Are you looking to get into the exciting world of mobile application
development? Studio Symposium, a New Jersey based mobile application
development company, is currently looking for part-time developers.
Telecommuting and your hourly requirement commitment are variable.
Applicant must have existing knowledge of available SDKs for iOS 3.0
and later, Android and Blackberry a plus.

PRIMARY DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES:

This position will be responsible for the development, design,
maintenance and troubleshooting of mobile applications for different
mobile devices, with an emphasis on the iPhone, Android, Blackberry
and Windows Phone 7 devices. Requirements may vary from assignment to
assignment.

Requirements:

- Demonstrable experience in at least two of the major mobile SDKs
(iOS, Android, Blackberry, Windows Phone 7)

- Working knowledge of the said associated documentation and
associated design paradigms

- Experience with Xcode, Eclipse (or equivalent) and Visual Studio

- Ability to work independently with focus on client needs and deadlines

- Experience communicating with project and source management services
including Basecamp, Highrise and Subversion

Desirable:

- Knowledge of mobile development practices, comprehension of
conservative programming techniques

- Ability to seamlessly integrate interaction design goals into application

- Comfortable working in a multidisciplinary environment, familiar
with the design process, collaborating with designers and working with
design communication tools such as wireframes.

Provide your resume, a portfolio or references about past projects and
a few paragraphs about yourself. Required commitment anticipated
between 20-30 hours weekly. Hourly commitment may change from
assignment to assignment. Please click below to apply:

Apply Now

 

Studio Symposium is hiring creative designers to join our team of talented individuals. We are a mobile application and web design company, and are currently expanding our team of in-house developers, and would like a graphic designer to join the team. This is a part time position, if you’d like to apply, please click the “Apply Now” button at the bottom of the post.

Responsibilities:

- Collaborate with Development team to create user interface based on client input and constructed wireframe diagrams
- Engineer client vision into mobile space using intuitive control schemes and visually appealing interface components
- Deliver all appropriate assets in timely fashion according to milestones set by project

Experience:

- 2-5 years of Adobe Photoshop experience a must
- 2-5 years of Adobe Illustrator experience a plus
- Collaborative management tools experience such as Basecamp a plus

Please send all resumes, along with a brief overview of your capabilities and a paragraph about yourself to the email address listed below. Please also be prepared to include a .pdf of your portfolio of past work. The anticipated job commitment is between 15 to 20 hours a week, competitive pay, and work remote. Please click below to apply, and thank you for your time, we look forward to working with you!

Apply Now

 

Studio Symposium is hiring sales professionals in New Jersey!  We are a mobile application and web development firm, and we are currently looking for a talented individual to join our sales team. Work remotely and make money based on a competitive commission structure.

Required Responsibilities:

- Respond to given leads in a timely fashion.

- Facilitate working relationships with an eager client base.

- Actively work with development team to produce estimates and contracts based on customer input.

- Work directly with management to train in best customer acquisition techniques.

Required Experience:

- 3-5 years experience in sales a must

- Ability to talk with technologists about their practices and sell their product a must.

- Working knowledge of mobile applications and web development a must.

- Existing knowledge of client resource management tools a plus.

- Existing knowledge of project management tools a plus.

Provide your resume,  references and a few paragraphs about yourself.  Required commitment anticipated between 20-30 hours weekly.  Hourly commitment may change from week to week.  Please click below to apply:

Apply Now

 

Studio Symposium is hiring for part-time web developers!  Join our expanding team and work on exciting projects to help us move forward.  Work remotely and enjoy generous compensation.
SKILLS REQUIRED:


UI Developer, Front End UI Developer, Front End Web Developer, Software Engineer, Software Developer, Front End, Developer, Web Developer, Front End Engineer, UI
JOB DESCRIPTION:


Web Developer – Front End UI Developer – Front End Web Developer, Javascript

A fun, closely-knit company is searching for a creative, talented and self-motivated Front End Web Developer to join its technical team!

What You Will Be Doing!

As a member of this exceptional team, you’ll have the opportunity to collaborate on and produce a wide range of website solutions based on customer input and requirements.

What We Need From You!

- Fluency with Javascript.
- 1+ years building applications using JavaScript libraries (YUI, jQuery, etc.).
- Bachelor’s degree.
- XHTML and CSS.
- Flash experience.
- Solid UI/UX design skills, and an eye for exceptional visual design.

Provide your resume, a portfolio or references about past projects and a few paragraphs about yourself.  Required commitment anticipated between 20-30 hours weekly.  Hourly commitment may change from assignment to assignment.  Please click below to apply:

Apply Now

 

Are you looking to get into the exciting world of mobile application development?  Studio Symposium, a New Jersey based mobile application development company, is currently looking for part-time developers.  Telecommuting and your hourly requirement commitment are variable.  Applicant must have existing knowledge of available SDKs for iOS 3.0 and later, Android and Blackberry a plus.

PRIMARY DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES:

This position will be responsible for the development, design, maintenance and troubleshooting of mobile applications for different mobile devices, with an emphasis on the iPhone, Android, Blackberry and Windows Mobile 7 devices.  Requirements may vary from assignment to assignment.

Requirements:

- Demonstrable iOS SDK Development experience

- Working knowledge of the iOS SDK documentation and associated design paradigms

- Ability to work independently with focus on client needs and deadlines

- Experience communicating with project and source management services
Desirable:

- Knowledge of mobile development practices, comprehension of conservative programming techniques

- Ability to seamlessly integrate interaction design goals into application

- Comfortable working in a multidisciplinary environment, familiar with the design process, collaborating with designers and working with design tools such as wireframes.
Provide your resume, a portfolio or references about past projects and a few paragraphs about yourself.  Required commitment anticipated between 20-30 hours weekly.  Hourly commitment may change from assignment to assignment.  Please click below to apply:

Apply Now

 

Blog Comments Don’t Count As Backlinks

On August 10, 2010, in SEO, by cculos

Hey, idiots: I’ve spent week after week eliminating spam comments from my blog. My email goes off every 20 minutes with people (spammers) posting their website with useless crap. A bit of a hint for you guys:

If you are trying to build (or pay someone to build) back links – blog comments do not count 99% of the time! The only way they would actually count is if there is a “dofollow” tag associated with them, and even then, chances are the moderator of the blog isn’t stupid enough to let this crap through.

To these scam artists trying to make a quick buck off of poor shlubs trying to increase their natural exposure to search engines: Knock it off. We know what you’re doing, and it’s annoying for everyone involved, and a scam in the purest sense of the word. I find it hard to believe, for example, that my blog now has 100 total comments when, honestly, I don’t have a very large reach as far as my audience is concerned. Out of that 100, a whopping 79 of them I’ve marked as spam. This is because they either advertise a product or build back links. It’s terrible form, and they know it.

Good luck spamming fellas, you won’t find any sanctuary here.

Tagged with:  

Advertising for Growth

On July 18, 2010, in Business Development, by Chris Culos

Part One: Guerrilla Marketing

Guerrilla MarketingGuerrilla Marketing is an essential part of any advertisers plan of attack; be it on online only business or a company looking to establish it’s brand into the virtual space, Guerrilla Marketing cannot be ignored. In the first installment of this series, I spoke about defining a advertising budget and briefly outlined a few aspects of marketing that I believe are proven and mainstream. The first of which is Guerrilla Marketing techniques.

For anyone that needs a definition of Guerrilla Marketing, simply look to YouTube for examples. In my previous blog entry, I mention how companies such as Old Spice understands the value of viral marketing, (in this case, in a video format), and is considered a form of Guerrilla Marketing.

Guerrilla Marketing is often times relatively free if you’re willing to do the ground work yourself. As marketers, it’s your job to spread the word about the company you own, or work for. As such, taking advantage of free measures such as YouTube and Blog entries (eh hem), is powerful because it not only shows that it’s possible to create something out of nothing, but that the traditional model of marketing doesn’t always need to be pursued in order to be noticed. Why pay thousands of dollars on commercial and TV placements when you’ve got YouTube? (Admittedly, this is a bit of a gross generalization, but the point still stands). For those looking for an official definition of Guerrilla Marketing:

  • The concept of guerrilla marketing was invented as an unconventional system of promotions that relies on time, energy and imagination rather than a big marketing budget. Typically, guerrilla marketing campaigns are unexpected and unconventional; potentially interactive; and consumers are targeted in unexpected places. The objective of guerrilla marketing is to create a unique, engaging and thought-provoking concept to generate buzz, and consequently turn viral.
  • The value of this can be immense if properly put together. Outside of the typical viral marketing video, however, are some other efforts that can be utilized. These include:

  • Internet Forums – Being an active part of a community which you seek to serve is often times a great way to earn recognition. Establishing yourself as an expert (without resorting to putting your fingers in your ears or saying ‘Told ya so!’) can be a great way to earn trust in a community that is seeking advice on topics that you may know more about than the average person. Tailoring your forum persona and profile are critical in this step. Also, this is a great way to build in-bound links in the SEO aspect of Guerrilla marketing.
  • Blog Posts – It’s not exactly news that fresh content is what’s best when considering natural rankings in Google. Natural ranking improvements, often referred to as Search Engine Optimization (SEO), can be considered a form of Guerrilla Marketing; it doesn’t cost anything (if you know what you’re doing) to implement, and writing a paragraph or two a day (or if you can’t learn to shorten your entries, like myself, a daily thesis would work) is a great way to push the idea that you know what you’re doing, but also a great way to show up in search results naturally. Typically, my blog posts, when searched by Google by the title, are indexed and ranked in 2 minutes. That’s power.Advice to Business Owners on Guerrilla Marketing techniques: I’m not an expert, and the best thing you can do to capitalize on this phenomenon is to educate yourselves. Find out what makes your niche tick. Chances are, you alreayd have this information cached somewhere in the back of your brain and don’t realize it. Once you dig that up, you can begin to understand what it is you would need to do to effectively implement a Guerrilla Marketing scenario. And since you’re actively working in a field which the primary audience has something in common with your personality, ask yourself: What would I like to see?Until Next Time,– Chris
  • Great advertising can make all of the differenceThe Importance of Advertising Budgets in an online Business

    Most everyone can agree that advertising a business is extremely important. The same goes for an internet business almost doubly so, simply because of the sheer volume of companies out there doing, likely, the same exact thing you’re doing. How do you stand out in this jungle of wares?

    As I had mentioned a few days ago, Growing Your internet Business Organically is something that needs to be taken into consideration, and should be second to none – the first line of attack for generating business of average passers-by. But how do you give that extra boost your company may need to live up to it’s potential? Before you get started plummeting all of your money in to Google AdWords, there are a few steps you’ll need to take into consideration:

    Financially Planning your Business

  • Where are your costs? In order to figure out what you can devote to advertising, you must first figure out where your overhead lies. Chances are, if you’ve made it this far into the game you already have a pretty fair idea of what percentage you can play around with: things like rent, payroll, expenses, and debt management should all be factors when taking advertising into consideration. As for Studio Symposium, we have no overhead really to speak of, the only cost being Payroll. Since we started the company without any capital infusion to date, and have purely funded the project out of our own (nearly empty) pockets, we’ve already made our money back, so there are no other primary concerns.
  • Are your clients succeptable to advertising? This may sound strange, but not all companies are alike. Some have very particular customers who already know what they want before they get into the “door” (being your website, in this case). Example: How many Toyota advertisements do you see on TV currently? Chances are you can’t go a channel or two without seeing some sort of reference. The same goes for the likes of Honda and Hyundai. This is because they’re all in the same market, competing with relatively the same target demographic. Conversely, how many advertisements do you see on TV for Porsche? Chances are you can’t remember the last time you’ve seen a Porsche commercial, and there’s a reason for that. The company is in an extremely Niche market whos customer base isn’t easily swayed to and from one particular brand to another. They have their market share, and rarely need to advertise (outside of print publications reviewing or test-driving the cars) that they’re introducing new models. The same goes for your internet business – are your customers the kind to be easily swayed by brand agnosticism? Or have you ammassed a large, devoted fan base to your particular product or service that will follow you to the edge of the earth?
  • How much of a value-adder is advertising to your company? See above; essentially the more you know about how to advertise to your customers (potential or existing) the better off you’re going to be. Advertising is almost always a value-adder, especially in the internet days where literally everything is measured. This is a good thing because it allows you to trim, or add, different marketing techniques as needed. If marketing and advertising is almost your sole means of gaining new business, I would suggest a high budget for advertising.
  • After taking these things into consideration, you should be able to sit down and figure out what the minimum and maximum is for your spending budget on advertising. As noted before, because Studio Symposium has non-existant overhead, we worked out what I consider to be a very generous (and exciting!) advertising budget of 20%. For contrast, I know a few restaurant owners in the area that only spend about 1-2% on advertising. Naturally, a lower overhead means a much stronger budget for advertising.Now that you’ve got your advertising budget figured out – write it down. It’s best (I feel) to stick to a percentage of your inccome rather than a fixed amount. This way, the larger you get, the more you’ll be able to spend on expansion. How do you deal with advertising after all of the math is figured out? I’m going to outline techniques in 3 sections: Guerrilla, Standard, and Public Relations. Over the next few days, I will detail the different aspects of making the most of your newly-found advertising budget. Until then, good luck figuring everything out, and remember that advertising is an area of your business that should never be ignored.– Chris
  • Growing Your business organically is one of the best forms of recognition, and is incredibly satisfying, but it’s not easy. Here I will detail what measures we have taken as Studio Symposium to organically grow our business without spending a dime.

    Here is a quick bulleted list of efforts that can be done for free that have been gratifying to take part in with Studio Symposium:

  • TheyMakeApps.com – Free directory listing service that allows you to set your typical project budget and display an application as your portfolio picture. Also allows you to customize which platforms you’re accustomed to, and is easily searchable. Studio Symposium obtained RightAnswers.com from this service.
  • Sortfolio.com – Another Free directory service focusing specifically on website designers in your area. Upload an image for your profile of your best work, set a price range and an area, contact info, and you’re good to go. No contracts as of yet from Sortfolio, but seems promising. And for a free service, it can’t be beat.
  • Google Local Business Directory – Google completely comes through for this service. You can list every detail about your business – it’s location, website, operating hours, payment methods, coupons, and even map directions, all for the low price of Free. As with anything Google, complete metrics and analytics for viewers and actions included in the service.
  • Various internet forums – Working with an internet forum can be a tricky business. Often times you have to read the posting rules very carefully, but try to pick a community that associates with your chosen field, and start to make a name for yourself, even if it isn’t to solicit business. Answer questions, and establish yourself as a well-known identity within the community. Make sure your profile is tailored to convert as precisely as possible, leaving no guesswork as to the nature of your enrollment in the community.
  • I refuse to stand here and tell you that if you follow these steps that you’ll be an internet millionaire in 6 months, but I highly suggest that if you’re a business owner like me, you take advantage of everything free before you start digging around for services that are paid for. Everyone wants to get paid, but you don’t have to pay to get noticed in your industry, that I can guarantee. Good luck!

    – Chris

    Old Spice Understands Viral Marketing

    On July 15, 2010, in Business Development, Random, by Chris Culos

    Old Spice is currently utilizing Youtube to advertise by speaking directly to it’s Twitter audience. What resulted is a brilliant marketing effort.

    With a few million views under it’s original “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” commercial, it quickly became apparent that Old Spice had a marketing gem on it’s hands. They also released a series of commercials strictly on Youtube that consisted of a very strong guy screaming about how powerful Old Spice deoderant was. From there the stage was set. Soon, Old Spice had achieved cult-icon status, and the commercials spread like wildfire over the internet – the true meaning of “Viral Video Marketing”. But it gets interesting when you consider the next step they took in the process.

    For years, advertising companies have tried to bridge the disconnect between consumers and advertisers because ultimately, they advertisers were never truly able to respond to consumer demand in a very agile way. The difference here is that Old Spice has finally figured out how to cross that gap. By combining a now-recognizable face with the companies Old Spice Twitter Account, and lets face it, fantastic writers, they were able to come up with a series of videos based directly off of viewer demand in such a rapid pace (in some cases up to FOUR videos per hour!) that it kept viewers melting that refresh key to see if a new video was out. It caught the attention of internet forum giant Something Awful, the Scientology-warring group Anonymous, and even the likes of celebrities such as Demi Moore and going through the rigors of hand-writing a note and sending flowers overnight to Alyssa Milano (the end result of which was Ms. Milano making a video in the same fashion, requesting that, in order to continue “Their Relationship” the Old Spice man must donate $100,000 to help clean up the Gulf. You’re move, Old Spice).

    I hate to say it, but one man even went so far as to propose to his girlfriend using the Old Spice writers to do the proposal for him.

    Forget putting a name up on a scoreboard, at the time of this writing, that video has over 100,000 people cheering that guy on. Can you say Old Spice customer for life? That’s the point that I’m trying to get to. All of these efforts allowed Old Spice to connect with the customer that was only previously achieved by having some poor bastards in a focus group for hours on end thinking about what the next great marketing plan will be. That may be the way this whole ordeal started out, but it sure as hell wasn’t how it ended. So congratulations, Old Spice, you have managed to accomplish what many companies before you have failed to do so properly and completely. Your marketing team deserves a considerable bonus this month.

    Cheers,

    – Chris