The Show Must Go On(line)

"Who you are speaks so loudly I cannot hear what you say."

This quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson is a principle we at Zibings aspire to emulate. It's one thing to talk a big game but to follow through with your words- to put them into action- is what people remember the most. With that in mind, instead of talking about how much we value our community, we went out and started finding ways to give back.

Through discussion with a former teacher, Andrew learned of an opportunity to provide a service to the students at our old high school, Mechanicsburg Area Senior High (MASH). The annual musical production team, who call themselves 'Wildcat Productions,' needed more reliable web hosting. Andrew and his old teacher worked together quickly and ZibTech purchased hosting and a domain name for the team. The site, now available at http://wildcat-productions.com/, is built by the students for this year's production, 'The Music Man.' In the future, ZibTech will help evolve the website into a tool for both marketing the show and adding realism to the production experience.

We wish everyone involved with the production the best of luck and look forward to working with the students and faculty in the future.

[Insert Witty Title About Advertising Here]

So here we are, five days after the 'Big Game' and we have one question for you- How many of the commercials can you actually remember?  Better yet, can you recall the companies and products being advertised?  Chances are you don't remember much beyond the commercials for chips and beer.  This means that those $2million+ 30-second ads were worthless because they failed to make any kind of impression on you other than momentary amusement.  Marketing is defined as the "selling of products or services", but can you really be sold on much if you can't remember who made the commercial?

The Super Bowl is a shining example of the ineffective advertising that surrounds us each and every day.  The most notable arena for ineffective advertising is the internet.  How many times a day are you accosted by interactive and intrusive advertising methods?  The only reason you give these ads the time of day is because they are distracting.  Not a great foundation for interesting you in a product, is it?  Wouldn't it be nice if you could let these advertisers know what you think of their ads?  Maybe you would like to tell someone how you prefer seeing advertisements on a page for a change?

What if we told you that, soon enough, you'll be able to do just that?

For the past year and a half we have been rebuilding our social networking site, The Zibings Network (ZibNet for short).  Over that time, we constantly discussed how to build revenue for the site and cover our operating expenses without alienating our users.  After much debate, we decided to sell advertising space on ZibNet, but with a twist.  Instead of buying into a currently available system for our advertisements, we will run our own.  Instead of forcing users to be bombarded with useless and ineffective ads that are creeping their way onto every other site, we will control the advertisements through feedback from our users.

Our system will give users the choice of how they want to see their advertisements.  We will also allow users the option to rate advertisements that appear on the site, and we will do our best to make sure that the content of the ads remains unintrusive and non-interactive.  We won't bombard our users with advertisements, hoping that, in return, our users will be willing to help both us and our advertisers by taking a few seconds to look at the advertisements provided.  By flipping the tables and allowing members to rate the advertisements, we will gain valuable information regarding the advertisers and advertising methods that are allowed on the site, and users will (hopefully!) no longer feel exploited and abused by their social networking site.

That's it really!  For far too long, advertisers have made the rules.  We want our users to set the rules for us so we can pass things on to the advertisers.  Are we the first company to think of this?  Probably not.  Will this revolutionize advertising as we know it?  We doubt it.  It does, however, take a step in the right direction and puts our users first, something we can all appreciate these days.  Of course, we wouldn't mind if we still got to see chip-shrouded samurai during commercial breaks now and then...

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Blog Post

This week we were going to tease you with the scantest of details on a few projects coming down the pipeline when a funny thing happened- we finished one of them!

On Monday, ZibTech officially launched N2 Framework Yverdon version 0.2! This free open source development framework is currently best suited for web development but future versions will move beyond PHP to include ASP.NET and C#.

The first thing you are probably wondering is how we have made N2F Yverdon better. We fixed about 12 major bugs/design-flaws and added things such as 3 additional database extensions, a FirePHP extension and Memcached support for our cache extension. All of these additions were done to give developers more tools while doing their job. For more detailed information on the changes/additions we made, you can view our post on the N2F training blog here.

You might also be wondering why the world needs another framework. N2F is meant to redefine where conventional boundaries are set for developers using a framework. By being highly extensible, the framework does more to work with the developer, rather than the other way around. In building an open source framework, N2F holds us to a higher standard with our code and our approach to building the system. The blinders have been taken off and users will be able to see our mistakes if we make any. If you find any mistakes, call us on them! It will only make us stronger and work harder.

Before we call it a day, we would like to mention our other open source project, FoundationIRC. IRC has been around for over two decades and many have shrugged it off over the years as new chat mediums have sprung up across the map. Despite its age, IRC is by no means obsolete and is in fact quite versatile. There is plenty of room for growth given the right direction and enough effort. FoundationIRC is a work in progress, but we are already liking what we see as the project goes through its early stages. Stay tuned! FoundationIRC is coming soon.

Hello, World

Nothing flashy, nothing fancy. Just the good old fashioned 5 W's.

Who are we?
Generally speaking, we are the voice of Zibings Incorporated. Specifically, we are Andrew and Galen, two twenty-somethings who have known each other since grade school. Both of us have heads full of ideas and the drive to bring those ideas to life.

Andrew is the man behind Zibings. He has been programming since the Internet exploded in popularity. He likes riding his bike, driving his car and paying for his friends' meals.

Galen is a fan of all things entertainment. He writes movie reviews for his own blog when he is not reading books, listening to music or watching TV.


What is Zibings?
Zibings Incorporated is a parent company. Its main purpose is to generate, nurture and grow ideas for various projects, but we strive to be more than just a breeding ground for concepts and fads.

ZibTech Consulting (ZTC) is the first active subsidiary of Zibings Incorporated. As is inferred by the name, ZTC is a technology consulting company, providing reliable and responsible development or system administration.

In the future, Zibings will be opening more subsidiaries as the climate and suitable manpower are found, but for now we are concentrating on getting ZTC off to a great start in 2010.


Where are we located?
The main hub of Zibings' operations is located just outside of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. However, we are not constrained by geography. Zibings utilizes the skills and abilities of professionals from across the United States and around the world.


When did we come about?
Zibings was founded in the waning months of 1999 by Andrew and has grown slowly over time. ZibTech Consulting was officially launched in January of 2010. Zibings is on track to release another subsidiary at the end of the summer, but for now we will just keep that between us.


Why are we doing this?
Zibings believes that technology exists to improve our lives. Bells and whistles are nice but without practicality and functionality, technology is nothing more than a distraction. It is perfectly acceptable to indulge yourself in the excesses of the developed world from time to time. At the end of the day, however, if the technology you use has not improved your life in some way, what is the point? Zibings keeps this basic principle in mind with every project we take on.

As for this blog, our goal is to show you the human side of Zibings. We are not just a company out to make money. We want to connect with people on a personal level. We are anxious to share our ideas with you as they take shape and we welcome any feedback, comments and critiques you can offer us. In this way, you will get to know us and we will become a better company.

2010 is going to be a busy year for Zibings. We are excited to have you along for the ride!