12 Alternative Web Browsers to Try

We all know and use the following web browsers: Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Opera and Safari. These 5 web browsers pretty much take up the market share usage for web browsers. Take a look at these 12 alternative web browsers and see if any of these might fit your browsing needs. Some of these offer a more lightweight approach to browsing while others offer some different functionality.

    * 12 Alternative Web Browsers to Try

40 Inspiring Single Page Website Designs

Need some inspiration? One page web designs are becoming more popular, and with html5 I think you can build in some pretty cool functionality. Click the link below to see some great examples of one page website designs. Follow how many of these designs follow recent 2010 trends which are to have a large main graphic and a big header and footer section.

    *  Single Page Website Designs

Datasets using Dreamweaver, JavaScript, AJAX, SPRY, and Static Listings

Creating datasets in Spry has never been easier with the new Spry DataSet wizard- even when using an existing HTML page as your data source.



Other Dreamweaver tutorials can be found on Adobe's Website

E-commerce Spending Falls in 2009

E-commerce fell in 2009 for the first time since they have been keeping records on e-commerce sales. The e-commerce industry had been growing by double digits until 2008.  In 2008 e-commerce sales grew 6%, while last year they were down 2%. While holiday sales were strong at the end of 2009 it wasn’t enough to bring the year into positive territory. If you are an e-commerce developer and have some numbers that you can share with us please leave some comments.

While the e-commerce industry as a whole was down in 2009 there was some growth in certain segments.  The book and magazine segments saw a 12% growth, software was up 7%, sports and fitness was up 6%, jewelry and electronics were up 4%.

Poor search functions have long been a common complaint on e-commerce sites for some time now. If you have an e-commerce site make sure that you have a strong and well functioning search function.

Hopefully 2010 will bring the industry back into positive trends.

E-commerce results from comScore

Does Social Media have a Future?

In the past few years we have witnessed the explosive growth of social media. In the tough economic times that we face now on a daily basis the evolution of social media as a free platform has helped individuals and companies establish social media customer service strategies, and social media customer relationships. Social media has become a viable marketing vehicle.  Social media provides a means for receiving immediate feedback which can help in evaluating your business concept or strategy.

The future social media platform will incorporate analytics, TV integration, and location based interaction. One of the companies slated to take off this year is Foursquare which is a location based social media application.  

From a users standpoint this is a fun time in computing. It is important though that social media developers take the time to introduce a platform that will not go through major changes when growing. For example I believe that Twitter made a major mistake in rolling out their retweet function one way and then when it became popular they revised and redid its functionality. Things should change and develop over time but it is my opinion that your core functionality should pretty much stay the same.  That’s where good usability testing early on should correct issues that arise.