|
|
|
|
|
|
|
In a sea of competitors you are one!
We make you Number One! |
|
|
|
| Greetings! |
 We are excited to again share some current industry news and studio happenings with you. We hope you will find this issue informative, useful and applicable to you.
Again, thank you for your continued business and the responsibility you continue to place in our hands.
As always, feel free to contact us with any questions you might have. |
| Welcome! |
Since our last newsletter, we would like to welcome the following new client to our growing family...
Sun Valley Printing
Binghamton, NY
We are happy to have you on board! |
| New Sites... | |
This month we launched the following new sites...
We have more in development! Be sure to check back next month! |
|
 |
|
|
| Caution! Domain Slamming! |  To take some of you on a trip down memory lane... Years ago when the phone industry was going through a period of reorganization and many of the large conglomerates were being taken apart, several small companies came out of nowhere. These companies saw began taking advantage of many consumers' confusion and or lack of knowledge on what was happening with their phone service. It was not uncommon for phone customers to receive a postcard in the mail or a phone call from a telemarketer and after a very brief response without a full disclosure, a phone customers long-distance service could be switched to a company they had no intention of switching to. As a result of multiple consumer complaints, often after receiving excessive fees for long-distance, the government stepped in and regulated the process of switching between long-distance carriers. The term slamming was born.
Today something similar is occurring throughout the World Wide Web. Many consumers are purchasing domain names independently or through a web design studio such as Grey Goose Graphics from reputable domain registries or hosting companies. When done correctly the actual domain name is registered to the consumer or company for whom the website is being built. This results in the name of the individual or company being revealed on their registry information. Several smaller companies are taking advantage of the availability of this information and soliciting consumers to switch domain registry companies, often without informed consent or full disclosure. The most common tactic is to send a letter of impending expiration just prior to the domain names actual expiration date. When the consumer completes the registration card and/or sends a check, the domain is then transferred to the new registry company.
Web companies, unlike the phone companies are significantly less regulated. While phone slamming remains illegal and subject to prosecution in many states, domain slamming is relatively new and remains unenforced. A means of prevention exists, however it also has some drawbacks. Registration data may be blinded or made private for anannual fee from $8-$15 per year. Law enforcement still has the ability to access this information yet it remains blinded to general web users, other companies, or any other solicitors that may be looking to utilize this information. A drawback to privacy services is that they limit their ability to rapidly transfer domains from one company to another for legitimate reasons. It also prevents reputable companies from using this data to contact domain owners.
Over the past three weeks several of our clients have contacted us after receiving these hoax renewal letters. They have been primarily generated from the company "Domain Registry of America" (Which by the way is not an American held company, its corporate headquarters are in London, England.). We wanted to bring this issue to your attention for three reasons;
- If you receive one of these letters, or something similar, please feel free to discard it. As a service to all Grey Goose Graphics clients we automatically track and process renewals as appropriate for our clients. You do not need to worry about your domain name expiring or the need to take any additional action.
- If you find these types of solicitations bothersome, there are fee-based privacy services available to you. If you are interested, please contact us for advice on the subject.
- If you have responded to one of these letters by mistake, please contact us and we can review the conditions associated with the agreement that you signed. Depending on the terms and conditions, we may be able to transfer your domain name to another registry for up to 90 days. It is essential that we know if something like this occurs with your account so we may continue to direct your web address to your hosting account. Again, if you have any questions we are available to you.
|
| Grey Goose Graphics experimenting with new technology |  As we continue our quest for new and improved ways to leverage technology, increase efficiencies and maximize our clients' return on investment as well as our studios bottom line, we are always looking for new ways, processes or technology to support this goal.
We are currently working with new voice recognition software and noise limiting headsets to assist us in our daily data processing. From writing proposals, contracts and letters, responding to e-mails, or quickly converting handwritten text from a fax to web content we anticipate this technology reducing the often significant and sometimes tedious processing time. Unlike the speech recognition technology of the past, this new technology is accurate, relatively inexpensive and does not require a long training or startup process. If this is something that you or your company may benefit from feel free to contact us for additional details.
|
| New version of FLASH released... |
 For those of you following the Internet news Adobe recently released a new mobile version of Flash. Several of our clients have recently contacted us for an explanation of what this means to them, their website and the potential of new technology on the horizon. To bring everyone up to speed, Flash is the code or platform which is often associated with complex animation and audio. It also supports video integration used in web and application development. From day one Flash had many obstacles preventing it from becoming mainstream on the web. It could often require large amounts of bandwidth, can be complex and expensive to develop, and requires a similar amount of time and/or expense to maintain. Flash requires a plug-in to be downloaded to view Flash components or websites using a PC. It has not always been able to be viewed on the different Apple platforms.
Several years ago an improvement of Flash penetration was made possible through quicker processors and the movement from dial-up to broadband Internet services. This improvementwas still significantly slowed with the emergence of new handheld technology. The smaller browsers did not have the capabilities to decode and display Flash. In fact, many of the cellular services did not and still do not provide the required bandwidth.
Most recently a battle between development companies emerged when the new Apple iPad was released without Flash capabilities. Research in Motion, the company who makes BlackBerry had actually refused to develop their devices to accommodate Flash.
 Jumping ahead to today... YouTube and several other multimedia sites have put a significant amount of pressure on the handheld industry to be able to display multimedia presentations. Cellular providers have made significant investments in their technology offering networks with 3G and soon to be 4G services. Improvements in Flash video now make it one of the most compact formats to stream making it very attractive to not only the web industry but also the handheld industry.
Adobe has made significant investments in this technology and recently released version 10.1 of Adobe Flash Mobile. Flash is currently only reliable on handheld devices running Windows OS. We anticipate that significant expansion may be right around the corner. The Android operating system has already made commitments to release a Flash compatible browser with its next version. BlackBerry labs and Research in Motion specifically have taken initiatives for integration with their platform as well.
The Apple Corporation appears to be one of the last holdouts for this technology. It is believed that their motivation is to avoid cannibalizing its market share since it currently delivers its own streaming movies on demand.
 So what does this mean for you? As the Flash operating system has improved so haveFlash development tools. Recently, Grey Goose Graphics updated to a new version of Adobe Creative Suite that included the new software Adobe Flash Catalyst. This software is intended to further reduce development costs making Flash more cost-effective to a wider variety of users.
Flash development remains significantly more expensive than the current alternatives. We anticipate continual developments from Adobe over the next several years that will reduce costs of development and maintenance of Flash related components and projects.
Grey Goose Graphics is committed to providing you with the latest options in technology. As you can see, we have taken several initiatives to continue to grow in the area of Flash development. We look forward to sharing new developments with you in the near future.
|
| Fall Schedule Starts September 1, 2010 |
 With the end of summer quickly approaching we will be returning our core business hours to Monday -Friday from 8:30am to 5:00pm. We remain available outside of these core hours by appointment only.
|
|
|
|
Thank you for your continued business and spending some time with us today. We value you as a customer and continue to enjoy our relationship with you.
Sincerely,
John J. Hussar
Owner/Principle Designer
Grey Goose Graphics, LLC |
|
|
|
|
|
