The MWW 2016 Wrap-up Newsletter

Montague WebWorks’ Mik Muller reflects on the year that passed, and the year to come.

2016 Was a Good Year for MWW

This year saw us expand the capabilities of our flagship content management system, RocketFusion:

Started in October of 2015, we completed the implementation of Bootstrap into the administrative back-end in January, and created a low-cost path for customers to upgrade their websites' front-end to the latest standards in display responsiveness (mobile-friendly) and graphic impact. Thirteen of our older website clients have taken us up on this.
Our work in this area continued with the implementation of a better photo gallery layout, which has a built-in slideshow and touch-screen compatibility.
We added PayPal functionality to the Calendar Module so customers can charge for events without having to go through third-party companies like TicketFly or Brown Paper Tickets, although those are now also supported.
We created a new Business Listing Module for clients who want to list vendors or local businesses with full descriptions, photos, and links to their websites or Facebook page.
We put the finishing touches on the FAQ Module, which was created in December, 2015.
We added the Carousel Module, which is mostly used on home pages, but can be used on any page on a website.
And lastly we created yet another new Module, called Open Government, which allows Town or non-profits to list boards and their members, tracking their terms and expire dates, and their meetings, agendas and minutes. We talk more about this, below.

MWW Working with Farms

Also new in 2016 was working with the Farm Viability Enhancement Program to create websites for their grant-funded customers. We created three: Burnett Farm, Northwoods Forest Products, and Shepherd's Gate Goat Farm. With even more paperwork being requested from us, for a new expansion of this program, it looks like 2017 should be a big year for doing more farm websites.

Fifty New Customers in 2016!

We also met with FIFTY (50) new customers, and created websites for them. We are now at 250 RocketFusion websites! Congratulations to LMC Contracting for being site #250!

This list doesn't include Town of Leverett, who we just contracted with and which we talk about, below.

Town Websites, and the new Open Government Module

The year 2016 started off with us still basking in the glow of having just completed the Town of Greenfield's new website in just under two months! Completed in mid-December 2015, we immediately got calls from the Towns of Leyden and Plainfield, asking us to redo their websites. These were completed in March, and soon after we also re-did the Town of Gill's online calendar, which had ceased functioning under their old system.

Because of a new ruling by the Mass Attorney General, and at the request of the Town of Greenfield, we started creating yet another new module in October called the Open Government Module. The new ruling requires that Towns post every public meeting agendas and minutes in a legally prescribed timeline, and be "machine readable," which we are interpreting as storing everythig associated with a public meeting in descreet data fields and be fully searchable.

This new Module is a fee-based add-on for Towns or non-profits that have boards with members, and meetings and agendas and minutes, and wants to manage them through the website in an automated fashion. Every agenda section and item and motion and discussion is stored in seperate data fields in the database and are thus searchable and able to be included in reports and other database tricks.

And, to book-end the year on a similar note to how it started, we have just been contracted by the Town of Leverett to re-do their Town website! That will make number five! Seems the Open Government Module was the thing that tipped the balance in our favor.

Looking Ahead to 2017

January will again start out with a big radio advertising campaign on Bear Country and WHAI in Greenfield, featuring the testimonials of Tim Farrell, Adam Martin, Cameron Ward, and Barbara Zaccheo.

We will do a paper mailing to small Towns in Massachusetts in January, alerting them to the new ruling by the Attorney General about open meetings and their agendas and minutes. We imagine the Open Government Module will be big for us in 2017, and thus more Towns will move onto the RocketFusion platform.

In January we will also print a short-run version of our little black MWW Annual Tips & Tricks book. We just couldn't pull off a full edition this year. Next year. Next year! So much to do!

Our long-delayed One Page Quickie software will finally be ready in January, and we will do a big postcard campaign to every small farms and contractor in Franklin County. We anticipate at least a hundred (100) OPQ customers in 2017.

Yes indeed, it looks like 2017 will be our best year yet!

So, from us here at Montague WebWorks, to you ... have a happy and prosperous New Year!

Thanks again,

Mik Muller, president
Montague WebWorks
413-320-5336

Posted: to WebWorks News on Fri, Dec 30, 2016
Updated: Sun, Jan 22, 2017