New Year, New Website for DiscoverTec

We've been working our tails off to get our brand-spanking-new website put together and live before the New Year and in just a shade under quittin' time we were able to get it launched. For me personally, the majority of this past month has been spent staring at this thing for hours and hours every day and to tell the truth I couldn't be more stoked with how it came out.

This website represents everything, both as a company and a Team, that we feel is good about website design & development, SEO and social media integration. There's a saying that has something to do with devils & details, and let me tell you, after many devils and even more details, we feel like this website truly captures all of the things that make DiscoverTec such an incredible company to be a part of.

One of our main tasks with this redesign was to create a "Web 2.0" look and feel as well as integrate different technologies that fall under the Web 2.0 umbrella. Like many terms in our business, Web 2.0 is one that gets tossed around like a football at the tailgate party and with about as much concern for where it lands. As a company we've developed our own views on Web 2.0 and wanted this site to reflect those views and offer visitors a different perspective on how websites should be built. Not to mention, we wanted people that visited the site to think that we’re pretty darn good at what we do.

Last year we were fortunate enough to attend the annual Web 2.0 Expo in New York City and spent 3 days learning all about the infamous buzzword that the conference is named after. I don’t think it would be an understatement to say that it changed the direction of the company in a lot of ways. It also made us realize how important it is to stay current with our industry as it continues to progress faster and faster. And one thing that I personally learned from attending that conference (other than the fact that New York is not so much a different place than Jacksonville but a different planet), is that everyone’s definition of Web 2.0 is different.

That's actually fairly common in our industry, and as a non-technical person myself, I realize how mind-numbing it can be to not be able to summarize a complex idea into 2 or 3 definitive sentences. The "godfather" of the term Web 2.0 is Tim O'Reilly and from a very high level I took away the following definition from his Expo presentations:

Web 2.0 uses the World Wide Web as an open platform rather than a centralized application. By nature of its very name, it represents the next level of interacting with the internet. It relies heavily on user-generated content and allows website architects to enhance their applications based on feedback from the people actually using them. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Web 2.0 creates a rich user experience that pushes out more value to the visitor than what’s pulled in from them visiting the website.

Think about it, Google, Facebook, Twitter, three of the most widely used websites around the world, and the one thing they all have in common is that they're free to use! Not only that, they couldn't be simpler:

- Type in some words that represent something you want to find and press enter.

- Connect to a network of over 350 million people in less than a minute.

- With less than 140 characters you can let the whole world know what you're up to.

Huge, mind-numbingly complex applications that are free and easy to use and give people all kinds of cool information without getting much in return.

That was one of the main questions we asked ourselves when we sat down to plan this new website... "How can we use the site to grow our business and be more successful, while at the same time create a platform for people to use as a resource and gain valuable information from on a regular basis?" Surprisingly, there wasn’t an easy answer to this one. After many meetings and much consternation (and more than a few cold beers), we figured out what we were going to do:

1.) We’re going to design a site that looks clean and professional that visitors will enjoy interacting with.

2.) We’re going to optimize every single line of code on the site so that anyone that searches for our services will be able to not only find us, but have an easy way to learn more about how we can help them.

3.) We’re going to push out all kinds of useful information about our industry, intriguing current events, and just plain cool stuff.

4.) For #3, we’re going to use the most popular social networking technologies available to do it.

5.) We’re going to crack a ton of jokes (mostly at each other) and have a bunch of fun building it.

I can promise you #5 happened, and I feel real confident that we nailed the other 4 too. But in the true spirit of Web 2.0, we won’t know how we did until our users tell us. So, after you’re done ringing in the New Year of course, cruise on through our new website and let us know what you think. If it’s not too much trouble, we’d appreciate it if you’d post your comments below, that way everyone can see what you had to tell us.

And last but not least, Happy New Year from DiscoverTec!