Bluhalo - The Real Digital Agency Story

Gran Turismo 5 - featuring Bluhalo pt2

2011-02-01T11:44:00.000Z

We touched upon this over a year ago, but now that the game has finally been released, I thought it was necessary to load the game up and get some high quality images of the Bluhalo logo featured on the Subaru Impreza WRC in this game for real!

Check out the images below!

WebGL - see it in action! (one for the techies)

2010-10-01T14:17:00.011+01:00

As keen and conscientious developers, we are always looking for new and more efficient ways of creating our sites. Cool and fun is a bonus. A while ago I briefly talked about WebGL and since I have had a bit of free time I thought it was time to revisit this.

To remind those who lack an eidetic memory / don’t read out blog and aren’t avid techies, WebGL is an attempt by the Khronos Group to develop a cross-platform API to bring the functionality of OpenGL to the web.

It is backed by browser manufacturers Mozilla, Opera, Google and Apple, albeit only in pre-release software thus far. It gets rid of the need for any additional plugins and allows hardware accelerated graphics rendering (where available, in theory software rendering is supported otherwise). Unfortunately, it does still rely on the presence of OpenGL on the target system. A more thorough list of the pros and cons of the WebGL can be found here.

Now, returning to my point (much rejoicing), I have been evaluating /experimenting with WebGL recently. Some time back, I did a lot of work with OpenGL using C++, and then C#, for which NeHe Productions was invaluable; indeed my research suggests it is still a heavily used resource and well worth checking out.

In spite of my super human ability to forget information almost immediately, I have still found myself comparing development with my previous experience. WebGL is an odd beast – it is a low level api, and has no fixed function support. This, combined with the relatively slow speed of JavaScript (the language used to invoke theWebGL functionality) has meant that a project must be approached in a very different way. Without getting too technical, in OpenGL, you would use the wide array of functions available to achieve what you set out to do (initially at least), whereas WebGL requires that you split out some of the calculations to be processed in parallel on the graphics card in the form of Shaders rather than using JavaScript.

This multifaceted coding approach is especially odd compared with Flash development, for which I tend to prefer to mix drawing on the stage (my artistic needs must be satisfied somehow!) with the application code. Like everything else, once you have the right mindset, it is relatively straightforward to create simple examples; indeed for anyone interested I would recommend http://learningwebgl.com/blog/as a good place to start. The lessons offered adhere broadly to those on NeHe, but help introduce the complexities inherent in WebGL development. To give you an idea of what is offered, below is a very simple demo built upon several of his tutorials that I created while first looking into the subject. It’s worth reiterating at this point that current browser releases won’t yet be able to display this – only those with pre-release builds need apply (if you are interested: http://nightly.mozilla.org/ is where I got my test one).

These complexities won’t make any difference to the user, though; indeed the lack of a plugin should eventually make the experience a smoother one overall. It will allow accelerated 2D and 3D graphics to be easily delivered in a cross-browser format without placing the onus on the user to download additional plugins or software beyond the browser itself.

That said, in addition to the previously linked cons, it is worth noting the lack of a proprietary, compiled format does mean that users who choose to can pick apart your WebGL app to see how it works – unless satisfied with JavaScript obfuscation, sites that are very concerned with the security of their proprietary code should maybe look at another solution. Ultimately though, the value of what your site offers should ideally mean more than the way you deliver it, so this shouldn’t dissuade people from considering WebGL when the spec reaches fruition (hopefully later this year).

This will ONLY work if you have a pre-release version of the new browsers. If you fancy have a go at our spinning cube game, download a pre-release version here. For those without the pre-release version of the browsers, there's also a screen capture of it below.

Click within the Cube box to make it work!

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Your browser doesn't support iframes. Don't worry, this probably means it doesn't support WebGL either, so it doesn't make a huge difference! You might want to consider upgrading your browser though...

Nick Nawrattel
Head of Rich Media

Liverpool F.C. website reviewed in New Media Age's site review

2010-09-30T14:17:00.002+01:00

Today's New Media Age (NMA) reviewed www.liverpoolfc.tv in its site inspection, awarding it a very respectable 76/100.

NMA's Anna Richardson reviewed the website, giving it a score of 20/25 for content, 17/25 for usability, 19/25 for branding and 20/25 for monetisation.

The site, which was developed in conjunction with Liverpool F.C.'s in-house development team has been a great success since launch breaking several previous records - you can read more about that in a previous blog post.

You can read the full site review on the NMA website, but you'll need to be a subscriber.

Bluhalo/GyroHSR is an NMA Top 100 Digital Agency

2010-09-22T14:12:00.003+01:00

Another year and the results of the renowned NMA Top 100 Interactive Agencies report were revealed at another memorable event last night.

Bluhalo/GyroHSR came in as 19th in the top 100, ranking as the 11th largest digital marketing agency in the UK. The industry as a whole has grown by 10% on last year's figures, demonstrating that despite difficult economic times, the industry remains buoyant. The growth, likely to have been bolstered largely by reallocations of marketing budgets to digital marketing, thanks to its measurability and ability to accurately measure ROI, bucks the general economic trend of the country and pays testimony to the hard work committed by the agency sector.

You can read the results summary here, with the full table appearing in tomorrow's edition of New Media Age.

Jocelyn Kirby
Marketing & Business Development Manager
Twitter @JocelynKirby

Is Marketing Now Part of the Digital Agency World?

2010-09-03T11:05:00.005+01:00

The web is now so much more than a marketing channel. In today's very digital world, it forms such a large part of an organisation's communications, that it really cannot be seen as something to be dealt with as a separate entity. Yet, rather surprisingly, many organisations still treat digital as a separate beast entirely.

I have lost count of the number of conversations I've had where the digital team and the marketing teams work independently of one-another, often seated in different parts of the building, or sometimes in a different building altogether! Yet, this seems crazy. When the digital world is now so much part of our everyday lives, are these organisations' marketing teams missing a trick?

The internet is where a large proportion of our social interactions take place, on sites such as Facebook and Twitter; it's where we often discuss, showcase or incubate our passions - think Flickr for photographers, Etsy for creative arts, online gaming - the list is endless; it's where we conduct our business networking on sites such as LinkedIn; it's where we learn about everything from industry advancements to how to bring up our children... you get the picture. Over the next couple of years we're going to find it increasingly difficult to distinguish between our on and offline lives.

So if all this happens online, why do many organisations still insist on having a separate digital team and marketing team? I think it can largely be attributed to the organic growth of digital, beginning as a niche channel, often viewed as a very techincal discipline (which to some extent it is) which required specialist digital knowledge. As the importance of digital grew, so did the digital team, separately from the marketing team.

Yet with the obvious prevalence of the online channels in today's marketing strategy, are marketers now doing enough to harness the power of the internet?

The importance of an integrated marketing strategy has been clear from the day we coined the phrase 'marketing'. Send out a consistent message through multiple channels and the overall benefits gained are more than single channels of communication executed independently. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. We all know this. So what can marketers do to harness the true power of digital?

The first big step towards this is understanding that digital is no longer a separate discipline. Marketers should be versed in both on and offline marketing. If you have a big team, use specialists of course, but the over-arching view should be FULLY INTEGRATED. Yes, some campaigns may run offline only, and some may run online-only, but the overall view should be consistency across ALL channels. By investing in a campaign which hits the target audience at every possible touch point (and online there are many), the results could be astounding. It's just a shame that we don't see more of this.

Digital is not scary. It's amazing! It's a marketers dream - it's trackable down to the minutest detail, you can even track brand sentiment (that's another post entirely), ROI is easily calculable, your target audience can be engaged in two-way conversations, implementation and roll-out can be comparitively instant, multi-variant testing of campaigns can be done at the touch of a button. But possibly most importantly, the digital world is becoming increasingly entwined with our offline worlds - think iPhone apps like MapMyRun, Nike Plus, numerous augmented reality apps. As this merger continues, the importance of a multi-disciplined marketing team will become increasingly apparent. As will the importance of an integrated agency that really is an integrated agency. Bluhalo is lucky enough to be part of an integrated agency network - GyroHSR - where we work as a truly integrated team, harnessing the magic of digital and the power of offline media.

Jocelyn Kirby
Marketing & Business Development Manager
Twitter @JocelynKirby

Ford Releases Its Social Media Guidelines

2010-08-24T08:37:00.001+01:00

Ford, often considered one of the more forward-thinking brands in social media has published its social media guidelines for staff, releasing bite-sized tips and pieces of information via Twitter and other social media properties.

Similarly to Coca Cola (more on that here), Ford has kept its guidelines simple and easy to understand, ensuring maximum buy-in from staff and demonstrating its commitment to the communication channel.

The guidelines key messages are based around honesty, clarity, awareness, respect and good judgement - they sound like a recipe for the perfect human being!

You can read the full explanation below:

Ford Social Media Guidelines

Jocelyn Kirby
Marketing & Business Development Manager

Bluhalo Joins .Net Awards Panel

2010-08-23T10:44:00.006+01:00

The .net Awards celebrate the best in web design and development, and are brought to you by the world's best-selling magazine for web builders - .net. The 16 categories for 2010 range from Design Agency of the Year and Mobile Site of the Year through to Community site of the year.

Bluhalo's very own Dan Steele and Alastair MacMichael have been invited to join this year's prestigious judging panel, alongside the likes of some of the best-known names in the industry such as Google, Yahoo! and TweetDeck. You can view the impressive line-up by visiting the .net awards judges page. With this many industry experts reviewing entries, it is clear why a .net award is one of the most sought after in our industry, and you can certainly be sure that the winners are going to be well-deserving of the accolade!

The awards are currently at the public voting stage, so if you'd like to voice your opinions on the best of digital this year, you can vote now by visiting the .net awards voting page, public voting closes on 12th October.

Dan Steele, a developer at Bluhalo and previous contributor to .net magazine said "It was a great honour to be invited to be a judge in the awards, I can't wait to see the shortlist!"

Alastair MacMichael, Bluhalo's Managing Director, added "I'm really pleased to have been invited to join this year's panel, the current nominees are so interesting, I think the results of the public vote will be a close one with many nominees worthy of a place on the shortlist. I very much look forward to being involved in the judging process."

Final winners will be announced on 19th November.

Jocelyn Kirby
Marketing & Business Development Manager

Cassandra from Facebook- not just a pretty name!

2010-08-10T10:41:00.001+01:00

Everyone has heard of MySQL and others of its ilk – chances are you talk about nothing else at family get-togethers. Like most database solutions, it is optimised predominantly for reading, the idea being you write your data infrequently but read often (the classic content managed website model). While this model can obviously still be used in the development of the plethora of multi-write social websites, giving as it does a nice balance of performance and ease of use, it isn’t necessarily the ideal solution.

One emerging alternative is an open source distributed database management system called Cassandra. Originally developed and open sourced by Facebook in 2008, Cassandra is a second generation NoSQL top-level Apache Software Foundation project. NoSQL, originally a relational database management system accessed via a Unix shell, is becoming an umbrella term for data storage solutions that don’t follow the traditional relational model. This broad term does mean that the various solutions don’t exactly match up, so what does Cassandra provide?

It is a cluster database providing a structured key-value store with eventual consistency, without any single points of failure (it has no central master). This means that it’s extremely fault tolerant – if any one of the identical nodes fails, another will take its place. As well as this high availability, it also provides write and read scaling – as more nodes are added, read and write throughput increase linearly without interruption.

This all sounds very good, but as with all web technologies, it is best employed carefully – these benefits come at the cost of many of the tools often associated with a traditional database. Nevertheless, when used in the right situation, it can offer a reliable and proven solution as demonstrated by Facebook, Digg, Twitter and others. A discussion of when to use Cassandra is available here.

Outside the project page (linked above), more information can be found here, with a discussion of various NoSQL solutions (including Cassandra) available here.

Nick Nawrattel, Lead Multimedia Developer (wearing his programming cap)

UK Sports Network Event

2010-08-09T10:01:00.004+01:00

This Tuesday, the 10th of August sees a return of the UK Sports Networking evening at the Sports Bar And Grill at Marylebone station in London.

On 17th May I attended my first UKSN event. Going down to the basement things were quite literally hotting up. I was astounded by the number of people already chatting away to each other. All credit to the event's organiser, Daniel McLaren, who had persuaded 120 people to attend a relatively new event on a Monday night.

Daniel passed me a champagne bucket & suggested I collect the competition entries myself. Our VIP box at Tottenham Hotspur, (Bluhalo built their website) means I was lucky enough to have 2 tickets to offer the lucky winner on the night.

Going around the room, what a fantastic mix of people! I met someone about to sail around the world, someone with a virtual golf machine, a presenter from Sky Sports, corporates looking for sports sponsorship, fellow sports marketers, merchandisers, software providers, lawyers, the PA, the FA and a few familiar faces along the way.

I have high hopes for this Tuesday’s event where Bluhalo will be once again offering 2 VIP tickets to a Tottenham Hotspur match. If you work in sports I’d definitely recommend the event.

I will finish the post with some words from Daniel McLaren:
“The London Sports Networking event is becoming a firm fixture in the calendar now after our last one back in May attracted over 130 people on the night. This one promises to be even better with great attendees coming from all areas of the sports industry in London. Co-hosting the event with Lewis Howes from www.sportsnetworker.com gives us a fantastic reach with over 30,000 people in our combined groups not to mention websites, Facebook and Twitter! If you are free on Tuesday night and want to meet some great people then make sure you don’t miss out, come on over”

If you fancy coming along, you can buy tickets here.

Laura Hannan
Business Development Manager

Liverpool F.C. Smashes Web Records

2010-08-04T09:47:00.003+01:00

July saw some huge successes for the Liverpool F.C. website, with fans from all over the world logging in to keep up with the latest news, which included a new manager and a new number 10.

By the close of the month, LiverpoolFC.tv had smashed all previous web records, welcoming more than 4m unique visitors to the site, who enjoyed more than 85m pages - what a July! Previous records hadn't even come close to this astounding performance, with past top performance levels for a single month at 65m pages views (in 2005) and 3.4m uniques (in 2009).

The site, which was designed and built by Bluhalo in partnership with Liverpool F.C.'s internal development team, is one of the most popular sports websites on the planet. The news article which reports this huge achievement also notes the importance of its fans in achieving this success; "Thanks to all of you who visited Liverpoolfc.tv during July for continuing to make the official website of LFC one of the most visited football sites on the internet."

Jocelyn Kirby
Marketing & Business Development Manager
Twitter @JocelynKirby

Bluhalo's Farnborough Airshow Event Roundup

2010-07-26T10:14:00.004+01:00

Friday saw our bi-annual Airshow event take place, with some fantastic and very un-typically British sunny weather following a more traditional wet morning, which at one point did leave us slightly concerned about the afternoon's event and running to gather as many umbrellas as we could find!

We had a great turnout, with many clients, contacts, partners and suppliers arriving to enjoy the gorgeous weather, great company, delicious food and most importantly, the breathtaking flying displays of some of the world's most impressive planes.

My personal favourites were the Blades, defying gravity with some rather heartstopping aerial acrobatics; and of course the impressive Airbus, showing us that big, can also be agile - although I'm still not sure how it manages to land in Farnborough airport!

Our charity raffle in aid of Cancer Research UK added a bit of extra fun to the day and raised nearly £300 for the charity too - massive thanks to Sequel for donating a Guess watch and to our hosting partner DediPower for donating the Amazon voucher. Thanks also to everyone that came to share the day with us and who bought raffle tickets.

Many of our guests were also plane enthusiasts and keen photographers - there were some great shots captured by Andy Piper and Benjamin Ellis; and not at our event, but with shots as good as this, certainly worth a mention - a local photographer's record of the Airshow.

Alastair Macmichael becomes Bluhalo Agency Head

2010-07-13T08:58:00.003+01:00

Following the recent departure of Bluhalo's Founder, Spencer Gallagher, Alastair Macmichael has taken over as managing director.

Alastair joined Bluhalo, GyroHSR’s pure-play digital agency, in May 2010 from 20:20 (formerly GraphicoDMG) where he headed up work with clients including Pepsi UK and its sub brands, London Eye and Britvic. During his eight years at the agency, he had responsibility for driving the agency’s digital strategy and most recently held the role of director of business development.

The appointment is designed to further enhance Bluhalo’s global footprint plans and support GyroHSR’s global offering. Founded 11 years ago, Bluhalo was recently named a top 10 digital marketing agency by New Media Age. In the UK some of its largest clients include Liverpool FC, Technicolor and Blackberry/RIM.

Commenting on the appointment, GyroHSR CEO, Richard Glasson said; “Alastair joins Bluhalo with a truly impressive pedigree in the digital world, and will further strengthen our expertise in this core discipline. Digital business accounts for over 40% of GyroHSR's world-wide revenues. It's an area that we continue to invest in, and in which we expect further strong growth. I'm delighted to welcome Al to the company”.

Sponsor Our Trailwalker!

2010-07-08T09:20:00.007+01:00

Bluhalo’s Dan Steele will be taking part in the Oxfam trailwalker in July, a 60 mile non-stop ‘walk’ over rough terrain across the South Downs from Petersfield to Brighton. He’ll be walking through the night, clocking up almost 30 hours of walking time along the way!

It’s his first endurance event and he’s gone straight in for a big one! He needs to raise at least £500 for the charity and needs your help to get there!

If you feel you can help (even if it’s just a couple of pounds) he’d be really grateful! To sponsor Dan, visit Virgin Money Giving and please give what you can. Everyone that sponsors Dan by 18th July will be in with the chance of winning 8 tickets to Bluhalo's VIP executive box at Tottenham Hotspur for the game vs Villarreal on Thursday 29th July at 8pm. The prize isn't transferable (so you can't sell it on eBay), but you can take all your friends along with you - you'll be sure to see a celeb or WAG or two! To secure your entry into the draw, drop Dan an email once you've sponsored him(dan@bluhalo.com)!

Thanks for your support!

HTML 5 - the conversation continues

2010-06-18T14:10:00.003+01:00

The web seems to be saturated with talk about HTML 5. Many people know what HTML 5 is – it’s the next big thing! It’s a new technology that does everything and destroys Adobe Flash! It makes computers run faster and does the tea run - a-mazing! Unfortunately, this isn’t all necessarily quite true (although I still have hopes the tea run can get sorted in a later revision of the spec).

There is no doubt that there is a lot of anticipation for what HTML 5 will bring, with Google, Microsoft and Apple all touting it as the way forward; however the term is being increasingly misused leading to it “becoming the next overloaded term” as Michael Mullany describes it here.

If one were to be pedantic about it, as our blog has touched on before, HTML 5 is simply a revision of the HTML spec. The core HTML 5 changes that will be user-visible include the canvas (allowing graphics to be rendered to the screen), audio and video tags. Under the hood, there are also a number of semantic additions and new mark-up to make html code cleaner, accessibility features, a drag and drop API, user-editable content and content caching directives.
It is also necessary to combine a number of other tools that fall within what some are calling the HTML 5 family in order to produce all of the demonstrations that have been emerging from proponents of the technology. Chief among these is CSS3, which is again not yet a completed specification (it is in fact a number of developing sub-specifications). As well as the expected improvements (like rounded corners, improved layout control, borders and backgrounds), CSS3 also includes a number of features such as 2D and 3D animations for boxed content; in fact a lot of what some people think is HTML 5 is actually CSS3.

Another technology that is instrumental in building up the HTML 5 family portfolio is Web Storage. As the name suggests, this basically offers both temporary and persistent local storage allowing for the development of sites that can continue to function even if connection is lost.

Other technologies that fall within the HTML 5 family include Geolocation (i.e. making the users location more accurately available by using WiFi towers and GPS to augment existing IP address detection), Web Workers (allowing the web site to become threaded to better allow the browser to schedule rendering while taking advantage of multi-core CPUs), and Web Sockets (allowing asynchronous client/server communication). More about these technologies can be found in Michael Mullany’s article linked to above.

Most of these specs are in various stages of development, meaning that features can be dropped as well as added before they are finalised (for example, a file upload progress component is currently on thin ice). In spite of this, there are web pages being built using the latest draft versions of the spec (links to which can be found here).

There are also a number of technical demos that are being released. One series of demonstrations recently released by Apple displaying what can be achieved via the HTML 5 suite of technologies can be found here.

As impressive as these demos are, some feel this is misleading the public with regards to the HTML 5 browser availability – upon attempting to view one of the Apple demonstrations, unless you are running Apple's own Safari 5, an error message is displayed stating the necessity of this browser. The reason this has been divisive is that rather than necessarily being a true indication of ability (or lack thereof) of your browser, it is something that is artificially enforced by the site simply by checking your browser agent.

Part of this may be due to the presence of vendor prefixes (browser specific versions of the implementation), meaning that this open standard is not yet truly open. However all is not lost - most recent browser releases support the HTML 5 family to varying degrees, as detailed here, or perhaps a bit more recently and simply here. As the specification is more firmly established, these vender specific implementations will disappear and the open implementation that is envisioned will emerge.

So with the use of javascript (or jQuery if you prefer) making far more sophisticated interaction possible, does this mean we no longer need Adobe Flash? While this may well change over time, right now Flash is still a useful way to get rich content to the many people who already have the plug-in installed – advanced effects or intricate interactive web apps are more easily constructed in Flash.

Also, some features such as multiple file uploads are just not yet available (hence Google's Gmail still relying on Flash for its file upload feature). Hulu, who recently released the US equivalent of the BBC’s iPlayer, opted to use Flash saying that HTML 5 was just not ready to meet their requirements (read more here).

Nevertheless, HTML 5 is a convenient shorthand for a very powerful and exciting family of technologies, and while it is not yet suitable for every project it is something we are all considering, and one for which we have high hopes!

Nick Nawrattel
Lead Multimedia Developer

Media Consumption Trends Amongst Children

2010-06-08T10:07:00.004+01:00

With the subject of children and their media consumption always a hot topic for discussion, we decided to take a look at how the consumption habits of children are looking in more recent times. We carried out a variety of research approaches, including a survey and 3rd party research resources. I've provided a brief summary of the results below - if you'd like to know more, please drop us an email and we will send you the full research report.

Firstly, we took a look at the different types of media that children consume. Unsurprisingly, the 12-16 age groups showed the highest percentage of media consumption across all types of media. What was more interesting however, was the prevalence of the 5-7 age group as major consumers of television, games consoles and computers - with a higher percentage in the 5-7 age group than the 8-11 across the three activities. Mobile phone usage increases significantly with age, as would be expected, with close to 100% penetration amongst the 12-16 year olds. Television still achieves the highest penetration with close to 100% consumption across each age group, leaving us to wonder - what damage / good does TV advertising do to our children, given the high levels of exposure? A question for another time!

Mobile phone usage was an interesting one, with the most popular activity a mobile being used for across both the 5-7 and 8-11 age groups being games. It is not until the children reach the 12-16 age group, that we really see the social uses of the mobile phone emerge, with this age group showing heavier use for both calls and texting, accountable for 2/3 of usage, with games, video and music making up the remaining 1/3.

Online consumption results mirrored many recent research reports, with social networking sites such as Facebook and Bebo showing strong prevalence in both the 8-11 and 12-16 age groups, despite the minimum age for members of 13 years. YouTube was popular across the age groups, with many of the younger age group's online usage being largely parent-led and linked to television consumption - being driven to websites for TV channels such as CBeebies, Disney etc.

With complete digital media immersion clearly a way of life for the younger generations, an increasing number of exciting opportunities to engage with our target audiences will emerge. Improved targeting, niche campaigns, increased return on investment and better audience conversations will all be possible for brands that embrace a truly integrated approach, accepting digital not simply as another channel, but as marketing itself.

Jocelyn Kirby
Marketing & Business Development Manager
Twitter @JocelynKirby

Research carried out by:
Laura Hannan
Twitter @bluhalolaura

The Time of Mobile Commerce

2010-05-21T14:07:00.001+01:00

Mobile advertising is big business. Ever since 2000, when a small Finnish newspaper offered free, advertising-sponsored news headlines via SMS, businesses have been trying to cash-in by advertising on the mobile platform.

Fast forward to 2010 and mobiles are owned by 98% of the UK population, outnumber desktops by 5 to 1, and the mobile advertising industry is worth $546 million. This is currently made up of just under two thirds SMS text ads, one third display ads (including in-app) and the rest mobile search. Even Google and Apple endorse the platform with their respective purchases of AdMob ($750 million) and Quattro Wireless ($250 million).

A recent report from UK-based research company Coda predicts that mobile advertising will grow to $2.2 billion in 5 years. The numbers are more than respectable; however, the same report expects mobile commerce to grow by 65% annually to reach $24 billion in 2015, or 7.7% of all ecommerce revenue. For so long mobile advertising was heralded as the best way for brands to leverage the mobile channel, but recent reports seem to suggest that while mobile advertising is in a buoyant state, it is m-commerce that that will rule the time of the mobile.

Mobile commerce has come a long way from the days of buying ringtones from premium rate numbers. As phones became more powerful and 3G more prominent, larger goods and services started to be sold over the mobile network. First it was intangible goods such as games and applications. Then fast food companies such as Starbucks and Papa John’s started accepting takeaway orders through their mobile websites. Major players eBay and Amazon brought the platform to the mainstream, selling tangible goods analogous to their main site through their dedicated mobile channels. In fact, in October 2009 eBay announced it had already made $380 million in sales through mobile commerce, including a $750,000 Lamborghini!

As well as location independent shopping, m-commerce has the potential to be used to streamline any transaction. In Vienna, Austria, people regularly pay their parking meters via mobile. Stayed over your 2 hours? No problem, just text the meter – this is starting to take off in the UK too. In Lagos, Nigeria, migrant workers use mobile phones to transfer money without exorbitant transaction costs. And in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, The Red Cross raised $7 million in mobile donations within 3 days of the earthquake there.

Back in the UK, Marks & Spencer recently rolled out a new bespoke m-commerce store, and Argos are busy finalizing theirs, but why, this time, are companies so sure m-commerce is here to stay? Because this time the paradigm is user driven. Mobile commerce is not a passing fad or technology for its own sake; it is the natural result of consumers’ desire for convenience and location independent transactions. As long as the internet is within reach there is no reason why full commerce shouldn’t be too. And these days the internet is always within reach.

Mobile commerce has been growing steadily for a while, but now both businesses and consumers are ready and able to embrace it: the time of m-commerce is here.

Mark Laskey
Multimedia Developer

More on Adobe & Apple...

2010-05-13T12:51:00.003+01:00

On April 12th, rumours started circulating (eg IT World's article) that Adobe was considering legal action against Apple for opting to disallow cross-compiled applications. (My brief summary of that can be viewed [http://bluhalo.com/blog/view/292/cs5-apple-vs-adobe).

One might wonder on exactly what grounds such a lawsuit would be based. Indeed, it’s quite possible that Adobe’s lawyers wondered the same thing (assuming there was truth to the rumour in the first place) given that nothing has since emerged on this subject.

In fact all went quiet until Adobe announced (read the BBC article here) that they were going to cease development on the iPhone packager, with the company instead focusing on Android. In a move that came as a surprise to some (read the Register's Apple on Flash) Apple head honcho Steve Jobs subsequently released a document detailing his views on the subject (which can be read here). He lists a number of points ranging from the proprietary nature of flash, security, battery life and the speed with which the third party software would be updated as justification for his views. The result of this was a 2 percent drop in Adobe shares.

You could be forgiven for expecting a retaliatory response from Adobe; instead they announced (more at The Register) that they were working to implement new API calls available on Snow Leopard to hardware accelerate video in Flash. Given that fairly simple tests indicated that the lack of hardware acceleration was the only reason the video performance of flash fell below that of the HTML setup touted by Steve Jobs, this has the potential to reduce the belief that flash is a performance hog (for video anyway).

Hooray, Apple and Adobe are friends again. What could possibly go wrong now, right? Well, Apple is developing their own Flash alternative for providing Rich Internet Applications. The easily spelt Gianduia was first introduced last June, but is likely going to resurface at this year’s World of WebObjects Developer Conference. Gianduia was written in Javascript and has actually already been used by Apple Retail (read more here from Apple Insider).

It is still not plain sailing for Apple however. It has now emerged that the US Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission are “locked in negotiations over which of the watchdogs will begin an antitrust inquiry into Apple’s new policy of requiring only Apple’s programming tools.” (read more at the NY Post)

This reiterates that Adobe were not the only ones unhappy with Apple’s decision. Indeed, the same article states some are now choosing to finance apps compatible with all of Apple’s competitors, rather than just the iProducts. Although Apple tend to be quite dogmatic in following their roadmap, I can’t help but wonder exactly how much public pressure it would take for them to change their minds…

Nick Nawrattel
Lead Multimedia Developer

World Cup Buzz

2010-05-05T10:03:00.005+01:00

Just 37 days to go to the 2010 World Cup and I, like all football fans, am very, very excited. But you know who is even more excited by the upcoming 'super event'? Businesses. According to Reuters, the tournament is expected to attract over 6 billion viewers and average over 93 million per match. Viewing figures for the 2006 final vary wildly between 280 million and 1 billion, but either way it is the most watched event of the year by a substantial margin. Furthermore, entire economies can be shifted upwards by 10% by the 'positive atmosphere' and overwhelming need for official merchandise, plasma TVs and cold beverages) - (read more on the world cup's effect on the economy).

Marketing departments large and small the world over have been planning for months or even years on how best to leverage the World Cup impact. From big players such as Visa and Coca Cola that can afford to drop $100million on official rights before their campaigns even begin, to rivals latching on by associating themselves with all things Africa and Football, one thing is clear: digital will play a bigger role than ever before.

Coca Cola recently launched a campaign based around goal celebrations and African dancing. As well as traditional marketing focusing on the positive aspects of celebration and dance, they are also embarking on a widespread social media campaign, asking people to send in their own goal celebrations in order to win tickets to games. Carlsberg are taking a similar approach, inviting England fans to video their own world cup team talk.

Official partner Visa decided to continue their 'Life flows better with Visa' campaign but this time with a world cup tie-in. We have all seen the Visa powered fan become a professional footballer on TV, but thanks to widespread integration, the campaign is estimated to have been seen or heard 2.2 billion more times over 532 different platforms. Convergence anyone?

Pepsi is not an official partner but gained a lot of viral publicity through their integrated 'Oh Africa' campaign. The campaign featured top players and music stars in an Africa-themed football video advert combined with a major social presence including content such as outtakes, interviews and alternative versions.

The 2010 World Cup will be the first truly social edition. In the last four years Facebook and Twitter have become household names with over 500 million combined users. For the first time it is not just possible but easy to communicate with fans from every other team, from Algeria to Uruguay. The scope for marketers is virtually unlimited, never before has there been such a large one-to-one bridge between companies and dedicated consumers, with an increased opportunity for long-term relationships that just aren’t possible in the same way with print or TV adverts.

The defining social football campaigns will only be apparent as we get closer to the final whistle, but an interesting pre-game warm-up comes from Sony Ericsson’s Twittercup, an app which tracks the best nations at the world cup by their Twitter buzz in real time.

Mark Laskey
Multimedia Developer

Sport and New Media Conference 2010

2010-04-28T13:52:00.002+01:00

This inaugural event in the digital calendar for Sports professionals took place last Wednesday at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester.

The introductions by SportBusiness told us that Manchester was chosen to host the event because the sport industry in the North West employs 100,000+ people, has a £6.5bn turnover, and the North West represents 40% of the Premier League. In addition to this Manchester has a huge digital community.

Our very own parent company, GyroHSR, has an office in Manchester, so we are regularly making trips to the North West. For this occasion, Bluhalo had 3 representatives, Simon, our Account Director who has had lots of digital sport experience most notably with Liverpool FC; our Founder and MD, Spencer, who still surprises me with the number of people he knows, and me, Laura, a relative newbie in digital sports, but quickly making up for lost time!

Attendees at the conference included BBC, Eurosport, UEFA, Chelsea FC, Adidas, SkySports as well as ComScore, YouTube and BT.

So BBC kicked off with the Head of Interactive BBC Sport & Formula 1, Ben Gallop, giving a great presentation on the way digital is being spearheaded by BBC Sport. Watch BBC Sport for developments, exciting times to come, and many fantastic things already happening.

For example, you can watch Formula 1 from a different camera depending on whose car you wish to follow. Also, no longer will you only watch the Olympics events chosen by someone at the BBC. The BBC plan to cover every single hour of the Olympics in 2012 – great news!

Ben sees the Olympics as a perfect time for us as a nation, occurring just as digital becomes mainstream. He likened it to the increase in TV watching for the Queen’s coronation in 1953.

The day was a mixture of presentations, panel discussions and networking which were rather focused on social media. Of course, we imagine most brands to be using the social media tools being discussed already, but perhaps not, and for those still making first steps it would have been very useful.

The discussions that interested us most were those that touched on Web 3.0. The ability to hold your phone up to find your way around Wimbledon using augmented reality, for example.

The commercialisation of sports videos was interesting; David Kerr from Eurosport said that the smaller sports still do better when packaged with the more mainstream sports. However, other speakers felt that the niche sports had an opportunity to charge subscription from their supporters.

Alistair Hill, a senior analyst from ComScore did a great presentation on the stats of mobile usage to help attendees see where there were opportunities to converse with their audience. One of his comments was that mobiles are being used more for connecting people than searching. (Interestingly, Facebook is now more popular on mobiles than PCs) Of course, this is what telephones were traditionally intended for, so it makes sense when you think of it.

Alistair went on to say that although Facebook is more popular than Google on mobiles, having a 33% reach, as opposed to a 31% reach, the average page views are 640 per visitor, way over Google, showing facebook is taking up half of the total media time on mobile phones.

As the discussions continued, it was good to hear the general agreement that whatever you use, Facebook, Twitter and so on, don’t do it just because everyone else is doing it. It has to be useful and accessible to your audience.

Other comments worth taking home were that trends for the future would be people watching a screen, not a TV – Samsung’s internet on TV was mentioned. I was glad to hear I was bucking a trend as I personally threw away my TV a few weeks ago, I decided I could watch programmes through my computer when it suited me and save space by not having 2 screens. How 21st century of me!

The panellists also predicted watching sport casually on demand would increase (e.g. keeping track of a couple of minutes of test cricket during your working day). Watch out bosses, but at least there may be less ‘whole day skiving’ for the World Cup this year!

Personalisation is also predicted to increase, with geo-tagged or requested advertisements giving more impact to the user and more “bang for its buck”.

Closing comment that was made by more than one, was that the event should be re-named “Sports and digital” as new media was ‘new’ around 10 years ago. (Spencer probably tweeted this in the morning which meant it got a mention on the stage by the afternoon! That’s the wonder of social media)

So, I hope this has given you a little insight. There is a more complete, and a somewhat less opinionated agenda breakdown written by the lovely people I met from Braben PR on PR Week.

Laura Hannan
Business Development Manager
Twitter @bluhalolaura

Marketing to Children & Advertising to Teens

2010-04-23T13:53:00.003+01:00

With Brand Republic reporting Nickelodeon’s SpongeBob Diner Dash Lite game ‘king of the apps’ over Easter, and Hitwise reporting a drop in UK usage for social networking site Bebo, signs of children’s changing digital behaviours are everywhere, yet how can we predict what will be the ‘next big thing’?

The most popular websites for children are often websites with a commercial end, or sites surrounding TV or films such as Lego, Disney, Cartoon Network and CBeebies.

As they get older, communication and social networking become more appealing. An Ofcom survey found a quarter of 8-12 year olds have a profile on social networking sites despite them being under the minimum age for such sites. LimeWire and Frengo are popular among teenagers, showing the appeal of group messaging, mobiles, sharing music, images and videos.

One thing agencies and brands must be constantly aware of is that children are susceptible to advertising. The youngest can often struggle to distinguish between reality and advertising messages. Teenagers will turn off when brands try too hard to be cool, or fall into stereotyping their age-group.

Marketing or advertising messages that young people can personally relate to, will most likely succeed. The message should be clear, simple and specific. Vague terminology or representation can be a turn-off. Brands that reach out to young people through schools, local events, on the high-street or through celebrities will often hold a lasting impression. They are more likely to remember you if they understand exactly what you do and how you relate to them.

Marketing and advertising to children can be an ethical minefield, but with companies such as McDonald’s spending $2billion a year, it’s big business. Bluhalo’s advice would be to do your homework, know the regulations, ask an expert and assume nothing!

Laura Hannan
Business Development Manager
Twitter @bluhalolaura

Web Accessibility and Website Law

2010-04-19T09:28:00.002+01:00

Websites started out as very simple text which was accessible to everyone, provided they had software to interpret the contents. In the last ten years, websites have altered dramatically to include movies, Flash and dynamic content, such that the job of the software reading the website has become a great deal more complex. The disabled could easily be overlooked in designing and building websites, however this would be an unwise decision since there are laws in many countries to protect them.

The UK Disability Discrimination Act of 1995 states: “It is unlawful for a provider of services to discriminate against a disabled person in refusing to provide, or deliberately not providing, to the disabled person any service which he provides, or is prepared to provide, to members of the public and also in failing to comply with any duty imposed on him by section 21 in circumstances in which the effect of that failure is to make it impossible or unreasonably difficult for the disabled person to make use of any such service”

And further the law states that rules apply in the following scenarios:
Access to and use of any place which members of the public are permitted to enter; access to and use of means of communication; access to and use of information services; facilities by way of banking or insurance or for grants, loans, credit or finance; facilities for entertainment, recreation or refreshment; the services of any profession or trade, or any local or other public authority.

Most websites fulfil at least one of the above conditions – whether it be buying an item or communicating to friends. Mostly though, lawsuits have been targeted at websites providing a public service; after all if one site doesn’t provide access, another will.

The basics behind making a site available to all haven’t changed all that much over the years, most importantly the developers and designers need to bear in mind the various disabilities there are and how they will be gaining access to the information available...

People with disabilities may for example want to increase font size, have their own styles or be unable to use an alternative to Flash or Shockwave. In each case, alternative content / functionality should be available so that no loss of user experience occurs. Testing the site by using focus groups is the ultimate check, and testing services are offered by charities including RNIB, AbilityNet and Shaw Trust.

Sources/Further reading:
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2005/ukpga_20050013_en_1
http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fss/resources/access/disabled.htm
http://www.w3.org/WAI/Policy/

Alex Rigg
Developer

CS5 & Apple vs Adobe

2010-04-13T09:40:00.002+01:00

Creative Suite 5 is nearly upon us – so close I am already nudging our resident sys admin to buy us the shiny new apps. Obviously, there are many new features / changes to encourage people to upgrade.

One such that certainly sounds interesting, is a tool providing the ability to export flash as HTML5 Canvas. With IE9 on the horizon too, this will mean all of the major browsers will support HTML5, a step towards making this a viable alternative to the Flash plug-in. More on this here and again with a performance comparison between Flash and HTML5 here.

As you may or may not have heard by now, another eagerly anticipated feature was the ability to export flash apps as iPhone code. Apple have very recently announced that they have changed the way their SDK works – only code written in C, C++ or Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs. Cross-compilers, such as that advertised to be in the new CS release, are apparently banned. This will potentially affect a number of other technologies (e.g. Unity3D), but the Adobe link is the most publicised given the public deterioration in their relationship with Apple.

Given this bad blood between Apple and Adobe, the cynical might wonder if the announcement was deliberately timed to dampen the build up to the CS5 launch. It is definitely a blow to the product, and prompted an Adobe employee to post a frustrated response to the move (more here, including links). Steve Jobs has since responded to this (more here) with a customarily curt reply, not giving any hope to those hoping for Apple to change their mind.

Nevertheless, I am still looking forward to trying the new Creative Suite, even without the opportunity to try my hand at iPhone development. More on CS5 here.

Nick Nawrattel
Lead Multimedia Developer

We’re Loving: Car & Motorsport site designs

2010-04-13T09:04:00.018+01:00

The automotive industry is arguably one of the most competitive industries out there. With so much to choose from, it’s no surprise that the websites for these machines are just as creatively driven as the car itself..excuse the pun! Elegance, speed and power combine to outshine the rivalry…and this carries through to their web presence.

Whether it’s Porsche or Kia, fun, interactive, minimal or intricate, car websites cover all the bases, and are often the most visual and imaginative creative you’ll come across. The feel and personality the site works to achieve will be perfectly balanced, with the user immersed in clear information while being blown away by superb visuals.

The primary audience changes depending on the car, and just from these 15 examples, you get the range of attributes that’ve been considered so that the car is portrayed in the right light. There’s always an innovative idea behind them, and always perfectly from the initial design, to the flash transissions.

Dodge Ram

Porsche 911 Turbo

Virgin Racing

Toyota Prius

BMW Cinetique

Amilo Car

Ford Ka

Kia

Skoda Fabia

Bentley Sport

Ford Mustang

Mercedes Benz AMG

Saab

Mclaren

Reva

Pete White
Digital Designer

Twitter pete_white

Flash on Chrome

2010-03-31T14:25:00.003+01:00

Some interesting multimedia news that emerged on Tuesday (via the Chromium blog) is that Google will be integrating the Adobe Flash plug-in in future builds of its Chrome browser. Already integrated in their developer build, the intention is to make the plug-in more easily available to users (i.e. no separate download), but also to improve on security: the plug-in will be updated via Chrome's own auto-update mechanisms and will benefit from future sandboxing enhancements.

This is a continuation of Google's work (proposed last summer) to produce a new browser plug-in API. The blog post mentions Adobe and Mozilla (and "the broader community" - no MS?) as helping to define this new API with the intention of allowing plug-in to be "just as fast, stable and secure as the browser's HTML and JavaScript engines." It is also expected to allow more seamless interaction between plug-in and HTML etc.

Several reports on this development have commented on how this is a response to Google's relationship with Apple (who are notoriously resistant to allowing flash on their iPhone / iPod Touch / iPads). Whether or not that is true, given the recent mutters of Flash dying in the face of HTML 5, I find it somewhat ironic that this significant Flash development would be coming from such a strong proponent of HTML 5. I also find myself wondering what impact this will have on the Google Chrome OS…

Nick Nawrattel
Lead Multimedia Developer

Bluhalo Hunts for Junior Digital Designer

2010-03-26T12:06:00.003Z

Bluhalo is again expanding its team, and this time is on the hunt for a Junior Digital Designer to join its award-winning creative team.

The position has an immediate start with salary subject to experience. The ideal candidate will have 1-2 years’ digital agency experience, although this is not essential. The most important thing is talent and a willingness to learn from senior creatives at this NMA top 10 digital agency.

So if you fancy no London commute, great career opportunities, working with award-winning creatives and big brand clients, email your CV and a link to your online portfolio.

Sponsor Bluhalo's Spencer Gallagher - running 2010 miles for charity!

2010-03-22T13:05:00.004Z

Some say he must be mad! But not quite as crazy as Eddie Izzard? Maybe, maybe not!

But what is indisputable is that Spencer's challenge for 2010, to run 2010 miles to raise £2010 for ten charities (that's over £20k in total), is nothing short of admirable!

At the beginning of 2010 Spencer asked some friends to recommend ten great charities to run 2,010 miles for. He set a target for each charity of £2,010 and aims to culminate the 2,010 miles by taking on the big finale - the Mont Blanc Ultra Marathon in 2011.

This weekend, he takes on the Jurassic Coast Challenge - it takes place on the Dorset coast path with a 26.2 mile marathon each day for 3 days where he will be running, jogging, walking or maybe even crawling from Lyme Regis to Poole along beautiful but brutal coastal terrain.

Some serious willpower is going to be needed to get through those three days this weekend, so please, please, help Spencer by donating. Visit his fundraising website where you can find out about the ten charities he's supporting.

You can also follow his progress (and pain) on Twitter @2010miles...

Thanks for your support!

Jocelyn Kirby
Marketing & Business Development Manager

Bluhalo's Spurs site gets NMA site of the week

2010-03-18T10:54:00.005Z

We love working on the Spurs website (http://www.tottenhamhotspur.com/) - it's a great site, with a wealth of top quality content.

NMA landed on my desk this morning, and to my (and the Bluhalo team's) delight, the Spurs site has been awarded site of the week.

With an impressive 88/100, scoring 22/25 for content, 22/25 for usability, 21/25 for branding and 23/25 for monetisation, we're delighted, to say the least. A lot of dedication and passion went into the redesign of the latest version of the Spurs website and we're really pleased to see our expertise and efforts rewarded!

To view the full article, visit the NMA website.

Jocelyn Kirby
Marketing & Business Development Manager
@jocelynkirby

Public Sector focus: effective use of digital communications

2010-03-01T10:40:00.002Z

Bluhalo is running a workshop on 10th March entitled – Public Sector Focus: Making Effective Use of Digital Communications. Given the increasing pressure on public sector organisations to engage and communicate more effectively with its public, the workshop takes a public sector view on online communications, covering a range of topics to help organisations answer questions such as:

What are the most effective online communication channels for my organisation?
What current and future digital trends are relevant to my organisation?
What benefits can be achieved?
What are the best ways for me to engage and communicate with my audience?
Should I be making use of Facebook, Twitter and other social media channels?
How do I go about implementing this?
How do I ensure I achieve cost effectiveness?

The workshop will last approximately 45 minutes followed by time for general and organisation-specific questions. It will take a very intimate format, with only eight delegate attendees to allow useful and in-depth discussions to take place.

If you are involved in external communications for a public sector organisation and are interested in coming along to the workshop, please get in touch - only a couple of places remain!

Jocelyn Kirby
Marketing & Business Development Manager

Familiarity Breeds Content

2010-02-25T10:07:00.000Z

The troubles last month with snow and ice that caused chaos for many, if not all of us. An experience that I had brought home a few truths about how the familiar, when changed to be almost unrecognisable, worries us, unsettles us and even has us running for the door!

As I sat for two hours on a roundabout that normally takes me five minutes to cross, the snow falling heavily and piling high on the road, I had a thought... What seems so familiar that we don’t even consciously notice it, can change beyond all recognition when covered in a soft, shiny white layer of snow.

Think of your current website. Chances are a lot of blood sweat and tears went into its creation. This site says you are the best at what you do, you sell the best product or that you have really cool customers. Whatever it says about you, many of your core clients recognise it, feel comfortable with it and can be adverse to radical, or even small changes.

So you need a new digital presence, not just the site but your whole approach needs to be upgraded, needs more ‘nowness’, more features, more bang – the list goes on. Many agencies will want to offer you all the newest features; they will tell you that the current market demands it even!

But as with all new technological advances, they may not necessarily be the right ‘fit’ for you. The saying ‘Content is King’ still holds true, but it has to be relevant and useful for your clients and target market.

When considering a ‘new’ website, a refresh of your old one, or embarking on new channels of digital communications, keep in mind what your clients like, how they engage online, what currently works, what gets the most traffic - build on that. Make it better, more user-friendly and don't forget to keep what works - most importantly, don’t scare away your users!

Paul Windust
Project Manager

We're Loving: Augmented Reality Viral Campaigns

2010-02-23T10:36:00.006Z

Last year Augmented Reality (AR) was in its infancy, but this year is proving to push the boundaries producing creative and engaging features. AR spans across various mediums, iPhones, maps, games, websites and even tattoos (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XSB70J6a98).

This blog is a continuation from @JocelynKirby article, “The Future of Mobile – apps, AR and more”, concentrating on creative and intuitive AR virals. Virals need to be engaging and unique to spread the word of a brand. AR is an exciting technology and can create a great buzz.

Here is a collection of my personal favourite creative and fun viral augmented reality pieces (in no particular order):

Adidas Augmented Reality Sneaker – http://www.arvertising.com/news/2010/02/adidas-originals-arvertising/

Adidas turn their Sneakers into an Augmented Reality device. Adidas are introducing AR into their products, by embedding the AR barcode into the tongue of the sneaker. The user can then use the AR to play games and share their winnings with their friends.

Cadburys Creme Egg - http://www.cremeegg.co.uk/

Cadburys, (despite now being part of the American plastic cheese empire, known as Kraft), are well renowned for their campaigns and are utilising AR to promote Creme Egg specifically for the Easter period. Not yet live, the AR piece encourages the user to launch the Creme Egg into Newtons Cradle. The user can then enter a competition. Definitely one to keep an eye out for.

Doritos Sweetchilli - http://www.doritos.com.br/sweetchili/site/

To promote Doritos new flavour, an AR symbol is printed onto the back of the packet. When activated on the site, a 3D monster is born. The user can interact with the character and share with friends. A great example encouraging consumers to visit their website.

Eminem - http://www.therelapse.co.uk/3dartcomp/#/elapse

To promote Eminem’s new album, an AR based competition was created. Competitors use AR to graffiti a giant E, and the best artwork wins a prize. This is unique as the user can customise the object by drawing onto its surfaces.

Burger King $1 Campaign - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhSc9TlCDBI

Who says AR has to remain in websites? AR is starting to emerge in banner adverts. Burger King $1 campaign is the first in its kind, not only because it is integrated into a banner but the AR device to activate the banner is a $1 note. Impressive stuff!

Esquire Magazine - http://www.esquire.com/the-side/augmented-reality

Augmented Reality magazine. Impressive use of combining both AR and video.

BMW Z4 - http://www.bmw.co.uk/bmwuk/augmented_reality/homepage?bcsource=vanity

This viral supports the vibrant Z4 TV advert, allowing the user to control the car leaving colourful wheel markings. Who knew driving a 3D Z4 leaving paint trails would be so much fun!

So there you have it! This is no means a definitive list, but shows what is currently out there and provides food for thought for future possibilities. Augmented Reality is a powerful tool to increase awareness of a brand.

Richard Fenn
@rfenn
Designer/Motion Graphics

We’re Loving: iPhone app sites

2010-02-18T10:38:00.040Z

The floodgates have well and truly opened for iPhone application websites, with more and more designers and developers collaborating to create quirky motion or tap driven interfaces. These obviously require a bold Web presence to advertise, and the creative license for these sites is pretty limitless…We’re huge fans!

They look awesome, bringing a pretty unique, focused layout to the plate, mixed with really rich visuals. Colour schemes, typography and textures that you don’t tend to see on everyday sites make iPhone apps great inspiration. The overall attention to detail is to a tee, and their creative use of jquery/flash is even more reason to marvel.

Below are 15 of the best, enjoy!

Bills

Panelfly

Tapmates

Ecoki

Cellar

Birdfeed

Cookmate

Gowalla

Tapbots

Ramp Champ

Tweetie

Kodu

Stone Skipper

Classics

Birdbrain

Pete White
Digital Designer

Twitter pete_white

The Future of Mobile - apps, AR and more!

2010-02-17T14:19:00.004Z

The future of mobile – can anyone really accurately predict it? It’s a tough one as mobile usage trends throughout the world vary considerably. However, with the exciting technological advancements of recent years, the once, seemingly unachievable and futuristic predictions of mobile experts, are now one by one, fulfilling their prophecy.

So what are the most notable mobile trends for 2010 and beyond?

Mobile Apps

It had to come first in the list right? Still a huge growth area, the flexibility and uses for mobile apps never cease to amaze. With over 100,000 applications in existence and in excess of 1bn downloads, iPhone applications are very much leading the pack in terms of sophistication and popularity. With diverse uses; from the Sleep Cycle app, which monitors your sleep patterns and wakes you when you are in a lighter sleep stage, ShapeUp, which helps you track and plan daily calorie intake, through to HootSuite, for managing your social network updates, such as Twitter, LinkedIn etc; iPhone applications really are penetrating every aspect of our professional and private lives. How long before we have an app which tracks our children’s whereabouts or allows us to scan the barcodes of empty cartons to reorder our groceries?

Augmented Reality

It’s still early days in terms of the practical application of many augmented reality applications, but the potential when mobile meets AR is pretty exciting! A few recent apps have started to show more than just a novelty appeal and are actually beginning to be useful too. Some of the best include:

TwittARound – the application takes your view of your surrounding via your iPhone camera and overlays nearby tweets over the image – not sure how useful it is right now, but very cool!

Nearest Tube – it does just what it says on the tin! It helps you find your nearest tube station and identifies your location based on what the application sees through your iPhone camera.

TAT Augmented ID – almost scary in its capabilities, TAT Augmented ID uses facial recognition technology from Flickr to identify a person’s face and then display information such as their contact information and online profiles from various social networks – possibly more novelty than useful at this stage but the potential with this type of technology is huge!

Mobile Commerce

Mobile ecommerce is an area which has received a lot of air time recently, with many discussing the merits and potential that it holds for retailers. With mobile ecommerce a largely untapped market, retailers that take note of the growing power of mobile will gain huge competitive advantage over their rivals. Waitrose / Ocado was the first grocery store to launch an iPhone application (July 09) that allows you to do your grocery shopping on the move, regardless of whether you have an internet connection, and I suspect others won’t be too far behind – this is definitely a case of ‘watch this space’.

So there you have it, a quick summary of what I see to be the most exciting areas of the future of mobile for the year ahead – I am certain we are going to see many great things appearing on our mobiles, and I for one, can’t wait to give them a go! Anything that makes my life easier, saves me time or money, or just gives a bit of entertainment is a hit in my eyes!

Jocelyn Kirby
Marketing & Business Development Manager
Twitter @JocelynKirby

Space Exploration Network Launches New Website

2010-02-05T14:18:00.003Z

Bluhalo is pleased to announce the launch of SEN.com, the website of the Space Exploration Network.

SEN is a space television news network whose purpose is to gather and distribute news and information on space. The website provides a central location for current news, features, content and space-related resources.

The website, designed and built by Bluhalo aims to engage a diverse audience and features latest news, SEN TV video area, a wiki, forums and a photo gallery – with focus placed on user engagement and user contributions to the wealth of highly focused and original content. The website aims to achieve 1 million users within the next 2 years.

The vision of SEN is to promote interest in space; raise awareness of the reality of humankind and Earth in the universe and through raising awareness provide a different perspective to human conduct and the government of life on this planet; educate and encourage consideration of the physics, economics, laws and government of space and to create a community in which people can learn, debate and share information about space.

Charles Black, Founder of SEN commented “Bluhalo have done a fantastic job creating an innovative site that is very contemporary in terms of both design and technology. The site encompasses a range of leading technologies for video, pictures and user generated content. Bluhalo have also developed a highly effective Content Management System that enables SEN to manage the site content and subscriptions. I am already discussing future developments for the site for phase 2 of SEN's business plan which will include e-commerce capability for online subscriptions. We are looking forward to continuing our relationship with the Bluhalo team.”

Paul Windust, Project Manager at Bluhalo for the SEN project added “Charles Black has a passion and knowledge of space that is impressive and contagious. Working on this site has been a pleasure for the whole team and we’ll enjoy watching it grow and be proud that we had a hand in this exciting project.”

Jocelyn Kirby
Marketing & Business Development Manager
Twitter @JocelynKirby

Setting the Standard - RFI & production processes

2010-02-02T10:10:00.004Z

I read an interesting article on Creativity Online recently about a project from US company B-Reel who are attempting to produce an industry standard for digital and integrated production.

http://www.stndrd.org

Their open source idea is based on a wiki, i.e. they are inviting agencies to define and develop the brief within the industry itself.

Given the disparity in the number of RFPs, as well as the lack of information supplied by some clients for digital production this can only be a good thing. Right?

While industry standards exist in many offline processes digital is playing catch-up. But can this realistically work in a industry that changes so rapidly. Or is that the genius of this idea? It's the best way to document a constantly moving goal-post.

I think it's a great idea that needs support from all the big players to make a realistic goal. (And so far the beta site doesn't have that kind of support). However, without clients buying into it I don't think it will ever get off the ground. Without their support, it will only ever become an internal document for agencies to flesh out as best they can from the information supplied.

If successful, I'd like to see this project take on another process that is in desperate need of some attention or standardisation, the RFI. However, there are two big reasons why this is a much harder nut to crack.

First of all it seems unrealistic for clients to believe they have the same requirements as another company. But at an RFI stage they often do, or they are at least similar enough to warrant at least a set of standard industry specific questions.

The second is that in many examples it is the procurement department that owns the tender process and sometimes they aren't the best placed people to be setting the questions. There is a degree of digital knowledge required to craft the more technical RFI questions, that if not applied, can lead to confusing or contradictory requests.

I wish B-Reel all the best and have forwarded details of the project to the relevant people here. Who knows where it could lead to.

I'd be interested in hearing other people's thoughts on this. Now back to this RFI ;-)

Barnaby Ellis
UK Head of Digital

Bluhalo Selects DediPower Managed Hosting

2010-01-28T13:25:00.004Z

PRESS RELEASE: Bluhalo Selects DediPower Managed Hosting to Create its Own Private Cloud

Reading, UK – 28 January, 2010: Bluhalo, one of the UK’s top 10 digital marketing agencies, has chosen DediPower’s managed hosting solution to create a private cloud, spanning USA to Europe, capable of delivering greater capacity, performance and availability at a lower cost; across its entire portfolio of high-profile websites including BlackBerry, Liverpool F.C., Sky, Sony and NFL UK.

The new solution will also help shape Bluhalo’s go to market strategy. According to Managing Director, Spencer Gallagher, “The private cloud strengthens our market position by making our services more agile, efficient and scaleable. This enables us to continue to target even higher-traffic clients with richer-featured sites at highly competitive costs, allowing us to expand our business into new strategic areas.”

Bluhalo specified DediPower’s leading edge virtualisation solution following an extensive review of its existing managed multi-server hosting system; which was proving increasingly inflexible and expensive to run. With its more powerful, responsive, and efficient platform, DediPower has already helped the company boost capacity and achieve significant cost savings.

Simon Green, Head of IT at Bluhalo comments, “DediPower not only provides access to the large scale, high performance servers required to deliver our private cloud but also the customer support and operational flexibility that is central to our requirement. DediPower’s response and delivery is excellent – they react quickly to requests and handle system changes without lengthy processes. Consequently, sites can go-live at very short notice, which is vital for many of our projects.”

He adds, “Scaleability is also crucial for our business. While all sites experience demand peaks and troughs traffic on our broadcast, consumer brand and sporting sites can go through the ceiling, particularly during specific promotions or events. In the past, we had to set-up additional server capacity to accommodate these fluctuations, which incurred even higher costs. With DediPower’s virtualisation solution, our sites use our private cloud to access dedicated capacity on demand, instantly - no matter how large their requirement is. This alone represents tremendous cost savings for our business.”

As the UK’s leading developer of sites for sporting organisations, Bluhalo builds digital presence around some of the country’s most popular sports events. Prime football sites have been among the first to feedback on DediPower’s improved hosting performance. Tottenham Hotspur, for example, can now handle four times as much traffic as it did before, while NFL UK, which, at times, struggled to cope with web demand during matches, can now accommodate peak traffic easily.

Craig Martin, CEO DediPower Managed Hosting states, “We are delighted to help Bluhalo reduce its operational costs and experience a better service for themselves and their customers. Bluhalo is perfect for virtualised managed hosting – they are unusually good at what they do and demonstrate exceptional technical as well as creative innovation. They run tidy and efficient applications that utilise cloud clusters to best effect; this has allowed our platform to deliver optimum performance at a fraction of the cost of their previous system.”

DediPower prides itself on delivering support with passion. It offers one of the best service level agreements in the industry today. This is crucial when it comes to implementing an entirely new hosting platform.

Green concludes, “With DediPower, the transition has been very smooth. They have pulled out all the stops to make it seamless for our clients who have effectively benefitted from a system upgrade at no extra cost. We look forward to exploring new opportunities – such as integrating other IT functions into the hosting platform - as our relationship continues to evolve. "

To find out more about DediPower, visit www.dedipower.com.

Meet Bluhalo's Twitterers

2010-01-25T10:20:00.004Z

Ok, so Twitter's popularity continues to grow, with user numbers still growing at an impressive rate, and unlike much of the digital social landscape, not fuelled by the youth of the world.

A great source of information, news, research and a great way to network and keep in touch in your professional as well as personal life, Twitter certainly seems to have it all.

So would you like to meet a few of Bluhalo's Twitterers?

@Bluhalo

Had to have a mention really! Includes useful retweets and updates of the latest news, views and information from Bluhalo.

@spg4

Bluhalo's Founder and MD. Spencer tweets about everything digital, with great insight into the future of digital.

@vimal78

Bluhalo's Business Development Director. Vim tweets include a combination of the latest tech info, digital trends and the comings and goings of the agency.

@jocelynkirby

Bluhalo's Marketing Manager, Jocelyn's tweets cover the latest digital marketing news, views and research as well as the latest happenings from the Bluhalo team.

@kunji

One of Bluhalo's longest serving employees, Kunji tweets on the latest of the web. If you want to find out about the hottest new sites online, Kunji is the one to follow.

@pete_white

A member of Bluhalo's digital creative team, if something creative is worth seeing, Pete will be tweeting about it.

So there you have it, an intro to Bluhalo's dedicated twitterers. We are of course (almost) all on Twitter here at Bluhalo, but those mentioned above are the key contributors to Bluhalo's Twittering. Enjoy the show!

Twitter Gaming - valid marketing or ethical minefield?

2010-01-21T10:26:00.004Z

Twitter gaming – one of the hottest topics of recent weeks and one that appears to have caused a divide of opinion in the digital world. As a sure-fire way of gaining large numbers of Twitter followers; and fast; is Twitter gaming just another valid marketing technique that gives brands a great way to reach their target markets with their latest message? Or in a digital world where consumer engagement is built around the ethics of authenticity, genuine interaction and the sharing of useful information, is there still room for the traditional ‘push’ marketing message?

A topic of much contention, and one that our very own Spencer Gallgher, will put to the Digital Loungers at this month's Digital Lounge event next week. If you fancy joining the debate, you can find out more and book online by visiting the Digital Lounge website.

To keep up to date with all things digital, you can follow Spencer on Twitter @spg4.

Coca Cola Social Media Guidelines

2010-01-15T09:00:00.004Z

This week one of the world's largest brands has released its social media policy. And how many pages do you think it takes to steer such a huge ship in the social media world? 20? 50? 100?

No. Only three.

So is social media really that simple? Maybe not. But a company's approach to it can be. Keeping your corporate social media guidelines simple, concise, clear and easy to understand makes it far easier to mobilise your organisation in the social media world.

Empowering your staff to embrace social media and engage your audience on behalf of your brand gives you greater reach, increased touch points and most importantly increased share of top of mind. Couple that with a social media strategy and you are on your way (at the very least) to tapping into the great potential that social media now offers us as a way of life and not just a communication channel.

If you don't believe Coca Cola can fit their social media policy into just three pages, take a look for yourself below...

Coca-Cola Company's Online Social Media Principles

Jocelyn Kirby
Marketing & Business Development Manager

Sudocrem 'Wonder Cream' Site Launches

2010-01-06T11:27:00.004Z

Sudocrem has launched a great new version of its wonder cream... just for us grown-ups and Bluhalo is very excited to have recently built their new site. This great cream soothes and protects and it is suitable for a wider range of skin care problems. Check out the site to find out more!

http://www.sudocremtube.com/

Anya Gooch
Account Manager

Farnborough Office Closed Today - Wed 6th Jan

2010-01-06T08:27:00.003Z

Due to heavy snowfall, Bluhalo's Farnborough office will be closed today, Wednesday 6th January.

All staff will continue working from home. If you are a client and need to contact someone at Bluhalo, your daily contacts will be available on either mobile or email and will respond to your enquiry as promptly as possible.

If you have an email/domain support query, please email helpdesk@bluhalo.com and we will respond as soon as we can.

For new business enquiries, please email jocelyn@bluhalo.com or vimal@bluhalo.com.

For all other enquiries, please email getintouch@bluhalo.com and we will respond to your query as soon as possible.

What is WebGL?

2009-12-22T12:10:00.003Z

Almost two weeks ago (sorry, I have been busy), news broke that the WebGL project had taken a significant step forward by releasing a draft specification. Yay; I don’t hear you cry!

What is WebGL? It is a plugin-free API project being developed by several companies within the Khronos group including Apple, Google, Mozilla and Opera. This attempt at a standard basically brings 3d to the browser by extending the HTML canvas element. It does this by allowing JavaScript access to OpenGL 2.0 calls – this allows hardware accelerated 3d graphics within a browser.

This is quite exciting; in my younger years I developed several 3d games using OpenGL (and c++), although to be fair the same is probably true of every programmer. The point I was trying to make is that I found OpenGL to be easy to use and a flexible and powerful way to draw to the screen.

This is a fairly natural progression given that browsers are now leaning toward hardware accelerated rendering anyway, and now that this spec (which can be found here: https://www.khronos.org/webgl/) is out, we should start to see some very impressive demos emerging (some examples can already be found here. Although be aware that you do need a WebGL enabled browser, which means a fairly recent build rather than the more mainstream ones).

So, all together now – yay! Merry Christmas all.

Nick Nawrattel
Lead Multimedia Developer

Visit Bluhalo; Augmented Reality Style!

2009-12-17T09:45:00.011Z

For my own interest, a little while ago I began creating a simple internal Augmented Reality (AR) app, (this development wound up being the inspiration for my blog entry about Augmented Reality a couple of weeks ago). We often invite potential clients down to meet us and see where we work. With this in mind, it seemed appropriate to me to use a plan of the office and to pop it up on the blog.

While the ‘final product’ is very rough (tinkering during lunch breaks isn’t really conducive to terrific results!), it is a reasonable proof of concept and has left me in a substantially better position to approach this kind of work for client projects. More importantly, it means I have to write a lot less to supply a blog entry :-)

It goes without saying that you need a webcam for this to work (a reasonable quality one will give more reliable results too), and you will need flash installed as well. As with most AR apps doing the rounds online at the moment, you need to print out the pattern (http://www.bluhalo.com/swf/Data/marker.pdf) and show it to your webcam.

You will need to keep it flat, and if possible out of harsh light sources or the recognition suffers. Other than that, be aware that it might be slow to download on poorer connections and that performance of this rough version is very dependant on your computer.

So, welcome to Bluhalo's office! (If you don't have a web cam, you can get a sneak preview below!)

Here's a screen shot of the AR app in action...

Nick Nawrattel
Lead Multimedia Developer

2009 Roundup and 2010 Predictions

2009-12-15T16:41:00.003Z

The 2009 roundup and 2010 predictions from EConsultancy makes for great reading!

I particularly like the mentions of real-time and augmented reality, and will watch with great interest for advancements in the analysis and measurement tools out there. With budgets being more carefully spent and the demand for payment by results and quantifiable ROI on the increase, it will cetainly be interesting to see the progression made in this area in 2010.

You can view the full article by clicking here.

Jocelyn Kirby
Marketing & Business Development Manager
Twitter @jocelynkirby

Are You Green?

2009-12-09T16:59:00.004Z

Bluhalo is part of the GyroHSR network and recently, GyroHSR surveyed 1,800 consumers to uncover their level of understanding and appetite for eco-friendly products and services.

In the second phase of their research, entitled “Minding the Eco-Gap”, they’d like to uncover what marketers currently think about the green consumer. The questionnaire comprises of nice short questions that should take no longer than 10 minutes to complete.

You can complete the questionnaire by visiting green.gyrohsr.com.

For every completed questionnaire, GyroHSR will donate £1 to MacMillan Cancer Support.

Many thanks for your contribution!

Jocelyn Kirby
Marketing & Business Development Manager

Social Shopping - the next generation

2009-11-24T09:13:00.004Z

What can beat a day out shopping with friends, trying on clothes and generally having the chance to chat about what you do and don’t like about each other’s choices?

So far, you haven’t been able to have a similar experience online, as although the concept of social shopping has been around for quite a while; (Bluhalo covered it in a blog post in the summer of 2008). Historically, to enjoy the social shopping experience, you have always needed a browser plug-in to chat to friends whilst on shopping sites.

However, there’s a new kid on the block, Plurchase.com; who just might have found a solution that really will make it possible to shop till you drop, but with your friends in tow online, there to stop you making those disastrous shopping purchases and generally making it a whole lot more fun!

The way it works is simple. Visit Plurchase.com, choose where you want to shop and then email your friends a URL, which means they can join you real-time and see what you’re looking at before you go ahead and decide to buy. It also gives you the option to connect to Facebook and share your product choices with all your Facebook friends; there’s even a Twitter link.

The best bit is that you don’t need to register. They make their money from affiliate payments from the shopping sites they support, making it completely free to use. The downside at present is that they don’t have a huge portfolio of stores they are linked to – just www.Zappos.com, www.amazon.com and www.craigslist.org, but the potential is fantastic and I’m sure they are busy trying to persuade other sites to join in!

Plurchase loads as a sidebar on the site that you are visiting and shows which of your friends are online. The item you are looking at is displayed in the sidebar on your screen as well as on that of your online friend. They can then click on the link so they can see what you’re thinking of buying and can write comments in a box in the sidebar. And there you have your instant feedback.

It may not be quite as good as the real thing, but just think how useful it would be if you needed to buy a shared present for your parents for example. You could find the perfect present, send an email to your siblings and then get everyone to discuss and agree to it then and there. Even better, it could also be a brilliant way to make sure your other half buys the right present for you – no more excuses!

The traditional older established social shopping sites like www.kaboodle.com, www.thisnext.com, www.wists.com and www.wishpot.com are all still serving us well, but in theory, the Plurchase offering takes it one step further – they just need to make it work in practise by getting a decent number of sites to sign up so it makes it worth our while to use them whenever we can.

Jill Thater
Client Services Director

Truly Global Domain Names - a long overdue revolution

2009-11-18T16:22:00.003Z

ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers have finally deemed it appropriate for Russian, Chinese, Arabic and other, non ASCII languages to use domain names represented by local language characters. To put it simply, Latin based characters will no longer be essential in making up domain names.

Currently, more than 50 percent of the current total of 1.6 billion Internet users speak languages that aren't Latin-based, according to widely used estimates.

I know that I would have been incredibly disgruntled had it been necessary for me to use Chinese language domain names whilst surfing the web for the years since it’s birth up until now, so I imagine that for these millions of users, this is an incredibly important and long overdue movement.

Tina Dam, ICANN’s Senior Director of Internationalized domain names, heralds the movement as “the biggest technical change to the Internet’s addressing system – the Domain Name System – in many years.”

Having undergone many revisions, the final proposed implementation plan for the Fast Tracking process has been published and is due to commence today ( November 16th ). The Fast Track process has been introduced as a mechanism to introduce a limited number of non-contentious internationalized country-code top level domain names. These sites would include sites such as governmental and territory administration sites.

I look forward to seeing how the implementation plans unfold!!

Anya Gooch
Account Director

The Digital Cream Floats to the Top

2009-11-16T11:56:00.002Z

I was lucky enough to be invited to judge some creative awards the other day – not just for digital, but for all channels – TV, radio, DM, SP, POS/instore and digital. Having worked in most of these at one time or another, it was good to see some other media than digital again. Good, but a little underwhelming.

Some of the work in other channels was good, most of it was ok, and some of it wasn’t so great. But it was in digital that the work really sang. All the judges agreed that digital was the most hotly contested category, by a long way.

I remember reading in one of the trade press magazines in 2006 that digital accounted for just 5% of most companies’ marketing spend. Judging by the production values of some of the entries, either marketing budgets must be massive these days or marketing directors have been persuaded to part with more cash in return for some truly excellent and engaging brand experiences.

Ewan Gee
Creative Director

Augmented Reality - a marketer's dream?

2009-11-09T14:18:00.004Z

Augmented Reality! You can practically feel the air buzzing at the words! As a self confessed geek, I think it is pretty cool – it’s one of those things that seems to say “the future is almost here”.

As big an advocate of Augmented Reality (AR) as I am, would I call it a mature technology? Well, the answer to that very much depends on what exactly you want to achieve with it. We have seen the iphone apps, for example, in which someone is looking at a street with useful little notes indicating the location of things we cannot live without (mmm, McDonalds…) such as http://www.metroparisiphone.com/index_en.html.

However, in such a case, what exactly are we seeing? When people look at AR, they often think along the lines of “well, it’s recognising what it’s looking at. Obviously.” Unfortunately that isn’t always the case. In the case of the above app (as well as the majority of similar apps), this would not work on earlier models of the iPhone, since it uses the hardware to determine your location and the angle of the phone as opposed to actually 'recognising' the location based on visual features.

This is still an impressive achievement, and useful, since it does exactly what it says on the tin. However, it’s not doing it in the manner in which many people expect. This distinction is beginning to artificially raise expectations of what the technology is capable of; to unintentially misrepresent the current state of image recognition technology.

Image recognition basically works by using a database (dictating shapes and appearance from various angles etc) in conjunction with algorithms to isolate visual objects that correspond with the stored elements. This combination allows the application to recognise a “familiar” feature and determine its’ position, angle and distance; this is then used to determine matrix which can be applied to whatever virtual elements are to be added.

For this implementation of the technology, the quality of the recognition can be hampered as much by the breadth of the database as the algorithms themselves. The target also plays a large part. For example, if we wish to recognise an arm, we could suddenly find ourselves with positive matches on (relatively angled) lamp posts. Context would mitigate this (the need for an app to differentiate between lamp posts and arms is unsurprisingly quite low), and tweaks to the algorithms and database could overcome this.

The point I am trying to make is that to accurately pick out and track non specialised or relatively featureless objects is tough. There are ways to cheat this. In as much as the mapping applications make use of additional information to enhance their reliability, we can use markers or patterns in image recognition applications. This is becoming quite common already. For example, many of the proof of concept application that have been developed (most based on the same open source code) rely on a small square containing an arbitrary pattern.

These two approaches to augmented reality are quite different, and I have read of several people suggesting that different phrases / names be coined to differentiate between the different types of the technology in order to manage expectations (http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/09/resetting-expectations-some-augmented-reality-links.html discusses this and more). This is unlikely to happen; instead as the technology improves, it will likely get rebranded or tweaked (as with HD television).

It certainly doesn’t mean it can’t be successfully used now to great effect. A nice commercial example would be Lego, who recognise their packaging and use it to apply a rendered image of the built product (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGu0N3eL2D0). A similar example is the Bluray release of Transformers 2 – it includes an AR element using the disc packaging.

The key then is to carefully consider what you are trying to achieve, beyond simply looking cool (gimmick for the sake of it tends to create fairly short term buzz and appeal to a limited demographic). For best results, you need to determine a way to augment your Augmented Reality – as much as it may seem limiting, you risk doing more harm than good marketing an unreliable demonstration. Some projects will lend themselves to this more than others for example http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=628ruDBA6Jg&feature=player_embedded – facial features themselves can act as markers. This obviously won’t be appropriate everywhere (context again).

Other recognition based projects may necessitate markers (such as the card). But if the benefit is sufficient, the user will be more likely to accept the additional inconvenience. For example, on an ecommerce site it is common to include pictures of the products. We could perhaps supply a printable pattern which is then used to display high resolution 3D models of each item – this allows the user to examine the product from a much wider range of angles than the standard 3d “click-to-rotate” style wrap around. If done properly, the user can better gauge, for example whether the dress they are about to buy will make their bum look big. Hooray!

It would then be easy to suggest expanding on this – for example why not have it wrap the clothes on the person themselves? Here we start pushing the boundary of the image recognition / inconvenience trade-off. If a person has to wear certain colours while shopping online, and only in front of a certain colour wall-paper in order to use the feature reliably, they are likely to deem it too much hassle.

That’s not to say it is unworkable – some US shops have introduced “virtual mirrors” that allow just that – however it is in a “controlled” environment (the benefit of context again). This may get people into the store for novelty, but provides a tangible benefit that might induce sales (no waiting in line for changing rooms, etc).

Leaping back to location aware applications, there are a number of smart phones out there that would allow such applications. The iPhones “app store” allows for easy deployment, and tends to appeal to the same demographic that would be most impressed by such technologies, hence the proliferation of augmented maps and sky charts.

To leverage this technology then isn’t a massive departure from current marketing thinking – you just need to carefully consider who you are aiming your campaign at and exactly what requirements it will place on the target user, versus what gains you are hoping to achieve.

While the location aware aspect of the technology is definitely the more mature, with real world 'useful' applications already out there, the image recognition element definitely has much further to go. However, there is tremendous potential in the technology as a whole and it is only a question of time…

Nick Nawrattel
Lead Multimedia Developer

Marketing Magazine Top Digital Agency

2009-11-05T16:59:00.003Z

Bluhalo/GyroHSR has featured strongly in this year's Marketing Magazine Digital Leagues, ranking 19th largest digital agency, showing 28% growth on the previous year's digital activity.

The ranking follows closely on from Bluhalo/GyroHSR's recent ranking in New Media Age's Top 100 report, highlighting the company's dominance as the largest digital agency in the South of England and 8th largest digital marketing agency in the UK.

The continual growth of the agency means that there is a continual need for top digital talent, which you can find out more about here.

Crowdsourcing - genius from the masses

2009-10-22T11:47:00.005+01:00

Crowdsourcing. The term is cropping up all over the place, but is it just a short-lived ‘buzz’ phrase or is it a genuinely useful business tool?

In a world where it is increasingly difficult to achieve cut-through – both from a marketing perspective and a product differentiation point of view, anything (within reason of course) which can set you apart from the crowd is a good thing. So how can crowdsourcing help?

Firstly, what is crowdsourcing?

Brought into the spotlight by Dell’s innovative use of the concept, crowdsourcing is a technique that empowers your audiences to help solve your business challenges, innovate in product development, evolve the business to meet consumer needs and much more. It draws upon the input of the ‘crowd’, posing questions, requests for ideas and general input. The crowd could be made up of a group of brand fans, subscribers or followers who have a level of interest in the improvement of a product, offering or service. By gaining input from the masses, the brand achieves a great number of viewpoints and inspirations in a short space of time and potentially covering a wider selection of viewpoints and abstract ideas.

So, we know what crowdsourcing is, but does it work?

Crowdsourcing does require investment for it to be of value. But this doesn’t necessarily have to be financial. You could begin with a simple approach to crowdsourcing and empower a member of your marketing team to create and then leverage a following, for example, via Twitter. Communication is real-time and you can generate a relatively large number of followers fairly quickly if you have a known brand.

Many brands are now investing in crowdsourcing for a variety of reasons, some of which are cited as examples above. And many are finding great successes from doing so. A recently publicised and unintentional crowdsourcing example comes from Air New Zealand, with its latest ad campaign inspiration being taken from a customer tweet – you can read more about it on Brand Republic – it’s a nice idea, and a different take on the usual airline ad messaging.

There are a host of other brands successfully using crowdsourcing for various benefits – check out the list below (courtesty of Open Innovators) for examples of real brands making embracing crowdsourcing:

Dell IdeaStorm - external idea sourcing
P&G Open Innovation Challenge - external idea sourcing in Britain
Ideas4Unilever - corporate venturing
BMW Customer Innovation Lab - in german
Staples Invention Quest - idea contest - site no longer live but you can read more about it here
Kraft - innovate with Kraft
Vocalpoint - P&G’s network for women
Betavine - Vodafone’s mobile app community
My Startbucks Idea - shaping the future of Starbucks
Nintendo Wiiware - nintendo embraces crowdsourcing
LEGO Factory - LEGO co-creation tool
Nespresso - design contest for coffee machines
Muji - improving and suggesting new designs
Fluevog - open shoe design

So is crowdsourcing for you?

This may well sound obvious, but it depends on your brand, product/service and objectives. Crowdsourcing brings a number of marketing benefits such as brand awareness, consumer engagement, the building of a community and potential press coverage. Alongside this, it also brings with it genius from the masses – it is effectively a giant brainstorm. If these benefits work for you, then you should probably consider investing in a crowdsourcing programme…

Jocelyn Kirby
Marketing & Business Development Manager
Twitter @ JocelynKirby

Unmissable Event - Gambit on B2B

2009-10-15T11:46:00.003+01:00

Gambit is a special interest group for the gaming gambling industry worldwide.

It is destined to be intellectual playground for all those in the gaming, gambling and gamebling industries. Initiated by Cass Business School's Executive MBA alumni, Gareth Wong, founder of GamBond, Gambit's aim is to provide a space for networking, mental stimulation and exchange of views on an industry that’s highly innovative, always controversial yet gaining further legitimacy and respects everyday.

Gambit already attracts interest from around the globe and is passionate about creating an eclectic mix of business, legal and technology professions with an interest in debating industry trends and developments.

The Gambit on B2B is exactly that - looking at the B2B side of gaming and gambling. It's on 19th October and you can sign up at www.TheGambit.info/re/.

Website Usability - more important than you may think

2009-10-13T14:41:00.004+01:00

Now this may sound fairly obvious, but usability and the creation of an excellent website user experience really is very important. And probably more important than you may realise.

Most marketers will understand the value in ensuring their website is usable, particularly if they are the owner of an ecommerce website; it impacts basket abandonment / completion rates, conversion rates, brand perception, lead generation, etc., in fact, pretty much every aspect of the success of your business online is affected by the quality of user experience your website offers.

However, the impact of your user experience does not end there…

Recent research has revealed that the last 12 months has seen a significant increase in the number of consumers who will share a bad online transactional experience on social media sites (13% - up from 8% in 2008).

But is this really a big issue? The same applies to a poor offline experience – a consumer will tell people about it. Not ideal, but there’s little that can be done to eliminate this, right?

Wrong. It really is a potentially BIG issue and one that won’t go away, particularly not if what is shared has a viral element to it, such as the renowned Virgin / Richard Branson complaint letter. Although much debated as to its authenticity, the letter is undoubtedly a brilliant read and a clear example of how a customer complaint shared online can reach a large number of people in a very small space of time.

The potential for a dissatisfied customer’s online gripe to do damage to your business is far greater in the digital world; and given that, according to the same survey referenced above, 74% of online adults said negative comments read online have an influence on whether they will do business with a company; marketing and brand managers should be investing heavily in their consumers’ online experience.

Now let’s for a minute imagine that your brand has done everything it possibly can to ensure a problem-free, intuitive and satisfying user experience… what next? We can assume that the very unique individual characteristics of humans mean that you cannot please all of the people all of the time, therefore it would not be presumptuous to expect a number of dissatisfied consumers, regardless of the perfection achieved on your website.

The best way to check up on these consumers; because stats also show that they’re as likely to tell others about their complaint as they are to tell you; is to monitor brand buzz. Brand buzz monitoring allows you to tap into all of the online mediums a consumer may use to discuss your brand, giving you visibility of the general public feeling about your brand and providing you with the opportunity to respond to specific comments – potentially negating the impact of the complaint and even publicly gaining trust in your brand in the process – Carphone Warehouse is great at doing this!

So this post is ending on quite a different topic to where it began, but validly so. Your website’s user experience is more than just about the directly attributable numbers. It’s about ensuring the best possible user experience to achieve maximum customer satisfaction. And then engaging your target audience in real conversations.

Jocelyn Kirby
Marketing & Business Development Manager
Twitter @JocelynKirby

Digital Agency - behind closed doors - part II

2009-10-08T16:13:00.007+01:00

Rather incredibly, it has been almost a month since my last edition of Behind Closed Doors and what a month it has been!

We were ranked 8th largest digital marketing agency in the UK and 17th largest interactive agency, by the respected New Media Age Top 100 Interactive Agencies Report, also identifying us as the largest interactive agency in the South East.

We are now eagerly awaiting the results of Marketing’s Digital Leagues, which are due out towards the end of the month – we’re expecting great things!

Moving on from awards and we’ve had two really exciting new client wins this month; another case of ‘watch this space’ before we make the formal announcement, but both part of great new projects that will almost certainly become a part of your everyday lives in the not-too-distant future. Thanks to these new clients wins, we're also expanding our team - to find out more about our current vacancies, check out our careers page.

Moving on to the people behind the machine… Last month, I introduced you to Ewan, Creative Director and Bluhalo’s newest recruit. Rather aptly this month, I am going to introduce you to Kunjnita Udeshi, our longest running employee and Head of Production.

What Kunji doesn’t know about the web probably isn’t worth knowing, and with almost ten years behind her at Bluhalo, she’s definitely one of our long-termers! Having started her career at Bluhalo as a Web Developer, Kunji has filled a number of shoes in her time here, including Producer, Studio Manager, Director of Web Services… to name a few.

Interested to hear what Kunji has to say? I presented her with a few questions:

What have you been up to this month?
Lots! Travelling to Paris, working on an exciting project for a big global brand and building up to my annual leave next week!

What sites are you loving?
That’s a tough one - I’ve been so immersed in my current projects that I’ve done less of my usual web exploration! My most recent top find is dotspots, which is a universal annotation system for the web – capitalising on the wisdom of the crowds. Another site I’m currently loving is Vark.com - fancy joining my network?

What are you listening to?
Recently I’ve been listening to Akon, Dizzy Rascal, Kings of Leon and La Roux.

What’s the next big thing?
The next big thing – there’s so many things I could say! But for me it’s got to be the semantic web. We’ve started to see elements of it filtering through into everyday use, but it’s not yet hit the mainstream. When it does, we can expect to see a big change in the way we use the web.

That’s it from Behind Closed Doors today, I hope you’ve found it interesting - we’ll be back soon with more insight into the daily workings of digital agency Bluhalo. In the meantime, if you need a bit of digital magic working for your brand, give us a shout – we love a new challenge and have a few tricks up our sleeve to put you one step ahead of your competitors.

Jocelyn Kirby
Marketing & Business Development Manager
Twitter @JocelynKirby

Digital Jobs - Bluhalo is expanding

2009-10-06T16:01:00.011+01:00

Thanks to several exciting new clients wins, Bluhalo is currently expanding its team. If you like the idea of developing your portfolio, working on some of the world's top brands, whilst being part of a fun and dynamic team, read on...

We currently have the following roles available for immediate start:

Head of Design
Middleweight Developer
Heavyweight Developer

We are also on the lookout for top digital talent currently working in the following job roles:

Digital Sales Specialists
User Experience / HCI Consultants
Information Architects
Accessibility & Usability Specialists
Digital Planners
Social Media Strategists
Senior Digital Creative
Digital Experiential (CRI) Specialist
Technical Director
Search Marketers
Affiliate Marketers
Digital Media Planners
Digital Data Specialists
Film Director / Videographer

If you are interested in any of the roles above, please email your CV, along with a summary of what you feel you will bring to the Bluhalo team, to jobs@bluhalo.com or find out more on our careers page.

Please note - if you are a recruitment agency, do not call us!

Ensuring Clarity in Digital Communications

2009-10-05T14:37:00.004+01:00

As a company, you are a complicated and sometimes confusing entity to get to grips with, especially for someone looking in from the outside. You have clients, distributors and many products, or maybe just one product and many distributors, many products and one distributor...you get the idea.

So you want a new digital strategy, an inspiring online campaign and maybe a shiny new website too; you come to us (hopefully) and we do our thing – more about that in a moment. One of the first and most important questions we need to ask is; “Who do you want to visit your website?”

A good agency will take the time to understand your brand, its positioning, your target market, your competitors and much more, before even beginning to advise you on a recommended strategy and approach. At risk of sounding like I am stating the obvious, these are all areas of your business that you ought to already have a good understanding of, and if not, it’s definitely worth spending some time on this before you engage a digital agency.

It can be a delicate balancing act condensing such disparate information into a coherent online presence. You can be too business focused; too client based or caught up in including the latest ‘must-haves’, with little idea of how they will deliver a return. It is all too easy to lose sight of the real purpose of your digital presence, the client relationship and what you need to do to service the needs of all your stakeholders online. Without a comprehensive understanding of the bigger picture, it is almost impossible to ensure you get your digital strategy and online presence right – unless you just happen to get lucky. Personally, we prefer not to leave things to chance!

Our work for NFL UK is a great example of putting this into practice. The NFL UK website objective was to strengthen the brand’s UK presence, without alienating new or current brand ‘fans’. We chose to present the information in a very user-friendly way, with a strong focus on the Information Architecture and User Experience of the website. We didn’t want an NFL-newbie to be bombarded with information, but we still wanted to be able to provide the dedicated fan with everything they could possibly desire and more.

Another example is our work for Hi-Tec. We were tasked with creating a digital channel to support the global launch of Hi-Tec’s new ion-mask footwear range. We created the microsite WetisDry.com and focused heavily on the communication of information at a variety of levels, giving the basic footwear consumer simple enough information to get an understanding of the product and its benefits, whilst also providing the more technically-minded visitors with enough depth of information to demonstrate the science behind the product.

So to sum up the message I’m trying to get across here (this is the clarity of message part!) – whether a website, like the two projects above, a campaign or a global digital strategy; any digital project requires a significant investment in planning and research before pen is even put to paper in the creative department. It is this step change that will see the delivery of increasingly impressive ROI from digital. Digital IS marketing and much like above the line communications, it’s the messaging that is key. Fail to carry out sufficient research and planning and you will end up with the same results as a poorly prepared offline campaign!

Paul Windust
Digital Project Manager

NMA Top 100 Interactive Agency

2009-10-01T16:12:00.003+01:00

It was the 10th year of the New Media Age Top 100 Interactive Agencies Awards last night, and Bluhalo/GyroHSR performed exceptionally well, ranking top interactive agency in the South East, 8th in the marketing agencies league table and 17th in the overall interactive agencies list.

The leagues are calculated based on fee income and are considered the ‘who’s who’ of the digital world.

Bluhalo/GyroHSR’s impressive climb falls in line with its current offering as a global digital agency, with 200 digital staff worldwide, working out of 17 offices in 9 countries.

With a fully integrated on and offline offering, as part of the GyroHSR network, Bluhalo provides its clients with a global service at a local level, as one of the few digital agencies with offices in key EMEA and US locations.

Viral Marketing - what is it?

2009-09-28T11:32:00.006+01:00

We're often asked to include considering 'viral' as one part of our integrated campaigns. But viral isn't a channel, it's an effect. It's just easier to refer to it in that way.

And it's simple and cheap right? Just film a movie, stick it on YouTube and watch it spread all over the world. Easy!
Wrong.

Due to the popularity of YouTube it's often assumed that viral=video but this is far from the case. These days 'viral' can be pretty much anything, from videos and Twitter competitions to augmented reality and 20% off booze vouchers.

And because it can be anything that's why an integrated approach is often best.

These days the easiest way to pass any content on from one person to another, or preferably to many, is using digital channels. But that doesn't mean that digital folk are necessarily the best people to come up with the original idea. In fact, you're probably going to get a more cynical response to an average idea because we tend to have more exposure to these channels and therefore more viral campagins than the average person. It's just the way we are.

Take the T-Mobile dancing in the station. Your average digital person would probably have said they'd seen flash mobs 100 times before. Been there, done that. I think it originated in New York and the first was in a carpet shop much to the displeasure of bemused sales assistants. It was nothing to do with a brand or product, just a bunch of pranksters having a laugh. Then there were the singers in the airport advertising the theatre. And so on....

However, with the backing of a TV campaign, the Liverpool Street dance has achieved nearly 14m views on YouTube. Now that's impressive!

But it's not a digital idea and sometimes the best virals aren't. In fact nearly every successful video viral is a good piece of film-making rather than a great piece of digital. The power of viral is usually in the digital method by which it's passed on.

As with any campaign a mix of channels works best. While I'm no fan of the advertising, Oasis pushed the boat out with the Cactus Kid. There was a website to vote on your preferred ending to the advertising series, Facebook and MySpace pages for the characters, behind the scenes making of content, even a fake find the kid campaign site. It wasn't my cup of tea, but then again I'm not the target audience. But I'm not sure they got it either.

It's not always about video. Websites can be viral too. Swedish Armed Forces is a spin off the traditional game route, presenting intriguing tests in such a creative and cool way that you want to send it on, well I did anyway.

And SAS Globe of Fortune is a clever hook up with your friends on social networks to win a free flight.

When you start to mix video content with creative digital technologies that's when things can really hot up.

Amongst the first to start customising video content online and sending it on were Audi (with their DNA campaign) and Mini with this viral classic produced by Glue.

Now this has spread to include video content and even voiceovers. Have a look at this from the Know the Signs Campaign from Heineken.

or this from ICO...

So what makes a successful viral? It really comes down to two key things, content and exposure.

1. Content
The general rules are that your viral needs to be;

- interactive (challenge your friend game)
- shocking (VW Polo suicide bomber or Diesel safe for work porn)
- sexy (Kylie for Agent Provocateur)
- funny (Old Spice)
- cool (Quiksilver)
- inquisitive (TFL or Samsung)
- or the latest trend, to have a feel good factor (Evian)

Sounds easy, but it's harder than it seems. It's difficult getting one of these that works hard in a way that your client's brand will be happy with. And it's always easier with B2C. It's got to have standout. So if you're going for comedy then make sure it's funny.

2. Exposure
If you are Nike then you're likely to have a database of customers and the traffic to your website to get your viral passed on. Nike didn't even need to release their Kobe LeBron adverts online, their fans did it for them, and then they parodied the ads, gaining even more exposure. Then again a good script, two megastars and a few Henson creations go a long way.

If you're a lesser known brand and are looking for impact, then you have to seed your content. And it's definitely worth working with seeding specialists rather than trying to join in the conversation cold. Your target blog will see right through any impostors and the damage you inflict could go more viral than your intended content.

Remember you can't control viral. It might spread around the world to audiences you never expected. With both positive and negative effects!

To sum up, always ask yourself, would you forward it to a friend or colleague? Would your target audience? If the answer's no then it's not going to go viral. Easy :-)

This last example ticks a number of boxes. It's a topical, clever, shocking, interactive video from the Metropolitan Police. Brilliant. If you're only going to click on one link in this post make it this one.

Barnaby Ellis
Head of Digital

Bing's Visual Search

2009-09-24T17:40:00.003+01:00

In another move to regain market share, Microsoft, through their latest search engine, Bing, have soft launched a seemingly fantastic “Visual Search” tool.

Visual search results can be put into the category of next generation content distribution. Appearing as thumbnails, the user can view their search results as images. This is particularly helpful for those utilising the web’s vast ecommerce capabilities. The user searching to purchase is able to view a product prior to reading about it. For example, a user looking to buy a digital camera can view the cameras immediately and click through to the site of the ones they like the look of best! Let’s call it ergonomic for one’s forefingers!

The soft launch is currently taking place on limited searches in the states, so road testing is proving somewhat difficult. However, the service promises to offer multiple benefits to both brands and consumers alike and we look forward to the rollout hitting our shores.

Click here to read more on the media centric web.

Anya Gooch
Account Manager

Digital Agency in a Marketing World

2009-09-17T11:32:00.003+01:00

With the unquestionable fact that digital is now firmly rooted in the marketing strategy of any half decent Marketing Director, there has been a definite shift in the way digital is viewed in the marketing world.

Historically, just another channel to communicate an offline campaign, digital has struggled as the underdog to ATL agencies. But finally, things really are changing.

Digital agencies have spent many years implementing the great ideas dreamt up and brought to life by ATL agencies, with little more creative input than the interpretation of the ATL campaign to a digital format. And before this gets too much to sounding like a rant, let me assure you that it really is not.

The point of this post is to highlight (and celebrate) the fact that digital has finally got its feet firmly under the top table.

Digital agencies have grown up in recent years, with increasing investment in their planning and creative departments (meet our new CD here) and the development of a commercial understanding of the applications of technologies. No longer are we simply trying to fit an offline campaign into an online world, frequently a campaign idea is now being driven by digital, with awe-inspiring new technologies often leading the way.

The Doritos Augmented Reality campaign is a great example of an integrated campaign with digital technologies at its heart - you can watch the video below:

Equally, we love the Nike+ Men vs Women campaign – a great early example of the successful application of the pervasive web, the legendary comparethemeerkat.com and BMW’s Z4 in 3D augmented reality campaign.

So it looks like digital is at the top table and here to stay. And as for being a digital agency in a marketing world? I think we can safely say that we are fast moving towards a role reversal, with the marketing agency existing in a digital world.

Jocelyn Kirby
Marketing & Business Development Manager

Web TV Streaming - update

2009-09-16T13:07:00.003+01:00

ITV have confirmed their apparent defection from the Microsoft Silverlight camp last Friday. Instead, their content is now provided via Adobe Flash. This is unfortunate news for Microsoft; while ITV state that they continue “to use Microsoft’s products extensively to develop and deliver solutions”, it doesn’t change the fact that Microsoft haven’t had as much impact on Adobe’s dominance as they no doubt hoped to.

This may be about to change - they have announced plans to start rolling out more wooshy Silverlight applets across their sites, including MSN – one of the most visited sites on the net. Such a move is bound to help boost their (approximately) 33% share, which in turn would give web developers (and their clients) greater confidence in developing for the format. This in turn would help drive greater market share, which in turn etc. An interesting article on the subject can be found here.

In other Web TV news, a recent Wii update has stopped the BBC iPlayer from working reliably. The update brought Flash 8 to the console, but had side effects ranging from programs dropping part way through, to failing to work entirely.

The BBC have confirmed that there is something wrong, and have stated that they are “currently working to resolve these issues with the iPlayer website” so it shouldn’t be long before we are able to waggle away at tv [recently] gone by. More here.

Nick Nawrattel
Lead Multimedia Developer

Digital Agency - behind closed doors

2009-09-15T16:10:00.006+01:00

Sometimes an agency appears to be just that. A name, a website, a portfolio and an address. Of course, Bluhalo is much more than that, but sometimes, without physically walking through those doors, it is hard to see beyond the cold hard facts and the Google search results.

So, how about a peep behind our closed doors (which are always open by the way), to find out a little more about the people behind the machine?

It has been a busy month so far this September, with both our NMA Top 100 and Marketing Digital Leagues entries going in, several exciting pitches involving visits to the much-loved city of Milan and the cultural city of Manchester, and the approaching launch of a new website design for one of our clients; eagerly awaited by many dedicated fans of the brand. We’ve also got a couple of important new client wins to announce but that is going to be a case of ‘watch this space’ until we get formal approval to go ahead and shout it from the rooftops!

And so to the people; a recent addition to the team seems an appropriate place to start for our first edition of Behind Closed Doors and so, I introduce to you, Ewan Gee, Creative Director.

Previously of Publicis, Ewan has recently joined Bluhalo to further strengthen and develop the creative team. Tasked with recruiting a Head of Design, leading the creative thinking behind the new Bluhalo website (yes, it is on its way and is going to be brilliant!) and jumping in with some of our highest profile clients, Ewan’s first few weeks have been non-stop pure agency lifestyle, to say the least. So let’s hear what Ewan has to say. I presented him with a few questions:

What have you been up to this month?
“Working, mostly. On pitches, meetings, ideas. Finding my feet, getting frustrated, getting inspired, finding ways to build a bigger, better creative department.”

What sites are you loving?
“The new agency website – in development.”

What are you listening to?
“The radio. And other people’s tunes. I’ve no time for music of my own any more.”

What’s the next big thing?
“New romantic revival, Romola Garai, more powerful tools to create transparency on the Web, business really getting to grips with social media and putting it to work for them to build brands, drive engagement, improve their CRM.”

That’s it from Behind Closed Doors today, I hope you’ve found it interesting - we’ll be back soon with more insight into the daily workings of digital agency Bluhalo. In the meantime, if you need a bit of digital magic working for your brand, give us a shout – we love a new challenge and have a few tricks up our sleeve to put you one step ahead of your competitors.

Jocelyn Kirby
Marketing & Business Development Manager

Gran Turismo 5 - featuring Bluhalo

2009-09-09T17:26:00.004+01:00

With the long-awaited, but still unofficially confirmed news that GT5 is set to be released on 4th December this year, we felt it worth a mention that along with stunning cars and amazing graphics, Bluhalo is featured.

Thanks to Bluhalo's previous digital partnership with Subaru World Rally Team, Bluhalo's logo can be seen on the car's spoiler - which we definitely thought was worth mentioning!

We've included an image so that you can join us in feeling rather pleased about being part of what is probably one of the most eagerly anticipated launches this year!

If you'd like to see the new game in action, check out the video below.

Google Caffeine - enough boost to beat Bing?

2009-09-03T11:42:00.001+01:00

I am becoming rather a fan of blogging on Google developments - it most certainly keeps me on my toes, and the collaborative nature of Google’s efforts appeal to my generally enthusiastic nature.

So… once again, Google have opened up to the development world, the opportunity to comment on and contribute to the optimisation of search results.

This new search platform development program is called Google Caffeine.

At the moment, what you need to know is that this development program is looking into 2 key areas within Google search:

Speed
Currently at a Google search rate of 3000 searches per second, speed is of the essence and needs to be a factor that is continually improved. Google Caffeine has doubled this current search speed - ok, so it may only be by one tenth of a second but every little helps.

Accuracy of search results
More accurate search results provided by Google Caffeine can be illustrated with several examples. One is the reduction in the amount of back-links to blog sites. Just to clarify, a back link can be quantified as ‘a brand inserting their link into a blog site or discussion forum’. Our objection, which is an objection shared by many SEO agencies, lies in the fact that this passes on the brands marketing costs to the blog sites and is effectively, if paid for, ‘buying friends’. Let’s sum up by stating that this way of getting your URL out there, is invasive and non engaging, to say the least.

Although there is currently a less blended set of search results coming through on Google Caffeine, this is an area that is being looked into.

These search results are also providing more real time search results with improved result refinement. We will say now that our experience to date has demonstrated that keyword chains take a little more formulation work to provide optimal results but, true to form, we hear that Google are working on it.

Online businesses must be keeping on top of this. It is a major platform change. At least, with Google incorporating developer feedback and opening this up to the floor, businesses can keep one step ahead of the game.

Check out the dev site and compare your search results to those thrown up by your current Google search browser window.

Anya Gooch
Account Manager

Writing a Business Blog - stuck for inspiration?

2009-09-02T14:31:00.003+01:00

Ok, so today’s blog has come from my lack of inspiration for a topic to write about and it got me thinking… how many people out there that write for a business blog have moments when they are simply struggling for inspiration?

I’m guessing a fair few, so I’ve put together some simple suggestions on how to create inspiration, when the ideas just aren’t a-flowing. Let’s kick off with current news.

Current news is a great source of inspiration for your blog posts – it’s current, therefore relevant and every industry has related news so (if you don’t already) regardless of your industry, find a selection of reliable news sources and monitor them daily – you’ll soon find the creative juices start flowing!

When it comes to current news, don’t just regurgitate a story that you read and find interesting! Read it, think about it and then form your own opinion. Not only are you adding value, you are also then positioning your brand as a thought leader – just be careful not to cross the line to become uber-controversial – it may not impact too positively on your brand, unless controversial is what you’re all about! (The new American Apparel ad that has made it to almost all marketing press today springs to mind)

So current news – read it, think about it, form an educated, well-articulated opinion, blog about it!

So let’s say, like me, today’s news just doesn’t float your blog-writing boat, what next?

Try turning to your colleagues. As immersed in your industry as you are, your colleagues are a great source of ideas for blog posts, if not for the posts themselves! Variety is the spice of life, so why not your blog too? Try enlisting a team of bloggers to contribute to your blog on different aspects of your company and industry – they may need to be coerced from time to time, but writing for a blog is something that many people find satisfying, great for their online personal brand (that’s another post in itself) and a welcome break for their everyday job roles.

Ok, so now I’ll assume that colleagues are less than co-operative / busy / out of the office… what now?

It is often difficult to come up with an idea for a post from nowhere. So let’s consider why you write your blog? To drive sales leads? To increase brand awareness? To position your business as an authority in your industry? To help others? Hopefully it is a beautifully balanced amalgamation of all four of the above, but whatever the motivation behind your blog, use that as a starting point for idea generation.

If you want to generate sales leads, consider your key search terms and use this as a basis for an article, discuss a new product line, or simply showcase a recent client success. To increase brand awareness and present your business as an authority, consider focusing (ethically, unlike Habitat’s Twitter PR disaster) on incredibly popular and of-the-minute topics related to your industry to gain maximum coverage and increased likelihood of social sharing. If you want to help others? Consider ‘top tips’, ‘how-to’ guides and general information provision.

Regardless of your motivation, ensure you pay careful consideration to your target market, tone of voice and messaging – get that wrong and your blog may miss the mark altogether!

For more blogging tips, you can check out our previous post on 5 simple tips to blogging successfully.

Jocelyn Kirby
Marketing & Business Development Manager

Public Sector Web Design

2009-08-26T09:55:00.006+01:00

Information is one of the cornerstones of web design. Your digital marketing strategy is likely to be very much centered around brand awareness, providing information to the consumer and encouraging the consumer to engage with the company and the product, which will hopefully eventually result in a sale (let’s face it, we’re in business to make money!)

Public sector web design is a very different animal indeed. It’s also about providing information to an end user, but for a very different end result and notably different motivations. There is very little place for the usual marketing terms or often ‘glamorised’ sales copy used on many websites.

Most public sector websites have to fulfil a public service and often provide the public with very important information. Take the recent Swine Flu website, much maligned, but a vital public service nevertheless. If you extrapolate the advice to users of the site to base economics, then the conversion rate of product ‘sold’ (Tamiflu) is the envy of many corporates.

Of course the reason this site was set up was to try and combat the spread of a disease not to make money! However, I think it highlights the very serious consideration that has to be given to designing a website in the public sector, paying particular regard to how the information is presented. You are still trying to drive traffic to the site, and very high volumes at that, but not for the same reasons.

Many of the same cornerstones of all web design projects still hold true, W3C guidelines and the importance of the user journey for example. But most of these projects require careful and considerate handling of the public message. Many public sector organisations, and in particular the NHS, have had limited contact with digital agencies, mainly due to the majority of digital work and system development previously being carried out by in-house teams of developers. Reassuringly, these days most stakeholders in the public sector understand that as an information tool, the internet is key in helping to reach as broad an audience as they can.

Historically most NHS websites have been developed by very busy IT professionals, who are not designers, but predominantly programmers and have to work under strict user guidelines. Our job, as a digital agency, is to show that we understand the nature of the work and the message that needs to be conveyed. Public sector projects can be rewarding, complex, confusing and complicated all at once! But understanding the message and as a digital agency being sympathetic to the organisation’s needs, great things can be achieved, with some public sector organisations even taking a lead in terms of their approach to digital. Public sector web design really can be exciting stuff!

Paul Windust
Project Manager

Dull is the New Interesting

2009-08-24T09:19:00.001+01:00

To my enormous and increasing regret I’m old enough (and then some) to remember the big, so-called dot.com bubble of the late 1990s. Back then, the race was on to build a website. Why? If your idea was good enough, you could build one and make your millions. And that’s why millions did it. The trouble is, they concentrated on the last two thirds of that last sentence and conveniently forgot about the first.

Which is why there never were millions of millionaires.

Notwithstanding, countless websites were born. If you had some sort of commercial enterprise, a website was your shop window on the world. You had to have one. And Noah-like, you said: ‘if we build it, they will come’. The more enlightened of us saw the error of this approach. We knew websites needed promoting. 10k animated GIFs were waiting to be born – they just needed a reason. And driving traffic to our websites was it.

Right, we said: website, tick. Marketing to make people go to website, tick. What next? Just sit back like a city fat cat and see the pounds roll in, of course. What could possibly go wrong?

But like a smile that slowly fades from the face once you’ve told a joke that nobody has found funny, it became increasingly apparent that nobody was coming.

So we were left with websites that nobody came to. Time to put our thinking caps on, and we did: many inventive solutions were tried. Of course, high interest products always fared better. For boys, fast cars are always going to be cool; as are hi-fi’s, new TV’s, cameras, and trainers. Basically everything we spend time mooning over on Ebay. For girls, I guess it’s some of the above plus fashion, travel, shoes, beauty, handbags, jewellery (not that we’re stereotyping here).

But what about washing-up liquid? What about shoe polish?

The makers of shoe polish have to shift units just like the makers of computer consoles or designer shoes. The trouble is, unless you have a totally out-of-control fetish, why would you give up even 0.0001% of your day to delve into the murky world of shoe polish?

So if you have a low-interest product, two approaches suggest themselves: the first is: Can we be useful? Can we provide a service? Does our presentation of it respond to a user need?

Usually not – it’s a bolt-on. The story goes like this: Look at this shoe polish. It’s the best shoe polish in the world. You must buy it for the following reasons. Oh, and here’s some fluffy stuff to show we’ve thought around our little problem (that no one’s interested in shoe polish), like a funny quiz about shoes, for example, or an article about how to make your feet ‘smile’. And so on.

Mildly entertaining it may be (although probably not) but it’s not useful. It doesn’t start with a need. It’s still push with fluff on, not pull.

The second approach is an advertising trick as old as the hills: if there’s nothing that interesting about the product, create some theatre.

Goodby Silverstein’s Hotel 626 is a perfect example of this. It’s slickly done, it’s highly entertaining, it’s genuinely scary, and it’s bloody good.

It’s advertising Doritos. That’s right, Doritos. The target market’s teens – nobody loves a good scare like a teenager – and it was created to answer the brief that Doritos wanted to announce that they were re-introducing two flavours. Once the agency insight had the insight that these two flavours were being brought back from the dead, the rest kind of writes itself (although absolutely no credit taken away).

But the point is that it’s no longer a message – and a rather unremarkable one at that – it’s an experience. One that people come to. Engage with. Pass on. For free.

Ten years ago, if there was a Doritos website (and I’m guessing there was) the announcement of two old flavours would have appeared in the form of a 120x60 pixel button on the homepage.

Nowadays, with the advancement of technology, the increase in common bandwidth and the courage to create something truly excellent and memorable, people have willingly, joyfully, not just taken on that message, but have taken an incredible brand experience away with them too.

Ewan McGee
Creative Director

Mobile Apps Advertising - could be better?

2009-08-20T09:54:00.003+01:00

So this week's New Media Age lands on my desk this morning and I read, with a certain level of surprise, the cover article, outlining recent concern on the use of mobile application advertising.

The article highlights, that whilst many well-known brands are embracing the opportunity that advertising in iPhone and other mobile apps may bring, their approach could not be described as particularly well-thought out.

That is not to detract from the 5% of brands that appear to be doing it right, but what of the other 95%?

NMA quoted fairly shocking figures, with up to 30% of ads within mobile apps linking to flash sites which cannot be displayed on an iPhone, and the majority linking to sites not optimised for mobile. If only 5% of advertisers are actually linking to a mobile-enabled site, what sort of user experience are the other 95% giving the consumer?

In a world where both time and financial resources are increasingly scarce, it seems crazy to waste both, with a poorly planned and executed advertising campaign that just doesn’t make sense. So how has this happened?

In defense of the brands, it appears that Google’s launch of AdSense for Mobile Apps has caused this potential issue, with all ads booked via Google automatically running within apps unless the advertiser opts out.

Google probably should have made this clearer to advertisers upon launch to ensure the appropriate changes could be made to the search campaigns. However, contrary views suggest that mobile browsers are sophisticated enough to handle standard, non-mobile-enabled sites, therefore suggesting no change is required.

But if they are offering anything but the best possible user experience throughout their campaign, surely brands should not settle for this?

Marketing budgets are often fought very hard for, both to get and to retain, and if achieving anything but the highest possible ROI, they are certainly not doing their budget-holders, brand or objectives any justice. More worryingly, they could also be causing damage to their brand.

It will be interesting to see how industry bodies respond to the COI’s request for guidelines on advertising in mobile apps.

Jocelyn Kirby
Marketing & Business Development Manager

Gold Star to M&S for QR Campaign

2009-08-19T10:06:00.001+01:00

A gold star goes to Marks & Spencer for trying to engage more with their customers with the trialling of mobile QR codes on their ‘Food to Go’ freshly squeezed juices.

What, you may ask, are QR codes?

Not as it may appear a weird layout for a new type of puzzle, but a neat way of offering consumers product information and money off future purchases that has proved to be very popular in Japan. All you need to do is scan the QR code on the bottle with your phone’s camera and you will be directed to a ‘Food to Go’ mobile site which features a range of content and a voucher code to claim against your next bottle of juice.

It’s not the first time it has been tried in the UK; The Sun used them last year to drive traffic to their mobile site via an eight page pull-out section in the newspaper. This was then followed by campaigns from brands like the BBC, Pepsi and Volvo. However, there has been a small hitch in the development of the format over here due to a lack of QR code readers that are automatically embedded in UK phones. Small but potentially significant problem. It will be interesting to see how it works for them. If you’re an M & S freshly squeezed juice fan, you could save yourself a fortune so it might be worth checking your phone does have it!

Consumers may be a difficult target in the short term but one area that QR codes should take off in is at the good old trade fair. Maximising the huge investment that it takes to attend these shows could ensure that B2B clients think about providing mobile QR codes on their stands as a novel way to provide a direct link to mobile phone formatted information with order forms and product information. It would certainly make you stand out from the crowd! Keep an eye out for future QR developments as they may well be the key to the success of your campaign…

Jill Thater
Client Services Director

The Future of Gaming - pay what you want?

2009-08-18T12:37:00.004+01:00

With Eidos’ big splash announcement that it will be selling digital download versions of Championship Manager 2010 on a pay-what-you-want basis, starting from just £2.51, are we seeing a change in the future of gaming, or is this just a clever marketing ploy?

The pay what you want technique, first championed in 2007 by Radiohead to launch their ‘In Rainbows’ album, has seen little application by marketers since, despite the album achieving an exceptional number of downloads, as well as incredibly strong physical product sales.

The technique, which has so far, gained extensive media coverage for Eidos, appears to open doors to ‘freeloaders’, who will choose to pay only minimal fees for the game. However, even at £2.51, the increased lift in the number of purchases should see not insignificant income for Eidos and if Radiohead’s foray into the world of pay-what-you-want has set a precedent, then Eidos can also expect to see many purchasers choosing to pay more than the minimum download fee.

So, is this an indication of a shift in the future of gaming?

It is a very clever move by Eidos indeed, with impeccable timing and a perfect PR launch. But it is also much more than that. With increasing levels of in-game advertising and a more spend-thrifty consumer, this looks to be the beginning of a shift in the way we market and consume in our gaming lives. I doubt very much that we will see an overnight shift in pricing strategies from the big game producers, but certainly an incremental shift over the coming few years is likely to demonstrate an increase in pay-what-you-want style game launches.

Jocelyn Kirby
Marketing & Business Development Manager

Twitter Hashtag Competitions - Just Spam?

2009-08-13T10:21:00.004+01:00

The recent increase in popularity of the use of hashtags on Twitter (used as a way of creating groupings for Tweets based on keywords), has given rise to an increase in the use of hashtags for ‘spam’.

Not limited to the domain of the stereotypical spammer, we have seen significant numbers of reputable brands falling prey to the attraction of hashtags, only to be shot down and their attempts labeled as spam.

One of the most recent high profile examples was Habitat’s less than thoughtful use of trending hashtags to gain following and exposure on Twitter, even using hashtags related to the Iran election to gain coverage. Not a clever move, and one which left Habitat reeling from the criticism and #habitatfail comments that flooded the Tweetsphere.

So, if a brand as respectable as Habitat can be so unethical in its use of hashtags, it is no wonder that a recent NMA poll showed that 61% of us feel that Twitter competitions by brands which ask users to retweet hashtags are just spam.

So, before you launch a competition on Twitter using hashtags, think again…

Jocelyn Kirby
Marketing & Business Development Manager
@jocelynkirby

Tesco's Open API - leading the way for other big brands?

2009-08-12T12:14:00.002+01:00

With the recent announcement of Tesco’s release of their online store API, we are starting to see the beginnings of what is the very exciting development of the application of Web 3.0 technologies in practical, real-life situations. Tesco have always been innovative with their adoption of digital technologies. Nick Lansley, an Analyst/Programmer in the IT Division was the brains behind their online grocery store as early as 1996.

So in these days of an open digital world, will other big brands follow the Tesco example and start releasing their own APIs?

Historically it has generally been the innovation of users and developers rather than brands themselves that drive this invention and I don’t see this about to change drastically. Nick Lansley is a brilliant example of this. In him Tesco have a forward-thinking developer that has recognised the commercial opportunities for their brand online. But this is definitely not something for everyone. When you consider the technical and security implications alone Tesco are brave in opening up their API and have approached it with reasonable caution. Not every brand will have the appetite to take on this type of project, particularly in this economic environment, but those that do, with relevancy and a well-thought out approach will certainly reap many benefits as pioneers in this area.

For Tesco it's another channel to sell their products, provide added value for customers and increase retention, all essential in its highly competitive market. For developers it's an opportunity to realise creative ideas to enhance the value of their product. And for consumers it's another case of technology making their every day life a little easier.

Imagine your fridge knowing your running low on milk and ordering it automatically. What if it could also tie in with your diary to know when you are going to at home to receive your delivery. That's just scratching the surface, the possibilities are endless.

An increasing number of brands are releasing their code to allow their data and services to be used by developers. But this doesn’t mean that developing an API is going to be worth the time, money and maintenance you put in.

Ultimately you need the reputation, user base and content that will add value for the people taking advantage of your API. Or identify the potential of others adopting your API that you would never achieve on your own.

Barnaby Ellis
Head of Digital

B2B Social Media Marketing

2009-08-06T16:43:00.004+01:00

There has been many a discussion on the merits of social media as both a channel for lead generation and relationship building. But where benefits lie, so apply the hidden rules of ethical marketing. At what point does using social media for lead generation become spam? To what extent can you build a professional relationship with someone in their ‘personal’ social space?

With many debates and opinions on the above in the social sphere, it’s clear to see why some brands have got it wrong. Yet there are also many B2B brands that have got it right. Dell, IBM, Sun Microsystems and Cap Gemini are all examples of brands using Twitter for engagement AND lead generation that also appear to be getting the balance right. Dell, probably the most cited example of a B2B brand’s use of Twitter, boasts more than $3M in sales since its launch of @DellOutlet in 2007. In contrast to Dell’s sales driven approach, Cap Gemini, Sun and IBM focus on more of an engaging and informative approach, yet are still only part of a handful of well-known B2B brands making real use of Twitter.

But can you really apply social media in B2B marketing?

The answer to this question is an absolute, resounding, YES! Social media provides us with unprecedented access to the entire decision making unit, including that elusive C-level executive. Free from the traditional gatekeepers, direct engagement of the ultimate decision maker is now possible like never before, leaving the playing field wide open for a new breed of marketer.

So what can you do to make sure you get it right?

The changing face of the marketing department of today signifies that marketers are committed to the whole-hearted embracement of social media, with new roles such as ‘Chief Listening Officer’, indicating the enormity of the impact social media is having on today’s business world. Yet still, many brands are dabbling in social media without the appropriate planning, research and investment – often causing more damage than is gained in brand equity.

To fully commit to social media, brands must give proper consideration to a number of factors not least including objective and KPI setting, targeting, tone of voice, consistency of brand message, and more importantly, the brand’s overall digital roadmap.

In B2B we are lucky, not only are we highly attuned to the detailed analysis of campaign metrics and ROI performance, we are already well-practised in niche targeting, something that many a B2C marketer is still coming to terms with in the digital world. With this in mind, B2B social media marketing not only provides B2B marketers with a truly exciting engagement opportunity; approached thoughtfully, it also gives the opportunity for B2B brands to outshine their so often overrated B2C counterparts.

The Role of the Chief Listening Officer

2009-07-30T09:29:00.003+01:00

So, there is a lot of discussion as to the purpose of the latest buzz role within large businesses; the ‘Chief Listening Officer’.

It sounds silly, we know. In fact, I do rather like to think that as an Account Manager, the term ‘Good Will Ambassador’ should most certainly be written into my job spec. However, the appointment of an individual whose role is solely based on engaging with consumer thoughts and most likely, gripes, must certainly be considered within brands.

Customer Think, “Customer-Centric Business Strategists”, believes that consumers will “remain loyal only to those who demonstrate that they value their relationship. In this chaotic and complex life, trust will become more critical, and companies that can earn and retain a customer's trust will be in a privileged position. They will have the edge in selling to that customer.”

Today, in the social networking space, the potential to engage and proactively tackle customer issues not only one on one, but en masse, is endless and brands must be aware that the social networking space cannot be overlooked as an area in which great damage can be done to a brand or product’s reputation. At this point we must of course reference the Stephen Fry vs Sony Vaio rampage.

Not only can individual customer gripes be tackled, a CLO can also track trends and patterns, positive and negative feedback, and hopefully, improve a brand’s products to better suit the needs of their customer in the first place!

Using Stephen Fry vs Sony Vaio as just one example (Stephen Fry is currently being followed on Twitter by 680,885 tweeters), we believe that appointing the role of a Chief Listening Officer, hammy as it sounds, is a jolly good idea.

Alternatively, brands are more than welcome to give Bluhalo a call and we can assist you in keeping your ears to the ground!

Managing Client Expectations

2009-07-27T12:11:00.005+01:00

Managing a client’s expectations is easy, but very hard to do well, and above all, to do consistently. It is not a skill that everyone possesses but one that can make or break a relationship with a client. This cannot be done with a well-defined scoping document alone.

Unfortunately, this is an area that has been perceived to be a weakness within digital agencies, but times are changing and there are companies that do excel in this area (such as Bluhalo). The main reason for this stems from the emotive issues surrounding the selling of ideas or concepts and how the benefits of digital solutions are put to clients.

A project manager will tell you that managing a client’s expectations can be effected with a scoping document, a salesperson will tell you that you must understand the client’s business and offer solutions that are right for them; both important aspects of a client relationship but not the whole story.

To offer a simple analogy, you hire someone to build you a garage; they quote you £2000, they do a great job and a few days later you get an invoice for £4000!

Did this guy manage your expectations? Would you hire this guy again? No way, I hear you cry! You would be perfectly justified. Nowhere in this scenario was there an honest or open communication of the problems the project was facing and the solutions that were used to fix them. You were simply presented with a solution (and associated cost!) with no consultation – this does not engender confidence within the client or in the company.

Being proactive and honest with a client can reap great rewards as you move forward in the relationship or project. Every time you interact with your client you can build or breakdown that relationship – if you empower the client with sufficient knowledge regarding their project, via regular communications, they are happier for it and more likely to want to work with you again!

Clear and frequent communication (even when it’s not always good news) builds trust; remember your actions as a business have a direct impact on their business. Your client owns the project, and as a digital company you are facilitating their vision when you deliver the project. They look to you to provide the right solution, meeting the appropriate timescales and within the given budget.

Refined, well-thought out, documented and applied project processes go a very long way in ensuring client expectations are met, managed and projects successfully delivered.

At Bluhalo, we have exactly this and strive to refine and improve our processes and quality management system at every opportunity - after all - happy clients = happy agency!

Paul Windust
Project Manager

Newspapers - death by social media?

2009-07-21T16:31:00.007+01:00

There are increasing rumblings in the online newspaper world as Lionel Barber, the editor of the Financial Times speaking at a Media Standards Trust event, said he expects almost all newspapers to begin charging for their online content within a year, echoing News Corp's Rupert Murdoch's recent prediction. Both the Financial Times and Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal currently offer some free content but charge for premium access. Murdoch plans to start charging for access to all their sites within a year. This month, the New York Times decided it would move ahead with its plan to charge for online content after proposing the idea to readers through a survey, asking: "How likely would you be to pay a $2.50 monthly fee -- which would be a 50% discount for home delivery subscribers -- for continued, unlimited access to nytimes.com?"

So how would you feel if you had to start paying for access to online newspapers? You probably wouldn’t care; I certainly wouldn’t, but it seems as if, in these ever increasing hard economic times, it is certainly the route that most newspaper companies are heading, as a way to recoup their falling revenues from advertisers who are abandoning them in their droves, along with the purchasers of their newspapers.

I can understand why people would pay for financial information etc., but why would we bother to pay for general news stories, which form the bulk of the copy, when we’ve got used to having instant access to information via mobiles as well as our computers? With the onslaught of Twitter and other social networking sites, the world can know about events from people who are there, long before the news networks get their people on location. For example, news of Michael Jackson’s death appeared on both, hours before the story was covered by official news sources.

In my opinion, the newspapers need to think ‘outside the box’ in the same way that glossy magazines did a few years ago. The relatively ‘cheap treat’ for a woman of buying a magazine that she can pick up and read wherever she wants (which now also come in different sizes, so you can even choose one that even fits in your handbag!) will always exist; but when a monthly magazine has long lead times, the website offers the perfect channel for covering all sorts of stories that would otherwise be ignored as old news by the time the next issue was going to the printers.

The successful launch of the UK Vogue site some years ago allowed different editorial content to be created, so that fashionistas could have a daily fix of fashion news which complemented their monthly magazine read. It ensured that the catwalk shows could be covered instantly, with image and video coverage of not just the clothes, but interviews with the designers and coverage of who was attending which shows and with whom – all compulsive information for people in and lovers of the fashion industry!

But the secret to their success was providing something new and different that readers couldn’t easily get from other sources. With a dedicated team with their fingers on the pulse, they could provide all the inside track on their site, but free of charge. Although online newspapers can potentially do the same thing, why on earth would we ever be persuaded to pay for news that we can get from lots of other sources? Beats me…

Jill Thater
Client Services Director

Sports Focus - if anyone deserves sponsorship...

2009-07-15T15:13:00.009+01:00

As a reader of Bluhalo's blog, you may well already know that we are part of the GyroHSR network - a global marketing communications organisation operating across Europe, the Middle East and the US.

Richard Glasson, CEO of GyroHSR, has a great passion for sports, and when he's not travelling the world on business or spending time with his family, he manages to find the time to fit in a great deal of sporting activities.

This year, Richard will be taking part in five major sporting endurance races to raise £10k for Macmillan Cancer Support in memory of his Mum, who passed away last year.

Richard's 6 months of misery will begin on Monday with the l'Etape du Tour, the toughest of the Tour de France stages, taken on a few days before the pros arrive. It's the toughest stage of them all covering 170kms in the Alps, with 4 hard climbs in the first 150kms, acting as a 'warm-up' for the 'Giant of Provence' - Mont Ventoux. Ventoux is a 22km climb at an average gradient of 8%, giving Richard over 2 hours of pain, after having ridden for 5 or 6 hours already just to get to that point!

As if that wasn't more than enough for most of us average mortals, Richard will then move on to a variety of other events including the NY marathon and HellRunner, which whilst looking great fun, also appears to live up to its name!

So, if you're impressed and would like to support Richard in his quest, then do please consider making a donation to his chosen cause. You can see more at his website http://www.runglassonrun.com/.

Jocelyn Kirby
Marketing & Business Development Manager
Twitter @JocelynKirby

Cancer Research UK Re-Launches Microsite

2009-07-08T14:09:00.004+01:00

Cancer Research UK yesterday re-launched its microsite, JoinTheFight.org.uk in support of its ‘Join the fight for women’s survival’ breast cancer awareness campaign.

The microsite is the result of a collaboration between Bluhalo and Cancer Research UK’s internal development team, with Bluhalo providing the planning, design and Flash expertise.

The site aims to increase funds raised by focusing on increased traffic levels, improved user experience and enhanced user engagement, and supports a variety of on and offline promotional activity, encouraging visitors to ‘join the fight for women’s survival and help beat breast cancer’.

‘Join the fight for women’s survival’ is the new title name and theme for Cancer Research UK’s 2009 Breast Cancer Awareness (BCA) campaign, which focuses on raising awareness of breast cancer and funds for research into the disease.

Bluhalo, appointed by Cancer Research UK in January 2009, has worked on a number of other projects for the charity including the production of a microsite and digital advertising assets for Cancer Research UK’s Race for Life campaign.

Jocelyn Kirby
Marketing & Business Development Manager

HTML 5 Standards Development

2009-07-07T11:08:00.004+01:00

A little while ago, I wrote about the multimedia potential in HTML 5 (theoretically allowing video and audio to implemented without additional plugins; instead using an agreed upon standard – if you didn’t read it you really missed out but can still find it here. At the risk of spoiling it for those who did not read the earlier post, I concluded by mentioning that the standard was incomplete, that codecs still needed to be decided upon.

Unfortunately, it has now emerged that a lack of consensus has caused any mention in the spec of a specific codec to be entirely removed. A combination of patent issues, licensing and technical questions have left the different browser manufacturers (apart from Microsoft who have yet to commit to supporting video at all) deadlocked over which of the two video options (Ogg Theora and h.264) should be implemented.

While this is not to say that this facility will now never be available in html, it is likely to be a while. Ian Hickson, the Google employee responsible for the standard, believes that the most likely solutions are either that support for Ogg Theora will increase enough to alleviate Apple's patent concerns or that the h.264 patents will expire, thus allowing free use of the technology. Obviously neither of these scenarios will occur overnight.

The audio element of the spec is in a slightly better position since there are more potential codec options available. Rather than requiring one of these, Hickson has proposed simply waiting to see which, if any, common codecs surface and revisiting the topic then.

As has happened so often in the past, we are now left with potentially having to provide explicit support for different browsers (potentially lengthier development) or continuing to rely on a third-party plugin that is available to all in order to deliver our wooshy things. As unfortunate as this is, it is not the end of the world – I like developing flash apps. Still, a choice never hurt anyone… How long does it take patents to expire again?

Nick Nawrattel
Lead Multimedia Developer

Sports Focus - Andy Murray

2009-07-06T14:16:00.005+01:00

WOW, what a British summer for Andy Murray so far! If becoming the first British player to win Queens for 71 years wasn't enough, he reached the semi-finals of Wimbledon as well! OK, we were all praying and some expecting him to reach the final but we have to remember that he is only 22 and is only really establishing his career at this point.

After climbing the world rankings over the past few years, Murray has firmly established himself as a big-game player and being regarded as the favourite for Wimbledon by some, shows just how far he has come over the last 12 months. Winning Queens took his career titles to 12 and was his fourth Tour triumph this year.

I would even go so far as to say that I believe him to be the best player in the world at the moment. He is able to play at the highest level for longer than anyone else due to his phenomenal fitness levels. Andy has quite a unique setup, in that instead of having a single coach he has a team of experts that includes:

Miles Maclagan - A former pro, Maclagan replaced American Brad Gilbert as Andy's number one coach. Responsible for Andy's mature play, clever tactics and style of recent years, Miles has been nothing but positive for Andy

Jez Green - Another important factor in Andy's success is his physical condition and a lot of this comes down to the man nicknamed "Jezebel". His main responsibilities includes Andy's diet and preparation, introducing the young star to sushi and protein bars to help bulk up the muscles, you might remember Andy flexing the guns at last years Wimbledon.

Matt Little - This is the man responsible for Andy's new found strength and getting him into bikram yoga! Strength and conditioning is Little's main role in Team Murray!

Andy Ireland - Fitness coach Ireland is nicknamed "Needles" for his acupunture skills and has contributed hugely towards maximising Andy's physical performance. He has worked to stop Andy developing injuries and strains, which is something Andy suffered a lot with in the early part of his career.

Yes, losing to Andy Roddick in the semis was disappointing but I expect his experience gained at Wimbledon and Queens in 2009 will only stand him in good stead for the upcoming US Open. I fully expect him to bounce back quickly from his loss to Roddick and wouldn't be at all surprised to see him making a second consecutive visit to the final at flushing meadows, on a more suitable surface for his game, there is absolutely no reason why he can't make this his first major title victory.

Andy really is the real deal and is easily the best British tennis player this country has had since Fred Perry, which makes me pretty proud to be responsible for the design and development of Andy's website - www.andymurray.com.

Simon Evans
Account Manager

AVG Launches New Facebook Application

2009-06-30T09:18:00.003+01:00

Bluhalo is pleased to announce the launch of a new Facebook page and Facebook application for AVG - the globally renowned anti-virus and security software company.

The Facebook page - www.facebook.com/avgfree aims to raise social interaction and engages users in a variety of different ways including YouTube videos, Ask the Expert, Twitter feed, the ability to download free anti-virus software and features AVG's new Facebook application - Sunburn Me!

The Sunburn Me! application has been developed to support AVG's recent 'Don't get burnt online' campaign. The application allows the user to find a photo of a Facebook friend and give then the 'sunburn treatment', posting the results of the 'sunburning' for public viewing - great fun!

HTML 5 Frees Up Multimedia

2009-06-29T14:29:00.003+01:00

Though many web users may not be aware of this, HTML (one of the components making up web pages) has versions. Each new version adds new features, deprecates others and sometimes drops them entirely. Support for any new features is not always immediately available (sometimes we need to wait for new releases of our favourite browsers), but that doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t worth getting excited about.

This is definitely the case about the latest version, HTML 5, in which there are new possibilities for displaying rich media (the wooshy bits). The final specification for the language is still being developed; nevertheless the video and audio elements show promise. Indeed, some particularly cutting edge browsers are already allowing use of these features (and offering implementation guidance, eg. http://tinyurl.com/mnmv6e).

Some companies, such as YouTube have developed video players using this emerging standard to demonstrate how it can replace their existing flash offering. “So?” I hear you cry (I have good ears). We can play video in flash now, why does this make any difference? Well, the current flash video players require that the user has the flash plugin installed on their machine. If / when this HTML 5 standard is ratified and implemented in all browsers (some quicker than others, no doubt), it will mean that users will not need to worry about plugins to view some content, potentially making for a smoother user experience on multimedia enabled sites that will just work “out of the box”.

It’s not just video either. The standard includes description for audio (as mentioned above). Additionally, companies such as Mozilla have created even more impressive technical demos (see below for a link by proxy) that give an idea of where this technology may take us.

That’s not to say this will eliminate the need for Flash or Silverlight. Plugins will continue to allow more specialised and technically sophisticated applications, but it will open up more options when it comes to media deployment.

The standard itself is not yet ready however. For a start, HTML 5 is being developed via a collaborative process. While this potentially leads to a better end product, it also has the potential to be a slower process (yeah, I have a very slight tendency towards impatience…). There are also technical hurdles. For example, the codec for video (i.e. coder / decoder – the thing which translates the raw data into a video) has not yet been decided on.

Nevertheless, it is most definitely a step in the right direction. As I have said in previous posts, I am all for anything that advances the web – such advancement facilitates better and more interesting sites and makes the web easier for people to use (and more importantly, to develop for!).

A more in depth examination of this topic, including links to some of the examples I mention, can be found here.

Nick Nawrattel
Lead Multimedia Developer

Spurs 2009/2010 Kit Launch

2009-06-26T17:01:00.008+01:00

Last month Tottenham Hotspur football club approached us with the exciting prospect of building a microsite to launch their new 2009/2010 kit. We were presented with a blank canvas and free reign to come up with as exciting a concept as possible.

We started out by presenting the client with a series of concepts, revolving around the use of video and flash.

Once a concept had been agreed upon the next step was to plot out a route through the site based on the concepts. The original concepts revolved around using real Tottenham Hotspur players, however we had to revise the script later as all of the players were on holiday over the production window. (No doubt sunning themselves in Portugal!)

Billy Wingrove was selected to be the figurehead for the video footage. Billy has a well established history with the Spurs fanbase, and his previous video work has received over 20 million views on YouTube.

We were supplied with branding concepts, and using these we produced the final designs revolving around Billy and freestyle football. In a studio in North London, with Andrew Boulter, we filmed 3 hours of footage against a green screen to be cut and keyed back at the office. This was my first opportunity to direct any video work and it was a very exciting experience.

3 hours of footage seemed like a daunting prospect for cutting, but we managed to extract all the clips we needed to match the designs and were very happy with the outcome. The tricks were all so impressive we would have loved to have included all the footage!

Over to the Flash guys! In addition to engaging footage we also needed a captivating portal to surround it. At this point all of the footage that had been painstakingly keyed and re-formatted was inserted into the site and we could finally see what had been an idea a few short weeks ago, blossom into a functioning site.

We introduced the concept of including a customised wallpaper that the user can download once they have signed up to the site. This allows us to accurately track all registered users that were visiting the site whilst providing them with unique content.

Many late nights and take-aways later, the site was fit to go live and meet its public.

It was a truly rewarding experience to work on a project from start to finish and to produce a site that is extremely captivating and engaging, I can’t wait to do it all again next year!

Whilst you are waiting for the next kit launch, check out the spurskit.com site, the viral youtube video and some of the photos that Simon and I took at the shoot.

Mark Grassick
Account Manager

Bing vs Google

2009-06-24T09:40:00.004+01:00

It's even got it's own sound effect, but is Microsoft's new search engine really going to challenge Google's dominance?

The usual Microsoft bashers are already giving it a hard time, it's even been dubbed "But It's Not Google" but what's it really like?

Doing the same search on Google and Bing is the only real way to compare like for like in terms of search results and there isn't a lot of difference. The results are listed differently, with the video previews in particular pretty cool and the categorisation useful, but there's drawbacks too. The 'did you mean?' feature of google is automatic on Bing, but that's annoying if you didn't mistype your original query.

And Google indexes much deeper, i.e. it shows more results, which whilst you wouldn't go through all the pages, means that it is searching more sites. Bing will probably catch up but this is significant at least in the short term. But the short term is where this will battle is most significant.

The advertising is good but it's probably quite telling that the YouTube versions of the ads far outstrip the features video that Bing has also posted. Do users really know the difference and why they should switch? I don't think so.

Google has become part of our everyday life, whether it's search (and it's new search features), Gmail, iGoogle apps and the introduction of Wave (the new collaboration tool) coming soon. It's even become part of our everyday parlance and gained an entry in our dictionaries.

But would you ever Bing something?

I don't think your typical user will take the Pepsi challenge and do identical searches comparing like for like results and it's for this reason I think they'll struggle. But never underestimate Microsoft, oh, and a $100million advertising campaign!

Barnaby Ellis
Head of Digital
GyroHSR London

Sports Focus - NFL

2009-06-23T10:32:00.002+01:00

In what is proving to be a common trend in the NFL, this past season, like many before it, has had its share of controversy and intrigue. Brett Favre doing his very best to keep things interesting, popping out of retirement to sign for the New York Jets in a shocking move, going on to help their run at the post season...at least...right up until it really mattered when an unfortunate series of bad throws leading to the inevitable interceptions in the last few games of the season, meant that the 1 win Dolphins from the previous season, took the playoff berth in a dramatic turnaround, engineered by the firey Tony Sparano, utilising the versatile "Wildcat" offense to absolute perfection to record an 11-5 regular season record.

As it turned out though, the surprise package of the year had to be the Arizona Cardinals with inspired play from star wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald and veteran QB Kurt Warner, the Cards proved that a trip to the Super Bowl is not out of reach for any of the teams in NFL, even without much of a running game! Sadly for them the dream was ended by the Pittsburgh Steelers, who proved once again that defense wins championships and theirs, quite frankly, was scary at times. This was epitomised by stellar Linebacker James Harrison, known all season for blitzing the opposing QB into the turf, he appeared as if from nowhere inside his own endzone to pick off Warner and then run the ball the length of the field to score a touchdown, which some may argue was the significant turning point in the contest. Not to take anything away from Santonio Holmes magnificent diving catch which sealed the victory, but I think Steelers fans would be the first to admit that their defense came to the fore again, just when it was needed.

The international series game at Wembley Stadium was played out between the New Orleans Saints and the San Diego Chargers, with the Saints coming out victorious in a highly entertaining affair. In a game that featured two of the best offenses in the league, it was a Jonathan Vilma interception as the Chargers had been driving down the field which essentially sealed the win for the black and gold. Hopefully English NFL fans will be treated to an equally entertaining game in October this year, when the New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccanneers come to town.....roll on next season...with a little less Brett Favre please!

Simon Evans
Account Director

Mobile Shopping Here I Come!

2009-06-18T10:51:00.002+01:00

The way we buy fashion online may be changing again in the near future based on what is happening in Japan where mobile retailing is already an established market. According to a new report from WGSN, nearly half of Tokyo’s single females are accessing the mobile web more than five times a week, with the peak shopping time between 1pm and 3pm. What seems to be happening is they are trying on items in stores, but rather than buying them there, they are ordering them via their phones, in order to collect the loyalty points they earn from the website while avoiding carrying their purchases home!

According to the IMRG Capgemini Index, UK internet shoppers spent an estimated £43.8 billion last year with clothing once again being the fastest growing online sector. Interestingly enough, the overall amount spent on health & beauty products has not increased since the Index started tracking this sector although as you would expect, there were seasonal spikes in November and December which also show year-on-year growth. Likewise, after recording a growth of 73% in the year up to April 2008, online lingerie sales decreased by 26% between April 2008 and April 2009.

Could this be that women in particular still want the instant gratification they get from buying themselves a treat in the form of a lipstick or some new underwear? They want it NOW & not in a couple of days time when any online purchase would arrive!

Jill Thater
Client Services Director

Wave hello to Google…..

2009-06-15T16:59:00.005+01:00

One thing that you rarely hear in the Bluhalo office, is a group of developers whooping and wolf whistling en masse. Therefore, I can only conclude that the group of 4000 developers who attended the Google Wave Developer Preview I/O 2009, and did just that, were watching something incredibly exciting.

Many of us have been impressed, if not slightly dumbfounded, with the boom in popularity of online social networking that has occurred over the past few of years. Sites such as Bebo, Facebook, MySpace and Twitter seem to have shot up in popularity almost overnight, to the point where those who are not involved begin to feel rather like social pariahs.

Google Wave seems set to trump all of these social networking sites, or at least be made available to be imbedded in the most popular of these. Users can also integrate their networking sites into Google Wave.

Mashable describes the Google Wave as “a real-time communication platform. It combines aspects of email, instant messaging, wikis, web chat, social networking, and project management to build one elegant, in-browser communication client. You can bring a group of friends or business partners together to discuss how your day has been or share files.”

Most of Google Wave is real time. It even, in my opinion, out-does Instant Messaging. Although with many IM services, we are made aware of the fact that the participants in our conversation are writing a message, we are still made to wait for them to hit return, prior to viewing their message and responding. With Google Wave, conversations are truly live because participants can see others type character by character.

A Wave, or topic, is opened, and invited participants are free to contribute. It is truly collaborative. There is also a playback tool so that users can view the history of the Wave and edit at any point, should they so wish. More than one user can also edit a wave at once.

Here, we have given a brief mention to just a few of the cool features…

- There is a translation tool called ‘Rosy’, which enables users to contribute in their own language, which will then be translated to the chosen language, should the participants wish. This happens as the user types.

- A Google search can be conducted from inside a wave, which will then give the writer the option of adding a link.

- A place name can be converted to a map.

- Videos can be embedded.

- Even the spell check is advanced- ‘Spelly’, as the Google development team are affectionately nicknaming it, takes the context of a word and matches it against an enormous language model that has been built from much of the world wide web.

There are also many other “nicknames’ that we will need to get used to. One of these is ‘Twave’. A Twave is a Wave of Tweets. Once the Twave has been embedded in the Wave, everyone following this Tweet on Twitter, can make comments which will also appear on the Wave.

The development team have warned that it may take time for some of users to realize many of the benefits of the Wave because we are so used to working with older tools but although Google are still developing this for use in the workplace, so far, the Wave is shaping up to be a great tool for document production.

The list of cool things that can be done using this tool is almost endless so we will leave you to explore the possibilities further yourselves by watching the Developer Preview on YouTube.

Anya Gooch
Account Manager

Sports Focus - Spurs

2009-06-10T09:19:00.002+01:00

At first glance you may be wondering exactly why a digital agency is writing about sports. But look again and you will see that not only are we a digital agency, we are huge sports fans too, which is great, because we’re also the digital agency of choice for some of the biggest names in the sporting world. So along with our digital expertise, marketing opinions and forward thinking technical posts, we also like to pay homage to our sporting pedigree. As our first in the series, this month’s Sports Focus looks at the season for Spurs…

To describe this past season as being turbulent for Tottenham Hotspur would be an understatement of the highest order. Spurs fans are probably used to riding that emotional roller coaster more than many other sets of fans around the league but with the way things played out over the past 10 months, you'd have been forgiven for thinking that it was something straight out of the Hollyoaks school of script writing! Thankfully for the club and its fans, Daniel Levy seems to have finally got it right with the appointment of Harry Redknapp from Portsmouth.

After kicking things off back in August under Juande Ramos, a return of only 2 points from the first 8 games proved to be the proverbial straw that broke the Spaniard's back and swift changes were made including back room staff, coaches and even the tea lady......although that's still a rumor! As with many new managerial appointments, the impact was swift with a 2-0 victory coming against Bolton at home, before Harry had even taken a full training session. A memorable 4-4 draw with bitter rivals Arsenal at the Emirates stadium followed, featuring a 40-yard David Bentley volley (eventually proving to be his only significant contribution of the season) against his old club and a 2 goal comeback from 4-2 down with 89 minutes on the clock...that Hollyoaks bunch had been at it again! Despite a small blip of form away from home around the turn of the year with somewhat undeserved losses to Newcastle, West Brom, Wigan and Bolton, Spurs fantastic home form, 1 loss under Harry, with a club record of only 10 goals conceded ALL season, they found themselves pushing hard for 7th place and European qualification on the final day, when at one stage relegation had been a very real possibility. Arguably, the January transfer window re-signings of former lillywhite heroes Jermain Defoe and Robbie Keane being one of the key factors in what was a remarkable campaign.

Throw into the mix a Carling Cup final lost on penalties to Man Utd after out playing the champions for large parts of the game, rubber stamped by the fact that young keeper Ben Foster won man of the match; Harry Redknapp can be truly proud of the work he has done so far and more importantly be hugely optimistic that with a few key additions in the summer (and maybe a few under-achievers on their way out) building a side around the likes of Luka Modric, Aaron Lennon and the always inspiring Wilson Palacios, challenging for the top 4 next season alongside teams such as Everton, Man City and Aston Villa is almost a given.

Simon Evans
Account Director

Tweets, Dweets and Hashtags

2009-06-04T11:57:00.003+01:00

If you find yourself a little confused as to what all of the Twitter-related terms mean, then you are not alone. Twitter is creating a host of new words for the English language and the meanings aren't always clear at first glance.

Today, I came across a great starting point to help you understand the ins-and outs of Twitter and related vocabulary - Twictionary, a glossary from UTalkMarketing - worth a read if you want to be in the know about your Tweets, Dweets and Hashtags!

If that gives you a taste for more, your Twitter homepage gives you a Twitter-related word definition every time you refresh, revealing yet more Twitter words and new services born out of the Twitter revolution. Enjoy!

Jocelyn Kirby
Marketing & Business Development Manager

The Joy of Pitching

2009-06-03T13:53:00.004+01:00

If you’re a B2B organisation, chances are that you have had to do it at some point. But what is it about pitching that we love so much?

…The competition?

...…The costs?

......…The pressure?

.........…The timescales?

At this point it doesn’t sound great right?

We’re currently in the final hour before our latest pitch and as it stands we are lacking sleep, down to the wire to get all assets in the right place at the right time and of course, feeling the pressure. So does it surprise you now if we say we love it?

There’s something about pitching that brings out the best in an agency – I would even go so far as to say that it makes us a better agency.

It brings about unprecedented teamwork and team spirit; it gives extra drive to always become one step better; it forces us to stay at the cutting edge of our industry and it inspires innovation and contribution from every member of the team.

Some of our most creative concepts have been born out of pitch work. And for that we love it.

But let us not forget one really important thing about pitching… it really does feel great to win that new client too!

Jocelyn Kirby
Marketing & Business Development Manager

Project Management - what does it mean to you?

2009-05-28T10:15:00.002+01:00

What is a project? Wikipedia offers us this, “Project management is the discipline of planning, organizing and managing resources to bring about the successful completion of specific project goals and objectives.” Not the most inspiring explanation! Also notice no mention of client goals, expectations or needs.

It gets worse, here’s what they say about Project Managers, “A Project Manager is a professional in the field of project management. Project managers can have the responsibility of the planning, execution, and closing of any project…design and service industries also have project managers.”No mention that a digital Project Manager (PM) has to understand the constantly changing nature of the digital market place and astutely marshal resources to successfully deliver a client’s project.

As a digital agency we need to understand you and what your project aims to achieve for you and your clients. Whether it’s a small Flash banner, a five hundred page website, an aspiration to change the world or a sales device to bring more clients to your website, all are valid ‘projects’ and a PM needs to understand this.

Now there are many methods and methodologies for a PM to utilise, some good, some confusing and many which can alienate and confuse a client with an avalanche of charts and documents. But an often neglected one is building relationships, or the simple fact that they know the digital business and can recognise how to apply the right solution to your problem.

The digital world moves fast and can be a daunting place for any business to understand. The ‘sexy’ part of the process i.e. the design is something we all like to do, project managers included. The job of a Bluhalo PM is to ensure that you as a client get value for money and satisfaction during the whole project lifecycle – we enjoy your enthusiasm for your project and we hope to share ours for all things digital.

So spare a thought for the Project Manager, we’re not all Gantt charts, spreadsheets and endless meetings, honest!

Paul Windust
Project Manager

Interactive Video - a great marketing tool?

2009-05-21T16:48:00.003+01:00

We all know that interactive video is fast becoming one of the most exciting trends on the web, but there are many discussions out there on how to monetize this medium.

Key to maximising interactive video’s effectiveness for your brand is thorough exploration of this medium’s endless possibilities. Bluhalo are currently doing just this, in order to develop targeted and intelligent implementation strategies.

Imagine your products displayed to an audience live in action, with detailed information on their possibilities and direct call to purchase actions displayed alongside them! Interactive video is also a great way to give added value to your consumer, further enhancing their engagement with, and trust in, your brand. Retailers can utilise this tool for both their television commercials run online and for purpose built videos.

Audience responses to online video, particularly video on demand, have been immensely positive. The viewer has been proven to be in hunting mode, with their mindset in an apex of attention, thus giving the advertiser a fantastic opportunity to convert viewers to purchasers.

Here is a great example by Gucci, featuring Drew Barrymore. Just hover and click to view the products!

YouTube already hosts numerous interactive videos and utilisation of this medium by brands is inevitable.

Have a play on this fantastic interactive card trick which we particularly love!

And making us feel incredibly nostalgic… the age old ‘selective ending’……..

The record industry is also fast cottoning on to the idea that interactive video can provide the perfect engaging B-roll for their Music Videos and it is surely it is only a matter of time before we can all shop on YouTube!

Anya Gooch
Account Manager

Site Spotting: Top 5 sites this month

2009-05-15T10:01:00.016+01:00

Welcome to my second installment of site spotting. I hope you enjoyed the first, if you missed it you can view it here. I normally post my finds on twitter but this month I’m sharing my top 5 sites i found in April with you.

Namechk

namechk
check to see if your desired username or vanity url is still available at dozens of popular social networking and social bookmarking websites.
http://www.namechk.com/

Doodlewall

a virtual wall
where everybody can draw.
http://www.doodlewall.com/

Quick.tv

make video interactive
with advanced interactive tools, professional web video publishers can inject interactivity into videos with a quick click, drag, and drop.
http://www.quick.tv/

Tipjoy

simple social payments for great people
makes it easy for people to earn money from and give money to people, causes and content.
http://tipjoy.com/

Deep Zoom Pix

explore photos like never before
enables you to explore and share photos in a new and interactive way.
http://www.deepzoompix.com/

I hope you enjoy my top 5, lookout for next months top 5. If you want to keep track of sites I find follow me on twitter @kunji.

Kunji

Andy Murray Moves Up World Rankings

2009-05-13T12:55:00.003+01:00

Bluhalo’s client and British tennis star, Andy Murray (www.andymurray.com) is taking the world by storm. Now the first British man ever to reach Number 3 in the world rankings since they were introduced, Andy is set to take on Spain’s Tommy Robredo in the third round of the Madrid Masters on Thursday this week.

The entire team at Bluhalo would like to take this opportunity to wish Andy the very best of luck with the Madrid Masters and congratulate him on the great accolade of reaching Number 3 in the world rankings.

Bluhalo's International Network Expands

2009-04-30T11:35:00.005+01:00

Bluhalo’s parent company, Gyro International Limited and US-based integrated agency HSR business-to-business LLC, have announced this week that they have merged to form GyroHSR.

GyroHSR is an international integrated marketing agency dedicated to creating powerful ideas that build deeper, more meaningful relationships between people and brands. The agency’s offering includes advertising, brand strategy, digital, public relations, media and relationship marketing, with Bluhalo representing the groups digital Centre of Excellence.

The new entity has 17 offices in 15 cities in 9 countries across Europe, North America and the Middle East. Combined revenues total approximately $100 million (USD) and GyroHSR employs more than 600 employees.

“Both Gyro and HSR recognise and embrace the changes that we are seeing in the world of marketing and communications, and this is our response,” said Richard Glasson, Chief Executive of GyroHSR. “This merger creates an agency uniquely positioned to meet the needs of our clients around the world, and able to deliver the truly integrated service that the modern world demands. Through clear thinking, compelling creative work, strategic excellence and a seamless international operation, GyroHSR will work with clients to deliver winning business results.”

The GyroHSR merger creates a new international digital powerhouse, and combines significant expertise in a number of key vertical sectors, including technology, telecommunications, building products, financial services, capital equipment and life sciences. The merger also brings together Europe’s largest b-to-b agency with one of America’s largest and most highly decorated b-to-b firms. Gyro has been named Europe’s largest b-to-b agency by B2B Marketing magazine for four years in a row. HSR has been named Top Agency by BtoB magazine and the Business Marketing Association International 10 times since 1995, most recently in April of this year.

Glasson will direct the new agency’s overall strategy and operations from London with Richard Perry continuing in the role of Chief Operating Officer. HSR co-founder Rick Segal becomes Chief Executive, North America and GyroHSR’s global practice leader for business-to-business marketing, headquartered in Cincinnati.

“GyroHSR has 30 years of experience in mining deep customer insights from diverse, multi-participant networks of decision makers and influencers,” said Segal. “From the world’s most heavily considered business purchases to the fashion brushfires of consumer electronics, GyroHSR knows how to ignite connections and convert them to sales, category leadership, and customer loyalty.”

Bluhalo MD and Founder, Spencer Gallagher, added, "these are exciting times for Bluhalo, with the merger opening up an even greater network of marketing professionals to our clients. I am very much looking forward to the opportunities this will bring."

GyroHSR serves many industry-leading clients including American Express, Audi, First Data, GE, Hewlett Packard, Hobart Corp., John Deere, Johns Manville, Nokia Siemens Networks, Pitney Bowes, Shell, Sony, T-Mobile, USG and Virgin Atlantic.

The agency’s headquarters are in London and the North American headquarters are in Cincinnati. GyroHSR has offices in:

- UK: London (Chelsea and Covent Garden), Farnborough, Manchester
- US: New York, Cincinnati, Chicago, Denver, San Francisco
- Germany: Hamburg, Munich
- France: Paris
- Ireland: Dublin
- Netherlands: Amsterdam
- Spain: Madrid
- Sweden: Stockholm
- United Arab Emirates: Dubai

Top Web Trends... for the immediate future

2009-04-27T14:57:00.004+01:00

1. Broadcast/Audio Revolution....

What’s after Twitter? Maybe Qik.com? 12 Second TV and Audioboo are the next thing to fuel our egos or the need to tell the world what we are up to via video or audiomicro blogs, watch this space for further updates.

2. Mobile Revolution

As predicted by us only a couple of years ago, we are now en masse handsets with the ability to successfully render actual websites, we have a little way to go, but be under no illusion it’s the beginning of the end for WAP and small screens are already getting larger. With many websites (such as Facebook and Twitter) seeing a large proportion of their users engaging via mobile, the significance of mobile internet users should now be grabbing your attention, if it hasn’t already. Your customers (or fans as we often call them) and other website visitors are no longer limited to the PC or laptop. Start thinking about how you can capitalise on this. So could an iPhone App, Android App or Blackberry App transform the way your customers or employees engage with your brand or business?

3. The Cloud

If there is one way to start thinking green, think about where and how your website is hosted. Using the Cloud can be much more power efficient. It’s huge and we love it! Giving sites quicker loading times, a more cost efficient service and better reliability, The Cloud is here to stay (for the time being anyway). We’re looking forward to further advances and a maturation of the marketplace starting with the Open Cloud Manifesto, giving true scalability and cross-platform compatibility – you can find out more about this in our blog article on the Open Cloud Manifesto.

4. SAAS

Possibly one of the most significant trends on the web today, Software as a Service is fast becoming an internet phenomenon. Closely related to The Cloud, SaaS provides software to users without the need to physically buy the software, use hard drive space or implement updates. Providing a dramatically improved user experience, variety of subscription models and greater control for the software provider, SaaS is set to make it big in both the software and gaming worlds. You can find out more about it in our blog article.

5. On Demand Services

We’re familiar with on demand TV both on TV and online. Extending this model further, there has been a recent increase in a variety of other on demand services, partly thanks to the increase in popularity of SaaS. With gaming, music, software (to name a few) all seeing a rise in usage, and with the recent high profile launch of Quake Live, on demand services will continue to grow in terms of reach – potentially extending into other areas of our physical lives as technologies become more sophisticated. Playstation ‘home’, the equivalent of Second Life could be the perfect place for these environments to develop.

6. Social Media Mashups

Mashups come in all shapes and sizes, with social media mashups providing a host of additional opportunities for brands to engage and interact with their consumers. The applications are virtually limitless… If you’re in retail marketing you’ll know that people buy online (and offline) based on recommendations and reviews – fact. So, imagine taking all the positive talk on your brand from the social media world and showing it next to the relevant products on your ecommerce site – starting to get excited by this…? You can read more about mashups in our recent blog article.

7. Brand Buzz Monitoring

“To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person”, although said by Bruce Lee in relation to martial arts is very applicable to your brand online. More so than ever before, your brand is not in any way, shape or form limited to the parameters dictated by your brand guidelines. Your brand is a product of the input of thousands, maybe millions of people from around the world giving their opinion of your brand, publicly loving or hating it, praising or complaining about it and the chances are, you probably don’t even see the majority of this – the brand you’ve created and you see is likely to only be the tip of the iceberg. Brand buzz monitoring gives you the ability to not only monitor your complete brand (warts and all) and its mentions online, it also gives you the opportunity to respond and interact with all that touch your brand. The value of this is, frankly speaking, invaluable, and with many brands enthusiastically embracing the huge potential of brand buzz monitoring online, now is definitely not the time to be left behind! To find out more about buzz monitoring and social media ROI, read our recent blog article.

8. Web 3.0 (update)

Web 3.0 is all about getting your computer to act on your thoughts to help you get things done without you having to do anything...it’s early stages but it’s certainly exciting. For starters it’s worth checking out Gazaro, a brand based search engine that keeps an eye on product pricing to keep you up to date with the best prices. Another of these new wave search engines worth watching is Evri, not new but an early semantic search engine.

9. Pervasive Web

Very much linked to Web 3.0, it’s almost here and when it does go mainstream, the pervasive web is going to make a pretty huge splash in the same way Twitter did at the beginning of this year. We’re keen on Ztamp:s, part of the Nabaztag’s growing line of accessories. They can get your umbrella to tell you the weather forecast or your coffee mug to read out the latest business news! Sound too futuristic to be true? You can check out Ztamp:s and the rest of the accessory range on Ztore.

10. Simplicity

It doesn’t always have to be about an all singing, all dancing, cutting edge website (of course we love those too), but to quote Einstein “simplicity is the ultimate complexity”. Some of the most successful things online have been born out of the simplest ideas – just think about Google and Twitter! A great site we’ve come across recently is Domai.nr – really useful in a world where it is increasingly difficult to find the perfect domain name.

If you'd like to talk to us about any of the above, or any other aspect of your brand's online presence, then give us a call on 01252 70 11 11 or drop us an email.

BIMA Interview with Spencer Gallagher

2009-04-22T12:00:00.003+01:00

If you're interested in finding out a little more about the man behind the Bluhalo brand, Spencer Gallagher recently took part in an interview with BIMA to find out what makes him tick.

So if you're interested to know what he's reading, what he's listening to, who he admires most and much more, you can check out the interview on the BIMA blog.

Design for Multimedia

2009-04-21T10:53:00.002+01:00

Multimedia has the potential to produce immersive, rich and creative websites. The process of designing and developing a multimedia site can have some significant differences to that of a static HTML site - the variety of media on offer can broaden the design canvas.

For example, similar to a movie, sound effects and music can dramatically improve the impact of a film. The same can be said for web elements like navigation, rollover effects and the overall user experience.

There can be a tendency to overcomplicate or over-design elements, thus overwhelming the user. It is important to balance the interactive elements with the complexity of the design to better appeal to the target audience.

From our perspective however, portraying the whole user experience can be difficult to adequately convey to the client. As the designs for the site will be initially mocked up as static pages, the client may be restricted by this and find it difficult to see the big picture, with all its wooshy bits! The best method to overcome this is to produce a storyboard of the user experience to demonstrate the multimedia designers/developers ideas in as much detail as possible. Similar real-life examples can also be given to help the client visualise how the site will work.

Being both a developer and designer allows me to carefully balance visually rich sites while still anticipating any potential development issues. This process aids in a much smoother project life cycle and some great looking sites!

Richard Fenn
Multimedia Designer

True to Phorm

2009-04-16T13:28:00.003+01:00

Phorm has been in the news again twice recently, and neither case gives much reason for its supporters to celebrate.

For those who are unaware of Phorm, previously 121Media, a nice roundup of developments can be found at The Register. Basically, for those who don’t wish to leave our delightful site, Phorm is a firm who intends to provide targeted advertising to web users. Dealing directly with ISPs, Phorm uses keywords on the pages viewed by web users to determine which ads to serve in future.

This has proved quietly controversial; some are concerned by the prospect of basically having their browsing habits monitored and are not reassured by assertions that their data is associated only with an anonymised number. Detractors point to the fact that a previous venture by founder Kent Ertugrul had a very similar goal but ended up being classified as spyware (in the interests of balance here is an interview with key Phorm staff explaining how they see their product / service.

Counter arguments, (including the less convincing one that people with nothing to hide shouldn’t object) were undermined somewhat when it emerged that BT had run tests without the prior consent of the target – its own broadband users. After several investigation, no subsequent legal action seems to have been taken.

However, this week (yay – the point!), plans for the European Commission to sue the UK government were made public. As a reason, they cited the failure of the UK government to take any action against BT and Phorm for these trials. In a sense, this is somewhat regrettable – any fine imposed on the government will likely be paid for by tax payers. That said, I (remember, my opinions are in no way indicative of those of Bluhalo) am in total agreement with anything that condems such trials where prior consent has not been obtained.

Everyone is always looking for better ways to monetise the web, and success there should result in a richer experience for users (more money = more investment = more wooshy things), which is obviously good. That said, in achieving this it is important that the trust in providers (ISPs, and of the sites themselves) is not undermined. We are repeatedly shown how easily data is lost for example here, here, here and here, to list a random few that come back in a quick search).

While I am not in any way commenting on the ability of Phorm to protect their data, I do believe that our personal data and by extension our online privacy should definitely be respected on a medium which arguably offers unparalleled speed of deployment of information. To this end, I believe it is equally important that we have confidence that this will indeed be the case – such high profile issues are bad.

When confidence is lost or damaged people have a tendency to abandon the idea or product, whether rightly or wrongly. Which brings us to the second story I mentioned - the Open Rights Group have contacted a number of websites, asking them to opt out of Phorm. The story in question details the first respondent, Amazon, who has requested to opt out for all of their domains.

Such a high profile opt-out can only be bad, however Phorm are still committed to launching. No secret has been made of the fact that there is potentially a lot of money to be made – a reliable and clear opt-out (or preferably opt-IN?) for users could only help them achieve this. Whether they have learned from the mistakes of the past and will be able to overcome any effects of the bad publicity remains to be seen.

Site Spotting: Top 5 sites for March

2009-04-15T14:45:00.011+01:00

I trawl the web everyday and sometimes if I’m lucky I spot a site that catches my eye, has something interesting that I can’t resist sharing. I normally post my finds on twitter but this month I’m going to share my top 5 sites i found in March with you.

TwInfluence

twitter influence analyzer
This analyzer measures twitterers and followers as well as social network analysis to find out who has the most influence on twitter.
http://twinfluence.com/

Twerbosepost

longer tweets on twitter when 140 characters just is not enough.
Twitter has a limit of 140 characters that can be posted to it but if you want to say more you can use Twerbose.
http://twerbose.com/
Veri

personalised news for you
Vote for news you like and news you don’t and veri’s personalization technology learns to deliver the topics and news you prefer.
http://www.veri.com/

Hollr

shout about favorite new products
Hollr allows users to show off products that they think are great and will be a success, like a product? Hollr about it.
http://www.hollrr.com/

Onlive

the future of gaming
Games on demand via your TV, PC or Mac through you broadband connection. Currently in private beta testing in the US, can’t wait to see it in action!
http://www.onlive.com/

I hope you enjoy my top 5, lookout for next months top 5. If you want to keep track of sites I find follow me on twitter @kunji.

Kunji

Open Cloud Manifesto

2009-04-08T16:30:00.007+01:00

I'm not going to rehash the good points about Cloud Computing, how great it is, and how everyone should be using it, because that's old news now! Instead, I'm going to talk about a problem with Cloud Computing, and this largest of hold backs could soon be resolved, starting with the Open Cloud Manifesto.

In order to build a true Cloud app, one of the key features is it should be able to scale up (and scale down) on its own as required. One of the main draws of Cloud Computing is not having to pre-invest in infrastructure and hosting in the hope your app will grow. You build your app to monitor its own environment and load levels, and then communicate with the infrastructure to start and stop instances as required.

The big thing holding back companies from using many of the true cloud platforms such as AWS and Joyent is that at the moment once you build an app for that platform, it is then tied to that platform in a big way. The reason for this is that the methods of controlling your instances and services on the platform are all API based, and none of these APIs are shared between providers.

This means that unless you explicitly build functionality for every known platform into your design, your application will be held back by all of the below:

Your app will not be portable. If Amazon went bust tomorrow, you would have to rewrite your app for another cloud provider.
You cannot guarantee security. You can't trust an unknown quantity to hold your information.
Dependency on another company's standards - if Amazon chose to change the way their select statement works, they can do so with no warning and your app will be down until you fix it.

An open standard for communicating with cloud providers would give freedom to move your app around from host to host, and even possibly pave the way to a "cloud abstraction layer" where you run your app across many cloud providers providing supplier redundancy and globalisation.

The Open Cloud Manifesto is a motion backed by a lot of big names to standardize the APIs and methods used to build cloud platforms. The aim is to bring together the large cloud providers to not compete against each other on certain key points such as database usage, or reinventing existing standards.

You can read more about the Open Cloud Manifesto on their website.

Simon Green
Network Manager