Last week we released Minimahl, our free WordPress theme. We thought it was bound to bring interesting stories to our studio, mostly because of the wide variety of themes of blogs. We were curious to see who would adopt it and what modifications people would make.

Without a question, the weirdest story came via email from a guy named Brad.

Here’s an excerpt of the email we got from him:

My wife and I just chose your Minimahl theme for the first version of our new blog — urmovingwhere.com. The blog is about our recent move to Montevideo, Uruguay! We just checked out your profile to find that you’re in Uruguay! Of all the themes that we could have chosen–we chose one by a developer in MVD/BsAs area

This coincidence is really weird, especially considering that the theme had just been released after several delays, they had just arrived at Montevideo, and they had just started the blog. Seriously, what are the odds that they pick out a first theme that shared so much with them?

Anyway, Brad and I have become good e-buddies as we share several interests regarding the Internet. I would have never expected something like this from a free WordPress theme, and certainly not so soon after the initial release.

As I write this, I’m sitting down in front of a developer (we’re working late) and he just commented, without knowing that I was blogging this, about the whole situation and how strange it was.

Anyway, we’re happy to have Brad using Minimahl and very satisfied to see that so many people have adopted it as their theme.

As of right now, Minimahl has been downloaded over 900 times from WordPress’ official site. If you want to take it for a spin, you may download the latest version here: http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/minimahl

We’re already working on version 0.9.8, so expect that soon.

We’re happy to present Ahlera’s very own free WordPress theme.  The theme’s name is Minimahl.  As the name suggests, it is a stripped down theme, right down to the bare essentials.

We like the idea of showing the content in a clean and clear way and we think Minimahl is just right for this.

Minimahl has all the bells and whistles, minus the clutter. It supports Gravatars, widgets, etc.

The theme works correctly in standard installations of the following versions of WordPress: 1.5.2, 2.0, 2.3.3, 2.6.5, 2.7, 2.7.1.

There is a single documented issue with the backgrounds on the sidebar in versions 2.1 and 2.2.

Minimahl is also ad-ready. Enabling the ads is very simple. Just follow the instructions in the extensive readme file.

You may download Minimahl from the official WordPress website.  Click here to go straight to the download page.

If you’d like to look through the readme file, click here.

We hope that the WordPress community enjoys Minimahl!

Download Minimahl

Last year I posted a note regarding data safety and how backups are crucial to maintaining your data’s safety.

I also talked about two things that could happen to make your server go missing: police raids (The Pirate Bay) and spontaneous combustion (electrical fires). Well, I don’t want to toot my own horn here, but the whole police raid scenario repeated itself, this time in Dallas.

The FBI pretty much raided an entire datacenter and seized everything because one of the hundreds of servers was involved in the distribution of a pirated movie, leaving hundreds of other innocent clients without their websites, email, etc. This datacenter’s clients includes telecom companies and this raid caused 911 services to be down for some of them. So, if the FBI doesn’t care about something as crucial as 911 services, why should they care about your data?

Read the entire statement written by Matthew Simpson, CEO of Core IP Networks, right here.

So, backup your data! Really.

The Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) reported that last year online advertising spending grew over 10%, outpacing other media and reaching $23.4 billion.

It is time for your brand to get on the Net. If it already is, then you might want to consider reviewing what you have and make the necessary changes to keep up with this medium’s pace. Ask yourself if you have a strategy or if you merely have a website.

Having a website just sitting there is not the same as planning and executing a detailed plan to achieve goals. This isn’t the 90s. Websites must be proactive in every way possible to attract new visitors. The website must also be carefully planned to be able to actually make money with that traffic. Neither of these things are easy to achieve, especially if you don’t have a lot of knowledge on how traffic actually works.

The noticeable increase in advertising is a clear indicator that the Internet is an important medium for sales and the accelerated growth raises questions as to the effectiveness of the traditional, poorly-targeted, mass media advertising efforts.  John Wanamaker said once: “I know that half of my advertising dollars are wasted… I just don’t know which half.” Spending on the Internet is a whole different story as you can usually track your ROI much more effectively and know which half is being wasted.

Given these key advantages, can you bring your offline store online and add another distribution channel to your sales plan? We can definitely help you assess the possibility and build it!

During a meeting on Sunday (yeah, our passion lets us work on Sundays), a rumor was thrown out on the table that really impressed me. A supermarket chain built an online version of their store a couple of years ago. At the time, several questions were raised since the local market didn’t seem ready for virtual supermarkets. Today, that store’s revenue compares to the income generated by any of their other physical branches.

Leap into creating or optimizing your online presence. Give us a call!

Oh, and read the 2008 IAB report. You may also opt to read Tech Crunch’s summary on the matter and, while you’re at it, check out the decline in newspaper advertising revenue.

It has been a great year for Ahlera and we’re projecting an even better one for 2009. Thank you for helping us make it happen!  We really hope to continue helping you grow with your projects.

We’d like to post a note regarding our holiday schedule.

We will be working until 3 pm on December 24th and we will be closed during the entire 25th.  We will resume work as usual after that and work until 3 pm on December 30th.  We will be closed until January 5th 2009.

Hopefully our schedule will not be a problem for your needs.  If you have any questions or comments, you may send them in via our contact form and we’ll answer them as soon as possible.

Everyone at Ahlera would like to thank you for this year full of accomplishments and we’re looking forward to working with you in 2009.

Happy holidays!

I’m not sure if you’re aware of this.  I only noticed it yesterday and was quite surprised.

I’m going to use Argentina as an example, but I’m pretty sure this happens with all localized versions of Google.

When someone in Argentina types in “www.google.com”, they’re automatically redirected to “www.google.com.ar”.  The .ar part corresponds to Argentina.  Unless the user specifies that he wants to use the .com version of Google, all of his searches will be done on the .com.ar Google, which provides totally different results.  Most people prefer to use their localized versions of Google, so it is natural to assume that most Argentineans are searching on www.google.com.ar.

If you’re targeting Argentinean people using Adwords for search, Google displays the ads in google.com.ar’s search results.  As far as I can tell, Google does not display ads in the search results based the seracher’s IP, but by the localized version of Google he uses.

By default, English browser search bars use google.com to process their searches. For instance, if someone from Argentina chooses to use the English version of Firefox, the searches done in Firefox’s Google search bar will be automatically done in google.com, instead of google.com.ar.

Why does this matter?

Pretty much because you aren’t targeting Argentineans or even people in Argentina.  You’re targeting people that use www.google.com.ar, regardless of where they are at. It is quite logical to assume that most people that use the Argentinean version of Google are, in fact, Argentineans.  But what about those Argentineans that use the plain ol’ google.com for their searches or those who excessively use the search bar?  Furthermore, since Argentineans that use the US version of Google seem understand English, do they have a higher purchasing power?  I can’t answer that question as I’ve done no real research on that subject, but my gut tells me they do.

I can’t remember the last time I went to Google.com to search for something.  I exclusively use the search bar in my Firefox browser, thus all of my searches are done on Google.com (by default!) instead of Google.com.uy (Uruguay’s localized version of Google). I’m also a guy that uses the web heavily to buy stuff, so any Uruguayan publishers that use Adwords to target people living in Uruguay are missing out on my excellent predisposition to buy things online because my browser uses Google.com to process all of my searches.

You might argue that my case is too specific and unique to worry about it.  While this is partly true, you do need to consider that every local person I know that speaks English has a higher purchasing power than the average uruguayan and, most importantly, is also more open to buying things online.

I have a friend who is addicted to books.  This month he has spent a lot of money on Amazon and does so month after month.  You should see his personal library, it is quite a spectacle.  He uses Windows Vista in English so his IE is in English.  I’m pretty sure you can tell what version of Google his IE search bar uses.  Local bookstores that use Adwords to target people in Uruguay are missing out on a nice client.  They’re probably not reaching other people like him as well.

The next time you plan an Adwords campaign that targets people in in other countries, especially if you’re aiming at people that are more likely to have international credit cards to be able to make the online purchase, you should definitely consider this small problem.

While this may not be a huge problem, it is something that raises concern around here when planning out an online campaign for the local market.

I woke up this morning only to find that our new design has been featured in CSSMania.com today!

You can check it out and vote for it in the front page here or in the archive here.

.

.

.