Stratatomic Wins 2018 'Best in Class' Interactive Media Award for City of Inman Website at CityofInman.org

GREENVILLE, SC - Stratatomic has recently been honored with a 2018 'Best in Class' Interactive Media Award in the Government category for the City of Inman website, now available online at CityofInman.org.

The Interactive Media Awards is a prestigious international competition recognizing the highest standards of excellence in website design and development and honor individuals and organizations for their outstanding achievement. The 'Best in Class' award is the highest honor bestowed by the Interactive Media Council. According to the IMA, the winner of this award has excelled in all areas of the judging criteria and achieved a perfect, or near perfect, overall score. A website that is awarded 'Best in Class' represents the highest standards of professionalism, standards compliance and impeccable planning and execution, and is one of the world's most well executed websites. To learn more, please visit the IMA website at interactivemediaawards.com.

One judge for the IMA commented, "The visual design of this site is simple and basic, but it works. And it works very well. Stratatomic's web design is elegant, appealing and effective. The City of Inman website is a great example of the power of simple elegance."

Another IMA judge remarked, "Nice work on code standards. Not many web pages we review score so high in our standards compliance tests. Well done!"

The City of Inman engaged Stratatomic in late fall of 2017 to assist with creating a new logo, tagline and identity, developing a new website, setting up their social media presence, and the ongoing hosting and maintenance of the site.

The new website is based on the latest HTML5 technology and incorporates a "responsive" design that automatically adjusts to fit any screen size, be it desktop, laptop, tablet or mobile device. The website includes resources and information for city government, mayor and city council, planning and zoning, city departments and administration, wastewater treatment, police and fire departments, community events and recreation, local schools, employment, bid opportunities, calendar of events and many other public services and resources. The website also includes social media integration of Twitter and Facebook live feeds which Stratatomic also assisted with the setup and implementation.

The City of Inman will utilize Stratatomic's WebAdmin™ Content Management System to update and maintain the website, including recent news, events, agendas, meeting minutes, public notices, bid opportunities, employment, city hall bulletins, planning and zoning documents, and an emergency notification system. Stratatomic will also provide them with website hosting services.

(Former) City Administrator Jeremy Caudle said of Stratatomic, "The City of Inman's goal in updating our website, designing a new logo, and establishing a social media presence was to cultivate an image of professionalism, modernity, and positivity. What Ryan Owens and Stratatomic built for us has met those goals and exceeded our expectations. I agree with one of my city councilmembers when he says our new website is "Best in the Upstate." I would go further and say that, out of all city and county governments in South Carolina, our new website is one of the best, putting us at the forefront of e-government. Stratatomic is unequaled when it comes to excellence in web and graphic design, and I highly recommend them."

Councilman Ray Rogers said an updated website was something he's been advocating for since joining council three years ago. "The old website was very antiquated, out-of-date and not very well managed and maintained," he said. "I think what we've got now is something I consider state-of-the-art. It was well worth the time it took."

Located in in Spartanburg County, South Carolina, the City of Inman is a growing community with small-town charm and a population of 2,321 at the 2010 census. Inman is home to a historic downtown district and hosts several events and festivals throughout the year, including the Summer Concert Series, Harvest Day in the autumn, and the Inman Fresh Farmers Market from May-October of each year.

» View the City of Inman Logo and Website

» Read the City of Inman's Testimonial & Reaction to the Project

Securing Your Website with HTTPS

We've been pushing all of our clients to adopt HTTPS encryption for your website for quite some time. And now with Google's Chrome browser displaying all websites that do not utilize HTTPS encryption as "INSECURE" and with HTTPS now a factor in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) rankings and upcoming trends in internet technologies, the time is now to make the change. Most all of our clients have secured their website with SSL/TLS certificates per our recommendation, but a few of you still have not done so. Don't just take our word for it, below is an excerpt from a noted Google developer.

Google

Why HTTPS Matters

By Kayce Basques
Technical Writer, Google Chrome DevTools & Lighthouse

You should always protect all of your websites with HTTPS, even if they don't handle sensitive communications. Aside from providing critical security and data integrity for both your websites and your users' personal information, HTTPS is a requirement for many new browser features, particularly those required for progressive web apps.

HTTPS Protects the Integrity of Your Website

HTTPS helps prevent intruders from tampering with the communications between your websites and your users' browsers. Intruders include intentionally malicious attackers, and legitimate but intrusive companies, such as ISPs or hotels that inject ads into pages.

Intruders exploit unprotected communications to trick your users into giving up sensitive information or installing malware, or to insert their own advertisements into your resources. For example, some third parties inject advertisements into websites that potentially break user experiences and create security vulnerabilities.

Intruders exploit every unprotected resource that travels between your websites and your users. Images, cookies, scripts, HTML … they're all exploitable. Intrusions can occur at any point in the network, including a user's machine, a Wi-Fi hotspot, or a compromised ISP, just to name a few.

HTTPS Protects the Privacy and Security of Your Users

HTTPS prevents intruders from being able to passively listen to communications between your websites and your users.

One common misconception about HTTPS is that the only websites that need HTTPS are those that handle sensitive communications. Every unprotected HTTP request can potentially reveal information about the behaviors and identities of your users. Although a single visit to one of your unprotected websites may seem benign, some intruders look at the aggregate browsing activities of your users to make inferences about their behaviors and intentions, and to de-anonymize their identities. For example, employees might inadvertently disclose sensitive health conditions to their employers just by reading unprotected medical articles.

HTTPS is the Future of the Web

Powerful, new web platform features, such as taking pictures or recording audio with getUserMedia(), enabling offline app experiences with service workers, or building progressive web apps, require explicit permission from the user before executing. Many older APIs are also being updated to require permission to execute, such as the geolocation API. HTTPS is a key component to the permission workflows for both these new features and updated APIs.

» Read the Full Article

How Do I Move to HTTPS Encryption for My Website?

Making your website operate over HTTPS is as simple as having us install an SSL Certificate (SSL stands for Secure Socket Layer) that is issued by a third-party authority. SSL Certificates are renewable on an annual term and provide up to 256 bit encryption, thereby offering the highest level of encryption and security possible. The cost for this SSL Certificate and installation is $300/year.

Technology does not stand still, and very soon the move to HTTPS encryption will not be an option. If you haven't made the move to HTTPS please do so now in order to avoid any penalties with your SEO rankings as well as the possibility of security breaches that can occur.

» Contact Us and Let's Secure Your Website Today

Year in Review: 2018 Internet Facts + Stats

Internet Statistics

There are 4.1 billion Internet users in the world as at December 2018. This is compared to 3.9 billion Internet users in mid 2018 and about 3.7 billion Internet users in late 2017.
The Internet influenced retail sales to the tune of $2.84 trillion in 2018 and is expected to influence retail sales to the tune of $3.45 trillion in 2019.
An estimated 1.92 billion people are expected to purchase something online in 2019.
80 percent of Internet users in the U.S. are expected to make a purchase online in 2019.
Over 4 million blog posts are published on the Internet every day.
Over 500 million tweets are sent every day.
Over 5 billion Google searches are made every day.

Domain Name Statistics

There are 342 million registered domain names as at the third quarter of 2018.
About 43.59 percent of all domain names use the leading .com domain name extension.
The most expensive domain name ever sold is LasVegas.com, which was bought in 2005 for a whopping $90 million. While some argue that the most expensive domain name is Cars.com which was valued at $872 million, that claim is a bit deceptive as the sale didn't just involve the cars.com domain name but an existing business. The LasVegas.com sale involves just the domain name.

Website + Web Hosting Statistics

The world's first website was published on August 6, 1991 by British physicist Tim Berners-Lee.
As at December 2018, there are approximately 1.94 billion websites in the world.
51.8 percent of all Internet traffic comes from bots, while only 48.2 percent of internet traffic comes from humans.
Google is the world's most visited website, followed by Youtube and Facebook. Chinese search engine Baidu is the world's fourth most visited website.
Over 90,000 websites are hacked every day.
WordPress is the most hacked CMS — with 83 percent of hacked websites using the WordPress platform. BTW, ALL Stratatomic websites are 100% custom-coded and we do not (and have never) relied on WordPress or any other website-in-a-can service.

E-Commerce + Conversion Statistics

The e-commerce industry will be responsible for about $3.45 trillion in sales in 2019.
People spend an average of 5 hours per week shopping online.
Being in the first position in Google will result in a click through rate of 34.36 percent for desktop computers and a click through rate of 31.35 percent for mobile devices.
Amazon is responsible for more than 49 percent of all online sales and about 5 percent of all retail sales in the U.S.
The best day to send an email is on a Wednesday, and the worst day to send an email is on a Thursday.

Mobile Internet Statistics

There are 3.7 billion global mobile Internet users as at January 2018.
Mobile e-commerce will be responsible for $2.32 trillion — or about 67.2 percent — of e-commerce sales by 2021.
Mobile traffic is responsible for 52.2 percent of Internet traffic in 2018 — compared to 50.3 percent from 2017.

Social Media Statistics

There will be an estimated 2.77 billion social media users in 2019.
Social media influences the shopping activities of 23 percent of online shoppers.
Social media ad spend is expected to overtake newspaper ad spend by 2019.
As of Q3 2018, Facebook has 2.27 billion monthly active users; Instagram has 1 billion monthly active users; Twitter has 326 million monthly active users; LinkedIn has 260 million monthly active users.