The Armadillo Studios Blog

Congratulations To Mike's Bloggity Blog | Jun 12, 09:22 AM

We just wanted to send a congratulatory note to our good friend Mike Morrison of Mike’s Bloggity Blog for being named the Best Calgary Blog in Fast Forward’s Best of 2010 poll.

We kinda feel like that proud cousin (or high school friend) that watches their multi-talented friend make it big.

So a big virtual HIGH-FIVE goes out to Mike.

Congratulations.

Topic: Client-Releases || Around-The-Web

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Google Street View: What Does it Mean For Your Business? | Oct 8, 08:10 AM

Google Street View rolled out in Canada yesterday morning. While many people are finding it to be one of the Internet’s greatest time occupiers, it does have important ramifications for your business.

Google Street View is essentially a street level enhancement to Google’s powerful online mapping system – Google Maps. Users can now zoom in on any address in a major metropolitan Canadian city to see a panoramic view of the area. Below are some examples of Google Street View in action at some of Calgary’s most famous intersections.

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But as a small business how is this new feature important to you? Right now it seems like a nice novelty, but what will it mean for potential customers?

First and foremost, if you happen to run a storefront business; a repair shop, a flower shop or a clothing store, when potential customers use Google Maps to find your location they will now see a street level view of your storefront. Unfortunately, for a business standpoint there is no control over the view that is available for customers to look at. Any business with information updated on Google will be tied to this viewpoint, whether it’s a flattering photo or not.

Second, if you are a Realtor or a business tied directly to the Housing Market, Google street view will be an important tool for your business. Not only will users be able to see an honest street level view of your property, but they will be able to explore the surrounding neighbourhood and the local amenities. Again, depending on the state of the property and the time the Google Car visited your neighbourhood, this might not be the most flattering photo.

So What Should You Do?

It would be almost impossible to fight the impact Google Street View will have on your business. Google’s current stanglehold on user search and business information is impossible to ignore. So our advice would be to embrace the service.

Google allows you to embed the streetview application directly into any web page, so leverage this feature. For Realtors this means embedding street views of you properties directly in to your showcase page. For businesses with store fronts, this means embdedding the application on your contact us page and replacing that outdated Google map.

Google Street View might seem gimiky at first, but like all of Google’s previous technological breakthroughs the business ramifications will become apparently very shortly. So rather than fight it, embrace it.

Topic: Trends-in-The-Industry || Around-The-Web

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Did You Know 4.0? | Sep 22, 07:38 AM

It’s a pretty tired cliché, but sometimes pictures (and beautiful fonts with great statistics) speak louder than words.

If you haven’t seen it yet, this is the fourth in a series of viral videos detailing the new Media Climate. The latest rendition promotes the Economist’s Media Convergence forum in New York and without question it is a pretty important view for any sized business. (A special thanks goes to Andrew McIntyre and Roger Kondrat for the link)

Topic: Around-The-Web || Trends-in-The-Industry

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The Armadillo Wordle | Jun 30, 01:53 PM

Sometime ago we stumbled upon a nice visual tool for web site owners and customers trying to refine their web site’s keywords. This tool is called Wordle.

In essence, Wordle is a quick and dirty online app that allows web site owners to submit a web site link or post to receive a basic graphical word cloud representation on the content for that web site. The larger the type, the more predominate that word is in the site (or post’s) content. As an example you can have a look at the wordle we created for the Armadillo Studios Blog.

You’ll notice that some of the strongest words associated with the Armadillo Blog are words like; Armadillo, Online, Collaboration, Calgary, Web Site, and Project.

But How Can You Use Wordle?

Simply, navigate to the create a wordle web site and enter in the main page of your web site or paste your web site’s RSS feed in the appropriate boxes. The resulting image will quickly demonstrate the strongest Keywords associated with your web site.

The larger the words the greater the chance you’re web site will pop-up in related searches. The smaller the words, the less likely a search engine is going to return your web site.

After examining the words, reexamine your web site’s content and see how you can leverage this information to strength your SEO.

Topic: Fresh-Ideas || Around-The-Web

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Bumptop Launches To the World | Apr 7, 10:34 PM

In exciting industry related news, local Calgary product Anad Agarwala and his team of developers have released the much anticipated desktop application Bumptop to the world.

Buzz about Bumptop has been building for over a year now, since Anad’s infamous presentation at the 2008 TED conference. And because of a longstanding relationship with Anad (via our glory days at the University of Calgary); Armadillo Studios has been honored to be a long time beta tester of Bumptop.

It is because of this relationship with Anand and the Bumptop team, that we are pleased to announce that we have been featured on the main Bumptop site.

As far as desktop applications go, Bumptop truly is a ground breaking device. One that will revolution how you view your Windows Desktop and how you utilize it in your daily work environment. We encourage all of our clients and friends to download Bumptop play with the application’s incredible organizational properties and see how it can improve your work flow.

Congratulations is in order to Anad and his team. Armadillo Studios wishes you the best of luck with your endeavor.

Topic: Trends-in-The-Industry || Around-The-Web

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