*UPDATE: The Hood name "Union Kloof" has been chosen as the winner!

The Name Your Hood website, built by Bluegrass Digital team, is a website that allows the public to propose a name for the different neighbourhoods in Cape Town and to vote for their favorite. Read theCape Times article below.

Let's say you've added a new blog post to your site and you've posted a link to your blog on Facebook and tweeted about it. With Google analytics real-time you'll be able to see the increase in site traffic from both sources and compare them. You'll also be able to see exactly when traffic from either source subsides, which can be an indication that it's time to engage further with that channel.

You can access the new real-time analytics page by logging in to your analytics account and clicking on "New Version" at the top right hand side of the Google analytics page. Once you're there choose one of your accounts and then click on the "home tab" > then click on "Real-time (beta)" on the left hand side > and then click on "Overview".

Now you can view your site in real-time in Google analytics.

You should then start to see something like the below screenshots. We have highlighted a few to show you the power of this new feature, including:

RIGHT NOW STATS

TOP CONVERSION PATHS

MOBILE HANDSET GRAPHICS - more of a nifty 'cool' feature!

TRAFFIC SEGMENTATION ANALYSIS

The campaign strategy and website design was done by Tribal DDB who created the look and feel including the animated gif's which were produced in a studio. The user can literally strip the look right off the model.

We've also incorporated a couple of social plugins which, combined with an online media and email campaign strategy, helps to seed the campaign and drive traffic.

Visit the campaign and browse the looks at stripthelook.36boutiques.com.

Google has just recently allowed for the creation of Google+ Brand or Business pages. These are similar to the business profiles you can setup in Facebook but now you can make them on Google+. Do we think that Google+ Brand Pages will trump Facebook Business Profiles? Hard to say at this point and a little too early, but we need to remember that Google is a Seach Engine,

Google disabled Realtime Search, which displayed tweets from Twitter and some limited content from Facebook on July 4 after its contract with Twitter expired and they never bothered renewing, probably because they would integrate their own Google+ feed into search results. If Google does this, businesses will have to create a Google+ business page and begin adding regular content updates for a chance to appear organically in real-time on a user's search query.

So we've put together a quick "How to Guide" on creating your own Google+ Brand Page to help you get yours up and running. But before we get into that, it's important for you to first decide on whether this is the right move for your marketing strategy.

Before you go ahead and create your page we recommend you go through the following checklist to ensure that creating a Google+ page is a good idea for your business. Will you be able to answer the following:

Who will run the page once it's been created?

Will that person have the time and energy to actively engage with users?

Will you be able to make regular content updates to keep your page looking fresh e.g. interesting post's, pictures, news updates etc?

Are you able to deal with customers and clients expressing negative feedback on your page?

If you answered yes to all of the above and have a clear place in your marketing vision for the page then you are ready to start creating you Google+ Business page.

The 'HOW TO GUIDE' to setting up a Google+ Business Page

STEP 1:

If you haven't already, create a Google+ profile for yourself. You can only create a business page through your own personal profile or that of the person who is going to run it.

STEP 2:

Once you're logged into Google+ navigate to the page creation step. Here you must choose a category for your business, which includes:

Local Business or Place
Suitable for: hotels, restaurants, places, stores, services

Product or Brand
Suitable for: apparel, cars, electronics, financial services

Company, Institution or Organization
Suitable for: companies, institutions, organizations, non-profits

Arts, Entertainments or Sports
Suitable for: films, TV, music, books, sports, shows

Other
Suitable if your business doesn't fit into another category

STEP 3:

Now we start adding details such as your company name, website address and which users you'd like to allow acces to your page (choose everyone for maximum visibility).

STEP 4:

Now you can add your page's profile picture, which will probably be your logo as Google will only allow a certain size and image shape (i.e. Square). The tag line could be your companies slogan, the bio space is very tight. You have just 10 words to summarize your business.

STEP 5:

Get the word out! Here you can share your new page with anyone on Google+ that is within your circles. So tell your friends, get your friends to invite their friends and start marketing your new Google+ Business Page.

STEP 6:

Once you click finish you'll be taken to your newly created page. You'll see a list of things to do on your page and this is where you can start editing your page in more depth.

You should also think about linking your Google+ page to your other accounts e.g. your Twiiter account, so that when you tweet it will show up on your page as a new post.

If you take the time to add the interesting details and content to your page, it will be more engaging and, combined with Google's layout, become an effective social marketing tool - just look at the Angry Birds page as an example.

Here are some links to other business pages to help get you started:

Good Mornign America

Macy's

Pepsi

Toyota

1) The FamFamFam Icons package is a great way to add user friendly icons to the Umbraco CMS.  You'd be very surprised how something as simple as a nice looking set of icons can improve the user's CMS experience.

2) ImageGen is an easy-to-use application that once installed automatically resizes photos, screenshots, and images from icons to thumbnails to full-screen sizes. Clients will no longer need to worry about resizing and cropping their images in Photoshop, just upload and ImageGen does everything on the fly. Some of the main ImagGen features include:

• Resizing large images 'on the fly' into smaller web optimised versions.
• Creates text graphics and overlay text on an image, which is particularly useful for making image-based navigation with styled dynamic text on top.
• Protect and brand client images with watermarks
• Advanced caching means that the website images are served promptly when called
• With more than 30 options available you will have the freedom to create almost any variation your client can think of.

3)  Broken link checker does pretty much what the title suggests. It searches your links as you publish them and if they're not valid, reports them to you via the Umbraco dashboard. It starts workings as soon as it's installed but please note:

1. Links are queued for checking and background scheduled tasks perform the actual verification. Once a user has fixed a broken link, it is removed from the dashboard
2. Dashboard RSS 1.01 has to be installed before you install this package
3. If you already have items on your dashboard you will have to manually configure the dashboard to allow the broken links to be added.

4)  Google analytics for Umbraco adds a section to the Umbraco backend where you can view your Google analytics reports. You can create your own reports from the metrics and dimensions through the Google analytics API or otherwise view some (32) of the standard reports. The latest version lets you change between your various Analytics profiles. You also have the option to remove profiles form the accounts-node which means the client will only have access to the profiles you've allowed.

5)  The Desktop media uploader package allows you to upload media directly to Umbraco through an application on your computer.  All the client has to do is sign in to their account on the application and it's a matter of dropping and dragging their media into the main window. An upload queue will be generated and upon clicking upload all the items will be sent to whichever media folder was specified.

User privileges can be applied giving your client access to upload files only to folders that have been allowed preventing media winding up in the wrong place. The application will also not allow files to upload if too large for the server preventing any unnecessary upload attempts.

1) According to a research study done by Nielsen, there are 29million people using mobile phones in South Africa. That figure far outweighs the 6 million people using computers, of which 4million have an internet connection. Most mobile phones nowadays have a 3G connection or some other connection allowing them to browse the world wide web. That means you can reach a far greater target audience if you have a good mobile strategy and mobile website.

2)  Cellular Network quality in South Africa is now faster and covers a wider range than ever before. This means more users are able to access your business proposition online via their mobile phones, quicker and more easily than ever before.

3)  Tablets like the Apple iPad and Samsung Galaxy Tab allow users to view mobile websites on a larger screen, that is portable and in perfect resolution - in fact I find the picture quality on my iPad 2 better than my computer. Screensize is no longer a problem as technologies continue to evolve!

4) Twitter, Facebook and other social media tools often come pre-installed on some mobile devices. These tools allow users share content and links with their friends and communities and these links often lead users back to your website. How does your website look today on a mobile phone? You need to be prepared for users to be navigating to your website via their mobile device.

5) Having a mobile presence allows even more contact and engagement between you and your consumers, as you provide them the means to engage with your business whenever and wherever they may be. If they have a problem, wouldn't you want to know about it immediately, so that you can remedy their problem?

6) A mobile site is a simple way to allow customers to access your normal website but in a "mobile friendly" way. Look at the example below: Dominos Pizza have created a mobile website that is completely customised for the best mobile browsing experience. Imagine trying to order a pizza using the option on the right - a nightmare. With their mobile solution they provide the user with the essential tools and information, customised for the smaller mobile display, allowing the user to navigate and find what they are looking for quickly and easily. 10/10.

7) Access to your mobile device is quicker and easier than to your computer making mobile a very desirable place to put your brand. Impulse purchases such as ordering "take out" often sees the consumer reaching for their phone or tablet to decide what to order and from where. Having a mobile website has the potential to allow customers the freedom to place an order and have it delivered, directly from their mobile device.

8) Nearly 75% of consumers remember an ad when viewed across multiple Media Platforms. A study by Nielsen showed a substantial increase in the ability to remember an ad campaign when advertised on multiple platforms compared to advertising on TV alone. Having a mobile website, simply brings your brand to your consumers pocket, making you more accessible and certainly more memorable.

9) Google maps nowadays also comes pre-installed on most phones. It allows your customers the convenience to find you on their mobile devices without the hassle of having to find a computer or remember your physical address. If customers find you on their Google Maps search, then they may also want to look up your website at the same time for additional information.

10) And probably the most important reason to have a mobile website presence, is the fact that mobile technology is the way of the future. It is constantly evolving and changing the way we communicate with each. BBM, WhatsApp, Google Talk are just a few of the 'new school' ways of communicating. In some of the poorest African countries where running water is a problem, you can be sure that the vast majority of the people will have a mobile phone. Enough said.

To become an investigator and start solving the mystery go to www.iecrimescene.co.za and register.

Shape develops opportunities for disabled artists; we train cultural institutions to be more open to disabled people, and we run participatory arts and development programmes.

The new charity website incoporates the new branding and design taking account of the key audiences and needs for the charity.

Behind the curtain, the website is powered by Umbraco 4 content management system and integrated with Shape's CRM system called ProgressCRM. There are also eCommerce components that drive the purchase of products, donations and event bookings with various payment options including an integrated Direct Debit system. All data and information is housed in the CRM which provided a real-time response via a web service.

The first thing you will probably notice is the new vertical split window. Now that you can have an unlimited number of elements in a repeater tag, we switched to a vertical split so you can still see most of your email when you're adding / editing content.

On top of the new layout, here are some of the most exciting bits that have been updated:

1. Put anything in a repeater
2. Design multiple layouts within the same repeater
3. Streamlined WYSIWYG editor
4. Add alt text to any images
5. Updated template language

To view a nice video displaying all these updates coming on MONDAY 11th July please watch the video below!

I'd like to give you an overview of why it is not a good idea to send bulk marketing emails via Outlook and why using a bulk email platform like BluegrassMailer is a much better idea. Yes, it may cost a tiny bit more, but the benefits far outweigh the costs.

1. Blacklisted - you run the risk of having your actual domain blacklisted as a spammer! That means not even your work emails will go through until you get un-blacklisted.
2. SPAM - this is a serious issue. Over recent years many tools have been created in an attempt to combat it. Disgruntled recipients can now report any email they receive as SPAM, which results in your IP address being blacklisted. Therefore, if you send email from Outlook you are at greater risk of being reported. Using a third-party service such as BluegrassMailer avoids these risks, as we are whitelisted with all major email providers and authorised to send bulk email campaigns.
3. Server Load - Outlook is a great programme for sending and receiving individual emails. However, it is not designed for sending large bulk email campaigns. If you compose an email to 1000 people using Outlook, as soon as you press send, Outlook will be strenuous work for the server which handles your incoming and outgoing email, and if you do this too often, your ISP (Internet Service Provider) will get annoyed.
4. Return on Investment (ROI) - Outlook was never designed to send bulk email. It does not come with some of the advanced features BluegrassMailer provides. One such feature is the ability to track your campaign's success. Once an email is sent using Outlook, it is impossible to find out if someone has opened the email or clicked a link within it. In BluegrassMailer you will see a detailed analysis of your campaign after sending. Who clicked what image or link. How many times email was opened. What time of day was it opened. Which email addresses no longer work and bounced. Automatic management of your subscription database, so you no longer need to manage this yourself in Excel.

BluegrassMailer works on a simple pay-as-you-send model. You only pay for what you send. There's a small campaign fee for each send, and a miniscule cost per email sent.

Give us a call today to find out more about how you can use BluegrassMailer to grow your business!

However… we hit a snag whilst implementing this and discovered that everyone's new best friend 'Mr iPhone' and 'Mrs iPad' do not allow vCards to be downloaded directly from a website and saved to the phone's address book. They DO allow vCards to be downloaded and saved to the address book from an email though! Weird we know, but maybe they forgot this step during UX testing…

For anyone that is interested, we came up with a small fix in .NET. We coded in a SNIFFER for the User Agent being used to browse the website and if it SNIFFS that an iPhone / iPad is being used then when the vCard Download button is clicked, instead of downloading the vCard, we opened a new page explaining the scenario and with a form requesting the persons to enter their email address. The vCard then gets emailed to them and they can save to their phone.

The Code? In the .NET User Control you need to add:

HttpContext.Current.Request.ServerVariables["HTTP_USER_AGENT"].ToString().ToLower().Contains("iphone")

In the .XSLT file use:

test="contains($UserAgent, 'iPhone')

Then code your new page with email form and attach the relevant vCard to the email. Simple genius. Well not really but a good work around anyways!

In a nutshell, the 'Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers' (or ICANN for short) is the organization that says what domain extensions are acceptable on the internet today. Back in 2004 they took a controversial step by approving .xxx domain names, and in doing so laid the paving to allow ANYTHING to be added to the crux of the domain.

For example, businesses like Nike would be able to secure .Nike (for all Nike websites). Starbucks would be able to secure .coffee. All Travel websites could secure .travel extensions; .eco (for green sites) or .candy (for, yup, you guessed it sweet websites).

Everyone has been waiting patiently since 2004 for ICANN to finally pass this ruling. Yesterday the wait was over, BUT we see 2 snags in this little scenario....

1) You will need to wait a little longer, as the first wave of available extensions become available in a year!
2) these domain extensions have an application fee of $185,000 and an annual renewal fee of $25,000! Wow. We're gobsmacked.

Anyways, we've started an office kitty and our savings are going well for our new domain. What do you think?

Bluegrass Digital are currently involved with a website re-design project in conjunction with Dandelion-Burdock. The project involves a content management implementation and Progress CRM integration.

Anyway....Shape will be competing in a public vote for £60,000 of funding for our work in supporting disabled people to get to and enjoy arts venues, including of course the National Portrait Gallery.

Shape's project (Shape Diamonds Club) will enable disabled Londoners to participate fully in the exciting arts and cultural events which will be taking place in 2012 to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee and Cultural Olympiad.

Public votes will decide who is awarded the money, so your support is crucial to their success. A telephone voting line will be open from 9am-midnight on the 27 June and each phone can make ten calls (Calls cost 11p per call from BT landlines. Calls from other networks may be higher and from mobile phones will be considerably more).

Shape will not know the telephone voting number until the 27 June; they will release it on the day, but to be sure of getting the details to you, they will be collecting mobile numbers or email addresses. Please text JPM to 0762 480 9145 or email steven@shapearts.org.uk and they'll update you on voting day.

Alternatively, you could check the Daily Mirror on the 27^th or watch London Tonight at 6pm on the same day.

So remember to vote for Shape!

Anyways, here is the banner. Choose your weapon - shoe or spray - take Louie down!

"Hey @skype... it wasn't a 'small number of users'. Tsk," said Rik Ferguson, a computer security expert at Trend Micro.

Skype claims that the problem was isolated to a "small number" of it's 660 million users. Even if this is true (unlikely) and that "small number" is 1% of it's users, that would be 6.6million. Almost the entire number of internet users in South Africa! According to the UK newspaper The Telegraph users across Europe, the US and Asia had reported that versions of the software for Windows, Mac and Linux had crashed.

But before everyone jumps on the 'blame Microsoft band wagon' it is highly probable that the companies are still acting independantly until they can integrate their systems. However, it makes you wonder whether the crash was a result of the 2 giants attempting to 'integrate their systems'...

Need a fix? Here's how to manually resolve the problem for Windows, Mac or Linux:

WINDOWS

1. If the Skype icon is displayed in the system tray at the bottom right of the screen, right-click it and select Quit.
2. Click Start, type "run" and press Enter. (On Windows XP: Click Start and then Run.)
3. Type "%appdata%\skype" and click OK.
4. Locate and delete the file shared.xml. The file may be displayed as shared if file extensions are not displayed by default on your computer.
5. If you cannot find this file:
   • Click Start, type "run" and press Enter. (On Windows XP: Click Start and then Run.)
   • Type "control folders" and click OK.
   • In the View tab, ensure that Show hidden files and folders is enabled.
   • Repeat the instructions from the beginning.
6. Restart Skype.

MAC

1. Open Finder and locate the following folder: ~/Library/Application Support/Skype
2. Delete the file shared.xml.
3. Restart Skype.

4. The ~ sign means your home folder. You can find your home folder by opening Finder and selecting Go> Home from the menu bar or pressing Command (Apple), Shift and H keys at the same time.

LINUX

1. Go to the following folder: /home/YourLinuxUserName/.Skype
2. Delete the file shared.xml.
3. Restart Skype.

4. The Skype folder is a hidden folder - please check Show hidden files in your file browser to view and access it.

Following on from the recent rumours that Facebook and Google were jostling to buy Skype, it appears that both of the tech companies have been usurped at the last minute by Microsoft.

The Wall Street Journal is now reporting that Steve Ballmer and the VoIP company are in the final stages of a negotiation that is worth between $7 billion and $8.5 billion, making it the largest takeover bid in Microsoft's history.

Microsoft has struggled in its online efforts, losing billions on the web. Purchasing Skype and absorbing the company's debts will see the Microsoft continue to lose (Skype lost $7 million during its recent aggressive expansion) but the deal needs to be looked at in a broader context: if the deal goes through, it would give Microsoft the ability to leverage Skype's more than 650 million users into using its other products as well as provide Microsoft's advertising subsidiaries with an enormous pool of targeted advertising opportunities.

For example, the department in charge of the Microsoft Office suite of applications also makes a product, known as Lync, which connects your email, instant messaging and voice communications into a single application. Skype could potentially be used to strengthen the product. Microsoft's gaming console, Xbox 360, could equally benefit from solid integration between the console, its motion sensor, Kinect, and Skype.

The announcement is expected to be made tomorrow. More to follow - watch this space!

Over this period, should you have any urgent website hosting emergencies, you have the following options available. Please note they should ONLY BE USED if it is an emergency. For example your website is completely down or displaying an error message of some kind.

1. Submit your support ticket using this form

2. Email support@bluegrassdigital.com

3. For emergencies only, please contact us on +27 (0) 72 092 9554.

Fibre to the Home (FTTH), the same network that Virgin Media has been succesfully running in the UK, has been missing in the South African broadband landscape. i3 Africa, backed by the National Empowerment Fund, plans to build a high-speed fibre network connecting 2.5 million homes within the next four to five years.

The network will be built in six SA cities - Durban, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth, Bloemfontein and Pretoria - and will offer minimum connection speeds of between 100Mbps and 1Gbps.

The network will operate on "open-access principles", meaning Internet service providers and broadcasters can sell services - broadband, video-on-demand and telephony - directly to consumers using the network. i3 Africa will provide infrastructure only. It will not sell services directly to consumers, leaving that to third-party service providers.

i3 Africa will be able to build the network at a third to half of the cost normally associated with fibre deployments of this nature - and in a fraction of the time. The company will do this by making extensive use of metropolitan sewerage and water networks, obviating the need for expensive civil works. Sewerage pipes will be used mainly to build the metropolitan rings around the cities. Access to people's homes will be provided through fibre laid in water pipes

According to i3 Africa CEO Cornelis Groesbeek, the service will be competitively priced when compared to Telkom's ADSL offerings.

In an announcement today that will have surprised virtually no one, Yahoo! has revealed that they will discontinue support for Yahoo! Buzz, their community-based news article website based on the social bookmarking and syndication website, Digg.

A statement on the Buzz website said that "Yahoo! Buzz will be discontinued as of April 21, 2011. As of this date, you will be unable to access the Yahoo! Buzz site. This was a hard decision. However this will help us focus on our core strengths and new innovations."

The news comes hot on the heels of the company's decision at the end of last year that they would be "sunsetting", among other products, their social bookmarking service, Delicious and that they have completely given up in their flagship market, which does makes you wonder exactly which "core strengths and innovations" they're planning on focusing on.

Buzz was introduced in 2008 and allowed users to share photos, statuses or recommend news stories to their friends by clicking a button that could be added to web pages. However the site never gained the sort of traction enjoyed by its competitors, like Facebook, Twitter and Reddit.

In a nod to the importance of user experience, Erik Martin, community manager for Reddit said of the site's demise, "I think [Yahoo Buzz] was far too confusing and muddled. The users were never sure what was at the top because it was from a Yahoo site, what was at the top due to actual user voting, and why the Yahoo editors selected some links to be featured on the Yahoo homepage and didn't promote others."

The company has been struggling recently and is expected to post a decline in profits today.

SO WHY NOT APPLY THESE ADVANCEMENTS ONLINE?

And this is what Google have done. They have allowed you to use your built in computer webcam Google's patented spatial tracking technology to detect your movements and translate them into meaningful characters and commands, to control your Gmail account. Granted it's still got a BETA tag but knowing Google I'm sure that it won't be long until they've mastered the art of sending an email with the flick of your wrist!

If you would like to watch a short video explaining the technology, then check out the video below. Whatever will Google think of next??!!!

IE9 has benefitted from a huge array of improvements in terms of performance, adherence to web standards, user interface and security but how much has really changed since the early days when Internet Explorer 1 was released as a simple Spyglass Mosaic clone? In this video, every version of Internet Explorer is installed and tested in 9 minutes, from 1995's modest debut which, incredibly, didn't even feature table support, all the way up to this week's version 9.

Whereas the previous Like button shared a subtle link on your newsfeed, that often went unnoticed, the new update sees the Like button absorb the functionality of the discontinued Share button, featuring "likes" far more prominently on your profile.

Clicking it will add a headline, a line of copy and a thumbnail to your newsfeed and users will have the option of commenting on the story link or sharing it with their friends.

Old Like Button

New Like Button

The benefits of the Facebook Like button on website traffic is huge; IGN and ESPN have both reported 20% increases in website traffic since implementing them across their network. The new functionality has certainly streamlined the user experience, but with the new updates featuring your Likes so prominently on your profile, will users now think twice about what they "like" on the web?

Here are some of our 5 most interesting Facebook FACTS to consider:

1. 'Facebook' was the second most-searched term in 2010 for the second year running

2. 48% of all young Americans say they find out about world news via Facebook

3. 48% of all 18 - 34 year olds check Facebook as the very first thing they do when they wake up!

4. Approx. 1 in every 13 people on earth is a Facebook user

5. 750 million photos were uploaded to Facebook over New Year's weekend. Wow!!

Click the image below to view more interesting facts.

True to our pledge Bluegrass matched this donation and donated a further R1000 of our own. To view the history of our Movember Challenge and all proceeds raised, please visit our Bluegrass BackABuddy page.

CHOC Childhood Cancer Foundation SA, were very grateful and sent a letter acknowledging the funds donated to their charity.

In November 2011 we hope to be able to reach our target! Watch this space...

Keep an eye out for the part where the user selects 'Avoid Romans' when getting directions in Google Maps! Hilarious...

"I began by taking a sample of about ten million pairs of friends from Apache Hive, our data warehouse. I combined that data with each user's current city and summed the number of friends between each pair of cities. Then I merged the data with the longitude and latitude of each city..." | Paul is an intern on Facebook's data infrastructure engineering team.

The picture below is Paul's end result. This is an amazing rendition of how we are all connected on the Facebook Social Graph!

View a HIGH RESOLUTION version

Over this period, should you have any urgent website hosting emergencies, you have the following options available. Please note they should ONLY BE USED if it is an emergency. For example your website is completely down or displaying an error message of some kind.

1. Submit your support ticket using this form

2. Email support@bluegrassdigital.com

3. For emergencies only, please contact us on +27 (0) 72 092 9554.

Support requests over the Christmas period will be responded to within 24 hours during normal working hours.

During this time your website may experience intermittent issues, but at this time of day/night we highly doubt that there will be anyone awake to notice anything going on!

Please can you refrain from making any changes to your website via your CMS between 22h00 on Friday 19^th until 09h00 Saturday 20^th.

Should you be experiencing any issues after 08h30 on Saturday 20th Nov, the chances are we've spotted the problem and are working to resolve it, but feel free to notify our Hosting Support team.

Many thanks

Bluegrass Digital Support Team

Please help us by DONATING HERE to our efforts. All funds raised will be going towards CHOC, so you will be helping a really good cause!

This project was quite a large one and included:

• New logo creation and design
• New website design
• Fontend HTML / CSS / Jquery / JavaScript templates build
• Back-end CMS development using Umbraco CMS
• Website content input
• QA and testing

You can view the brief Case Study here, and we will be putting together a more detailed PDF case study for you to download and read all about the project details. But in the meantime if you are interested in a quick BEFORE and AFTER view then here you go:

WEEK 1 Progress Update...

We have successfully raised R1,917.50 after just 1 week. This bring us up to the 20% target mark of our goal to raise R10,000 by the end of the month!

BLUEGRASS WILL MATCH THE HIGHEST DONATION MADE, so go on.... donate away!

So what do our men have to say so far...?

Nick 'Undercover Brother' Durrant - " I can't stand facial hair in general - we better reach our target! "

James 'Trucker' Durrant - " Last year I raised around R6,000 on my own... "

Yaasier 'Undercover Brother' Philander - " I'm in serious trouble at home this month "

Maxwell 'Still finding myself' Phiri - " Not sure whether we will see much growth this month, but I'm trying "

David 'Trucker' Farrell - " It feels good to have some hair on my head again "

Mark 'Rock Star' Hawkins - " Every man should grow a Mo at least once in their life.... and only once! "

Daniel 'The Regent' Johansson - " I would fit right in at a Portuguese fish & chips shop with this baby "

Nick 'The Business Man' Reay - " There can be only one.... Ginger Mo! "

Follow us on our FACEBOOK PAGE for regular photo updates

The new Extraordinary Marketing Concepts website is awesome if we may say so ourselves. It's clean, it's professional and it's interactive! Extraordinary provide sales, marketing and PR solutions for a wide range of luxury African travel clients, including the amazing Cape Milner Hotel and a wide spread of luxury lodges in the Kruger National Park and surrounding areas.

Check out the Extraordinary Marketing Concepts website.

This year the below 8 Bluegrass Mo Bros (all male, but we can't promise there aren't any Mo Sisters involved) have signed up to grow a bushy 'tache' in the style of their choosing during the month of Movember. This campaign is all part of the global Movember Challenge, which raises awareness for testicular cancer.

Our goal is to raise R10,000, which will be donated to CHOC Childhood Cancer Foundation at the end of the month. Bluegrass WILL MATCH THE HIGHEST DONATION received - so let the fund raising begin!!

Please support us by donating on our charity page or simply by clicking the donate button below!

UNIQUE FEATURES:

• Umbraco Content Management System (CMS)
• Automatic website image resizing software
• Interactive Jquery map
• Multiple language website: EN, DE, FR
• Live Weather widget
• Live FOREX widget
• Payment Gateway integration with PAYSUM1
• Jquery, JavaScript, ASP.NET, XHTML, CSS

We spotted this on the Best Buy Facebook page, which doesn't really look great alongside their brand.

Headquartered in Dunstable, UK, Torex employs 1,200 staff across 12 countries. Torex's new website needed to reflect its leadership position in delivering world class solutions

to enhance the customer experience in the retail, hospitality and petroleum sectors. In delivery of the new website, Bluegrass Digital has helped throughout the process in planning, web design, development and CMS implementation of their new global multi-lingual website. Following a tender process, Bluegrass were selected from expertise an Umbraco development company.

Bluegrass worked closely with Torex under tight deadlines to deliver the first phase of the project. We produced the planning and functional specification, design work, development and implementation of Umbraco content management system to drive the dynamic content for the different country sites and languages versions. In addition, we implemented Umbraco Contour which is a plug-in tool to enable easy creation of online forms and questionnaires as well as data handling.

Bluegrass also provide services in secure website hosting on our .Net hosting environment and support. We are continuing to work closely with Torex in planning further phases of work and online marketing activities.

Well first head over to www.google.com/instant to have a read about it all and see what Uncle Google has to say. Then go to Google.com and try typing the first few letters of a search term into the search box and you will see actual search results appear right before your eyes in the page below. We're not talking about the predictive search suggestions that normally appear, but rather actual results displaying and refreshing on the page as you type. Apparently (according to Google) this will save you 2 - 5 seconds per search. If everyone in the world used Instant Search it would save 3.5 billion seconds a day, which equates to 11 hours saved every second. Incredible! How much faster can this world function?

There is one snag of course and that is it's not yet available in good old South Africa and we will have to wait our turn to save ourselves those precious few seconds every day!

Now, this announcement hinted at something more which got me thinking... "Imagine search doing this automatically". Ok, that would be pretty awesome and would definitely save me even more time and help me to find a present for the wife when I'm completely out of ideas. BUT let's take it a step further and onto the streets...

Imagine a real-time suggestive search subscription feature for mobile phones, which is tapped into Google Places and Google Maps and provides automated marketing alerts as you walk down the street! How the heck does that work you ask?

Well, imagine you're walking down the street and you are walking up to your favorite Mr Video store and suddenly your mobile phone buzzes to alert you that you that Mr Video is now offering 2-for-1 specials on all new release DVD's. Would you stop and rent a DVD to watch later?

You're driving your car home after a long night at the office and haven't had time to pick up anything to cook for dinner. You're coming up to a Steers Takeaways on the left and your phone beeps to let you know that Steers is now offering a special combo-deal on burgers and chips. Would you stop?

Is this where Googles new autonomous, fast search definition is taking us? Who knows and maybe that is where the world of search and marketing is heading. But remember... You heard it here first!

There is a term that caught my attention when I was looking at how the human search is associative. The term is "homing in". Homing in is defined as… "recalling a previously experienced item by thinking of something that is linked with it, thus invoking the association". Have you ever wondered how when we can't remember someone's name, it suddenly pops into your brain a few minutes later? How do we recall it? Let me explain… When you are trying to think of that person's name, our brain starts by remembering some associated memories about that person. By doing so our mind begins the process of networking between the various things we recall and begins to associate these memories together and in the end the name pops out when it forms the associated link. As you can see our minds tend to look for items that are associatively connected to things we remember.

With the ever increasing number of users and the intensive growth of the internet will keyword research be sufficient enough to try and form these associated links to drive relevant traffic to your website? A huge amount of information is added to the internet daily and search engines need to index it all in order to maintain keyword relevance. At a certain point, with billions and billions of Web pages to sift through, keyword search just won't cut it anymore. It's a needle-in-the-haystack problem. Will keyword search be able to match this demand? Let me introduce Nova Spivack to you, who is the CEO of semantic search startup Radar Networks. Spivack believes the solution to the problem lies in semantic search.

What is semantic search or if you do prefer semantic web? Wikipedia defines Semantic Search or Semantic Web as the evolving process of taking all the content on the world wide web and "expressing it not only in natural language, but also in a form that can be understood, interpreted and used by software agents, thus permitting them to find, share and integrate information more easily." Semantic search not only understands the meaning of items but also the connections between them. It aims to get past the barrier of keyword search which may have reached its limit.

Can you see how this works quite closely in comparison with our own brains? Lets look at a few interesting reasons why semantic web is a better option:

1. Much higher precision as a result of matching meaning to meaning instead of keywords to keywords.

2. Much higher recall as a result of matching on equivalent meanings that are expressed in different ways.

3. Better ranking where the pagerank and existing methods are combine with semantic data

4. Better and more natural mechanisms to create more complex and accurate queries

I read an article by Erik Collier where he gave a very good example of how semantic search works:

"The burden is on the user to think the way the engine wants them to think. If the meaning of the query is the same, you should get the same results no matter how you phrase your question. The semantic web will understand your intent and give you the answer based on your intent, not based on the exact arrangement of your keywords.

To see examples of how query phrasing and word selection affects the outcome of results, search Google, Yahoo, Live, Ask, Powerset and Hakia with the following queries and note the differences in the results:

What is the population size of Japan?

What is the population of Japan?"

The future is here! Semantic web has arrived and recently Microsoft endorsed semantic web when they purchased Powerset which is one of the top 10 semantic search engines on the web today. Here are a few others to get you started in the world of semantic searching:

1. Kngine - search results are divided into either web results, or image results. They are preceded by information about the search term, known as 'Concepts.'
2. Hakia - search results are divided into Web, News, Blogs, Twitter, Image and Video, and can be re-listed according to relevance or date.
3. Kosmix - search results they are divided into Video, Web, News & Blogs, Images, Forums, Twitter, Amazon and Facebook
4. Powerset - focuses on doing only one thing - and doing it really well. All search results on Powerset come from Wikipedia, making it the ultimate way to search Wikipedia, using semantics
5. Evri - Search results can be filtered into Articles, Quotes, Images and Tweets, and can also be shared on Facebook, Twitter and MySpace

So, where does SEO go from here? What happens to the quest of requesting back-links and our link building efforts using keywords? Are you as ready as I am to explore the world of semantic search? Search behaviour does change a user's online experience, so come into this new world and let semantic web change your life.

What ended up happening was... 328,427 unique icons were collected, of which 288,945 were proper images. The remaining 39,482 were error strings and other non-image files. They then took all those icons and produced this interactive map visualization below, allowing users to search for a website and drag, pan and zoom to view those smaller brands with less traffic.

I wonder if Bluegrass is hidden in there... HOORAY we are - click here! Can you see us??

After downloading the trial version of both IBP and WEB CEO I had a chance to try them out. The IBP trial comes in a smaller download format about 6mb against the 27mb which the  Web CEO trial comes in. After using them both I realized that IBP allows any internet marketer the chance to do a lot of their SEO tasks faster and easier. IBP simplifies all SEO processes.

IBP has a wealth of functions some of which include:

• Submission tools
• Search engine rank checker
• Top 10 Optimizer
• Website Optimization Editor
• Keyword Generator
• Link Popularity Tools
• Manual web search feature
• Task Scheduler
• PPC Search Engine Manager
• ROI calculator

As part of their extensive SEO software package IBP offers a keyword analysis tool which helps to quickly identify the most relevant keywords for search engine optimization and pay per click advertising, providing search volumes and competition per keyword.. IBP even suggests keywords that will help you to spend less in your Google AdWords campaigns. The powerful keyword combination creator tool, suggests combinations to a lot of keyword phrases which are cheaper and hence we can bid lower with more relative and powerful keyword combinations. IBP also generates negative keywords and power posting keyword lists for Google AdWords.

Using the website optimization editor, SEO analysts can directly edit web pages, including Meta tags, Page titles, Anchor link texts, the image ALT attributes etc. IBP will also display the keyword density per page allowing you to optimize your page content and apply the right keyword density to your websites content which is good for SEO copywriting.

There are many advantages which I could write about to using an 'all-in-one' SEO software package, and after a few tests and a lot of research I asked myself whether I would use this package? Yes I would and having used the trial version I am considering purchasing this package myself to see how best I could improve the SEO services I offer my clients.

Why? Well the reason is simple... Social Media allows your customers to interact with you how THEY want to. Gone are the days when you can control what your customers do and say about your brand and business. And before you go about using Social Media as a marketing channel you need to have a solid strategy as to WHY you want to use this channel. According to the Alexa Top 500 list of most visited websites, Facebook is second after Google, with YouTube third. SOCIAL MEDIA - IT IS HERE!

Take a look at the below presentation by Ross Taylor from digital marketing agency Tullo Marshall Warren (TMW), which talks about defining your Social Media strategy. If you'd like to speak to someone at Bluegrass Digital about helping you define your Social Media business strategy, then contact us today.

• The Shipowners Club
• Costain
• DirectAxis
• Buckland Press

Just around the corner are 5 new websites to be launched, so watch this space.

(Ignore this: 7WAEJF8QR9EE)

For more information about the role, please view a description of the role.

We've collected some browser statistics (courtesy of W3Schools) and here you can clearly see that Firefox has become the most popular browser, with Internet Explorer a close second and Google Chrome usage rising steadily!

Torex has 20 years' experience of working in partnership with some of the world's most forward-thinking retail, hospitality, grocery, petrol & convenience brands to excite, engage and retain their customers.

The new website will be a strategic initiative and reflect the Company's leadership position in delivering world class solutions to enhance the customer experience in the retail, hospitality and petroleum sectors.

The online Annual Report, launched early April, is powered by the website CMS allowing the team to make any content adjustments quickly. This ability was an asset in the closing stages of the project when final content edits were received.

We also launched a new investor relations (IR) centre for the existing website to provide an improved online service and more timely financial and non-financial company information, keeping investors up-to-date. Includes integrated feeds supplied by Hemscott and a mobi version of key financial data.

Egoli Tours have realised the need to step up the pace and move ahead of the competition and Bluegrass is building them a shiny new website powered by a simple and easy to use Content Management System (Umbraco). This will allow Egoli to update their website content and keep it fresh themselves.

Watch this space for updates...

But where do you start? There are so many agencies around these days claiming to be able to do XYZ and at prices that all beat the best recessionary inspired sale hands down. Word of mouth and referrals from friends are trusted channels, as you're more likely to trust a recommendation from someone you know. What about Google? Isn't Google YOUR best friend online, who helps you find whatever you're looking for? We've heard stories of some doctors (qualified?) who trust Google so much that they use it to diagnose patient's illnesses... Not sure that I would go to one of these doctors but whatever your source, at the end of the day it always seems to come down to one thing. Cost!

Recently we pitched to build a clients new website. After the pitch we were asked by the client to explain/justify why our proposal was over 4 times as much as another agency proposal. When you take your car to the local one-man band mechanic, you know you're going to get a good deal. But when you pickup your car you will also leave with a feeling of uncertainty that your car may be back in the garage again in 3 months time!

At Bluegrass we don't try and compete with the local mechanic. There's a lot of pressure for agencies to drop their rates and conform to other agency rates, in order to secure new business. But we believe that it's up to the client to care enough about their project and having the guts to hire you, because it will make a difference... In the end this particular client had the guts. Keep an eye on this space for a shiny new website launch over the next few weeks! As tempting as it may be to take the cheaper easier route, it's the un-trodden road which takes guts.

Web analytics is essentially about monitoring how visitors are using different pages and features on your website - for example, how many people read the top articles on an online newspaper or view different products on a retailer's site?

This information (known in the trade as clickstream data) can then be combined with other customer intelligence you have gathered to tweak not only your website, but also other forms of marketing such as online advertising or discount campaigns. At a basic level, it's the internet equivalent of how major retailers and supermarkets track your movement around stores so they can learn where best to position products in order to maximise sales.

What are the most popular tools and how much do they cost?

Web analytics has become much more widely available to smaller organisations through the launch of free measurement tools. In particular, the release of Google Analytics in 2005 has greatly increased awareness of analytics among small to medium enterprises (SMEs). Around 32% of the Top 500 Web Sites use Google Analytics! The bigger players include Omniture, who were recently acquired by Adobe, Webtrends, Clicktracks, Coremetrics etc...

As a rule of thumb, hosted solutions are where most businesses will start, but for bigger companies where the web plays a more serious role, the licensed route might be a better fit. So, in terms of broad costs, Hosted solutions: range from Free up to £30,000 per year and Top-end solutions: range from £50,000 per year upwards.

Before deciding how much to spend on a web analytics solution and pulling out your wallet, why not consider the following process: Implement a Free Tool > Learn > Upgrade Analytics Skills > Fix Data Capture > Evaluate > Now Choose? This will help your decision making and your ability to identify the most suitable tool for you to use.

What can I measure?

You can measure all kinds of different things, but the reality is that you don't want to be overloaded with data. Like Einstein said: "Not everything that can be counted counts." With that in mind it is best to identify the key metrics that matter to your business. Some of the most popular metrics include:

• Number of unique visitors
• Most popular pages
• Entry pages
• Exit pages
• Page / site bounce rates
• Conversion rates
• Where visitors came from
• Search Engine keyword analysis
• Search Engine referrals
• Visit length per particular page / entire site
• Browser stats
• System stats (monitor resolution, operating system etc)

We'll run a post next month on some key metrics and their definitions.

Vendor selection - what to consider?

In order to identify the right web analytics supplier it is important to understand that different companies have different approaches and technologies. As well as price, important criteria when selecting a web analytics vendor include:

• Type of model (i.e. licence or ASP)
• Ease of use and functionality
• Customer profiling ability
• Integration capability
• Reporting and quality of support
• Training and consultancy

Some excellent resources & blogs to use

• Occam's Razor - http://www.kaushik.net (known by many as The Godfather of analytics)
• Omniture Blog - http://blogs.omniture.com (a great resource for analytics knowledge)
• Webmetrics Guru - http://www.webmetricsguru.com
• Google Analytics blog - http://analytics.blogspot.com
• MineThatData - http://minethatdata.com

We have compiled some of the Strengths, Weaknesses and Tip's & Pitfalls which we believe affect email marketing today.

Strengths:
The strength of email marketing really lies in retention, as well as up-sell and cross-sell. This is because it is a one-to-one communication channel where you can ensure the content is highly relevant to the reader which makes it more likely to be digested and ultimately acted upon. It should be a communication requested by the reader and therefore that reader is immediately more engaged.

• Cost & ROI - email is one of the cheapest digital marketing channels available to marketers and can yield extremely good returns for your business
• Relevance - the ability to target the right customer, with the right content or offer based on their demographic profile and purchasing behaviour and at the RIGHT time is what makes email so highly effective. Just look at how Amazon does it!
• Speed & reach - email is an extremely fast channel to utilize if you need to get a message or offer out the door quickly and before your competition
• Measurement - the ability to track what happens with your email campaigns, allows marketers and businesses to easily test and learn from the success or failure of a campaign
• Integration - email integrates with many other digital marketing channels, such as web analytics tools which can be used to drive behavioural campaigns; or SEM [search engine marketing] campaigns which can be linked to new customer trigger email campaigns

Weaknesses:
Not following email best practice guidelines is an industry weakness. Many marketers simply send mass untargeted blasts to their entire customer base, which can be more detrimental for a brand than beneficial. When used incorrectly (i.e. not following opt-in/opt out best practices or sending irrelevant messaging), email can frustrate and stimulate negative word of mouth from customers. Be sensible and follow email best practice guidelines to ensure your customers don't turn on you!

• SPAM - one of the biggest weaknesses and therefore concern is the continued impact of spam both on user experience and willingness to participate in email, alongside the negative reaction of ISPs to spam, that will limit effective communication to the inbox.
• Data Hygiene - data cleanliness is vital. It's important to update company email databases with bounce backs; unknown email addresses; or email suppression lists etc, otherwise ISP's could potentially send all your emails to SPAM folders or even worse blacklist your from address
• 3rd Party lists - while some organisations have become more enlightened, there is still too much emphasis placed on acquisition (e.g. through the use of third-party lists), when a focus on retention and customer experience would be more appropriate. Many email campaigns are suffering from unclear objectives, ineffective creative and a lack of a clear call-to-action

Tip's and Pitfalls:
Companies are fighting for attention in readers Inboxes and if your message is not relevant to the targeted reader then you are going to lose valuable Inbox 'real estate' as consumers will unsubscribe from your emails. The email journey is also a long one and it's important to get each step right:

• Delivery into the Inbox - follow best practice guidelines and delivery techniques; sign up to ISP white lists; and ensure DNS and SPF records are set
• Subject lines - which influence open rates and are often over-looked as unimportant. It is very important to be constantly A/B testing your subject lines
• Relevant & appealing content - which influence CTRs [click-through rates] and ensure you're that much closer to making a conversion
• Landing pages - links up your email campaign with additional content on your website. You further have the ability to cross-sell more products and services via your landing page
• Testing and learning - test EVERYTHING! You should be testing your subject lines; time of day/week to send your emails; different offers .etc etc. You can never be doing too much testing, but try not to test too many things at once as you won't know what worked

To read more about this launch visit the case study here.

Visit the new Sturrock Shipping website.

Our Top 5 predictions for 2010:

1. Facebook continues to grow and surpasses Google to become the most actively used website on the web. The result is that businesses that are not actively using Social Media as another marketing channel will fall behind. Watch this interview with Tony Mandarich, ex NFL football star and now very successful online marketing expert, as he talks about growth in Social Media marketing and internet marketing areas in 2010.

2. Twitter launches a paid service for businesses, allowing them to setup commercial accounts and access Twitter 'marketing tools' to target the masses. We'll also see advertising creep into the sidelines.

3.  Bafana Bafana make it through to the knockout rounds of the FIFA World Cup. They will be hard pressed in Group A however, as they have to go through Mexico, two-time champions Uruguay, as well as 2006 runners-up France!

4.  TV technology goes to the next level and consumers use their TV sets for accessing the internet and browsing online as the norm. It may not become the norm in South Africa, but in more advanced countries like the UK and the US, this is going to be an area of strong technological growth.

5. Internet in South Africa vastly improves and becomes a lot cheaper as more competition arrives and more fibre optic cabling is laid down. Wouldn't it be fantastic if we could finally say goodbye to dialup and put the nail in that coffin!

A South African, Hawkins moved over to the UK 7 years ago to travel and develop his career. The cold horizontal rain finally got the better of him and his wife, and they decided to move back to sunny Cape Town in December 2009 after a brief stint travelling around SE Asia for 3 months. He brings with him a wealth of online marketing and project management experience. At PhotoBox he was Marketing Operations Manager and responsible for CRM, web analytics, social media and new web project initiatives.

2010 has started with a bang here at Bluegrass and we are all very positive that this new appointment will bring some added firepower to our existing digital marketing arsenal! Please contact us on 021-671 1966 (SA Clients) and 0845 688 3361 (UK Clients) to discuss any marketing ideas you may have.

Email marketing, social media and SEM are on the top of the list for marketing tactics in the coming year.

Read more about this article http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007412

It is not surprising when a recent survey by emarketer found that 84% of social media programs don't measure return on investment (ROI). The comments in that post indicated that a lot of individuals and businesses want to be able to measure the ROI of their social media strategies and campaigns, but they don't know where to start. Despite widespread adoption of social media, measurement still lags.

Companies and executives are finally beginning to really jump on the social media bandwagon, and that's fantastic. However, for social media to fully work (for everyone), businesses and brands need to be able to evaluate the impact their social media use is having, both positive and negative. Measuring social media ROI isn't impossible, but it can be difficult because many of the pieces that need to be evaluated are difficult to track. This guide is designed to help you track down those pieces and determine the ROI you're getting on social media.

Read more at http://mashable.com/2009/09/22/social-media-programs-roi/

Other related articles:

http://mashable.com/2009/10/27/social-media-roi/
http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007286

Liz Wesby-Nunn:

"Brilliant, well done. The new site looks terrific and we have already had much positive feedback.  And just in time for the radio advertising campaign next week, so everyone wins.

My sincere thanks again Jeremy and your team.  This has been a long road, with many obstacles along the way, but now the journey really begins!   And hopefully our stunning new website will establish Portfolio right up there with the best on the net!"

Check it out.

The new website is powered by Umbraco CMS system which includes a membership module which allows The Guild staff to manage their member database directly. Other features include a blog and member search tool with integrated geo-mapping to locate builders based on your nearest postcode.

There is more in the pipeline and after just a few weeks we saw improved traffic levels and an increase in membership enquiries.

We helped implement an E-invite micro website which allowed users to register and receive an automatic HTML email response. Users were stored in the site database for safe and easy access for the sales team. We also provide our email marketing platform BluegrassMailer to drive the campaign.

Without re-inventing the wheel, we simply re-skinned and launched with a few drops of social media and a new Facebook fanpage!

Bluegrass worked closely with College Hill to deliver the new website for the communications team consulting on design and build, content management implementation and website hosting.

The website will be designed in conjunction with in-house Creative Director Andy-Patterson Jones and the site will include typical online shopping features including a dynamic product catalogue, shopping basket and checkout facilities. Bluegrass will integrate with SagePay as approved partners

The project will focus on a fresh website design incorporating the new corporate identity which will launch in the coming months. The site will include a cutting-edge content management system (CMS) pioneered by Bluegrass Digital in South Africa using Umbraco. The CMS will manage the website content along with implementation of Google Maps Geomapping Tools.

Bluegrass Digital will also provide email and search marketing campaigns following launch of the new website.

The new web-based system interfaces with their inhouse ServiceCEO platform, the leading software solution for the service industry.  We believe this is the first time that a web application interface has been developed directly around ServiceCEO database and opens the door for future implementations for other service companies.

The new website's fundamental objective is to market Manthano Institute of Learning to prospective clients via the digital medium. It is important that the new website will showcase the company's attributes and present the credentials of the key executive coaches. The site will include information of course material and importantly how customers go about connecting with Manthano's solutions.

We will report back when we launch the new website.

 

www.bluesky-aviation.co.za

Talk to our new biz team if you are interested in something similar.

The new website will include a usable design based on the established corporate identity and include features such as event management, event booking, member database management, member application forms, RSS news feeds, a member directory and an administration module to manage the website content and functions.

The website will be built using the Umbraco CMS platform and a number of membership modules we have developed for other member organisations.

It was real pleasure working with Juliet and her team, a project that involves a subject we are passionate about adding to our portfolio of clients in the african tourism industry.

View the case study

As part of the overall online strategy for Portfolio Collection, the benchmark for the best holiday accommodation in South Africa, we recently launch a Travel Blog for the company to help increase traffic levels and the overall business profile for the organisation. We are currently business with the design and build of a new online accommodation and booking website which will launch later this year. As the leading travel blog in the country, this will form part of the ongoing online strategy together with Search Engine Marketing and Email Marketing plans.

Evidence of its success was seen at the South African Blog Awards by taking Best Travel Blog 2009.

Watch the awards show below or visit SA Blog Awards website.

Bluegrass was selected through a pitch process to design and build the new website. The entire website is powered by Umbraco CMS allowing designated members of the ETV staff to keep the content up-to-date and fresh.

We provide ongoing hosting and support services.

The interactive, clue-based online game allowed players to interact with Google Earth with weekly clues released via email and sms. Players were given six challenges over a sis week period using different techniques to identify secret codes which users loaded back into their profile via the website which was recorded and tracked.  There were integrated flash games which allowed players to boost scores. The website was a bespoke .NET web application created by us including game and content management.

For more information view the case study or the full campaign material.