Feedback Friday 5: Reverb Studios Multimedia and Website Design
This week’s feedbackee (!) is Reverb Studios from Co. Leitrim. I’ll allow Leon Quinn, MD, explain why he is seeking feedback on his site at the moment:
www.reverbstudios.ie is the website for Reverb Studios Multimedia and Website Design, a small company based in Co. Leitrim.
I have had many people comment on my choice of dark colours for the website with the general consensus so far being that “it’s too dark” so I’d like people to look at that issue please. Bear in mind that there needs to be a good contrast between background and text colours and in that regard I believe White on black is as good as black on white! Also bear in mind that a significant number of people have said to me that my colours were “different” and it made my site “memorable”. My influence for the design was the iPhone if that’s not immediately obvious!
I’m planning a re-design soon so any comments may be influential!
Here are some other issues I’d like feedback on too please:
- Layout
- Speed
- Navigation
- Clarity of purpose.
Thanks to Leon for volunteering. Please don’t forget the guidelines when you are giving your feedback.
If you would like to volunteer your site or a client’s site please email me at members /at/ iia /dot/ ie
Imagine if you have a meeting with a client and you want to highlight the areas on their site that require development how helpful this could be. Do get their permission though!
Have a look at previous Feedback Friday entries to get an idea of how it has worked so far.
IIA Web Development Working Group hold their first meeting
On Monday evening, the newly established Web Development Working Group held their first meeting. The participants in the working group are:
- Eamon Leonard, echolibre (Chair)
- John MacDonald, Pigsback.com
- David Scanlon, Enterprise Ireland
- David Rook, Realex Payments
- Darragh Curran, IGOPeople.com
- Paul Doherty, Software Design
- Martha Rotter, Microsoft
- Stewart Curry, X Communications
- Richard Bowden, RB Consulting
- Ken Stanley, Magenta Three
- Joe Drumgoole, PutPlace.com
Among a number of issues that were discussed the Working Group decided that they needed to get a better idea of what you, the IIA members and readers, would like from them. To this end they have created a short survey on the topics you would like them to address in their work. They hope to receive responses from a broad range of businesses in many sectors so no matter what area your work focusses your response is important. It also includes some demographic questions which will give them a better idea of your business background and therefore they will be able to ensure that their outputs are developed accordingly.
Take the survey now. It will take maximum five minutes.
Enterprise Ireland eBusiness Unit – Podcast: Business Blogging
Further to yesterday’s post about business blogging in Ireland Damien Mulley and I recently participated in Enterprise Ireland eBusiness Unit — Podcast: Blogging for Business where we discuss many aspects of business blogging from basic terminology right up to examples of business blogs. You can listen right in the browser or subscribe to the complete series.
Don’t delay get your Net Visionary nominations in today
While there is no rush per se, nominations being open until 27th March, why not do it now before you forget? The next thing you know it will be Paddy’s Day and suddenly the 27th will be upon us and you will be cursing as you try and fill in 15 whole categories in one go. Do them at your leisure. Do one a day. Just do it!
Business Bloggers celebrated at Irish Blog Awards
I had a very enjoyable weekend at the Irish Blog Awards, meeting bloggers from every walk of life and putting faces to names and indeed pseudonyms in some cases. This year my participation was more than just a wannabe blogger and longlistee, I also got involved as a judge, offering my services in particular for the Best Use of Irish Language in a Blog. I will be writing more about the whole weekend on my personal blog as I was there in a personal capacity but I thought readers of this blog would be interested in the results of the Best Blog of a Business category.
George Pratt picks up Blacknight's award from Richard Hearne of Red Cardinal. Photo by Rymus
I’m delighted to report that this category, sponsored by Red Cardinal, was won by one of our longest standing members, Blacknight Solutions. I remember years ago, in my previous job, when my own blog was in its infancy, attending an IIA event about blogging and being very impressed by Michele Neylon’s revelations and tips about business blogging.
There is no question that Blacknight’s blog is a great business blog but do take some time to check out the runners up as well as each of them have very different approaches to their business blogging.
If you are planning to start blogging for business or indeed going through an uninspired February hump, I would stronly recommend subscribing through your reader or by email to business blogs but also to blogs where you have a personal interest in the category. Inpsiration comes from all sorts of sources for all these people, so why not for you too!
Also if you like statistics and analysis, you will love IIA Member Cathal Garvey’s analysis of the software and hosting used by Ireland’s top bloggers. It might help you decide which platform is best suited to your blog.
Feedback Friday with a twist
This week I am going to hijack Feedback Friday for my own purposes. *Rubs hands* However rest assured that this is still all about you, the IIA members and all businesses using the internet in Ireland. The IIA currently has six working groups made up of between 10 and 15 expert volunteers each from all sectors and types of business in Ireland. They work hard to produce whitepapers and events. However we are not 100% sure that the medium is currently suiting the masses (whatever about the message: that’s a discussion for another day!) Therefore we would like you to take the poll below in order to let the working groups know what medium most suits you for their outputs. For example would you prefer a series of 5 minute videos to a 10 page whitepaper on a given topic? More options listed below and please feel free to add your own via the “Other” option.
20/02/2009 15:05 Edit: FYI I set this poll to one response only because we are interested in your preferred output medium. I too like to choose how I digest my material depending on a number of factors, one of the most important being whether I am using my laptop or phone for example. However if I had set it to multiple choice, as PollDaddy call it, it would have muddied the results. However I welcome the qualitative feedback via the comments – thanks!
Feedback Friday 3: Sonru.com stand out
Thanks again to everyone who has participated in Feedback Friday over the last few weeks. Since last week the Subscribe to Comments has been added (about time says you!) so it should help keep the conversation going.
This week’s Feedback Fanatics are Sonru.com, a member of the IIA since who have only recently gone live with their site and beta service. Edward Hendrick, MD of Sonru has a very specific aspect of his site that he would like you to focus on. He explained in an email to me:
“We are having some difficulties getting our message across from our home page. We are being confused with Skype etc, we need to get across the fact that two people do NOT have to be online at the same time.
We currently don’t have benefits up there and are trying to think of a nice way of doing so.
So we’d love some feedback on our home page and the message we are getting across. We would really appreciate people’s suggestions on how to improve it.
I think Feedback Friday is a great idea because you are getting fresh eyes giving genuine opinions, we are so used to looking at it now, it has become hard for us to judge.”
Please bear in mind the few low key guidelines and let’s hear what you think!
Feedback Friday 2: Puddleducks take the plunge
Last week we kicked off the Feedback Friday feature with Pressieport.ie. I don’t mind telling you that the post was the most popular on this blog in the last month and the feedback Fred Schelbaum received was second to none. Not long after the post went live I got an email from Fred with the subject line, “WOW!” so he was very happy too. So well done to all the commenters and Twitterers who helped out.
This week our featured site for Feedback Friday is Puddleducks. Aedan Ryan, director of Puddleducks, sent me the following to help you fabulous feedbackers:
PuddleDucks is an online retailer of outdoor clothing clothes for children and adults. Our best selling items are the waterproof dungarees, jackets and suits for younger children.
What I would like to achieve from Feedback Friday is to get feedback and make improvements to our Home Page so we can try to reduce the bounce rate from visitors to the site.
Therefore I’d appreciate feedback on some of the following:
- initial impression of our Home Page
- layout of the Home Page
- is it easy to know how to progress from the home page to start shopping on the site?
- are there any other design improvements we could make to the home page or the product pages?
- any other ideas on how to make shopping easier or encourage visitors to purchase
We’d also like to offer a 10% discount to all readers for any purchases until Sunday 8th Feb. Just use the discount coupon “iia12″. Please note that you need to be registered as a user on the site before you can redeem the coupon.
Thanks very much in advance for your feedback.
Again please keep the guidelines in mind when giving feedback and most of all, thanks very much!
RealWire give the real story
I met Adam Parker of RealWire at our recent event that we co-hosted with Net Imperative in the Guiness Storehouse on Wednesday 28th January. Since then he sent me a tweet with a link to the following video which he thought our members might find useful. I think it really clarifies the knock-on effect of maximising your online presence. Worth a watch.
The Online Media from RealWire on Vimeo.
BizCamp Dublin 7th March & Limerick March 21st
BizCamp is a user generated business conference with open, participatory workshop-events, where content is provided by the participants. It is a new feature on the Irish business events calendar and is based on principles of interaction, engagement and conversation. It’s a free event and therefore sponsors are very welcome 
I had my first experience of a camp-style conference last September which focussed on one of my main interests: social media. At that camp, I learnt lots of interest in that arena. So I didn’t hesitate to sign up for Bizcamp either – I figured if I learnt half as much as I did at Podcamp Ireland and met half as many people who have been a boon to my work with the IIA it would be a day well spent. Bizcamp Dublin is being organised by, among others, Keith Bohanna, who is on the IIA Board, and Alan O’Rourke of Spoiltchild, an IIA member. In the video below Keith explains a bit more about what to expect at Bizcamp. Watch it and then go register!
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