Developing eWrite

I’ve been thinking of adding a ‘Tip of the day’ sort of note to the dashboard of eWrite Lite that a user sees when logged into eWrite.

With eWrite providing many useful tools to manage a website, I’d like to be able to give users handy practical tips on an ongoing basis in relation to their website content.

Short and useful tips such as:

• Don’t forget to add an email address or phone numbers to your contact information page to allow customers to contact you directly
• Why not place a Google Map on your contact information page to help customers find your business, use http://www.communitywalk.com
• Try to avoid writing your email address on your site. It will prevent web robots from collecting your email address and sending you spam. Create an image with your email address instead.

Can anyone think of a few more ?

This post isn’t really related to developing eWrite or anything, but I just got the urge to blog about some loose ideas, prompted by reading Iarfhlaith’s recent post entitled ‘New Ideas to Improve URL Shortening‘. I was impressed by the post because it openly gave some great ideas that anyone could potentially take and run off with to create a great web app.

In relation to the URL shortening, A good addition might be to create a site something like short.ie with user profiles. An example profile location could be www.short.ie/gordon which would show a list of all the URLs I have shortened, along with their full URL and the short link in the form short.ie/gordon/ShortPostTitle. The links might also contain a description would could be retrieved automatically from the meta description of the page being linked to. Google Analytics could be used to track stats etc.

The main thing here would be the short link. Rather than a short link like http://url.ie/g00, the link would be http://short.ie/gordon/ShortPostTitle where ‘ShortPostTitle’ would be a very short title using popular SMS texting shorthand abbreviations instead of the less description ‘g00′ in the example.Sure, its that bit longer, but I agree with Iarfhlaith, Id be happy with a slightly longer URL link if it gave me an idea of what I was about to click.

This process could be taken a step further by providing an RSS feed that friends could share in Google Reader or even shared bookmarks in Firefox. Hmm, Im almost at the point of convincing myself to start creating a site like this.. Would it be used?

–

This brings to a mind an earlier site I created called ‘Yell if it changes‘. The site lets you know by email or RSS if a site has been updated, if a site has increased or decreased the number of incoming links or if Google page rank has improved. There are over 260 sites being watched for various changes. I love this project and I think it has great potential, especially in giving stats on how often sites change, when Google causes Page Rank changes and when surges in incoming links happen.

Unfortunately I don’t spend much time working on this site, I can’t afford the time on it. I wonder if it might be worthwhile hiring a couple of people on contract to add a few features to it.

–

Since I started this blog, I’ve found myself commenting more on other peoples blogs. All of a sudden I have opinions it seems It got me wondering about the comments I’ve already made on peoples blogs. Are there means of aggregating these comments together so I can quickly see where I have commented and go back to them from time to time to read further comments? Not all blogs have the ability to email you if further posts are made.

It might be useful to combine this with the URL shortening above, any comments I make on a blog could automatically be shortened and added to my profile.

Perhaps it might also have a use for the ‘Yell if it changes site’, to email me if there are more comments on a blog post.

Anyway, just throwing those ideas out there. Perhaps someone can make some use out of them.

The eWrite Lite business cards, designed and printed by TheLogoCompany arrived!

I was nervous about how they would turn out. There are many good things happening at eWrite at the moment and I wondered if I was going in the right direction getting a specific card for the eWrite Lite software.

eWrite Lite Business Card

The cards look great! The front is crisp and glossy with a matt back containing my contact details. I have 498 of these (My parents took one each) that I’ll be passing on to anyone that even looks my way from now on.

TheLogoCompany asked for a testimonial to put in their forum which I happily wrote. They sent me on the logo designs, business card designs, letterheads, compliment slips in more graphic formats than I know what to do with.

Some great logo concepts in from WJA Communications

When I first saw Walter Higgins’ Pixenate, I knew it would be a great app to have available within eWrite to allow users to easily modify images without the need for expensive applications like Adobe Photoshop.

After some recent “marketing”, asking existing eWrite Lite users if they would like the ability to edit images within eWrite using a Polldaddy Poll, I met with Walter after Cork Open Coffee and he was good enough to give me the latest Hosted Edition of Pixenate to play with.

I’ve spent a few days playing around with it, and contacted Walter a couple of times when I didn’t know how to implement one function or another. He always got back to me with the info I needed and links to the appropriate sections of his online documentation.

I have it running now and I’m going to let eWrite users at it next week. I am using a theme which provides that basic image functionality such as cropping, resizing and rotating. A fraction of what Pixenate can really do.

After what Im sure will be some great praise for Pixenate, I’ll be paying a monthly fee to have Pixenate within eWrite. Worth every penny. Thanks Walter!

I haven’t updated the blog in a couple of weeks. Kind of defeats the purpose of blogging about developing the business. I’ve been very busy, Honest!

The most interesting update is joining the Enterprise Start programming being held in Macroom. I first heard about this progamme from Paul Walsh in the Rubicon centre in Bishopstown. I rang up a few times to get some information on the Genesis programme, asking was it too late to apply. It was. I had a feeling the time to apply had passed but I chanced my arm anyway. I’m glad I did.

After talking to Paul for a few minutes about my aims with eWrite, he told me about the Enterprise Start programme. Being held in Macroom was all the incentive I needed, its only a few minutes away from where I live and work most of the time.

The Macroom-E building in Macroom

The aim of the programme is to help you develop a sound business idea and business plan. Paul sent me the form and I signed up. It started on Friday May 23^rd and is held in the Macroom E building in Macroom. It last 6 weeks with 2 sessions per week, 6pm to 9pm on Fridays and 9am – 12pm on Saturday mornings. A bit of a dent into the unwinding time of the weekend, but I can unwind when I kick the bucket.

On the first Friday session, Paul went over the do’s and dont’s of business plans. What do interested parties really look for in a business plan. The air conditioning was broken or off, which made the closed in room quite warm. Luckily I sat right next to a fan and blocked everyone else from being cooled down.

We also received a shiny new book to read called ‘The new business road test’ by John W. Mullins. I have yet to read it, still reading Richard Bransons ‘Screw it, lets do it’. It was a fun morning asking for that book over the counter in Waterstones.

The Saturday session was even better. An Entrepreneur named Pat Lynch of Compliance & Risks came in to talk to us about his first business. How he developed it, the good and bad times and how he went on to sell it 3 years later for a sizeable sum.

Over coffee we talked about various stages of a business. I asked him about getting money from family. I had a recent offer from my brother-in-law to invest in what I’m doing. I asked Pat if he would recommend taking money from a family member, knowing many of the potential problems it could raise. He mentioned he had been offered money by his family in the past that he thankfully didn’t have to use. His answer was to go for it if I firmly believed in what I was doing and if I could make a return on it.

At that first session I also met Kieran Dowling of Innovative eBusiness. I met with Kieran today to show him eWrite Lite hopefully to encourage him to recommend eWrite Lite to his web design clients. It was good to talk to Kieran, he was very open about the software they currently use and recommended others I could talk to about eWrite Lite to compliment their existing services.

To compliment the Enterprise Start programme, I also met with Audrey Burke McCarthy of MotivAction based in Cork. Motivaction specialise in business coaching, adding value to your business and more. I met Audrey through BNI in Cork and she is now one of the users of eWrite Lite. Audrey is helping me develop a solid business plan for eWrite Cork and I’d recommend anyone thats in need of a business plan or similar services, talk to Audrey.

I don’t know if Paul Healy would ever read this blog but I’d like to thank him for mentioning the Enterprise Start programme that day on the phone. Its been a very worthwhile set of circumstances since.