Feb 3, 2011
Particle type experiment
Just a little experiment using Cinema 4D's particle system and a nice 'a' from our logo.
Jan 20, 2011
Review of the new Guardian app
By Matthew Aitken: Mobile and future devices designer
Amidst rumours that Apple are going to offer a subscription pricing system for apps the Guardian released their new iPhone app earlier today. This effectively replaces the existing app, which they intend to phase out over the next six months.
The pricing model they have opted for is £2.99 for 6 months or £3.99 for 12 months. Although customers who had already purchased the old Guardian app will probably moan- App Store reviews bring out the worst in people! - this seems like exceptionally good value. It is also a good strategic move giving them recurring revenue to continue improving the app and providing dedicated content.
So, having downloaded, what we expected was an 'evolved' version that boasts more than they currently offer with added features, bells and whistles. On first impressions, it looks quite similar to the original app - which is no bad thing. The app itself is well presented and makes good use of strong colour-coded sections and simple navigation, so usability has been a key driver. Again a good thing.
Jan 13, 2011
The year that’s been in the digital world…
By Karen Lewis: Client Services Director
So, as the year comes to a close, I’ve been asked to reflect upon the year that’s been and where it leads to in the digital arena. Interesting task - and one that I relish! Looking back, predictions for 2010 were dominated by adapting for and surviving the poor economic climate in addition to enthusing about this being the year of the mobile (finally!), given the phenomenal market adoption of smartphone technology.
And indeed, digital profited from the UK’s economic climate with price comparison, auction and cashback sites demonstrating the fastest growth rates in the industry as value for money dominated and influenced consumer purchase behaviour.
What has also happened is that shopping has become increasingly ‘social’ (e.g. Amazons user feedback and Groupon); ‘in-the-know’ consumers are more likely to seek lower prices online (via eBay’s Fashion Outlet and ASOS Marketplace) and, more importantly, influence shifted to peers with consumers reporting that they are now more influenced by user generated reviews than brand advertising.
Dec 22, 2010
Strobe Media Playback: Wrapped
Strobe Media Playback (SMP) has quickly become my Flash media player of choice.
Built by Adobe - using the Open Source Media Framework (OSMF) - it's simple to use, yet powerful; and thanks to being open source, the project is available for all to download, modify, and re-build at will. Which, as it turns out, is rather handy.
For a recent project I needed to -quickly- implement a Flash video player that supported various streaming protocols, and would play nicely when loaded/controlled by some other Flash content. For me, SMP was the obvious choice.
The standard player supports being loaded by another SWF - passing any flashvars from the loading SWF on to the player - but for this project I needed more control over the configuration, positioning, size, and full-screen behaviour. With a few small changes to StrobeMediaPlayback.as, and a new wrapper class to make loading and configuring the player from Flash nice and simple, I had what I needed.
When modifying the player, my aim was to retain all the original functionality and behaviour when embedded into HTML - so the same player can be used everywhere, as you should see at above... However, *caveat alert* I can't guarantee that, so if you end up deploying this somewhere important be sure to test it works as expected beforehand.
Changes to the player were made in the StrobeMediaPlayback document class:
- Added an option to stop the automatic initialize() call when the player is added to the stage - to allow initialising the player with custom sets of parameters, not necessarily from the loaderInfo parameters.
- Added optional width/height parameters to the initialize function, where passing 0,0 causes the player to fit the full size of the stage.
- Added a resize function that can be called any time after initialisation.
Get the wrapper code and tweaked StrobeMediaPlayback here. There's a little read-me in there to help you get started working with the wrapper and/or rebuilding the player, and the changes are documented in comments at the top of the StrobeMediaPlayback class.
The wrapper and player modifications are built on version 1.5 of StrobeMediaPlayback - you can view/download the various SMP distributions on sourceforge.
Nov 29, 2010
ChildLine Charity Auction
The team here at MadeByPi® were recently tasked with creating an auction site for our client first direct, the website would be used to auction off some really rather cool items to raise money for childrens charity ChildLine.
The auction this week came to a close and we are pleased to announce that the website has raised a huge £14,114.10 in the aid of charity!
Nov 24, 2010
Videos from Build
Videos have now appeared on Vimeo of all the talks from this years Build Conference that we attended earlier this month at the Waterfront Studio, Belfast!
Check them out here at vimeo.com
Nov 17, 2010
Build Conference 2010
Me and fellow MadeByPi'er Matt Aitken recently went to the Build Conference in Belfast, the conference was only there for it's second year but that didn't stop it from being both an informative and inspirational conference.
Nov 1, 2010
The web versus apps – is it really that simple?
Matthew Aitken 'Mobile and future devices designer' for MadeByPi recently gave us an insight into the future of the mobile web and applications. Matts article goes as follows:
"If you believe the rumours, then apps are the future and the web is old news. Great headline, but is there any substance to this sensationalism? In case you missed it, Wired magazine recently started the debate with its announcement that the web is in decline and its death is imminent. The truth is that as great as apps are (have you played Angry Birds?) the web is far from dead.
