Newsletter: November 2004
In this issue:
- Editor's Note: Way Back When
- Feature: CreateAThon Sites Launched
- Launch News: Bay Town Trolley
- Other News: Search Engines Compared
- Other News: Foot(ball) Note
Editor's Note: Way Back When
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This month just happens to mark the fifth anniversary of my joining 3W Studios. I thought you might enjoy taking a trip down memory lane with me to see some sites as they used to be. Just head over to The Wayback Machine to see archived copies of old websites. The pioneers collection is interesting - an electronic baby album of a few of the web's big boys. They even offer a toolbar plugin to make instant time travel possible as you surf. Rodney Johnson, Senior Designer |
Launch News: CreateAThon Sites Launched
For the third consecutive year 3W Studios offered our services for free by participating in CreateAThon 2004 - a 24-hour marathon of free creative services to benefit the community. In conjunction with The Kidd Group, we spent a fruitful, if sleepless, day and night creating marketing and advertising solutions for a diverse group of local non-profits.
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Rainbow Rehab provides renovated homes and repairs to disadvantaged families. This time, it was their turn to get "rehabbed" as we took their existing site and gave it a new lick of paint. A new logo was the starting point for a look that we also carried over into new print materials.
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Christmas Connection delivers toys, gifts and food to needy families during the holiday season. Our gift to them was a web presence, logo and stationery to help give their 25-year old organization a formal and recognizable identity in the community.
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The Camp Gordon Johnston Museum commemorates the World War II training camp in Carrabelle, Florida. Just an hour from Tallahassee, this camp was the training ground for the amphibious landings of D-Day and the Pacific campaign. Our assault was on the museum website, which we redesigned to be more cohesive and user-friendly. The dawn raid (literally) was a success, and this site is waiting the final order to launch. |
Launch News: Bay Town Trolley
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Panama City's Bay Town Trolley service marked its annual 'Harvest Trolley' food drive this year with the launch of its new website. The site features route maps, fare guides and trolley news. Find the stop nearest you at www.baytowntrolley.org. Congratulations to the Trolley on a successful drive, which collected over 3 tons of food! |
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Other News: Search Engines Compared
You may have heard that Microsoft has unveiled its own search engine to compete with Google and Yahoo. This little snippet of tech news has made it onto TV news tickers and business news segments. The discussion of search engines often turns to market share or ranking techniques, but have you considered how well a search engine might actually work?
The BBC conducted an interesting little experiment on 5 of the biggest search engines, to rank them based purely on performance. Did MSN take Google down a peg or two? Well, you'll need to read about the experiment to see how they were ranked.
Google still makes the headlines, and is nicely integrated into the Safari and FireFox browsers, but consider some of the alternatives. Vivisimo, for example, presents clustered results by topic that can help you drill down. Compare this search with the BBC findings.
Other News: Foot(ball) Note
That's "football" as in "soccer" - congratulations to the tireless 3W soccer team, who this season made it all the way to the championship game and were gallant runners-up.
