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January 2007 STORM e-Newsletter
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STORM would like to wish everyone a very Happy New Year and a prosperous 2007.

Please have a browse through the STORM newsletter for some interesting and helpful information. You can OPT OUT at any time, simply click here.


CALM before the STORM

Interested in any of the STORM services? then let us take your business by STORM. Call now on 01224 588835, or email info@stormwebsitedesign.com for an informal discussion on how we can help. Alternatively please visit the website for more information. www.stormwebsitedesign.com


WEB DESIGN and GRAPHIC DESIGN - INDUSTRY NEWS

Please read some of the stories that have grabbed our attention over the past few months within the Web and Graphic Design industry.

GREEN & BLACK's - REBRANDING SUCCESS STORY

Green & Black's needed to stimulate a consumer desire for dark chocolate - which constituted just 5% of chocolate sold in the UK. To meet admittedly ambitious sales targets of £17million by the end of 2004, the new brand needed to achieve shelf stand out and become a must-have brand for supermarkets. Design Agency Pearlfishers tackled the brief to move from worthy organic to luxury premium chocolate.

The visual identity created by Pearlfisher repositions the brand and emphasises its mass luxury appeal moving away from a niche organic product. The dark brown corporate colour clearly communicates the intense chocolate flavour, while the gold typography of the logo denotes the brand’s premium status. A key decision was to shift the word ‘organic’ to the bottom of the logo, making the product’s organic status a supporting differentiator rather than its lead message.

Sales at the end of 2005 had risen to £30million and are on target to exceed £40million (€59million) in 2006. That’s a staggering growth of 789%. Green & Black’s is now the fastest growing confectionery brand in the UK (with annual growth of 61% in a sector growing at a rate of 1.8%) and now commands 7.4% market share. Cadbury Schweppes, which had been a 5% shareholder in the business since 2002, wholly acquired the Green & Black’s brand in May 2005 for around £25million (€37million). The brand’s presence in supermarkets has been extended: Tesco, for example, now stocks 15 bar variants where once it only stocked three. Green & Black’s has now launched 41 new products, including biscuits, drinks and ice cream.

CREATIVE ADVERTISING

Have a look at some very creative advertising at Hemmy.net

PERCOL COFFEE INTERACTIVE WEBSITE

Award winning Fairtrade and organic coffee company Percol is launching an interactive brand experience.

The website is a first ever in the coffee sector with dynamic interactive content specially developed to bring to life the countries and regions which make up the essence of Percol’s adventurous brand. www.percol.co.uk , launched in October 2006, follows a makeover of the packaging for the brand in early 2006. The inventive website adopts the “adventures in coffee” theme used in the packaging design to transform the concept into a tangible brand experience.

THE MILLION DOLLAR HOMEPAGE

For those of you who have not seen this website, this 21-year-old only took a few minutes to come up with an idea which has made him more than one million dollars in four months. Full story from the BBC here
http://milliondollarhomepage.com

CARLTON FLASH ADVERTISING

When the internet works it really works. At its best it’s instant, global, word-of-mouth and that can work for business, as the latest, very funny Foster’s viral campaign ‘Flashbeer’ proves; this follow-up to Carlton’s Big Ad clocked up more than 700,000 hits in its first two weeks. www.flashbeer.com.au


SEARCH ENGINE NEWS

WHAT IS SEO - SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) refers to the optimising of websites so that they get found by search engine spiders and bots, under the target keywords and key phrases associated with your products and services. This web optimisation is a complicated process and requires in-depth knowledge of a number of areas;

- Keyword and phrase research and analysis
- Keyword competition research
- Website development and design coding
- Link building analysis

Search engines change the way they index web pages every week; we keep up to date with the latest known algorithms and web trends to offer the best advice possible to our clients, alongside excellent design to keep clients interested.

Email STORM now for more information on SEO and how we can help you improve the traffic on your website: info@stormwebsitedesign.com

WANT A SEARCH ENGINE FRIENDLY WEBSITE? USE CSS

A major benefit of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is that it makes your website SEO friendly. Search engines spiders are actually very lethargic. They do not go through the bundles of HTML codes to get to the indexed codes. Font tags and tables make the HTML code very cumbersome; thus, reduce the accuracy of the results. If you use external CSS files to design and determine the design attributes; the HTML code will be clean and it will result to better search engine rankings. STORM have extensive knowledge of CSS enabling us to change the code layout without destroying the actual visual layout. It has been commonly reported that personally websites can see a huge boost in rankings when fully CSS controled. When I look at someone’s website that was built using old school HTML code with tags such as: TABLES, TD, TR, FONT and so on, I feel awkward and immediately convert that site to a fully table-less CSS layout. There are many tools on the Internet that shows the actual code over text ratio weight of your site. Do you know why? Because modern search engines such as: Google, Yahoo and MSN love light-weighted websites. With CSS everything is possible.

SEARCH ENGINE RESULTS GETTING SAFER

Search results returned by Google, AOL, and Ask.com are less likely to lead viewers to dangerous Web sites than they were six months ago. The study also found that Yahoo and MSN are not following that trend toward safer search results. Full Story

YAHOO TOP 100 WEBSITES FOR WOMEN

Yahoo has spent some time compiling a list of 100 websites specifically aimed at women
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/hot/100-women/1.html

COMPARE GOOGLE and YAHOO SEARCHES

This new search engine lets you can compare the leading search engines and see the relevant results, often showing very surprising results, proving that search engines employ completely different algorithms to return relevant search results.
www.jux2.com

GOOGLE ADWORDS SECURITY FLAW FIXED

Google AdWords advertisers can rest easy, secure in the knowledge that Google has acted quickly to fix a potential cross-site scripting security vulnerability. Click here for the full story.

WINDOWS LIVE SEARCH

Windows Live is another search engine that is producing some great results, with an excellent map search included.
www.live.com


SOFTWARE and TECHNOLOGY

ZUNE VS iPOD

After trying for years to compete with the iPod through an array of partners, Microsoft has launched it's own rival, Zune. http://www.zune.net/en-US/


MICROSOFT VISTA and SQL SERVER

Vista is the long awaited update to the Windows operating system, but it seems that Microsoft has a problem. Vista, can't run the current version of SQL Server. The company is working on a SQL upgrade that is compatible with Vista - called SQL Server 2005 Express Service Pack 2 - but it's in beta and can be licensed only for testing purposes. Microsoft hasn't set a release date for the new SQL program. Click here for the full story

BBC and MICROSOFT DIGITAL PARTNERSHIP

Two of the finest pedigrees of the digital age have come together and signed a memorandum of understanding which will define the framework within which the companies can explore opportunities for the delivery and consumption of BBC content and the evolution of next-generation broadcasting. Areas of potential investigation and collaboration include search and navigation, distribution, and content enablement. To ensure that the BBC is able to embrace the creative challenges of the digital future, they are forging strategic partnerships with technology companies and distributors for the benefit of licence payers.

WHICH WEB BROWSER is BEST?

Internet Explorer vs Firefox vs Opera vs Safari - Experts go head-to-head to defend their Web browser of choice in an opinionated free-for-all. Full Story


BUSINESS BREEZE

AGE DISCRIMINATION REGULATIONS

From 1 October 2006 the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations make it unlawful to discriminate against employees, job seekers and trainees because of their age. The protection covers direct and indirect discrimination, harassment and victimization.

The regulations also:

GENERAL INTEREST and FUN

FUN and EDUCATION FOR KIDS

Fun and Education for Kids, learn and play at the same time with this excellent website. www.funbrain.com

NATIONMASTER - GLOBAL STATISTICS

Visit the Nationmaster website which is a massive central data source and a handy way to graphically compare nations. Some really interesting statistics are available, and could prove useful.

YOUTUBE VIDEO CLIP LEADS TO ARRESTS

They videotaped themselves street racing and then posted clips on YouTube, the hugely popular video-sharing website. Entitled "Racing a Turbo Civic," the video came complete with credits and was viewed by thousands of people. Full Story

TRUE STORY FROM THE WORDPERFECT HELPLINE

This is a true story from the WordPerfect helpline. Needless to say, the help desk employee was fired; however, he / she is currently suing the Word Perfect organization for "Termination without Cause."

Actual dialogue of a former WordPerfect Customer Support employee with a caller:

"Ridge Hall computer assistant; may I help you?"
"Yes, well, I'm having trouble with WordPerfect."
"What sort of trouble?"
"Well, I was just typing along, and all of a sudden the words went away."
"Went away?"
"They disappeared."
"Hmm. So what does your screen look like now?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing?"
"It's blank; it won't accept anything when I type."
"Are you still in WordPerfect, or did you get out?"
"How do I tell?"
"Can you see the C: prompt on the screen?"
"What's a sea-prompt?"
"Never mind. Can you move the cursor around on the screen?"
"There isn't any cursor, I told you, it won't accept anything I type."
"Does your monitor have a power indicator?"
"What's a monitor?"
"It's the thing with the screen on it that looks like a TV. Does it have a little light that tells you when it's on?"
"I don't know."
"Well, then look on the back of the monitor and find where the power cord goes into it. Can you see that?"
"Yes, I think so."
"Great. Follow the cord to the plug, and tell me if it's plugged into the wall."
".......Yes, it is."
"When you were behind the monitor, did you notice that there were two cables plugged into the back of it, not just one?"
"No."
"Well, there are. I need you to look back there again and find the other cable."
".......Okay, here it is."
"Follow it for me, and tell me if it's plugged securely into the back of your computer."
"I can't reach."
"Uh huh. Well, can you see if it is?"
"No."
"Even if you maybe put your knee on something and lean way over?"
"Oh, it's not because I don't have the right angle - it's because it's dark."
"Dark?"
"Yes - the office light is off, and the only light I have is coming in from the window."
"Well, turn on the office light then."
"I can't."
"No? Why not?"
"Because there's a power outage."
"A power... A power outage? Ah, Okay, we've got it licked now. Do you still have the boxes and manuals and packing stuff your computer came in?"
"Well, yes, I keep them in the closet."
"Good. Go get them, and unplug your system and pack it up just like it was when you got it. Then take it back to the store you bought it from."
"Really? Is it that bad?"
"Yes, I'm afraid it is."
"Well, all right then, I suppose. What do I tell them?"
"Tell them you're too stupid to own a computer."


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