Everybody is abuzz about the launch of the application section in LinkedIn and the web whizes are predicting a popularity on the scales of Facebook for the business networking website. Chris Brogan is just one of the many going ga ga over LinkedIn's revamp.

So what exactly are applications and how do they enhance the web experience.

When applications were developed and introduced in social networkign communities like Facebook and MySpace, they created quite a stir on user profiles. Users could use a widget-y application to make their social interactions more fun. Web development in Dubai, like elsewhere in the world recognized the branding potential in such applications.

This made applications a veritable force in the Web 2.0 hemisphere. Brand-retentive, interactive, user-friendly and fun- that's what made applications on social networks like Facebook, MySpace and Orkut popular. LinkedIn simply broadened their horizons by adapting such a model.

E-consultancy holds applications to be an important part of the website design plan. Like landing pages, applications need to be optimized, tweaked and personalized to hold the user's attention for a longer time. This however, does not mean that the user should spend unnecessary time deciphering the purpose of an application.

Our Dubai web designing company can effectively accomplish this part of the professional website design process. Drop in at Cosmos Creatives Dubai to let us know how we can better your website design.

Image credit: Mario Sundar

The beta stage is one of the transitory stages any application or software undergoes during its production and development process. One simple example is Gmail which has been in the beta stage for a long time now.

There are two types of reactions users generally have towards beta software, websites and web applications. One set of users are simply delighted to be the first ones to test the new version of a particular site or application. Others however, tend to be simply annoyed with beta versions.

This annoyance is largely attributed to the unpolished aspect of the beta phase. Usually, in Dubai web development circles, beta versions are released for the main purpose of getting active users to test it and report for bugs.

In the software release life cycle of any website or web application, the beta stage comes after the alpha stage (wherein new features are added).

Chris Campbell of Particle Tree is just one of the serious web users who wishes websites paid more attention to the proper development of the same. There is enough hype created during certain beta launches to instigate anticipation for a particular product or service, but if there is no attempt made to implement changes then all the hype is rendered useless.

Web development in Dubai as practiced at Cosmos Creatives Dubai pays attention to the proper steps of the software release life cycle. We create websites, develop them and launch them only after they have gone throught the right channels of testing- speedily of course!

Image credit: Flickr

Some of the common things that a professional website design company will pay special attention to when creating and establishing a brand’s identity on the internet are elements like the company logo, the general layout and the colors used in portraying the brand.

This is all well and good as the above elements do make a tremendous contribution to the overall website design.

There are very few Dubai web development professionals however, who will also pay attention to other small but equally influential factors like the font-sets used in the website design and the level of accessibility a particular brand has. Even the images and graphics used and image quality conveys tonnes where site usability is concerned.

Take fonts for instance. Ever since cascading style sheets or CSS cam into the picture, it has broadened the scope of web site design in Dubai. Web development in Dubai professionals have more flexibility when making use of this element in a web page, a landing page or on any other website promotional material.

Of course, the fact that different browsers will render your website design differently could be a potential concern. But with the right Dubai web designing company working on your web space, it shouldn’t be much of a concern.

Cosmos Creatives Dubai can effectively evaluate your business goals and image to formulate the right Dubai website design plan for your organization. A talented team of web development and website design professionals can work to create a web space that is unique and stands out from the rest of the competition.

Cymbolism is a website totally dedicated to color and the varying effects it has on people. The website describes its main goal as “an attempt to quantify the association between colors and words, making it simple for designers to choose the best colors for the desired emotional effect.”

Website design professionals have always been dependant on color to get the message across to the general public and the relation between color and human response has been a favorite topic in Dubai web design circles. So such an attempt to make sense of these relations by websites like these is highly commendable.

Color scheme planners and organizers are part of every Dubai website designing professional’s kit. Nonetheless, to an untrained eye, a system overload would be expected given the elaborate color codes and lists that are usually included. One of the foremost difficulties a design team in a Dubai web designing company is known to face is a color scheme that is incompatible in certain web browsers.

At Cosmos Creatives Dubai, there is a skilled website design team taking care of all these parameters though. The research we do into the consumer mind and behavior is significant, so that we can get the best results for our website designs.

From location-centric websites to different consumer sections, we create websites that are captivating and ingratiate repeated visits. You could get a Dubai web design company who charges you extra for services that you are entitled to, or you could simply hire a professional website design company who will deliver more than you are charged for.

Yes, it seemed like it was just yesterday that a new search engine to kill Google was revealed to the online community. Unfortunately (for such useless attempts), the people at Google are rather thick-skinned when it comes to murder attempts at the search giant.

The search giant went one-up on its suspected mass murderers and unleashed Google Chrome, an open source web browser which ironically, roared the official battle cry to Microsoft’s IE.

News of Google’s renewed contract with Mozilla Firefox further acted as the sealant on the war against Microsoft.

We checked out Chrome. Once we got past the shock and surprise of the end user license agreement, our web design company in Dubai found it rather neat to work on. Of course, it will take a while for the open source browser to capture the market currently dazzled by Firefox offerings, but knowing that this is Google we are talking about it should not be much of a problem.

Suffice to say, from a Dubai website design professional’s point of view, Google Chrome is a beauty. From its clutter-free interface to the speed and accessibility it lends to the web experience, Chrome just might start a new trend- marrying functionality with appeal.

For an exceptional Dubai web design meme for your corporate or personal site that clicks with a major section of the audience, there is a lot you can learn from Google. Minimal designs can offer more to the end-user experience than gimmicks and interactive customization.

Sometimes less is just more.

Find out how you can get this idea to work for your website design.

Social networks and online communities are an accepted part of the web now and there are very few that can do without them. If you have decided to start a social network dedicated to interaction between your employees or even between users of your products or services, then great going!

It’s even better when you chose a team of result-oriented Dubai website design professionals and web development in Dubai experts to give shape to your idea. As Dion Hinchcliffe of ZDNet reflects, “It’s beginning to be understood that communities aren’t just for socializing but for getting things done.”

One of the primary elements that a reliable Dubai website design company will work on before settling on the development design for an online community is a thorough study of the niche market. For instance, if you are a PR company specializing in clubs and nightspots and wish to create a loyal network of clubbers, then you know that the younger age group is the one you need to target.

The level of exclusivity depends completely on the type of end-user you want to attract.

If the target audience has not been figured out then the development process can get ambiguous.

Creating an online portal that engages the visitor and end-user enough to guarantee automatic word-of-mouth advertising is another vital component your hired website design company needs to work on. All it takes is one exceptional feature that will make your network irresistible to the target market, and you have found for yourself a dedicated group of takers for your online community.

This is why movie reviewers love being associated with the Rotten Tomatoes community, and why musicians tend to gravitate towards MySpace and more recently, why Christians would probably want to join Xt3.

Hire website design professionals in Dubai who are familiar with the ethos behind online communities and make sure that you elucidate on your ideas clearly to get the best results.

Image credit: Flickr

Widgets are fun. Period.

That was my opinion when I first discovered that widgets like ‘noughts and crosses’ games and ‘cartoon of the day’ could be peppered across a website or blog to liven things up.

From then to the present, I have added informative, useful, adaptable and a host of other really nice adjectives to one of my favorite parts of Web 2.0- widgets. There is simply nothing that cannot be done with the right widget in hand.

One of my favorite widget-loving blogs, Snipperoo has this really great post about some common misconceptions about widgets.

You don’t need to be a professional in website design to add rich applications like widgets and neither do I need to be a whiz at web development in Dubai to implement them. All I need to do is customize a widget of my choice and voila, I have something on my blog or website that will not only add value to user-experience but to my business/service as well!

For instance, we decided to add this snazzy corkboard widget from Rock You! on one of our blogs. A couple of photos, sticky notes and funny graphics was all it took to give readers on this business blog a glimpse of the online shopping portal attached to the website it was promoting.

The returns and site visits it helped bring in- in terms of online marketing was immediately noticeable.

Cosmos Creatives Dubai stuck to a minimalistic blog, with the focus on content (as any good blog ought to do). The various widgets added in were more than just icing on the cake- they had a purpose, viz. promoting the products and services.

Smart website promotion, what say?

A 404 error page is something you should avoid having on your website if you are an entrepreneur looking to increase website traffic. They could be a step back in search engine optimization in Dubai efforts and are more likely than not to prevent your site from getting indexed.

In plain speak a 404 DNS error or a File Not Found error is what the server spits out when someone types in a URL that does not exist on your website or is under construction and is hence unavailable. A page or two that give out such errors on your website can be tolerable for most users. Search engines on the other hand, don’t like them.

Known to affect the visibility of a particular website in SERP’s, a File Not Found error can be turned to your website’s advantage with customized pages that cloak the error though.

A stand-by page called a 404.htm page is an excellent way to get past the 404 error and can benefit your SEO efforts enormously. Take a look at the File Not Found error pages put up on Smashing Magazine.

These stand-by pages not only provide the user to your website something to chuckle/think/learn about, but also encourage the search engine to include the page as relevant to the website and hence index-worthy.

Absolutely do not tell your Dubai web design professionals to create a 404 error page that is an exact copy of your homepage- its not going to win your website any popularity points. Encourage user-friendliness and accessibility- after all that’s the main aim of any website.

Know more about how you can win more users and enhance your website design in Dubai efforts at Cosmos Creatives Dubai.

Image credit: Flickr

On the Internet, a business identity can market itself just about anyway it wants to. Smart online marketing fundamentals require and often demand an inter-mingling of various genres of art styles and their presentation.

Thus, one can come across a travel and adventure media stalwart like Discovery Channel making use of a Rich Internet Application which can allow site visitors to witness climate change and polar melting in real time. The Discovery Channel has been making use of similar online marketing methods (interactive games, quizzes) for a long time now to dispense information very effectively.

MTV Online’s Indian segment calls out to budding graphic designers to create their version of the MTV logo and get it featured on the channel. At the main MTV website you can glimpse sober overtones with the Think MTV community which is aiming to be a sounding board for more socially and environmentally conscious youth.

Another major brand which has ventured into a different genre online is Disney, the children’s entertainment bigwig. It roped in the talents of couture designer Kirstie Kelly to create bridal wear masterpieces based on the very popular Disney Princess themes.

All it takes is an innovative online marketing expert and highly original professionals in website design to create websites that have substance as well as style. At Cosmos Creatives Dubai, we have both these elements as well as a highly qualified team of experts in web development in Dubai. Get in touch, we can mix and match better.

You must have come across them. They are rather ubiquitous on the WWW and occur wherever there is a certain level of asynchronous communication with a server, a web browser and a neutral platform.

Rich internet applications have the sophisticated look and functions of desktop software, but the difference lies in the fact that they are honed to be operational on a web page. Their prominence has been triggered by Dubai website design professionals and even novice designers applying technologies like Flash and Ajax Frameworks.

The growth of the internet as a medium of data and information exchange too has led to the emergence of RIAs in a major way. From all the applications and usability of RIAs they might very well be on their way to making the internet a Web 3.0 experience.

Rich internet applications are automatically updated, allowing users the ability to process them. The comparatively high level of immunity to viral infection makes RIAs much better executables.

RIAs are not without drawbacks however. From an SEO point of view, the text featured in a rich internet application might not be indexable by search engines. RIAs also need constant internet connectivity. Screen readers are also shown to face certain difficulty in detecting any dynamic changes in the HTML content.

Clever web development in Dubai techniques and innovative website design sensibilities can outwit these shortcomings of RIAs; similar to what we are able to do at Cosmos Creatives Dubai.

Get in touch with us to know more.

Microsites usually bloom around holiday time or around an occasion or celebration. Remember the ElfYourself campaign by OfficeMax that elfed-out everybody in America couple of years back? These handy web pockets can perform any function from carrying out a political campaign to assisting a corporate launch.

Distinguished by less pages (anything from 1-10), a microsite is perfect if you are thinking of getting some excellent value for money branding via web design in Dubai. Many business websites also launch microsites that actually do not sell or feature their product or service, but provide information that is related to their products.

Branding is the primary function of a microsite and due to this, it’s very nature may be completely different from the actual business website. A professional website design company can transform a company from something humdrum to a savvy online entity with a well designed microsite.

A microsite can keep changing its look and message based on the marketing need, but usually they are short-lived and custom-made for maximum impact in a minimum period of time and space. Dubai website designing professionals at times incorporate display marketing techniques into their agenda due to their exhibitive and informative nature.

Their viral aspect is the most exciting part about a microsite though. If the site is good enough, it will keep being referenced and travel across the web purely by word-of-mouth.

Want a microsite for your business as well? Cosmos Creatives Dubai can help you out.

‘Spore’, a computer game based on evolution, has bagged critic awards even before its launch and is one of the most hotly anticipated games of 2008. The hullabaloo is partly due to its creator being the mastermind behind the famous SimCity computer game which took the gaming world by storm in the late 80’s and went on to become the bestselling computer game ever.

Graphic design in Dubai professionals and Flash animation designers work on similar lines more often than not. As in computer games where an element of personalization is inserted into the gaming model, in Flash animation develops games in which a similar thread of design is incorporated.

But where computer games are often complex and involve extensive plots, intriguing strategies and a lot of role-play, Flash animation games are shorter and usually seek to create an impact with a witty storyline. These are the ones made use of by the marketing community for online marketing.

There is a growing influence of the social aspect seen in a lot of computer games that have emerged recently though. This trend is especially noticed in online games like Second Life and even instant messaging systems like IMVU which blend Flash animations, dynamic environments and at times a social networking element that is highly customizable.

Contact Cosmos Creatives Dubai for refreshing marketing ideas that make use of unique web design in Dubai.

Networking in the real world and networking in the virtual world are both very necessary for image maintenance in business. In the real world, attending a corporate dinner can provide a chance for establishing business alliances as much as would a cocktail party at the Club.

Online, the instances to mingle among business partners are abundant and if you or your online marketing team is inventive enough, the possibilities can be endless. The best thing about Internet marketing- professionals are bound to agree with this, is its cost-effective nature.

All you need is a driven team who can figure out an apple with a pattern on it from an apple that does not seem to have one. Online marketing is a collective effort no doubt, as a lot of planning and experimentation is involved before implementing any strategic decisions.

A few effective website promotion materials are website brochures, flyers, postcards, business cards and posters. Based on data like the budgets that are chalked out, the target market, predicted future sales and website demographics these materials can be either e-mailed either as part of e-mail marketing campaigns or they can accompany small Flash animation videos that can be put up on the website.

Website promotion materials can also find a place among interactive features like virtual tours, Flash animation designed games and a lot more. We can help you reach out to your consumers using similar strategically developed methods and more at the web design company in Dubai.

Ages ago optical illusions held tremendous fascination for the ancient Greeks. Centuries down the line, they yet hold the human mind in a strong grip inspiring many architectural masterpieces and works of art.

The animations used to make cartoons and films are the manifestation of the optical illusion of motion caused due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision. Modern animated images were initially executed using writing and drawing tools and paper. But this changed with the growing influence of the computer and advanced drawing technology.

Computer animation received form with the introduction of the revolutionary Flash software developed by three men with the vision of making it easier to draw using a computer than pen and paper. Web animation did not take much time catching up with the creative communities for web design in Dubai and elsewhere.

A figure crossing two million professionals in website design currently make use of Flash and the scope for the implementation of this software is staggering. From mini films and cartoons to advertisements, feature films and interactive web content, the uses for Flash animations are still being discovered.

Tap into this well of innovation and adapt Flash animations for your website to give your business a whole new look. The web development in Dubai and graphic design in Dubai experts, Cosmos Creatives Dubai intermingle and implement ideas to make sure that search engines do not lose sight of your website even if there are Flash animations, Flash templates and Flash banners used.

The world is getting smaller and if you own a travel and tourism website, you can facilitate a smooth ride from point A to B. But the main problem that stands in the way of many tourist websites is, more often than not, a poorly presented website.

Small tweaks and touches that matter can be added though with the help of just a few tricks from a resourceful online marketing professional and an inventive website design company in Dubai expert.

It’s your business and your website, so the first step to a good travel website is to get your hired web design company de-clutter your website. Categorize the site and keep the home page free of an excess of special offers, hotspots, hotel and transport pictures, etc.

A lot of travel and tourism websites have home pages that are just short of giving a visitor a headache thanks to tickers that announce airline flights and slide-shows of old must-see landmarks. Ascertain which section of the travel market you are targeting and accordingly convey your plans to the website design company.

For instance, if you are targeting safari enthusiasts, you could work out an outdoorsy look with the help of your professional website design expert. If you are targeting luxury vacation travelers, you could try to out a minimal and ornamental charm. But whatever you do, steer clear from overwhelming your audience.

The audience wants information and they want it delivered with minimum fuss and maximum panache. Get in touch with Dubai web development for custom and personalized website designs. We can help you optimize your travel and tourism portal.

Photo credit: Flickr

Server space and unhindered internet connectivity on servers are generally two main services provided by a web hosting company. They are also known to provide data-center space and internet connectivity for servers they do not own in their data center.

Web hosting companies exist in multitude on the web and most of them are rather expensive. Some are large scale while most are less recognized. The best way to select a good provider is by checking reviews by users of such services in open forums and web hosting directories.

There are different services provided by different web hosts. For example, a shared web hosting service places a web site on the same server as other sites, while a co-location web hosting service provides the physical space for the server while managing it as well. The latter usually tends to be more expensive then the former. Scan each web host company carefully before settling in on one.

A site owner also has to check if the web host is providing related services like virtual private networks [VPNs], back ups, e-mail management, security, VOIP, domain registration, blog hosting, shopping cart features and video hosting.

Cosmos Creatives Dubai makes use of technologically sophisticated servers providing some the best features mentioned above besides others more. Our web hosting and web development in Dubai services work in tandem with our search engine optimization efforts.

While the popularity of Flash is well established in the Dubai web site design community, its functionality in the online marketing community is heavily argued. This argument has made a lot of web development in Dubai professionals ponder upon its use.

The highlight of Flash is a dynamic interface, one that is constantly changing and at times interacting with the user. A lot of websites who take the Web 2.0 meme really seriously go for complete user interaction with the help of Flash templates and Flash animations.

Critics of Flash state that Flash animations and splash screens deflect the visitors to a website from the content that they are looking for. It is also true that browsing the Internet for websites that incorporate Flash as opposed to regular HTML or CSS is rather useless as the keywords, anchor text and other searchable features are rendered useless when included in Flash content.

When web development in Dubai professionals develop a website for the purpose of online marketing, they encode a website using either HTML or CSS which are decidedly search engine friendly. Another drawback of using Flash animations instead of HTML or CSS for website design in Dubai is its inability to load on handheld devices like PDA’s, smartphones and car displays.

From an internet marketing professional’s point of view, a small section but one that is a significant revenue drawer is completely eliminated due to the use of Flash animations. The best way to ensure ranking in search engines is to marry Flash animations with HTML or CSS making the website appealing as well as search engine friendly.

Image credit: tarotastic

Plagiarism has maintained a consistently malign presence in not only traditional media but electronic as well. Optimized intellectual freedom while being the one of the driving factors of the Internet’s popularity came attached with an exasperating problem known as web scraping. Till date many Dubai web development professionals, like developers and businesses elsewhere grapple with this problem.

Scraper sites are usually the torchbearers of plagiarism. Cut-copy-paste is the name of the game for them with content lifted directly at times from similar sites. One explanation for scraper sites employing such methods is because it is convenient for them to rank high in search engine results making for convenient SEO.

There is technology available that spews out keywords in multitude and variety. Incorporating them into these sites is child’s play for such abusers of the system. How much ever I would prefer to say otherwise, there are businesses and web marketing firms that hire questionable writers to web scrape for an amount as less $1 for 500 words.

Advertising programs like Google AdSense have further increased the proliferation of scraper sites, so much that a separate term- MFA or Made For AdSense- has been coined to describe them.

A surfer visiting a website can click on an advertisement and by doing so enable the site owner to make a profit from Google as the latter is offering the business a platform to feature the advertisement. MFA sites have exploited this system by existing for the sole purpose of getting people to click on the adverts the sites display.

Let’s get the basics out of the way first. AJAX or Ajax is essentially the acronym for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. The Dubai web development techniques that constitute Ajax (DOM, CSS, JavaScript, XHTML, etc.) are primarily used for generating web applications that encourage interaction. Ajax finds its best example in the Google Maps application.

Professionals in web development in Dubai have come to realize the merit of using Ajax  in generating websites as it is very efficient and lends a dimension of greater functionality and speed. Each time a user modifies or performs an action, the web page remains unaffected. This is achieved with the inclusion of the XMLHttpRequest object.

One of the main advantages of Ajax that Dubai web development and professional website design experts enjoy, is its ability to save up on bandwidth usage and reduce server load by a considerable level. Ajax developed pages exchange small amounts of data with the server, making this possible.

Where search engine optimization in Dubai is concerned, the use of Ajax techniques in a website has to be done carefully as search engines are not that partial to websites that have dynamic content.

To know how you can overcome this hurdle you can get in touch with the SEO’s and web developers at Cosmos Creatives Dubai. We have the solution to all your website design and Dubai web development needs.

An important aspect of a web page’s content is the image and graphics that are interspersed with the text. Anchor text and visible hyperlinks usually point out a website visitor to other pages on the same website or on other websites.

Optimizing the images on a web page for effective search engine optimization in Dubai does have certain benefits. For instance, a good web design company usually utilizes the same image in multiple areas to save up on image loading time and allowing the website to open up quicker. A site visitor is not left waiting for the graphics to load up on the page.

GIF generated graphics and JPEG saved photographs are best for image optimization. Using image optimization tools also help a professional in web development in Dubai and website design experts utilize images better on websites.

When coded with JavaScript, such graphics and photographs can load in the background while the web page is being loaded. Another trick Dubai web development experts use is implementing using smaller versions of the image or thumbnails. These thumbnails are linked to the actual size of the image or photograph.

Using thumbnails fill the need to use an image without taxing the server or the site user. It doesn’t hurt to tag pictures with generic sounding titles and keywords either as it helps search engines pick these pictures faster in an image search.

At Cosmos Creatives Dubai, we have some of the best Dubai web design experts and web developers working on websites to make them search engine friendly and user friendly.