MozCamp: 25 Mozilla Geeks, One day… In Canada eh! by Brij Charan

Mozcamp: aka NorthWestMozDev Meets again!

Yep it’s our 2nd meetup for our own North West Moz Dev Group.
We’ll be meeting up in Victoria this time, so it was my turn to arrange the location etc.

One thing really cool about this 2nd meeting, is that it’s going to be completely sponsored by the Mozilla Foundation!  (THANK YOU!)

We generally gather a bunch of different people involved in the Mozilla community in one way or another, and we break out in small scrums and discuss various topics related to Mozilla.  Most of the topics will be development related, but some will be more non-tech, and related to open source in general.  These sessions are geared towards the North West Mozilla community.

To learn more about this meeting, see:

http://groups.google.com/group/northwestmozdev/web/meeting-2008-11-29

Our attendees represent:

• Brand Thunder (well of course!)
• ActiveState
• Mozilla Foundation
• Mozilla Messaging
• Mozilla Corporation
• Flock
• Songbird
• Adevia Software
• Others (don’t have links to their companies)

I’ll be sure to bring the camera and snap some shots.  I’ll post to flickr.

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Holiday Weekend and Start Up Fears by Patrick Murphy

We’re hoping to clear the long holiday weekend without incident. We’ve had a good run of luck with a growing client list, awards and industry recognition. Good momentum for our branded browsers. And our blog posts, while we hope are substantive and useful, tend to be rosy.

Well, last week we hit our first real hiccup. In the midst of a bunch of great news, and a time when we hoped to be seeing a good influx of new traffic, our site went down. The impact potential isn’t just our site and company. Given that our product represents other brands – the problem could be more wide spread.

Our recent successes revealed a bug in the open-source code behind our site. An influx of traffic and events were triggering an infinite loop that ultimately led to server overload (hope that made sense). We diverted server resources to the more critical components of our company, and let our corporate website take the brunt of the downtime. Not necessarily the face you want to show interested prospects, but the right choice nonetheless.

We feel fortunate our server guy is a staunch believer in open-source code. While we run a lean organization, the ability to rely on the shared intelligence of the open-source community greatly expands his knowledge. In a way, it’s like a virtual team and that team offered the information he needed to resolve the issue. Naturally, we’ll share back as we continue to tweak and improve.

Now that we’re heading into a long weekend, we’ll be a little more attuned to the business than we otherwise might have been. And a stable server will certainly make us thankful.

Lessons Learned/Good Habits:
• Track your site status. We’re using Monit on the server and an external monitoring site to send alerts.
• Have a support escalation plan in place – who to call, where to reach them, both internal and external.
• Avoid a single point of failure – whether it’s the password to get support from your web host, or an on-call contractor to backfill key knowledge positions.

Posted in Commentary | Tags: brand, Branded Browser, open source, server, start-up | No Comments »

So what is that B/T button ? by Patrick Murphy

If you have downloaded one of more recent theme bundles you may have noticed a new image on the far right of your browser. This new B/T button allows for quick access to personalization, FAQs and support as well as special theme features. Be sure to check it out!

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Brand Thunder Wins Society for New Communications Research Award for the NHL’s Washington Capitals Custom Browser Theme by Brand Thunder

For Immediate Release

COLUMBUS, OH (November 20, 2008) — Brand Thunder LLC, the browser customization specialists, announced today it won the award for New Media Creation, Corporate Division in the Society for New Communications Research 3rd Annual Excellence in New Communications Awards. The award-winning Washington Capitals browser theme is at http://capitals.nhl.com/browser.

The custom browser theme reworks the visual style of the browser to match the colors and logos of its partners while also adding content and functionality to the browser. The custom browser theme provides marketers with a persistent means to keep their brand presence with their customer whenever they are connected to the Internet.

The Society’s prestigious awards program honors individuals, corporations, nonprofit organizations, educational institutions, and media outlets that are pioneering the use of social media, ICT, mobile media, online communities, virtual worlds, and collaborative technologies in the areas of business, media, journalism and professional communications, entertainment, education, social initiatives, government and politics. This year the Society’s Fellows reviewed nearly 100 case study submissions. Winning case studies have been published in the New Communications Review.

“We’re pleased that such an esteemed organization has recognized our branded browser themes as a compelling new media marketing tool,” says founder Patrick Murphy. “And, congratulations to the Capitals who continually test new media programs and are generating meaningful results for their business. They deserve this.”

About Brand Thunder

Formed in April, 2007, Brand Thunder creates a more persistent presence between corporate brands and their internet consumer through its browser customization which leads to increased web site visits and revenue. Through a software installation, end users change the look and feel of their internet browser into an immersive experience from their favorite sports team, entertainment franchise or internet site. The customized browsers feature official logos, colors, content and functionality, but can also extend capabilities including video, music players or other internet widgets. Current business partners and clients include the The Huffington Post, NCAA, NHL, Starpulse.com, Universal Music and Yahoo!. Samples found at http://brandthunder.com/gallery/.

Contact

Patrick Murphy, CEO
Brand Thunder, LLC
614-408-8202

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Posted in Press Releases | Tags: award, Branded Browser, business, custom browser | No Comments »

Two Key Reasons an Award Matters to a Start Up – Branded Browser Wins for New Media Communication by Patrick Murphy

We were thrilled to be listed as a finalist for Excellence in New Communications in the 3rd Annual Society of New Communications Research (SNCR) Awards. Now that we’ve actually won, we’re ecstatic. The release issued by SNCR is here and all the winning case studies are at SNCR’s publication site – New Communications Review. You can also read our release or see the winning Washington Capitals browser theme.

1. Reaching Evangelists and Influencers – For young companies with a limited budget, getting the word out can be challenging. Reaching a solid base of the evangelists and influencers in a given market can help that organic growth of promotion overnight. Looking at the people and organizations behind SNCR, who are among the top in the communications field, this was an important audience to reach. Pursuing awards can be expensive and time consuming, but going after those with additional upside can be vital to your growth.

2. Team Morale – So much effort is given toward inward focused efforts. Starting out you have process improvement, product improvement, development, infrastructure, scalability – all the steps necessary to keep pace with a growing company. For this moment, you can raise your head and see that your peers and industry are acknowledging that intense effort. It’s a real boost.

All around, this is an important event for our company and we’re honored.

Posted in Commentary | Tags: Branded Browser, New Media, SNCR, Washington Capitals | No Comments »

Five More NHL Browser Themes – Leveraging Success in Vertical Markets by Patrick Murphy

Five new hockey teams have inked agreements with Brand Thunder for browser themes for their fans – the Calgary Flames, Columbus Blue Jackets, Montreal Canadiens, St. Louis Blues and the Vancouver Canucks. We’re thrilled to see more hockey teams join us, but it’s made us reflect – why these bursts of success in verticals?

It may look like a matter of a leader and followers – one team takes advantage of the latest new media application and then the others in the league get on board. We think it’s more than that.
Our product has strong appeal for brand managers. It’s persistent when the user is online keeping the brand and content in front of the consumer in a visually compelling way. Despite this value proposition, it still takes a considerable amount of selling. That’s because it has to be put in terms of “what’s in it for me?”

We all have limited resources, so given the abundance of opportunity (or at least abundance of work) what incremental opportunities do you pursue? Once we launch browser theme in a given industry, we have data on that industry. We can start to talk in specifics about what this means to our customer and their end user, and show why this is worth the investment of their time. Relating directly to the needs of our client is vital because comparing a similar industry is simply not as powerful as telling them about their industry.

Are you tracking the data you need to answer the question “what’s in it for me” (with “me” being your customer)? It’s proving valuable to us and you can see the results of that success by checking out the browser themes for these teams here: Blues, Blue Jackets, Canucks, Canadiens (our first bilingual browser!) and The Flames.

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Interview with Sports Networker by Patrick Murphy

I recently sat down with Lewis Howes to discuss the ongoing challenges sports marketers face engaging the elusive sports fans. Topics we cover include how we started Brand Thunder, finding and signing clients as a start-up and uncovering funding opportunities. Read the full interview here.

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The Personalized Web – Don’t Forget What You Do by Patrick Murphy

Sometimes you forget what you know. In reading a blog entry called Proof of the Power of Personalization, it occurred to me that this is one of the key points we talk to our clients about but don’t recall mentioning here.

We usually reference how we build custom browser themes to allow brands to connect with their end users, but critical in this whole scenario is the desire of the consumer to personalize their lives. We all buy things that we enjoy and identify with and a lot of times it includes a brand. That can be in the form of the jersey I wear of my favorite team, the cartoon character in my AIM icon or the cause I support via the magnet on my car. It makes me feel good and it helps me connect with like-minded people.

Yes, as a company, we sell new media to brand marketers. What we deliver is a personalized experience on the Internet. That is the end result, and that is whom we are serving. Now, if we can make that end user feel special and connected, then we have done both the user and the brand a great service. I truly hope we don’t forget that.

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