Global Nerdy

Well, that didn’t take long. Last week, I wrote about how Microsoft Canada’s blog for mobile developers still had my picture on the banner, even though it’s been about five months since I’d left the company. My true complaint was that the photo was two years and more importantly, twenty additional pounds out of date.

It seems that my gentle ribbing has resulted in some action being taken. If you were to go to the Canadian Mobile Developer blog right now, you’d see the updated banner, featuring my friend and former coworker and fellow Windows Phone Champ, Developer Evangelist Paul Laberge, in the spot I used to occupy:

Remember, Microsoft Canada: any time you need an irritant to help you produce a pearl, you have but to call on my services!

This article also appears in The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century.

Welcome to another featured Shopify app article, where we put the spotlight on one of the many developers building apps for Shopify. We’ve approached the people who build Shopify apps and asked them a few questions about what their app does, what its features are and why shopowners should use their app.

The plan is to do this for every app in the Shopify app store, to make sure that shop owners know all about the apps that are available and how they can extend their shops’ capabilities. We also hope it’ll make rock stars out of the developers who build apps on the Shopify platform!

Today’s featured app is ShopLogic. It’s also the currently featured app on the App Store.

What does ShopLogic do?

ShopLogic provides a powerful promotions platform that increases sales and social referrals for your ecommerce store. We make it easy to launch, manage, and optimize promotions.

Right now, during the beta period, the app is free. Get it now; you can be up and running in three minutes!

What are ShopLogic’s Key Features?

• ShopLogic lets you target promotions to specific shopper profile segments, like “loyal/repeat” or “new visitor” shoppers. It makes sure that the most effective promotion is being offered to the right shopper. You can also choose to run a broad offer and target everyone.
• ShopLogic supports social promotions, which incentivize shoppers to share with and refer friends through Facebook or Twitter. It’s a great way for shop owners to increase their social media presence while also increasing sales.
• It’s simple. You can choose from our selection of pre-defined promotions or customize to suit your needs.

Why should shop owners use ShopLogic?

ShopLogic increases sales and conversion rate for shop owners’ stores. We enable them to offer the right promotion to convert browsing shoppers into paying customers. Also, we let shop owners encourage shoppers to share on Facebook and Twitter, thereby driving additional social referral traffic to the store.

Shop owners can get a free trial of the app and it’s easy! – they will be up and running with promotions in just 3 minutes.

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

ShopLogic is a venture-backed startup company based in San Francisco, California. Founded in 2011, they provide optimization technology for ecommerce sites to increase sales. The Shopify app is the first of other compelling products to come.

You can find us online in the following ways:

• On our website: www.goshoplogic.com
• On Twitter: @shoplogic

How long did it take for you to build ShopLogic?

We built an initial version of the app in about 2 months. There is a lot of sophisticated technology going on in the background that allows us to offer targeted promotions to specific shopper profiles in real-time and to provide the analytics about promotions’ effectiveness.

The Shopify API is quite robust with great documentation so overall we have had a very positive experience partnering with Shopify.

Where can I find out more about ShopLogic?

You can find out more about ShopLogic on its page in the Shopify App Store.

This article also appears in the Shopify Technology Blog.

Update, Tuesday September 20th: If you’d like to come to this event, please RSVP on the Facebook event page so I have an idea of the number of people and can make arrangements with the restaurant accordingly!

It’s a Toronto tradition that’s gone neglected for far too long: the monthly dim sum lunch at good ol’ Sky Dragon. It’s time to bring it back!

Although it’s short notice, I don’t want to delay its return any more, so I’m declaring one for THIS WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21st AT NOON at the usual location: Sky Dragon, the dim sum restaurant at the top floor of Dragon City Shopping Mall, located on the southwest corner of Dundas and Spadina.

This is not formal at all: no agenda, set topics or presentations: it’s just local people who build software and sites getting together to share a nice lunch. You don’t have to be a developer to attend; if you somehow take part in the activity of writing software, building web sites or just like hanging out with the very nice people who make up Toronto’s very active tech scene, please join us!

We all pitch in on the final bill, and for the past few dim sum lunches, it’s worked out to about $12 a person, tip included. It’s a pretty good price considering how much food you get.

This article also appears in The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century.