Written by Nuri Djavit
We’re very happy to announce the launch of the Vespa USA website. It’s been a thrilling ride to get to this point and we’ve worked with some amazing people at Piaggio Group USA. Our team has been exemplary throughout the process and the results reflect the skill and commitment from the Last Exit team. Congrats to all.
Be sure to check out the scooters as well as the Community Rides section.
A few of the first press articles:
Written by Gary Lockton
Brilliant though Google and other search engines are at bringing some level of sense and order to the billions of web pages out there, they all still rely almost completely on our ability to look for something in the right way. Keywords are really that - KEY!
Luckily as the amount of content online grows so does the average level of skill of people using search engines. Two years ago the average number of keywords entered into Google’s search field was not much more than 1.5, today it is more like 3.0. We are being more specific when we search which is a good thing - finding a million or more results is hardly a badge of honour now is it?
In spite of this there remains the ‘Did you mean?‘ problem or the ‘Did we mean?‘ problem as I would describe it.
As an agency advising our clients on SEO or search engine optimisation one of the toughest tasks is convincing businesses to think like customers and ensure the way they write about themselves online does likewise. By all means ‘build it’ but they won’t be coming unless the way you talk matches the way they search!
Take Last Exit and PaperVision for example. We are a Papervision3D agency and would like to be found as such when potential clients search for this kind of service online. Because PaperVision is a new technology however the challenge is to make sure we talk about it in the right ways. The correct description for this Flash plug-in is PaperVision3D but a quick check within Google’s Adwords Keyword Tool reveals a whole host of ways people are looking for it - papervision 3d, paper vision 3d or even pay per vision 3d are all commonly used.
This wouldn’t be a problem but as I say above search engines rely on keywords in a very exact way. Try it yourself - a query of ‘paper vision 3d agency‘ will deliver very different results to one of ‘papervision3d agency‘ regardless of the fact both may be intended to find an agency supplying PaperVision3D.
Granted this all sounds very anal indeed but the truth is that Google and the other search engines are very anal indeed! Words, and the exact way they are used, are all they have to go on when routing that important query of yours to a handful of those 3 billion web pages!
The solution is writing for the web, making frequent reference to important keywords, and writing like the customers you want to attract would ask for you.
The solution is really not rocket-science, or should that be rocket science!
Written by Gary Lockton
papervision3d - paper vision 3d
I have to admit that I had become more than a little tired of the use of Flash online over the last 10 years or so.
Deepend, the original business I launched back in the mid 90s, was a huge fan and follower of Flash. In fact many of the creative awards we were fortunate enough to win in those days were for client website projects built using this technology - launch of the Volkswagen New Beetle into the UK market, creation of the first online presence for Terence Conran’s Design Museum in London, delivery of an aggressive challenge to James Dyson’s vacuum cleaner products for multi-national electronics business Hoover, as well as a wide range of projects for broadcasters like the BBC and Cartoon Network.
What was becoming clear though was the danger of over-indulgence, and I started to ask myself if the ‘whizz-bang’ impact delivered by some of these Flash experiences might be getting in the way of the client messages as opposed to amplifying them? I began to suspect many of these sites were becoming a bit of a task or challenge to use as opposed to guiding the visitor from query to answer as they were initially intended. Most worryingly I started to suspect that our business might be using client projects to showcase individual designers’ wish-lists as opposed to thinking like end-users as we had always done before to build our success as a client’s digital partner.
I had seen many extensions to Flash like Swift 3D make their mark and then seemingly lose favour since the days when Flash alone was news-worthy. When I saw Paper Vision 3D in action (or Pay Per Vision 3D as I first understood it!) I found myself falling in love with Flash all over again!
At Last Exit, we have quickly become huge fans of this open source development in the world of Flash technologies, and feel that PaperVision might be finally delivering on the promise made by Flash back in the mid 1990s!
So, why is a seasoned cynic like myself thinking like this about what is seemingly an incremental addition to the Flash plug-in armoury?
Some of the key reasons are driven by the ability PaperVision3D has to offer:
This last argument is clearly an internal as opposed to an external one for any digital design agency, however it is so important that a team of designers feels inspired and engaged by any new project, and PaperVision3D provides this fresh impetus.
Aside from campaign-oriented work, our agency focuses on the CMS or content management of new client websites, making sure any new project is disability and discrimination act optimized, as well as built for the best level of search engine optimisation or SEO. These things are undoubtably important, but they are harder to argue as motivational elements when it comes to putting the same brief to an internal studio team of designers and developers, and are unlikely to lift the end result above the norm. Paper Vision 3D is both the new client and industry buzz word and I am certain this can only be a good thing for both parties!
Sure we face some challenges as an agency when developing iPhone applications given that Apple has still not found a way of supporting Adobe Flash, no matter PaperVision3D. And it would be a lie to say that every client brief that lands on our respective desks in Last Exit London and Last Exit New York is absolutely ideal for PaperVision. There are also limitations from both an SEO (and specifically Google search optimization) perspective with a PaperVision3D delivered user experience.
The fact remains however that, in my humble opinion, there are bigger issues at hand.
PaperVision provides fresh energy to the most exciting and user-engaging technology ever offered by the World Wide Web. Not only does it offer a level of user-engagement and entertainment not seen since the late 1990s - it turbo-charges the inspiration and creativity of both designers and developers working within the digital industry.
Given the ups and downs the digital industry has experienced over it’s short 15 year life I think it is fair to say that any fresh injection of enthusiasm is very very welcome indeed. I think a seemingly insignificant, open-source, non-commercial, well-meaning, incremental Flash plug-in like PaperVision3D could well be one thing to make a big difference in the digital near-future.
Written by Nuri Djavit
Haha, and just as I’m writing about the noise in email campaigns, eMarketer posts and article outlining the shortening gap between email and search. Read the full article here and if you’re not already registered yet, do it now, it’s a great news source for our industry.
Written by Nuri Djavit
Like it or not, your website is a living breathing entity that courts many visitors (hopefully) and much opinion. It lives out there for many months and even years and often sits there festering by not responding to moving trends and user behavior.
OK, this maybe stating the obvious but we are still a little surprised that many of our clients’ briefs do not include on-going maintenance and support. We endeavor to empower our clients with robust content management systems and most often opt for externally supported technology so that our clients’ are not encumbered by a dependance on us based on proprietary/legacy systems. Great! Of course we’re happy to continue to develop our relationships by providing valuable support in terms of design and technology resource but more importantly, these extended relationships should be based on research, analytics and strategic response.
It’s a blessing and a curse in many ways, that we have the opportunity to constantly fine tune a website or web-based campaign and it’s important to understand that for most ‘projects’ the goal posts are constantly moving: company information/portfolio/people, user behavior in terms of site interaction and in how people use search engines, competition, technology etc. etc. etc. All of which should be monitored and responded to in order to be as effective and as relevant as possible and to achieve constantly ascending success.
Beyond the website, it is also important to understand the greater conversation about your brand. Run a search for a recent campaign and you might be surprised by the number of results. We recently completed a site as part of a broader campaign by a large electronics manufacturer, with no-little follow up. For our own purposes we constantly ran reports and discovered that almost all the top search results were not controlled or influenced by the brand and a few were extremely negative responses. Your website must have tentacles!!
So, make sure that any design work you undertake is underpinned by a sound digital strategy targeting success criteria that will make your campaign or project pay for itself. And be sure to not let your site collect dust on some shared hosting environment. For many, it’s the first part of your brand that is seen and for customers, prospects, employees and potential employees it will leave an impression.
Written by Nuri Djavit
After enjoying a lovely weekend in the Hudson Valley with my wife, we stopped by our old Friends Sean Nutley and Gregory Triana at their kitchen accessories store ‘bluecashew - Kitchen Pharmacy‘, tucked away in the beautiful town of High Falls. I first met Sean and Greg back in ‘99 when we were sharing a space in Chelsea Market; me with my old company Deepend and Sean and Greg as SBN, an event production and PR company. We got along instantly and decided to barter services; they threw our launch party, which was awesome, and we helped re-brand them as bluecashew and develop their first website. They still use the logo that my best designer of the time Angela Lidderdale created.
So, as usual, our vist turned into a shopping extravaganza. We’re no different from many people in modern day America, we take great pride in the stuff we own and enjoy the shopping experience itself, granted, but the fact is that every time I visit bluecashew, I find products that I have longed to find but couldn’t as well as many products that are simply better than the bulk standard utensils I’ve purchased from Bed Bath & Behind. Viking products are not easily come by in my local stores and are bloody awesome. Beautifully designed and built to last. But, Joseph Joseph, being from my home country and fantastic, utilitarian designers create true objet d’arte for the home. I almost don’t care what ‘it’ does, I just want it!
Sean and Greg have assembled a phenomenal shopping experience for all kitchen fiends out there by assembling the very best products based on functionality,durability and quality and of course, beauty. They’ve recently launched their inventory online and are currently wading through the sea of search engine optimization. Go check out the online store and let me know if you agree. Better yet, take a short vacation and drive (just 2 hours) up to the Catskills and see the store for itself, while enjoying one of the country’s most beautiful national parks.
OK, like the car posting not strictly in market but, Hey, I mentioned their website didn’t I?
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