The Architel corporate web/blog site has been launched.  The open source WordPress architecture allows the company to launch the site and make continious changes to it over time.  So you can never say a site is ‘done.’  Kudos go to Dan Cederholm from SimpleBits for the xhtml/css design (as well as the new Architel logo).  Weblogs Work integrated the xhtml/css into WordPress (actually three WordPress installs). 

Architel is a boutique IT support company located in Dallas, Texas that supports small businesses (20-100) employees.  Their unique IT service delivery model (one flat-monthly-fee for all-you-can-eat support) aligns the interests of the small business owner and Architel.  The company was a pioneer in this space and is now a pioneer in the ‘blog as corporate website’ meme.  Here are screenshots or just visit the site yourself here @ architel.com.

The site was entered in the website design contest at SXSW conference and we are crossing our fingers that the judges will enjoy the tight integration between the blog CMS and Dan’s xhtml and css.  What do you think about our work? 

Two days ago we noticed that Weblogs Work was ranked 24th out of all PR blogs and blogged about it here.  Moments ago I read on Alex’s blog that Weblogs Work was ranked 6th – I figured he must have misread the rankings, but he didn’t!  According to PubSub, Weblogs Work is now the sixth highest ranked PR blog.  Imagine if we had the time to really start blogging! 

Remember Gahbunga?  It was a neat little application for teenage girls, a hot-or-not for their camera phones.  Basically, you could take a picture of your date, send it to Gahbunga and get a rating from your friends or the entire Gahbunga community.  Our WebWork Team recently decided that there was not enough room on the boat for several of their current projects including Gahbunga.  The team is almost completely focused on the development of a set of Web 2.0 tools they are calling Big in Japan: Web 2.0 Toolbox.

No one on the WebWorks Team wanted to ‘own’ the project by promoting or adding features to it.  The team decided that the best solution would be to sell it on ebay so here is a link to the auction.  Own a dating service?  Own a dating website?  Want to start a cool little online dating business?  Maybe Gahbunga is for you.  Wonder if they will get any bids? 

There is a tight little Web 2.0 bombsquad all squatting together out in Atherton, CA this week:  the TechCrunch boys, Frederico Oliveira and Richard MacManus.  They’ve decided to gather their sites under one offering — the Web 2.0 working group.  TechCrunch focuses on product launches and new startups, Fred’s site Webreakstuff on design & usability, and Richard’s Read/Write Web is a must read site for trends and analysis. 

You can get all those sites in one convenient master feed here.

We mashed it up with our new pre-beta project, FrankenFeed, then tidied up the URL with elfURL.  We encourage you to follow these guys. 

On a whim we had a coder spend a few hours creating a URL redirection tool that would do more than TinyURL.  From my perspective TinyURL is a great idea.  If you have a long URL you just go to tinyurl and the tool will create a short URL for you.  This allows you to email links without fear that the link will be broken by the email client.  I decided we could extend upon this idea with some Web 2.0 features with a service called elfURL.  Here is what I came up with:

• elfURL should shrink giant URLs.
• elfURL should provide statistics on the number of times the elfURL has been clicked.
• elfURL should deliver those statistics via RSS.
• elfURL should automatically create delicious tags for the links.
• elfURL should automatically create Rel-Tags for the links as well.

Since July (when we launched elfURL) we have only had 12,894 visitors to the site and created only 688 links.  I think TinyURL has created 11,000,000 links.  Wonder what we are doing wrong?  Also, we created an elfURL Konfabulator widget, but have not released it due to lackluster demand for the free service.  Comments/thoughts would be appreciated. 

Techcrunch has a new profile of Weblogs Work, in which they say:

"Weblogs Work, based in Dallas, Texas, is a web 2.0 consultancy, incubator and overall cool group of people. I’m finding that I spend more and more time talking with these guys about new ideas, and we are linking to each other so often that people are starting to talk."  Awesome.  

Another great post by Clarence Wooten, this time pondering the investment potential of "bootstrapped startups that leverage open source, blogging and social networks to fuel a Web-based lifestyle business boom."  He looks at the role blogging plays for today’s startups, and how it is fundamentally different from launching a service in the Web 1.0 days.

Unlike during the Web 1.0 era where launching a new website required significant capital and channel relationships to acquire initial traffic, Web 2.0 startups are able to leverage word-of-mouth blog-fueled promotion to gain early traffic and customers to quickly validate their value propositions. Additionally, blogging creates a feedback loop that can be used to quickly improve the product. These developments have further influenced bootstrapping and a sort of “democratization” of the Internet. Through blog communication, startups are now able to bypass expensive advertising, yet still gain enough visibility to demonstrate value quickly by leveraging early customer adoption and feedback to incorporate rapid product improvements."

Word of mouth.  Validation.  Feedback. 3 ways weblogs work for startups.