We use Wordpress for this blog. A great feature of wordpress is the ability to use plugins. Plugins are self-contained code modules that interface automatically - without programming - to the wordpress architecture, providing new functionality. In that we wished to add a Digg widget to our articles, showcasing how often our articles are dugg and providing an easy way for our readers to promote our site, we looked for a plugin that could do this for us. We found one quickly, and installed it in about 10 minutes.

The plugin works great and can be easily viewed from the articles on our site, including this one. The downside is that this plugin is not 100% clean and required minor modifications to our theme code. A full-featured plugin would not have this limitation. However, the included installation instructions highlighted what was required, it was easy to install nontheless, and the end result is very nice.

As of 3am this morning, we have activate Google’s AdSense on our website. This is the de facto starting point in internet advertising for low traffic web sites. While we expect to get big, everyone starts from zero and has to build an audience. We want that audience to realize early on how we seek to operate and make enough money to sustain our business.

Interestingly, Google has been slowly expanding AdSense. First it added AdSense for Search. Custom Search Engine can now be integrated to expand the possibilities. You can control what is searchable, how results are displayed, and earn revenue from ads displayed with the search results. This is really a useful way to control searches within your own site, within a targeted group of sites, or the wide world of Google.

Now Google has unveiled AdSense for YouTube Video. You knew this was coming when Google purchased YouTube, but now it is available. Ads display inside the video frame while the selected video is running. The video content comes from YouTube, but you can display the video and earn ad revenue from doing so on your website. If you have relevant video content to display, this seems like a no-brainer.

Next up is Google AdSense for mobile phones. Many mobiles don’t support Javascript, the default method of AdSense activation. AdSense for mobile is available today in the US and should be available elsewhere shortly. As it isn’t available yet where I live, I don’t know the technology involved and which cell phones the technology will support, but if your site supports mobile, this is a big win. Particularly for international sites - in some countries there is more mobile web traffic than standard computer web traffic. There are over 2 billion mobile devices active around the globe - far larger than the installed computer base.

Anyway, I suspect it’ll be some time before we earn our first Google paycheck, but another milestone has been conquered. Stay tuned!

Traditional landline works great. There is something to be said for stable, reliable service. There is generally a perception of price gouging but it is fairly easy to choose your own long distance provider separately and, locally, we now have a choice of vendor for local service as well.

Online telephony still isn’t 100% reliable and service quality, while at times great, can be less than desirable. Generally the long distance aspects are cheap and you can yak all you want.

Mobility is the strength of cellular. Excluding that, mobile combines the worse of landlines (higher cost) and online (lower reliability).

At Alamazoo, we decided to start with mobile phones as we wanted to have easy access 24/7 to our staff during the early start-up phase. With that in mind, mobiles were a requirement, and the question was whether to have multiple phone systems or not. We chose not to. Our mobile plan provides for unlimited in-bound calling which we think will help to keep the phone bills low. We will probably re-evaluate in 6 months but for now we’re happy with this solution.

Here it is January 14 and our blog is active. Not exactly a record, but moving in the right direction!

To get here we formed the corporation. This meant legal forms to the government officially creating the company, defining its articles and share structure, and appointing directors and officers. Today in Canada that can be done online and paid for by credit card, and the approval process was very quick. We applied January 1 and were certified January 4. We did do a name approval first - ensuring the name Alamazoo Enterprises Inc. was an acceptable name for use and did not infringe on other business names.

In parallel we secured network servers and co-location hosting. While not the cheapest entry level solution, we wanted fine control over our systems and this provides us with complete control to mess up! We choose a LAMP style solution and a MVC architectural design pattern. Tastes vary, but we have experience with this platform and can both prototype and develop quality production code quickly.

At this point we are anticipating launching our website in March. I hope you join us for the ride!