Holiday Crystal Ball Desktop Wallpaper

After completing our Holiday Crystal Ball iPhone app, we at Siteworx decided that we needed a way to spread all of our holiday cheer to people without iPhones. As a result we have developed a set of desktop wallpaper images for you to use this holiday.

There are four options to chose from in two different sizes. We have a wide screen version at 1440x900 that works well on laptops and a 1600x1200 version for those with a slightly larger screen. Please download your image of choice and enjoy the holidays!

1440 x 900 Wallpapers

The Siteworx Holiday iPhone App

Every year Siteworx looks for a creative way to spread the holiday cheer to our friends, family, and clients. Over the last few years we have had some fun with some Flash and video e-cards, but this year we wanted to experiment with an iPhone app.

After a bit of brainstorming the team came up with the idea for a holiday crystal ball that acts pretty much like the magic 8-ball inside a snow globe. It was a ton of fun coming up with the 'answers' and putting the whole thing together. I hope everyone enjoys it as much as we do... Happy Holidays!

Check it out in the iTunes store.
http://itunes. ...

What are the Smartest Online Strategies to Sustain and Grow Business in 2009?

We think we know, but would love to hear what you think.

On Tuesday, December 9, we'll kickoff the first in an ongoing series of informal breakfast networking receptions at Siteworx headquarters in Reston, Virginia.

At each briefing we'll cover what we consider to be one of the smartest online strategies to sustain and grow business, even in a down market. The first topic is Search Technologies with an emphasis on high-impact search enhancements such as faceted navigation and using in-bound search queries to surface targeted, highly relevant results for effective cross-promotion and improved conversions.

Our goal is to share the smartest, not the sexiest or coolest strategies and tactics. That means we'll target tools and methodologies that can deliver measurable, near ...

Google's Eric Schmidt Talks with McKinsey Quarterly

This month's McKinsey Quarterly has a fascinating interview with Google's Eric Schmidt. The article is part of their rolling launch of the new McKinsey.com. There are components of the site that really work well, others not so much. I did notice a few weeks back that they rolled out a Facebook fan page which pushes article updates to your profile if you subscribe. They also have a pretty slick way of addressing multimedia. I encourage you to read the article, or if you don't have a subscription, at least laun ...

Google's Advanced Segments Beta

In my last post, " Customer Insight Trumps All" I talked about how difficult it is to get actionable insights from the deluge of SEO/SEM data points.

If it's something you're struggling with, over at Avinash Kaushik's blog, there's a really solid intro to Google's new Advanced Segments beta. He describes in lay terms how to drive real insights out of Google's free tool and gives you a few segmentation scenarios that you can start playing with right away ... that is if you've received the beta release since Google is rolling it out gradually.

I took a tour this morning and am really stoked to see what I've been missing all this time.

Customer Insight Trumps All

A few weeks ago I had an opportunity to attend a Google Adwords Seminars for Success advanced training session conducted in Ashburn, Virginia. While I learned a ton in the class, I also was surprised at how much I already know. The instructor really focused on providing an understanding of the relationship between SEO and SEM and how investing in both can yield significant dividends in your marketing and selling programs across the board.

I've found that one of the most challenging aspects of running an effective SEO/SEM program is ensuring a strategic focus that avoids getting bogged down in minutiae.

• Do you understand your customers' and prospects' problems?
• Can you articulate your solution in terms they understand and that will resonate with them?
• Whe ...

How Luxury Does the Web

It's always great to announce a new site launch, but today's announcement is particularly gratifying. Today Siteworx partnered with SDL Tridion to announce the implementation of Tridion R5 for Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group's website ( www.mandarinoriental.com).

The site is now centrally managed and is specifically designed to deliver content across multiple channels in multiple languages, one of the most powerful features of the Tridion WCM.

While our partner listincludes a wide range of CMS and WCM systems including Ektron, Sitecore and Vignette among others, the sweet spots for Tridion R5, which make it a superior solution for Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group, are its mul ...