The new sites, brochures and databases have been developed by OpenBrolly, backed by its MovieSite technology. MovieSite is now used by agencies across the UK, Ireland and in Poland, Austria and Abu Dhabi. The technology was implemented in just two months in time for the 62nd Berlin International Film Festival.

MovieSite will also allow Film Commission Poland to track the economic impact of projects in the country as well as providing a marketing platform.

Film Commission Poland offers a free and confidential service to the film, television and commercial production community including: information and advice on locations and permissions; contacts for cast, crew and facilities; information on accommodation and recce support.

Image for this article by Gnesener1900 on Wikipedia.

Spam is a problem for virtually everyone with email accounts. Understandably most companies and email providers, such as Google Mail and Yahoo! Mail, have taken steps to reduce the amount of spam email their users receive.

Users of MovieSite, our solution for Film Commissions, can send emails to crew, facilities, locations and other contacts easily through the system.

One of the ways in which companies prevent spam is through Sender Policy Framework (SPF). Put simply, this is a list identifying which computers are allowed to send email on behalf of a company. For example, there are a handful of servers in the world which are authorised to send email on behalf of openbrolly.com. Email purporting to come openbrolly.com but not from one of these authorised servers is, most likely, spam.

If we are sending email on behalf of one of our clients it is important that, where their company uses SPF, they include our servers in their list of authorised servers. This means that, when an email is sent through MovieSite, it is recognised as valid and not spam.

We have made it easy (if you know what you are doing) to do this.

In the current SPF record for your domain add:
include:spf-c.openbrolly.com

Please contact our support team if you need more information.

Best wishes,
David.

This iPad Magazine offers an insight into the event, including a full programme and a specially commissioned interview with Dr Marek Kukula.

After the event the magazine will be updated with a record of the event – something rarely done due to the costs of printing new brochures and distributing them.

An iPhone version of the brochure will be available shortly.

The iPad version is available for download from the Apple iTunes Store.

For those who don’t have an iPad there is also a web version for the latest browser versions.

Dark Skies Orkney comes about through funding from the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) and Orkney Islands Council.

The survey finds that two-thirds of people who read magazines on tablets and e-readers think they’ll be spending more time with digital issues over the next year. Many of them — 46 percent — are consuming more magazines — both in print and digital form — than they did before they got their hands on an iPad. And 63 percent of them want more digital stuff to read.

The report does offer some guidance for the industry: 89 percent of readers want publishers to adopt a uniform way of navigating magazines, and 69 percent like watching in-app videos that run less than minute.

Source: iPad Insight

For more information on how OpenBrolly can create an iPad brochure or magazine for your business contact us, or check out our FAQ.

David will be sharing his experience of utilising technology effectively in a film commission context. A discussion of how agencies have effectively used MovieSite, OpenBrolly’s successful management and marketing solution, will provide the backbone of the presentation. David will also cover the rapidly changing opportunities that technology provides: including iPhone, iPad and social media.

Formally established in 2007, the EUFCN represents 80 European Film Commissions from 24 countries.

For more information about OpenBrolly’s services to film commissions and screen agencies, please contact david.sim@openbrolly.com.

UPDATED: 11 Nov 2011 – 12pm

Is it just for iPad?
Is it an app?
Our website provides all the information needed and can be viewed on an iPad and iPhone so why would we want an iPad brochure?
Is it branded as OpenBrolly?
Can you put information from databases in a brochure?
How do we get information into the brochure?
Do you offer a standard app we put our information onto?
How is the brochure delivered?
What services do you offer?
Can you convert my PDF into a brochure?
How do people download / find the brochure?
Can we tell how many people downloaded / used the brochure?
Is it just for travel and tourism?
Can we have interactive maps / crosswords / other features?
Can we resell your services?
Can we sell advertising in our brochure?
How does the app get updated?
Can we do a “one-off” for a trade show?
Do you do the design? Can we design it ourselves?
Push Messaging Costs?
What is the relevance of the iPad to the marketplace?

Is it just for iPad?

We can deliver for the iPhone too. And Android. And we can put the content onto a web-based platform that most modern computers and devices can read.

Is it an App? 

Yes. On the iPad we create an app, listed in the Apple App Store, that has its own icon. The brochure can also be distributed as a “web app” which is accessible in most modern web browsers and on most modern mobile devices.

Our website provides all the information needed and can be viewed on an iPad and iPhone so why would we want an iPad brochure?
An iPad brochure is a different experience to a website. Websites are generally seen as something you get information from and get out of as quickly as possible. A brochure or magazine is something to take time to enjoy, with beautiful images and long-form articles. A brochure can reinforce a brand – for example a health spa could include articles on health and fitness as well as a focus on the business itself. An iPad brochure is also portable – read, watch and listen to rich content when on a plane, train or in a restaurant, away from a high-speed Internet connection. The iPad is deeply personal: the icon for your brochure on the iPad’s home screen is a reminder of the connection the reader has with you.

iPad brochures are better than printed brochures at supporting your website: the reader is only one tap away from your booking form or another call to action. We can work with you or your website developer to ensure that your website also works well on an iPad.

Is it branded as OpenBrolly?

No. It’s your logo and app name.

How do we get the information onto the brochure?

We have a variety of routes for clients to get information onto the brochure. Sending us PDFs, word documents, images, videos, audio is fine. We can also provide a content management system to enable you to update content. We can also potentially link with your existing content production systems – such as your web content management system or publishing system.

Do you offer a standard app that we put our information into? 

We offer a consultative approach, in that we work out what is best for you and your brochure readers in terms of presentation. We’re not just copying a PDF onto the iPad; we make your content look and feel natural and compelling.

In short, we work out what is best for you and build to suit. However, we do use an Open Source framework so your money goes into making the app brilliant, not licensing fees for software.

How is the brochure delivered?

For the iPad, iPhone and Android it’s delivered through the relevant app store. It can also be made available on the web.

I’d like an iPad brochure – what services do you offer? 

• Brochure and Magazine Design
• Content Management Systems
• Integration with your Databases and Booking Systems
• Integration with Social Media
• Application Design and Build
• Search and Case Based Recommendation

Can you put information from databases in a brochure? 
Yes – it’s one of our specialities! The brochure can be fed from database (or spreadsheet) information on an ongoing basis. The information can be presented in a variety of ways, including searches, lists, maps and graphs.

How do we let people download the brochure / how do people find it?

For iPad and iPhone the brochure is distributed through Apple’s App Store. For other devices this may be through an app store or directly on the web.

Each brochure has a web address – so you can email the link, put it on your website, on printed materials or you can use QR Codes.

(QR codes are like square barcodes that smartphones can scan).

Can we tell how many people downloaded / used the brochure?

Yes. On the app stores there are stats. We can also embed code into the brochure to tell when people have used it, so you can track not only the number of downloads but the number of times the brochure is used.

You can also track how people found out about the brochure – for example by tracking responses from an email distribution, from your website, from printed materials.

Is it just for travel and tourism?

No, although we have a lot of experience in travel. We also have experience in other sectors, including the film industry and in the public sector.

Can we have interactive maps / crosswords / other features?

Yes. Pretty much anything that could be on the iPad can be incorporated into a brochure.

Can we resell your services?

We’re looking into the opportunities this provides and are very interested in talking!

Can we sell advertising in our brochure?

Yes – it’s your brochure. Revenue share is a possibility.

How does the app get updated?

There’s two main methods. We can issue an update to the app through the app store, which is ideal for larger updates to the brochure.

In addition we can have “live” updates. For example, if your application incorporates “what’s on” information this can be updated every time the brochure is opened, making sure it’s right up to date.

We are also integrating Apple Newsstand; this is more relevant to regular magazines /periodicals than who have daily / weekly / monthly updates. Watch this space!

Can we do a “one-off” for a trade show?

Yes. This is a common use. It’s expensive to print a small run of brochures especially for a trade show. The iPad brochure can be created once then adapted for each trade show.

Do you do the design? Can we design it ourselves?

We can design the app, or we can provide a specification of design requirements to your own designer.

Push Messaging

There may be charges for push messaging of up to $0.002 per message.

What is the relevance of the iPad to the marketplace? 

• iPad – fastest ever consumer device to sell $1bn
• 94% of iPad Users are “affluent consumers” (Source: Yahoo)
• Travellers are switching to iPad rather than laptops and netbooks (Source: NPD)
• Sales conversion (2%) is 5 times higher on iPad than iPhone and Android (Source: Shopatron)
• Over 40 million units sold in under 18 months (Source: Apple Inc.)

Visit our stand, TT088, and find out how the iPad can help you target customers, enhance their experience and increase the time they are engaged with you.

• iPad – fastest ever consumer device to sell $1bn
• 94% of iPad Users are “affluent consumers” (Source: Yahoo)
• Travellers are switching to iPad rather than laptops and netbooks (Source: NPD)
• Sales conversion (2%) is 5 times higher on iPad than iPhone and Android (Source: Shopatron)
• Over 40 million units sold (Source: Apple Inc.)

Blackberry is suffering in part because its technology has been, to date, very reliable. That has led to a dependency that the service will always be there. It’s something we we are familiar with at OpenBrolly. Tens of thousands of users rely on our information systems daily to allow them to effectively do their jobs or manage their leisure.

To deliver on this promise we work with Amazon cloud technologies and other traditional architectures to give us flexibility and redundancy. If a server goes down we can fire up a new one in minutes. Data is held on multiple sites. If a client needs additional capacity for a product launch we can bring it online quickly.

We manage and deliver many terabytes of data which comes with its own challenges. Our clients trust us to overcome these so they can get on with running their businesses without worrying about servers and technical systems. We repay this trust with very high levels of availability, fast access to data and managed backup solutions.

Reports suggest that Blackberry suffered a “perfect storm” – failures of backup equipment after primary equipment failed. The huge volumes of data they deal with meant that there was an immediate domino effect as other systems overflowed with information and failed. This yesterday spread from Europe to the US as the North American systems failed with huge amounts of undelivered messages to Europe.

The industry as a whole needs to urgently find new ways of dealing with failures involving these volumes of data. Amazon, who also have be known for reliability, suffered as a series of hardware failures combined to cause a whole data centre to become unavailable as resources in the remaining equipment were overwhelmed.

Perhaps increased decentralisation is the answer – it seems incredible that an entire continent’s communication systems should rely on hardware running in a single data centre. Many industry argue that either cloud or traditional computing is better. They both have many merits and many weaknesses and therefore more complex combinations of technologies may get the best of both worlds.

In this situation, though, Blackberry seems have have had a difficult relationship with its customers. A workshop I presented at yesterday had a few frustrated Blackberry users in the audience, many of whom said they would look at alternatives this weekend.

I can’t help but feel that Apple’s customers would have been angered and frustrated by such a failure. But there would have been little call from Apple’s customers to look to competing products as a solution. Blackberry’s customer experience, however, has been flagging for years in the light of developments from Android and Apple and disappointing hardware and software from RIM. Blackberry made matters worse with poor communication with customers – giving resolution times which were not delivered on meaning customers didn’t plan other ways to get to their information. They gave scant information about the problem at its outset which affected trust long term.

Sadly this customer service failure has turned a catastrophic technical failure into a catastrophic business failure. While the technical team licks their wounds and regroups, the management must ask themselves why their customer relationships have broken down to such an extent that this has become the excuse many of their customers have been looking for.

Thoughts? Comments to @davidrsim on Twitter.