Feb 3 2010

Let me take you back to the middle of the nineties. At that time, there were two different, competing and radically opposed schools when it came to the future of digital networks. The first school, represented by Compuserve, defended a structured architecture of the web: Compuserve built a closed system with its own nomenclature and its own applications that were not accessible to non-subscribers. Others, including key players such as AOL and even Apple, offered access to their deceased eWorld to the first forerunners who paced the stammering network.

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Nov 19 2009

Getyoo (pronounce Get You) is a free web-based platform allowing people to gather all their social activity on the web.

The novelty of the platform is the Clickey, a wireless key allowing users to connect to people, objects and ‘things’ in real life. In just a click, people can send and receive informations. Clickey is the electronic combination of a business card and an electronic carrier bag for anything you’d want to carry around.

There are also Tags, small stickers containing any info that can be sticked on almost every object! Clickey’s can read Tags and retrieve information linked to them: product details, user’s manuals, videos, websites or personalized offers. The official release will be in a couple of months but the team regularly send invitations to join the Getyoo beta. So don’t hesitate to click, connect & share.

Sep 22 2009

How will interactivity manifest itself in the coming years? What will interactive marketing look like?  And what will it mean for customers and for companies?

Whether you realize it or not the possibilities of interactive technologies for marketers are endless. The 19th Emakina Academy Session invites you to discover those possibilities and capture what could by the highlights of interactive marketing in 2015.

During this Emakina Academy, you will:

• Take a look into the future of interactive marketing.
• Discover an exciting future that interconnects everything, everywhere, all the time and erases the borders between the physical and worlds.
• Learn how mobile technologies will create unlimited possibilities for making interactive communication a new part of life.
• Know how to engage in an authentic positive word of mouth to raise brand awareness and drive direct sales through social shopping.
• Understand the connections between emerging trends and design thinking (graphic design, web design, or simply in design in general).

This free seminar will take place Thursday, 22 October 2009 between 09:00 and 14:00 @ Tour&Taxi – Port Avenue 86C – 1000 Brussels. View road map.

Register online: www.emakina.com/academy and follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Sep 6 2009

Here is one more proof (as if it was necessary) of the variety of the talent of the Emakinans. This time in the touchscreen application domain.

For the “Electrabel Shops”, Emakina developed a user-friendly application with a touchscreen interface. It’s fun, intelligent, easy to use and, most important, easy to understand.

No need for a manual to find your way into the 4 components of this app :

• The 10 Electrabel commitments for less CO2 emissions.
• The “green production” map, to see where Electrabel produces “green” energy and allow user to filter by production method.
• The CO2 tool, which helps customers to evaluate their CO2 emissions and to reduce the CO2 they produce.
• A funny touch game, which asks you to shut down any electrical appliance (by touching it) in order to lower your electrical consumption.

Everything here is about learning, having fun and… touching.

As this is an experience you should try by yourself, we encourage you to play/navigate with this application on the 32′ touchable screens located in the first Electrabel Shop of Antwerp which has just opened.

Aug 17 2009

The Web Content Management (WCM) market is a very evolving and very competitive landscape with thousands of providers of WCM solutions in several ranges. For decision makers it’s not always easy to reveal which solution is right for them; enabling them to generate higher business value in their Web presence. Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for WCM (MQ) aims to help decision makers understanding the fresh vitality in the WCM market.

WCM solutions in their traditional form are no longer enough from a business perspective; the several mergers and acquisitions during the last years in the WCM landscape show that WCM solutions are synergizing with other ECM components like Digital Asset Management (DAM), content-centric collaboration, records- and document management (DM). On top of that organizations often augment WCM tools with capabilities including multivariate testing, search engine optimization, ad-insertion, search and recommendation technology to help achieve the desired results from their overall Web presence.

Gartner identifies the following key trends currently shaping the WCM market further:

• enhanced usability for non-technical users
• increased popularity of open source solutions
• greater interest in Software as a Service (SAAS) offerings
• growing importance of dynamic context-based content delivery
  

It’s really a pity that even though there is a clear trend towards open source, no single open source solution was able to make it to the MQ. In fact, Garner’s exclusion criteria make it somehow impossible for an open source solution to enter it. I give an example: “the total software revenue (licenses, updates,…) of the vendor should exceed 8 million dollars”. Of course the ‘pure’ open source solutions will probably never ever reach that figure, since they are totally free of license cost! Maintenance and support is often provided through a network of partners and not directly by a vendor.

There is also inconsistency with the Forrester Wave for WCM (which is, by the way, not including any open source neither). Forrester Research ranks Oracle “only” sixth after SDL Tridion, Autonomy Interwoven and a few others. Gartner ranks Oracle (=Stellent) as the leader in their MQ because of its ability to integrate with other Oracle products, including their CRM system. I’m not really a fan of big monolithic ‘vendor locked-in’ solutions reaching far beyond the boundaries of what I’d define as WCM and which is opposed to the ‘loosely coupled’ & ‘separation of concerns’ principle.

Another thing to keep in mind while reading the report is that many of Gartner’s evaluation remarks have to do with a vendor’s “marketing effectiveness”, “communication” and “awareness”; things that might be more relevant to investors and other vendors but not so much to buyers. The report is from that perspective often too high-level and strategic ignoring the details that are often so important. I’m following Tony Byrne from CMS Watch here stating ‘To evaluate a WCM solution the vendor’s story does not really matter, what they actually do matters’.

Even though the MQ contains valuable information about the WCM market our advice is not to use it as your only source in the decision process for your WCM and to look at it from the right perspective: keeping in mind that it is not purely an evaluation of WCM solutions, otherwise it could be misleading.

May 27 2009

Last week at the Convergence Web conference, the AWT asked us to present our vision of the Internet for the next ten years. Very ambitious proposal but the problem is we have no crystal ball and, like a wise man once said: always avoid to make predictions, especially about the future. Anyway, we tried to detect and explain ten major trends that are probably shaping the future of the new media scene. Just tell us in the comments what you think of our analysis.

Aug 19 2008

This project has no direct connexion with our agency but it deserves your attention anyway: CityPlug is a new ambitious city-guide at the crossroad between a classic directory and a user-generated platform at the local level. More concretely, CityPlug helps you discover the best places (shopping, bars, restaurants…) in your neighborhood and, even better, enables you to share your favorite places with the community of CityPluggers. Eight Belgian cities are currently covered by CityPlug and more are expected very soon. Check it out at www.cityplug.be.

Aug 13 2008

Marin has developed a cool Wordpress plug-in that displays the amount of approved, pending or spam comments that are in the admin zone of your blog. Download the file in the Wordpress plugin directory and read more explanations on Marin’s blog.

May 18 2007

The new transaction platform Tunz.com has started this week and gives a free 5 euros credit to the first 1.000 subscribers. Among the cool features offered by this service, let’s point out the TunzMe pay button. If you’re a blogger, this widget enables your readers to easily send you a money gift.

Tunz.com has been co-founded by Internet pioneers like Jean Zurstrassen, Grégoire de Streel or Brice Le Blévennec (President of Emakina).

Mar 13 2007

We created a nice viral game to celebrate the first year of the “state of happiness” campaign by Center Parcs. Your challenge is to blow out a candle with your mouse… or with your own breath if you plug a microphone in your computer. Check out and play:

- Blaas de kaar uit
- Soufflez la bougie
- Pusten die Kerze aus

Jan 11 2007

A post from Johnny Degreef, Web Solution Architect.

A few weeks ago, our Java team attended JavaPolis 2006. It’s one of the biggest European conferences for Java developers (more than 2.800 attendees and 100+ speakers this year).

The thing that hit me most this year is how few Java code that we’ve seen. It’s a fact now that Java is merging more and more with other technologies and programming languages. To name but a few hot ones: Ajax, Flex, Ruby, JSON, Python, REST…

There were also sessions about the never ending story, called SOA. I guess by now, everybody understands that SOA is nothing more then a buzzword that sales guys like to use just because it’s fancy… In practice, however, SOA architectures based on web services can not be ignored.

Some things that really scared me are these upcoming technologies like REST and COMET. REST (Representational State Transfer) seems a good idea, but I’m sure that security departments will think differently on this since it can expose your complete business logic by means of simple HTTP GET requests. COMET is a technology that allows to push information from a server to a browser. The idea is nice, but I consider it as a violent rape of TCP/IP! Even with some upcoming ARP (Asynchronous Request Processing) web servers like Grizzly and Glassfish that are designed specifically for this purpose, I still have an awkward feeling about this. But probably, I’m the only one thinking this way since the upcoming Servlet 3.0 specification will also be based on this.

This makes me come back to Flex that out-of-the box supports to push data to the browser. Let me assure you, I like the idea of Flex very much. I’m convinced that our front-ends are evolving to this technology. But what about the infrastructural aspects of Flex? Can a complete Flex application have the same simultaneous load then a traditional web application running on a simple Apache 1.3? What’s the impact on the web server stack?

What’s new under the sun for Java? Well, of course, there is the final Java SE6 released a few weeks ago. And since Java is open sourced with a GPLv2 license there is the OpenJDK equivalent. New in Java SE6 are a web service client stack, native XML data binding, scripting support (Mozilla rhino engine), SQLXML, Diagnosability, Desktop API enhancements, annotation tool support and finally, no more JVM tuning flags! The Java SE6 JVM is auto-tuning. For the upcoming Java SE7 there will be a new archiving structure more flexible then jar packages, support for dynamic languages, easier Swing development, Asynchronous IO and Javadoc improvements. Java SE7 will also come with new Java language modifications. Hot topic here are ‘closures’ that can control abstraction (less code).

Finally, I want to conclude on what we need to focus more and more in our daily work:

- Profiling: more important then ever before. All web application should be verified with a profiling tool. Most memory leaks still have their origin in written source code. Besides this, profiling of CPU, memory and IO are needed as well.

- Flow of changes: the final goal of software development is to have a stable outcome. We need to stabilize our releases as much as possible. The usage of a source code control system is not sufficient since it doesn’t cover any application life cycle. An interesting design pattern to tackle this is the “tofu scale”, invented by Perforce.com.

- Automatic testing: Besides Agile development, there is also Test Driven Development (TDD) where all development is concentrated by unit and acceptance tests. To automate testing of web applications, have a look at Selenium, a Firefox plugin.

Jan 2 2007

Emakina wishes you all the best for 2007. May this new year bring you joy, happiness and prosperity. Looking for a funny and distinctive way of saying “happy new year”? Try our VidCards module to send a video message to your friends, relatives and colleagues.

Dec 5 2006

Telemak, our partner for video streaming, is doing great. Last week, CEO and founder Christophe Lenaerts unveiled an ambitious strategic plan to export his company abroad and significantly increase both turnover and human resources within three years. Last year, Telemak was our “streaming provider” for one of the most exciting projects Emakina achieved so far: Chance Encounter, a website to promote a new fragrance from fashion designer Jean-Paul Gaultier. The highest point was a virtual encounter between two famous artists, Chinese movie director Zhang Yimou (House of Flying Daggers) and Russian violonist Maxim Vengerov. Thanks to Telemak’s expertise, millions of viewers followed this event at the same time worldwide . Missed the party? Check out the archives on the website.

Nov 3 2006

Our 6th Academy will be held next week on Wednesday 8th November. Topic of the day: the communication value of your Intranet. Since 2003, we have successfully deployed many communication portals for the STIB/MIVB and its 6.500 employees. It’s time to share our expertise through real live cases and proven best practices. Representatives from STIB/MIVB will explain their own experience with the SAP Portal NetWeaver platform. We will also present TeamWeaver, our SAP-certified solution that significantly improves the content management in the NetWeaver environment.

During this Emakina Academy, you will learn :

- How to improve your company communication through portal usage;
- How to increase traffic on your communication portal;
- How to implement the key factors of success to ensure users’ adoption.

Want to join us? Subscribe for free on Emakina Academy website.

Oct 19 2006

Want to become a Pay&Goer? You can now order your SIM card directly on the Pay&Go Generation website. Nothing very special at first sight but, in the backstage, a lot of work to add a new layer of integration between the existing processes at Proximus and the logistic provider delivering the SIM card in the end-user’s postbox. Small project but very interesting e-business example.

Oct 9 2006

This Monday in Belgian newspaper La Libre Belgique, Brice Le Blévennec, President of Emakina, is asked how he sees the Internet in ten years. Check out the article here and don’t hesitate to give your own opinion in the comments below.

Sep 20 2006

Emakina Academy 5 is open now for registration ! During this fifth session, our WebTrends experts will explain how web analytics can significantly improve your website ROI and better profile your target group. In the second part, our partner Extenseo will show the power of Search Engine Optimization and Keyword Buying to attract qualified audience through Google & friends. If you’re not interested in knowing your consumer, don’t come.

Sep 11 2006

Emakina will be part of the exhibitors at the next edition of SAP TechEd that will be held on October 18-20 in Amsterdam. We will present TeamWeaver, our content management add-on for the NetWeaver environment. More details about this event on SAP TechEd website.

Sep 1 2006

Our fourth Emakina Academy will be held on 13th September. This time, we’ll talk about Ajax, a new framework that lets you build more flexible, dynamic interfaces, and that boldly goes where no web-based application has gone before. Our Strategic Cell will explain how AJAX can improve the user experience and, ultimately, the ROI of your Internet business.

Interested? Apply now!

Dec 5 2001

There is a danger that i-mode may run up against the same obstacles as WAP, but we can learn some excellent lessons from this.

Frost & Sullivan estime qu’en 2006, l’Europe occidentale
comptera 31,4 millions d’abonnés i-mode. Les services i-mode
européens seront basés sur certains volets du modèle business
et la technologie mise au point par DoCoMo pour le marché
japonais. C’est le contenu, dont un ‘contenu viral’ tels que le
service de messagerie, qui sera déterminant pour l’acceptation
de l’i-mode sur le Vieux Continent. Mais un marketing mieux
adapté et de meilleurs services et applications y contribueront
également. En outre, de nouveaux équipements à interface
graphique conviviale et écran couleur devraient stimuler
l’utilisation. Quoi qu’il en soit, la croissance sera nettement
plus progressive qu’au Japon, affirme encore Frost & Sullivan
qui relève d’ailleurs que les réseaux de la 2e et, finalement,
de la 3e génération offriront les meilleures possibilités pour
un retour considérable tant pour les fournisseurs de contenu,
les opérateurs que les prestataires de services.