Whew, it's been quite the eCommerce summer here at InHaus Media. We just finished launching 2 exciting new eCommerce websites, Inkubus Haberdashery and Rainbow's End Quilt Shoppe. The technology behind these eCommerce sites is amazingly powerful and will give our clients increased control over every facet of their stores; from merchandising to promotions and more. Some of the powerful tools include one page checkout, multiple images per product, product zoom, Google Site Map, meta-information for product categories, flexible coupons and promotional pricing, A/B and multivariate testing, detailed customer accounts, order management, and so much more. Today's consumers want it all and they want it yesterday -and they don't have the time or patience to shop stores that aren't super fast, convenient and consumer-centric.

I always love this time of year! A new year brings new beginnings, new friends, new business, and new opportunities for growth. It's a time to embrace every day with enthusiasm, excitement and vigor. And it's a time to reflect and look at what isn't working, then redirect that energy into a fresh, new approach that will.

That being said, InHaus Media has been working diligently on our Design for Good Challenge. What we've decided is to make our challenge a contest for small business start-ups... you know, people who have started a new company within the past two years and have poured their heart and soul into a great new idea, but who may not have had adequate funds to get a professional website designed and developed. Small businesses rely on having a professional online business image and that's where we can help. We also know how vital small businesses are to our local community, and we want to see them succeed.

Please stay tuned - more details to follow!

My latest obsession is Pandora Radio. If you love music as much as I do and you haven't already checked it out - you've got to! Oh sure, we've already got XM satellite radio, but Pandora is different. Better. Awesome-r. You can use the free version, or if you don't want to be bothered by ads (I like to create them, not have my tuneage interrupted by them! :-) you can pay a small fee for an annual subscription. It even has an iPhone app, so I take it with me where ever I go.

How it works: You can choose from the pre-selected genre stations or create your own, based on a particular artist or song name and it finds songs that have similar musicality. It's not about what a band looks like, or what genre they supposedly belong to, or about who buys their records - it's about what each individual song sounds like. And, if you don't like a song, you can give it a Thumbs Down and it won't play again. If you do like a song, you can give it a Thumbs Up. If you get sick of a song, you can choose to not listen to it for a month! So awsome. Oh yeah, did I mention you can Skip up to 6 songs in an hour. So so awsome.