We are proud to announce the launch of a new flagship Gutensite website for Alain Pinel, a local Luxury Real Estate Broker with about 1300 agents in the San Francisco Bay Area. We created the first Bay Area Open House Search website, which has integrated live property data from the four independent Multiple Listing Services in the area. This in itself was a Herculean feat, since they all follow separate data standards, so we had to create a shared standard of our own. The new seamlessly integrates this data, and provides additional features such as: map based searches, property mapping, street view, directions, favorites, RSS subscription, email alerts, and open house route planning for multiple properties.

Alain Pinel has created this site as a way to save them hundreds of thousands of dollars a year by weaning themselves off weekly print advertising for open house announcements which costs them a fortune. This website can not only save them tremendous amounts of money, but it also gives people the ability to view live results with all the extra features of searching from the convenience of their home whenever and wherever they want. It's a huge improvement for their customers, and we hope it becomes the favored standard for property searching in the Bay Area.

The new APR site used our standard core MLS functionality but we used this opportunity to make a lot of improvements that we've been planning for a while. So in time, our other clients will find many of these same features integrated in the default MLS features that power their site as well.

We just integrated ReCaptcha's nifty Word Verification API into the contact forms for all our sites, e.g. Site Contact, Custom Forms, Comments, etc. They are kind enough to allow us to customize the look to be less obnoxious than their standard design (Thank You ReCaptcha!). One of the nice features is that it's handicap accessible, allowing the blind to "listen" to words, which is super cool. And the whole project, is an exercise in collective processing power of the internet. Everyone who verifies a word is participating in a project to digitize old books! They have two words they provide, one is a control word (which they know) and the other is a new word that needs to be digitized. If you get the control word right, you pass (you don't know which is which). But in the process you also digitize the new word, and when the new word gets a high enough accuracy, it gets added to the accepted words.

It's  a great little API. And now, hopefully people will not be getting as many scandalous random words from the dictionary, which was very common with our old method. Who knew the dictionary had so many naughty words.

A big thanks to City Church of San Francisco, who kindly subsidized part of the cost of this new feature to make it a priority on our production schedule. You can also anticipate a new "Forums" feature coming soon, partly subsidized by these good folks as well.

Okay, now I'm going to yelp about Yelp. We've had some ongoing drama with the popular business review site Yelp.com. We created a business profile a while back, so people would have an opportunity to review our work and give good or bad reviews of our service. But when we went back to add more photos a few months later it had mysteriously disappeared. So we created another profile, and discovered the new profile had a funky "-2" at the end (http://www.yelp.com/biz/gutensite-walnut-creek-2). It turns out old profile still existed, at the same address, minus the -2, but was not discoverable with the search.

So we asked Yelp if they could remove the duplicate and merge the two accounts together. But instead we got a response saying that the new profile was also being removed from the search because we weren't a local business. This of course is totally ridiculous. We have a local Walnut Creek business license, are members of the Walnut Creek Chamber of Commerce, have a local office in Walnut Creek that employs local employees who do work for local clients. Sure we have a website, and we also do work for a national and international audience, but this does not make us non-local. Our services are computer based, but that is no less legitimate a target for reviews than someone who trims trees.

We complained to them and got no response. Several days passed and fortunately for us a Yelp salesman called and wanted to sell us advertising. I told him the problem and he realized he needed to fix this before he could make his pitch. So he kindly talked to the powers that be, and without comment or apology, our profile was turned back on.

I was considering advertising with Yelp, but I decided it would be in our best interest to first acquire some reviews from any of our past customers. So I asked a couple long term clients if they would do us a big favor and consider giving us a review on Yelp. Several agreed and the next day we had 5 great reviews, which moved us up from #8 for "Web Design" in Walnut Creek, to #3.

The next day I looked at our profile to see if others had reviewed us, and I discovered that all the reviews had been removed ("suppressed"). Evidently Yelp has an automated filtering system (fatally flawed) that is supposed to flag suspicious reviews, to ensure that spam or malicious reviews from competitors don't clog the review process. They say that because it has no human interaction it is unbiased. This is supposed to alleviate their responsibility, but: 1) humans write the rules of these algorithms, so it's not really unbiased. 2) we would like some human interaction, because all of our reviews were 100% legitimate. So that's not comforting. Don't blame the robots people.

In the end, their filtering system is so tragically inept that it deleted 100% of our totally legitimate reviews, so now we have no reviews, we are back to #8, and anyone that wants to read what other clients had to say about us, is unable to because Yelp's review system is biased towards young, tech savvy "yelpers" with too much time on their hands, who are able to actively cultivate an online identity and "credibility" as defined by Yelp's algorithm. And meanwhile, real business owners in the b2b sphere, are busy running their businesses and are not going to be active yelpers, so all their reviews are going to be dismissed and suppressed, even though their reviews should be particularly noted because of the extra effort they made to create and confirm a new account, learn a new system, and post a review during their busy day.

So what's the moral to the story? I don't know. Things aren't what they seem? Yelp brands itself as a local review site, but in reality it masks a caste system of Elite Yelpers and robotic censorship that skew it's credibility. But unfortunately, like Google, you can't ignore them. Most people don't understand or care why you don't rank high in Google, or don't have good reviews on Yelp. They just won't find you, or trust you, because a site they trust (Google or Yelp) doesn't say anything favorable about you. It's like being a nerd in high-school all over again, if you don't hang out with the cool kids no one will notice you. So I believe you should still have a Yelp profile, and you should ask people if they ever use Yelp and if so if they would consider reviewing you (if not don't let them waste their time). But that's it.

You can't stress it. If you do good old-fashioned work, it will pay off. Your clients will tell their friends over a cup of coffee or a beer in the backyard, and word will get around. It's easy to get caught up in these little fads, and they are interesting, but at the end of the day only 30 people viewed our profile on Yelp last month, compared to 10,000 unique visitors to our website, 90% of whom came directly by typing in our URL. Which means that most people still find us because a friend recommended us. That is priceless. I wish Yelp wouldn't delete our client's reviews, but oh well, it's not going to affect our business.

Similar to the Image Uploader we added a few months ago, we have now extended the functionality to work with documents and multimedia. Which means you can upload a lot of videos or audio into your library in one fell swoop, or upload a lot of documents at once, and watch the progress of your upload. This is a huge improvement in usability. But what's even better, is that you can upload the files to your Multimedia or Document library, while you are writing your Blog, adding your newest Property or Product, or adding any new page. You don't have to up add these to the libraries before hand, which interrupts your workflow. You can upload and add the new file to your page, all from the same interface. We hope it save you time, and is more enjoyable to use.

Extra Features Include:

• Easier "drag & drop" reordering
• File Preview with: file size and last modified date
• File type
• Thumbnail
• Category Filtering

We plan on adding these multiple upload features to the main Library upload tools as well, ASAP. But for now those are still one file at a time. But hopefully you won't need to upload that old way, since you can upload this new way now.

Also coming soon is a Slideshow Uploader, that will allow you to upload multiple images and create a slideshow instantly, which should also speed up workflow for related tasks.

We recently completed a simple but powerful upgrade to Gutensite that will allow much greater flexibility for page layouts. Traditionally when creating a basic html page ("my pages") you had the ability to work from a blank canvas, using the WYSIWYG editor to create anything you wanted. This is powerful, but good design is really beyond the capabilities of 99% of our users. And the entire purpose of the CMS is to allow anyone to edit the content, with the expectation that Gutensite will handle the design.

So we've introduced a few extra fields (under the "Extras" tab) which allow you to specify some common layout tricks: Heading, Sub-Heading, Pull-out Quote, List, Secondary Content Area, etc. When one or more of these are filled in, in addition to the general content of the page, a boring text page will suddenly come to life. This is a great way to spice up those long boring pages. Add some pull-out quotes, introduce a heading and sub-heading. Play around with the combinations and see what you come up with. We'll soon be adding a few more key feature fields, e.g. photo, promo-module.

Right now there is just one basic layout for these extra elements. But we will soon be adding various alternative layouts that you can choose from, based on specific layout ideas, or business needs, e.g. "2 Column Layout", "3 Column Layout", "Overview with Photo", "Detailed Description with 2 Photos", etc. Changing the layout design for a page will result in a totally new look for the page. And pro clients can have us create extra custom layouts that meet their own particular communication goals.

With this simple ability to alter page layouts, Gutensite has become a lot more flexible for enterprise level design needs. This is just a start, we have a lot of design related tools in the works. As always, we welcome your ideas.

We work on Macs here at Gutensite (although we also have some PCs for cross platform testing). On monday, one of our iMacs did a standard software update for the wireless airport card. The update froze in the middle and in the process trashed the kernel irreparably. We tried disk utilities, purchased DiskWarrior for $100, ran these utilities multiple times, but to no avail. So we zeroed out the disk, and tried to reinstall, but it fails install every time. Evidently the Kernel (which is separate from the regular hard drive) has some major problems. The Apple forums are full of frustrated people who had the same experience with the last update. It's terrible.

There are Three Lessons Here

1. Institute a Backup Policy Today. A 1TB external hard drive costs $150. That's so cheap, and well worth the peace of mind knowing that your data is secure. Apple's built in Time Machine works quietly in the background and you never have to do a thing (although I recommend unplugging it from the computer and the wall when you aren't backing up, and just backup once a day, so that if there is a power surge, it's not connected to anything and it's safe).
2. Wait 1 week before doing Software Updates. Let the bugs be worked out first by other poor unfortunate souls. There are sometimes serious bugs in the updates that will need to be fixed, and you don't want to be the guinea pig.
3. Your Time is Priceless. In the end, this programmer will have lost at least 3 days of productivity because of a computer problem. And on a schedule that's full with deadlines that's unacceptable. In the end, we bought a new computer to get him back working, and we'll hopefully repair the old one. But it would have been much better to have an extra computer that he could have used right away.

Where did october go? I remember having a birthday at some point, but the rest is a blur. The good news, I suppose, is that the economy has finally picked up (for us at least) and we have more work than we can handle. We need to hire another designer and programmer, immediately. The bad news is, due to the sudden influx of work over the past couple months, I have been sucked back into the vortex of project management and programming, which means I have had no time to do any pro-active business development, partnership development, or strategic leadership for the company. This is the story of all small businesses, and it happens far too easily. But responding to the immediate crises, though it seems responsible, is counterproductive to growth.

I'm sharing this, because I'm sure other small businesses have experienced the same thing. And it's a good reminder to all business owners, that your business' success is not based on your ability to personally address every need that arises, but your ability to build a team that can do more than you can do alone. This involves added financial risk in even the most stable economy, and it requires trust in your team (if they only do things half as good as you would do them, it's still a net gain). But if you find the right team members, and you create the right environment that is both enjoyable and productive, then you will all be able to accomplish much more.

I read an article this weekend that argued it was false to assume that slow steady growth was the best way to grow a business. Responsibility, Integrity, commitment to customers, yes of course, but without fail, the businesses that succeed are not always the ones with the best product or services, but the ones that grow faster than their competitors and become the de facto standard for the industry. Once a business reaches a critical momentum, customers prefer to do business with the company that is recognized as the leader, and slowly the market share shifts away from the slow, steady growing business. It's something to think about.

It's alive! After many years of wishing, and several weeks of actual work, our new image uploader is now available for use. This simple tool totally revolutionizes content management workflow. Previously you had to either upload the images to the library first, before adding some content (e.g. write a blog, sell a home, add a product, etc), or you had to add the images later (because you forgot) then go back and edit the record. Very cumbersome and annoying.

Well now that has all changed. We have created a great new image uploader that is available directly on any page you are editing. You can select an existing image from your library, or switch to the "Upload" tab and browse your computer. You can then select multiple images, set which category (if any) they should be related to, choose if you want to resize multiple sizes, set one custom size, or use an existing image profile, and then it uploads all the images with a very nice progress bar for those of us that like reassurance that something is indeed happening. When the images are uploaded they are saved to your library, and they also appear above in the "Selected Images" area. Forgot an image? No problem, browse again and upload until you have all the images you want. The "Selected Images" can be reordered with simple dragging. And you can delete images by clicking the trash can that appears on mouse over.

It's simple, and makes things so much more convenient. We will be extending this functionality for files and multimedia, and eventually integrating a similar style uploader in the Image, File, and Multimedia Library itself (which currently has an old single file uploader with no progress bar).

We hope you enjoy it as much as us! Many more great features like this are planned and being created. We want the entire Admin Control Panel to be this easy and fun to use.

Now it is easier than ever to upgrade to a professional package, or manage additional upgrades for advanced functionality. We've just finished our upgrade interface, and we hope that it gives our clients more control over this simple but important process. It's very interactive and fun to use. Choosing different packages shows what features are included in the package, and the upgrades are totaled on the right. If you know your domain name, the system will upgrade you instantly and create a private hosting account instantaneously.

Did you know that only 49% of small businesses have a website (and most of those are terribly inadequate)? Only a few savvy businesses are taking full advantage of the power of the internet. If you don't have a comprehensive web strategy and a professional internet presence, you are losing clients to your competitors, you are losing credibility, you are frustrating your existing clients, and you are missing your potential for long term growth. In short you are losing a lot of money.

Gain the competitive edge now. Distinguish yourself from your competitors by letting us build you a beautiful website that attracts new visitors to your brand, and provides your existing clients with timely information and self-help applications to speed up business and reduce your overhead.

As you've discovered, our Free Lite version is a great place to start. But if you are a professional organization, it can only take you so far. You need a fully professional website, with a reliable support staff, and a dedicated design and technical team to help you stand out from your competitors. Upgrade today, so that we can help you achieve a comprehensive web strategy that will help transform your business.