Web Experts

Lullabot announced today the formation of a new company -- a joint venture between Lullabot, Bond Art + Science, and Ed Sussman, former president of Mansueto Digital. The new company will be launching an easy-to-use platform for groups, individuals and businesses to create powerful dynamic social websites. Historically, these sites required huge time commitments and expert developers; this platform will allow users to harness the power of Drupal and its wealth of add-ons with a streamlined point-and-click, drag-and-drop interface.

Earl Miles joins Lullabot's Nate Haug, Jeff Eaton, Kent Bye, John VanDyk, and Jeff Robbins for a discussion about the relevance of the node and node-based solutions for user profiles and comments given the advances in Views 2 and future versions of Drupal.

This videocast covers three modules, wrapped together to provide a flexible solution for displaying information about content ratings in a list.
VotingAPI: Central storage of votes and rating information.
Fivestar: A flexible widget for registering votes on a 1-10 star basis.
Views: The ultimate Drupal query builder, capable of pulling out lists of information from the database.

I've mentioned the SimpleViews module a few times over the past couple of weeks, hinting that it would be cool and -- perhaps -- cure cancer or help over-leveraged investment banks. I can't promise too much, but the first version of it has hit Drupal.org, and I filmed a short demo to show off what it does.

A few weeks ago Leo Laporte and Randal Schwartz interviewed me for the 40th episode of FLOSS Weekly, a podcast about free (and libre) open source software. This podcast is part of Leo's popular and growing TWiT podcast network which includes This Week In Tech, MacBreak Weekly, and many others.

Does Google's "duplicate content penalty" harm Drupal sites? No! Here's why.
For years, Drupal has enjoyed a solid reputation as a search engine friendly CMS. It generates relatively clean, standards-compliant HTML out of the box; syncs up the important TITLE tag with semantically useful H1 and H2 tags in the body of each page; and provides short, human-readable URLs with plentiful options for customization. (Anecdotal evidence: several years back, I wrote a post on my Drupal-powered blog that mentioned the name of the company I worked for.

Fast Company is a magazine for business professionals following innovation, technology, leadership and social responsibility. The new FastCompany.com web site combines rich editorial content with advanced networking tools for industry watchers and professionals. The redesign of the online magazine was the second project that Lullabot teamed up with Mansueto Digital, the first being IncBizNet.

SonyBMG's MyPlay site (née Musicbox) is a multimedia showcase for their artists. It provides video, music, and photos that can be rated and reviewed by the users. Users can also track their favorites and build a network of friends on the site.

Lullabot is pleased to announce our biggest event ever! Do It With Drupal is a 3-day seminar focused on the configuration, architecture, and process behind building successful Drupal websites. It takes place in New Orleans, Louisiana, December 10-12, 2008 and features a cavalcade of superstars offering helpful advice, tips, and tricks geared at attendees with a wide range of Drupal experience.

Angie Byron, Addi Berry, Kent Bye, Nate Haug, and Jeff Robbins discuss Drupal news and recap the DrupalCon event in Szeged, Hungary.