Blog: April 2009

Justin Treks North

April 24, 2009

Justin's Here

Justin, our programmer who lives in Boulder, CO, has made the trek north again to meet with us in person and reconnect with the rest of the Hop Studios team.  We’re going to be talking about the future and how we’re going to be focusing our development efforts in the next months.

We all attended a great event last night, Beers with Brad.  We’re all helping to encourage the entrepreneurial spirit here in Vancouver.

Beers with Brad

Also, it’s nice to be out and about when the weather’s this nice.

Posted by Travis Smith at 4:38 PM | Comments (0)

Interviewed by CBC

April 23, 2009

Last Thursday and Friday, I was interviewed twice by the CBC—once for English television and radio, and once by French television.

They set up a fancy HD camera in our office, and asked me what someone at Hop Studios thought of the three Web sites of the political parties: the B.C. Liberals, the B.C. NDP, and the Green Party of B.C.  Since we build a lot of community-enabled sites, we had some good analysis to share.

Since you don’t own a time machine and can’t go back to listen to what I said, here’s a brief summary:

  • The Liberals site looks like they used the Obama campaign as a template—and why not; it’s always better to copy a winner…  They also seem to have a better sense of the ways to interact on the various social sites, like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.
  • The NDP has an excellent site that lacks ... something.  Call it focus, flair, a clear message; it’s a great technical site but doesn’t succeed from a design point of view.  (That said, if you agree with the NDP already, you’ll probably like their site a lot more than this quick analysis indicates, and that’s probably true for the other parties, too.)
  • The Green site is very, very green—and by that I mean in color, and in organization.  It could use a UI overhaul, and an IA renovation, and some tips for the way they shoot YouTube videos, too.  They have the most to gain from having a good Web presence (a Web site can reach people 24/7, anywhere, and can help energize your supporters), but they are doing the least with it.

I was told I sounded very cogent at 6:50 a.m. on Friday on the radio; if only I could pre-record even more of my life. smile

Posted by Travis Smith at 4:32 PM | Comments (0)

Truthdig Nominated for Webby (Hat Trick!)

April 16, 2009

The month of April is often the herald of springtime. With it arrives warmer weather, an explosion of flowers, and the announcement of nominees in the 13th Annual Webby Awards. (I bet you didn’t see that last one coming.)

Our client Truthdig has been nominated for a Webby for the third year in a row, and for the second time in the category of Politics.  Considering what a huge year for politics 2008 was, we’re tickled pink.

Please consider helping us out by clicking the link and voting for Truthdig.

Congratulations to the Truthdig team. The nomination really speaks to the great journalism they continue to produce.

Posted by Travis Smith at 4:49 PM | Comments (1)

Announcing: Edit This Plugin for ExpressionEngine

April 13, 2009

Our newest ExpressionEngine add-on is a totally handy plugin that makes site owners happy—we use it every day on our own clients’ sites.  Edit This displays a link from any part of any page on your public site, direct to the control panel page that will let you edit that content. 

Edit This handles weblog entries, templates, categories, and gallery entries.  Under the hood, it checks a user’s privileges before it renders the link; in other words, if you can’t access the control panel, you won’t see a link to edit the entry you’re reading.

By default, the plugin renders links with a cute little pencil icon.  But if you want more control over presentation, Edit This gives you the option to style your links however you want.

And yes—we’ll be porting this plugin to EE 2.0, whenever it comes out.

As always, drop us a line to tell us how you like it!

Posted by Justin Crawford at 3:12 PM | Comments (24)

Special Project: Code name Frog

April 3, 2009

FrogcouverSometimes our clients come to us with with fun ideas they want to try on their sites, and we’re happy to be a collaborator. At the beginning of March, after attending Festival du Bois, Alex Brabant and Mario Beaudoin came up with an idea for an April Fool’s Day joke they wanted to play on members of their Francouver.ca social networking site. On April 1st they sent out a press release announcing a complete rebranding of the site from Francouver.ca to Frogcouver.ca in order to please a more anglophone audience. The new approach for the site involved a change in colours, a new site url, and the creation of a fabulous new frog logo based on the original fleur de lys logo.

Alex (ribbit) and Mario (kermit) have gone all out, with detailed press releases, a “launch” party, and ridiculous requirements for their members. Luckily we were also able to launch the new “Frogcouver” attending system for events at the same time. Users visiting the site will find a new way to interact with the extensive list of francophone events and activities.

Posted by Rachael Ashe at 11:22 AM | Comments (1)

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