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Websites and smartphones
Hey kids…
Just curious… I know most (if not all) of us in this forum have websites for our businesses. I’m wondering though how many of you have websites that are optimized for smart phones?… or have alternate mobile versions that phones are directed to?
The COW, of course, has an excellent mobi version of creativecow.net. I’m trying to decide whether that’s something we should put time and energy into here, since our own website looks anywhere from bad to illegible on smartphones. Its design and layout were created before there were any smartphones… and it is visually way too complex for the average iPhone or Android screen, everything is very tiny and requires too much expanding and scrolling.
So, have you guys created mobile versions of your website? How important do you think that is?
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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2 Replies
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[Todd Terry] “The COW, of course, has an excellent mobi version of creativecow.net.”
You are too kind, Todd. No seriously, you are being WAY TOO kind, Todd. ;o)
The MOBI version sucks and we are quite aware of it and it’s part of what we’ve been doing is getting everything in our systems done for our next iteration of both our web version and our mobile versions. I had hoped to have it all done before now but there are just so many things to do and projects that make up the COW.
Just today we introduced our new Creative COW Career Center at jobs.creativecow.net and it is one of the best additions to the COW since, well, the magazine came along.
It isn’t just a Job Center but also has a powerful Services Listing for COW members which is sorted by geography, category, etc., and if you explore it, you will see that it is perfect for one of the next Creative COW mobile apps. Look up services you need and in very few keystrokes, there they are…
Not to nag on people, but it always amazes me how few of the most respected people in this very forum take advantage of free resources like this one. If it were 20 years ago and I said to people that I would give you free worldwide exposure in a powerful categorized database that was sorted by categories and by countries, regions, etc. — people would be lining up in droves. But many people have gotten jaded because there is just so much free stuff on the web today.
If you get a minute, Todd, check out the new Career Center, now I’d love to get your honest comments on that one…
Best regards,
Ronald Lindeboom
PS: In this market iPads are running wild and we get a LOT of traffic from them, and it is why even today’s launch of the Career Center is designed to work on an iPad. It took a little extra work but it now meets the screen concerns of the iPad. We haven’t yet tried it on an iPhone or a Droid. I am too scared of what it will look like. But we will get to it very soon as both iPhones and Droids are hugely popular here in the COW and we get a lot of traffic from them. iPhones and Droids require far simpler pages with few things on them, it is a whole other way of thinking and developing, Todd. Simple, straightforward, cleaner, bigger, with few things to get in the way. Most interfaces I have seen for Smartphones are very linear.
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Wow, Ron… being hard on yourself. I’ve always found the mobi version of the COW (which I’m on now) to look good and work pretty darn flawlessly. Then again, I really only use it to visit my half-dozen most important forums… I really have not explored any other features, maybe they’re the ones that are sucky.
At least in the areas I visit the COW works well on my (Android) phone (hate the iPhone, I have to have a real keyboard with actual buttons that go clicky clicky).
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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