These days the question that companies need to ask is not “Do we need a mobile site?” it is “How soon can we get a mobile site?” As the world goes through a technology revolution, the best way for companies to appeal to people, particularly the younger generations, is to advertise on a portable screen. The days of billboard advertising are disappearing as people’s eyes are becoming increasingly fixed on their phones and tablets.

The amount of mobile-friendly websites is increasing everyday as people surf the internet on their phones. In modern day society, if a company wants to get noticed, they will need either a mobile website or an application that can be viewed on a smartphone, preferably both. Anything less and they have lost nearly a quarter of their potential customers. Younger generations have grown used to having what they want when they want it. If they don’t get results almost instantly, they lose their interest pretty quickly. As a result, companies are increasingly using mobile internet as a platform to reach their consumers.

Recent studies have shown that about 10% of mobile users have made a purchase based on a mobile advertisement, while 23% said they have visited the company’s website after viewing the advertisement and 11% said they have actually gone to a store to check out a product.

If a company wants to be known and talked about, then they need to go mobile in order to keep up as the world goes through a technology boom.

Website Blue is proud to announce that the Angelo Andronis website has received an Award of Distinction for the Fashion category in the 17th Annual Communicator Awards.

The 2011 Communicator Awards featured a pool of over 6,000 entries, making it one of the largest and most prestigious awards of its kind. It was being overseen and sanctioned by the International Academy of the Visual Arts, an invitation-only body consisting of top-tier professionals from a “Who’s Who” of acclaimed media, communications, advertising, creative and marketing firms.

No stranger to being recognised for his work, Angelo Andronis is a multi-award winning jeweller who dedicates countless hours to create unique and soulful pieces of jewellery. Lacking a good online presence, Angelo approached us to position him well among the competitive market online. We used his passion and craftsmanship as inspiration to hand-craft this beautiful gem and built it using an intuitive flash interface to showcase Angelo’s breathtaking work. We would like to thank Angelo for his creative input and his open mind throughout the course of the project.

Our team is pleased to humbly accept yet another award and hope to continue producing amazing work for our great clients.

It is a great pleasure to announce our new product line – Infoburst, and its first product, the three-tiered monitor stand, specifically designed for (but not limited to) displaying MyDesktop real estate feeds.

We have carefully planned, designed and manufactured not only the physical stand but also all of the technology that goes into showing the real estate properties. The three screens on the stand can be configured to display any combination of feeds, including sales, rentals, recent sales and custom messages.

Whilst we initially designed the stand with Real Estate offices in mind we quickly recognised the great flexibility of it in that it can be used to display almost anything, as it’s very attention grabbing. The stand is perfect for window displays, shopping centres, foyers, coffee shops or restaurants, suitable for install in any location that has a 3G internet connection.

For further information please download the product specification sheet and/or contact our sales representative on 3899 4099 or sales@infoburst.com.au

Tumblr.com is a free micro-blogging platform that’s really catching on. It was one of the top searches in 2010, Australia wide, according to Google and the interest is rapidly growing.

You say – why should we care about yet another social site – there are so many of them out there. The answer is simplicity. Yes, simplicity has always been a key factor in making ideas truly stick. Tumblr.com is aimed at making it painless to share text, photos, photo sets, links, quotes, audio, and much more, all of which can be done via your browser, email or smart phone.

Tumblr.com is to blogging what text messages are to emails – it’s short, sweet and to the point, and most of all its insanely easy to share anything you might come across. So why don’t you just give it a try.

Every year men grow a mo’ (and women emulate one) to raise funds for prostate cancer and depression in men. It has been a slow one for us this year as we didn’t promote it as well as we could’ve because of the pre-Xmas rush, however still managed to raise over $200 for the team!

Although the official donations have stopped it is still possible to donate as there is no actual cut-off time, so if you’d like to show you support and share a contribution you’re MO’ than welcome.

Some of you may be surprised to learn that Website Blue also has a fully qualified Graphic Design team, capable of handling projects as little as a brand refresh to as large as rolling out full branding solutions.

A recent example of one such project was an exciting and challenging one. We were commissioned with creating a name, brand and marketing materials for a new product to be launched in the US, called Recovery e21. We worked closely with Arcadian Nutraceuticals, a passionate team of entrepreneurs, scientists and business people, to develop a successful and effective brand to capture the target audience.

Recovery e21 is an organic and natural product, which provides a range of electrolytes as a key method for muscle prevention as well as assistance to increase body performance for athletes.

The branding had to be simple and effective, whilst appealing to an average person suffering from cramps, as well as dedicated athletes wishing to improve their performance. The implementation has been so successful that Arcadian Nutraceuticals recently sponsored a series of marathon races in Hawaii, hosted by 808 Race Hawaii, which we were asked to creatively direct.

Creating a brand and marketing materials that stick is hard work in the extremely over-saturated markets. Injecting a little fun and humour into their campaigns, Kulula have achieved just that. A low-cost South African Airline that doesn’t take itself too seriously and encourages customers to have a little fun! Other airlines might take note of the cheeky and clever livery on the aircrafts.

Kulula’s attendants and pilots also reinforce the brand message and company’s mission to ‘help people lighten up’ by providing frequent reasons to smile and joke around through humorous commentary and in-flight chatter.

‘Please pay attention to the safety announcement, because you will be writing a test shortly’ or ‘As you exit the plane, make sure to gather all of your belongings. Anything left behind will be shared equally between staff. Please note we do not accept unwanted mothers-in-law or children’ would not be uncommon to hear on a Kulula’s flight.

Priding ourselves in being a productive and efficient bunch here at WebsiteBlue, I thought I would share with you a few online applications that we use as a way to communicate and share ideas, delegate tasks and simply run more efficient.

Whiteboard
In our daily use, our very own Whiteboard is a great tool for assigning simple tasks, call backs and quick reminders for those forgetful types. The tasks can be monitored at a glance, ticked-off or re-assigned to another member of the team. Here’s a quick screenshot to a preview, if you are interested in getting one for your business we can organise that too, just contact us!

Action Method
A slightly more advanced online tool than the above, Action Method is a great project management tool aimed at medium sized business to track projects, open team discussions regarding projects and of course assign tasks.

Delicious
Delicious is a fantastic online platform to save links and share them with your co-workers, friends or followers. We always bookmark best websites or articles we come across for reference, but you can also tag, add notes and project names, which helps to quickly find these later. Ability to share the links or marking them for private use for anything top-secret is also a great feature.

Yammer
Sharing an interesting article for the team or announcing meetings/gatherings? Then Yammer is a tool for you. We prefer to use it on a social basis discussing possible team gatherings or events and any news or funny videos which promotes communication within the office.

Dropbox
A convenient way to backup, share and sync files, Dropbox has multiple file sharing capabilities. As Dropsend puts it ‘It’s like a magic pocket, a single, secure place for all your stuff’ that syncs your files between computers or mobile devices wherever you are.

Brisbane, Queensland July 22, 2010 – Website Blue wins The Communicator Awards (2010) Award of Distinction for its recent redesign of the “Act for Kids” website.  Act for Kids is a well known Australian charity who work to treat and prevent child abuse.

The International Academy of the Visual Arts (IAVA) announced the winners of The 16th Annual Communicator Awards on 28 May 2010 in New York City. The Communicator Awards is the leading international awards program honouring creative excellence for Communication Professionals. Founded by communication professionals over a decade ago, The Communicator Awards receives over 9,000 entries from companies and agencies of all sizes, making it one of the largest awards of its kind in the world.  The Award of Distinction is presented for projects that exceed industry standards in quality and achievement.

Website Blue’s team earned the prestigious award for designing “Act for Kids Website” (www.actforkids.com.au) the main online presence for Act for Kids. Act for Kids is an Australian charity who works to treat and prevent child abuse.  The site is a clean and effective tool for the charity, allowing them to purvey important information about their work as well as advertise their news and charity events, using Website Blue’s custom built Content Management System.

“We are proud of winning such a prestigious award.  We see it as a reflection of our continued work in the industry to create clean and easy to navigate websites with the desired audience always in mind” said James Groth, Website Blue’s CEO.  He added ”there is a lot of research and planning that goes into each design as well the as Content Management System that runs them.  It is a true team effort between design and programming that make our web sites work.
For additional information on the award or Website Blue, contact James Groth or www.websiteblue.com.

About Website Blue:

Website Blue caters for all facets of design including logos / branding, print, web and even film and multimedia. Their clients are appreciative of the fact that all of their business imagery can be delivered from the one organisation.  They have built a team of young professionals with a flair for design and the skills to deliver any application required for the web.

Contact:
James Groth, CEO
Website Blue
+61 7 3899 4099

http://www.websiteblue.com

Web design Brisbane

As someone working in a creative environment I get to observe the effect that positive and negative feedback – from clients and from other colleagues – have on a creative individual. Whilst commonly we are taught that constructive feedback works best, this may not always ring true in an environment where you may want to nurture your creatives and see them develop, rather than see them wilt and get disenchanted.

Recently I have been reading about Jay O’Callahan, and his workshops. Jay O’Callahan, described as “a genius among storytellers” by Time, has been telling stories around the world for almost 30 years. He travels around the world sharing his stories, whilst also running workshops (to help aspiring storytellers to hone their craft) which could be applied to any creative developing their art.

Jay talks about appreciation and the impact that it can have on improving one’s craft. The concept, that I found deeply resonated with me, is as follows: Having given a presentation, idea, or a story, the creator would go around asking people to comment on the elements they appreciate most. Upon hearing about the positive elements the creator is likely to emphasize those components more in the future (and therefore de-stress the elements that are not appreciated also).

Constructive feedback may not be the most effective way to help people improve, be it a particular piece of work or the artist’s general style and skills. Positive feedback, that points out elements that you appreciated the most, helps the creator to concentrate on those aspects and further motivate them to create better work in the future.