RSS
 

Posts Tagged ‘Web Apps’

Top 5 Web Font Design Trends to Follow

21 Sep
This series is brought to you by the Intel AppUpâ„  Developer Program, which provides developers with everything they need to create and then sell their applications to millions of Intel Atomâ„¢ processor-based devices. Learn more here.


The world of web fonts and web typography is exploding. After years of struggle, we’re finally at a point where using real fonts on the web is a viable option.

For web designers, this is huge news because it means a greater degree of control over how content is displayed. For end users, it means a richer web experience.

Thanks to web services like Typekit, Fonts.com Web Fonts, Webtype and others, the opportunities to integrate real fonts on the web is getting better all the time.

Let’s look at five of the biggest trends taking place with web font and web typography design.

1. WOFF as a Standard

The Web Open Font Format, or WOFF, is edging ever closer to becoming the de facto standardized format for using fonts on the web.

Backed by Mozilla, Opera and Microsoft, WOFF allows TrueType, OpenType or Open Font Format fonts to be embedded into web pages.

Right now, WOFF support is built into Firefox 3.6 and above, Google Chrome version 5 and above, Internet Explorer 9, and will be supported in upcoming versions of Safari.

Jason Santa Maria and his Friends of Mighty built Lost World’s Fairs as a way to showcase IE 9 and its support of WOFF. This fantastic piece of typographic web art really shows just how great type can be made to look on the web.

2. Big Foundries Jump on Board

When Adobe announced that they were partnering with Typekit back in August, it was a big move. Historically, the biggest font foundries have led the resistance against getting fonts on the web.

Adobe’s decision was followed recently by the new company, Webtype, a partnership of Ascender, Roger Black and Font Bureau. Similar to Typekit, Webtype offers a way for designers or end users to get high quality fonts for use in their own designs.

Last week, Monotype Imaging formally launched Fonts.com Web Fonts and brought many of the most famous Monotype, Linotype and ITC font families to the web.

At this stage, nearly every major foundry is either offering fonts with web usage licenses or is considering making their fonts usable on the web. Eighteen months ago, that wouldn’t have been a reality. Today it is.

3. Better Letter Control with Lettering.js

When creating the Lost World’s Fairs project, Friends of Mighty realized they would need to have a way to better control individual letters and words to offer proper spacing and better kerning.

Thus, Lettering.js was born. Lettering.js is a JavaScript plugin that allows developers and designers to better control individual letters without having tons of messy markup.

As Dan Rubin recently remarked on Twitter, Lettering.js may just end up having a bigger impact on typography on the web than anyone is expecting.

4. Mobile Support

Fonts.com Web Fonts service and Typekit both offer support for multiple mobile browsers. This continues to increase as more and more mobile browser makers support various aspects of @font-face and draft specifications like WOFF.

It’s not just enough for fonts to look good on the desktop, as more and more web usage shifts to the smartphone, having readable, legible and properly spaced typography on mobile devices will be a bigger and bigger area of interest.

Already companies like Monotype and Typekit are working to make sure that fonts look their best on a number of different screen types and sizes.

5. Font Support in Web Apps

One of the most interesting recent advancements in the web font world has been the ability to choose web fonts when customizing an aspect of a web app. Thanks to Typekit and Google’s Web Font Directory, it’s easy for developers to build these tools into their product.

Already many Tumblr themes are coming with Typekit support and new web services like About.me give users the option to customize their typefaces for various aspects of their profile.

This is a great use of typography on the web because it gives end-users direct interaction with fonts and lets them see directly how different fonts look together and at different sizes.

Web typography is on a tear and we’re at the beginning of a new era of a more beautiful, more legible and more customizable web.

Series supported by Intel AppUpâ„  Developer Program

This series is brought to you by the Intel AppUpâ„  Developer Program, which provides developers with everything they need to create and then sell their applications to millions of Intel Atomâ„¢ processor-based devices. Learn more here.

More Dev & Design Resources from Mashable:

- HOW TO: Be a Hybrid Designer/Developer
- 6 New Mac Apps for Designers and Developers
- Flash vs. HTML5: Adobe Weighs In
- 10 Free Web UI Kits and Resources for Designers
- Top 10 Accessories for Typography Nuts [PICS]

Image courtesy of playgrounder.com

Reviews: Firefox, Google, Google Chrome, Opera, Safari, Tumblr, Twitter

More About: fonts, fonts on the web, monotype, typekit, typography, Web Design Trends Series, web fonts, webtype

For more Dev & Design coverage:

 
No Comments

Posted in Google Reader

 

FarmVille vs. Real Farms [INFOGRAPHIC]

10 Sep

With all those millions of Facebook and iPhone users tending to virtual crops and sharing them with friends, have you ever wondered how their toils stack up against actual real-life farmers?

How does our output of digital (and decidedly less tasty) tomatoes compare with our worldwide production of real tomatoes? And perhaps most importantly, who are these casual croppers, and are they anything like their plow-toting counterparts?

We broke it down by the numbers and put some of these FarmVille trends in perspective for you.

Go on. Harvest it.

FarmVille Infographic

What do you think? Does FarmVille ignite our romance with all things pastoral? Are digital crops poised to overtake real ones in terms of GDP? What does all this mean for the fate of humanity?

Share your wisdom in the comments.

More Gaming Resources from Mashable:

- 5 Fun FarmVille Accessories
- 10 Classic PC Games That Found New Life on the iPhone
- Why the Social Gaming Biz is Just Heating Up
- Why Games Are the Killer App for Social Networks
- 10 Cool Konami Code Easter Eggs [PICS]

Reviews: Harvest

More About: facebook, farmville, games, gaming, infographic, infographics, iphone, social games, social media, stats, trending, Zynga

For more Entertainment coverage:


 
No Comments

Posted in Google Reader

 

Simultaneously Publish Your Content to the Web, Facebook, iPhone and iPad

07 Jul


Mashable’s Spark of Genius series highlights a unique feature of startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, see details here. The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark.

Name: Publisha

Quick Pitch: Publisha is a free browser-based solution that allows integrated publishing across digital platforms with built-in social media, analytics and revenue streams.

Genius Idea: Publisha is a free new platform that enables users to simultaneously format and publish content to the web, Facebook, RSS, iPhone and iPad from a single dashboard.

You can import and host your blog or online publication on publisha.com, or keep it at its current domain and simply take advantage of the service’s Facebook, iPhone and iPad publishing features.

The Facebook app is particularly robust. It creates an articles tab you can add to your Facebook Page, complete with a searchable archive, polls and other interactive content. Readers can like, rate and comment on the articles, and respond to polls.

You can also use the platform to publish your content on Publisha’s iPhone and iPad apps; the company has also offered to help “qualifying early adopters” create their own branded apps and drive traffic to their content. The apps host all participating publications on Publisha’s network. To minimize the size of the app, audio and video content are not supported.

Although Publisha is free to use, the company will take a 20% cut of all ad, affiliate and subscription revenue, and charge $2 per every GB of bandwidth used beyond 10GB if you decide to host your publication on Publisha’s website. It will also use 20% of your ad space if you have a free account. Publisha eventually plans to offer two premium packages — priced at $50 and $250 per month, respectively — that offer more bandwidth and take a smaller share of revenue.

Publisha’s Head of Marketing Anna Sjostrom also told us that an aggregated ad service is in the works, which will help match publishers with advertisers. The company also plans to add support for the Kindle and other e-book readers, as well as Ping FM and podcasts.

While we think the costs of Publisha’s services are pretty steep for users who want to build up a publication on publisha.com, we think many could take advantage of Publisha’s Facebook app and keep their sites on a blogging platform like Wordpress or on their own domains. It also couldn’t hurt to push your content to Publisha’s iPhone and iPad apps in the interest of attracting new readers.

What do you think of Publisha’s offerings? Do you plan to use them for your online publication?

[img credit: smaedli]

Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark

BizSpark is a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.

Reviews: Facebook, WordPress, iPhone

More About: bizspark, Facebook app, ipad, iphone, publisha, spark-of-genius

For more Tech coverage:

 
No Comments

Posted in Google Reader

 

How to Build a Quick, Clickable Website or iPhone App Prototype

01 Jul


Mashable’s Spark of Genius series highlights a unique feature of startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, see details here. The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark.

Name: Mocksup

Quick Pitch: Make mockups — websites, iPhone apps, logos and more — through simple sharing and feedback, automatic versioning and even prototyping.

Genius Idea: You know how they say necessity is the mother of invention? Well, once upon a time (the time being last summer, specifically), a man was trying to build a website and needed to show his higher-ups a prototype — something clickable, not just a JPEG or Photoshop file. He needed to give them “a feel for the new design and site structure.”

What was last year’s web designer’s nightmare is now a freelancer or small design shop’s dream. Mocksup will let you share your designs, add collaborators to your project, get comments and notes from your bosses or clients, track different versions of your work and yes, create clickable prototypes of your site and app design ideas.

It’s a cool combination of digital wireframing and WYSIWYG website creation. It might also be the only online app that supports clickable iPhone app prototyping.

To get an idea for what these prototypes look and feel like, check out this web design example.

(Interesting side note: Mocksup was created in 2009 for the Rails Rumble, an event we recently named as one of our all-time favorite hackathons.)

Sounds great, but how do these guys — Adam Howell and Jim Van Fleet, the app’s creators — make money?

Mocksup has an affordable subscription fee. You can test the site with one project, ten mockups and three collaborators for free, then they ask you to pay between $9 and $19 each month, depending on how much you use the app. We find these prices extremely reasonable.

What do you think of Mocksup? How does it compare with other prototyping tools you’ve used in the past?

Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark

BizSpark is a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.

More About: Agency, freelance, iphone app, web design, website

For more Dev & Design coverage:

 
No Comments

Posted in Google Reader

 

Obama iPhone App Provides Platform for Supporters

02 Oct

I don’t know how accurate it is to say Senator Barack Obama is a Mac to Senator John McCain’s PC, but those convinced of this premise will either delight in or scorn the fact that the Obama for America campaign has presented a free iPhone and iPod touch-compatible application called Obama ’08 [iTunes URL] for supporters to use.

Having browsed the application myself, I can tell you that the experience is commendable. The 1MB download is thoroughly polished, and covers nearly everything its larger relative, BarackObama.com has to offer. Technically speaking, the development is appreciable.

Though it does not harbor a connection to the social network My.BarackObama.com, the application is, design-wise, very much in line with the campaign website. No question about that. But how it functions is far more noteworthy. If you wish to read news highlighted by campaign operatives, you can do so, with the option to specify a national or local view. If you want to browse photos and videos, you may. Events are posted, too, and the campaign’s stated issues and its positions on those issues are noted in full. (Nearly all of these items can be emailed at will.)

You can also sign up to receive email and/or SMS notifications, and call anyone within your phone’s contact list, with each noted as “have not called” until you connect with them. This is obviously meant to increase outreach. (Placing calls is of course not possible with an iPod touch.)

Digging into the menu is easy enough. There’s really no trouble to be had with navigation. You can never go deep enough to get lost, to be honest. Which is just as well, because it’s an application for a political campaign, after all. There’s only so much a user can do given the matter at hand.

Nonetheless, there are some issues to be had. Browsing media isn’t handled the best way possible. For one, it would of course be a great convenience to see video playback within the application itself, but interacting with titles simply brings you out of the Obama ’08 application and over to the device’s YouTube application. This wouldn’t be something to nitpick over, but when you do venture out of the latter piece of software and back to the Obama ’08 application, you’re shown the start page once more, not the menu of videos from where you originally departed.

On the photography side of things, the supply of images is all but useless. Not because the content or presentation of individual photos doesn’t satisfy, but rather because the sheer number that is uploaded on any given day hardly makes it worth your while. The menu only allows for twenty images to be viewed, and my own time spent with the application today has shown nothing but photos titled “YouthVoteSurrogatePic….” This is not something to enjoy with any measure of frequency, that’s for sure.

Be that as it may, visual media is not the main draw here. It’s more about what the campaign is doing now and in the next few weeks leading up to Election Day, not a compendium of the last year and a half of canvassing that’s been done. For that, it will likely suffice for most users. You might not enjoy having a ‘Donate’ button that simply shows a translucent pop-up asking you to connect by phone to a campaign representative. Nor will some users like that you can only call contacts, and not send them email or SMS messages. Still, it is for the most part a solid collection of information pertaining to the Democratic ticket, making it enough of a download for iPhone-wielding Obama supporters to draw interest in.

---
Related Articles at Mashable | All That's New on the Web:

Obama on LinkedIn
Make Your Own Obama Logo, With Your Face
World’s Simplest iPhone App
Obama Does the Twitter
Guiliani’s Own Daughter Shows Support for Obama on Facebook
Obiden?
AirBed & Breakfast: For Obama’s Sake, Skip the Hotels

 
Comments Off on Obama iPhone App Provides Platform for Supporters

Posted in Politics

 

Acquia Debuts Drupal for Free

29 Sep

Acquia has announced the availability of Acquia Drupal, a free and commercially supported distribution of the popular Drupal open source social publishing system. They also unveiled the Acquia Network, which offers subscription-based access to technical support and remote network services that simplify the development and operation of Drupal Web sites. Entry level subscriptions to the Acquia Network will be free of charge through the end of the year.

For those that aren’t overly familiar with Drupal, it’s an open source web development and content management platform that publishes, manages and organizes a wide variety of content on websites. Tens of thousands of people and organizations are using Drupal.

With the release of Acquia Drupal with its streamlined packaging of Drupal and a support system via the Acquia Network, there will definitely be a tremendous increase in Drupal developers and websites powered by this Drupal.

All subscribers to the Acquia Network will gain access to the Acquia Network’s subscriber forums, remote network services such as software update notifications, uptime monitoring, Mollom spam blocking, and Acquia Drupal documentation.

What all this means is that many more companies, especially enterprise class entities, will be much more willing to dip their toes in the Drupal pool now that there’s a commercial grade package available that includes tech support. If all this sounds familiar, you’re probably thinking about Linux and how similar its path has been to the corporate world. At one point, only extreme geeks used Linux, until some big names like IBM and Novell started proving technical support plans with their Linux offerings. That allowed larger companies to try Linux much the same way they will try Drupal thanks to the Acquia partnership and support offering.

It seems like the natural evolutionary progression for all open source projects to go from a handful of geek’s using it in their basement to the corporate enterprise once a commercial package with tech support is distributed. It will be interesting to see what kind of websites and social networks are born from this marriage between Acquia and Drupal.

---
Related Articles at Mashable | All That's New on the Web:

Drupal Developers Acquia Raise $7 Million
Drupal 5.0 Launches Today
Drupal Version Six Released
New Project Aims to Bring Drupal to Facebook
KickApps SSO Now Available for Drupal
Chris Pirillo’s Gnomepal - Drupal For The Masses
7 Ways To Create Your Own Digg Clone

 
Comments Off on Acquia Debuts Drupal for Free

Posted in Web 2.0

 

Buddy Media Gives Social Marketers Front Row Campaign Access With BuddyBrain

10 Sep

Buddy Media has for some time been acting as a multi-faceted guide to businesses in an online setting that increasingly calls for investment in social integration and social marketing. The company has done everything from managing fairly common-seeming advertising campaigns to developing social applications. Today it unveiled a service called BuddyBrain for “app-vertisers” to more closely observe and manage intel emerging from campaigns conducted in the social realm.

BuddyBrain is segmented into four main quadrants: project center, intelligence center, reference tools, and social wire. A dashboard offering a view of information culled from each sector acts as a sort of welcome screen to one’s account. Naturally, active projects are shown with especial prominence on the page. And beneath the surface, data provided by most every component held within the application is elegantly presented. Details have been well attended to.

The company is issuing this command center as a kind of organizational utility. Better to grasp the workings of the social application space, observe media chatter, maintain focus on the ABCs of project development and execution. And also to, in the words of CEO Michael Lazerow, “entice more brands to make the leap into social advertising and to better service our existing clientele” by keeping to an order of accountability and results. Of course, any reasonable intimation of the marketing space will regard such attentions as crucial. The purpose of BuddyBrain is really to wrap several pieces into one streamlined setup.

In addition to its case-by-case, client-by-client analysis, Buddy Media says the utility’s analysis also makes evident some broad, industry-wide findings. The company provides as an example an aggregate reading of its own most popular “app-vertisement” campaigns:

140,000 installs within 30 days of the start of a campaign;

Those users interacting with said applications spend roughly 2 and 1/2 minutes with each, a time span clearly assessed to be far greater than banner ads and television spots;

85% of users returned for more time spent, and over half returned semi-regularly within 30 days of installation.

We spoke yesterday about media and business and its growing role in the social sphere online - and how various specialists are catering services to the branded world to better connect to citizens of the cloud. Buddy Media is no doubt striving to bring more parties to the table and for those parties present to engage at higher levels still. Its resume includes brands such as Anheuser Busch, Fox, HBO, Microsoft, and Facebook, and ad agencies OmnicomGroup, Universal McCann, JWT and WPP. And it seems safe to presume BuddyBrain, having availed users this palette of applications, will only catalyze growth further.

---
Related Articles at Mashable - All That's New on the Web:

Buddy Media Acquires Five Popular Facebook Apps
Facebook Application “Crushes” Acquired by Buddy Media
Making Facebook Apps Continues to Pay Off for Buddy Media
Buddy University: Attack of the Facebook Clone
30Boxes Launches Flash Buddy Cards
Badongo Offers Buddy Upload Tool for Mac
Sprout Raises $5 Million For Web-Based Flash Creation Tools

 
Comments Off on Buddy Media Gives Social Marketers Front Row Campaign Access With BuddyBrain

Posted in social networking

 

Adjix Pays You For Your Shortlinking Performance (The Startup Review)

09 Sep

STARTUP DETAILS:

Company Name: Adjix

20-word Description: Adjix is an online ad network that pays people to shorten links.

CEO’s Pitch: Adjix is a cross between TinyURL and Google AdWords. We let people shorten URLs (called “Linkers”). When a person clicks on the shortened URL, we display the original content with an optional ad at the top of the page. Both the Linkers and advertisers can see detailed link data such as who clicked on their link or ad (by IP address), when, and how many times. Very shortly, we’ll also report the webpage that the link appeared on when it was clicked (referrer) and also the OS and Web browser version.

Mashable’s Take: If you take Adjix at face value, it seems an interesting concept. It is a very simple yet potentially quite lucrative model built on a premise of revenue sharing well-refined by Google. It charges advertisers fees for impressions and click-throughs, and shares the bounty with people creating links.

Yet it is not only for the potential monetary push that Adjix is so intriguing. There is a utilitarian side to the coin. Because Adjix allows users to glimpse the click rate of the links they create, they can quickly determine whether such linking is grabbing interest. For folks trying to drum up traffic, this is a tool definitely worth adding to the chest. What’s more, if you need to expand the power of the engine, Adjix lists on its homepage a section devoted to the “Adjix Open API.” Altogether, it looks like something the frequent linker would very much enjoy getting on deck.

Now, there are some points raised about the relatively unique way Adjix functions which may not suit the end users. The most pressing one being spam. The service could be conducive to abuse. Indeed, last month, Performancing’s Jeff Chandler highlighted this concern with reference to the startup’s framework. In his response, Adjix founder and president Joe Moreno explained very simply that “we’ll shut down any spammer’s links. Everyone hates spam and we intend to freeze any spammer’s accounts.”

It’s definitely the case that Adjix has its ups and its downs. And the downs can seem a bit disconcerting, given the financial incentives involved. But so it is with various other ad engines on the Web, and Adjix appears to be one built in a fashion that could keep things aboveboard.

One thing is sure. The numbers Adjix provides are very easy to grasp. Advertisers pay $0.35 CPM for impressions, and $0.75 per valid click-through. Linkers subsequently receive $0.10 CPM, and $0.20 per valid click-through.

Editor’s Note: This post is part of an ongoing series at Mashable - The Startup Review, Sponsored by Sun Microsystems Startup Essentials. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.

Sponsored By: Sun Startup Essentials

 
Comments Off on Adjix Pays You For Your Shortlinking Performance (The Startup Review)

Posted in Uncategorized

 

Angelsoft 3.0 Simplifies the Angel Investment Process

02 Sep

It is often exceedingly difficult to establish and launch a startup. It is also a task to secure funding to sustain the effort. This is the challenge that four-year-old Angelsoft is on a mission to conquer. Even more so now with its launch of Angelsoft 3.0. Today’s release is meant to enable entrepreneurs to more easily find financiers through the use of a group finder (comprising 400 parties at present) and direct communication through the so-called common application.

Angelsoft founder David Rose puts the release in terms that connote the most ideal middle ground yet. Something very streamlined and low on tedium and much fruitless searching on the part of the startup, that connects a broad base of angel investors in one channel or cloud. Public profiles of investment groups are made available, and news feeds are published to give money seekers a closer, more familiar view.

Call it a facilitator. Angelsoft isn’t essential for entrepreneurs and angels together to use, but it can help ease the process. The ratio of startups to cash simply makes Angelsoft a logical option to test. And the less time spent on travel than work, as it were, the better for everyone.


Angelsoft 3.0 Introduction Video from Angelsoft on Vimeo.

 
Comments Off on Angelsoft 3.0 Simplifies the Angel Investment Process

Posted in Uncategorized

 
Newer Entries »