I adapted fairly quickly I have to say. The coffee was served in a stout little Pyrex glass slightly larger than a shot glass and left to cool momentarily. When it was cool enough not to cause blisters, but not so cold as to warrant further accusations of cross-dressing deviance, the coffee would be knocked back in one by heavily moustachioed hombres – much like a shot of vodka. No one was able to explain to me why exactly, but presumably the speed of consumption had a direct correlation to the enamel remaining on my teeth.

I followed this national custom from my second cup of Spanish coffee onwards and maintained the ritual for the following fortnight. My whole perception of coffee and the experience I had with it had changed overnight. It therefore struck me that coffee had ‘rebranded’ in Spain.

This wasn’t a cursory change of packaging or identity. It wasn’t a new flavour or a variation on an existing theme. The way people perceived the ‘brand’, the way the audience interacted with it and the expectations surrounding it were completely different. (Workmen having coffee and brandy at 9 O’clock in the morning for example…) I had to change how I thought about coffee in much the same way as companies wishing to rebrand their business need to change the thinking of their staff, customers and prospects. It was coffee, Jim, but not as we know it.

The importance of the discovery is not so much the drink as the state of mind. I have frequent conversations with B2B marketing professionals about their desire to ‘rebrand’. As the discussions progress, it transpires that they don’t want to ‘rebrand’ at all. They might like a new corporate identity, they may need help with messaging or positioning, they may be seeking creative change. All of which is admirable, but that’s not rebranding.

Rebranding a company involves cutting a swathe to the very heart of the business, discarding everything and anything no longer of any consequence and rebuilding perceptions based on a new centrally held belief (or a new understanding of a belief). That’s quite a tough thing to do. It’s easier to brand from scratch than it is to ‘rebrand’ – a blank canvas is easier to work with than one that first needs to be covered over. But that just makes the endeavour all the more worthwhile.

For brands to remain relevant over time, they have to evolve, change, reinvent, ‘rebrand’. Keep the good, throw out the bad. It’s not something that has to happen every year, but it should happen with significant shifts in the market, in personnel, in the business and in the audience.

As I watch B2B brands adjust to the digital marketing age, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that some are more attuned to the online needs of their audience than others. Some will evolve and navigate social spaces and mobile landscapes more easily and successfully than others. And some need to rebrand.

The trouble for B2B marketers in this shifting landscape, however, is knowing what to rebrand to. What do we say? What do we do? What do our customers want? What central brand belief do we retain and how much do we dispose of?

Whatever the uncertainty, take heart from Spanish coffee. If the spectrum for coffee brand acceptability, and indeed popularity, is anywhere from a whipped cream and marshmallow topped mocha latte at a Covent Garden ‘Java Emporium’, to the shite they drink out of a glass in the backstreet, semi-derelict cafes in Spain, well, at least there’s hope. The real challenge is accepting the need for change and knocking it back. ¡Salud.

Scot McKee

Managing Director

A

Accessibility

Accessibility is the process of making web content accessible to people with disabilities such as those who are visually impaired, hearing-impaired, colour blind people, or anyone else who cannot for whatever reason, use a computer in a conventional manner.

A website with poor accessibility will be difficult for these people to use.  Accessibility is particularly important for sites providing information to those with disabilities such as those in the healthcare sector and government departments.  Accessibility is an important aspect to consider when designing any site.  Guidelines for the various levels of accessibility are set by industry bodies, such as the W3C WIA: http://www.w3.org/WAI/

AJAX

Stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML.  AJAX is typically used for creating dynamic web applications and allows for asynchronous data retrieval – content updating without the webpage having to reload. The JavaScript on any given page handles most of the basic functions of the application, making it perform more like a desktop program instead of a web-based one.  A good example of AJAX in action is Google Maps: http://maps.google.com – which allows the visitor to scroll round a map without the browser refreshing.

Anchor Text

Anchor text usually gives the user relevant descriptive or contextual information about the content of the link’s destination.  For example <a href=”http://www.birddog.co.uk”>Birddog home page</a>

The anchor text above in bold – what the visitor will see on a website.

ASP

Active Server Pages (ASP), also known as Classic ASP or ASP Classic, was an early server-side script engine for dynamically-generated web pages.

ASP.NET

See .NET

B

Back End

The back end of a website is the part hidden from view of regular website visitors. The back end generally includes the information structure, applications, and the CMS controlling content on the site.

Backlink

Backlinks are links from other websites back to yours. They are sometimes also referred to as “trackbacks” (especially on blogs).  Backlinks have a huge impact on your sites search rankings.  Lots of backlinks from high-ranking sites can greatly improve your search engine results, especially if those links use keywords in their anchor text.

Bad Neighbourhood

A “bad neighbourhood” refers to the server where your site is hosted.  A site hosted on a server that hosts other sites that spam or use black-hat SEO practices can end up penalised by search engines solely because of their proximity to those sites.  Linking to sites in bad neighbourhoods can also have a negative effect on your search rankings.

Bandwidth

Bandwidth can refer to two different things: the rate at which data can be transferred, or the total amount of data allowed to be transferred from a web host during a given month (or other hosting service term) before overage charges are applied.  It is generally referred to in term of bits-per-second (bps), kilobits per second (kbs), or other metric measurements.  Lower bandwidth internet connections such as dial-up mean data loads slower than with high bandwidth connections such as broadband.

Below the Fold

This term is a carry-over from newspaper publishing days.  In newspaper terms, “below the fold” means content was on the bottom half of the page below the physical fold in the paper.  In web design terms, “below the fold” refers to the content that is going to appear off of the bottom of the screen for the average website visitor in their browser.

Bounce Rate

Website bounce rate is the number, or percentage of people who leave the site from the same page they entered, without clicking through to any other pages.  This can be a good indicator of how good the navigation on the website is, as well as an indicator of the quality of the content on the website. Generally, a high bounce rate indicates a poor page design.

Breadcrumb

Breadcrumbs are the navigational elements that generally appear near the top of a give web page that show you the pages and subpages that  appear before the page you’re on.  For examples, on a blog, the breadcrumb might look something like: Home > Category > Year > Month > Post, or maybe a lot simpler. The term ‘breadcrumb’ comes from the fairy tale “Hansel and Gretel.”

Browser

Browser refers to the program a website visitor is using to view the web site.  Examples include Safari, Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera, and Internet Explorer.

C

Cache/Caching

Cached files are those that are saved or copied (downloaded) by a web browser so that the next time that user visits the site, the page loads faster.

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)

Also referred to simply as CSS, Cascading Style Sheets are used to define the look and feel of a web site outside of the actual HTML of the site.  In recent years, CSS has replaced tables and other HTML-based methods for formatting and laying out websites.  The benefits to using CSS are many, but some of the most important are the simplification of a site’s HTML files, which can actually increase search engine rankings and the ability to completely change the style of a site by changing just one file without having to make changes to content. The latest version is CSS3.

CGI

The Common Gateway Interface (CGI) is a standard protocol for interfacing external application software with an information server, commonly a web server.  CGI usually comes in the form of a script, which is called to perform a particular function on a website.  CGI scripts are usually written in a programming language called PERL

Client-Side

Client-side refers to scripts that are run in a visitor’s browser, instead of on a web server – as in server-side scripts.  Client-side scripts are generally faster to interact with, though they can take longer to load initially.

Content Management System (CMS)

Also known as a CMS, the Content Management System is a backend tool for managing the content of a website.  The CMS separates the core content (text, images, video) from the design and functionality of the site.  Using a CMS generally makes it easier to change the design or function of a site independently of the website content.  It will often make it easier for administrators who aren’t web developers, to add content to a website.

Comment

In web design terms, a comment is a bit of information contained in the HTML or XHTML of a web page, which is ignored by the browser.  Comments are used to identify different parts of the file and as reference notes.  Good commenting makes it much easier for a web designer to make changes to the site, as it clearly defines which parts of the code perform what functions.  There are different comment formats for different programming and markup languages.

Conversion

A conversion is the completion of a goal by an end user of a website – having gone through a series of steps to reach that goal.  A goal can be defined as anything, ranging from the user completing a registration form or survey, downloading a file or purchasing something.  Conversion rate is a good measure of the performance of a website and will often be the benchmark used when trying to improve the efficiency of a website.

CSS

See Cascading Style Sheets.

CSS Framework

A CSS framework is a collection of CSS files used as the starting point to make XHTML and CSS web sites quickly and painlessly.  They usually contain CSS styles for typography and layout.

D

Deprecated

Deprecated code is code that is no longer included in the language specifications. Generally this happens because it is replaced with more accessible or efficient alternatives.  This happens when a new version of a programming language or framework is released.

DHTML

Stands for Dynamic HyperText Markup Language.  DHTML fuses XHTML (or any other markup language), the DOM, JavaScript (or other scripts), and CSS (or other presentation definition languages) to create interactive web content.

DNS

Stands for ‘Domain Name Service’ or alternately ‘Domain Name System’, or ‘Domain Name Server’. The DNS converts IP addresses into domain names.  DNS servers are provided with the IP address of your web server when you assign your domain name to those servers.  In turn, when someone types your domain name into their web browser the DNS servers translate the domain name to the IP address and point the browser to the correct web server.

Doctype

The doctype declaration specifies which version of HTML is used in a document.  It has a direct effect on whether your HTML will validate or not.

DOM, The

Stands for Document Object Model. It is a language-independent, cross-platform convention for representing objects in XML, XHTML, and HTML documents.  Rules for interacting with and programming the DOM are specified in the DOM API.

Domain

The domain is the name by which a website is identified.  The domain is associated with an IP address.  Domains can be purchased with any combination of letters, hyphens (-), and numbers (though it can’t start with a hyphen). Depending on the extension (.com, .net, .org, etc.), a domain can be anywhere up to 26 to 63 characters long.

DTD

Stands for Document Type Definition. DTD is one of several SGML and XML schema languages.  It provides a list of the attributes, comments, elements, entities, and notes in a document along with their relationships to each other.

E

E-Commerce

Short for Electronic Commerce, E-Commerce is the process of buying and selling of goods online through websites. Products sold through e-commerce can be physical products that require shipping, or digital products delivered electronically such as program and document downloads, license keys and music.

Elastic Layout

An elastic layout is one that uses percentage and em for defining page width, paired with a max-width style to allow the layout of the website to stretch when font sizes are changed.   The ability to flex to accommodate the browser width and visitor’s font preferences is where the name ‘elastic’ comes from.

Element

In XML, an element is the central building block of any document.  Individual elements can contain text, other elements, or both.

Em

Em is a unit of measurement for sizing fonts and other elements within a web page relative to the parent element of the item.  A 1em font is equal to the point size for the font already defined in the parent element.  For example 2em would be twice the current size,  .5em would be half the current size and so on.

Embedded Style

An embedded style is a CSS style written into the head of an XHTML document.  t only affects the elements on that page, instead of site-wide as a separate CSS file does. Style in an embedded style sheet will override styles from the linked CSS file.

Ex

Ex is a measurement for font height or size relative to the height of a lowercase “x” in that font family.

Extensible Markup Language

Otherwise known as XML.  XML is a markup language used for writing custom markup languages.  In other words, XML describes how to write new languages.  It is sometimes referred to as a “meta” language because of this.  It also serves as a basic syntax that allows different kinds of computers and applications to share information without having to go through multiple conversion layers.

External Style Sheet

This is CSS that is stored in an external document.  The biggest advantage to using an external style sheet is that it can be linked to by multiple HTML/XHTML files, meaning that changes made to the style sheet will affect all the pages linked to it, rather than having to change each page individually.

F

Facebook

Facebook is a social utility that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them. People use Facebook to connect and share content with friends and associates. Facebook is now the largest social network on the internet, with more than 400 million active users, half of whom log on to Facebook in any given day. People spend over 500 billion minutes per month on Facebook

Favicon

Favicons are tiny (generally 16×16 pixels, though some are 32×32 pixels), customizable icons displayed in the web address bar in most browsers next to the web address. They’re either 8-bit or 24-bit in color depth and are saved in either .ico, .gif or .png file formats.

Fixed Width Layout

A fixed width web page layout has a set width, usually defined in pixels.  The width stays the same regardless of screen resolution, monitor size, or browser window size.  It allows for minute adjustments to be made to a design that will stay consistent across browsers. Designers have more control over exactly how a site will appear across platforms with this type of layout.

Flash

Adobe Flash is a technology that enables websites to display vector-based animation.  More recently, Flash has become a powerful tool for creating web-based applications.  Files created in Flash can now be distributed as stand-alone desktop applications by using another technology – Adobe Air.

Fluid Layout

See Liquid Layout

Focal Point

The focal point of a web site is the spot on a web page that they eye is naturally drawn to. This could be an image, a banner, text, Flash content, or just about anything else.   It is important to ensure that the focal point is the most important part of the page.

Fold

See ‘Below the fold’

Font Family

A font family is a group designation for defining the typefaces used in CSS documents.  The font family tag generally lists multiple fonts to be used, and usually ends with the generic font category such as “serif” or “sans-serif”.

Font Style

In CSS, the font style refers solely to whether a font is italic or not.

Font Weight

The font weight refers to how thick or thin (bold or light) a font looks.

Foursquare

Foursquare is part of a new breed of social applications, known as geo-social networks. Geo-social works by combining a traditional social networking model of registered users who connect with one another, to GPS (Global Positioning Satellite) technology. By connecting these two models, users don’t just get updates, they also get information about where the updates were made.

Front-End

The front-end is the opposite of the back-end. It is all the components of a website that a visitor to the site can physically see such as pages, images and other content.  More specifically, it is the interface that visitors use to access the website content.  It is also sometimes referred to as the User Interface (UI).

G

Google

The World’s largest Internet search engine, indexing literally billions of web pages. In May 2010, 30.7m people in the UK searched on Google.

Graceful Degradation

Graceful degradation refers to a the ability for a website to have elements that may take advantage of the capabilities of newer browsers, but done in a way which allows users with older browsers to still view the site in a manner that at least allows them access to basic content.  It also applies to making sure that if one small portion of your site does not work in someone’s browser, it does not cause the site to error or crash in their browser.

Graphical User Interface

Also referred to by its acronym: GUI. A graphical user interface uses a an input device such as a mouse and gives visual representations of how the user is able to interact with a web application. In other words a GUI is all of the front-end stuff you see on a web application.  The purpose of a GUI is to allow you to interact with a web application without having to enter code.

H

Hexadecimal

Also referred to a “hex” numbers, they are a base-16 numbering system used to define colors online. Hex numbers include the numerals 0-9 and letters A-F.  Hexadecimal numbers are written in three sets of hex pairs.  Because screen colours are Red, Green and Blue the first pair define the Red hue, the second pair defines the Green hue, and the third pair defines the Blue.

Hit

Contrary to popular belief, a hit does not represent a single visitor to a website.  A hit is actually a request for a single file from your web server.  This means one page can actually generate multiple hits, as each page generally has more than one file, for example a HTML or other base file, a CSS file, multiple images and so on.  Each request for each file is one hit, so a web page with 50 images on would register 50 hits.  Many years ago, hits were quoted as the main traffic metric, to amplify sites into sounding like they were receiving more traffic than they actually were.

.htaccess

The .htaccess file is the default directory-level configuration file on Apache web servers.  It is also known as a “distributed configuration file.”  Configuration directives contained in the .htaccess file apply to the directory in which the file is placed as well as all of its subdirectories.  Within the .htaccess file, settings such as authorisation and authentication, rewriting of URLs, cache control and customised error responses can all be specified.

HTML

Stands for Hypertext Markup Language. HTML is the primary language used to write web pages.  HTML is primarily intended as a way to provide content on websites, with CSS handling the layout and stylistic options, although it can also be used to determine how that content is displayed. HTML version 5 has just been released and offers developers powerful new tools for creating rich web content. Apple have created a page to demonstrate some of the new features in HTML5 (requires either Safari or Firefox 4 to view) http://www.apple.com/html5/

HTML Tag

Also referred to as an HTML element, an HTML tag is the bit of code that describes how that particular piece of the web page it is on is formatted.  Typical tags specify things like headings, paragraphs, links, and a variety of other items.

HTTP

Stands for HyperText Transfer Protocol.  HTTP is a set of rules for transferring hypertext requests between a web browser and a web server.

HTTPS

Similar to HTTP, HTTPS stands for HyperText Transfer Protocol over SSL (Secure Socket Layer) or, alternately, HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure.  Like HTTP, it is a set of rules for transferring hypertext requests between browsers and servers, but this time it is done over a secure encrypted connection.

Hyperlink

A hyperlink is a link from one web page to another, either on the same site or another one.  Generally these are text or images, and are highlighted in some way; text is often underlined or put in a different color or font weight.  The inclusion of hyperlinks creates the “hyper” part of “hypertext.”

Hypertext

Hypertext is any computer-based text that includes hyperlinks.  Hypertext can also include presentation devices like tables or images, in addition to plain text and links.

I

iframe

No relation of Apple, iframe is short for Inline Frame. An iframe is used to display one or more web pages within another normal web page – one that isn’t a frameset page.

Image Map

An image map is used in XHTML to allow different parts of an image to become different clickable elements.  It can also allow some portions of an image to have no clickable element.

Inheritance

In CSS, elements that do not have a pre-defined style will take on the style of their parent element within the document tree.

Inline Style

Elements with CSS written directly around the element it affects, instead of in a separate style sheet or header style.

L

LAMP

Stands for Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP (or sometimes Perl or Python), and is referring to the specifications of a web server (defining the operating system, web server, database, and scripting language, in that order).  One of the advantages of LAMP setups is that the software used is all free and open source.

Landing Page

A landing page is the page where a visitor first enters a website.  Often, a special landing page is created to elicit a specific action from the new visitor -usually in connection with an advertising or marketing campaign.

Link Farm

A link farm is any website setup specifically to increase the link popularity of other websites by increasing the number of incoming links to that site. While some link farms are single pages listing unrelated links, others consist of networks of sites that contain multiple links back and forth to one another.  Search engines can generally recognize these types of schemes and often remove link farms from their directories and penalize the sites linking to and from them.

Liquid Layout

A liquid layout is one that is based on percentages of the browser window size.  The layout of the site will change with the width of the browser, even if the visitor changes their browser size while viewing the page.  Liquid layouts take full advantage of the browser width a visitor is using, optimising the amount of content you can fit onscreen at one time.

M

Markup

This refers to the coding applied to a text document to change it into an HTML, XML, or other Markup Language document.

Meta Data

Meta data is the data contained in the header that offers information about the web page that a visitor is currently on.  The information contained in the Meta data is not visible on the actual web page, purely in the source code.  Meta data is contained within Meta tags.

Meta Tag

A Meta tag is an HTML tag used to include Meta data within the header of a web page.

N

.NET

The .NET Framework is Microsoft’s comprehensive and consistent programming model for building applications.

Navigation

Navigation refers to the system that allows visitors to a website to move around that site.  Navigation is most often thought of in terms of menus, but links within pages, breadcrumbs, related links, pagination, and any other links that allow a visitor to move from one page to another are included in navigation.

Nesting

Nesting refers to putting one HTML element within another element.  When this is done, the elements have to be closed in the reverse order from how they were opened.

Non-Breaking Space

A non-breaking space, also referred to as &nbsp; is a white-space character that is not condensed by HTML.  The primary function of a non-breaking space is to hold open table cells or add spacing between words, or the beginning of paragraphs if an indent is desired.

O

Open Source

Open source refers to the source code of a computer program being made available to the general public.  Open source software includes both web-based and desktop applications.  Open source programs are generally free or very low cost and are developed by teams of people, sometimes comprised mostly of volunteers.  PHP is a good example of open source.

OOP

Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm that uses “objects” – data structures consisting of data fields and methods together with their interactions – to design applications and computer programs. Programming techniques may include features such as data abstraction, encapsulation, modularity, polymorphism, and inheritance. Many modern programming languages now support OOP.

P

Page view

A page view is a request for an entire web page document from a server by a visitor’s browser. In other words, for each page view your site had, someone (or a search engine spider) looked at that page.

PERL

Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Perl was originally developed by Larry Wall, a linguist working as a systems administrator for NASA, in 1987, as a general purpose UNIX scripting language to make report processing easier.

Permalink

Short for “permanent link.” Generally used only on blogs, a permalink is a link that is the permanent web address of a given blog post. Since most blogs have constantly-changing content, the permalink offers a way for readers to bookmark or link to specific posts even after those posts have moved off the home page or primary category page.

PHP

A recursive acronym for Hypertext Pre-Processor, PHP is a widely used general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for Web development and can be embedded into HTML.

Plug-In

A plug-in is a piece of third party code that extends the capabilities of a website. It is most often used in conjunction with a CMS or blogging platform. Plug-ins are a way to extend the functionality of a website without having to re-write the core code of a website.  Plugins can also refer to pieces of third-party software installed within a computer program to increase its functionality.  The Firefox web browser has an extensive catalogue of Plugins (called ‘Addons’), which are used to extend its functionality: https://addons.mozilla.org

Progressive Enhancement

Progressive enhancement is a strategy for web design that uses web technologies in a layered fashion that allows everyone to access the basic content and functionality of a web page, using any browser or Internet connection, while also providing those with better bandwidth or more advanced browser software an enhanced version of the page.

Property

Property is a CSS term and is roughly equivalent to an HTML tag. Properties are what define how a style should appear on a given web page.

Pseudo-Element

A pseudo-element is an element used to add a special effect to certain selectors.

Pseudo Class

Like pseudo-elements, pseudo classes are used to add special effects to certain CSS selectors.

R

Really Simple Syndication

Also referred to as RSS.  RSS is a standardised XML format that allows content to be syndicated from one site to another.  It is most commonly used on blogs and news websites.  RSS allows visitors to subscribe to a blog or other site and receive updates via an RSS feed reader.

Resolution

Refers to the physical number of pixels displayed on a screen (such as 1280×1024). Unlike in print, display resolution does not refer to the number of pixels or dots per inch on a computer screen, as this can be changed by changing the resolution of the screen (which, of course, does not change the physical size of the screen).  The resolution of an image, however, is often referred to in terms of pixels per inch, though this has very little effect on how the image is displayed on screen.

S

Schema

Generally, a schema is an XML document used in place of a DTD to describe other XML documents.

Script

Generally refers to a portion of code on an HTML page that makes the page more dynamic and interactive.  Scripts can be written in a variety of languages, including JavaScript.

Selector

In CSS, the selector is the item a style will be applied to.

Semantic Markup

In semantic markup, content is written within XHTML tags that offer context to what the content contains. Basic semantic markup refers to using items like header and paragraph tags, though semantic markup is also being used to provide much more useful context to web pages in an effort to make the web as a whole more semantic.

Server-Side

Server-side refers to scripts run on a web server, as opposed to in a visitor’s browser.  Server-side scripts often take a bit longer to run than a client-side script, as each page must reload when an action is taken.

SGML

Stands for Standard Generalised Markup Language.   SGML is a markup language used for defining the structure of a document.  SGML is not mentioned very often, but it is the markup language that serves as the basis for both XML and HTML.

SOAP

Stands for Simple Object Access Protocol. SOAP is an XML-based protocol exchanging information across the internet to allow an application on one site to access an application or database on another site.

Specification

A specification, or functional specification as it is sometimes known is a document that offers an explicit definition and requirements for a web service or technology and generally includes how the technology is meant to be used, along with the tags, elements, and any dependencies.

T

Tag

A tag is a set of markup characters that are used around an element to indicate its start and end.  Tags can also include HTML or other code to specify how that element should look or behave on the page. See also HTML Tag.

Template

A template is a file used to create a consistent design across a website.  Templates are often used in conjunction with a CMS and contain both structural information about how a site should be set up, but also stylistic information about how the site should look.

Twitter

Twitter is a micro-blogging social status service, where registered users can post short 140 character or less updates about what they are doing, thinking, reading, eating or many more subjects. These updates are known as Tweets. Twitter works by registered users following one another to share content.

U

URL

Stands for Uniform Resource Locator.  A URL is the physical address of a website e.g. www.birddog.co.uk.  The URL specifies where on the Internet the website can be found.

Unique

See visitor

Usability

Usability refers to how easy it is for a visitor to your site to use a website in its intended manner.  Good usability means that elements such as navigation, content, images, and any interactive elements are easy to use, functioning the way they were intended, and that any visitor will not need any special training in order to use the website.

V

Valid

Valid web pages are those that return no errors based on the type of HTML/XHTML specified in the doctype declaration at the beginning of the file.   The Validator checks that the code used on the web page conforms to the specifications for that version of HTML/XHTML.  Web page validity can be checked through various validation services, most commonly the W3C Validator: http://validator.w3.org

Visit

A visit is a single user coming to a website.  The same visitor returning multiple times means multiple visits.

Visitor

A visitor is a single user coming to a website.  The same visitor returning multiple times in one day is still measured as just one visitor.

W

Web Page

A web page is a single document, generally written in HTML/XHTML, meant to be viewed in a web browser.  In many cases, web pages also include other coding and programming (such as PHP, Ruby on Rails, or ASP). Websites are generally built from multiple interlinked web pages.

Web Server

A web server is a computer that has software installed and networking capabilities that allow it to host web sites and pages and make them available to internet users located elsewhere.  There are various setups that can be used for a web server, including the LAMP setup previously mentioned.

Web Standards

Standards are specifications recommended by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) for standardising website design.  The main purpose of web standards are to make it easier for both designers and those who create web browsers to make sites that will appear consistent across multiple platforms.

X

XHTML

Stands for Extensible Hypertext Markup Language.   Fundamentally, XHTML is HTML 4.0 that has been rewritten to comply with XML rules.

XML

Stands for Extensible Markup Language.  XML is a specification for creating other, custom markup languages.  It is an extensible language because it allows for the user to define the mark-up elements.

Y

YouTube

YouTube is a video sharing site,

A lot of new media buzz is generated when a new ‘breakout’ company arrives on the scene. Twitter was 2009’s indisputable success story, and for a long time, it looked like Foursquare might check-in at number one for 2010. It’s trendy, fun, and it comes readymade with a simple business model that companies and brands could quickly benefit from.

But its rocketing popularity has been stymied during a period of increasing focus on privacy online.

Foursquare, for those unacquainted, is the feted darling of location-based social media tools. As opposed to being asked ‘What’s happening?’ by Twitter, Foursquare in essence asks its users – around 3 million, up from 500,000 in March this year – the question ‘Where are you?’

To answer, Foursquare users ‘check-in’ to their favourite places, racking up visitor points and unlocking badges when visiting new places and their top locations. The user who checks-in to a location most often becomes its ‘Mayor’ (the service works using GPS-tracking to confirm a person’s whereabouts, so there’s no cheating).

Harmless enough, and given the pervasiveness of smartphones, laptops, netbooks et al, it’s pretty useful. And the epitome of social, too: using your techno gadgets to tell people exactly where to find you in real-time can only encourage and accelerate face-to-face communication.

But there’s a very stark privacy issue. Like Twitter, the chances are most of your Foursquare followers are people you’ve never met, and don’t really know anything about. And yet the service provides complete strangers with your precise location.

The Guardian highlighted this best with this article (check out the sinister opening line, “Louise has straight, auburn hair…” http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/jul/23/foursquare) but such concerns have been bubbling under since Foursquare launched. Worries vary from the naïve, where users detail the location of their homes (and then detail when they’re out), to the conspiratorial: fears that governments or security agencies can monitor an individual’s whereabouts through their social network activity.

The truth is, despite its relative success in the US, adoption in the UK has been slow. For the right brand, the benefits are clear enough: using Foursquare to engage with audiences and reward consumer loyalty adds a competitive edge to customers’ interactions with a brand, and incentivises ‘another’ visit to a favourite coffee shop, bar, cinema, park, tourist attraction, etc.

Now, fresh from its own privacy problems earlier this year, Facebook has entered the ‘geosocial’ space with their launch of Facebook Places. While it’s put location-based social networks on the map (sorry), those privacy concerns have suddenly become a mainstream hot topic, thanks to the small matter of its half-a-billion strong user base.

As a result, much of the wider audience will so far only have been exposed to Foursquare and the ‘geosocial’ buzz through its negative publicity.

Social media in 2010 is undoubtedly all about location, but its full impact may have already been damaged, at least short-term, by concerns over privacy. And until these are fully understood, brands thinking about location-based social networking might be served best by waiting to see whether ‘geosocial’ literally does go global – or disappears off the face of the Earth.

Tim Miller

Content Editor

Particularly in the media job market: where a temporary PA role advertised on popular jobsite Reed attracted 305 applications in two weeks; where new graduates passionate about their skills and their industry are desperate and cutthroat to get their foot in the door; while thousands of professionals and freelancers with years – decades – of experience jostle for interviews in an ever-diminishing pool of vacancies.

But the thing about the media industry is that it has a unique draw. It’s reactive, innovative, it overarches and influences social, cultural and political areas, and it attracts a certain type of person. Someone who can’t help but pursue a media career like a moth’s quest for a flame. People like me.

It doesn’t necessarily run on numbers and figures, qualifications and experience. In finance, accountancy, law: you either do the math or you don’t get considered, and your CV needs to read like a top 10 list of desirable accreditations.  Brilliance is defined by certificates and spreadsheets, and opportunity is a rigidly round hole for rigidly round pegs.

In a world where passion and creativity win you opportunities, however, eventually a combination of talent and determination can tempt a slice of luck.

The opportunity to come to Birddog was not exactly ‘round hole’.  One unassuming weekday browsing Twitter, in a long summer of unassuming weekdays browsing Twitter, I happened to spot an RT (that’s a ‘re-tweet’ message as opposed to a Radio Times) advertising a job vacancy. One further message and an email later, my CV was in front of interested eyes.

The message wasn’t for me; I saw it by chance. Someone I’ve never met face to face passed on a message from someone else I’d never met face to face. Through the power of social media, however, this chance connection became opportunity. And quite incredibly, chance manifested itself into employment.

It was for exactly this sort of event that during my two and half months unemployed, it never crossed my mind that I hade made a wrong decision. Leaving a job without another to go to – a challenge. Moving back in with the folks for the first time in six years – just a stop-gap.  The draw of the media industry still attracts a certain type of person, and even in this current climate, it’s great to know that determination, a bit of creativity and a slice of luck can still get you started.

I’m looking forward to making it count.

Tim Miller

Content Editor

But what about brands?  How can brands use Social Channels effectively?  In the new world order, instead of pushing our message at an audience, we are expected to allow the audience to make up their own minds, be selective about what information they choose to adopt and trust that they will spread our message within their own network of peers. What about the loss of control over subject and message?  For some brands, the thought of effectively handing the majority of their PR to their customers – you and I, has been, and still is a daunting prospect.  What if they say the wrong thing, what if they damage the brand?

The web today, Web 2.0, the social web, or whatever else you want to call it is different.  It’s no longer a channel controlled by website owners – as it was way, way back in the dark ages of 1999. It’s now a two way medium, with site owners providing us, the audience, with the tools by which to connect, share, and voice our thoughts and opinions.  The success of these sites is largely driven not just by the functionality they offer the users, but by the PR they achieve. But the PR coverage no longer comes exclusively from press releases and magazine adverts. It comes from us, the audience using them, becoming their advocates, singing their praises (or not) both online, and in day-to-day conversation.

Building a successful brand online, and then protecting it and your brand values isn’t just a case of having a nice shiny website with four gazillion RSS feeds, a Facebook page, or a Twitter alias. It’s a combination of all of these things, the appropriate use of the channels and relevant context.

Things you [as a brand] should think about before embarking on a Social Media strategy:

1. What are you looking to use Social Media for?  If you’re looking to use it as a direct sales tool, forget it (we’ll see why later)
2. Have you got the skills in-house to develop, launch and manage these channels?  If not, consider appointing outside expertise.
3. Are any of your competitors using social channels, and what are they using them for?  What can you learn from them?
4. Social Media isn’t ‘free’ (just like PR isn’t free).  Yes, setting up a simple Facebook or Twitter account costs nothing more than a few minutes of your time, but it’s how you then develop these channels in terms of functionality, management and marketing (seeding, incentives, fan engagement) which takes time and costs money – sometimes a considerable investment.
5. Are you comfortable with your employees engaging with whatever social channels you choose to launch and advocate?  There are varying levels of anonymity to most areas of social media, providing people with a means by which to have a gripe without giving away their true identity.
6. Are your internal PR team, or your PR agency social media savvy?  Do they know how to react correctly to whatever is said on any of the social channels?
7. Are you committed to your social strategy, as a long-term investment, not a quick thing you can pick up and put down as you see fit?

Creating presences in relevant platforms

When you can answer the questions above (and probably a few more questions along the way) the next step is to choose your channels.  Sounds simple right?  Well, not really.  This is the most important part of your strategy.  Using the appropriate channels for your brand will make or break your strategy so it’s vital to choose the right ones.  Relevancy is key – think about your audience, your customers, where are they in the digital space?  If you’re not sure, ask them!

Do this right and you’ll reap the rewards.  Get it wrong and you’ll either waste a whole load of time and money, or end up upsetting your audience.  Or a combination of the two.  Now that would be bad.

Let’s talk about Dell for a minute. Dell is a well-known brand that has been using social media effectively for some time now. Dell launched www.ideastorm.com on February 16, 2007, and continues to use it to gather feedback on existing products.  It’s also a place where you and I can make suggestions for new products, features or functionality.  Other people then vote on these suggestions.  Suggestions with the most votes get reviewed and potentially implemented by Dell.  The point of this site is not merely for Dell to gather consumer feedback on their products, it’s also a great PR tool – who can say Dell don’t listen?

Dell also has a Facebook page – Social Media for Small Business.  Search on Facebook for it and check it out.  It’s a great resource for SME’s and SOHO’s, that gives plain English introductions and whitepapers all about Social Media.

You’ll also notice Dell include social bookmarking icons on the majority of their online properties, empowering their users to easily save and share Dell content.

Relevancy.  Dell are using multiple social channels, but in ways that are relevant to the audiences of those properties.

What to include?

Of course, it’s important to ensure your messaging is consistent – after all, it’s your brand, but it’s also important to ensue that your tone of voice is relevant to the channel.  Come across too corporate on certain channels and you’ll discourage people from engaging with you.

By using social media as a means to engage with your audience, you can build a relationship with them, a good rapport. It’s a small step to turn customer conversation into customer advocacy of your brand.  Whether you’re engaging with your audience through social channels or not, people will be talking about you.  It’s better to be engaged and influencing the conversation than not at all.

Understanding the landscape and conversations – Social Media in a B2B context

Social Media as a tool in B2B can be broken into three core areas:

1. Conversation -  Channels such as Twitter fall under the conversation category. These channels are a continual stream of real-time chatter that you can dip in and out of as you wish.  Conversation channels are fast becoming the first source of information for people seeking up-to-the-minute information on anything current.
2. Community – Facebook is the best example here.  Whilst Facebook is a ‘social utility’, to most users, their space in Facebook is their own online community, made up of friends, relatives and associates.  Online communities are built through trust and relationships, and provide both users and advertisers with powerful communication tools.
3. Networking – Networking sites provide users with the ability to do exactly that, network. LinkedIn is a great example of a networking site, giving its users the ability to get introduced to people they want to know, through utilising existing relationships.  Networking sites are a powerful tool in today’s business world.

Of course there are other ways of using social media, however, understanding the above will ensure that you use social channels effectively and in a way that is relevant.

What to say?

The main thing to remember with all social media is that the conversation is continuous.  Just because you log off at 5:30pm, doesn’t mean the conversation ends until 9am the following morning when you log back on.

The web is 24/7.  As we’re going home in the UK, people in the US are going in to work.  Conversations that have been created by a predominantly UK audience will continue through the night with people around the world, so it’s important as a brand to understand how these conversations can develop, and the repercussions if something were to go awry.

So what can you as a brand do to ensure you’re saying the right thing?

1. Listen.  See what people are saying about your brand, where they’re saying it and to whom.
2. Get involved – join Facebook groups, follow conversations on Twitter, slowly begin to engage with these groups and conversations.
3. Be responsive.  If people are asking questions, be prepared to answer them, help them and guide them in the right direction.
4. Don’t try the hard sell approach on social channels.  Ever.  People won’t like you for it.  They will probably also tell you they don’t like it.  And their 100+ followers/friends.

When it all goes wrong!

There is a flipside to the good and wonder that is Social Media.  It can also severely damage a brand.  As a brand, you can no-longer control what others say online. How you react to what has been said online will therefore determine a good or bad final outcome. Here are a couple of examples of how to, and how not to do it:

How not to do it – United Breaks Guitars

United breaks guitars” is a powerful example of how social media empowers consumers and can tarnish the image of a big company.  In spring, 2008, Dave Carroll of the Sons of Maxwell band claimed United Airlines baggage handlers broke his $3,500 Taylor guitar on a flight stop-over in Chicago while travelling from Halifax to Nebraska. Ladies and Gentlemen – presenting Dave Carroll: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo

Dr. Natalie Petouhoff, a Forrester Research analyst covering customer experience/service and social media says “If you spend millions on advertising your brand and someone spend five cents on a YouTube video, you’ve just wasted a lot of advertising dollars. There’s a consensus around the frustration customers feel with companies that act like monolithic monsters”.

But the guitar wasn’t the only thing damaged.  In just four days from the launch of the song online, millions of viewers had watched the video on YouTube and United Airlines stock plummeted 10%, costing shareholders $180M at the time. ‘This could have bought Dave over 51,000 replacement guitars” reported Chris Ayres of the Times: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/chris_ayres/article6722407.ece

United’s lack of willing to engage with the consumer cost them dearly, and no amount of crisis management could rectify the situation. The damage had been done.

How to do it – Domino’s Pizza

The now infamous Domino’s food prank, where a couple of employees decided it would be funny to upload a video on to YouTube showing them doing various unsavoury (excuse the pun) things to food that was about to be cooked and delivered to customers: http://www.dailymotion.pl/video/x8zunc_dominospizzaemployedegoutant_fun

“By Wednesday (April 15) afternoon, the video had been viewed more than a million times on YouTube,” reported Stephanie Clifford of the New York Times. “References on it were in five of the 12 results on the first page of Google search for ‘Domino’s,’ and discussions about Domino’s had spread throughout Twitter. This goes to show how social media has the reach and speed to turn tiny incidents into marketing crises.”

However this situation was different.  Rather than ignore the matter, by Wednesday (April 15) afternoon, Domino’s had created a Twitter account, @dpzinfo, to address the comments as well as their CEO, Patrick Doyle making a personal address via YouTube, apologising and re-assuring people that the matter was being dealt with, and that it was an isolated incident, watch it for yourself here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7l6AJ49xNSQ

Making such a quick response within the social networks proved extremely helpful in efforts to re-establish trust and credibility with consumers while rebuilding their customers’ desire to purchase their products.

Things to remember with social media

1. You can’t control what people say about you online, but you can ensure you’re engaging with these people, and have the tools and knowledge to best to engage with them.
2. There is no room for spin with social media, if you try and manipulate the truth; chances are you will get found out.  Transparency is key.
3. It’s not all about you.  A big part of your success lies in how much and how well you interact and share with others in the social space.  This can range from quoting and referencing other brands’ articles, linking to useful resources (other than your own), or commenting in a positive manner to something someone has written.
4. The majority of social media engagement takes time and effort. It’s not something that can simply be bought [such as banner advertising].  It’s all about creating awareness, creating your unique space and building your reputation.
5. Just because a channel exists, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s right for your brand.
6. Attention, Interest, Desire, Action Advocacy.  That’s the thing to remember with social media, it’s not a direct sales tool. You don’t necessarily want your audience to perform an action.  You do however want them to become your advocates.

The day the Internet nearly died [Michael Jackson and the power of Wiki’s]

A Wiki is a website that runs the Wiki back end.  It is a content management system that enables collaborative contribution to the content of the site by the users.  Wikipedia is the best-known example, it was founded by Jimmy Wales in January 2001 and now has over 10 Million articles.

On the 26^th June 2009, it wasn’t just Michael Jackson who tragically died. People rushed to report the chain of events as they happened, with news spreading around the Internet at such a rapid rate that the load put on many websites was too much for them to handle, causing a large percentage of the web to almost grind to a halt.

People on Twitter were updating every minute, fuelling blogs and news sites.  But it wasn’t just Twitter, Facebook or blogs that were serving the news.  People were racing to Wikipedia to update Michael Jackson’s page, and all other pages that were in some way affiliated with the artist. Wikipedia saw close to 500 edits made to Jackson’s entry in less than 24 hours following his death.

So even before news sites, papers or television could get the news to the masses, social media had the scoop. Wikipedia is now one of the largest sources of news related information – and has even been credited with publishing news reports before the police know an incident has taken place!

Wiki’s – best practice

If you’re an established brand, it’s likely that there’s a Wikipedia page about you.  The first thing to remember about Wikipedia is that it’s not a sales tool. It’s designed to be unbiased and factual, so don’t approach the creation of a Wikipedia page with the idea that you can simply stick all of your well crafted PR on a page and that it will be accepted. It won’t.

1. Before creating an entry for your product or service, be sure the entry meets the notability requirement.
2. Remember, the page isn’t yours, other users can add or contribute to it – as long as what they write is factual.
3. Because anyone can create or modify a Wikipedia entry means that your entry could be modified by an unhappy customer, or worse, a competitor.  As a result you should regularly monitor your entries for any misleading or inaccurate information, and promptly make corrections.
4. The management of your Wikipedia page should become part of the management of all of your online channels such as your website and Facebook page.
5. Google loves Wikipedia.  If you’re number one on Google for your brand term, you may well find that in time, the Wikipedia page about your brand may overtake you into the number one spot.
6. The majority of people trust Wikipedia, so look upon having a presence on there in a positive light.
7. Every edit made to a Wikipedia page is archived and catalogued for future reference, so don’t do anything to a page that you might regret in the future.
8. Make sure your internal comms and PR team are fully aware and up-to speed with your Wikipedia page, and how to edit it.  Despite a large approvals team, the occasional slanderous or factually incorrect comment can appear on Wikipedia pages – make sure your team(s) know how to edit the page.

Finally

Social media isn’t merely something you can do as and when it suits you.  Even if you’re not engaged with it and in it on a regular basis you will fail. So spread the load. Consider you corporate social media policy and allow others to establish, join or maintain the conversation. This can range from your employees and customers to your competitors.  Ensuring your brand is as well protected as possible is about being aware of the conversations happening – even if you’re merely listening. But the best protection will come from the network itself. Brand advocates will do the protection and the promotion. Look after them.

Oliver Budworth

Digital Director

1. Assess your company’s digital strategy – is it fully integrated into your marketing mix?  If it isn’t, why not?  The opportunities the web presents to you as a business are immense, so you should make sure you’re exploiting all available channels.
2. Are you engaged in any social media activity?  Even if you’re not, chances are other people are talking about you and your brand right now – from your staff, your customers, or independent reviewers, someone will be.  Make sure you’ve got a presence in these channels and get engaged.
3. Do you use your own website?  Poor user experience is the number one gripe people have with businesses online.  Frustrating navigation, unnecessary long user journeys, shopping carts that don’t work.  Today’s programming languages enable websites to do pretty much anything; there aren’t any constraints any more, so there are no excuses for the technology letting down the user experience.  Anyone who tells you otherwise is wrong.
4. When was the last time you updated your website?  Websites generally need at least a design refresh every 12-18 months to ensure they remain looking fresh.
5. Are you thinking about the mobile web?  Whilst ‘web-on-the-go’ has been around for quite a long time, it’s only over the past year or so that it has become more and more mainstream.  With more people accessing the web on their mobile on a regular basis, does your offering sufficiently cater for mobile web users?
6. Are you looking to save money in the recession?  If your website is built in .NET – a Microsoft technology, then chances are you’re paying hefty annual licenses for the server software.  You might want to consider a re-build in an Open-Source language such as PHP.  Open-Source languages have come a long way.  So far in fact that they now serve the platform for some of the highest trafficked sites in the world – such as Facebook, Twitter and Del.icio.us – all built in PHP!
7. Search is still huge.  Despite everyone talking about Social Media all of the time, it’s vital that your organisation has a search strategy in place.  This will cover both paid (PPC) and natural (SEO).  After all, over half of all people online start their journey with a search!

Oliver Budworth

Digital Director

Facebook are constantly implementing news ways of interacting with other users of the site.  These interactions have come to be known as ‘social actions’. Sites such as Facebook offer many new ways in which to interact with content, such as commenting, ‘liking’, updating a status, tagging, opting in and out, polling, submitting content, discussing and sharing. These social actions are the new currency in the online social space, and social networks (or utilities as Facebook likes to be referred to) have quickly recognised this and have been developing their APIs to enable developers to integrate functionality from these networks into content that sits outside of the network itself.

Social actions also offer marketers a new type of metric by which to measure activity within any given campaign which involves social channels in the mix.

A while ago, Facebook launched ‘Connect’ which allowed content owners to include Facebook login areas – enabling visitors to log in to sites using their Facebook login credentials – sort of like Open ID.  Due to the success of Connect and the increasing demand from developers to do more with Connect, Facebook has now launched ‘Open Graph’.  In a nutshell, Open Graph allows website owners to integrate some of the functionality of Facebook into their own sites, such as allowing visitors to ‘like’ something, just as they would with a piece of content served within Facebook itself. For example, someone on Hewlett Packard’s website could ‘like’ a new server in a news release, just as they would ‘like’ something on Facebook but to use it, users need to be registered members of Facebook, and the content they are ‘liking’ must link to content within Facebook – the Hewlett Packard fan page for example.

Why are Facebook offering this I hear you ask?  Well let’s be clear. Just as Google created ‘Google Analytics’ and offer it for ‘free’, in return, they get statistics on millions of websites around the world, Facebook will now gain huge insight into the behaviour of its users on the sites they use when they’re not on Facebook.

It’s an advertisers dream!

Just think for a minute, detailed insight into user behaviour on a granular level never seen before, means being able to really target products and services at users on an entirely reactive level.  I’ll elaborate…

Imagine someone (let’s call them Mike) is in the market for a new TV.  Mike uses Facebook and has updated his status saying he’s off shopping, but he hasn’t said what for – it doesn’t really provide advertisers with the information to deliver a targeted and relevant advert to him.  He leaves Facebook and goes to Google and searches for ‘LCD TV’s’.  He then visits countless numbers of sites, including retailers, TV forums and shopping comparison sites to find out about the latest models. He eventually decides he likes an LG model but wants to get more information about it so he visits LG’s website to get the full specification. Whilst on LG’s site, he sees there’s an option to ‘like’ the TV, just as he would ‘like’ something in Facebook, so he clicks it.

He might just be window shopping at the moment, with the intention of buying within the next few months and so often, that is where the user journey ends – with a bookmark to the TV spec on LG’s site which he may or may not re-visit in a month’s time.  But by ‘liking’ the TV, he is then also doing a number of things in the background.   Just as any other Facebook action appears on your wall, so does an action using Open Graph.  Your friends can see what you’re doing outside of Facebook and can then interact with you.  Mike’s friend Chis is a bit of a TV geek and comments on Mike’s wall entry telling him that the TV is awesome and a really good choice, but in addition, Currys [the retailer] could serve Mike an advert tailored to that specific TV, offering Mike a discount.  Mike gets a relevant advert, Currys gets a sale. Everyone wins.

People may argue that this is yet another invasion of their privacy, but I don’t agree. It’s always optional to interact with content and actually, by ad and social networks gaining greater insight into their users, adverts will only become more targeted and more relevant to their audiences. Something’s got to pay the bills right? Bring it on!

So what’s happened?  The most significant change has been the growth and adoption of IPTV, or ‘TV on demand’ as it is often referred.  The BBC’s ‘iPlayer’ is probably the most well-known example.

TV on demand is essentially the beginning of the democratisation of one of the most powerful and popular formats of traditional media – Television.  No longer are consumers fixed to watching programmes in the order dictated by the broadcaster and the programme guide, they can now choose to watch what they want, when they want, on whatever compatible device they want – Television sets, desktop and laptop computers, smart phones, games consoles, the list goes on.

But what does this mean for advertisers?  Is the killer ad-spot on a Saturday night still as relevant if the people seeing the programme are watching it on a Tuesday lunchtime?  You could argue that video recorders have been around for years so there’s always been this problem, however people were generally more select with what they recorded, plus programmes weren’t ‘on-demand’ – we couldn’t watch something we hadn’t remembered to record.

In addition to the increase in programme choice, new platforms are emerging, aggregating multiple ‘on-demand’ services, such as BBC iPlayer, Channel 4’s 4OD, ITV’s ITVPlayer and so on, and delivering the content through one site, making it easier for consumers to view and choose content without having to navigate multiple websites.  This is the first part of convergence – the channels no longer sit in isolation.

I see the second part of the convergence happening when devices that can play this content through people’s televisions in the lounge reach tipping point.  I see myself as an early adopter, I’ve got to have the latest gadgets as soon as they hit the market so I regularly make use of the excellent iPlayer application on the PS3 – linked to my TV in my lounge.  I also get Sky TV through the net, through Sky Player, however I’m in the minority.  People don’t want to watch an evening of TV on their laptop, and until such a time comes where you can view iPlayer and all of the other on-demand services through your TV using your remote control (without the need for other devices such as games consoles) things won’t change much for most people.

Phew! So advertisers still have their prime ad slots… but what new opportunities does TV on demand present?

Hey! It’s the fucking Internet right? Guess what that means? ANALYTICS. Yes. Analytics, fucking loads of stats and monitoring. What percentage of 50 plus women who watch Coronation Street also use ASOS? ‘click’.

This is REALLY exciting. Really exciting. Behavioural monitoring, contextual advertising, hey, what about personalised advertising? ‘Hi Bob, you drive a BMW, ever thought about an Audi? You nearest dealer is… Yeah, that made you sit up didn’t it?

It’s not just about the analytics though.  Once the channels and ad networks crack it, we’ll get advertising that really is relevant to us, taking into consideration the TV and radio shows we listen to, not just the websites we look at – which are often very different to the types of TV we watch. I watch Eastenders, I don’t go on the Eastenders website. Ever. Nor do I Google pictures of Barbara Windsor. (Well, maybe once or twice).

TV has sort of been trying to achieve this for some time now – watch an ad, text a short code to get more info/a free sample/book now, or hey, visit our website – but how many people sit in their lounge, laptop at the ready for the TV ad web addresses – some of us yes, but we’re in the minority. How about a contextual, personalised TV advert which takes Bob to a contextual, personalised web page – how’s that for a good user journey?

I predict big things happening in the next 12 months, check out the following sites for a glimpse of what’s to come:

http://www.seesaw.com

http://zattoo.com

http://www.teev.co.uk

http://www.hulu.com

http://www.playon.tv

Oliver Budworth

Digital Director

• The work getting bumped due to pressing client deadlines
• Different people within the agency getting involved at different stages and not agreeing on some aspect of the site
• No-one having any time to create content for the site
• New technologies rapidly emerging that you feel just have to be included in the site, pushing the development time out even further

Sound familiar? We’ve all been there. Here are some tips that I feel should help you in planning and delivering your company website faster.

1. Make sure the project has an owner – a champion. Assigning the project to a group of people will often never work. Everyone has their own agenda and client work will always take precedent. If someone is given ownership responsibility they will ensure the project is pushed through and delivered. Make sure this person is someone who is well connected within the agency and knows how to get their own way when it comes to getting things done.
2. Treat your company as you would any client – give the project a job number and book in agency resource including an Account and/or Project Manager. By doing this, it is more likely that you will get access to the right resource at the times you need it, rather than trying to fit it in during the odd hour here or there.
3. Run a questionnaire with multiple choice answers to gather feedback and information [bit from Scot’s book]
4. Plan who you are going to involve.  If you ask a hundred people a question, you will get one hundred answers.  Run focus groups concentrating on the areas of specialism of the people in those groups. Involve as fewer [more from Scot’s book]
5. Whilst the creative team might all have some input on the new design, try to ensure the same designer/design team work on the design from start to finish. This will help in keeping all of the various aspects of the content consistent, and will also make it easier to adapt the design quickly, should part of it need amending.
6. Look at your competitors. Not because you want to emulate them but to make sure none of them already have a site that looks exactly like the one you’re planning. Sounds obvious but launching a site that looks like the competition never looks good. You’re there to differentiate from the competition right?
7. Plan your copy. Content is one of the hardest challenges in any new site build. Good copy requires time to create, something many agency staff don’t have the luxury of. Create a template people can just type into, and include a wireframe showing them what the page will look like so that they can get a feel for the content. Give them a content brief that shows them the tone of voice for the new site and make sure you set a strict word limit. If what you get back is wrong, don’t be afraid to push it back with some constructive feedback and get them to have a second stab at it.
8. Make sure Social Media courses through the veins of the site. Not only should your site become the example of others to follow, by integrating services such as Twitter, Facebook and Flickr as well as having comments enabled on all of your site articles will encourage both staff and external visitors to get involved in contributing a wide range of content, from something as simple as a Tweet, through to detailed responses to one of your blog posts.
9. Don’t forget the right order in which to plan your site. Usability should always come before Design. You new site might look pretty, but if you have to explain to visitors how to use it, if it takes ages to load on a 1mb broadband connection, if it’s style over substance people won’t use it and it will most likely become a talking point for all of the wrong reasons.
10. Plan your SEO. Whilst it could be argued that SEO is gradually becoming less relevant, with more traffic now going to Social Networks as opposed to Search Engines, search engines such as Google still usually deliver the majority of traffic to most sites, so it is important to plan your search strategy from the outset.

There are probably many more points to be added, so feel free to add your own comments below.

Oliver Budworth

Digital Director

I felt like a gunslinger walking into the saloon where the conversation stops and the piano player dives behind the bar. The safety catch was off. I now had a choice. I could back out the door slowly and hope I made it to my horse before my mouth started firing random abuse, or I could slug it out. Sometimes I wish I could just, you know, ‘not’. But there we are…

The red mist welled up and all I can really remember is that I didn’t jab my finger in anyone’s face. I saw an interview with Bill Clinton once where he said that in heated debate, it was essential not to point fingers as the gesture was overly aggressive. Clinton used his thumb which, apparently, is politically correct. So there I was, purple faced, neck vein bulging, spraying spittle across a good metre and a half of conference table as I ranted uncontrollably and all I could think of was, “It’s Ok Scot, it doesn’t matter what names you’re calling him, you’re not pointing, you’re using your thumb. All is well.”

All was in fact very far indeed from ‘well’. It was unacceptable in my opinion that a two billion dollar company should ask a number of small agencies for their unpaid responses to their brief and then move the goalposts from ‘awareness’ to ‘value proposition’. I was particularly incandescent because this was at least the second time this particular client (I use the term loosely) had shape-shifted mid stroke. 18 months earlier the brief had been for a (expressly and specifically) “radical and creative brand strategy.” That’s what I delivered. Turns out my proposal was “too radical…” and, “too creative…” The agency appointed was, “safe, with a process.” Safe it may well have been, but the client had seemingly spent 18 months producing a brand strategy with a worthless proposition and decided that the best time to be disappointed at my lack of telepathy skills was after I had presented the requested brand awareness campaign. Tisk.

At some undefined point, my spleen was fully vented and a stunned silence reigned. (There was still a wild howling in my ears of course, but for the most part, the room was quiet.) I packed up my things, and, with the surprising absence of ‘any further questions’, I left.

He called me the following day. I’m still not sure why. Apparently, “it’s important to follow these things up.” Well, no, it isn’t. Everything had been said. It turns out he still thought he was right and just wanted another fight. I nearly gave it to him too. But as the red mist rose, I caught myself, took a deep breath and simply said, “Look, you’re worth nothing to me. You’ve been worth nothing for years and you’ll never be worth anything. You’re a drain on my resources and my energy. I can apply both to considerably better commercial advantage elsewhere. The conversation’s over. Goodbye.” And I hung up.

It’s possible I was wrong. It’s possible that the work didn’t answer the brief. It’s even possible that it just wasn’t good enough. But that’s not the point. The point, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is that you have to believe. Not a little, not a lot. You have to BELIEVE with every single fibre in your body. Because no one else will. Least of all the client. Believe it, live it and hang up on any mutthafuggah who isn’t prepared to die for the cause.

Scot McKee
Managing Director
Birddog Ltd.
+44 (0)20 7323 6666