Using QR codes to purchase specific groceries from a subway station, which are then delivered to your door the same day? Sounds like something Ocado would/should jump on soon enough.

Have a project you want to discuss? By all means – get in touch!

• A social network (built on Buddypress) designed specifically for expatriated Anglophones living in Paris. With illustrations and creative direction provided by Brighton-based FentonForeman, the project saw CarbonGraffiti design & optimise the interface & user experience and develop the site on the Buddypress platform. The result: a full-scale social network where expats can meet, interact and share tips on Parisian hotspots and life in Paris with one another. The site, built in HTML5 and using @font-face and other CSS3 goodies, uses media queries and responsive design to cater to a mobile audience. The site will go live in Q2, 2011.
• A multichannel solution for a professional speakers management company in Australia – CarbonGraffiti created and launched a rebranded, MailChimp newsletter and accompanying WordPress-powered blog, to help the company grow their existing email marketing database and communicate with their readership more effectively. The project originally started as an RSS-driven campaign, but after determining the need for additional functionality, the campaign became a fully editable, branded newsletter to match the new blog style. The blog was built in HTML5 and will be used as the primary news and article section for the client’s existing website.
• Ongoing digital marketing consultation and campaign management for a startup specializing in the training and education of clinical research nurses. Services range from custom MailChimp template coding (based on a design by the illustrious Jon Hicks who also did the site design) to PPC and email marketing setup, management and consultation.
• Designed, developed and launched a website for a new startup offering premium accommodation to international students through purpose-built hotel-quality centres throughout the UK. The site, built in HTML5 and powered by WordPress, uses media queries and responsive design to cater to a growing mobile audience. As a result of this successful phase, CarbonGraffiti has been invited to tender for the larger second phase of the company’s impressive growth trajectory.
• Continued 1-day email marketing workshops in central Brighton, covering the basics of email marketing, from history, jargon and best practices to a hands-on demo and case studies. The courses are offered at Silicon Beach Training in Brighton’s North Laines.
• Designed and developed a custom MailChimp email template for an LA-based actress, to be used as part of her promotional kit and new personal brand. Based on the success of the template, CarbonGraffiti has been commissioned to redesign and develop the full website and brand identity.
• Ongoing digital marketing support for a well-known Montreal-based ESP.
• Gave a presentation at English UK’s annual marketing conference at the Westminster Conference Centre in London, focusing on ‘The future of digital marketing’ as related to the English Language Training industry and the many challenges and opportunities it faces today.
• A few basic trade industry sites we’ve designed and/or coded in the past have now gone live, see them here. The Garatec site was built on Shopify, coded by CarbonGraffiti for a local web agency.

That’s it?

That’s just the tip of the iceberg – we’ve worked with some great clients not included in the above list, and are always on the look out for more. If you want to be one of them, get in touch today.

Much like Twitter, the key to this meteoric growth is thanks in no small part to its simplicity – Twitter’s basic concept means people can effectively mold it into whatever they want it to be. The same goes for WordPress – it’s obviously a web publishing platform at heart, but due to it’s feature set, endless extendability and open-source nature, it can be (and has been) used for just about anything – from contact managers to full-blown CMS’ and ecommerce stores.

However, with all that said, a plain and simple WordPress install rarely gets it to become any of those things. That’s where plugins come in, and without the thriving WordPress plugin community/ecosystem, WordPress might have faded into obscurity long ago (just think of Twitter again, and imagine if there were no 3rd-party apps – just the web interface to use? Blasphemy).

There’s a plugin for that

There’s a plugin for literally just about anything you might need. Taking a quick stroll through the directory and you’re sure to find solutions for problems you’ll never have. But there are always developers toiling away at making those obscure plugins, and to make a plugin you need a solid understanding of PHP, an idea, time, and devotion. These things aren’t free in the normal marketplace, so why should creating a plugin on WordPress.org be free?

The commercialization of WordPress themes took off some time ago, and many designer/developers are now getting steady income streams solely from their passion for web design and grasp of WordPress’ backend. Their themes are licensed on a flat fee, with the extent of backend customization often the defining factor for the price points. However, I’ve noticed that the plugin community seems conspicuously free of charge, but for how long?

Recently it’s dawned on me that some plugins are crucial to each and every site I build for a client, and as such I’d happily pay for them. Yet at the same time I’m not sure a flat-fee licensing scheme would be as widely accepted as full-blown front-end themes. Paying $59.95 for a plugin just doesn’t seem right, as often WordPress themes are purchased by end consumers – not producers – in the vast ecosystem of WordPress. Plugins are targeted to the producers first and foremost, and unless the license fee is passed on to the client, most WP developers wouldn’t take kindly to paying $50 for an sIFR plugin, would they?

Go Micro

Enter the concept of micropayments. Theoretically, much like Apple’s app store and iTunes, plugin users would create an account on WordPress.org and ‘top up’ with funds, similar to a Starbucks coffee card. When downloading a plugin for a site build or other project, a small payment is made to the original developer from the account. Costs would range anywhere from $0.02 cents to $20.00, where the value and price point is based on complexity, demand, and community-powered ratings.

The main issue with micropayments is that the cost of transactions is often higher than the micropayment itself. The use of a pre-funded account would mean plugin users could ‘top up’ with more normal amounts like £20 rather than £0.02, £0.05, £1.05 and so on. The recipient/developer accounts would be tied to their PayPal accounts, and paid in once an amount threshold is reached.

More monetization on a micro level satisfies both sides of the equation – the better a plugin does, the more incentivized that developer is to make improvements, updates and create similar plugins. Similarly, the lesser quality plugins are weeded out by natural selection. A microcost for downloading reduces the barrier to something resembling free, yet based on a quick scan of the more popular plugins out there (All in one SEO pack, for instance), the daily download rate is topping 16,000. 16k! At just $0.05 USD per download, based on a micropayments premise, that equates to $800 *per day* with WordPress presumably getting a base commission from that. That’s likely enough incentive for creating a robust, high-quality plugin. The all time stats for the same SEO plugin? 3,894,00 downloads and still going strong. You do the maths, but trust me – it’s a high enough number that would have most would-be plugin developers scrambling for their keyboards, code editors and an idea for a great plugin.

I’m willing to pay in micropayments for my use of the crucial plugins I need for client site-builds. Clearly I’m not the only one, and implementing this system would only benefit the community as a whole. Sure, I realize it conflicts drastically with the concept of ‘open source’, but then aren’t WordPress themes doing the exact same thing? And doing it well, making money, and expanding WordPress’ reach in the process?