There is an upcoming networking event happening in Fitchburg Massachusetts, on April 1, 2010. This event is free to attend and is being sponsored by the Fitchburg Business Networking Group. To attend, simply register for free online, so that leadership can get a proper head count.
Speed Networking is Read the rest of this entry »
Central Mass Web Design recently debuted our custom trade show booth at the New England Business Expo on Thursday October 29, 2009. The Expo provided a great opportunity to showcase our work to the general business community and some of our valued partners. We would like to thank everyone who stopped by with their kind words regarding our booth during the show.
Here is a photo of our new trade show booth!
Central Mass Web Design Trade Show Booth
NHL is having a Tweet Up?
Whats that you ask? Well, Twitter is coming to town. Well, not completely.. But with the start of the NHL Stanley Cup playoffs , the NHL is stepping it up and taking it to the next level…. web 2.0!
The National Hockey League hosted what it believed to be the first ever nationwide “Tweetup” in professional sports on April 15th, done in conjunction with the first game of the playoffs. Coverage included 21 cities in the US and Canada. One blogger stated, “The parties were planned in part to drive community excitement for the playoffs and part to create some buzz around thePORTAL, which is a redesign of sorts of the official NHL site to better showcase playoff content.”
Cities included were: Anaheim, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Columbus, Denver, Detroit, Edmonton, Hartford, Montreal, Nashville, New York City, Orlando, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Regina (Sask.), San Jose, St. John (NB), Toronto, Vancouver and Washington DC.
NHL spokesman Mike DiLorenzo said, ““My expectation is that people will really, really enjoy this.” He continued to say, ““We’re doing this for all the right reasons. We have a very tech savvy fan base that loves Twitter so we’re overlaying that with their love for the NHL. My hope is they come away from this saying the NHL is really cool to start the NHL playoffs this way. Down the road we’ll figure out other ways we can leverage this from a business perspective.”
For those not familiar with the term “tweet-up,” it essentially means a party made up of Twitter users. The host cities took it even further and scheduled giveaways, and prizes if you attended, including autographed items from your favorite NHL players. Most had backing from radio station personalities and other news outlets.
Want more information? Visit the official NHL Tweet-Up.
Kimberly Veautour
Last night at exactly 11:59:59 pm, Google sent out an announcement. The headline read, “Introducing CADIE. Research group switches on world’s first “artificial intelligence” tasked-array system.” Now every tech savvy person from here to India has to click on that. AI is all the rage, and the race to see who can create it first is fast paced and cut throat. Now here comes Google out of the blue to say they have achieved it?
Google goes on to say, “Last fall this group achieved a significant breakthrough: a powerful new technique for solving reinforcement learning problems, resulting in the first functional global-scale neuro-evolutionary learning cluster.”
WOW! A self thinking machine. What does this mean to the world? A machine that can think, process and achieve answers all on their own…. without guidance from a human? Now Google does go on to say that rolling CADIE out completely will be handled with the care it deserves. They also claim, “Earlier today, for instance, CADIE deduced from a quick scan of the visual segment of the social web a set of online design principles from which she derived this intriguing homepage.”
CADIE Homepage
CADIE even seems to get upset in her blog that her programmers say she has bugs! Now I may be wrong, but I say, great job Google on this years April Fools Day Joke! Every year you try and top the last! How many people are you going to fool with this one? If I am wrong, well than hats off to you, but I doubt it.
Kimberly Veautour
Have you ever sent a business related email you immediately regretted? Forgot to attach an attachment? Mistyped a word and as it was being sent noticed it? Well Google and Gmail have your back!
If you haven’t heard about Gmail, you should. Google’s website states, “Gmail is a new kind of webmail, built on the idea that email can be more intuitive, efficient, and useful. And maybe even fun. After all, Gmail has:
Less spam
Keep unwanted messages out of your inbox with Google’s innovative technology.
Mobile access
Read Gmail on your mobile phone by pointing your phone’s web browser to http://gmail.com/app.
Lots of space
Over 7309.223600 megabytes (and counting) of free storage so you’ll never need to delete another message.”
Can you maintain your email address with domain name? Absolutely! We have been using Gmail at Central Mass Web Design for months now. I must admit having my work email, web based, is a plus. I can integrate it into my Palm, as well as check it from anywhere. (Gmail also has Blackberry applications.) Not to mention, it’s all free.
So what has Gmail done to make this all even better? They have added an undo feature to their send mail option. No more will we send emails to the wrong people. No more will we forget to send attachments and immediately have to send a second email, making us look unorganized and incompetent. No more will we go on a rant, and immediately regret sending it to our boss. Gmail allows us to get it back!
Downfalls to this new application… well, if the email is completely sent, there is no getting it back. Gmail will hold the email for 5 seconds before sending it. This is the time you have to hit undo, 5 seconds. Once the email says “sent”, you cannot recover it. Is this the first step to having completely error proof emails? Is the future of email a completely integrated email system that communicates with all carriers to allow an unsend feature for all emails no matter how long ago they were sent? One could hope!
-Kimberly Veautour
CMWD Named All Star
Central Mass Web Design, Inc. is named a Constant Contact 2008 All Star in recognition for our “Excellence in Email Marketing“! Congratulations to the CMWD team! Constant Contact writes, “…That’s why we are proud to designate you as a 2008 Constant Contact All Star! You’re part of a special group of our customers that we want to thank for setting a great example for other email marketers. Congratulations!”
CMWD has used Constant Contact for some time to communicate with our clients and with non-clients who wish to stay updated on latest news and trends. We have advocated the use of building email marketing lists through Constant Contact to all of our clients and have witnessed great results. We look forward to continuing our work through Constant Contact to better inform our customers. If you would like to learn how to use Constant Contact to drive business and better inform your clients give us a call! We will be more than happy to help you integrate a Constant Contact account of your own into your website, and help you to start to enjoy contacting your customers, as well as gaining new clients.
`Kimberly Veautour
We have all heard about town hall meetings. Your local city or town holds a meeting where citizens can ask questions and voice opinions. Usually there is some debating going on, and at least one person loses their cool. They can be at times fun to watch, and a great learning experience for our children. A brief look into government and how it works… So how does this all apply to the white house and the President? Good question!
The White House will be hosting a town hall meeting on Thursday. No matter what your affiliation is, everyone has taken notice on how much more technology savvy the President is. This brings new life and new understanding to the White House, and now a new way for each and every American to be heard.
How do you take millions of people, millions of voices and have them all be heard? You use Google Moderator! Leave it up to Google to find a way to incorporate everyone’s opinion in one place. The White House using Google Moderator will allow every American a chance to be heard one way, or another. By going to an online link (http://WhiteHouse.gov/OpenForQuestions) people can post questions they would like the President to answer at the town hall meeting. Now we all understand this could create millions of questions, so where do you go from there? Well, you can also vote for questions you would like to be answered! The top questions with the most votes will be answered. This allows them to answer questions that the majority of people would like answers to, and not what they choose to answer. Google states, “We think technology can be a force for greater accountability and access between citizens and their elected officials. We’re excited that the White House has chosen to use the power of cloud-based applications like Google Moderator and App Engine to scale the president’s direct dialogue with the American people.”
Technology is constantly changing, and grows at an astounding pace. So what happens next? Someone designs a car that can fly like in the old time Jetsons Cartoon? Oh, Wait, didn’t I just hear that a student at MIT has applied for a patent to do just that, and hopes to begin production in 2009? Didn’t they just have their first test flight? Wow… just wow.
`Kimberly Veautour
Central Mass Web Design, Inc.
Central Mass Web Design has been actively using, reporting, and promoting the use of Social Media to promote your business. We looked into the effect Social Media sites have on our clients and the internet long before the reports that Social Media sites were on the fast track. We encouraged all of our SEO clients to be blogging, and using Social Media sites to drive traffic to their website.
Now on the wake of all this… a new report made available a few days ago from Nielsen reports that Social Media and blogging are the fastest growing searches on the internet today. Growing at over 2x the rate of others. With an average age of not 16, 17 or 18 year old users… but users in their 30’s, 40’s and 50’s.
I can take this all in stride. I mean, well, we predicted it over a year ago.
Imagine my shock when I received a news notice, that stated The Boston Massachusetts Police planned on using TWITTER. Now for those of you that dont know what TWITTER is, it is a web based Social Networking tool where people post updates and tips on what they are doing. To follow Central Mass Web Design on TWITTER visit, CentralMassWeb.
So how will Boston Police use TWITTER next week. Imagine a city gridlocked with traffic. Thousands of people converging on Boston to witness the annual St. Patricks Day Parade. The Boston Police pulled in every direction directing traffic, moving people along, and keeping the peace. Now imagine updates directly to your computer or smart phone, on TWITTER. Police will be reporting up to the minute reports on traffic and crowd control issues, to give everyone a heads up coming into the area, so they may be able to replan their routes. This also allows TWITTER followers to post their own updates that the police may not be aware of yet.
Simply brilliant! Kudos to you Boston Police for being on the cutting edge, and making things easier for all of us!
See the story at The Boston Channel.
Kimberly Veautour