The Door4 Blog

Pass it on...

24 October 2008

Well my name might be James and not Jamie, but for the purposes of this article you can call me Jamie if it helps!

The story goes...

I was sat down the other night watching Jamie's Ministry of Food. If you haven't seen the show this is where Jamie Oliver is attempting to cure the nation of bad eating habits by encouraging us all to learn a recipe and "pass it on" to a friend. It is a good idea in principal, hopefully it will work and we will see microwave sales plummet in Q1 2009!

Whilst watching I started thinking (those of you who know me may decide to stop reading now!) about the web and our job as web designers. Ultimately each website that we produce needs to be usable for the common everyday user. As responsible designers we make sure all our sites are tested to ensure this is the case.

Ok – so what's the problem?

As you know each and every website is viewed on a monitor and is projected to that monitor by a computer of some nature. Simple...right? What makes it difficult is that there are lots of combinations of web browser and screen resolution that are still in use today. And, you guessed it, they don't all work the same way. These two factors have a serious effect on the way a website looks and performs.

Some combinations are seriously out of date and they are holding up progress in the industry. In most cases they are only in operation because people do not know any different. So, my point is that if we all kept things up to date we would start to unlock the true potential of the web. By everyone making a few small changes, and passing these ideas to their colleagues and friends, we would speed up the development and implementation of new ideas, breeding innovation and evolution – I think you get the picture!

How to get involved

So I am going to get the ball rolling with three easy steps to improve your browsing experience and help us designers make the web and even better place for you and your business:

• Update your browser, Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox are the best ones to look at.
• Maximise your screen resolution, things are smaller but you will fit more on your screen, this is truly a great thing! Here is a tutorial for Windows.
• Install the latest version of Flash Player from Adobe. You will probably already have an old version of this, but keep yourself up to date!
• Pass it on, show your friends, family and colleagues how to do this and be a part of this revolution.

Final thought (Jerry Springer style)

By taking part in this you will be helping the entire web community move forward, there is so much potential with the web medium, but at present we can only use a handful of features and our designs have to work on outdated screen resolutions. The official stats from W3C for September 2009 say that 22.3% of people still use Internet Explorer 6, when version 8 is just around the corner. Some people are still set their screen resolution at 800 x 600 when most modern monitors will easily support 1280 x 1024, or at the very least 1024 x 768. Let's all help eachother keep up to date, it doesn't cost you anything and it will help make the web an even better place!

James Berzins

Creating a successful brand

23 October 2008

The word 'brand' is thrown around a lot in the corporate world. Your brand is your companies most important asset; it's much more than just a logo design, letterheads and compliment slips.

From a commercial point of view, your brand should be the image you try and project onto your target audience. Although the reality is that If your product is heavily consumer focused, then your brand is the image and lifestyle that your customers project onto you.

Luxury products such as computers, mp3 players and cars come in many different flavours but they all have their high end brands, many of which share the same ingredients as their low to mid range competition minus a few luxuries and, of course, that all important price tag. What really separates the big names from everyone else is not so much the marketing of a product, it's the marketing of a pre-made lifestyle.

The phrase 'Paying for the name' is thrown about a lot by cash savvy shoppers but it's the lifestyle of their peers that consumers are trying to buy into. Early adopters will buy into a brand if it suits their lifestyle. The mass market will follow suit if they want a part of that scene. How did Apple build such a strong brand for it's iPod? They sent hundreds of their mp3 players to 'A' listers and celebs, who were photographed running, working out or just going for a stroll with their new gadgets. Without these initial inadvertent celebrity endorsements, the iPod would just have been another flash in the pan gadget with a user base made up of tec-savvy early adopters and die-hard Apple fans. Dissecting the brand even further will show you that pretty much every visible aspect of the iPod has been carefully designed to project a lifestyle image. The now famous white headphones, although aesthetically pleasing, also tell passers by how that consumer wants to be perceived by them and what lifestyle he/she is buying into. The most successful brands of 2007 pretty much confirm this, with the likes of Google, Coke, Marlboro, Toyota, McDonalds, Nokia, BMW, Apple, American Express and Louis Vuitton dominating the top 20.

Building a brand for your company, product or service doesn't have to be complicated. It can start with a clean, simple typeface that's followed through all corporate materials. You could go all out with a clever logo, well thought out and in-depth brand guidelines, corporate fonts and specific colours that hold meaning to that all important target audience. More important than appealing to your board of Directors, your brand has to appeal to your target audience. Something you only get one shot at.

Is your brand working for you, or have you been wasting time pushing your image onto your customers? Maybe it's time to contact us.

Pete Morley

What's this Credit Crunch about then?

9 October 2008

OK – so we’re not economic commentators here, but seeing as EVERYBODY is going on about it (it’s a trend, isn’t it?) we’ll stick our oar in.

So, how does the economic slowdown affect us, here at Door4?

I could follow the commercially defensive lead, and boast “it doesn’t affect us, we’re all-powerful...” which we have heard from other agencies, but I don’t buy that.

In reality, of course we see the effect of the slowdown.  We are still, busy, with a good, healthy order book, but there are other, more subtle effects of the economic gloom that manifest themselves.

We work in the field of marketing/advertising (it depends how you classify what we do), and, they say that the first thing that companies cut in a recession, is ad spend.

Whoooah, that has to be bad for Door4 then, doesn’t it?

Well.  Yes, and no. 

Of course many of our clients in, and allied to the property industry (large and small, from national developers to sole trader IFAs), have seen a substantial downturn in demand for their services, and knock-on effects on their cash-flow. 

Naturally, demand for marketing and promotion services from this sector has slowed down, substantially.

However, in broader terms, from other sectors, we have seen demand for website design, hosting and search engine promotion continue, unabated.

At Door4, we do see our customers taking a more cautious view on their expenditure.  Our approach has always been one of offering a great value service – pricing options, choices and a range of ways to tackle a problem – so our clients know they are getting “the best bang for their buck”.

If you look at advertising, and marketing back in the early 1990s, during the last recession (let’s face it, we are in a recession, aren’t we) – there was a pretty flat range of media for the average SME to attack when promoting themselves.

You had standard print media – flyers, brochures, mailers, newspaper ads – and for the more ambitious firms, you could look at radio airtime, and even TV.  All of these forms cost money, as they still do.  Most would carry a generally slow rate of return, and as we understand it, all forms took a hit during the recession.

Nowadays, internet marketing and advertising offers a different, more direct, and arguably better value marketing proposition.

Many businesses appear to have worked this out – and are diverting marketing spend towards electronic media, in the hope of grabbing a larger slice of the pie, quickly - before the latecomers wake up!

Of course – that’s what marketing in a recession is about, isn’t it? 

A recession doesn’t mean that the economy has collapsed.  It doesn’t mean that there is zero GDP.  It doesn’t mean that there are no customers for your product, or your service.  We’re told that a recession refers to 2 consecutive quarters of negative growth.

So – in effect, a temporary slowdown.

What does this mean?  Well, there are still consumers out there, and of course – they’re spending less money. 

But the fact remains, that they ARE still spending money.  That revenue is still out there, to be won, as it was yesterday. 

However, whilst wily consumers are spending more modestly, those suppliers which continue to promote themselves, market themselves, and make the right noises will continue to win that business.

And – the firms which seize further stranglehold on the market (while their competitors batten down the hatch, and hibernate until the storm has passed) will emerge the victors at the other end.

OK – this is a simplified view of the situation – as I said, I’m no economist, but the fact remains, that if your opposite numbers are hiding behind the couch – now is the time to stand up and claim some market share! 

Shout about what you can offer, in fact SCREAM about it... there’s definitely someone out there ready to listen!

Leon Calverley

Google launches new browser 'Chrome'

2 September 2008

Google are about to release a public beta of their new Chrome browser to over 100 countries tomorrow. The announcement came out of nowhere, thanks to a leaked email. You get the impression that Google wanted to keep things quiet for a little longer, especially since they haven't finished the OS X and Linux versions yet. You might be asking yourself if we really need another browser, unless you're in that 24% of Internet Explorer 6 users, in which case you probably weren't aware that there are other browsers...

The internet as a whole has become far more complicated than it was eight years ago. Users can now log onto any computer, anywhere in the world and access their documents, spreadsheets and calendars via Open Office or Google docs. Works emails can be checked on the go via any web browser. Flash websites are becoming more and more desktop applications. What does this increased web functionality mean for older generation browsers? Can they keep up? Google seems to think 'No'.

To understand why Google's Chrome has a place in the bloated browser market, you need to understand how a browser works. Bear with me, it's boring.

Ordinary browsers work a little bit like the queue at the Post Office; they handle processes one at a time. Usually very slowly. Browsers use a scripting language called Javascript to handle dynamic content and rich media. As it's loading, the webpage will call javascript if needed. The script does it's job then hands control back to the next part of the chain. This is usually the HTML but could be another javascript or a plugin. This method of doing things is very old school and can leave a browser prone to crashes as your computer's memory fills up. Yes. Firefox 2. I'm looking at you.

Google's approach to browser design has been a little more like Apples when they started to design OS X. Instead of each browser process moving along the same single thread, processes are handled as multiple threads. In a normal browser, even if you have multiple tabs open, the browser still handles each process one at a time. In Google's Chrome browser, the Process Manager isolates everything that's going on and makes sure that each process has access to everything it needs at the same time. This is important if you want to run two or three online apps in the same tabbed browser window.

Now, with this multi-process architecture running behind the scenes, your browser won't crash because of some complex javascript issue or badly designed webpage. Instead the tab that's handling the application will crash, leaving the rest of the browser (and your other tabs) still running. That's the sales blurb anyway.

All this sounds very Apple, which isn't too suprising when you consider that Google have opted to use WebKit as Chrome's framework. WebKit is a light, open source framework developed for Apple's Safari browser. Google are touting the standards compliancy, speed and security of Chrome; all standard marketing spiel. But It's the Operating System approach to browser production that's got me excited, which is a ridiculous thing to say I know but I have my work head on right now: With the release of Chrome as well as Google's growing portfolio of web based apps (GMail, Google Docs, Desktop, Calendar, Reader, Photos, Video, YouTube, Blogger), Chrome is one step away from becoming the first web based Google operating System. Exciting.
Pete Morley

Step On!

29 August 2008

I was delighted to be asked recently, for the second successive year, to serve as a judge at the regional Shell Step Scheme Awards. The Final took place last night at BAe Systems, Salmesbury, and the standard of the finalists was extremely high. Amongst the winners were a student who took an open brief to 'add value' to her company's business, and in doing so, identified a commercial usage for materials which would have previously been discarded as waste. By doing this, the company not only found an additional source of revenue, but also produced less waste.
Another student, studying Law, was tasked with overhauling a company's stock system room and warehouse. This was carried out in a short space of time, and saved the company a great deal of time and stock wastage.
It was quite inspiring to see the level of enthusiasm and initiative shown by the students on the project, who come from a variety of backgrounds and academic courses, and great to see a scheme like this creating opportunies for both the students and the businesses involved.
Leon Calverley

PPC, SEO, ROI and all that...
Effective website marketing seminar

21 August 2008

Today, James and I had the pleasure of attending a seminar, hosted by Blackburn with Darwen Digital Development Unit (DDU), at the Blackburn Technology Centre.

Among the topics covered were effective search engine optimisation, pay-per-click, and using analytics to assess conversion.

All day-to-day bread and butter stuff for an agency like ourselves, but it was extremely interesting to hear the questions raised by the audience, during gaps in the presentation.

This got us thinking about how many of our clients, overall, consider conversion as an effective measure of their website's success. Few, we would guess.

So, as a website owner (we're making an assumption that you are) - take a moment to think... when was the last time you calculated how many of your website visitors you "converted". By this we mean, how many:

• signed up for your newsletter
• bought something
• completed your enquiry form
• picked up the phone

OK - working out how many pick up the phone can be complex to assess, but if you don't work out the general figures, how do you know if your web design company have delivered real ROI (return on investment)?

Let's say the fee for developing your last website was £5000, have you worked out whether this was an INVESTMENT, or an EXPENSE?

It's something that Door4 (or your own web designer if you're not fortunate enough to be working with us at the moment) can help you to assess. It's not their (or our) job to do this for you, we need to make that clear, but they can show you how to use the tools at your disposal to work this out.

Leon Calverley

Save the Name!

The Domain Name Registry of America
18 August 2008

I thought I'd take a moment to highlight a potential threat to the security of your online business.

For many years, we have received telephone calls and emails from our clients, who have received a Domain Name Expiration Notice from the "Domain Registry of America". Said notice warns the recipient that they must "renew your domain name to retain exclusive rights to it on the Web, and now is the time to transfer and renew your name from your current Registrar to the Domain Registry of America."

It goes on to outline the nightmare scenario of losing the name, etc, etc.

If you receive one of these notices, ignore it, or contact us to discuss it.

Although the wording has changed over recent years, and is now less misleading than it once was, the intention is to persuade the recipient into transferring the name away from the current registrar agent (which may be Door4) and to this faceless marketing company, operating from a London address.

This means that any future updates to the website, or your IT/email setup may be compromised as you will have to deal with this company, rather than picking up the phone and speaking to Door4!

Leon Calverley
PS - don't just take our word for it - [The Register]

Version 8 - finally arrives

Friday 1 August 2008

Welcome, everybody, to version 8 (beta) of door4.co.uk

It's been a few months in the making, and represents the first stage in this new phase of our communication with, and promotion to, our existing and would-be clients.

So what does BETA mean?

Simply - it's a pre-release version. A trial, if you will. Fair enough, we have launched it, but in the fast-moving world of the website industry, you sometimes can't afford to stand still. For a web agency, where we build our own website, we can afford ourselves the luxury of pre-launching, and making an early version available to the public.

Would we do this with a client website? In most cases, definitely not. But experience proves that a "live" website accelerates the generation of content much faster than one that is under wraps. Indeed, our own website at www.door4.co.uk has been 'under construction' for several months.

In this time, we have produced mock-ups, visuals, schematics, ideas - you name it, it's been stuck on the wall! But then finally, we decided on a simple, flexible layout which allows us to add lots of content, images, case studies and so forth.

We are full of ideas for the site, and welcome your feedback. We would encourage you to revisit us over the next few weeks, to see how our ideas come to fruition. Of particular note is the "Good News" section, this blog, and the FAQs. Our objective is to make the website a publishing tool - to share our knowledge and good news with you. We certainly welcome clients to submit any "Good News" to us - you'll notice that the top item at present is that of the Gumpert Apollo sports car. We were delighted with the Top Gear record lap time, and wanted to share this with you. If you have any news to share with us, we'd be delighted to hear it!

See you soon!

Leon Calverley

hello@door4.co.uk