Despite its humble beginnings as a blogging platform, WordPress is now seen as a credible digital platform to rival the likes of Ruby on Rails and Python. How is it, then, that a open-source freebie content management system has scaled the heady heights to the top of the digital framework world? Secure; despite some high-profile […]
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by Martin Dower We’ve been pretty fortunate over the years to have a core of great people and clients who are bought into the Connected vision (that’s not to say we’ve not made some terrible mistakes in the past) and we attribute that more on culture/values than on the traditional CV-based world of experience and skills. Shared […]
Read More… from Culture and values: More important than skills and experience
Apple might have single-handedly created the Appsphere, but just recently it’s showing some worrying signs. So worrying that a number of pundits are starting to quote “just like 1999, all over again“. The notion that companies raise money before finding customers last appeared during the first Internet bubble (2000) and, as I was around at […]
Well, I suppose it had to happen; what with Google completing the shift of its entire business model to become a mobile company. A number of recent comments by Google has made it clear that sites not embracing the mobile world properly will be penalised via a serious drop in search rankings. We’ve sort of […]
Phew, June was a tough month for Client Services and our halo slipped a little, or quite a lot actually. The number of tickets in the month wasn’t particularly high (102 or 4 new ones per day) but the lag time to getting them dealt with was really not very good. Back in April (a […]
Most people either elect to outsource their digital services to a third-party, or keep them entirely in-house. Both approaches have their pros and cons: The challenge is to create a hybrid solution that meets the needs of your organisation, fits well with the digital agency and continue to motivate both to strive for improvement. Motivation […]
Read More… from The simple way to build and deliver a digital strategy
Squaring up to HiPPOs requires empirical information to club them into belief. Harsh, but true. Some of the Highest Paid Person’s Opinions are so wrong as to be criminally liable but fighting the boss is not a the classic way to climb the career ladder. Testing is, then, sweet-spot as no-one needs to argue you […]
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Dealing with client problems to their 100% satisfaction is the nirvana of all client services departments. It’s a constant challenge to balance the expectation of the inward flow of issues and the actual work of fixing things that are broken. We’re all told “it’s about communication” and that’s where a social-based focus has helped us […]
Cookies are used to deliver superior functionality and to enhance your experience of digital services. They’re also used to spy on our activity and follow us round the t’interweb trying to push products at us. We do need them, as a number of services rely on them and some digital services use them to make […]
Google finally announced Penguin 2.0 at the end of May; it was a big announcement that normally implies a significant change in the way websites are monitored and ranked. It is important that we understand what changes really mean. Less than 3% of pages were affected Focus on content and link farms, negatively rating them […]
Zzzzzz… “What happens when the user / user’s device goes to sleep? Be interruptible. Account for starting and stopping (fast return, and do not get in the way of other UX). Account for getting and losing connectivity.” – Microsoft […]
With so much chatter about “Going Mobile” and big numbers being thrown around it’s not a time to rush in. Racing to tick the box could end up in heartache later so here’s a quick guide to cover off the key elements you should be considering, a short plan and some reading links. We’ve been […]
Back in March we offered up a FREE mobile review to any UK, EU or US East company. We could never have predicted how popular it would be, so we’re extending it until the end of our Financial Year (Aug 31st 2013). Get in quick, this offer won’t stay around forever. Visit here to see […]
The world of mobile isn’t stopping at 5″ phones and 10″ tablets. Coming down the track (and sooner than you think) are a whole tranche of next generation devices and technology. These will forever change the view of the traditional browser. Smart watches: Devices that relay your information and content onto a screen 20 characters […]
Read More… from Responsive design is not just about tablets and phones
All digital services, including web-sites, really should use encryption, it’s one of the glaring holes of misunderstanding when it comes to marketers controlling budgets; the irony is that the old IT departments that used to manage sites did get it. It’s an obvious miss because it seems, on the face of it, not to have […]
You shalt entertain “Have fun. We spend a lot of time thinking about accessibility, usability, performance, all that good stuff… but we sometimes forget about making it delightful and entertaining – the kind of thing that TV people have to think of all the time.” – Jeffrey Zeldman […]
According to a survey by Pew Internet, young middle-aged folks are reaching for tablets whilst the 20+ prefer the SmartPhone experience. The research comes from the US but it’s always good to take a reading from what’s occurring across the pond. The key findings were: Tablet ownership is concentrated around well-off, well educated, 35-44 years old Half […]
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With todays release of IOS7, Apple have put their weight behind flat UIs. As we covered back in April, the shift from designed web-site to providing digital services is gainer wider adoption. iOS 7 is designed so the UI helps users understand and interact with the content, but never competes with it by stripping away […]
One challenge faced when creating creating digital services is the comprehension divide, spread over many different departments. As the digital world is still in it’s infancy and growing so fast, what was a good level of knowledge five years ago falls into the category “dangerous” now. This absence of digital leadership can incapacitate even the […]
It’s not just web-sites that are going responsive, to combat the move to cross-device customer journeys advertising is going to get responsive and sooner than your think. The primary driver is the sites themselves, if you want to be able to place adverts onto a site that is responsive itself then surely the advert must […]
