The biggest part of production is located in Belarus (Eastern Europe) and we speak Russian language as a primary one. It goes without saying the majority of our employees speak English and we even joke with HR that our cleaning personal should be familiar with the foreign languages as well.

Anyway to make things easy for those of us who still improve language skills at our free corporate english classes we made the Russian version of this blog. Starting now employees can write/read posts in any language they prefer to. The content is monitored by our Copywriting team and translated frequently to both of the languages. Comments are left in the original version on a relevant blog. To switch the blog version use menu selector in the upper right corner.

Tags: copywriter, copywriting services, english classes, language skills, seo copywriting
Posted in copywriting | No Comments »

Halloween becomes more and more popular in our country. We are keeping up with the latest trends, too, and always appreciate a good occasion to have fun! Friday evening. Our office turned into a witch’s cavern, with a broom hanging down the ceiling, flocks of bats and hordes of spiders, candles, twilight - appropriate settings! Among the main entertainments - pumpkin carving and voting for the best Jack-O-Lantern, as well as enjoying cocktails with the chilling names like “Virgin’s Blood” and “Sorcerer’s brew”. There were lots of amusing contests and for the most courageous and daring - a visit to a Mysterious and Spooky Chamber of Dead Joe. Dressing up as dreadful creatures… Though, why talking much? You better take a look yourself!

…Halloween mood… Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: fun stuff, halloween
Posted in corporate events | 2 Comments »

After the recent successful launch of Atomic Checkers Iphone Game we do not reject the leads for Iphone game development any more. Previously Iphone Application Development wasn’t our focus because of the lack of expertise and we stepped into this market finally.

For those of you wishing to learn this science too - here is the nice link to the course prepared by Stanford.

Tags: game development, iphone application development, iphone development
Posted in cool links, game development | 1 Comment »

So you sitting watching the world falling apart with the headlines like this everywhere. I bet if you are using outsourcing or intend to do so the question pops up in your head: which destination is stable and will not get hurt by the crisis or blown away by the next financial storm.

Here is the comment on risks (no risks actually) if you choose Belarus. Much of our force is located there so we have have our homework on this one done. Belarus is not affected by the world crisis b/c it doesn’t actually have mature stock market and not much of a foreign investment in the country. The loan system including subprime is not popular much also - so we won’t have any foreclosures happening destabilizing the financial system. The local currency is fixed towards the dollar and stays on the same level for about 4 years now (with slight rise of ruble against dollar recently). At the same time the was a gradual inflation happening which resulted in lesser purchasing power of the dollar. Worth case scenario for crisis is that devaluation of the belarussian ruble will occur which will be a hit for the country but not the outsourcing industry. In fact it will win in this case (consider employees being able to purchase more for the same salary). Which makes the choice of Belarus as your offshore outsourcing destination right and bold!

Tags: offshore outsourcing, outsourcing industry, power of the dollar, recession
Posted in management, outsourcing | No Comments »

In those hard time for virtually any industry the interesting question for outsourcing professionals or companies using outsourcing is the following: Will the offshore outsourcing industry grow or decline? Is this the end of offshore outsourcing golden times or the beginning of the new wave?

From our prospective it’s both. Here is why: about 20-40% of the revenue of traditional outsourcing houses goes from financial institutions. With the collapse companies have been forced to enter into different vertical markets. Typically that would be a good measure to compensate the losses. But the current problem is that everyone is in the same boat - industries, markets, countries. For example travel verticals seeing the rise in cancellation of reservations and tickets, automotive sells dramatically less cars then usual, the list goes on. At the same time in the reality of the crisis companies facing difficulties try to search for the way to stay competitive and make the ends meet. And outsourcing is a cost effective solution which was invented long time ago. It’s a matter of applying it now effectively. During the last two weeks our marketing department sees the increased number of leads coming in. Fact! It’s interesting times because it’s mix of positive and negative happenings for offshore outsourcing companies and the managers need to be creative to make sure that the business drives true value to the customer they need to work on differentiation factors. Price is important too this time! I’m sure that the ineffective players will sink and leave and those with the strategy will become more powerful then ever. They are helping companies to stay competitive in those difficult times anyway.

Tags: offshore outsourcing, outsourcing companies, outsourcing industry, recession
Posted in outsourcing | No Comments »

Have useless web site? If it has PR3+ and Alexa ranking of at least 1.000.000 we are ready to buy it for a small cash. Those will be used for SEO purposes only and will serve as additional power for 3 way link exchange. We are not interested in any ‘business’ which might exist behind the web site. We will consider any topics since we have customers using our SEO services operating in many vertical industries. We will also consider to credit you with our services. Drop a line to seo (at) moveyourweb.net

Tags: link exchange, SEO, seo services
Posted in outsourcing | No Comments »

In the offices occupied by 50+ people those could be useful. Just theoretically though. Couldn’t go by without sharing this fun concept.

Tags: lunch, lunch bag
Posted in general thoughts | 1 Comment »

We are in a exciting business of powering web startup companies. Given the fact that most web startups are about certain idea/product/service that is implemented online it turns out we support a critical part of our customers’ business. Being in the web development outsourcing business since 2001 we’ve accumulated great knowledge about the majority of online industries. We have perfect understanding of online business and solid development/animation/online marketing talents in place. With this said we are fully equipped to be a development partner/active member of online ventures.

In June 2008 we officially launched Early Stage Startups Funding program which provides the opportunity to startups to use our services in exchange for equity in the company. Typically we are talking about $$5,000-25,000 worth of our services in exchange for 5-15% of the company. Ideally we would prefer to know the CEO or other management folks or at least have the ability to track the previous accomplishments and success as well as share the vision. In addition to that we need to understand the business concept, see the business plan and all other supportive documents (no formal requirements to these documents).

The number of companies accepted into this program is limited for many reasons (resources availability, industries of an interest etc). We do not do any marketing for this program and already have strong demand from entrepreneurs that have a proven track record. So if at any given point of time we are not available to work in exchange for equity we are still happy to provide our services on a regular customer/vendor basis (this is still the core business of MoveYourWeb).

Update: MYW acts as a vendor according to the terms of this program. The management of a startup is doing the actual management of the company and business development. We do not interfere with that. However MYW has separate internal funding program when employee’s idea can be developed into a startup. Typically the employee will not be able to act as a true CEO of the new business so MYW allows to utilize the existing infrastructure and is helping/taking care of all administrative/business/legal/business development/marketing/sales matters.

Tags: funding, startup companies, startups, web startups
Posted in management, outsourcing | 4 Comments »

As a small announcement: our folks from Game Development department are creating an office building in Second Life, the most popular virtual world out there. This will help our animation folks to have the real track of benefits which organization can achieve by having the presence in virtual world based on the results of using our own office there. Besides that, the main aims that drive the development of the office for our company are the following:

• We would like to give to our customers a visual understanding of our department structuring, roles that people play, their positions: all the office space will be broken down into the rooms simulating the departments that we have at MoveYourWeb;
• Held corporate and client meetings. We practice weekly corporate meetings which all employees attend, which is rather tricky, given the fact that MoveYourWeb has several production offices. We use broadcasting to wall screens but it might be nice to play with virtual world company meetings;
• Attract additional talent. Our HR dpt reports that a small percentage of our local developers have Second Life accounts and spend their time in that virtual world. By opening our presence there we would be the first local IT company to welcome them;
• Seminars. Given that we have several offices it might be convenient to held thematic internal seminars held in Second Life, because employees from different offices can attend.

We expect to deliver early October and that will be deffinetely featured on this blog.

Tags: game development, office in second life, second life
Posted in game development, internet marketing | No Comments »

Keeping a web site updated is something that a lot of companies fail to do. Each 10th web site on the web seem to have outdated copyright string - without mentioning the actual web site content. The other interesting tendency is that a lot of web development companies are busy and consider updating their web site the last priority which puts their web site into ‘frozen’ status for years (they don’t eat their own cookies, hah?).

Here at MoveYourWeb we consider our web site to be a powerful marketing and sales tool. In fact this is our virtual front-end which customers see instead of our offices (you need to take the plane to visit us, which is not always quick and easy) so we need to make sure that we are displaying the updated and relevant information helping potential and existing customers explore our company and service offerings better.

Here goes the list of front end updates which happened during the first part of 2008:

• We added Case Studies section on the web site featuring the accomplished projects. You can browse and select case studies by service, solution, platform and industry. The old-styled web design portfolio section is not here any more (we evolved from being offshore web design studio 5-6 years ago into a reputable outsourcing company which handles sophisticated web development, animation and online marketing);
• Our home page became more interactive by displaying featured case studies, recent blog posts and even audio presentation of the company (JustMyVoice does perfect audio recordings). Our conversion rate increased by 2.1% after that step alone;
• Services page was sorted to display the most relevant information about over offerings;
• Partners page features our new Early stage startup funding program as well as Build-Operate-Transfer offering;
• 50% of the pages were updated to display latest information (e.g. seo page now proudly displays Google Certified label).

More updates are coming as this is typically an ongoing process. Stay tuned.

Tags: audio recordings, case studies section, portfolio section, web site maintenance, web site updates
Posted in general thoughts, management, outsourcing | No Comments »