Should I bring an umbrella to work today? Is there a good pizza place nearby? Is there a gas station on the way to Poughkeepsie, or should I fill up now? These are questions you’ll now longer have to answer on your own. 

Google’s fantastic personal assistant app, Google Now, just rolled out for the iPhone. Here’s what it does: it gives you answers without making you search. How amazing is that!?

This happens by integrating with your Google account, pulling calendar entries, restaurant directions, sports scores, and more into a tidy at-a-glance package.

And, according to Hugo Barra, director of product management for Android "Google Now is probably the first example of a new generation of intelligent software." 

What better way to get to the forefront of new technology than with an old fashion road trip?

We’re currently en route to Caesar’s Palace Windsor, Ontario, where we’ll attend Online Revealed, Canada’s biggest online marketing conferences for the travel and tourism industry welcoming professionals from all over the world.

Every year, attendance grows and we’re looking forward to meeting and mingling with over some attendees this year!

For the 2nd year in a row, we’ve been partnering with the creators of Online Revealed to bring Social Scale to the annual event....

We’ve just returned from Vancouver where we were exhibiting at the annual BUILDEX Vancouver; one of Canada's largest tradeshows and conferences with over 13,000 Design, Construction and Real Estate Management professionals! 

The Concierge Plus team met and mingled with property and strata management, construction and Condo and Strata industry folk.

It was such a thrill to see over 600 exhibitors under one roof and a great experience for us to get out and see not just how many condos there are in Vancouver, but apartment complexes as well. Vancouver is booming! 

From zero to hero (or villain?) Facebook’s new Social Graph is about to change the way we search—but at what cost to our privacy?

This week Facebook announced a new app that will change the way we search for practically everything on the Internet.

The $67 billion dollar company’s new Social Graph seems to have finally tapped into Facebook’s vast wealth of user data and is now encouraging users to be hyper-specific in their searches.

So many people make personal New Year’s resolutions; perhaps it’s time to look at making improvements to your company’s social media strategy.

At this time of year, why not take the opportunity to revamp and refresh your online presence with these six resolutions...

Whether casual tourist or avid business traveler, most people check-in with review sites before checking-in to the front desk of any hotel, especially for the first time.

Savvy bookers however, have become weary of user-generated sites due to the prevalence of falsified postings (usually by competitors or paid writers). Hotels know this and have evolved their strategy to go straight to the source: you.

Last year Starwood introduced “Guest Galleries”, a dynamic forum situated directly on a property’s site inviting guests to review their stay openly and honestly. Starwood was the first to launch the concept of hosting guest reviews online and it wasn’t long before other hotels were following their lead....

I am the first to admit that it took me a long time to wrap my head around the value of the Twitter hash tag. What is it? What does it do? Why is it taking up precious characters in an already miniscule forum for expression?

And then I remembered the most fundamental role of social media in the context of connecting with customers: Twitter is about stimulating dialogue and in doing so, brands are better able to understand and respond to customer patterns, comments, and concerns. And, if used correctly, hash tags can facilitate this crucial conversation.

Canadian Architect reports that Canada’s first efforts at imposing large-scale urban renewal are  beginning with Regent Park, Toronto… and Concierge Plus is proud to be a part of it!

Over the next ten to fifteen years, a massive redevelopment of the Regent Park neighborhood into a true mixed-use, mixed-income community for almost 13,000 residents.

The project's business plan is to use profits from the sale of over 3,000 market condominiums to help pay for the replacement of 2,083 new social housing units and contribute toward the construction of 700 new affordable rental units.

Concierge Plus, WebCanada’s online property management solution, is already playing a key role in this initiative.

By bringing condo developments like Paintbox and One Park West online, Concierge Plus will play a supporting role in communicating events and important information throughout the community. “We’re thrilled to be involved in a massive revitalization initiative such as this,” said Mike Little, Vice President of Business Development at WebCanada. “Concierge Plus is an online tool that organizes communities and makes them run greener, more efficiently, and with a true sense of connection among residents.”

Following Panda (a Google-built algorithm) the most recent update to Google’s search engine algorithm roster, Penguin, all but erases “black hat” techniques. This algorithm puts tighter guidelines on web site optimization and adjusts a number of web spam factors including keyword stuffing, cloaking, unnatural links and content spinning.

According to Oregon’s tourism web site, there isn’t a single amazing thing about Oregon, there are about ten zillion. While none of us had time to calculate that figure to be sure, we’re all in agreement that Oregon is truly a special place.

We’ve just returned from a week-long marketing summit with Starwood Hotels & Resorts’ top communications leaders in Portland and are so pleased to be among only a handful of vendors invited to participate in a conference of this scope.

We received a warm welcome from everyone we spoke with and are especially thankful that we had the chance to sit with key members of the Starwood global management team.  Above all this was a chance for us to build on the existing trusted partnership between Starwood and WebCanada that we have enjoyed for more than eight years.

We’re so excited about Foursquare Local Updates. Coming out next week, the new feature lets business owners send updates to their “best customers” when they’re nearby.

According to Mashable: “Customers nearby” can be anywhere between a one and ten mile radius while “best customers” are determined by a combination of how often they check in, how recently they’ve checked in, and whether they’ve liked the venue on Foursquare.

It’s back in the office and back in the shade after a beautiful cruise around Toronto’s harbor front with the Association of Condominium Managers of Ontario.

We were fortunate to be a part of ACMO’s nautical exploration of Lake Ontario and mingle with the industry’s leading residential community managers.

Zdra-stvu-eetee to the Moscow Country Club!

Last week we welcomed Pavel Eogorov, Senior Sales & E-Commerce Manager from the Moscow Country Club, to the WebCanada offices. I know I speak for everyone when I say that we are looking forward to a long partnership with Pavel and the MCC. At present, we are redesigning and building out the property's web site on our Live CMS platform so naturally, we were excited to introduce Pavel to the WebCanada team.

But that’s not all we introduced him to…

If hoteliers are the curators of life’s true style, then hotels are the canvas on which trends in dining, design, and wellness come to life. But times are changing. It’s hard not to notice that new hotels are decidedly under-styled and superfluous service and decadent décor are on the outs.

Whether it’s the natural swing of the trend pendulum or a stylistic reaction to current economic realities, it’s becoming undeniable that fancy schmancy is out and functionality is in....

Well we made it!

We’ve just returned from Boston where we were exhibiting at the annual New England Condominium Condo Expo— the leading real estate tradeshow in New England. It was both successful and informative… but also an adventure!

Our beloved tradeshow booth was lost by a shipping company and we had but twelve hours to make an entirely new one. The Concierge Plus team pulled together and the result was a new booth we’re thrilled to exhibit with. Thankfully this was the only hitch in an otherwise fantastic weekend!

What started as a seemingly narrow-focused social media platform for artsy folks and the interior design-inclined has now bourgeoned into a dynamic curatorial board for all things crucially relevant – Pinterest is perhaps the truest encapsulation of the term “must-see” and a perfect way to capture real-time consumer sentiment... if you’re active enough. 

There’s a difference between knowing the path, and walking the path. Wise words first uttered by the Waschowski brothers and later echoed by Zappos.com CEO, Tony Hsieh, in his book, Delivering Happiness. The quote brings up a great point when seen in the context of corporate culture and client-facing branding, two often misaligned forces.

In early May, the Concierge Plus team headed west to be a part of the Community Association Institute’s Annual Conference at Caesar’s Palace, Las Vegas. For three days, we met and mingled with over one thousand property managers, board members, and industry leaders hailing from across the country, and across the pond.

Washington DC continues to outperform most housing markets in the US and economists are projecting continued demand due to historically low interest rates, strong job growth and supply constraints in the condo market. This was certainly apparent with the flood of attendees at the recent annual conference of the Washington Chapter of CAI (Community Association Institute). It was also clear that community managers and board members are looking for value for their communities.

 In early March, the Concierge Plus team travelled to Miami for the South Florida Condo and HOA Expo. As we continue to grow our business in the US, it was great to meet with clients and new prospects and share thoughts on how communities are coming to rely on digital technology more and more (oh and it was a nice break from our wintery weather too).

2012 will prove to be a year of incredible technological advancements. Here are a few of our predictions for web and technology trends in the year to come.

Our holiday eCards are here! Now you can create and send your very own personalized WebCanada & Front60 holiday greeting cards.

‘Twas the night before Christmas, The WebCanada team in-house
Not a creature was working, not even clicking a mouse...

ACMO/CCI Living in Balance Condo Conference to debut our new product, Concierge Plus. The Living in Balance conference brings together property managers and board members from condo corporations across Canada for two days of educational sessions, networking events and a large tradeshow. This year's event was the biggest yet, with over 1,200 attendees!

CP is an online platform for your property or community, designed to help you manage your property-specific day-to-day administrative tasks while connecting tenants, owners, association members, board members and management. We were thrilled to introduce Concierge Plus to the market with a beautiful new booth, designed by our in-house design team, Front60.

Type your company name into Google: where does your company show up in the results? Is it the first result? Is it halfway down the third page?

No matter your business plan or industry, a top result on a search engine can lend your company credibility and prestige. Your customers will treat top results as the best matches available, regardless of whether that is actually the case.

SEO is a gargantuan factor to consider when choosing a CMS platform. After all, you want your site to be number one in results and attract customers, potential employees and investors.

We're really excited to be launching the latest version of our online portal for residential building staff and communities: Concierge Plus. While we're beta testing the platform, we'd like to invite you to take a sneak peek at our new marketing site (designed by our design agency, Front60, and built on the Live CMS platform of course)!

What is Concierge Plus?

CP is a website for your property or community, designed to help you manage a property's day-to-day administrative tasks while connecting its tenants, owners, association members, board members and management.

Concierge Plus has tons of amazing features like maintenance tracking systems, announcements and permission-based administration form a timesaving hub for your entire building. It's easy to set up and use, no matter whether you're a novice computer user or a tech-savvy dynamo.

There's no doubt about it, Google is the reigning Internet behemoth. As a company, they constantly innovate to meet the changing nature of the web, and offer a myriad of tools that are priceless to businesses. From AdWords to search results, Google has forever changed the nature of online marketing.

You want your website to look as competent and professional as your company is, your company's carefully crafted brand shining forth on every page. When choosing between an open source and custom CMS, there are definite differences in terms of front-end site design.

As we mentioned in Part 1 of Choosing a CMS, there are numerous user-generated add-ons readily available with open source CMS.

Every kind of CMS is customizable, though all are customizable to a different extent.

Open Source CMS are typically completely customizable, provided you're willing to roll up your sleeves and code it yourself. If you're not up to the challenge of coding from scratch, there are also a number of pre-existing plugins that you can slot in when and where you need them. You'll again be climbing into the back-end and configuring and troubleshooting on your own - and after all the work you put in, the plugins may not actually do what you want them to do!

Today is a momentous day - we held a launch party in honour of Live CMS 5!

After months of hard work, testing and many late nights, Live CMS 5 went live yesterday. We've fired up the back end, notified our clients and watched the product soar. 5,500 user accounts have been migrated in 70 countries and 29 languages. We've been hearing a lot of great feedback and encouragement, and we truly believe this will be the most powerful iteration of our Live CMS product to date.

Many thanks to all of WebCanada (it seems like everyone contributed something) and special shout outs to the Live CMS 5 team: Paul, Nikola, Andy, Ian, Matt, Ilia, Linus, Billy, Rinaldi and Daniel.

Check out the photos after the read more link.

Now Magazine writer Joshua Errett's article about the concentration of WordPress usage in Canadian media may be overly alarmist and a bit silly (as with the example of the printing press running out of ink) however he does bring up a good point about some of the issues tied to WordPress.

The two most important considerations to make when choosing a CMS are the complexity of your website and the extent of your technical knowledge. Do you have a small website with a few pages or an extensive site with many pages showcasing a variety of media and functions?

Quick Response Codes have been a mainstay in the marketing world for a number of years. For those not familiar with QR Codes, they are unique matrix barcodes placed on marketing materials which can be scanned using a smartphone camera enabled by a QR Code reader. Once scanned, the QR reader reveals embedded information by linking to a website on your smartphone. We see QR Codes everywhere: adorning movie posters, on products at the supermarket and even on advertisements on the side of buses. There must be a better, more interactive way to share marketing information.

Welcome to the first post in our series on choosing and evaluating a CMS. Since you're here, we're guessing you're still scouting for information about the differences between open source and proprietary systems.

To help, we've put together what we think are top considerations and differences between the two:

Choosing a content management system (CMS) can be a difficult undertaking when you're diving in for the first time. There are so many options available, it's hard to know what the best solution is. What you do know is that you don't have time to update back-end coding each time you want to alter a page on your website.

You need a better way to manage and organize online content. You need a CMS!

Airbnb is the "community marketplace for unique spaces" that matches property owners who have space to rent with travellers who are looking for an (often cheaper) alternative to a hotel. They've been seeing explosive growth since their inception in 2008 - they currently boast 23 million social connections and actor Ashton Kutcher recently joined the company as strategic advisor. We love that the focus with Airbnb is on the personal connection between guest and host. Airbnb's culture recognizes that rooms and amenities are very important, but so is the human experience of the journey.

Our friends at Zen-tai Wellness Centre recently stopped by to present a lunch and learn centered around de-stressing in the workplace. As a group, we tend to reach for pop and candy to boost our energy, so Naturopathic Doctors Makoto Trotter and Aileen Lim-Trotter shared with us a number of ways to be more mindful about what we're eating.

As an office of computer scientists, project managers and creatives, we're inspired by the engineer-turned-visionary Arvind Gupta. In the video below, Arvind explains how he creates learning toys out of trash to teach children the principles of science and geometry.

Video after the read more link.

Friskies, who you may remember from their "Adventureland" TV commercials, has come up with another innovative way to market to cat owners by creating three cat-oriented iPad and Android games.

We love the concept, and it's not a Friday if there aren't any cat videos involved, so we invite you to watch these tech-savvy felines play "Cat Fishing", "Tasty Treasure Hunt" and "Party Mix-up."

Video after the jump.

Google's search algorithms are constantly evolving to keep up with changeable nature of the web in an effort to keep spammers at bay. What many people don't realize, though, is that a search engine optimization strategy that worked well in the past may now get your site blacklisted from Google's results.

Many SEO strategies that were once successful ways to maintain a search presence are now considered unethical by Google. If you've seen your search results falter and you haven't taken a look at your site back-end in a while, now might be a good time to root out any old SEO tactics and update them with a current strategy.

Foursquare, National Post and GeoPollster Canada have partnered to create a fascinating social media campaign in the run up to the Canadian General Elections on May 2. The campaign acts as a game of location domination, pairing Foursquare users with a political party and displaying their check-in data as party affiliation.

How does it work?

Foursquare users opt to sign in to the GeoPollster Canada campaign, which links with their Foursquare account. Once account permission has been given, the user is prompted to choose a party to "vote" as, and every Foursquare check-in from then on is associated with that party.

There are no words that can account for the tragedy resulting from the earthquake that Japan experienced on Friday. The loss of life and damage from the tsunami that followed the earthquake itself is heartbreaking.

Prior to this situation, I had made arrangements to meet with customers in several Asian countries, including Japan. With some uncertainty and a desire to keep my commitment I arrived in Tokyo on Sunday. The flight over took a small detour to avoid the badly damaged area, and any possible radiation, around Sendai. Upon landing at Narita, it seemed like business as usual. Other arrivals and departures are on time, train service to the city restored, and passengers busily moving around the terminals.

Due to our rapid expansion Front60 is hiring an Interactive Project Manager to work out of office in downtown Toronto.

You must have 4+ years of experience in creative and web development/interactive project management. This is a full-time position with benefits.

For more details on the Interactive Project Manager position see our careers section.

As an Interactive Project Manager you'll have the opportunity to advance to more senior roles within our growing company. Please send us your resume, availability and salary expectations to hr-apply@webcanada.com

We look forward to hearing from the best and brightest Interactive Project Managers in Toronto.

I'm excited to be part of a talented panel discussion that will address the challenges and opportunities of building global websites as part of next week's travel and tourism marketing conference in Toronto.

This year the sixth annual "Online Revealed" tourism and online marketing conference has partnered with The Hotel Association of Canada and the Canadian Tourism marketing Summit. Dubbed as Canada's first and only user generated internet marketing conference, they are attracting over 500 of the top tourism and travel industry professionals to share ideas March 8-9 at the Sheraton Centre Toronto.

Almost everybody has heard of search engine optimization, but the idea of social media optimization is just starting to catch on. Back in 2006 marketing blogger Rohit Bhargava first coined the term, defining it this way:

"The concept behind SMO is simple: implement changes to optimize a site so that it is more easily linked to, more highly visible in social media searches on custom search engines (such as Technorati), and more frequently included in relevant posts on blogs, podcasts and vlogs."

YouTube and Google have created a fun little web app that lets you create a "search story video" just by choosing a few keywords and some music. The app is based on Google's popular search stories ad campaign that even saw one of their spots make it to last year's Super Bowl. Check out our own search story video and create your own.

We are thrilled to be a part of Starwood's Room With A View hotel webcams project which recently launched its second phase complete with a new user interface, enhanced social capabilities and an extensive list of new functionality.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the concept, over 100 Starwood hotels spanning five continents have installed webcams from their most picturesque views, making the live feeds available on roomwithaview.com and individual hotel webcam Room With A View portal sites.

WebCanada is hiring! Demand for our world-class websites, awesome CMS platform, and cutting edge web applications are through the roof.

We're looking for talented web developers to work in our cool new loft space office in the east end of downtown Toronto. We're not saying it's an easy job, but you'll love coming to work; if you're ready to embrace challenges and have your mind put to the test daily, we'll make sure your hard work is rewarded.

It's a really exciting time for writing PHP in Toronto and you must share the same passion for the craft as we do. For all of your hard work you'll be rewarded with:

• a competitive salary
• a health and dental benefits package
• a monthly metropass
• a catered lunch every Friday
• and did we mention an ergonomic Herman Miller chair

For this year's holiday season we designed and developed an online game for all of our clients around the globe. With an average gameplay of about 6 minutes and fierce competition from over 20 different countries, no wonder there are so many impressive (and seemingly impossible to beat) high scores!

When someone says the word app, what immediately comes to mind? iPhone apps, Microsoft Word, Internet Explorer? What if I included Gmail, Amazon and Facebook in that list, do they still count? Sure they do, they're just web apps, but instead of being created to run on an operating system, they're created to run on a web browser.

We don't think about it, but websites like Flickr, Ebay and even, WebCanada's Live CMS are all web apps, and they carry with them many advantages over the desktop counterparts...

Available anywhere
Desktop Applications store information on your computer's hard drive, where web apps store information on a database independent from your computer or on "the cloud." Each time you request information from a web app it pulls the data dynamically, whether it be displaying an email or updating the homepage of your website in Live CMS; all that information is available to you no matter where you go, not matter what computer you're on.

Maybe, The New York Times recently reported a story about an online glasses and contact lens merchant who purportedly garnered top search engine rankings because of negative reviews left by dissatisfied customers around the web. The online retailer bragged to his customers: "I just wanted to let you guys know that the more replies you people post, the more business and the more hits and sales I get. My goal is NEGATIVE advertisement."

His operation worked like this: somebody would order glasses or contact lenses from his site, he would then place an order for cheaper versions of glasses or contact lenses and have the package forwarded to the customer's shipping address. But when people complained about receiving suspiciously cheap eyewear, the owner and his henchmen fought back with alarming intimidation and threats.

This past week WebCanada was invited to speak at Everest College. One of our senior developers, Andy Zarzycki and myself prepared several topics ranging from industry trends to differentiating yourself in the job market. The goal was to give students some insight into the day of a life as a developer. On our end, it was a good opportunity for WebCanada to showcase what we do and our passion for it.

Starting a blog is a test of perseverance, a lot of research and a love of sharing ideas. But what tools and strategies exist to make the job easier?

It's also important to ask yourself: why do I blog? What is the business strategy? Am I looking to add value to the company website? Do I want to attract web searchers through keywords, or do I just want to use the blog as a medium to convey the company's personality? It's important to put together a game plan and stick to your strategy from day one, and of course, adapt when necessary.

So, how can you keep ideas in the pipeline and ensure that you publish consistently? In this post we'll share some blog productivity tools and strategies that we've used to build our blog over the past six months.

Last Thursday we officially celebrated our arrival at 260 King Street East with an Open House party. A big thanks to everyone who was able to come and for those who couldn't make it we've included a few pictures and a link to our online memory game created by Front60.

Redoing your website can be a daunting process, but a little bit of planning and expert advice can make the experience painless and dare I say: fun!

How often should a company think about redoing their website? The answer depends a lot on the type of business you're in. For example, websites for clothing retailers like Abercrombie & Fitch or Lacoste often go through several incarnations each year. Or maybe you're in a seasonal business where redoing your website is a good idea in the months leading up to peak season. No matter what business you're in, it's considered good practice to redo your website ever 18-24 months, why?

Pay-per-click marketing seems like a relatively simple concept: bid on some keywords and link your site in the paid results. But there are some who have taken to Google Adwords in new and innovative ways. Here are three examples that I hope will inspire you to think creatively in your pay-per-click campaigns.

Building your brand online and being discovered in search.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then how many words is a video worth? At least a thousand, if not many more. The greatest advantage video offers is the ease to which it can communicate an idea, and the degree to which our brains are naturally wired to absorb information in this way.

When the web first entered our homes, it was this new medium with which to share information and manage data on a very basic scale. In the early to mid-nineties, we were able to share text and images. With the explosion of broadband the web can now drive richer content to our screens and provide higher level experiences such as videos and interactive Flash websites. And with these new applications comes a greater opportunity to communicate who you are.

More recently countless businesses have taken to online video and viewed it as an opportunity to build their brand presence. Some have been quicker out of the gates than others, but now that so many have done it, it might be useful to ask yourself: why should I do it?

It's been a busy couple of weeks since the Web 2.0 Expo wrapped up in NYC. It was a great opportunity to meet some of the new faces behind up and coming web applications and to mingle with some of the more brilliant minds of the industry. The venue moved from the much larger Javits Center to the more intimate surroundings of the Sheraton NY in mid-town creating a more concentrated and inclusive atmosphere.

Companies that spend time and money on their corporate communications usually see their efforts pay off in spades; whether it's a polished and persuasive website, or a meticulously crafted brochure, a well-written piece of marketing copy will convey the right message to your client and garner the results you expect.

Why don't we give emails the respect they deserve? Is it because we receive so many and it's simply a slog to get through them? Probably, but that shouldn't be an excuse for a poorly worded, unfocused and confusing email, especially when you're writing to your clients.
I surveyed the Front60 team for their thoughts on this all too important means of communication. If you deal with clients directly or if it's your employees who do, here are a few rules of thumb that will help to make your emails focused, easy to read, and actionable:

I was stoked to learn that some of us from around the office (myself included) will be attending the Web 2.0 Expo in New York.

It's being held from September 27-30 and there's an impressive line-up of speakers from just about every major web company from IBM, to foursquare, to Google.

We'll be sure to write about the conference in the blogs to come. In the meantime check out: web2expo.com/webexny2010

Through the use of free tools you can do thorough market research in a matter of hours; the same research would have been less accurate and cost thousands of dollars not less than 10 years ago. It's a great time to own a business!

Market research allows entrepreneurs/businesses to learn about their prospective customers before they begin to invest the time and money in starting a new venture. Online tools have emerged that allow anyone to perform market research.

In July, we featured Vanessa Fox's book Marketing in the Age of Google. Perhaps one of the most interesting excerpts found in the book is Fox's hypothetical look at a company trying to create a better digital camera using the web as a primary market research tool. First the company "BetterCamera," must uncover the top searched-for digital camera features and find a point of differentiation: underwater cameras.

It's a reality; every year retailers work harder to make it easier for consumers to shop online, and at the same time consumer confidence in shopping online continues to rise.

A June 2010 IMRG study found that "online retail sales have increased 22% year on year," and that "this is the highest rate of increase in more than two years."

So why is this happening? Is it because there's more selection online? Is it because it's more convenient? Is it because retailers have become smarter and are giving consumers fewer reasons to say no?

I would argue it's a mixture of all of those reasons, but primarily it's because of the latter. So what have the leading online retailers done to give consumers a reason to buy online instead of in-store?

We all want to join the ranks of brands that have succeeded in creating buzzworthy marketing campaigns that drive word of mouth and impact sales. Unfortunately, there is no magic answer, no silver bullet. But what we can do is be inspired by what other brands have done and try to learn from their ways of thinking.

You've got a name, logo, business cards and a letterhead, but do you have a brand? A brand in its simplest form is a noun, a thing. It's not simply the name of your company, or a way for people to identify you against another; although it serves those purposes. A brand should make you feel something, make you aspire to be like them, identify with and trust them.

Brands have characteristics the same way people do; most, if not all major brands have brand strategy guides that are meant to be followed closely across all communications. This includes everything from the layout of a banner ad, to the social media, to the way customer service representatives conduct themselves.

A well-targeted brand is ascribed a set of related characteristics in their brand manual. This can include corporate values, keywords, examples of tone of voice, sample phrases; also included is what not to do - examples that go against the brand. But where do we look when determining the character of a brand?

The success of modern companies is heavily determined by how easily their brand and their services are found online. Discovering the search terms potential customers are using and gearing your website content to return results for those terms is a proven method for generating online leads and driving revenue.

It all starts with selecting those crucial keywords. It should be noted that a keyword can refer to a single word or whole phrase, for example "WebCanada has great clients" can be considered a keyword.

When it comes to preparing a PowerPoint presentation it's tough to find a balance between being too simple or too fancy. We want to keep our audience engaged, but we don't want transitions and animations to distract from what's most important: the presentation. We surveyed the Front60 design team and came up with the following tips for creating the perfect PowerPoint presentation.

• Use logical flow: this may seem obvious, but it's often overlooked; order your slides so they tell a story and make an argument.

• Keep it simple: use graphics and media that convey the message. Clutter confuses, when in doubt take it out.

You've got a name, logo, business cards and a letterhead, but do you have a brand? A brand in its simplest form is a noun, a thing. It's not simply the name of your company, or a way for people to identify you against another; although it serves those purposes. A brand should make you feel something, make you aspire to be like them, identify with and trust them.

Brands have characteristics the same way people do; most, if not all major brands have brand strategy guides that are meant to be followed closely across all communications. This includes everything from the layout of a banner ad, to the social media, to the way customer service representatives conduct themselves.

A May 2010 report by Forrester Research offers some interesting insights about online shopping behaviour, and particularly, why so many people abandon their online shopping carts before making a purchase.

The report entitled Understanding Shopping Cart Abandonment found that nearly 88% of web buyers have abandoned shopping carts at some point. If online retailers can convert only a small percentage of these lost sales, the effect on their bottom line could prove significant.

So when I sat down to write a blog about the iPad I thought, should I write it on my iPad? In a word: no.

This is not to say I haven't enjoyed the iPad immensely. It's a great device, and it does live up to Steve Jobs' promise of doing key things better, namely web browsing, email, photos and ebooks. But on the other hand, for actual work, my advice is: stick to your laptop.

It happened so fast. In mid-2008, we moved into our new office at 2 Carlton Street right in the middle of Downtown Toronto. A few months later we took over the office next door. Now summer 2010 has arrived and we're moving again...

Organic SEO strategies that every website should adhere to: page names, titles and headings. We all know that content is important, it gets your site passed around, linked to and revisited. Content is the main piece of the puzzle, think of the next four tips as the supporting cast that will help your site gain a coveted first page ranking.

1) Page Names. It's a good idea to a descriptive vanity URL like "about-us".
By doing this your URL will appear www.yoursite.com/about-us. When you do this Google and other search engines will recognize it as part of the content. Using a content management system like Live CMS has certain advantages, like not having to worry about file names, and automatically assigning "vanity URLs" like "www.yoursite.com/about-us".

There are many ways to get your company's name out there. Historically, word-of-mouth, advertising, sales and marketing have driven the way businesses connect. It remains to be seen how effective social media will be in forging B2B relationships, though it's in no doubt promising. There is however one reliable marketing method that businesses have been taking advantage of for decades: direct mail, or in its more recent form email marketing.

Facebook's new Like button may not catch on with everyone on Facebook, but Levi's has created a compelling reason for it to catch on with the youth market.

Levi's has added a 'Like' button next to every item on their online store. So not only can you 'Like' a pair of 501 jeans, but when the store loads, you'll be able to see which items your friends like. It will be interesting to see how this plays out between different age groups. Where teens may bow to peer pressure and buy what their friends like; those of us who are older will probably steer clear from buying clothes similar to that of our friends.