Frankie Fund Website Launch

Website Development :: Charity

Lynn Media Group develops a new website to help a remarkable young boy meet his next challenge: changing New York state dog bite law.

frankiefund.com – Frankie Flora is an extraordinary 8-year old boy who survived a near fatal pit bull mauling in 2009 and went on to become the New York Ambassador for the Children’s Miracle Network in 2010. Part of being the ambassador landed him at the White House and a host of other star studded events. Since the April 16, 2009 pit bull attack, Frankie has undergone 25 reconstructive surgeries. He continues to take part in and promote the Children’s Miracle Network even though his year term as the ambassador has ended.

In June of 2012, on the steps of the New York State Capitol Building, Frankie held a news conference for yet another huge endeavor: To once and for all eliminate the One Free Bite rule in the state of New York.

Upon learning of the news conference, Lynn Media Group began working with Frankie’s mother, Maria Flora, to help build a website that could support Frankie’s goal of overhauling New York’s dog bite law that Frankie and countless others have fallen victim to. The solution included a customized WordPress website with plugins that best suited the site’s needs. The new website was unveiled in July 2012. The campaign effort to overhaul the One Free Bite rule is expected to start picking up steam in late Fall.

Given the modest budget and tight time frame, Lynn Media Group opted to customize the Magazine Basic theme by Bavotasan.com. The theme is a good fit and will allow plenty of room to grow as Frankie takes on this challenging statewide reform.

Website design: Lynn Media Group
Website development: Lynn Media Group – WordPress
Total cost: Under $500
Lynn Media Group is user-centered website design and technology group that operates out of Austin, Texas. The founder, Colleen Lynn, is a veteran user interface designer and social activist. Learn more about our website development services.

Dangerous By Default Website Launch

Website Development :: Victims’ Advocacy

Lynn Media Group launches new website in evening fire drill effort for family at the center of a northeastern state Supreme Court decision that altered state law.

young pit bull mauling victim maryland court of appealsDangerousByDefault.com – Just when Maryland legislators needed access to an ebook created by a father whose son’s case is at the center of a landmark Maryland Appeals Court ruling, Scribd’s poorly designed “content filter” essentially began blocking the ebook from viewing. Upon learning of Scribd’s inexplicable new content filter, Lynn Media Group acted fast to not only pull it down from Scribd but to relaunch the whole website, formerly under a .NET domain name, under the more common consumer .COM domain name.

In a matter of hours, after exchanging “language” with Scribd’s legal department, Lynn Media Group had transferred all of the written and photographic materials from the .NET website over to the new domain and new website design based upon a modified version of the Twenty Eleven theme by WordPress. Furthermore, within the evening time span, the .NET address began forwarding to the new .COM address as well, stopping anyone from reaching the old website that still pointed to the newly voided Scribd link.

In addition to Scribd’s flawed “content filter” the family was also burdened by the managed website hosting company that hosted the .NET website. Even after phone calls to the company, the family was unable to login to their own website to update the one page that was still linking to the newly invalidated Scribd link. Lynn Media Group was forced to go above the managed website hosting company by forwarding the .NET to the .COM address at the domain name registrar level.

Both Scribd and the managed website hosting company critically failed a client who needed very basic help fast. Scribd’s track record with user’s content and privacy is so poor that Lynn Media Group can’t help but emphasize this. Now this family, set up in a WordPress.org environment, has no dependencies on third party entities. The speed of the website and domain name transfer process occurred in about a 4-hour period and includes communications sent to third parties attempting to rectify the situation.

Website design: Lynn Media Group
Website development: Lynn Media Group WordPress
Lynn Media Group is user-centered website design and technology group that operates out of Austin, Texas. The founder, Colleen Lynn, is a veteran user interface designer and social activist. Learn more about our website development services.

Austin Love Ministries Website Launch

Website Development :: Church

Lynn Media Group launches new website for Central Texas church. Austin Love Ministries is located on South Congress Avenue in Austin.

lynn media groupaustinloveministries.org – Like many nonprofit and community outreach websites, the former website for Austin Love Ministries was “static” — basic HTML without a blog component or platform to allow church members to login and easily make updates. It did not take much convincing by Lynn Media Group to move the organization to the WordPress platform for the new website design. Given budget constraints, Lynn Media Group opted to customize a child theme based on the Modularity theme by Graph Paper Press.

Church members were thrilled with the theme’s built in features, namely the home page slider, where large photographs appear in sequence. The Austin-based non-denominational church is proud of their diverse membership and wanted to feature this aspect of their ministry. The base and child themes were originally designed for photographers, but as one can see, with code and visual customizations, it was a nice fit for a growing ministry as well. Upcoming features of the website include live webcasting of Sunday church services.

Austin Love Ministries has an active Facebook page and YouTube channel. Since the launch of the new website, members can login and post new photos and videos to the website from these social media channels. The primary components of the ministry are audio and video. The group hopes to add podcasts in the future as well. Lynn Media Group also facilitated a variety of training sessions to help church members get accustomed to the WordPress platform and build a strategy for sharing and updating content between the social media platforms.

Website design: Lynn Media Group
Website development: Lynn Media Group WordPress
Total cost: Under $500
Lynn Media Group is user-centered website design and technology group that operates out of Austin, Texas. The founder, Colleen Lynn, is a veteran user interface designer and social activist. Learn more about our website development services.