Dynamit was honored as one of the “Best Places to Work” in 2010 and 2011 by Columbus Business First newspaper and Interactive Agency of the Year. Times are even better in 2012 and we’re hiring multiple web developers for our aggressively growing team. Based on skills & experience, we’re hiring a PHP developer.

This is an exciting opportunity to work on cutting edge projects for well-known brands in a dynamic, entrepreneurial and highly creative environment. Please email resumes/cover letters to Gary Moneysmith via gmoney@dynamit.us.

Experience

• PHP & SQL: Experience building data-driven web applications using PHP and SQL
• XHTML & CSS: Competence with using CSS for layout
• JavaScript: Working knowledge of JavaScript and the DOM. JS framework experience a plus
• AJAX: Writing AJAX-based applications is recommended, but not an absolute necessity
• Good ability to learn and thirst for knowledge
• Personality is key. Our culture is what drives us — we're looking to build our team with someone who both fits and contributes to it.

The positions are full time at our office in the Arena District in Columbus, Ohio. We offer a competitive salary and benefits package as well as a fun, high-energy, intellectually-stimulating work environment.

Benefits Include

• Competitive salary (compensation will be based on skills and experience)
• Fully paid medical/dental insurance for employees
• Paid parking
• Unlimited vacation time (within reason)
• Office bar + climbing wall — not recommended together

Don’t sit back. If you want to work in a fast paced work environment with great people who love what they do, apply today.

About Dynamit
Dynamit is a digital agency based in the Arena District in Columbus, Ohio. We work with clients and brands on digital initiatives that include strategy, design, user experience and development. We influence communication and commerce. Client work includes Hilton Worldwide, Charley's Grilled Subs, McGraw-Hill, British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), E-Z-GO, American Electric Power (AEP), Columbus College of Art & Design and the Ohio State Medical Center (OSUMC) to name but a few.

Dynamit was honored as one of the “Best Places to Work” in 2010 and 2011 by Columbus Business First newspaper and Interactive Agency of the Year. Times are even better in 2012 and we’re hiring multiple web developers for our aggressively growing team. Based on skills & experience, we’re hiring a .NET developer.

This is an exciting opportunity to work on cutting edge projects for well-known brands in a dynamic, entrepreneurial and highly creative environment. Please email resumes/cover letters to Gary Moneysmith via gmoney@dynamit.us.

Responsibilities/Requirements/Qualifications

The position is full time at our office in the Arena District in Columbus, Ohio. We offer a competitive salary and benefits package as well as a fun, high-energy, intellectually-stimulating work environment.

Benefits Include

• Competitive salary (compensation will be based on skills and experience)
• Fully paid medical/dental insurance for employees
• Paid parking
• Unlimited vacation time (within reason)
• Office bar + climbing wall — not recommended together

Don’t sit back. If you want to work in a fast paced work environment with great people who love what they do, apply today.

About Dynamit
Dynamit is a digital agency based in the Arena District in Columbus, Ohio. We work with clients and brands on digital initiatives that include strategy, design, user experience and development. We influence communication and commerce. Client work includes Hilton Worldwide, Charley's Grilled Subs, McGraw-Hill, British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), E-Z-GO, American Electric Power (AEP), Columbus College of Art & Design and the Ohio State Medical Center (OSUMC) to name but a few.

By: Gary Moneysmith, President

“It’s a lollapalooza! All the business houses are here, all the big people. Chicago ain’t no sissy town.” (Chicago Tribune, 1908)

I’m thrilled to announce Dynamit’s expansion into the Chicago market. My family and I are moving in early February. It’s a fantastic opportunity to reach potential new clients, business partners and team members. Dynamit’s client base rapidly grew with national clients throughout 2011. The next natural step is to establish a full-time presence in one of the country’s biggest, most exciting markets. I relish the chance to promote our great work to a city known for its creative, digital prowess. Plus, I love the Chicago marathon and deep dish pizza.

I’ll continue to be active in-person with Dynamit’s Columbus headquarters and clients through frequent visits. Yes, I am a member of multiple frequent flyer programs. Stay tuned for future updates as we continue to grow and evolve to best serve our clients in 2012 and many years beyond.

You’ve probably heard of Square, a neat hardware/software combo that allows people to transform their iOS/Android device into a mobile point of sale system. It’s a pretty simple concept: sign up at squareup.com and they’ll send you little swipe-cube that connects to your device. Download the app and start accepting credit cards. According to a recent article in TechCrunch, Square is now processing about $4MM in mobile payments per day.

A month or so ago, I was on-location for a few days with one of our clients. During a meeting break, we got to talking about the organization’s fundraising efforts. It seems they host a convention each year at which they solicit donations from the attendees. Our client was thinking about grabbing a few iPads, loading up their website, and using their web-based donation system to do some fundraising while circulating on the convention floor.

Good idea, I thought, but it wouldn’t be fast enough. It would take a few minutes per transaction to fill out the form, get credit card/billing info typed in, etc. The relatively slow process would create an unnatural, awkward experience in the midst of a social event. Instead, I suggested that he look into Square as an alternative method for collecting donations. It would minimize the time per transaction and allow him to focus on the donor (instead of fumbling about with the technology). We chatted for a bit about how it might work and walked back into the meeting.

A few days ago, I received a phone call from the client. He told me that his team had decided to give Square a try at the convention. Over the last two years, the donation volume at this weekend event had remained constant at about $50,000 — mostly through checks and pledges. This year? Using Square, his team doubled their receipts at the convention to $100,000.

I like this story because it measurably illustrates the power of digital tools in improving real-world business processes. Our client used this tool to eliminate a barrier — in this case, the inconvenience of making a donation on the convention floor — and, with no additional investment, realized measurable improvement in dollar volume. It’s a sweet and clean example of digital at its best: using a cost-effective tool to get strong, measurable results. Love it.

Generally speaking, I read a lot. Not so much books though, more so blogs, WSJ articles, etc. A good bit of this reading is focused in the digital space, specifically on startups and/or new technology. When it comes to technology, I’m especially interested in technology that disrupts industries and/or makes people’s lives easier/better.

By no means has it been a slow month in the space, but a select few stories over the past few weeks really garnered my interest. Right around the time of Steve Jobs’ death, a story surfaced about Dropbox turning down a 9-digit acquisition offer from Apple. While that story was picked up by quite a few of the major tech blogs, Forbes published the full story from which that excerpt was pulled. In the Forbes story, author Victoria Barret talked of Dropbox founder Drew Houston’s incredible story, and I highly recommend the read, if you’re interested.

A quick synopsis:

Drew had spent years working at startups by the time he was in his late teens or something. He took a trip somewhere, needed some files and forgot his thumb drive. On the train (or perhaps plane...whatever, it’s irrelevant) he came up with the idea of Dropbox. Blah blah blah...he applied, and was accepted to, y-combinator (check out his submitted application – awesome!). He reverse engineered some Apple script in OSX and was able to get the dropbox logo on the folders in Apple’s OS. This, and the product, caught the attention of Steve Jobs and he flew Houston and his co-founder out to Cupertino to attempt to buy Dropbox. Houston idolized Jobs, but turned him down nonetheless.

One could’ve argued that Houston had delusions of grandeur, but he was “determined to build a big company.” Jobs insisted that Dropbox was a feature and not a product. Many might not dispute that point, but in a crowded cloud-storage / backup space where Microsoft, Apple and Amazon offer solutions (along with a plethora of startups), Dropbox continues to rule. Uber GM/VP Ryan Graves offers some insight that couldn’t be more spot on. You know it’s on point because the Dropbox of today remains largely unchanged from its first demo video in 2008.

Anyway, to my point –

In a 2000 book by the same title, Malcolm Gladwell defines the tipping point as “the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point.” The Forbes article I mentioned earlier shares annecdotes speaking of Dropbox hitting its tipping point. Two of my favorites were 1) the Venetian watch design firm that uses Dropbox to collaborate with a remote designer in Mendoza on large files and 2) Will.i.am collaborating with David Guetta via Dropbox on “I Gotta Feeling.”

These annecdotes tell the story of what the figures actually illustrate — Dropbox is blowing up. It’s absolutely hit its tipping point.

So...with Gladwell’s theory back in my mind, I couldn’t help but think of one of my absolute FAVORITE startups right now...Square. I’ve been using Square for as long as anyone. We use it regularly at Dynamit when ordering lunches, I’ve used it with friends to pay back bachelor party expenses (read: gambling losses...bar tabs, etc.). I’ve used it with friends when a crappy server wasn’t willing to split a tab. I’ve used one to swipe friends’ cards when they “didn’t have any cash” for the concert tickets...I mean, the applications are endless. In fact, you can read for hours all the stories of how Square is enabling businesses of all sizes to leverage economies of scale to viably accept all major credit cards.

What that made me wonder is...yes, the mobile payment space is blowing up, yes, Square is processing more than $1 million in transactions every day, yes it’s growing like crazy, yes it’s awesome...but no, it’s not mainstream. It’s not even close. It’s still fringe. But with today’s news of a deal to sell in Wal-Mart (along with Target, Radio Shack and the Apple Store) for what amounts to “free,” how long will it be before Square hits its tipping point?

Sooner or later, it’s going to happen. People will be almost as familiar with Square as they are with an iPod, Facebook or...Dropbox. Heh.

Anyway, I posted a tweet earlier today on the matter and I placed my own personal over/under for Square’s tipping point at 12 months. Most responses agreed with me and while that’s far from a legitimate scientific study, I believe that it’s relatively on par with reality.

If I’m right, over the next twelve months you’ll start to see more and more Square card readers. They’ll pop up more and more places (like girl scouts selling cookies, your neighborhood handyman or that hole-in-the-wall diner that’s always been “cash only”).

And if you’re smart, you’ll get one for yourself.

Regardless, by October 24, 2012, I expect a lot of people to have signed for goods or services with their index fingers on an iPhone or iPad.

Well we don’t actually know yet but as nominees for Columbus Business First’s Best Places to work, those of us at Dynamit are keeping our fingers crossed. This year, 35 finalists have been announced for the coveted title of “Best Places to Work” and the honorees will be announced at an awards program Nov. 9 at noon at the Hyatt Regency Columbus.

They had a lot of perks to work with (unlimited vacation time, excellent benefits, flexible work schedule) but when asked why they like working here, my Dynamit coworkers had two common favorites: the people and the culture.

"Our culture is extremely unique. The work is challenging, fast-paced, and definitely keeps me on my toes. We enjoy pushing the boundaries of digital — shaping the way people use and interact with the web. We’re applying those skills to business practices to help businesses run more competitively," said Phil Franks, Dynamit’s Creative Director.

Because our team loves what we do and where we work, Dynamit has been nominated for the micro company division (10-to-24 local employees). We’d also like to say congratulations and good luck to our current and past clients who were nominated for this year’s awards:

Small (25-99):
CallCopy Inc.

Medium (100-499 employees):
Ohio Willow Wood Co.
Schottenstein Zox & Dunn Co. LPA

Large (500+ employees):
The Ohio State University Medical Center

When Google Plus was announced last week, I, like many in the tech community, were impressed. Folklore talk began about how it could dethrone Facebook, about how contextual sharing was going to be great, on and on and on. The reality, in my opinion, was that the clean (and ad-free) user interface, the polished user experience design and the obvious attention to detail of Google+ glossed all of us over and we got pretty ambitious with our praises of the platform. A week later, I’ve tried to compile my thoughts — here goes:

The good:
The interface and experience — initial observations were spot on. Google put serious work into the UI and UX of the product. It’s anyone’s best guess which drove the other, but I would assume that the Google+ product even led this latest re-engineering of Google product interfaces.
Google profiles now serve a purpose — Every Google account had the opportunity to create a Google profile long before this. However, those profiles never had a home...until Google Plus.
Integration across Google products — When I’m using any Google product (Gmail, Maps, Picasa Photos, Docs, etc.) I can see whether or not I have any notifications on Google Plus, and I can get there with one click.

The Bad:
Google Accounts have a 1 to 1 relationship with Google email addresses. This makes perfect sense for regular consumers, but what about for Google Apps users? Here at Dynamit, we rely on Google Apps for our mail, our docs, our calendars...everything that a regular Google account has. Herein lies the problem, I have my GMail address / Google account and I have my Dynamit Google Apps account. Nearly 100% of the time, I’m logged into my Dynamit account — my GMail and my personal calendar hit desktop (as opposed to web) applications. Sure, Google has the “Multiple Account Sign In,” but that’s cumbersome and hardly makes the transition seamless.
Here’s how Google can fix this problem: Regular Google accounts should allow users to add/merge (multiple) Google Apps email accounts to be managed under a single Google sign on. There, done.

Circles — So...at first glance, circles are great, right? Contextual sharing, very cool, right? I mean, we all hate how public Facebook is, don’t we? That’s the myth, anyway. Here’s the reality, or mine, at least:
After a week using it, I have no interest in viewing a limited stream from just a single circle, I have no interest in sending to a single circle...I don’t even have an interest in adding people to different circles. I’ll just send publicly...or at least to all my circles.

I never thought I’d say it, but I just want friends. Friends and Groups. In other words, I think I’ve discovered that Facebook has it right.

Aside: In fact, Facebook has a “Lists” feature that allows you to group friends with more granular controls than Google Circles, but I think they found out what I just did...it’s a pain in the ass to manage, and no one actually wants to do that.
As far as “contextual sharing” is concerned...or even the idea of sharing explicitly with certain groups, my take is that I’m cool with 90+ percent of what I share being completely public. Beyond that, I’ll use Facebook’s completely locked-down and private Groups feature. Facebook groups are great. They’re easy, they’re private, and they’re out of your way. We use a group here at Dynamit when we have something that we want to share internally. It’s great — private, fun, threaded and simple.

In closing, I think Google+ is cool, and I think it has a place in my life as a part of my consumption stream. But, it’ll be a lot different than I first thought:

• Google Plus is more likely to encroach on my Twitter community / activity than it is my Facebook community
• If it worked with Google Apps accounts, it might just be the greatest social business tool I’ve ever used — Hangouts, threaded conversations on any topic, etc. etc.
• It’s coolest application for end-users might just be OS-level integration into Android devices
• Circles are a neat idea, but they’re completely useless as an inclusionary tool — they make more sense as exclusionary circles.
• Hangouts beat the hell out of Skype...for a variety of reasons that I won’t get into, the least of which is not the fact that group chat is completely free, and it works.
• Sparks are clearly underdeveloped right now, that’s no secret — it’ll be interesting to see where they go. I’m assuming they’ll be something like Hunch.
• If I’m going to use Google+ with the same frequency as Facebook and Twitter, it needs more — a bookmarklet, integration into Tweetdeck/Hootsuite, inclusion via OAuth, etc.
• Umm...just get Google Buzz out of there. Seriously. Just stop it, Google.

But, I’m just one man, what do you think? Do you agree? Disagree? Somewhere in the middle? Let us know in the comments.

We’re pleased to share that Dynamit was honored as the “Agency of the Year” during the May 26, 2011 Ohio Interactive Awards.

What are the Ohio Interactive Awards? Created in 2009, the Ohio Interactive Awards are an annual program that through juried competition celebrates and recognizes the creative talent and exceptional work produced by our interactive marketing community. The awards were created by the interactive community for the interactive community.

Dynamit also won two specific awards for our web work on MyCandiceDesign.com and Charleys.com. In both cases, the Dynamit and client teams worked together to create creative, innovative solutions that delivered bottom line results — truly tag team efforts. So to Norwalk Furniture and Charley’s Grilled Subs, thank YOU!

While 2010 was a good year, 2011 has been going even better. We look forward to delivering great work while having fun along the way!

If you’re here, you’ve probably already discovered that one of the cool features of our new website is that any employee can hashtag dt (#dt) in any tweet or gowalla / foursquare checkin and have it post to the website. It’s a lot of fun, it fits with our culture and it’s a great way to keep the homepage fresh, while simultaneously providing visitors with some context on the people behind the Dynamit brand.

While the social integration of the new site is fun and exciting, we’re still expected to have/ apply self-policing personal filters on tweets we post and places we check in to.

All of that said, I recently posted a tweet with the #dt linking to an article titled: No Porn on iOS? “Uncensored” iPlayboy Hits the iPad.

It sparked an internal debate about what should and shouldn’t be on the site — and in in this case, it wasn’t much of a debate. Everyone except for me thought the tweet was not appropriate for the homepage of our company website.

So yeah, ok, I get it...not the most appropriate thing to have on a company website right? Well, maybe. Without context, yes, absolutely inappropriate. That’s the way it was in the tweet, so I concede the point.

That said, I was encouraged to share my side in a blog post to elaborate on why I thought the story was 100 percent appropriate more appropriate than not. So here goes...

If you read beyond the title of the story, featured on Read Write Web, by the way...the story is really about Playboy’s technological ingenuity on two fronts:
- First, if you follow Apple, iOS and technology at all, you’re probably aware of Apple’s long-standing commitment to keep “porn” out of the App Store.
- Second, lots of content generators / curators have scoffed at Apple’s taking 30 percent of in-app subscription fees.

The story is interesting because, in one fell swoop, Playboy was able to circumvent both of these restrictions. So often, companies and their application developers believe the App Store is the best path to success. Obviously, there are a number of criteria to consider before making the web app vs native app decision, but in this particular situation, Playboy sought the mobile web over platform-native as the environment for its subscription-based application.

Using this story as a model, there are a two lessons that can be learned:

Avoiding Apple’s App Store Scrutiny is a Major Advantage of the Mobile Web

A quick google search will unearth hundreds (if not more) complaints about Apple’s ambiguous App Store approval process. Stories range from tales of flat out denial without reason and reauthorization of formerly approved apps to policy changes and a variety of version-update horror stories.

Using the mobile web can allow developers to avoid the scrutiny, push updates over the air in real time, requiring no action on the users’ behalf. Certainly, there’s a ton of truth behind the argument that building natively allows for a better user experience and more robust functionality. However, in certain cases (like that of the subscription-based Playboy web-application) some of that functionality and user experience enhancements just aren’t necessary.

People Will Pay For “Good” Content

A big part of the App Store’s allure is the ability to include subscriptions and feature enhancements via in-app payments (This is how Wired magazine works). Content-based publications are often happy to fork over the 30% fee that Apple charges to take advantage of the seamless experience and its influence on buyer behavior.

Playboy has decided to forego these golden handcuffs and publish their application via web. Only time will tell whether or not the idea is successful, but I don’t think there’s any argument that it definitely has merit.

Quite often, we’ll hear people throwing weight behind ideas, especially in the mobile space, without thinking through everything that needs to be considered.

I think that this scenario with Playboy shows that there’s not always one clearcut answer just yet. There are arguments all over the web about the future of mobile applications and the merit of mobile web apps…we’ve even compared and contrasted them ourselves, but I think there’s still a lot that’s unknown.

Rather than speculate and make outlandish statements, we’ll continue to keep an eye on trends, evaluate needs on a case by case basis and make our best recommendation for mobile development environments.

Putting your thoughts about Playboy as an institution and an organization aside, we’re curious to hear what you think about their strategy and, from a higher level, the mobile landscape.

Well…what do you think?

We officially launched our new website to cap off the release of our newly developed brand. The new identity, created by our friends at ELEVATEthinking, is a fresh representation of our culture, people, space and the work that we live and breathe. We love our new look and we want to hear what you think too.

But what I want to briefly touch on in this post is some of our thinking behind the new site design, and why it is the way it is. We’ve pushed the boundaries a bit by rethinking the traditional “page” of a website, and instead created content streams. If you haven’t seen the new site yet, check it out here.

Rethinking The Page with The Stream

We’ve all consumed content from Facebook, Twitter, email, chats, blogs, etc., and the one thing that these all have in common is that they are all a stream. The stream is how most people are interacting with content on the web, because the social distribution of this content has changed the way we think and interact online. It’s pretty safe to say that not many people are looking to read five paragraph essays while browsing. Some might, but the majority of people are looking for short bits of useful and relevant information that can be consumed quickly, which is what a stream provides. That’s why we feel our new site is a great way to showcase the content we have, and gives the user a familiar experience to gain instant insight on what Dynamit is all about.

Personalization of Content

It’s no secret, a user’s experience on the web is becoming more tailored on an individual level, now more than ever. With so much data floating around the interwebs, many sites are providing more personalized content to users, or providing the option to personalize on their own. When visiting our site, the user is hit with the “everything stream” (that’s not the official name, I just made that up) where you can find out everything there is to know about Dynamit. By hovering over the logo block on the homepage, the user can use the content sliders to filter/prioritize what content is displayed. This allows us to dynamically showcase our clients and work, share our thoughts on the industry through tweets and blog posts, highlight our collaborative culture and space, and even track the Dynamit team through Foursquare and Gowalla check-ins.

Showcasing Our Work

We wanted a great way to showcase our work and the story behind it. So by keeping the “stream” concept in line, the user can experience our work with visuals and relevant information around it. Each work preview has an icon in the top right corner indicating there is more information around that block, and hovering over it will reveal a preview to that project. As the site grows more work will be added, and these streams will be populated with even more information such as tweets related to the project, new visuals, Dynamit members checking in, or blog posts associated with the services or overall project.

So take a look around, comment on this post or through our site and tell us what you think, we hope you like it.

The quality assurance (QA) step in a website project is often the most frustrating and overwhelming for clients. They’ve spent months planning and looking at paper mock-ups, and the only thing left standing in the way of unveiling of their new site to consumers is to painstakingly go through every pixel of the website to make sure it’s right.

By the time clients are tasked with quality checking their site, it should have already been QA’d several times by the firm building the site. This minimizes the burden on the client, and instead of looking for things that aren’t working, clients can focus on making sure the site is built how it was planned.

Making sure clients know what they should be looking for during the QA process is key. To help clients think about the QA process from a different perspective, let’s pretend instead of building a website, we’ve been building a house.

For months, the clients have worked with an architect to create the blueprint for the house. They picked out all the fixtures, trim and hardware and provided them to the contractor. The contractor took those plans and the clients’ choices and built the house room by room. He and his team have made sure that the house is structurally sound, and the inspector gave it a passing grade. The clients are about to move into the house, and before the contractor leaves, they’re doing the final walk through of the house (QA).

When the clients walk into their brand new home, what are the things they should be looking for? They should make sure that the house is built according to their plans. Is everything where it’s supposed to be? Are the fixtures all in the correct places? Are the wood floors the color they picked out? Does every light switch and outlet work? They’re making sure that the things have been built according to the blueprints, were finished as they outlined and are working properly.

This would NOT be the time where they’d walk into their brand new bathroom and decide that it really doesn’t make sense to have a window over the bath tub. It also wouldn’t be good for their daughter (who was never consulted during the blueprint phase) to walk into her room for the first time and decided her closet was too small (blog post coming soon about who to involve in a project to avoid situations like this).

Clients may decide that some or all of these things must be changed either before or after move-in (launch). If that’s the case, clients should expect to work with the contractor to develop a plan and budget for the changes.

Sometimes clients decide they don’t like things like the faucet they picked out for the kitchen or the light fixture in their bedroom. Luckily those are things they can fix on your own (in the case of a website, through a content management system).

Of course things change in the months between planning and development. Clients changing their minds on some things is to be expected. Understanding the way those changes will be handled is important. Clients should talk to the firm handling their project about this prior to the QA phase.

Quality checking a website is the time for clients to make sure it’s built how it’s been planned. Launching a site with things that aren’t correct cannot only make an organization look bad, but may also no longer be covered under the terms of the original agreement, as they’ve already given sign-off. Although QA is tough, it’s worth it!

Working for years to develop an interactive marketing program, you finally have everything running in sync. You’ve convinced management that digital programs should be funded on par with traditional advertising and public relations. Your website and social media channels are integrated. And you routinely publish content that builds your brand and adds value to your customers. Your digital marketing machine is alive — IT’S ALIVE!

But the little voice in the back of your head is getting louder: What are we going to about mobile? You have that “here we go again…” feeling as you KNOW mobile device usage is skyrocketing, but can’t decide where to begin.

Rest assured, you’re in good company. Mobile development is complicated and rapidly evolving. This “Brave New Mobile World for Marketers” series of posts will hopefully give you a better understanding of the mobile development landscape and dynamics to help you plan the newest component of your marketing machine.

Mobile Accessible vs. Mobile Application (Apps)
When people say “mobile apps” it’s important to clarify what they REALLY mean.

APPS
An application is a self-contained program that is downloaded from the App Store in iTunes or the Amazon Appstore for Android and installed on a smartphone or tablet device. Tap the app’s icon to open and use the program.

Some apps require internet access to access live data. Example, the Weather Channel app pulls the latest weather data into the app once it’s opened. Other apps are completely self-contained (such as games or calculators) and don’t need any internet access.

PROS - Offer sophisticated functionality and visually rich user interface

CONS - Requires users to go thru extra steps: Download, install and remember to use. Develop for Apple and/or Android?

MOBILE ACCESSIBLE
Refers to websites that have been customized to look and operate well using web browser programs on mobile devices. Sites that offer these mobile browser versions have code that detect you’re using a mobile device and serve you an optimized version of the web page. No need to visit an app store or any downloading/installation.

Mobile accessible sites are a low cost entry into the mobile device world as they typically only offer essential information needed by users on-the-go. Consider them a test case to gauge user interest and functionality requirements before investing in more complicated application development.

PROS – Accessible anywhere via a mobile devices’s web browser; relatively inexpensive to develop using readily available HTML/CSS skills.
CONS – Limited functionality and minimal graphics; require internet access.

Want more detailed information? Check out Official Google Webmaster advice on Making Website More Mobile Friendly.

In my opinion, the creation of mobile friendly sites will become a necessity within 12-months; you need to make your core content easily accessible to mobile users. If you require functionality that is simply beyond the ability of a mobile browser, then invest in a mobile application — or two. Which brings us to the the topic: iOS (Apple) apps or Android?

Mobile apps, web apps, and web services often live off of the freemium business model. It’s great that something there is free, as a user it’s sometimes difficult to shell out even just a few bucks if you can’t get a good experience first. Yeah, free is nice…but, just buy it.

Let me share a couple of experiences I’ve had recently that convince me why I should be buying more apps and paying for more web services. And, I will completely ignore that fact that if everyone just used the free version that app will not be supported and eventually die.

It’s a cost-value proposition.

That’s really all it is. Simply, consider what you’ll pay for the app versus what you get out of it. The quick spin up of web startups keeps competition high and drives prices down, so most apps really aren’t all that expensive. But, if you find an app that you really like or use often, paying for the premium version will likely increase its value greatly for what is a comparatively small cost.

Last week I purchased an iPhone app that I, and many other Dynamit people, have been using to “collaborate”… alright it’s actually a game that about a half-dozen of us play against each other. But, I enjoy playing it and use the app often. The ads were particularly irritating so I paid the $3 to remove them. The value I got out of that is not much more than the slight convenience of not having to click out of a new ad every time I open the app, but what’s three dollars? …that’s the cost of half of one beer at a bar.

Also, I recently subscribed to Pandora One. Best decision I’ve made in some time. I use Pandora to help me focus in on work and when I get interrupted with an ad every three songs it can be quite irritating. Thus, a steady stream of good music is of huge value to me. And, what did it cost? 3$/month…I spend more than that on gas to and from work in single a day.

If you really like the app, just buy it.

There’s a constant debate in the design community about presenting multiple concepts to a client, and whether or not it’s beneficial or just causes more headaches in the long run. Here at dynamIt we’ve sided with presenting a single concept to our clients, yep that’s right, only one. Now, you’re probably a little shocked, maybe wondering how we do it, and I can tell you that it doesn’t come easy. It all goes back to the approach we take leading up to the design phase. We take a lot of pride in our process, it’s not perfect, but it’s always becoming more refined, and hopefully this will spark a series of posts where we explain the different phases we go through to get to the end product. But, for now, let’s talk a little about why and how we can design one at a time.

There are many benefits not only for us, but for our clients as well, when we present a single concept. These could just be theories, but it’s what we’ve learned in evolving our process, and it works for us. It’s become our practice to best address our clients’ needs, goals, and expectations through the design process.

#1 Strategy:

What we are doing isn’t art, there’s a purpose behind every choice we make in a concept design. In leading up to the design concept of any project, we go through a very intensive strategy phase (that post to come later). This strategy defines specific goals for the organization, but more importantly for the project, and many other factors that influence the design. Each design element (layout, color, type, emphasis, etc.) is related directly back to the digital strategy that we uniquely formulate for each project. So the choices we make for a concept are to accomplish these goals in the most effective way we can with the client’s brand in mind, creating an effective touch point on the web for the audiences that they are trying to appeal to.

#2 Quality:

The best design solution comes with hours of preparation, research, brainstorming, and concepting before you even touch Photoshop. A lot of this time is invested in coming up with unique ideas for a single concept. If you were to do multiple concepts, the time spent looking for appropriate solutions would be decreased significantly per concept. Once you hit the nail on the head with a concept that achieves all the goals for the project, the “multiple drafts” inevitably become bastardized versions of the original, creating a lack of differentiation. Style would more than likely be compromised as well, and a design choice that you might never let fly, gets to fly because you promised to show 3 unique concepts.

#3 Avoiding Waste:

Creating multiple concepts takes a lot of time, thinking, and of course budget. When presenting three concepts to a client, one will be chosen (hopefully), and the other two will be worthless, or shelved. The thinking and workdays that went into creating the second or third are now waste, and two potentially good designs are not being used.

#4 Frankenstein Isn’t Sexy:

Inevitably the multiple concepts will get slammed together like a bad mashup, turning a great design into a stitched up Frankenstein that doesn’t accomplish many, or any of the project goals. It’s human nature that people want to be involved in the creative process, but it’s not the job of the client to propose creative solutions. Instead, we ask our clients to propose the problems, if any, and identify what goals aren’t being met with the choices we’ve made. It’s our job to find and deliver the best possible creative solution, and the job of the client to make sure we are accomplishing those goals for them.

#5 Focus & Efficiencies:

We know that what we present to our clients is the best solution based off our strategy and creative process. Instead of allowing our clients to focus on what they don’t like during a presentation, we are able to focus on the design solution at hand. Choices in design will create opposing opinions between parties as well, and removing that uncertainty will streamline the creative process, cutting down on revisions, keeping project time lines on track.

I’m certainly not claiming that this is best practice for every creative endeavor. Obviously there are many situations where multiple concepts make perfect sense. But design without strategy is not design at all, it’s simply art. We’ve found many benefits from designing one at a time, as it allows us to educate, inform, and guide our clients along the way to get to the best possible design. In the end, our main objective is to hit all of the goals and expectations, with a creative solution that stands out amongst the crowd, and that our clients can be proud of.

The Dynamit team is proud to announce the launch of www.MyCandiceDesign which offers an array of gorgeous furniture designed by HGTV Divine Design star Candice Olson. Fellow Ohio company Norwalk Furniture is the exclusive manufacturer of Candice Olson upholstered furniture. Working with the Norwalk web team, Dynamit created the visually striking www.MyCandiceDesign.com site featuring LiquidPixels technology that enables dynamic fabric draping/rendering to give highest fidelity product views possible.

The website’s “My Candice Design” theme is implemented throughout with exclusive, Candice Olson-recommended furniture and fabrics. The design gallery offers a variety of inspirations sure to get your creativity flowing. Seriously, Candice and Norwalk Furniture know what they’re doing — their stuff is gorgeous.

On a personal level, I have to especially compliment Norwalk Furniture for their teamwork, resolve, trust and sheer ability to get things done. Having worked in web development for 15-years, I’ve rarely seen such a disparate group of internal stakeholders (marketing, accounting, designers, IT, consultants, photographers and management) work so uniformly and with such a cooperative, positive attitude. The website is complicated. There are an incredible number of behind-the-scenes details to make everything come together for such a high-touch, online commerce experience. This was truly a group effort that got the mission accomplished.

So if you’re a Candice Olson fan whose always dreamed of making your home a little more divine, you’re now just a few clicks away — MyCandiceDesign.com

I cannot emphasize enough my displeasure with Time Warner Cable as a television service provider. It’s not just them, I would have equal displeasure with any other provider but my only option is Time Warner, so they bear the brunt.

It’s not so much the service itself, or the stupidly high prices or the fact the on-screen programming guide UX is crap – these are symptoms, but not the real problem. The problem is an unwillingness to innovate on the provider’s part, which is fueled by our (the consumers’) collective ambivalence and acceptance of the status quo.

I’m currently in a living arrangement which prevents me giving the middle finger to Time Warner’s television service. If I wasn’t, there are numerous alternatives. Some involve a small piece of equipment, or a media-friendly computer (read: any new computer). But all require an internet connection (shocker). As the industry trends this direction, traditional service providers are beginning to scramble to keep up. The result is usually a half-baked concept that is outdated by the time it even launches. For example, the idea of “bundling”. The pitch is; save money when you buy 300 channels you don’t really want anyway. How archaic a concept. Why can’t I just pay for HBO, ESPN, and AMC? (Anyone can get the major networks over-the-air, in HD, for free.) Here, you either take my $15/month for those three channels, or you take nothing. Look what iTunes did with the concept of selling individual songs. This is really not that hard to understand.

It is, as it always is, the disruptive technologies that upset the status quo and give organizations like Time Warner nightmares.

• Just today (11/22), Netflix announced a new streaming-only account option. Why even bother with mailing your movies?
• There’s Hulu Plus, the cool little joint project from NBC, FOX, and ABC.
• Apple’s latest bite at the … apple, is Apple TV.
• Smaller ventures like Roku and Boxee offer proprietary hardware, have been around for a few years now and are showing promise.
• Online-only services like Vudu and Clicker live on the fringe, but consequently push the industry to innovate.

So what is the lesson here? Is there one?

If nothing else, this newest challenge acts as a barometer for the pace of media technology and the web in general. As our interactions with each other become increasingly digital, as we store more information and more files in the cloud (not the stupid Windows commercial, “to the cloud” – gag), and as we spew out more and more personal and preferential data, we should expect personalized service and a custom experience. The power is in our hands. The definitions of ‘consumer’ and ‘service/program director’, at least from a digital entertainment perspective, will continue to blend until they are indistinguishable.

Bringing it full circle

There are dozens of solutions out there – most of them turn out to be crap. I’ve been researching for several months and just like anything else, there is no substitute for doing it yourself. Find what you need, make it work for you. Take inspiration from others, but carve your own solution.

This philosophy is at the core of what we do here at dynamit. No challenge is identical and therefore no solution is identical. If you have a challenge that annoys or hinders you as much as Time Warner does me, give us a call. It’s what we do (and what we love).

What is Flower, you ask? To be succinct, Flower is an open-source, MooTools-powered, JavaScript library designed to give musicians – or any music lovers – a way of (dis)playing music & other media on their website.

Yes, I know, there are many web applications & networks that exist as a means to share media. After all, this is largely what our culture has become – how can we share discovered or created content with others. Many, such as Facebook or MySpace, center this sharing around their respective social networks. That’s great & they have their uses. However, they also force you, in varying degrees, into their visual framework.

MySpace exists now largely thanks to the engaged base of musicians & their fans present in MySpace Music. It offers a framework & social network obviously centered around artists’ music & any other related media. Aside from the social network, the primary draw of MySpace Music is the ease with which a musician can create a profile, post music, & have their music readily available on the web.

Flower isn’t quite as easy, some knowledge of HTML & JavaScript is required, but it certainly helps bridge the gap between the world of MySpace & that of professional, media-intensive web experiences you would normally only see from artists signed to major labels.

The primary aim of Flower is to reduce the complexity required to display music, images, and videos online while maintaining stylistic integrity. In my opinion, it is a success.

For example, after including the three necessary JavaScript files in the head of your site, all that is required to create a lightboxed youtube video is linking to the video with a standard link tag. To lightbox an image or collection of images, just add the class ‘flower_imagebox’ & Flower takes care of the rest. Most importantly, Flower handles audio files in a couple really cool ways; my favorite being the inline audio player. Adding the class ‘flower_soundplayer’ to an inline link (which points to an audio file) will allow the end user to click and play the track right there within that block of text. There are no pop-ups to divert the user’s focus, just a simple play/pause label in the text to show the status. The other great feature is evoked by adding the ‘flower_soundplayer_pageplayer’ class to a div. This will add all the audio links on a page which are not utilizing a flower player class to one audio player.

Flower classes may be tweaked & customized in your CSS just as any other element to fit your site’s layout & style, but they’ll work without it if you just want to get a site up and running quickly. Overall, their solution is a slick one.

If you head over to their site, you’ll see a number of examples of embedded media, all utilizing the Flower library of functions.

P.S. It’s worth noting that they also have a WordPress plugin available (though I haven’t explored that implementation).

Beginning in November 2010, dynamit principal Nick Seguin will join the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation to work on a number of global initiatives including fringe entrepreneurial activity, entrepreneurship in higher education and Kauffman Labs.

Startups and entrepreneurship have always been a passion for Nick. Along with dynamit, he’s a partner in a micro-fund/accelerator focused on early-stage web and mobile startups and has helped facilitate Startup Weekends around the world since 2008.

While Nick will be operating out of Kansas City (and wherever else his position takes him) and focused on Kauffman, he’ll remain a partner with dynamit, continuing to support business development, client strategy, competitive intelligence and will remain involved in overall strategy for the agency. Nick will continue to be instrumental to the direction of the agency. As he dives in on an international level, his expanded networks will certainly benefit dynamit.

“We’re excited to finish up Q4 and take 2011 head on with a team we’ve worked hard to build and the tenacity that has become our trademark,” says Nick. “The position with Kauffman is the manifestation of many things I’ve done over the years. The opportunity, along with my continued involvement with dynamit, are the perfect combination for me to spend my time.”

Nick’s unique opportunity is something that dynamit is extremely proud of — we champion a diversity of interests and consider it a great success that Nick will be assuming a post with the preeminent global foundation focused on entrepreneurship.

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dynamit is a digital agency and consultancy. We have a lot of big ideas and innovative thinkers. dynamit consults with clients on how they can use inventive applications, web destinations and mobile and social tools to overcome business challenges they have today and create new opportunities for tomorrow. From strategy to execution to sustainability, our unique team uses digital innovation to help make our clients more efficient, profitable, and prepared to take on our technology-fueled business world. wwww.dynamit.us

The other day I read an article on Smashing Magazine that posed an interesting/frightening question, Does the Future of the Internet Have Room for Web Designers? In short, the article touches on the point of how content is being consumed around the web. How we are now accessing all this information through applications/3rd party services, and not through the native browser. Thus, making the relevance of design on the web less important. Here’s a quote from that article:

This is because for most users, design is irrelevant. That's not to say they don't appreciate good design. Many of them do (and many of them don't). But they're on a website because of the content. They don't care about visual design, and they don't care about interaction designer that much, either: as long as the design doesn't give them a headache or interfere with their ability to find what they want, they don't really care how exactly it looks like or how exactly it is working.

If everyone is accessing web content through an app rather than a browser, then no one will care what a website looks like. The way it functions and the content it delivers will become the paramount concerns to users. There will be no more balancing of form and function on a website; function will override form.

After reading this, I immediately had a handful of instances run through my head on why I disagree. Now this might be a biased opinion, because I’m immersed in design everyday, but when has design ever been irrelevant? You can’t ignore how important design is not only on the web, but everywhere else too. Although I agree that sometimes it’s overlooked, and most might not appreciate it as a whole, it’s still being consumed.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, design isn’t just making things look pretty. There is strategy, goals, and hours of thinking that go into solving a design problem effectively. Form leans on function, function leans of form, and that’s how design was born. I can’t think of any instance where a company can get away with bad aesthetics/design, and not have it affect their business goals or the bottom line. Maybe, just maybe, if the company is so large that no other competitors can catch up, or if that company is the only one of its kind.

For users to “not get a headache or interfere with their ability to find what they want”, there has to be a clear path of consumption defined by a good design. The relationship between content and creative is deep, and companies need an interface that enhances that content, messaging, and business goals. Whether these people are consuming this content on the web, mobile-ready site, or a custom application, there will always be a need for design.

There is no way that the web will be totally forgotten or overlooked. We’ve seen that before with the link farms of the early 90′s, and look how it’s evolved. Which of these sites would you feel more comfortable browsing? Feel more trust in? Feel good about coming back to in the future?

The other thing that the author is forgetting about is the power and influence of a brand. The impact a brand has on its consumers is the heart of the business, and without brand awareness/engagement, there would be no business. It’s hard for me to believe that big brands like Nike would give up control of their brand experience on the web. There is no way a brand would survive in the digital space by just providing a feed or links and letting other services define that experience. Currently these brands are participating and aware of this shift, and letting these other aggregators (Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc.) push people back to the overall experience they have defined on the web or mobile platforms. Templates will never happen, and the need/want for custom design will still be in high demand, because these brands are still going to want differentiators to set them apart.

The point the author is trying to make is that since everything is being turned into a feed that will be pushed to mobile applications and other content aggregators, then there is no reason in having people design websites that hold this content. I agree that we are now experiencing a shift in consumption, and it needs to be acknowledged, but a total disregard for the website will not happen.

What is going to happen is an evolution in design standards or priority. Perhaps in the coming years, as more and more people access the web on their mobile devices, the mobile applications will be the main focus for a company, and the website becomes a secondary touch point for the brand’s experience. Companies will enhance their mobile applications, allowing customers to do more on the fly, and become more integrated into their “real life” through these apps.

Web designers, as they are labeled now, will have to evolve into more of a “digital designer”. Being familiar with design and UX for both web and mobile, which a lot of designers already are. These applications and websites will always need an interface, which means designers will always be needed.