Choosing the right CMS is always a gamble; I either run the risk of choosing a big all-in-one CMS that confuses my clients, or I choose a smaller, newer CMS and discover its flaws on a live site. It’s a bit like the Mac guy vs PC guy ads… A big CMS like Drupal is PC; It has so many features that it just confuses users, but it’s great at getting mundane work done. The smaller CMS like Firerift is Mac; Easy to use, fresh, and cutting edge, but maybe a little wild at times.

Making the decision to go with “the little guy” is not a position I like to put myself in, but sometimes it’s a necessary risk.

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I am proud to announce that Hotcakes New Media has been selected to create the new fundraising experience for leading non-profit organization CUSO-VSO’s newest campaign called “Volunteers for the World”. We will be responsible for all branding and visual imagery, website design and implementation, and Artez fundraising customization, with the possibility of extending into additional work with video, social media and traditional advertising. As a multi-faceted project, Hotcakes New Media will have the opportunity to showcase its strength in providing all creative services in-house under one group vision.

About CUSO-VSO

CUSO-VSO is a non-profit development agency that works through volunteers. They are a member of the VSO International Federation.

Each year, they send hundreds of global citizens to work on collaborative development projects in more than 40 countries in Africa, Asia, the Pacific, Latin America, and the Caribbean. They are one of North America’s leading international development organizations that works through volunteers.

CUSO-VSO volunteers work at the crossroads between hope and hardship. They place people of all ages who have the professional experience, hands-on know-how and perspectives needed to work in partnership with organizations working to overcome poverty and disadvantage in more than 40 developing countries.

Creativity for a cause

Hotcakes New Media is honoured to have been selected for this contract and everyone at Hotcakes is excited to begin this incredible project. We are extremely proud to be working with CUSO-VSO to help fight global poverty and lend our creativity and talent to help make the world a better place.

We will be releasing more details in the weeks that follow, and we hope you will join us in getting involved in fundraising for a great cause.

Andy Morris
Creative Mastermind - Hotcakes New Media

There’s a whole flurry of tweets and articles popping up today about Esquire Magazine’s Augmented Reality issue. For background reference, in case you haven’t heard, Esquire has released a print magazine that features visual barcode blocks that can be held in front of webcams. The user runs an application on their computer, and holds up the magazine to view special video-based content. View the details here: http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/esquires-augmented-reality-issue-hits-newstands/

But that doesn’t make it Augmented Reality (AR). That’s just media tagging. I’m sure there’s some other buzzword out there for this type of interaction, but AR is not it.

This is where all the dismissive article writers are falling short; They are assuming, incorrectly, that AR is about taking something from the real world (the magazine) and extending it into the virtual world (web). See http://www.hanskmeyer.com/archives/86 and http://www.mediabistro.com/agencyspy/opeds/oped_esquires_augmented_reality_misses_the_point_141838.asp for examples of articles that “miss the point”.

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Social media or social networking, as a defined marketing term, has only come to prominence in the past year or so. But social media has been around for years, long before the internet was even around. Today I’m going to explain the evolution of social media, and why social media isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

The BBS

If you’re under 25 years old, you might not have heard of the BBS (Bulletin Board System). I had the distinct pleasure of using BBSs back in the day, with my acoustic coupler 300baud modem. For those who don’t know what that is, it’s a box with two suction cups to wedge a telephone handset into and dial out to other modems. Yes, it was as horrible as it sounds. If you cough, you get disconnected. If you sneeze, you get disconnected. If you breathe too loud, you get disconnected.

Enough nostalgia.

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I’ve recently been contacted about a large contract I am pursuing for Hotcakes New Media. The contract is fairly extensive, and requires branding, video, photography, graphic design, print, web, programming, and custom Artez design for a large non-profit organization. Because of the size of this contract, and the money involved, I’ve been tasked with writing a full proposal to send to the client. Since all other Hotcakes New Media contracts have been under $5000, I hadn’t written any such proposals yet. As I found out, the most difficult part of writing the proposal was deciding how to approach it.

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