Visual Lizard

From corporate web site to public service, we have experience in nearly every area online. For more information on what we can do to help put your web site to work, check  out the services area. Otherwise, feel free to email us about any of the projects we have showcased. We are always happy to hear what others have to say about our work.

WinnipegFIRST.ca is a local company founded by a former newspaper man from the Winnipeg Sun, John White.

The idea behind WinnipegFIRST is to bring immediate real time news to the people of Winnipeg. Our local market has only 2 prominent printed news sources, 3 television stations and a handful of radio stations. All present media publish online at strange intervals. Additionally, none of them understand the internet, community or web standards very well. Clearly there is a need / space for this site to exist in.

This project presented several challenges. First, there was building it on a shoe-string budget given the chronic under-capitalized state start-ups always find themselves in. This was partially addressed by using the CakePHP framework, which sped up our development time for all the behind the scenes elements considerably. Leaving us more time to concentrate on the design, user tools, news systems and media options.

The second challenge we faced was getting the site known to the general public with a very (read none) limited marketing budget. On the development side, we took extra care to make sure that the site was search engine friendly. We also built a sharing system for visitors that allows them to email articles out, add articles to social bookmarking tools, like Digg and Delicious and seed them to Newsvine.com. These simple tools and processes have seen the site generate much of their traffic from google searches for terms found in the news articles and news article titles.

Lastly, we faced the challenge that many start-ups face in that there was no existing model for the concept. We spent many weeks planning and months building. All of this was done without data and until right before launch, no users of the system. Everything worked out and we now have a very powerful, real-time media publishing system, but we did spend many nights wondering just what the heck we were actually building.

Given all the challenges presented in development, we are exceptionally proud of what we have built for WinnipegFIRST.

ADDENDUM: WinnipegFIRST was sadly forced to suspend operations due to a cash flow shortage. We are deeply saddened by this as we had just seen their traffic surpass the 1k per day unique visitor mark in just under 14 weeks of full-time publishing. We are hopeful that John and his team can re-capitalize and launch again soon.

If you’re interested in getting in contact with us, we’re looking forward to hearing from you...

Visual Lizard Inc
375 141 Bannatyne Avenue
Winnipeg, Manitoba
Canada, R3B 0R3

P 1.204.957.5520
F 1.204.957.5519
T 1.888.237.9559

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