Sports Focus - Spurs

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

BIMA Interview with Spencer Gallagher

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.

Recession? What Recession!?!

If all the news of the credit crunch is getting you down and boring you to tears, why not buck the trend and show off your spending skills.

And I don’t mean spending wildly out of your depth! I mean controlled, well thought out spend – where the pennies go up in value once you’ve spent them rather than going to ‘newspaper ad’ heaven.

Science of the rocket variety, it is not!

Spending approximately £1,500 on a quarter page ad that will only appear once in a small area of the country, is not dynamically generated and is clouded by other adverts…hmm – [refer back to rocket science comment here!], may not be the best investment in the current climate…

Spending online however, opens up a world of opportunities for digital marketers including the ability to quantify actual results from campaigns, giving you full accountability and justifying that ‘crazy spend suggestion’ to your boss, all the more easy.

We need to reference the ‘crunch’ here but it will be with positive connotations. Money is tight, let’s face it we’re all scrimping and saving where we can. But we do still need to spend.

Particularly in marketing, because if you don’t keep reminding people, then they forget about you - not good! This also gives me the perfect opportunity to reference one of our previous articles – Cut Spend, Damage the Brand.

Not only more cost effective, marketing online allows for highly effective targeting and tracking – making it far easier to quantify your return on investment. You can receive up-to-the-moment reports detailing exactly when someone visited your ‘spend’ – this could be a full website track from page to page or a simple advert on another site.

So if you’re stuck with the million-dollar question – do I put my money offline or online then bank that thought online and save the quandry.

Don’t find your advert lining next week’s fish and chips portion. Come join us all online, there’s plenty of room!

Katherine
Account Manager

Geraldonline’s Gerald Ratner to appear on The Apprentice

Successful jewellery etailer and online marketing client of Bluhalo, Gerald Ratner of Geraldonline, is appearing on Celebrity Apprentice for Comic Relief tonight. He will be appearing alongside Alan Carr, Jack Dee, Jonathan Ross, Gok Wan and will go head-to-head with Ruby Wax, Patsy Palmer, Carol Vorderman, Fiona Phillips and businesswoman Michelle Mone in a battle to create a special mystery product for Comic Relief.

Gerald Ratner, whose business Geraldonline is the UK’s largest online jewellery company, also appeared on BBC Breakfast News this morning.

For more information on the programme, visit the BBC website.

Software as a Service

Games legend Quake III recently became the world’s most advanced browser game when it was re-released online as ‘Quake Live’. The first person shooter was first launched in 1999 and is known as one of the godfathers of the genre. Apart from providing hours of fragging fun, the release highlights the increasing power of the browser, both as a means of entertainment and as a business channel.

The power of browser games was covered in a previous multimedia blog, and Quake III is an excellent example of the points raised.

So browser applications as a business channel? Quake Live is downloaded for free through a browser and then run through a browser and supported by advertising. It is a process free from the geographical friction of buying from a shop, it doesn’t take up a huge chunk of your hard drive or need any updates, and it doesn’t require a restrictive EULA or constrictive DRM. All without any negative effect on the gameplay. And because it is browser based, you don’t even need to be at your own desk.

The paradigm Quake Live follows is known as Software as a Service (SaaS), and is one of the biggest trends on the web today. It is the deployment arm of the global move to online automated services, the same process that drives Web 2.0. Just like Web 2.0 SaaS is only going to grow in prominence – just look at Amazon’s EC2 cloud platform or the fact Microsoft is considering moving its flagship Office suite online.

As well as the examples above SaaS also offers the creators direct control of distribution. There is no need to package and send to vendors, and multiple pricing models are available (one-off, subscription, pay-as-you-go, advertising).

One of the biggest possible benefits is the shared backend. This means updates will automatically affect all versions, and all versions can leverage the power of the service provider’s computers, thereby making powerful applications available on hardware that would not otherwise be able to run it.

SaaS is a model that is going to become increasingly prominent. Already widespread, its attractiveness to application providers will only continue to grow in the current economic climate, as they attempt to save money on distribution and upkeep.

Quake Live has shown us what the browser is capable of. It can not only run high-quality entertainment, through SaaS, it is also the fastest, best value and fastest growing application distribution channel.

Mark
Multimedia Developer

What’s a mashup?

In recent months, we’ve started to hear the term used more frequently. We recommended the use of mashups in our recent article – Top Tips to Promote Your Business Online free – and it’s likely that you are are seeing or using a mashup a few times a week at least, probably without even realising it!

So, what is a mashup?

A mashup is the result of taking data from one or a number of sources and doing something to it to add value – altering it from its original format. This could be as simple as news aggregation - identifying all content on a certain subject matter, compiling it and then showing it on your own website. We did this using Yahoo! Pipes for Hi-Tec on their ion-mask campaign website, creating an ‘ion-mask in the news’ section for the website – providing the latest news from across the web on ion-mask and making Hi-Tec the authority on all things ion-mask.

Mashups do however take a variety of forms, with news aggregation being one of the more common applications. We’ve listed a few examples of mashups below to give you an idea on the scope and uses for them:

- Rightmove – Rightmove uses About My Place to show the location of properties on a map and to provide details of nearest stations.

- iGuide – iGuide uses Google Maps, WikiTravel, Geonames, Wikipedia, YouTube, Google Video and Placeopedia along with user generated content, to provide, what it claims to be, the most powerful travel guide ever.

- Flickrvision – makes use of Google Maps and Flickr to show images as they’re uploaded, pinpointed on a map of the world.

- Website Outlook – this site provides a valuation of your website based upon information taken from a number of sources including Alexa.

Why use a mashup?

We’re not suggesting that you go ahead and create a whole new website around a mashup, not unless you already have a great idea for one. What we are suggesting however, is that you consider the use of a mashup to enhance your website. You could start with something as simple as showing your visitors your shop locations using Google Maps, publishing your industry-related news on your website using Yahoo! Pipes or you could opt for something far more complex, such as an estate agent providing an automated valuation for a property based upon a selection of online data combined with their own formula.

Whatever your choice of mashup, make it relevant, useful and ensure it works as it should; and it will help to keep your website at the forefront of your industry. Your digital agency should be able to give you some suggestions for mashups that are relevant to your target audience – if not, get in touch with Bluhalo!

Jocelyn
Marketing & Business Development Manager

Bluhalo - we're a global digital agency

It's not often we use our blog for self promotion, but for those of you out there interested in finding out a little bit more about Bluhalo, here are some facts for you:

- Bluhalo was formed in 1999 - yes, we survived the dotcom crash!

- We're one of the EMEA's fastest growing digital agencies

- We work with a variety of clients - large and small - from diverse industry sectors

- We're a full service digital agency - we don't just design and build websites - from digital strategy, audience profiling and user experience, through to technical builds, integrations and all aspects of digital marketing - we really do provide a full service to our clients

- We're a global digital agency - with 25 offices, in 18 locations across 10 countries - if you're looking for an agency to help you with a big budget global digital campaign, we can certainly help; if you're looking for an agency to help you with a low budget, local digital project, we can definitely help with that too. We're as big or as small as you want us to be!

And last but not least...

- Our mantra - it's been with us since 1999 and it works, so we still keep this at the heart of all of our projects "By making our clients successful, we will make ourselves successful". Our clients' success is at the core of all we do. If it won't work, we won't recommend it (sounds obvious but you'd be surprised!). We deliver ROI, meet KPI's and we care about our clients' businesses; because if we help them become more successful, not only will we ultimately help ourselves become more successful, we quite like the kudos that comes with it too!

Whatever your digital plans, we'd love to hear from you, so give us a call on 01252 70 11 11 or email getintouch@bluhalo.com.

Celebrate Pancake Day with Bluhalo!

We couldn't resist it. We've relaunched Pancake Panic, our hilarious and really quite addictive pancake flipping game, in advance of this year's Shrove Tuesday celebrations on 24th March.

How high can you toss your pancake without dropping it on the floor?

Have a go and let us know... www.bluhalo.com/pancake_panic

Enjoy and happy flipping!

Everyone's talking about Twitter

To Tweet or not to Tweet? That is the question.

But what is the answer?

It is a much discussed topic in today’s blogs, news, TV and even radio, with Chris Moyles touching on the subject on this morning’s show. And despite my reluctance to follow the masses, even I have given in to writing about it. So just why is Twitter so newsworthy?

For those of you that haven’t yet come across the phenomenon, Twitter is a micro-blogging service, that allows you to tell your ‘followers’ what you are doing in 140 characters or less – a little like updating your Facebook status.

Launched in March 2006 and probably partly due to its ease of use, its rise to fame has been rapid and it now finds itself ranked in the top 600 websites on the planet! (according to Alexa)

Its popularity has spawned a whole host of ‘bi-products’, making it even easier to post your tweets, keep up to date with the people you are following and post pictures. We’ve written about a few of them in our previous post, The Twitter Revolution.

The question that everyone is asking at the moment is – should you tweet?

It’s not a tough question to answer – YES!

Twitter is great fun and a fantastic communication tool, for personal and business use.

At Bluhalo, we find it a great way to keep up with what our colleagues are working on, what colleagues in our other offices are working on and a superb way to knowledge share – one person finds a great new site that can save them time, they post it to Twitter and now we all know about this great new site and we’re all saving time.

So aside from keeping up to date with friends and colleagues, how else can you make use of Twitter?

It brings huge value to online PR. Not only does it give your brand a way to communicate with its public, it also allows you to glean hugely valuable information on public opinion of your company and products, by monitoring brand chatter across Twitter users. Huge benefits have been seen by the famous, with Obama’s election campaign proving to be a seminal moment for both Twitter and social media. It's worth checking out what we did with a Twitter integration to Andy Murray’s website.

I could write about Twitter all day but in short, the main benefits are:

• ease of use
• access to your public
• ability to informally communicate
• contribution to online PR
• brand monitoring

So to quote the Muller ads, with so much pleasure, where’s the pain?

Some argue that Twitter just shouldn’t be used as a marketing tool.

And in a world where your thoughts are published to the world, you'd be forgiven for agreeing with this view. However, a simple degree of censorship when tweeting means you can make the most of this great comms tool without fear.

Here are some general rules which should not be broken and will keep your Twitter experience a pleasant one and not a business faux pas!

1. Anyone could read your Tweet. Is it suitable for public reading? Could what you are about to tweet offend someone, especially a client?There’s a great story on this which is worth the read if you have the time.
   
   
2. It pays to stay positive. If all you do is moan, people won’t want to follow you. Try to keep it upbeat and if you do feel the need to gripe, at least make it comical!
   
   
3. Keep it interesting. Who really cares what you just ate for breakfast? Keep your tweets interesting and informative. The wider the appeal of your tweets, the more followers you’ll get.
   
   
4. It’s not a sales tool. It’s great for brand presence and communication, but don’t use it as a tool to hard sell. It will turn your audience off pretty quickly.
   
   
5. Be genuine. If you’re a celebrity, your fans want to know it’s you and not your PR guy posting to Twitter. If you’re a brand, followers want to know they’re getting the real story and ‘insider knowledge’, not PR spin.
   
   
6. Know your objectives. Understand why your are using Twitter, whether it is simply for personal communication, building your professional reputation or representing a brand. Confused messages make for confused followers.

So, that’s it! Rather longer than anticipated, but my take on the phenomenon that is Twitter.

Jocelyn
Marketing & Business Development Manager
Twitter @JocelynKirby

‘The Customer’s Always Right’

Leaflets, binned. Posters, graffitied. TV, viewed once, missed it – too late.

Digital is the window that shows the same weather everyday. You don’t open a screen and get grey, you don’t open a tab and get storms, you open a new window and get exactly what you want and what you expect sat neatly in front of you.

You’re engaged, because you returned – that’s why you’re here.

And it’s not just you that’s cottoned on to this trend. The web is saturated with those in the know, and is making space for those that are ready to board.

When the dreaded ‘crunch’ word leads companies to cut the newspaper ad, reduce the magazine spend and cut radio out altogether, the digital age continues to flourish.

Money must be spent to get recognition, to repeat, educate and inform. But much more tactical and planned execution must be employed to use this spend wisely. As a company you’ve got to know where to put your money and cash it in quickly. Putting up a website, a microsite, sharing information on social networking sites, blogging, feeds – all these media get read not once, not twice, but hundreds of thousands of times. And ‘technically’ you’re only really investing that once, with top ups along the way. Surely, this is wise investment.

But who started it, the consumers or the companies – are we voting chicken or are we voting egg?

For my money, ‘it tastes like chicken’!

Social networking sites like Bebo, Facebook, MySpace, and sharing spaces like Digg and Del.icio.us are cramming in members, fans and exchanging media like it’s going out of fashion – except it’s not, it’s striding the catwalk like a diva! Just recently we’ve been approached by several global corporates, ‘we need to be on Facebook; we’ve got to get to the consumer market’. They are effectively buying shoppers. But are the shoppers buying them?

Yes, the companies are coming to the consumer, they’re letting them shop online and even receive their purchases online or at least within a reach of the postbox. The consumers may have prompted businesses to increase their investment in digital. But it’s not like the businessses feel ashamed, oh no – they’re feeling pretty ok about it.

Joining a page as a fan gives you affiliation, exclusivity and better still if you ‘buy into’ (in the true sense) the products on offer, as a ‘member’ you get even more rewards.

They’re paying for you to be happy, and you’re saying thanks, and they’re saying thanks back.
So, as a business you’ve got your Facebook page, your MySpace banners, your Twitter – what next, do you sit tight, are you done?

No, and since the customer’s always right, you’ve got more to do. If you really want to be up there, right at the front, stretching like a child in a classroom with their arm waving in the air, then read on.

It’s ok having placements but you need people to know about them. Everyone, and I mean everyone visits a search engine. Some once a day, some ten times a day, some just keep the browser open.

You’ve got your consumer at their desk, you’ve got them typing, but when they click ‘Search’…….er, you’re not at the top of the list. You’re not even on the first page. And even if you’re no maths whizz, you know that no one clicks past the first page.

So there’s work to do, and this must be done alongside the build of your projects. It must be planned concurrently. Get media buy, employ quick campaigns, do seeding. Plant that site, banner or advert firmly in its pot and water it!

Let’s conclude.

Digital is booming and companies and consumers are starting to align in their presence online.

But one of them’s playing catch up.

No one wants to be the one that’s left behind - Because the customer is always right!

Katherine K
Digital Account Manager

Lessons from Ambush Marketing

Ambush marketing is a campaign that takes place around an event, without becoming an official sponsor. The granddaddy of such campaigns is Nike at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. They covered the city with Nike billboards and flyers, gave away branded merchandise and built a Nike centre right outside the main stadium. They generated as high a sponsor recognition rate as official partner Adidas, but at a fraction of the cost.

The underlying theory is that your company leverages the surplus potential of a sponsorship. That is, seek to establish a link between yourself and any positive event that is not already saturated by sponsorship. For a discussion on the ethics of ambush see here but the principle of opportunistic marketing is as fair and as old as marketing itself, and it translates perfectly online.

Take Pepsi’s recent ‘Refresh Everything’ campaign. They use similar branding to Obama’s election campaign to ask users to submit content to their site, ostensibly to be viewed by the new American president. With Obama’s huge current momentum, it is clear to see why a company would seek to align with him. To many people it will seem that Pepsi sponsor the President of the United States, at possibly the height of his popularity, despite them not making any official links at all.

So when you notice a trend gathering momentum, or when a major event comes around, find ways of utilising its mass appeal. Write a blog article about it. Put a picture of it on your site. Advertise strongly using images. Get users to submit content and discuss ideas on something they care about but on your terms, on your site, where you do have 100% sponsorship rights. Then, alongside traditional marketing, you are forging a positive connection between you and something your user base care about.

Taking the lessons of ambush marketing online can gain you all the benefits of official sponsorship at a fraction of the cost.

Mark
Multimedia Developer

Bluhalo Labs is Born

Yesterday, an exciting new chapter began, in what looks to be a fantastic and inspiring adventure for the Bluhalo Team.

So, what is this new beginning?

Bluhalo Labs.

Bluhalo Labs was born from the mind of the team and will be run independently by the team, alongside and in addition to Bluhalo’s normal daily activities.

Why have Bluhalo Labs?

The goal of Labs is to give our Team the freedom to create whatever they want; to test, strengthen and expand their abilities. Involving all disciplines from Bluhalo’s development team, Labs aims to produce fantastic pieces of technology to plug the gaps we find in the internet. All members of the Labs group are free from sales targets, client sign offs, budgets and schedules – work is performed out of hours in the developers own time and only on projects that they want and choose to work on.

How does it work?

Every project that Labs takes must meet with the following guidelines:

Cool: No project goes ahead unless the entire team agrees that it’s a cool idea.

Different: No copy cat projects. We don’t want to try and reproduce Facebook or Twitter.

Challenging: If it’s not challenging it doesn’t meet the number one goal of Bluhalo Labs which is to push our team’s skills to the limit.

Non-Profit: The project must not aim to directly generate revenue for Bluhalo. Where appropriate code will be released back to the community as open source.

How does it affect work we do for clients?

Labs gives our team the opportunity to improve their skills, develop new technology and to do something they love, without limitation. In short, it will give our clients a happier, more motivated team with better skills, efficiencies and passion, working on their project. Not only will it give our clients great results, our improved efficiency will save them money too!

To keep up to date with the latest Labs news, follow the Labs blog.

To find out more about Bluhalo, call 01252 70 11 11.

Web Design for Children

One of the brilliant things about the web is that it really is for everyone, and that includes people of all ages.

Most parents at some point experience the feeling of amazement when they see just how easily and well their children are able to interact with technology – this is often also accompanied by (quite valid) feelings of fear and trepidation. What makes children so good with technology is the fantastic ability to learn and that keenness to explore. Many companies want to take steps to service and interact with the youngest sections of the population – but exactly what does that entail?

Ethics

The most important thing to consider at the outset of any project involving children is the ethics of it, especially online. It is key to ensure the project can never have a negative effect on the children using the service – aside from the ethics; it wouldn’t bode well for brand reputation! Consideration has to be given across a whole range of issues, from the type of information available to any communication between the users and owners, or indeed between the users themselves. This can be achieved by ensuring that stringent checks are made at all levels, providing additional tools to administrators, creating additional information content for parents/teachers and utilizing legal teams to ensure compliance with all relevant laws. Security is an important consideration for any web site; when they involve children in some way, even more care should be implemented and certainly no shortcuts can be taken.

For older children, sites can start to include more sophisticated (in comparison to parent supported users) user features such as allowing the users to earn points and compare themselves with other users, or directly interact with each other. Ethical guidelines should of course still be applied at this user level and enhanced security must still be applied here. Older children may have more experience, but they are still vulnerable and it is critical to ensure that children of any age do not have a negative experience or get exposed to potential dangers when using the website.

User Experience (UX) - take nothing for granted

When it comes to the design, a great deal of consideration has to be given to just how children will be interacting with it, for very young children this may be the first website that they use. This means that nothing can be assumed about the user’s knowledge, when areas like navigation are considered this becomes very apparent. It can generally be assumed that with an average user, they will look for a menu system in order to navigate the site, with younger children this cannot be taken for granted, so the design and functionality of the site must ensure that the website takes the user on an easy to follow visual journey.

Engagement - don't forget the parent!

Often websites for very young children will aim not to be used by the child alone, but assisted by a parent. With these sites it is equally important to consider the engagement of adult users, and ensure that the process is interesting, not excessively repetitive, of educational value and of interest to the child, so that the adults feel happy to use the website with their child many times. Features such as repetitive music that a child may be totally happy with for hours on end, may make a parent yearn for ear plugs after just a few minutes!

Education, education, education

Websites for children also have a responsibility to be educational and even at very basic levels, it must be remembered that any information on the website might be the user’s first experience of the subject. This responsibility must always be taken seriously, and wherever there are recommended standards, the appropriate groups and organisations should be contacted for additional information.

Websites such as CEOP and Kidsmart are good places to start research. Documents such as the CEOP Charter are produced so that consistent approach and standards are used. It must also be borne in mind that the website may well become a reference for children that they will use frequently. In which case, it is important to ensure that information is accurate and kept up to date.

Ensure it's useful

Information should also be useful – both to parents and children – either for having fun or achieving practical goals. Parents will be especially keen on sites that encourage the child to be creative, communicate, learn and question. By presenting information that gives a parent a way of re-enforcing and supporting the life lessons they are trying to educate their children with, the parents will be much more receptive to the brand being presented. This information could also take the form of content that parents can download. Some great examples of this are downloadable party invitations, Christmas cards, colouring and drawing exercises. Again this interaction with both the child and the parent helps to encourage frequent use and great brand awareness.


A great many websites interact with younger users very successfully, improving their status within the community and helping to contribute in a positive way to the education and development of children all over the world.

Whilst website projects with children have to be approached with great care, they result in very positive experiences for everyone involved – being involved with a project that makes a real contribution to the happiness, education and development of children is a highly rewarding experience for all involved.

David C
Programmer

NFL UK launches new website

We are pleased to announce the launch of NFL’s official UK website, NFLUK.com.

The new launch sees NFL UK’s five year old website receive a complete redesign, with focus on fan engagement through the creation of a strong community offering and social media focus which includes a forum, ‘locker room’, blogs and fan profiles.

Bluhalo was chosen to develop the site following a competitive pitch between a final short list of three agencies. The new website sits alongside our other high profile sporting clients which include Liverpool F.C., Tottenham Hotspur, Premier League, Andy Murray, Hi-Tec, SWRT and Prodrive.

Bluhalo’s Managing Director Spencer Gallagher commented: “I am delighted that NFL UK selected us to work with them on this exciting project and am incredibly pleased with the end result – a website that exudes the true spirit of NFL. When it comes to engaging fans digitally, Bluhalo has an impressive track record and I’m looking forward to seeing the site evolve with additional features over the coming months.”

Alistair Kirkwood, Managing Director of NFL UK, said: "Deepening the connection with our fans is an important part of our activity in the UK and a vibrant, community-driven website plays a major role in that. We are delighted to be working with Bluhalo and look forward to a long and fruitful partnership."

BlackBerry Facebook Fan Page

Bluhalo is pleased to announce the launch of BlackBerry’s Facebook page (www.facebook.com/blackberryuk).

The Facebook UK page, which launched today, features competitions, an Owners Lounge, Applications, and showcases their latest smartphone BlackBerry® Storm™.

For more information or to become a fan, visit the page.

Viral Games in Marketing

Companies throughout the web are finding online games a valuable addition to the marketing mix.

Appealing to your customer’s playful side has been shown to have a number of tangible benefits. Popular games spread awareness of your brand or product, and games can include a company message. Keeping ‘hi-scores’ not only increases a game’s popularity but allows you to build a database of interested leads. Customers brought to your site via a game spend on average 10% more and are 40% more likely to return.

Viral games are, depending on the size of your company, relatively inexpensive to make, and almost free to maintain.

Plentiful benefits and low costs make viral games an enticing option but you will only gain these benefits if you make a successful game. Successful games are infectious, they make you want to play it over again then tell your friends to get them playing. They must also fulfill their marketing role be that raising brand awareness, sending people to your site or distributing coupons.

To make a successful viral game follow our simple tips:

- First of all ensure that it is fun! People won’t play or spread the word if it is not a fun game.

- Ensure access is easy: don’t over-complicate the rules or make people register before they play.

- Keep the message simple. People are there to play the game, their concentration will be focused on the game and not on some complicated background message.

- Incentivise responses. Use game-related incentives (extra content or competition) to urge people to click your link or submit their email.

- Finally, make sure the game is noticed in the first place. Build a complementary microsite, leverage social media and email the game to everyone in your database and ask all of your employees to do the same. There are also professional seeding agencies that can help spread the word for you.

Playing games is serious business!

If you’d like to find out more about how we can help you with viral games, give us a call on 01252 70 11 11.

If reading this has got you in the mood for an online game, why not give our Pancake Panic viral game a try?

Mark
Multimedia Developer

The Pervasive Web - exactly when are you online?

The internet is coming – well let’s be honest it has arrived and got its feet up on the sofa. These days many people are 'online' a lot of the time – a lot through the normal computer, but ever more so using other devices. Phones are the most common example, email, chat, Facebook and Twitter are all things people can and frequently do using a mobile. However this is only the start of it.

What about listening to music online? Well you can obviously do this through your computer – but did you know you can buy Hi-Fi’s that connect to your home network and allow you to listen to internet radio no differently to how you would listen to FM radio. This is just an inkling of “The Pervasive Web”.

Over the coming years the internet will greatly reduce in visibility, moving from being the 'big thing' to being the core underlying tool to allow real functionality into our lives.

Internet radio through a normal Hi-Fi is just the tip of the ice-berg. You might ask why is that different?. The reason is that when tuning the radio it feels 'real', no concept of 'logging on' or 'sitting at a computer'. This is the point where the internet fades away and functionality shines through.

What else might there be that that we are used to that 'goes online'?

What about your house? Might be a few steps away yet, but there is a logical path that leads to your electricity bill not just telling you how much you used, but providing a breakdown per product in your house, or even automatically switching you to the cheapest supplier based upon your usage.

What about shopping? Why not have a device in your kitchen that you scan empty packages into – and have those automatically delivered, or waiting for you at the supermarket in a pre-done trolley so you just have to get the extras.

What about DIY? Why not have the ability to photograph things and have your trolley help you make sure you have the right size screw or nut.

Think any of these things are way off in the future? They are probably a lot closer than you think – the technology already exists, has done for years and the infrastructure exists. The only things that are missing at the moment are ideas from companies, and the public to get on board with changing how they do things.

This kind of internet interaction throughout peoples lives is going to be a critical and vital part of business over the coming years – not only will companies be offering fantastic instant services to customers, but they will also be gaining valuable insight to their customers behaviors and activities offering fantastic opportunity to streamline business and offerings.

Here at Bluhalo we know that the internet is not just about websites but goes so much further beyond that – we know that in all situations data is king, and that as long as it is stored intelligently you can do literally anything with that information, from a website, to phone application to literally anything else.

The key to any company making use of this in the future is to understand what the possibilities are now so that they can ensure that data is stored in a future proof way – and if you are one of the fortunate companies who already has the data organised and has a willing customer base – then you should grab the initiative as you might find yourself being leaders in your field within months. As always here at Bluhalo we are here to help, guide, assist and product fantastic applications for you.

David C, Programmer

Ranked in Deloitte Fast 500

Following our recent appearance in the Deloitte Tech Fast 50 as the 36th fastest growing tech company in the UK, Bluhalo has now been ranked as the 219th fastest growing tech company in Europe, Middle East and Africa in the Deloitte Tech Fast 500 EMEA award.

The award covers all areas of technology — from Internet to life sciences, from computers to semiconductors — and covers both public and private companies, making the achievement all the more significant.

The Deloitte Technology Fast 500 EMEA program recognises technology companies that have achieved the fastest rates of annual revenue growth in Europe, the Middle East and Africa during the past five years with Bluhalo acheiving an impressive growth of almost 800%.

Online Communities

What is it all about?

Community is at the heart of so much of the internet – it is what builds and drives the internet. So much so that the communities spread beyond the online world to become as significant in the real world as things we are all used to in everyday life.

Over recent years, big players have invested a lot of money into social areas of the internet – by and large leaving many in the business asking “why?” After all there is no obvious immediate return, but there must be something to get from it – the levels of investment show just how serious large companies are about getting involved. Like a great many things on and off line it becomes a ‘bandwagon’ and everyone jumps on board, quite often with no real direction and no idea what they want to do. This results in a lot of big announcements that fail to add up to much.

At Bluhalo we approach things differently – community and social development takes time and trialing, and more often than not goes off in directions that no one even considered at the start of the project. That however, is the key to being successful online with communities and social offerings. The best way of achieving this is to give the project time to breathe – this gives the client the chance to learn from the community and establish what works best and what people would actually like to have. The one thing that has been proven time and time again is that internet communities like to have a say, to feel like what they say matters and they definitely do not like being dictated to.

Is it right for your business?

The short answer is – maybe. The longer answer is; yes, if you are prepared to engage and put the time in. Engaging with people is at the end of the day what communities are all about – allowing customers and companies to communicate, find out what they really think and want, provide new ways to interact with your brands, new ways for customers to tell others how much they like your brand and new ways to find and share information.

Having a direct link with your community can achieve more for your company than the best focus group or most in depth research. Suppliers of technical products have long been aware that forums and newsgroups are the best way to identify bugs and issues so that new releases can be made available to the community. This advantage does however come at a cost and companies have to invest time to allow individuals to interact with and learn from the community. This can be slow at first to yield results, but to companies who make the effort the rewards are extensive and long lasting.

The options

There are many ways for companies to interact with people online. From ‘old fashioned’ forums to Facebook applications, and more often than not a combination of several different channels. Within Facebook alone there are several different ways of creating an online presence and engaging with people. What works for a company depends on the products they sell, what demographic they are targeting and how fast they can respond to ideas and comments. For brands Facebook offers a great way to allow fans to engage and make statements about themselves within their own Facebook profiles – allowing them to show what they are interested in whilst as the same time increasing brand awareness for the a company.

Of course the best things about building communities online is that the technology to do it is available and built by the wider internet community. These tools only exist because a handful of individuals wanted them to and took the time to create them, by utilising them companies are giving something back to the users of their products. There is no clearer way of a company saying that they like their customers than taking a step into the world of their customers and joining in.

What next?

Simple. Start talking. Have an internal brainstorm to see what your employees think you might be able to do – then with even just a few vague ideas find some time to talk to someone like Bluhalo who can not only help you decide on direction and meaning but implement and maintain your solutions as well. Of course there are many companies out there – but here at Bluhalo we are proud of the ideas and enthusiasm that we can bring to a project, so why not pick up the phone or drop us an email and talk to us first.

David C
Programmer

Yammer.com - site of the month

Yammer is a micro blogging service aimed at businesses, it allows individuals from the same organisation to join a company network and share thoughts, comments and questions with co-workers. Launched in September 2008, Yammer started as an internal tool for staff at the genealogy site Geni, however Geni founder David Sacks liked it so much that Yammer developed a life of its own.

The idea behind micro-blogging is simple – short and simple. It's an update on what an individual is doing at a particular time. Yammer takes this idea and directly targets the world of business, providing a simple and free platform for users to easily share ideas and thoughts with co-workers. Working from a simple business model, Yammer allows free access for all, but charges companies $1 per user per month if they want to take control over their Yammer network.

Yammer is also well supported, with a desktop application, and Firefox plug-ins. The desktop application allows users to see Yammer updates pop up on their desktop, just like email whilst the Firefox plug-in can be configured to prompt you every so often to 'Yammer' about what you are doing. Both of these make Yammer quick and easy to use.

On the face of it this might seem like a waste of time and just another way for employees to waste time – in reality it turns into something quite different. At Bluhalo we have been using Yammer for two months, and the impact has been extremely positive. Employees update their status every few hours during the day, letting others know what they are working on, what problems they are having and any new things they have found. This provides a continuous stream of updates around the office letting everyone know what everyone else is up to.

When people get stuck on a new problem they will Yammer the problem, often within a few minutes someone else will contact them and provide them with a solution or suggestion. This kind of communication, team work and team building is something that is difficult to achieve without a tool like Yammer.

Why have we made this our site of the month?

Communication is key to business success, both internally and externally. Yammer is a great tool to help achieve this vital part of business life, and as a website it has built itself upon business use, it is not something that has grown from hyped up media coverage or from popular culture. Its growth has been down to being a fantastic tool to improve internal business communication, productivity, team work and morale within a working environment.

As far as we are concerned, any opportunity to improve communication between employees is a good thing – and finding a great tool to do it that makes it simple, fast and easy is even better.

Why not try it for yourself at Yammer or read here what other people have to say about it.

David C
Programmer