A Detroit civil and human rights organization celebrated more than just their 42nd anniversary on March 7; they also celebrated the launch of their new website – www.focushope.edu

Since its conception in 1968, Focus: Hope has constantly worked to bridge the racial divide in southeast Michigan through their Commodity Supplemental Food Program, career training program and the HOPE Village Initiative, which supports the academic achievement of children living in Detroit neighborhoods.

Focus: Hope diagnosed some key items needed in a new website. Aside from having a more modern-looking and contemporary site, it was important that the site relied on a new architecture to deliver relevant content to their many varied, but each important, audiences.

Ability to add content frequently (and quickly) was deemed a necessity, so Media Genesis built a .NET based custom content management system (CMS). Outreach to donors and potential donors is of utmost importance, so Media Genesis customized their third party donation system so donors no longer have to leave the site to make a donation.

Other specific highlights include a dynamic news/volunteer/video section, unique front page content, and a group of stylistically tied, but graphically different interior pages.

Media Genesis is one of the largest and oldest independent web development companies in Michigan, specializing in services ranging from consulting, interactive multimedia, audio/video, application development, E-learning, online promotion, and hosting. For more information, visit www.mediaG.com.

Thanks to open source communities and Google, free downloads and tools have become more useful to businesses than ever before.

An easy way to sum up the evolution of productivity software -

Old school of thought: I want more bang for my buck, which software should I buy?

New school of thought: Now, that I can spend less on software by using alternate solutions, I want the most return for my bandwidth and less time spent learning a new tool. What tools should I download?

This new approach is based on a number of free useful downloads and tools that push the edges of web-based and open source technologies. Microsoft Office products and the typical office-based solutions still have a safe-haven in today’s business climate, but this haven is being challenged at an ever increasing rate by ever improving open-source and free tools.

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DETROIT — Media Genesis recently partnered with several Detroit organizations to create a website that provides a baseline status of every residential parcel in the city of Detroit (around 350,000 residential plots).

The Detroit Residential Parcel Survey, www.DetroitParcelSurvey.org, was a response to the urgent need for data on Detroit’s residencies, their structure, condition and vacancy, to report to and empower neighborhood stabilization activities.  Fifty University of Michigan students and Detroit residents worked in three-person teams to rate the condition of individual residential parcels on each Detroit street.

Media Genesis worked with the Detroit Office of Foreclosure Prevention and Response (FPR), Data Driven Detroit (D3), and Community and Legal Resources (CLR) to create a web-based data display interface for the retrieval of the Detroit Residential Parcel Survey results.   Media Genesis designed and built the website, and developed the search functionality allowing users to easily learn about their neighborhood’s and city’s housing conditions.

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This year’s relations between Google and the Chinese government seem to have hit a significant bump. After four years of compliance with China’s “Golden Shield Project,” a set of censorship standards often referred to as “The Great Firewall of China,” Google has announced that they will no longer permit censorship on the Google.cn (or any other Google) site.

It begs the question: how much do you trust Google? Or Yahoo!, or Bing, or your ISP for that matter? Google’s stance earlier this year seems to be a positive step towards network neutrality and freedom of information. Do you think it is important that these service providers maintain neutrality in their services? Or, perhaps you would prefer a certain level of non-user applied censorship? Furthermore, do you trust them with your information? For years the people of China didn’t get the same information that those here in the United States were privy to. Google, in that time, was a willing participant in shielding millions of people from information that was otherwise available to the rest of the world.
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Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Alternatively, I could go look up your restaurant on Yelp and not get fooled at all.

Yelp is a website with social aspects that allows people to rate and write reviews for stores, restaurants, bars, hair salons, barbers, dentists, doctors and pretty much any business I’ve missed. You can look a place up to find reviews and leave a review after you’ve been to a place. That’s the whole premise.

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WordPress is a name that has become synonymous with blogging, and rightfully so. It is a completely open source solution for bloggers who want to develop their own site, or just publish through a customizable web-based service. As interesting as they can be, we aren’t here to talk about blogs. What is perhaps more intriguing about WordPress is that it has become a popular platform by which one can build a full-service website with a content management system.

Sure, blogging is the primary intent of WordPress, but much like Drupal, Joomla, or any other open source CMS solution, the ability to customize the platform has made WordPress a tool that can be deployed just about any way the developer can think of.

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One D is part of a regional, civic initiative that launched in November 2006 to support progress in Southeast Michigan. It is lead by Edsel B. Ford II and CEO’s of eight organizations – Detroit Renaissance, Detroit Regional Chamber, New Detroit–The Coalition, Detroit Metro Convention & Visitors Bureau, United Way for Southeastern Michigan, Metropolitan Affairs Coalition, Southeast Michigan Council of Governments, and Cultural Alliance of Southeastern Michigan.
Nowadays, One D is working to feature nonprofit organizations and their ongoing efforts to change the Southeast Michigan region. Featuring over 200 programs on OneD.org, there’s several organizations supporting indicators including Quality of Life, Race Relations, Economic Prosperity, Regional Transit and Educational Preparedness.

The OneDScorecard.org is one initiative that is undergoing an overhaul to feature a relevant and statistical, objective view of the region as it compares to other Metropolitan areas, including Washington DC, New York, Chicago, Seattle and other large cities.

Visit OneD.org and OneDScorecard.org.

Media Genesis recently built a new home for the Detroit Housing Commission. Unlike the great work the DHC does every day, this home is online.

The Detroit Housing Commission is a government-created organization in Detroit working to assist Detroiters in finding affordable, quality housing. The DHC selected Media Genesis to update an aging web presence as part of a larger organization-wide push.

The new DHC site features a new clean and modern design. Other features include:

• A section that displays the properties available from the DHC.
• The site checks the eligibility of potential public housing applicants.
• The property pages update the waitlist status for individual properties.
• An online bid module provides extra functionality online.
• The entire site is manageable on a custom-built CMS.

Media Genesis also worked with the DHC to create a site-wide security plan that protects users’ information when they use this site.

The result is a website with which the DHC can better serve citizens in the area and grow as an organization while the city continues its recovery.

DETROIT – For many, the idea of foreclosure is overwhelming, embarrassing and frustrating, yet it is becoming a reality for thousands of families across the country.

But now, there is a trustworthy community resource to help homeowners through this process. www.ForeclosureDetroit.org is a tool to help people learn the facts, realize they are not alone, and most importantly take action.

The Detroit Office of Foreclosure Prevention and Response (FPR), an initiative of the Detroit Economic Growth Association, developed the web site to help families stay in their homes and avoid becoming the victim of mortgage rescue scams.

“The biggest impediment to people losing their homes is that they don’t take action,” said Diane McCloskey, FPR director of communication and community initiatives. “Less than 40 percent of people facing foreclosure take action. We want this web site to be a catalyst for action and to enforce that wherever you are in the foreclosure process, it is never too late to be informed and learn about your options.”

www.ForeclosureDetroit.org includes:

• A resource center for finding free foreclosure prevention counselors and links to lender and servicer contacts
• An interactive module on the homepage that helps consumers find resources at different stages of the foreclosure process
• Important information about how to avoid mortgage rescue scams

The Detroit Office of Foreclosure Prevention and Response is an independent public/private model that is a clearinghouse to share tools, resources and recommendations to leverage and enhance the work of partners throughout the City of Detroit to reduce the effects of the foreclosure crisis on families and neighborhoods.

Media Genesis designed, programmed, and created the logo/branding for the ForeclosureDetroit.org website. MedigG also developed a content management system for the nonprofit so they could easy update the content and images on their site.

As the popularity of social networks expands, communication throughout the world has become more viral and connected. Now, imagine if that communication was about peace.

The Power of Peace Network (PPN) is a recently launched Web site, www.ThePowerofPeaceNetwork.com, that hopes make this communication a reality. The site utilizes modern technology to share locally produced stories and media in pursuit of peace.

The Power of Peace Network Web site is supported by The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and acts as a portal for people to interact with peace-related issues in their local area and also learn about what other countries are facing.

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