Emakina Blog

Our colleagues of The Reference have released this week the new website of KBC. Ambitious objective: setting new standards in e-banking websites by focusing on the only opinion that really matters, the end customer’s one. During two years of intensive work, a special effort has been put in improving usability and user exprerience through an extensive research process that included a.o. sector benchmarks, visitor scenarios, interviews conducted with several user groups, eye-tracking on customers panels and definition of KPI that will measure the success of this new website in the future. Check out the result here and, as usual, don’t hesitate to share your advice with us in the comments.

IBBT (Interdisciplinary Institute for Broadband Technology) is an independent research institute founded by the Flemish government to stimulate ICT innovation. It brings together companies, authorities and non-profit organizations to join forces on research and development projects like Mobixx, the spin-off I recently wrote about.

Last week, our teams launched the brand new IBBT website. As good information design was central on this project, we organised several workshops in collaboration with the CUO (Center for Usability Research) in order to optimize the user experience towards the several IBBT target groups, including the disabled (the website is compliant with the “any surfer” label).

A joint collaboration Emakina / The Reference and our third major project with Drupal as Content Management System.

A few weeks ago, I emphasized that The Reference was working on a range of exciting projects in their new offices. After installing RTBF radio stations on Microsoft Media Center, our colleagues today announce an exclusive partnership with Mobixx for the Belgian market.

Mobixx, who generated a lot of buzz during the latest 3G congress in Barcelona, is a technology platform intended for the development of applications for the mobile Internet. Originally defined by various working groups within the IBBT (Interdisciplinary Institute for Broadband Technology), Mobixx has become an independent spin-off which will work together with The Reference to market its solutions to Belgian companies.

With Mobixx, any web site can be converted for the mobile Internet without losing its original look and feel. In order to retain the maximum user-friendliness, the site automatically adapts to the specific features of your mobile phone, whatever model or brand you are using. We’re talking here about a real transformation of the web site to make it compatible with the world of mobile phones, not just of a simple “shrinking” of an existing site. Mobixx enables personalisation to be taken even further, modifying the content according to the profile of the user, and according to the geographical location of the mobile phone.

For its part, The Reference, as an interactive full service agency, is bringing to Mobixx its experience in development and ergonomics which it has built up with major customers in the Belgian market. With this partnership, we want to take the mobile Internet beyond the gadget stage to become a real communication channel to address the needs of the user.

Yesterday at the Circle of Media organized by Microsoft Belgium, our colleague Thomas De Vos from The Reference had the opportunity to present one of our most interesting projects of this first quarter.

If you have a Microsoft Media Center in your living room, you’re now able to listen to the five RTBF radio stations (La Première, Musiq 3, PureFM, Classic 21 and VivaCité) in three different ways: live streaming, on demand (= RTBF podcasting for the couch potato) or “à la carte”. This third feature lets you subscribe to a range of generic threads gathering all the radio shows around a common theme : cinema, sports, economy, politics…

The interface has been designed exclusively for the Media Center remote control and is fully compatible with both Xp and Vista editions. Watch our video to discover how it looks like :

Yesterday evening, our colleagues at The Reference organized a very enjoyable housewarming party to celebrate the recent company move to Stapelplein. New CEO, new offices, new exciting projects in the pipeline (stay tuned, more info very soon): here comes The Reference 2.0.

By the way, it’s not too late to win an iPhone by voting for your favorite video on Reference.be.

As of this 22nd December, our colleagues from The Reference leave the Botermarkt for their brand new offices located at Stapelplein 70, bus 201 (see the Google Map below). Just note that the phone (32 9 234 05 36) and fax (32 9 234 05 37) numbers will remain unchanged in the future but will be temporarily out of service this Friday 21st December.

The rumor was running in the market, it’s now official: The Reference has a new Managing Director in the person of Anja Cappelle who succeeds to Alexander van de Rostyne in the same function. Alexander, who did a tremendous job since his arrival at The Reference in 2003, abandons the day-to-day business but will stay however in the Boards of Directors of the company to share his long industry experience with the team. For Anja, no need to say this appointment is a new exciting challenge that crowns her 12-years career at The Reference. Congrats!

Plan to visit the Customer First fair this week? Don’t forget to come and greet our colleagues on The Reference booth. This thursday at 4.00 pm, You can also attend the workshop of Frederik Marain, Senior Media Consultant at The Reference, who will explain why clickable mock ups can be a cost effective way to dry run your site. More info on the Customer First website.

Looking for a clever activity during this hot month of July? The Reference has completed the new CMS-driven website for the Gentse Feesten that kicked-off this Saturday in the Flemish city of Ghent. Hundreds of cool things to do, hear and see until 23rd July. This year, the official website of the Gentse Feesten will host the authors of Gentblogt, one of the most popular blogs in the Belgian blogosphere. Every day, several citizen bloggers will share their thoughts, reports and pictures about the different events that are currently running in Ghent.

Congrats to The Reference team who shows once again its stunning expertise in content management systems. More details on The Weblog.

The Reference has implemented a Content Management System from Sitecore for the booking website of Thomas Cook Airlines Belgium. Following a new partnership between the two companies, this is the very first project including a Sitecore solution on the Belgian market.

Sitecore is one of the world’s most innovative developers of enterprise content-management and portal software. Their award-winning solutions are currently used by thousands of public and private organizations. As a Gold Certified Microsoft Partner, Sitecore solutions offer solid architecture and dedication to the .NET framework and Service Oriented Architecture principals. Sitecore has offices and representatives in more than 50 countries around the world.

Yesterday, we announced our alliance with the Ghent-based agency The Reference. The combination of our two companies sees the birth of a new leader in the Belgian market for interactive agencies.

Established in 1993, The Reference is one of the best-known interactive agencies in Belgium. Its team comprises some 40 people, working for prestigious customers like Telenet, VRT, Ecover and KBC. In 2006, it generated revenues of almost 4 million euros. Today, we are joining forces and combining our talents to form a new market leader in Belgium, with the ambition of expanding on an international scale. The Reference brings us greater flexibility, greater technological expertise, top-class customers, and a very strong brand in the Dutch and Flemish-speaking market.

With this development, we once again confirm our position as market leader in Belgium. Following the acquisitions of B On The Net (Brussels), Design is Dead (Antwerp), SunTzu (Rotterdam) and groupe Reflect (Paris and Limoges), Emakina Group is now a European network of agencies, employing some 200 people across the Old Continent.

- For the financial details of this operation, check out the Investors section on our website.
- The Weblog, the official blog of The Reference.
- Digimedia : “The Reference and Emakina become together the largest interactive agency in Belgium”.