these tips should not make up the entire body of your own online security and preventive measures, nor do we want to act as if we are the definitive resource on this matter. What we do however, and what we do well, is finding the right people to fix your problems, ask the right questions and put things in perspective.
DOS
A Denial of Service attack basically is an attempt to make a computer or network resource unavailable to its intended users. Although the means to carry out, motives for, and targets of a DoS attack may vary, it generally consists of the concerted efforts of a person, or multiple people to prevent an Internet site or service from functioning efficiently or at all, temporarily or indefinitely. In laymans terms, someone is trying to knock your site off of the net, and prevent you from selling, or expressing your opinions.
The way this works in its simplest form is a simple site, pure html, running on some cheap shared hosting for a local football team. A rival team hates them so much they intend to make the site inaccessible. What do they do? They send so many requests to load that page to the server that it congests, with the server becoming unresponsive. No one can visit the site anymore, it is offline for all practical purposes. The solution to this is simple, just filter out that specific IP that is sending all these requests, in effect making it impossible for the attacked to take out the site.
The next level of sophistication is not actually attacking yourself, but doing so with other PC’s or Servers. An attack thus becomes a Distributed Denial of Service attack and it becomes much harder for people to defend themselves since there is a large range of IP addresses attacking now, and the IP addresses can be changed on the fly.
Next to this attacks can focus on other parts of the TCP protocol, such as SYN/ ACK floods, ICMP, LDoS, etc. More information on those can be found here:
Defending yourself against DDOS can be a difficult and time consuming affair, especially is your attackers have enough funds to match or exceed your bandwidth or filtering solution. Respected anti DDOS hosting is available everywhere, but if you really need the best, our proposed solution is Prolexic. This is also a very expensive solution, and only an option if you have 5 to 15k to spend on servers a month. Another cheaper and easier way to deal with DDOS, especially if the attacks are relatively small is using Cloudflare.
Cloudflare is basically the aggregated wisdom of loads of webmasters, administrators etc, and these all contribute to Cloudflare, in the same way virus scanners draw from a central pool of information on viruses. Cloudflare looks at all the traffic coming in and because of its information back end is able to indentify and mitigate most of the smaller attacks and problems you may encounter. Cloudflare has quickly become a good solution for smaller businesses that run into smaller problems. The below video explains it better:
SQL injection is more akin to a person walking up to a guarded door, not knowing the magic word, but being able to deduce it by chatting up the guards. SQL injection in many cases make use of poor coding and allow for the retrieval of passwords, content and at its worst customer information including credit card details. SQL injection can be as simple as entering some code in a searchbox or a password field, and the php code behind it sending back the admin password. Yes, really, this happens. Below you will a link to the most common mistakes in programming that can be avoided easily and prevent attacks like this. I have seen customers lose 1000’s of customers to competitors through attacks like this, so the threat is very real.
NOMOS warns you for the algorithmic information gatekeeper
Every once in a while, somebody shows up that eloquently dissects a problem that only feels like vague discomfort to most. Since we deal with companies' performance in Search Engines, especially Google, the video below is quite relevant to what we do. It poses the question: How do I make sure this company is at the top of it's desired demographic's search result when Google automagically rearranges the order in which it displays links based on 57 inputs, using math we do not know. This is different entirely from just a search algorithm problem.
Since this is our problem, and we work hard at working around it, we will not bore you with it. However, the broader societal implications, of curated information, of corporations controlling data and us being dumbed down by McInformation is a problem. Like I said, there usually is someone else who explains this better, and so it is this time:
At NOMOS we tend to think long and hard about what the design of a site, email or message can do to enhance the content of what it portrays. When is how you show something more important than what you show? We thought the following video from TED is a good example of how visualizing data can improve the way information is digested. Enjoy:
NOMOS finishes corporate redesign for Sylvan Advisory.
NOMOS is very pleased to announce that we have finally finished the corporate redesign for Sylvan Advisory. Our new design includes all communication materials, email templates, presentations and last but not least, the website. See below for a few screen shots or head over to http://ww.sylvanadvisory.com to see the site!
It has been a while since we have last posted anything on our blog, but bear with us here. The last weeks NOMOS Design has been heavily involved in some strategic work for a traditional industry. Even though we primarily work on online strategy, we are not above selling out for the purpose of a great run rate on a project.
Usually we deal with clients that need some sense of direction, or need directions in making sense of their environment, specifically as how that relates to anything that has the symbols @, # or // in it. This works great, usually. We define a direction, support it with arguments and solid analysis, we crunch some numbers and settle on a strategy. We then help the client execute that strategy, through its brand, on the web. Those things together make up web, brands, & strategy. Which happens to be our company marketing take away. Not a coincidence.
Still with me? Good. (See I answered your question for you, and the reason I mention this is obvious from the embedded video below, call me Mr More)
So now, things are kinda different. We are going in circles, talking to people who run a large company, who deal with technology every day, and they are completely unaware of the big bad next gen technology train that is about to wreck their industry and business model into a million glimmering pieces. Without revealing the exact industry, and running the risk of being exposed, it is similar to a seller or horse carriages not knowing what a combustion engine is while model T's are going past the window. Utterly incomprehensible.
Anyway, let me cut to the chase, since the average attention span in this day and age is apparently under 5 seconds. I wanted to share something with you, a video from 2006, about doing less, to do more. I found it appropriate since we are currently involved in a project where paralysis through analysis reigns supreme as we are trying to outdo the competition. Step back, and enjoy:
In samenwerking met ervaren technische partijen is NOMOS Design in staat om in te spelen op de interactie tussen internet, mobiel internet en SMS. Hiervoor is een platform in het leven geroepen, te vinden via www.nomosdesign.com/smsplatform en smsplatform.nl.
After our previous little post (well actually the one before that, misterdesign.nl going live was the last one) we discussed the virtues of using mobile optimized sites and why they in many cases are superior to apps. Boy, did we have heated discussions after that one. :)
Today we are going to talk about how SMS ties in to this. Like we mentioned last time, and like Tomi Ahonen tirelessly explains, SMS is the big bad boy in the mobile sphere. Its the one no one notices but has the most potential. By far.
Lets look at our consumer, the person we are trying to target. Over the course of a couple of decades, we have made transitions to pull and push type marketing. TV shows are pushed over the airwaves to people that sit on their couch and take in all the dancing and singing novelties and disney kids shows. The internet requires a person to navigate the net, it is a pull medium, people need to pull information from it.
Numbers matter
Currently, we have the internet, cell phones, smartphones, text messaging and the mobile web as the main influencers of the current generation. Yes, of course, books are still read, there is just very little advertising in the average book. Magazines fare a little better, but are confronted with diminishing returns, loss of subscribers, less advertising, etc.Now, lets do some numbers first. How many people in the world have access to the following:
TV Sets - 1.5 Billion
Internet - 1.4 Billion (including mobile access)
Newspapers - 450 Million
Cars - 800 Million
How many people actively use SMS? Over 3 Billion. Thats about 70 % of all Mobile phone users. In developed markets, the percentage of people using SMS is close to 100%. This means you can reach close to everyone in your target audience by using SMS.
Smartphone OS
Some more numbers. The estimated number of devices sold annually, smartphones, by OS:
Symbian 100 Million
Android 60 Million
iOS 32 Million
(extrapolation of Q2 2010 numbers, rounded)
You need at least 3 different apps to serve the market, of which iOS is LEAST important.
Last time we argued that its better to create a mobile site than an app in the vast majority of cases. What is even better is a combination of SMS & Mobile Web. Let me explain.
Suppose you are a developer. A real estate developer that is, and you have huge project which is making you think about how to interact with your prospective buyers. This is a very common issue, and usually the "solution" is to build a website, print a brochure and smile politely.
A better solution
Why do we not do the following. We can create a text message code, say 4111, and use that number to spread information about that project. We put up a huge billboard, or just slap a sticker on an existing billboard, and ask people to text a word to 4111, for instance, "greathomes".
So the prospective client (it is already a prospective client if someone is taking the trouble to send the text) sends the word to 4111, and receives back 1 or 2 text messages with some general info on the project he or she is standing next to. We can ask the prospect in the text message if he or she wants to have more info on Apartments, Homes, or Lofts. That way we can share tons on relevant information with a highly relevant prospect, without worrying about what type of phone he or she has.
Next, we can take it one step further. Why don't we link to a website, from the text message, so smartphone users can browse the site? Actually, why do companies not create a mobile version of the site, that behaves like an app, and can be shown on most Smartphones?
The reason companies do not, is that the people they work with have no idea how to do all of this. Fortunately, we do know how to do this.
We know how we can create compelling interactive SMS campaigns.
We know how to deal with website design so that we can have desktop and mobile versions work perfectly, at the same time, with little additional cost.
After a few months of hard work, we have recently finished the design, build & test of misterdesign.nl. Misterdesig.nl offers products from top tier designers at affordable pricing. NOMOS has worked with Misterdesign.nl to enhance the functionality of the base system and has guided them through a successful ramp up and launch. NOMOS would like to wish Misterdesign.nl lots of success with their new online store!
Sometimes in technology we can clearly see that the way ahead is going to pose significant challenges to the way things work currently. The rise of the mobile web is one of these trends.
As the mobile web becomes more important, the Internet returns from it current paradise of high bandwidth connections, ample screen real estate and exotic plug in support to a resource constrained & size constrained reality that is a Smartphone or a mobile internet device. Lets take a look at some of the factors influencing this and then discuss how we can deal with them.
Screen size
Obviously screen size plays an important role.You cannot assume someone will be able to successfully navigate your HD site on a screen 3.2” in diameter. There is just not enough room. So you are left with pinch zooming, if you are lucky. And that’s a chance you can’t take. You need to be able to offer service to those who do not have the latest and greatest. Therefore it’s a good idea to build sites in such a manner that they display a properly functioning site on mobile devices. There are some good Wordpress themes that do this. (of course used by many bloggers in the mobile sphere) Whether it is worth the investment depends on a particular business case but the fact remains, if you want to increase exposure, page views or even sales, make sure people can easily use your site on a smaller screen.
Data speed
So, we just finished this great flash based site for a luxury brand here at NOMOS Design, and I am looking at it on my flash enabled Smartphone (N900). Besides the fact that most Smartphones are not able to show flash properly (yet) it takes a LONG time to load. Even on Wifi it is slower than my desktop, 3G would mean waiting for at least 10 to 15 seconds to see anything, and 2G, well it’s a good thing there are mobile browsers that do data compression like Opera. The point is that users are slightly more forgiving to load times on mobiles than they are in desktop environments, but not that much. Critics say: “Well that is all going to change once we have 4G/LTE because that will be just as fast as landlines”. Our response is twofold.
A: If you are going to use the mobile web to further your interests, there is no point in targeting the bleeding edge technologists only. You have to select the common denominator. If you do not, you just replicate the desktop vs. mobile problem into the mobile space and create LTE vs. Non LTE.
B: Even though the connection might be quicker, your device may not. And even if we were sporting Moorestown processors, or dual core Cortex A9 processers, that’s still going to slower than that Core2Duo that is so ubiquitous now. Let alone Core i7. Speeds in the desktop environment keep growing, so the chasm stays.
Operating System & Apps
This is a prime difference between desktop and mobile computing, and a key reason for why we should create mobile sites. Unlike the monopoly of the desktop OS world that Microsoft holds, there is not a 90% plus market dominating Smartphone OS.The closest we get to that is Symbian, with over 40% globally. Currently Android is growing strongly, Symbian is growing and MeeGo & Bada are contenders while Apple’s iOS becomes less important (yes, less important). If you think about compatibility, and different form factors the problem becomes apparent. iOS apps don’t run on Android devices, Android apps for one version don’t run on newer versions, Symbian apps break compatibility between versions, at least until they are all made in Qt. The point is, there is a matrix of about 10 tot 12 operating systems, most of which run on differently shaped devices with differing screen sizes, which means in the end, there are hundreds of different real life combinations of OS & screen size. This does not even take into account hardware capabilities.
If you want to reach the largest audience, what do you target? What combination of OS & Form factor belongs to which demographic? How do I segment my customers based on the technology they use? The soup du jour in the Smartphone world is iOS. The Apple app store has the most apps. Customers ask us if we can build them an app. We ask them why. They say well our customers using iPhones can then download them. We ask what about your other customers? They say well can they download apps? We say yes. They realize they need to make 4 or 5 apps, then conveniently forget about our discussion, build an iPhone app and promote the heck out of it.Why?
Apps or Web based services
There is nothing wrong with trying to get some face time (no pun intended ) with your audience through use of an app. Its just that apps are almost never profitable and there is a much cheaper and in our view better way to do this. Building a mobile optimized site.
In technology, like the economy, we move in cycles. We go from small programs that execute parts of a factory system, to big ERP systems, back to Service Oriented Architecture where there are smaller services that communicate with each other through a predefined communication protocol. For the online world we have a similar thing. It is called the internet. We use the htt protocol.And any browser can find the information on it. Why have we gone back to apps? Because an app in native code can look nice easily. Because your ad agency knows someone who can make them. Because it is cool to put the “download our app” on your site.
But if you need an app, then why iOS, why not Android and more importantly Symbian? Why go out of your way giving your customers an app, so they can interact with your company more easily, and then leave out the vast majority of your users? Even in the most successful countries for apple, their share of the Smartphone space barely touches 30%. What about the others?
So, you either create apps for multiple platforms, iOS, Android, Symbian, or you go for a mobile optimized version of your site, so you can reach as many people as you can.If you need to create, for whatever reason, multiple apps, make sure you use tools like pinkelstar (www.pinkelstar.com , check them out) that take away the heavy lifting around connecting your app with social media.
Marketing & Selling via SMS
The big 800-pound gorilla in the mobile space, the one that isn’t acclaimed by the likes of Apple, is SMS.It is not lauded as the opportunity of a life time by tech companies because they do not profit from it. But rest assured, there is more money in SMS & SMS based marketing than in apps. Did you know America’s got talent scores about 500 Million in SMS revenues in one season? One season, one show, one country, makes more money than the most popular app store on the planet does in a year. Why not use it? Get in touch with us for more information, insight or advice.
Read more about why SMS is the big opportunity you have been waiting for at:
Na maanden hard werk is het zover. NOMOS Design is in staat zeer complete applicaties voor zowel Symbian (Nokia) als Iphone OS te ontwikkelen, ontwerpen en realiseren. NOMOS gelooft dat het mobieltje steeds meer het centrale informatie punt in ons leven gaat worden. Met de ontwikkeling van betere User Interfaces op bestaande besturingsystemen zoals bij Symbian (S^3) of het uitbreiden van functionaliteit bij nieuwere besturingssystemen zoals Iphone OS of Android zijn onze mobieltjes tot steeds meer in staat, en halen we er uit wat er in zit.
Zoals we ook een verschuiving zien van mensen die zoeken naar content via search engines online naar mensen die uit hun sociale media alle informatie halen (twitter, facebook, hyves) en de daarbijhehorende verandering rondom "monetization" zien we nu ook een verschuiving van PC/Mac/Laptop naar het mobieltje. Hierbij komen zaken als location aware applicaties, location targeted ads, sms marketing steeds meer op de voorgrond te staan.
Neem contact op met NOMOS om meer te weten te komen over de ontwikkelingen in de mobiele markt, wat voor implicaties dat heeft voor uw organisatie, hoe u kunt inspelen hierop en wat de feiten zijn in tegenstelling tot "de heersende opinie" over deze onderwerpen. Buiten het strategische advies dat we al langer geven, kunt u nu dus ook terecht voor applicaties. Adviseren en ontwikkelen, met resultaat als enig doel.
Na een intensieve samenwerking hebben NOMOS Design en GoldVish S.A. vandaag het nieuwe online onderkomen van GoldVish gelanceerd. Onderdeel van dit project was de art direction, vormgeving, uitvoering van de site, alsmede advies rondom de manier waarop GoldVish e commerce aan zal pakken. De site zal zowel meerdere talen ondersteunen, waaronder Chinees, en centraal onderdeel zijn van het hernieuwde elan waarmee GoldVish de markt betreedt. Middels de e commerce functionaliteit zal GoldVish een wereldwijd verkoopkanaal er bij hebben. NOMOS feliciteert GoldVish met haar nieuwe site, alsmede de recent geopende flagship store in Hong Kong. >> www.goldvish.com
NOMOS Design krijgt vaak vragen over welk systeem het meest geschikt is voor E Commerce. We raden in veel gevallen, maar niet altijd, Magento aan. Om antwoord te geven op veel gestelde vragen hebben we een overzicht gemaakt van Magento functionaliteit. Klik op de pdf hieronder.
Uit wikipedia: Social media is de, ook in het Nederlandse taalgebied gangbare, Engelse benaming voor online platformen waar de gebruikers, met geen of weinig tussenkomst van een professionele redactie, de inhoud verzorgen. Onder de noemer social media worden onder andere weblogs, fora, sociale netwerken als Hyves, Facebook en LinkedIn en diensten als Twitter geschaard.
Oh, en nu? Als ik maar gevonden kan worden op google, toch? Ja en nee. Vaak gaan er stemmen op die vertellen dat je nog geen geld kunt verdienen met sociale media. Voor sommigen van ons is dit ook zo. Wanneer er slechts een gering volume bezoekers is is het lastig door adverteren de kosten van het geheel terug te verdienen, laat staan veel geld hiermee te verdienen. Sterker nog, twitter heeft enorm veel bezoekers, maar geen revenue model. Ze verdienen helemaal niks daar. En toch steken anderen weer 100 miljoen in Twitter. Toekomstperspectief, zeg maar. Dus toch maar wat aan Adwords besteden dan?
Social media kunnen wel gericht ingezet worden voor het creeren van tribes of het verspreiden van virals of guerillamarketing. Feitelijk is social media niet zo bijzonder, behalve dat het digitaal is. Een forum werkt net als een praatclub, een blog is een publiek dagboek, sociale netwerken maken het makkelijk om bestaande real world connecties te emuleren en vereenvoudigen alleen wat er al is.
Twitter is leuk omdat het zo een enorm real time concept is, en door de grote aantallen tweets een dankbare bron voor nieuws is. Nou ja nieuws, dat kan net zo goed non informatie zijn zoals in het geval van talloze foutieve en overdreven retweets over Iran.
Omdat dit allemaal digitale concepten zijn gelden er andere regels voor de verspreiding van concepten, ideeen, merken en producten. Dit kan sneller, goedkoper en efficienter.
Als Suit Supply half naakte mannen naast de snelweg laat lopen genereert dit veel gratis aandacht voor het merk Suit Supply. Dit kan online ook, met een leuk filmpje dat een deeloplossing voor een probleem omschrijft en vervolgens de geinteresseerde bezoeker middels het invullen van een emailadres een pdf met wat leuke content toesturen.
Welkom op de nieuwe website van NOMOS Design. We gaan u middels dit blog op de hoogte houden van ontwikkelingen op het gebied van internet, webtechnieken, sociale media en nieuwe projecten van NOMOS Design. Heeft u vragen? Neem dan contact met ons op.
Twitter is leuk omdat het zo een enorm real time concept is, en door de grote aantallen tweets een dankbare bron voor nieuws is. Nou ja nieuws, dat kan net zo goed non informatie zijn zoals in het geval van talloze foutieve en overdreven retweets over Iran.
