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Wow, what a rollercoaster ride 2008 was; in so many ways. The world faced the biggest financial crisis most of us have ever seen in our lives, the balance of power in the world shifted significantly and fuel prices both had an all time high and a 5 year low in the same year. Crazy times. And I think we haven't seen the end of it yet.
It's hard to analyse what the exact effect of all of this is on our own industry. If you look at TechCrunch's layoff tracker, it is clear that IT was not left unaffected. Several companies that are close to the PHP community have seen layoffs: SUN, current owner of MySQL, laid off about 5000 jobs; Yahoo, the biggest PHP user on the planet, laid off 1500 and even Zend was troubled by layoffs this year. Yet, talking to the community and looking at our own customers leads me to believe that so far, the PHP ecosystem is less affected than other industries. Many PHP shops are still searching for PHP developers (yeah, so are we), and many companies I talk to tell me that, while some of their customers have become more cautious in their spending, there is still enough demand for PHP projects.
One reason for this might be that PHP is still in a place where demand outnumbers supply. Even if demand is reduced significantly based on the current economic climate, there still aren't enough PHP developers to meet that demand. Another reason is that in times of economic downturn, companies start looking at cost effectiveness and become more aware of what they spend their money on. After the internet bubble, in the first years of this century, we had a similar situation and we noticed that back then that people started turning to open source solutions. PHP can benefit from a trend like that. Not only is PHP very cost efficient (no license cost, and quick time to market), the web in general can help companies streamline their business processes and become more efficient. Finally, within the PHP community there's a focus on efficiency as well: with a rise in the use of frameworks (I'll talk about the 'cms to framework' shift I see happening some other time), a focus on code quality, PHP's 'getting things done' mentality and the end-of-life of PHP4, PHP is strengthening its position as the right choice for web development. For us at Ibuildings, our commitment to stick to PHP for web development has helped us grow about 40% this year, despite the economic situation; which strengthens my belief that we're in the right business and have chosen the right language. So I owe a big thank you to every member of the PHP community! (And with the Center of Expertise we'll be launching early next year, we'll try to give something back.) It is still early to say how 2009 will affect us all, but let's hope that we've seen the worst of the economic crisis and that in 2009, things will start to look better for everyone. I wanted to end this post with a number of PHP highlights in 2008; but keep an eye on my favourite source for PHP news, phpdeveloper.org, I'm sure people more qualified than me will write excellent 2008 lookbacks.  Posted by Ivo Jansch
CTO Ivo is the CTO of Ibuildings. He implements company strategy regarding tools, technology and development processes. Ivo is the contact for several key customers and partners, and a regular speaker at conferences. http://www.dndmediagroup.com
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Come join the conversation, meet new ohio business, share knowledge, and promote your business. Become part of Ohio's true social networking site.
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How Small Businesses Can Win With E-Commerce "Organizations will become both smaller and bigger at the same time; they will be flatter, more flexible, and more dispersed…Life will be unreasonable in the sense that we shall have to make things happen for us rather than wait for them to happen." Charles Handy, British academic, business consultant and author. For businesses there are many advantages to using e-commerce; one of the greatest advantages is that online commerce is a great equalizer, allowing small businesses to compete on an even playing field with larger businesses. However, do not take on the big players; you need to differentiate yourself from them. For small businesses it is essential that a site is created and then registered properly, so that it shows up on premier search engines and other sites that attract your target market. It is equally important that, if you are on a premier search engine, you show up on the first or second page of search results, because most people are unlikely to look any further. Either you need to learn the necessary skills to achieve this, or pay someone with sufficient IT capability. Having a website up and running is not the end of the matter, the site and business still needs to stand out from the crowd; that is, it needs to communicate your competitive advantage. With more flexibility than larger counterparts, small businesses can usually successfully compete in a niche product area, in a niche location, or in a niche service . D-Mediastore is a good example of a company providing a niche service in a niche location. Being located in Columbus Ohio and offering CD Duplication and DVD Duplication Services gives D-Mediastore an advantage over larger companies who may not focus on a smaller city like Columbus Ohio. Another example is D & D Media Group, also located in Columbus Ohio. D & D Media Group offers Columbus Ohio website design, E-Commerce website design, and Ohio Internet Marketing. D & D Media Group follows the sample lead as D-Mediastore offering web services in a niche location. The point is to make sure you have focused on a particular market, and that you can serve it better than the bigger players. Specialised sites, focusing on a particular good or service or with a good understanding of their market are most likely to benefit from word-of-mouth promotion and have better chances of being found by search engines. Real Groovy is a great example of combining niche products and an understanding of the local market. Real Groovy, the record store has some of the largest physical music stores in the country, but also has a website that covers 18,000 titles, both new and used; but their greatest success was their ability to make money from their site after one month! It is important that small businesses market their websites offline through traditional media, as well as online. Your business' URL (website address) should appear in all communication produced by your business; it should be in your print and broadcast advertisements, on your letterheads, emails and business cards. Your URL should be included in all white and yellow page listings. If your product has packaging - put it on your package. If you print brochures, put it on those. Put your web address on everything! In addition to more invasive offline advertising, you will need some internet marketing, which (thankfully) is just as cost-effective and efficient for little businesses as for the big players. E-Commerce Times reports that opt-in e-mail programs have been found to be effective in helping small businesses attract targeted and interested customers to their sites. Note though that we are not talking about email spam, or unsolicited commercial email, which often backfires and repels potential customers. Once the visitors arrive at your site, appropriate website technology can offer personalized service, track orders, handle returns and perform other essential tasks. If you provide good personalized customer service, particularly following-up to ensure customers got what they wanted; you will build a loyal customer base and will begin to see repeat purchasing!
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Search Engine Optimization - Columbus Ohio SEO
Is Search Engine Optimization, SEO, worth it?
If you’re questioning whether you should be using search engine optimization to increase your website’s rankings, you probably should start waving now because you’re watching the parade go by. Without SEO you won’t be in the search engines for the long term. And you are in business for the long term, right? You probably can get by with PPC (Pay-Per-Click) campaigns but unless you have deep pockets that can add up fast. SEO is the way to go to have longevity. Now in order to get that longevity we will be putting in some work for you. Getting listed high now-a-days is hard, time consuming work. But if done right the pay off is sweet. To give you an idea of some of the things that are involved with search engine optimization review what we do to get you ranked higher.
