After months of planning and waiting far too long for BT Openreach to install a pair of broadband lines we’re finally on the move to our new offices…200 metres down the road to D Mill (D255). As part of the move we’re changing our data and voice systems so we’ve got new telephone numbers but […]
It’s well known that simple-to-use site work better than complex one but that’s not what I’m talking about here. I want to cover briefly the major components of a web-site and specifically where and how they should be developed. Many web-sites re-invent the wheel (for example a site search function?) costing in development resource and […]
Our latest project, myBookingWizard.com was officially announced today with a launch date of May Day. In development since Summer 2010 it is new cloud-based offering that provides an easy-to-deploy online booking system for the SME marketplace. The first version is now available so talk to sales to discuss your needs in more depth. Prices start […]
We’re not always the rational creatures that classical economics makes us out to be. In 2008 Richard Thaler coined the term Nudge Theory (paraphrased “Where Economics Meets Psychology”). It’s a well trodden path and includes such exciting terms as Behavioural finance but fundamentally they all look at the ways in which our psychological biases get in the way […]
The healthcare marketplace has traditionally prided itself as being above the commercialism of the high-street, seeing it’s role as a provider of clinical excellence only. This is slowly changing, as national, chain-type, brands strive to break the old GP-referrer cycle and reach-out directly to potential customers and nowhere is this more prevalent than on the […]
From Monday 25th Apr we’ll be in our new home, 200 yards from our old home! We’re going for a cooler space which we can better utilise. A big thanks to Lee and Susie, our on call rent-a-muscle, who have already moved all our stuff except the bare minimum. We’re all sat on boxes with […]
Well, the launch of Hurricane (v12 of our web-site) went well and has been well received so far. We’re all pretty pleased actually, the latest version had a hard birth as the target was to avoid any hacks and patches to make the site work and largely that is what we have managed to achieve. […]
The release of Internet Explorer 9 comes with a wave of relief and panic. Panic because in some development cases, this means we now have four (yes, four) versions of one browser to test website in which I’m not particularly looking forward to doing. The silver lining here is the better implementation of emerging standards […]
To celebrate the greatest official drinking day in the world the Halifax office have all changed their names so we are now known as Sam Murphy, Doug Kelly, Martin O’Dower, Steve Ryan, Tim O’Lingard, Nick Byrne, Andy Fitzpatrick & Jerry Adams. To carry on this ancient tradition some of the group will be drinking until green […]
GiffGaff (Wiki-entry)has been around now for over year. If you’ve never heard of the name then don’t worry, they spend £0 on marketing, about £50 on branding and £0 on sponsorship. The basic idea is brilliant, take a product or a service that has lots of consumers and a continual or long buying cycle (GiffGaff is […]
We’ve been quietly beavering away since last summer creating an exciting new Online Booking application that simply drops into your existing web-site, a few lines of code and you’re away. Named myBookingWizard.com it’s been out on private alpha since the start of this year but on July 1st this year we’re opening it up as […]
Widely used since the 18th Century, AB testing is now one of the primary sources of web-site improvement but it’s also nice to see the conventional (ycrta: old) world embracing testing so it was interesting to see a US charity magazine (MotherJones) doing exactly that by testing two different covers to it’s February issue. They […]
We’ve got a new site coming; Sam has been using a fair bit of his 20% time to come up with a modified design and a new structure that should better fit us in 2011. Keep your eyes peeled as it’s due for launch before the end of the month and so far it looks […]
If you are thinking of re-designing your web-site then here are a couple of useful tips that could save you a load of development cost, reduce the hassle and speed up delivery. Just because you’re re-creating or re-building your site that is no reason to build the whole thing from scratch. Most of your visitors […]
I recently noted that our favourite software development company 37Signals posted a page up recently titled YES. This, I am reliably told, was borne out of frustration answering YES to the same questions time and time again. Love it. It also neatly acts as a way to explain what you do. So have a crack […]
Recently Google handed out a heavy penalty to Overstock.com because the retailer was allegedly paying for links from Colleges. Part of Google’s algorithm involves attributing “weight” to incoming links and the higher the quality of links the greater the weight is applied to the recipient site. Supposedly, Google rates colleges and universities as high-quality sources […]
Privacy questions are swirling around the Internet, surrounding Google, Amazon and ISPs like a fog. So much so that the EU’s (much unused) Data Protection Directive is beginning to move front and centre in the fight for privacy. Many people have a level of distrust regarding corporate databases and are concerned that that too much […]
Ask any traditional marketer about her potential marketplace and she’ll bark on about demographics, age, gender and various other segmentation approaches. In fact, most marketing departments would be a little stuck without their (fixed) demographic profiling. We are starting to see a change though. As likeminded people gather around fellow likers communities have been springing […]
Jason Calacanis recently tweeted a great new startup, it’s only in the US – in fact only in LA but I love the idea. On the site you’ll find a range of event locations to rent by the hour (Oooer), evening or day, everything from 500 seat auditoriums to a small backyard ranging in price […]
Much of the media has linked the growth in arab states civil unrest to Twitter, Youtube and the t’interweb in general. I would agree that openness of social media sites has provided a useful platform for spreading the news of unrest but it’s a long stretch to think that any social platform has created the […]
