E-magination Blog

Want to maximise your use of the internet?
Turn our passion for the web into your competitive business advantage.
You can keep up to date with e-magination, Datalink's blog devoted to business, technology and all things internet.

LG 3.0 - Collaborative ICT Delivery

25 June 2008

The Local Government Technology Solutions Conference is back on at the Sofitel, Melbourne Thursday 14 to Friday 15 August 2008.

At Datalink, we're looking forward to attending this conference.  We've been quite busy servicing this market of late, with a number of councils using Freestyler CMS as their enterprise content management platform, several councils using our Central Intranet portal and with several new councils on board with our web2.0 application - Youth Portal.  We've had some great success with these projects and look forward to discovering the latest trends in local government techology to apply new solutions for our customers.

This yea'r program is a little different, with some new speakers.

Continue reading LG 3.0 - Collaborative ICT Delivery

Comments (0)

City of Monash to develop Youth Directory

06 June 2008

Following consultation with the Monash Youth Reference Group, Datalink is working with Monash Youth Services to develop a dynamic directory of local youth clubs to run alongside its recently redesigned website.  The Web 2.0 project is one of the first of its kind aimed specifically at a young audience.

The database, which will be built up over time through the involvement of local groups is aimed at both stimulating involvement in local clubs and community organisations and helping promote the clubs.  Through Internet search engines, social media such as MySpace, events and video, clubs can get increased exposure through the council's online content network.  The system is aimed at enabling users to find clubs near them and subscribe to news and updates directly from them.

Currently in the design stages, the Online Youth Directory is expected to be released in the coming months.

Comments (0)

Email Marketing using Freestyler CMS - How it stacks up

07 May 2008 - By Sean Fishlock

I've been hearing a lot about Constant Contact (and to a lesser extent Vision 6) lately, and these types of email marketing in a box applications seem to have great appeal to people and is very popular.
I recently visited a client who used it regularly.  So I got a good opportunity to see what it could do and how it worked for them and the penny dropped.  After I had reviewed it, I explained to my client how they already had most of the functions in their Datalink Freestyler, they nearly choked as they told me how much they were paying to use the Constant Contact application.  When I came across a second and third contact who uses that or similar applications, I started to think about blogging on the topic.

Datalink actually once offered a similar product based on Freestyler CMS, but decided that we don't really want to compete in this space, so I'm not really afraid to make comparisons with more specialised products.  However our own customers, really don't need this application.  Most of what it offers is actually built-in to Freestyler.  All you have to do is harness its power. 

In terms of email marketing, products like Constant Contact appear to offer a lot.  What Constant Contact and others like it can't do, however, is integrate with your website CMS.  This is really important for a number of reasons, especially if you are running a customer portal, member portal or extranet on your site.  Conversely, if you are a fan of Constant Contact, and want something integrated into your CMS, then Freestyler could be for you.

So I thought I'd make a brief comparison between Freestyler and Constant Contact and other applications just like it.  I've also provided a brief video demo explaining what Freestyler is capable of in the area of email marketing.

So what do services like Constant Contact actually do ?
Constant Contact is an email marketing service.  You pay a monthly fee based on the number of people in your email list.  On the surface it looks cheap, but when you consider the amount per month it is actually quite expensive.  With Freestyler on the other hand, you get unlimited email sending capacity included with your licence.

Let's have a look at the specific features available:
Continue reading Email Marketing using Freestyler CMS - How it stacks up

Comments (0)

E-magination Archive

Promotional Banner
Our project team is always in sync now we use a central project portal. Click here to find out how.
Creative e-business