Nonprofit Expressions

When you are a web designer (like me) you are always on the lookout for websites that are cutting edge, and ones that make life easy. This week I would like to examine two websites that are both cutting edge, and have the potential to make life easier.

The first Web 2.0 site is blist.com

Blist is a database for the everyday person. When I say database don’t get scared! Database is usually a term used by very techie people to refer to a means of storing and sorting information. The truth is just about everyone uses databases all the time. We just don’t know the high tech ways of doing it, and we try to fit everything into Microsoft’s Access. Access can be great for rows of sales data, or a list of names and addresses, but it doesn’t even come close to the usefulness of Blist.

I urge you to watch the demo on the blist Blog. This website is currently in beta, but you can sign up and begin using it now.

About web 2.0 Beta websites

The new buzzword for web 2.0 is beta. Beta means there are known problems with the application that are being fixed, and people need to use the application so those problems or potential problems can be ironed out.

The funny truth about “beta” websites is that they usually function just fine. I have been using Pownce, Grand Central, and Blist with no problems and all are or were recently “beta” websites. Beta is becoming the buzzword for “cool new features” on the internet. So next time you see a beta website don’t be intimidated-it might actually be amazing.

The second website to make life easy

The second web 2.o application I have fallen in love with is the next generation of personal organizers called Scrybe.

Scrybe is like your personal organizer mixed with a web scrapbook that you can use on the web wherever you are, as well as offline when your laptop is not connected!

Scrybe is also a beta application, accept in this case iscrybe.com is not offering public sign-up. It is a private beta (that means cool new features you want but can’t have yet). I researched and pan handled to get an invitation to scrybe.

In the spirit of sharing, I would like to give away 15 free invitations! All you need to do is comment on this blog or email me at aaron@nonprofit-expressions.com, and I will send you a free scrybe invite.

If you want to see all the amazing features of scrybe and be convinced as to why you want it, you should check out the video on the website!

Best Regards,

Aaron

We have officially launched a new web 2.0 product for church websites.

Church-Box.com now offers an advanced pay as you go Content Management System. This is not just any CMS. It uses technology from one of our partner companies Agency Fusion.

This product has been a great fit with our new small-medium sized church packages. With this software we can make a website affordable to even a church planter by way of monthly rental and minimal setup fees.

The greatest strength of the Church Box CMS is the use of standards-compliant code. Because the templates the CMS uses are built on genuinely good coding practices, we can import nearly any design concept into the CMS. This allows us to use Cascading Style Sheets to layout our CMS based sites and finally delivers a CMS that breaks completely away from the table based layouts. This is the first CMS for less than $80,000 on the market that is truly search engine friendly. With content editing as powerful as RedDot systems and the use of other enterprise level systems, this product is jaw dropping in its functionality.

The other great feature is the light weight of the CMS. Most content management systems are database driven. While our application makes great use of databases in the editing phase of using the CMS, all the operational aspects of the CMS exist in a third location.

Without technical jargon: This new CMS delivers content faster and more accurately than any other CMS on the market. Period! The site that is delivered to the visitor is simple clean code. There is no heavy machinery creating pages on the fly. The site file structure looks just like a normal website. If a third party web designer examined the file structure on the back end, they would never know a content management system had been used. This is technology light years beyond what is currently in use by 99% of churches who have a content management system.

Our staff is very excited about his project. Not only is this product the best CMS we have ever seen, but Church Box is an affordable alternative to a full custom design solution that is out of reach for a small church or a tight budget.

When we approached the marketplace with this product we investigated the pricing structure of other sites trying to offer similar services. We found that not only did the other sites offer a far less impressive product to the consumer, they were also charging too much. In essence, we are now offering the best, most reasonably priced content management system for churches on the market!

Now we are looking at other markets we can port this product to, such as small business and the non-profit arena.

A new project called Yahoo Live just launched. The new service from Yahoo allows you to create a live video stream from your webcam and then embed the streaming video in your website or blog. The project has an API that will let programmers make applications using the streaming video from the site. This project could lead to some very interesting applications…