webqem blog

Fantastic 16 min video from TED earlier in 2009 here.

Working in the internet space means sometimes new ideas, technologies, paradigms creep upon us bit by bit and, while we ‘get it’, sometimes it can be helpful to step right back and put things in context.

This talk certainly does that, placing SM within the context of the history of human communication and punching home its significance…

http://www.ted.com/talks/clay_shirky_how_cellphones_twitter_facebook_can_make_history.html

For the November ACUGA meeting we were joined by Peter Ryce from Adobe. Peter spoke about using the Connect Pro Exchange to download custom applications and extensions along with using sync swfs to enhance your connect meeting experience. Peter showed us some really cool sync swfs such as the ‘Footprints‘ app and a clever ‘paper-scissor-rock’ game.

If you happened to miss the event, a recording is available online. Lastly, ACUGA will be going on holidays for the next 2 months so we will see you all again in February 2010.

Fresh out of the box… we had a lot of fun producing this Flash minisite for realestate.com.au…

www.realestate.com.au/features

Take a wander around the fictional town, check out the locals and see how all the new features at realestate.com.au can help you in your property search or sale.

Adobe has released an urgent announcement addressing issues with the recent release of Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro version 7.5.

Adobe has found an issue with the Connect Pro 7.5 Installer that can delete the entire drive on which Connect Pro is being installed. This issue affects anyone who has downloaded the version 7.5 license trial between November 3rd and November 17th 2009.

Adobe has advised customers to immediately cease any further installation of Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro version 7.5 and to delete the Installer program containing Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro version 7.5, as applicable. The issue occurs if you select “cancel” during the file copying step of the installation process.

For more information on this, please carefully read this technote released from Adobe, to see if your current version is affected by this issue. Contact webqem if you require more information about this issue.

Finally an article that confirmed what we had been telling our customers all along – online ads work wonders! The webqem team was very happy to see an article on the Sydney Morning Herald website titled ‘Online ads work wonders, research finds‘. According to a study mentioned in the article – a surprisingly high number of users can recall online ads and admit they are more inclined to buy those products. But, in a strange twist, people who were unable to recall an ad, despite knowing the user had seen it, are equally influenced with their buying patterns.

The article further explains that from the research, they have found that “a third of online users who have seen an ad are able to recall it when asked” . It is funny that only a third of people are able to recall online ads, because here at webqem, we believe that our online ads are so amazing, 100% of users are able to recall the online ad! You can check out webqem’s coolest online ads here.

The brand new St Luke’s Care site is now live! St Luke’s Care is an independent, not-for-profit, charitable organisation that has delivered excellence in health and aged care for 90 years. Our main challenge in redesigning the new site was presenting the four key business areas: Hospital, Home Care, Aged Care and Apartments, equally, whilst still clearly positioning the St Luke’s Care brand as relevant to all four.

The project included requirements definition, wireframing, copywriting, organic SEO, and design and build. There is an emphasis on clean and clear navigation throughout the various page levels on the site, along with testimonials and links to virtual tours, in context. Rich landscape imagery and Flash galleries on specific pages have been used to give life to the pages and to work in concert with the copy to clearly present relevant information to the end user.

webqem is launching maxoom in Hong Kong this November with a free seminar showcasing maxoom. Operations Director, Larry, will be flying to Hong Kong to join webqem Asia Business Development Manager, Daniel Ong, who will be presenting for this launch seminar. The seminar will demonstrate the key functionality of maxoom with some excellent examples, such as the ability to instantly create multiple images sizes from the single master image.

The seminar will be running on Tuesday 21st Nov, from 10am to 11.30am. It is being held at: 33/F, 9 Queens Road Central, Hong Kong. If you would like to attend, please reserve your place by calling us on +852 8199 0531 or send an email to danielo@webqem.com.

The new MCC Transport site recently went live after 1 year of analysis, design, development and testing. MCC transport is a subsidiary of the A.P. Moller – Maersk Group, and are an Intra-Asia carrier delivering containerised cargo  through an extensive feeder network.

The new site gives customer’s the ability to make and amend bookings, submit shipping instructions, approve draft/verify copies of their documentation, download online Bills of Lading, share Certified True Copies of their documents and print invoices relating to their shipments.

The site went live on Oct 19 with a soft launch, followed by an email blast out 2 weeks later that saw traffic quadruple. We’re all very happy to see the site up and running, and thank everyone for their hard work in getting such a complex site build live.

oneworld Alliance has undergone some major changes over the past week. Not only have they welcomed a new airline – Mexicana – but they have restructured their whole website and launched their brand new mobile site.

The integration of Mexicana and the restructure to the site began way back in Feb 2009. After 10 months, oneworld, webqem and a plethora of other agencies involved in translations, tools and design launched the site on Nov 10th to resounding success. At the same time, the newly designed and built mobile site was launched as well.

A big thank you to all of the teams involved in such an epic project.

Congratulations to Virgin Mobile on launching their new eShop! webqem is proud to say that we had a hand in bringing this new and improved online store to fruition.

Starting back in March 2008, webqem was hired to provide UI guidance for design, function and overall usability and customer experience. Consequently, the resulting wireframes and corresponding notes were taken and used by the in-house Virgin design and development team as direction for the site you see today.

Good work from the team at Virgin Mobile!