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Blue Lotus Creative joins SOPA/PIPA Strike

January 17th, 2012

What is SOPA or PIPA? And why are thousands of websites across the Internet striking to try and stop these 2 US bills that are currently racing through Congress. The reason these bills have garnered so much attention and genuine concern from people is that they threaten prosperity, online security, and freedom of expression.

One thing we want to make clear right off the back, we do not condone theft (physical removal of an object) or piracy (taking a copy of someone’s copyrighted material and leaving the original). We do believe that the laws that would be put in place under this bill disguised as an anti-piracy bill, would threaten the open flow of information and transparency that the Internet still promises to be. The Internet must remain open and uncensored to all.

Though we are a Canadian company, the SOPA bill affects us all. Tomorrow our website will go offline, joining hundreds of thousands of others in protest. We encourage you to share this message and day of protest with your friends and family in the US. You can share the website www.americancensorship.org on Facebook or on Twitter along with the hashtag #SOPAstrike to help make this protest bigger and more widespread.

We have realized our numerous years of working with social media that it is an incredibly useful tool that can help to bring about change. But this bill and the technology it uses (DNS blocking) is similar to the technology that is used to censor undemocratic countries such as China, North Korea, and Syria. All of these countries have used this technology to clamp down and monitor social media sites for activists or government opponents. Our chief concern is that this “security through censorship” approach will stifle free speech.

To our customers, we have worked with many of you to create websites, some that generate income directly, and some that are just used as promotional tools. In any case, it is important for you to know how SOPA will negatively affect the internet as we know it, and your businesses.

Closing Statement: For the reasons listed above we will be joining the strike tomorrow and encourage all our American customers and fans to do so as well. If you are a Canadian or a citizen from another country, you can share this message with your American family or friends, or share it amongst your friends. We know social media can be a fantastic tool for social good!

Find out more at www.sopastrike.com.

Facebook ends service to FBML Jun 1, Time to Iframe

January 4th, 2012

Facebook Markup Language LogoAs soon as Facebook developed their Pages functionality, business began flocking to establish their brand on the world’s most popular social network. Facebook originally offered only limited functionality for brands, but businesses soon demanded more. One of the initial ways brands could customize their pages was by creating a welcome page — a conversion page, away from the news feed, designed to convince the user to become a fan — through a Facebook application called Static FBML (aka. “FaceBook Markup Language”). This application allowed developers to create basic HTML/CSS web pages to display within Facebook, with all the files hosted on Facebook.

As social media started playing a more and more dominant role in our society, bigger brands started getting in on the action, and with larger marketing budgets. They wanted to ensure their brand was properly represented and that their pages were useful to their customers. Other application developers started creating more customized applications specifically for these brands where all files were hosted on the brands’ website, rather than Facebook. Read the rest of this entry »

Thanks for voting for us! “Best Social Media Company”

August 19th, 2011

Hello everyone,

I hope you have all been enjoying your summer! Just wanted to take a quick second to thank all our fans who went out and voted for us for “Best Social Media Company” for the Urban Culture Conference in Vancouver. We were truly humbled by the outpouring of support and the amount of votes we received!

Unfortunately we didn’t win, but we still are so appreciative of the time you spent voting for us. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts. If you would like to take a look at the Conference Winners page please click here.

Have a fantastic rest of your summer!

Blue Lotus Creative nominated for Best Social Media Company on Urban Culture Conference

May 12th, 2011
We've been nominated for the best in Vancouver by the Urban Culture Conference - Vote for Us

The Urban Culture Conference (UCC) is a breath of fresh air for Vancouver. Vancouver is a city of amazing culture, artistic vision, creativity, and individualism! The UCC’s goal of bringing together people from all over the city for an amazing weekend to showcase the unique talent of our fellow citizens is a fantastic idea, but with the added bonus of enjoying some amazing music, entertainment, seminars and events this Conference sounds like its lining up to be a huge success.

We have been given a huge honor by being nominated for an Urban Culture Conference award, and we want your help to snag the recognition.

The award we have been nominated for is for “Best Social Media Company”.

Read the rest of this entry »

Is my website Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) compatible?

April 21st, 2011

Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) was released for public download on March 14th, 2011. Since IE9 is a default browser on Microsoft Operating Systems, this new release will prompt existing PC users to upgrade.

How does this affect my website?

Internet Explorer 9 LogoThroughout the evolution of the web, most web browsers have displayed websites slightly different. Although most browsers these days display very similar, sometimes certain aspects of a website won’t work with certain web browsers. Anytime a new or popular browser is released or updated, It is a good idea to review your site in detail for minor presentational or functionality issues. This should be done anytime a new browser with a significant user base is updated, yet most of the time you won’t have any issues.

Whats the big deal about Internet Explorer?

Internet Explorer(IE) as a web browser has had a rocky past, IE6 was notorious for displaying websites incorrectly when all other browsers had little to no problems. Microsoft has even started a website to countdown till IE6 is no longer in use. As a precaution, whenever Microsoft releases a new version of IE, we try to ensure that businesses are informed of its potential for issues. Businesses of all sizes should be concerned with this update. For the majority of businesses, their website is their main presence online, and it is important to display a consistent (and functioning) website to your prospective clients.

What browsers do most people use?

As of March 2011 the number 1 browser is Firefox, followed by Internet Explorer and Google Chrome. You can view current browser usage statistics and much more online at W3 Schools.

With the release of IE9, we are very pleased to see that Microsoft is catching up to provide a comparable browser to Firefox and Google Chrome, offering very similar performance and rendering intent to other popular contemporary browsers.

Want to ensure your website is compatible on all browsers?

If you want to be thorough and ensure your company branding you can hire a web developer to do a cross browser compatibility check or download some of the popular browsers and check it out yourself. If you notice any issues on your site you can send us an email at info@bluelotuscreative.com and we can look into the source.

Contact Blue Lotus Creative - 604-306-8701
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We are thrilled with our experience working with Gabriel and the guys at Blue Lotus Creative over the past year! Gabe is a pleasure to work with – he has an amazing work ethic, is a courteous and clear communicator and made great suggestions as to how we could get maximum results from our design budget. Most importantly the Blue Lotus team unfailingly met our deadlines and always promptly
responded to our queries and endless edit requests. A sensitivity to the demands of the market segment we are targeting combined with enthusiasm and creativity made this project smooth and seamless …. we are so happy with the results! Gabe’s knowledge and experience with Social Media marketing will be instrumental in getting the word out about our on-line shop and we are excited about working with him on this next phase. I would happily and with great confidence, recommend Blue Lotus Creative to any business looking for a fresh and innovative design and web development team!

Barbara Gaetz — President Enchanted Meadow Products Inc