The RKIL site has been around using one form of technology or another since 1995, and it has always been interesting to look at the analytics for the site.
In the past few weeks, a significant change has taken place, a new web crawler has shown up. Baidu is a Chinese based search engine that now accounts for 20% of the crawler traffic.
Something is about to change.
It is pretty tough to visit a tech bloggers site these days without stepping into a debate slinging insults back and forth about whether or not the iPad will replace laptops.
Technology evolution follows similar cycles, you just have to find the right paradigm.
At the turn of the 1900's most urban households made use of ice boxes that literally used ice. In northern climates the ice was cut from rivers in the winter, covered in sawdust, and sold throughout the year. The ice cutters were replaced by ice making companies who used refrigeration to make ice, and the ice makers were replaced by home refrigerators. No ice cutters, and few ice makers survive to current times.
By comparison theatre productions were not replaced by movies, and movies were not replaced by television. The parts and size of the market these entertainment technologies serve have changed over time, however they all survived.
It seems that the computer field with main frames, desktops, laptops and tablets will be closer to the theatres’ paradigm than the ice cutters’ paradigm. While few people have invested in a main frame for home, having a desktop personal computer, a laptop personal computer and an iPad does not seem out of the ordinary.
While preferences will vary, most people can selectively enjoy theatre, movies and television, without feeling like they have to take sides.
The team at Ferguslea Properties had developed a set of strategies for the rebranding of the Bayshore Community to a new approach with Accora Village. The brand team, led by Instinct and supported by Deep Partners, had developed a set of strategies which included improved service, updated facilities, and a greening initiative for environmental improvements.
To help support the new brand for the community, RKIL was asked to develop a web site that would support the new brand and provide new assistance and information for the residents of the community.
The implementation process for the web site began with a design that would reflect all of the brand values that has been established. The design had to consider not only the graphical elements used throughout the rebranding, the design also had to support the brand values which were all resident focussed.
The design of the site had a number of implemental considerations for the operational team at Accora Village which does not have significant IT experience, and would have limited resources to update and monitor the site.
RKIL selected Squarespace.com as the web hosting and content management technology for Accoravillage.com. The site is a combination of relatively static information for background, and dynamic areas for Specials, News and Events, and the Accora Centre.
The dynamic areas of the site can be updated by Accora Village staff simply by sending an email to the site. The dynamic areas of the site also include options for links to social media including Facebook to allow residents to share information of the recreational activities hosted at the Accora Centre.
At the same time, the site infrastructure is robust enough to handle the significant volumes of traffic that are expected to arrive.
RKIL has just finished the migration of CampBonaventure.com (and its sister sites CampBonaventure.ca, TheSalmonLodge.com and LeSalmonLodge.ca) to the Squarespace.com content management engine. The new sites provide the option for the staff at the lodges to update content on their own, including photos. The most popular feature on the sites has been the links to social media, and Facebook in particular.
The World Wide Web began to become easy to access in the mid 1990's, the promise of thin client computing has resurfaced. Some pundits have called thin client a return to terminal based computing where a central mainframe made it easier for IT divisions to maintain.
It has never really arrived.
With the announcements of the Chrome OS and their CR-48 notebook, Google is making an attempt to bring thin client to the masses.
While browser technology has improved especially with HTML5 standards, Google's thin client implementation does require access to the Internet in order to work.
