Newsletter: May 2004
In this issue:
- Studio Director's Note: Memorial Day Greetings
- Feature: What you need to know about RSS
- Launch News: An Online OASIS
- Launch News: Coastal Gem Online
- Other News: Email Services Receive Ringing Endorsement
Studio Director's Note: Memorial Day Greetings
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I started my traveling season a little early this year, with a pre-Memorial Day trip to the beach. I passed a gas station that actually didn't have enough number-two digits to display the gas prices on its board. If you're traveling this holiday, be safe, and don't forget your laptop so you can get our RSS feed while you're away! Jeremy Spinks, Studio Director |
Feature: What you need to know about RSS
RSS, or real simple syndication, is something that you may have seen appearing recently on some of your favorite sites, maybe as that little orange button that says XML, or a blue one saying RSS.
RSS is bringing you everything: news from Wired Magazine, Yahoo or the BBC; sport from ESPN; even financial news from Kiplinger or entertainment from Rolling Stone. So what is it and why should you care?
RSS is an XML specification that allows easy syndication of content. Site authors can post summaries of their latest news using RSS, and then readers can use one of several RSS readers to quickly scan dozens of sites at once to find the news they care about. One of the biggest areas of RSS use comes in the world of blogs. With so many personal and niche blogs available now, readers donít have time to keep up with all the entries. RSS lets them sift the news and only visit for entries they really care about.
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So how does this affect you and your website? RSS can be a valuable method of gaining site traffic and market share. The RSS specification lets you display an RSS feed on your website, or more to the point, lets someone else display your feed on their site. These partnerships between content providers and site owners benefit both: the site owner gets valuable content to enrich the site; the content provider gets increased exposure and the traffic from users clicking through to read more. |
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To see RSS in action, you will want to download an RSS reader. Then subscribe to www.3wstudios.com/news.xml for a quick sample of it in action, or try http://www.completerss.com to find the RSS feed for you.
Launch News: An Online OASIS
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The Florida Press Association, through their National Newspaper Placement Services, has launched OASIS - Online Analysis Suite & Information Systems. The system, developed by 3W Studios, allows Florida Press to provide planning and tracking tools to large media placement clients. |
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The site contains a database of newspapers and rates, allowing media planners to concoct endless budget scenarios across their media markets. They can then track their spending and run monthly year-to-date reports. The system is currently operational for Florida, with the entire southeast United States to come online over the summer. You can visit the site at http://oasis.n2ps.com but access is by appointment only.
Launch News: Coastal Gem Online
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Cook Development has unveiled a series of jewels in their new Costa Bella Collection, five luxury condominiums on Floridaís Atlantic coast. The first of these gems is the Marbella. 3W Studios and Kidd Tucker Group teamed up to provide logo design, strategic marketing services, and of course a web presence. You can find more details on the Marbella and the whole collection at www.costabellacollection.com. |
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Other News: Email Services Receive Ringing Endorsement
You may remember that we migrated to a new and improved email engine a few months ago. We have been enjoying the new system ourselves, and evidently so have our clients. We were tickled to receive this email after migrating the Able Trust's newsletters to the same system.
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"Super great - very easy and I like the test list for proofing. I've had only autoresponse messages back, no bad mail delivery, which is so nice! And 63 folks have opened it so far. Thanks so much!" Kristen Knapp, APR
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If you think your organization could benefit from an easy-to-use permissions-based email system (for emails like this one), please drop us a line.
