There's been a lot of pulling up of socks, as well as rolling up of sleeves at enotions this year, as with businesses all across the country. Tough times demand tough actions and we've been keeping our heads down, burning the midnight stuff and bringing in new faces to the team to ensure that our clients can rely on us to deliver, even if they can't rely on their share price to go up at the moment.

The second half of 2009 promises to be as demanding as, if not more so, the year to date. Business success will come as much from recognising new channels and opportunities as having the swankiest looking web site. There are many ways to use digital to reduce your business costs. You just need to spot them. We've stuck our neck out and have listed some of our predictions and favoured digital money saving tips which we hope will inform and perhaps inspire.

We also bring you Jamie Gilman, one of our developers and all-round good egg, to tell you his life story.

And, as ever, our Head of Development Sebastian Grant, identifies his Technology of the Moment.

But first, to those predictions and ways to reduce business costs ....

Online advertising spend to go down (but still leave TV ad spend behind)

 

The first thing to go in a recession is advertising spend and so advertising spend across all channels will reduce as companies tighten their belts and look for more ingenious and cost-effective ways of getting their message broadcast.

Nothing revolutionary there. However, we believe that online advertising spend will reduce this year for the first time in the history of the web. Year on year, online advertising has increased 18%, but the signs are looking likely that spend will only increase by 8% in 2009.

Companies will be looking for tangible results from their advertising spend; not just estimated or potential views of adverts but 'converted sales and customers' through activity.

Online advertising has always struggled to assure the savvy paying client that it does work and cynicism will replace optimism when it comes to pouring precious pennies into the latest banner gimmick.

Nevertheless, PriceWaterhouseCoopers suggest that, despite the reduction in online ad spend, online advertising is expected to outstrip television spend by the end of the year.

Our view: Don't invest in banner advertising. Save your budget for activity which has a success criteria of more the 0.1%. Consider social networks and tweaking your site's SEO.

 

Overall online spend will go up

If tangibility is the watch word for 2009, R.O.I is the abbreviation.

Companies want to see exactly what their investments achieve in cold hard statistics. The web can, of course, deliver this, with accuracy and flexibility. This will be attractive to middle management who need to go to their directors and say, "Look what this investment has achieved" in black and white.

In an economy where you want your money to stretch, the speed and versatility of web development means that companies will want to invest their limited budgets in an area where they feel they are getting more 'bang for their buck.'

During a recession, home based activity such as computer game playing (and Internet surfing should fall into this - an unknown as this is the web's first proper recession) increases as it is a 'low-cost past time'. Therefore, online consumer activity is expected to rise in 2009. This is twinned with the fact that consumers are becoming more confident in ecommerce, which also points to a rise in online shopping in 2009.

Our view: Focus on your customers' needs. Who are they? What do they want from you? What can you give them in answer to that? Focus on doing the important things very well.

 

Online TV to increase

The road to Utopia never ran smooth and Online TV has been particularly rocky, with the troubles of Kangaroo and the cancellation of KateModern.

However, we have seen continued interest in Online TV, particularly around BBC's iPlayer, ITV's Catchup and Channel 4's 4oD and this is set up to increase in 2009 as people wish to manage their own viewing schedules.

Two or three years ago we advised people to watch out for Joost. We still stand by that claim. Joost might yet break out of its niche market it currently services and break into the big time.

Advertisers are bound to be circling for new opportunities, especially with the decline of the traditional banner advertising mechanism. Expect novel approaches to offset the ineffectiveness of 'normal' advertising with sponsorship and product placement.

Our view: Consider using YouTube as a means of delivering your message. Setting up a YouTube channel page is FREE and gives you an audience of millions.

 

The devil makes use of idle hands

Warnings are coming out of the security camps to expect web-based attacks to rise at alarming rates this year. Some are predicting a 16% increase for the whole year. Is recession to blame? It's hard to say but crime increases in a recession and with credit less readily available, you should expect an increase in card and ID fraud.

Whilst ID and credit fraud is worrying for users, the biggest issue is likely to lie with site security, particularly around hacks and viruses. MySpace and Facebook have been maleiciously targeted several times and Microsoft frequently warns of flaws in the security of Internet Explorer.

Our view: If you have, or are planning, an ecommerce site, protect yourself properly. For everyday users, change your passwords and use a range of passwords for different applications and sites.

 

The rise, and rise, of Social Media

Social networks, such as Facebook, Myspace and Twitter, are being investigated by businesses to expand their reach. Businesses are getting wise to the fact that people do not tend to go to brand sites any more unless they have a specific complaint or wish to take part in a specific promotion. Instead they go to blogs, forums and member sites.

The embrace of Social Media will stretch from the creation of member pages to the enabling of on-site customer reviews.

Advertising spend on tangible advertising assets, such as banners, for these sites will reduce but overall spend will increase to keep their sites, and comments on fellow social network sites, up to date.

Expect iphone and desktop applications, widgets and tools to flood the market in the second half of 2009.

Our view: If you are thirsty, go to the well. We've always believed that you don't just sit there and wait for your clients to come to you. You go after them and where they are is on these social networking sites.

If you have any comments or questions regarding our predictions, don't hesitate to get in touch.

STAFF UNDER THE SPOTLIGHT

Jamie Gilman
When/where were you invented? In 1983, so I'm 25. The real question is, how many days do I have left? I was born in the north, but I really don't like mushy peas. Isn’t life complicated?

What does it do? I'm a Web Developer. I'd also like to be the frontier of an enotions podcast, called "What the HTML are you on about?", but I think it might be too silly to represent such a professional digital agency such as enotions.

Where lives ye? In an Oxfordshire village, where buzzards expertly hover aloft the garden hedge, red kites circle overtop, and a dog misbehaves on the lawn.

Favourite web site: I love the Nike sites, and although they're Flash heavy, they're attractive and usually not too overwhelming for the user. My favourite thing is Nike+, which is a range of products that record stats when you go for a run. One of these products is a sensor, which goes in your shoe and a wrist band which you wear when you go for a jog (more of a joglette recently). This doubles as a USB stick for uploading your runs, times, personal bests and stats to the Nike+ web site. You can also set yourself a training schedule, compete in challenges with the online Nike+ community and find local routes for jogging. If you're into running, check it out, it's very cool.

A little bit interesting fact: One morning I sat up in bed and blurted out "Paul Stalker!" I've never heard that name before. I Googled him, and he's a life coach aiming to ignite your personal potential. I don't know whether to contact him, I'm a little scared. Maybe I'll give his book a go and look for my name coded into its passages. Then I'll know... Contact enotions if you think Jamie should contact Paul Stalker.

These are a few of my favourite things: Walking, music, comedy, football. I like writing poems, I've written a series of stanzas about fruits and their misgivings. I'd like to write a book, a sitcom, be a journalist, be an actor, comedian, musician, sports person, or children's TV presenter – but I rarely leave the house, and have very little talent.

Can you read? Yes, at the moment I'm reading The Historian. It's about vampires. I've never been into vampires really, I'm very tickly around the neck. But this book is good.

A little bit more interesting fact: In August I ran the Nike Human Race, a 10K at Wembley which recorded your race time along with thousands of runners across the world. I was approaching the finish when Paula Radcliffe steamed past me down the outside, so I mustered my remaining energy and sprinted and took her on the line! Woohoo! (Then, I was very nearly sick). But, I guess she did slow down to help out those flagging joggers. And then there was that guy in the wheelchair I pushed into her path. And she was a bit injured. And she started 15 minutes after me but nevertheless, I beat Paula Radcliffe.

Other important things:
I can't wear hats, I have a very strange shaped head
My favourite radio station is BBC radio 4
I tried to get my poems published into cards. No one liked them
My feet are unusually wide
I work in man leggings
I beat Paula Radcliffe

How many days do you have left? I don't know? Maybe "Stalkie" could tell me?

CLIENT NEWS

2009 has been extremely busy with two major FMCG brands amongst the sites 'shipped' to date this year.

The first was Tropicana Kids!, a fun packed, colourful and 'character-full' web site for Tropicana Kids!, the new juice drink for kids from Tropicana. Featuring lovely bright visuals, fun animations and lots of games and puzzles for children to print off and play, it's a site to both inform and entertain mums and kids alike. The animals on the site, including Katie the Kangaroo and Percy the Pelican, have been great to work with. Never work with animals or children? Maybe just this once! Check the site at http://www.tropicanakids.co.uk

The second is the new site for Copella Fruit Juices. Copella wanted a site that reflected their authentic Suffolk roots and gave users the opportunity to 'glance into life at the Boxford Farm'. As well as providing tangible assets from life on the farm such as the blog and forthcoming 'home made farm video diaries', the look of the site is intentionally 'simple' to appear 'home made'. The last site we created for Copella had been designed to feel 'authentic'. It was a beautiful site but perhaps, in hindsight, was 'overly authenticated' (if that's the term!) with autumnal colours and lots of hessian sacking backgrounds! The new site has been designed in such a way that its simplicity and style cuts through to deliver the message of small, traditional and friendly farm producing the best apple juice you can buy! Check it out at http://www.copellafruitjuices.co.uk and see if you agree.

GROOVY TECHNOLOGY OF THE MONTH - Subversion

By Sebastian Grant - Head of Development

Most sites that we build these days are actually web-based applications, highly complex pieces of software based around the client-server model rather than standalone "online brochures" so it stands to reason that our development team have had to adopt many tried-and-true processes and practices to ensure the smooth development and deployment of these web-apps.

Among other technologies and applications is our good friend - Subversion. Subversion (or SVN for short) isn't strictly a new technology to us, we've been using it since 2005 - but its virtues have recently come back to the forefront of our attention.

Source Control software is used to ensure that each developer in the team has access to the latest revision of any and all files within a project (mainly, in our case this means source code and graphical assets) as well as holding an archive of every 'little' change that has been made during the life of an application. As a by-product, SVN (or any other SCM package, such as CVS or Microsoft's Source Safe) keeps full backups of everything within the "repository."

There have been many instances in the past when clients have taken a look at the final version of their website and decided... "Actually, I think the background you did for us in the first place does look better after all" - with SVN, all this entails is simply to locate the revision that the background was updated and revert the file back to the previous revision - this is normally a case of three clicks rather than having the designer try to replicate the original image.

Recently, we were asked to re-instate some seasonal functionality for a client; last year this was around a week's worth of work for one of our developers, but unfortunately - due to the financial state of the current marketplace - there was not the budget available for this amount of work so we opted to replace last year's work.

A quick look around the Subversion repository and a bit of creative "checking out" and the Christmas promotion was ready for launch - a week's worth of development time reduced to less than an hour - all thanks to SVN.

Let us know what you think or if you would like to see a particular topic covered next time. Click here if you have any feedback for us.

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