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Implementation of CONTACT on the website is very flexible. We offer ready-to-go state of the art solutions to raw XML files.
EVEREST SOUTH Demo Site
SOUTH POLE Demo Site
We have been involved in more than 500 websites so don't hesitate to ask for examples on how expeditions work with CONTACT.
The dispatches will be published to a rather long and inconvenient address (www.humanedgetech.com/expedition/yourname) and even though some expeditions leave it like that, it's more stylish if you use your own domain address.
To check what domains are free try www.networksolutions.com and you can get instant answers on what is available.
You can then register the domain and set it up at a web hosting provider of your choice or you can host your domain with us (see below).
HumanEdgeTech are presently using Rackspace's facilities to host our servers. Rackspace is constantly being rated among the 3 best server halls in US. Initial setup is $110 followed by $10/month. Registration fee of domain 1 year is $40. You will have FTP access.
The HumanEdgeTech team will work with you to apply the styles of your present
website to the website system. If you provide a template we will apply it
without extra cost. If the work we have to do is more complex and time consuming
we will offer you a low price for extra adjustments.
If you already have a webmaster we encourage you to include him in a discussion
as early as possible.
The CONTACT standard solutions offers easy to navigate systems with state of
the art custom made flash maps (check if available for your expedition) and one
page navigation systems (no reloads). We can change colors, ad sponsor banners
etc for free to these solutions and it's an opportunity to go from no website to
an advanced website in a day or two.
We encourage you to take a look at the ready made systems and see if they can
work for you.
The CONTACT system have password protected system where you can:
An expedition site often peaks in interest within a couple of month of it's creation, then rapidly decrease to a lower level. Out of 44 expedition websites from Everest 2003, only 14 existed 4 years later, and very few had been updated after 2003.
Searching Google for the keyword "Everest", websites like
www.mounteverest.net and www.everestnews.com will not unexpectedly top the list.
But what is more surprising is that only one (1!) of the expedition websites of
2003 is listed among the 100 first results at Google.
Extending our search to all Everest expedition websites in the history of
internet it is only 4 that make the first 100. Two of these websites have
continuing doing general updates after the expedition.
Commercial outfitters that repeatedly guide Everest doesn't do much better.
Again keyword "Everest", no outfitter makes the top 50 results and only 5 make
the 100 list.
Expedition News portals like Explorersweb now reach a far bigger audience
than outdoor printed media like Outside and National Geographic Adventure.
The websites covers a mass of expeditions and provide expedition lists and
sometimes wrap-ups and if you submit your expedition to these websites it's
likely you will be covered.
The expedition portals also is frequently read and contacted for information by
main stream media, so it's a door to getting on TV and news magazine.
Unless you have a contact or a very well recognized name CNN will not follow your expedition. Local media will however, and just as the expedition news portals, they will be read by other media. Always ask reporters to mention your website name.
If you are running a high-profile expedition and media is very important for you, invest in a PR company to assist you. Make sure you always read press-releases before they are sent out. Over selling the difficulties of the expedition could backfire and give you negative press.
Make sure you put the updated content on the home page of the site. When you
visit www.cnn.com you expect the latest breaking news to be right in front of
your eyes, not 3 clicks away - build your website the same way.
The website homepage should be a page for the expeditions latest content, NOT
the webmaster's forum for showing off his design skills.
Modern technologies like Flash and Ajax have revolutionized the user experience
with no or few reloads of contents and fast access to rich content. If you would
like journalists to write about you, make sure they can easily copy images and
text (sometimes not possible in Flash) or they will quickly get impatient.
Always start updating the website well before the expedition. Just as you
need to practice climbing you need to practice communicating with your audience.
Update on a regular basis. A picture and a short text only take 30 min to create
and will build a faithful following.
A common mistake by expeditions is to focus to much on cool videos and audio
files and too little on text and photos. While the Contact system offers both
video and audio updates (podcasts) our experience is that the internet audience
is far more interest in text updates and images.
Well written (exciting, funny, interesting, scary) dispatches is what build
repetitive visitors and media coverage. Use headlines, image captions and intro
texts to the fullest to captivate.
If you do video and audio, make it short and exciting. There is really no reason
why your visitors should watch you talking inside your tent for 2 minutes when
you could just as well have written it. Now, if you shoot an avalanche, climbing
or other exciting stuff, that's a different story. Keep media files short. 15 -
20 seconds is often enough.
The CONTACT system offers an alert system that will automatically send out an email to your visitors when a new dispatch is published. This system is essential to drive traffic and recognition to your expedition. It also raise the expeditions goodwill since visitors will always have new content and not waste time.
Blackberry, PDA phones and other mobile devices with access to websites are
becoming more and more common. The mobile units do most often not support
advanced web technology like Flash and Ajax and uses smaller displays. When a
visitor logs in to the CONTACT system they will be automatically redirected to a
"mini" expedition site adopted for mobile phones.
Using a frame solution is the easiest and fastest way to include the CONTACT
system in your website. Frames have been used with a single 1 pixel topframe to
more elaborate frame systems.
A major advantage of using frames or iframes (see below) is that all of the
CONTACT systems map functions, tabs, one-page Ajax navigation, alerts, mobile
phone site etc will be functional.
More the 2/3 of our customers use frames or iframe solutions including some of
the largest and most qualified designers.
Frames have a bad reputation among some professionals that claims that the
layout looks bad and that the search engines will not index frames site.
The layout argument lack validity since there is no practical reason why a frame based webpage couldn't look just as good as a linear page.
The search engine argument is correct, BUT with proper coding both a frame
and iframe can be handled in an accepted way by Google and other search engines.
The static NOFRAMES text below will be read by spiders and also offer an
alternative to the few surfers that use a non-frames compatible browser.
Make sure to add comprehensive META tags to further allow for accurate indexing.
Also check the article
http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2167901
A nice and free spider simulator can be found at
http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools/spider-simulator/
iFrames have been used with very nice result. The whole CONTACT system have
been accessed through isframe solutions as well as the stand alone GEO map.
The iFrame can be made to totally blend in to your website by applying the
correct with and height i combination with frameborder="0" and scrolling="0"
To get the iframe content indexed by search engines like Google provide a link
to the CONTACT page inside the iframe tag (see href in example). The href text
could be anything, but will also show up in very simple/old browser and offer an
alternative link to the dispatch content (also read about frames above)
Providing the iframe URL in a SITEMAP would also allow for Google indexing of
content.
Below is an example code for an iframe.
PHP includes are a more elegant way to include the dispatch page. The advantage being that the php code of the CONTACT page will actually be executed within the start and end tag of the host page.
Spiders will index without problem.
Make sure that "URL fopen wrappers" are enabled in your PHP configuration (it
is enabled as default).
Note that the CONTACT Ajax based dispatch solutions will not work properly in a
PHP include. Non Ajax solutions (available) will parse fine.
Both the PHP 'include' statement and 'file_get_conents' will work. Both example
below.
It should be possible to get an ASP include to pick up a php file.
HumanEdgeTech can provide an XML feed which will give the webdesigner the greatest degree of freedom. The feed will be updated with 5 min intervals. Our experience with webmaster using feeds have been mixed. Often the time needed is underestimated and the end result could prove little advantage.
Example of the XML document below. Media will be referred to.