Nzime

We couldn’t resist registering nzi.me as a url shortening domain. With the BBC, Twitter, Facebook already taking advantage of custom short urls it seemed a shame to let such a perfectly branded name go to waste.

It was simple to setup with bit.ly providing a pro service that lets you link your own short domain. Now we can track the response to any url’s we post with the added bonus of the nzi.me brand.

I’m going to start with some large numbers. The current global population is around 6.7 billion, smartphone usage in 2010 was calculated at 526 million. This works out at around 8% of the worlds population are using smartphones all with potential access to the mobile web.

Source: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/solutions/collateral/ns341/ns525/ns537/ns705/ns827/white_paper_c11-520862.html

In 2010 Google was serving up to 200 million YouTube videos a day to mobile devices. Traffic on the AT&T (US) network has grown 3000% between 2009 and 2010 (yes 3000%) with similar trends throughout Europe’s networks. The figures are astonishing but what isn’t, is the slow uptake of the mobile web market by businesses.

Source: http://ie6countdown.com/

Internet Explorer 6 currently has a market share of 3.3% in the UK whilst iOS is responsible for 5.5% of the UK’s web traffic that isn’t even taking into account Android, Blackberry and Windows Mobile. More resources are pumped into making things work for the 3.3% of users using a 10 year old browser than the 8% of people using smartphones. If you look at the behavior of the different user groups of IE6 users and smartphone users, which are most likely to use the internet as a primary source of information and purchase?

As a business this market has huge potential, especially with the growth seen over the past 3 years. Providing a dedicated mobile experience greatly increases the user experience and potential for users and this can only aid in sales and interest.

To finish on, Amazon announced last year that it topped $1 billion in sales from users on mobile devices with it’s mobile site playing a huge part in this. More businesses need to follow in Amazons footsteps and embrace the mobile market.

Traditionally website designers have been restricted to using a very small collection of fonts on their sites, mainly Arial, Verdana, Georgia and Times.
Although in practise these fonts render nicely across all different browsers and are perfectly readable it’s nice to occasionally drop in some cool heading fonts and incorporate some brand specific typefaces.

Where a brands corporate typeface is essential we’ve always been forced to replace the headings/navigation type etc with images but this isn’t a great solution particularly with SEO in mind.

Recently there have been some big developments in this area and Nzime are now incorporating new services provided by Typekit and Fonts.com. These create a way of including custom fonts consistently across multiple browsers through a clever mix of web standards compliant font inclusion and a little Javascript for the browsers that need help.
An ever expanding library of web optimised fonts now includes many from the leading foundries such as Adobe and Monotype, so we now have access to 100′s of faces instead of just 4.

To see some of these in action on a couple of our recent site builds check out the type on LabelApeel.co.uk,  DeTourDeFrance.fr and fineoakfurniture.com

This is just part of what Nzime are doing to keep our clients’ sites on the cutting-edge of technological developments in the industry, make their sites work harder for them and produce the results they require whilst bringing their sites in line with their printed material.

We’ll be at the Ampersand Conference in Brighton this June to talk to all the leading lights in the web typography field including the guys from Typekit and even the infamous Vincent Connare creator of Comic Sans!
Any further typographic enlightenment gleaned from this will be passed on to our lovely clients you can be sure!

Alessandro.
We think he’s from Sheffield but have yet to understand a word he says. A very talented designer with a proven track record he joins Nzime to head up the creative team. As well as holding down a job as senior designer at Nzime he manages his penchant for all graphical things to do with the Munich Olympics at his web site… www.1972municholympics.co.uk.

Laura.
She bakes cakes, she’s creative and has Pantone 222 coloured hair. Very talented and has an unnatural ability for Foosball. Laura joins us as a designer.

Taryn.
Scarily organised but with a smile, everything you need from an account manager. Taryn has already shown her weakness by admitting she’s a little gullible, oh dear, April 1st is approaching quickly…..

Glen.
As our account exec Glen handles our reporting and day to day support of several accounts with clinical efficiency. He’s also an exceptional copywriter and has an eagle eye as well as a quiff to match.

Nzime are now on the Recommended Agency Register thanks to a bunch of our clients who were kind enough to sing our praises. Big thanks everyone, it means a lot.

Just a D, S, E, G, R, J, M, A, J, A, D, B, L, T, S, T & C.

Part of how we keep up to date on the latest emerging trends and services in the industry, I took a trip to the capital to check out the ‘Technology for Marketing and Advertising’ event.
Lots of useful info from keynotes by Facebook and Ebay who showcased some of their new tools available to advertisers to further enhance the social sharing and targeted advertising their platforms can provide.

New digital publishing tools from Adobe, Quark and Yudu looked impressive, particularly Yudu’s system for publishing enhanced magazine content to iPad allowing designers to output magazine’s, brochures and catalogues with in-app purchases for subscriptions if required.

After lots of note-taking and chocolate muffins I headed back to Notts (via the Covent Garden Apple Store hoping to check out more info on the new iPad 2!).

Need simply stunning point of sale and in-store display? The Design Workshop are the boys (and girl).

Coming out later this year, just makes you want to get out there…

No reason for this post other than it’s a nice picture of a phylum Cnidaria from my weekend trip to the Blue Planet Aquarium in Chester at the weekend.