Swiftel Communications
When Swiftel came to us looking for a new site, the number one goal was to become the homepage for their community. They wanted to showcase local news and weather as a service to their customers. Oh, and maybe sell some of their products and services while they’re at it.
Our favorite part of this site is the weather function. Using the weather tower at the downtown Swiftel location, we pull live data from the National Weather Service. Then we overlay it on Google Maps so users can zoom in, move around and automatically see the current radar loop for the past three hours. Humidity, wind speed, sunrise, heat index—it’s all there for your convenience.
The website is excellent at cross-promoting products and services. The system is aware of what page a person is viewing, and in what category, and will promote a different related product or service in the sidebar.
One last cool bit: remember how Swiftel wanted to be the homepage for their community? Well, with the use of RSS feeds, we’re able to stream news from the local news station and South Dakota State University automatically—no updating required. Whenever a news feed updates, so does the homepage of Swiftel.net. If you live in Brookings, set this as your homepage and check it every morning for your local news and weather. (Seriously, give that map a spin.)
