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Windows of Opportunity
By Fred Hapgood, a science and
technology writer based in Boston.
Looking to turbocharge your Web site? Start
with these 18 tools
A distinctive
commercial "face" may be even more important in cyberspace
than it is in the real world. After all, on the Web cleverer
graphics and fancier applications are only a click away. Fortunately,
the number of products and services that can put a shine on
a site is exploding. The boom has been fueled by two factors:
an increase in the demand for bells and whistles (the ferocious
competition on the Web requires constant upgrades) and a new
and extremely effective way to distribute software called
"application serving," which is provided by an application
service provider, or ASP.
We thought it
was time to check out the scene. We culled through the scores
of Web tools currently available, looking for those that would
be the most useful for small businesses or had the kind of
bleeding-edge features that would make a site stand out from
the pack.
What follows
is a representative sample of the coolest of the cool among
them:
Affiliates
Ads Infinitum
Perhaps the most legitimate way to pay for advertising is
according to goods sold -- that is, on a commission basis.
Sites that host ads under such an arrangement are called affiliates,
or sometimes associates. In an affiliate arrangement, a qualified
authority (you, for example) presents a list of goods and
endorses them, together with a link to a vendor. If sales
result from that endorsement, the vendor pays the endorser
a commission. The system seems to work: bounties have crept
as high as 30% for some high-end goods like gift items. If
you're interested in becoming an affiliate, contact one of
the many Web-based companies, including Befree.com and Affiliaterecruiters.com,
that have sprung up to handle the recruitment process.
Animation
What's Up, .doc?
Web-site animation -- which once was confined to flapping
flags and the like -- is growing steadily more ambitious,
taking the eye of the viewer on complex paths through scenes
and around objects. While content development can cost tens
of thousands of dollars -- the animator usually has to hand-build
several 3-D objects, define the direction of the lighting,
and move the camera through the scene -- the technique can
communicate vast amounts of information.
To view some
impressive examples, visit the Web site of Animation
Technologies, a visual-communications company based in
Boston. On display might be anything from engineering processes
(for example, the steel skeleton of a building for a forensic
analysis of a failed I beam) to architectural visualizations
(a proposed interior design of corporate office space) to
infomercials (a demonstration of the Stim-u-lure, a popular
fishing lure).
Animation Technologies
will visit your company to interview the players and collect
the props for any show you want to present. It will then draw
the 3-D objects and return them to you in digitized form to
load on your server. (Prices vary according to the job.)
If you already
have photos of the objects you want to present, you might
try Canoma, by MetaCreations
($469), an off-the-shelf software product that builds 3-D
models from 2-D photographs of objects shot from a variety
of perspectives. After you've scanned the photos into your
computer or transferred them from your digital camera, you
use Canoma to build a wire-frame model of each object. Then,
one by one, you "clip" the myriad photos of each object to
the model and -- voilà! -- a seamless theater-in-the-round.
MORE
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