Your Browser, Like No Other – Introducing Canvas by Kevin Dwinnell

Today, Brand Thunder announced Canvas our latest Boom! and a major step forward in Internet Browser visual style flexibility. You can read the press release here, but in a nutshell, you can make any photo, or any image on a web page, your browser theme. This is a totally new experience in the browser space.

Now the browser can be something very personal with the addition of photos of family, friends or pets. Or, you might go for extremely stylish and explore the free textures that are abundant on the web. You might even go for something more lively by adding an animated gif (like the one in this post). It’s all up to you. It’s your Canvas.

While I could drone on for a thousand words or more, it’d be better to install it yourself from our Canvas download page and see what you can do with your pictures.

Don’t miss the Tips & Tricks at the very bottom of the Tutorial (this is the page you land on after installing, or you can access it under the B/T button at the right of the browser). You’ll get a good idea of options you have as well as some fun sites to explore for images to add to Canvas. And, each visual you add is housed under a My-Pix button where you can switch between them any time you like.

One last request. It’s a beta. We’d like your help. As proud as we are of this innovation, there’s plenty of room for improvement. Once you’ve tried it, drop by our page on GetSatisfaction.com and give us your feedback. Community help and support would be greatly appreciated.

We hope you enjoy it.

Posted in Commentary, News | Tags: brand thunder, Brand Thunder Boom, Branded Browser, Browsers, custom browser, firefox, Get Satisfaction, Tips & Tricks, Web browser | 2 Comments »

Brand Thunder Unveils “Canvas” and the Ability to Add Any Photo or Image to Your Browser Theme with Just a Click by Patrick Murphy

COLUMBUS, OH (May 28, 2009) — Brand Thunder LLC (http://www.brandthunder.com), the custom browser specialists, today announced the beta release of Canvas, a major advance in Internet browser personalization. This lightweight browser enhancement puts the look and feel of the browser fully in the hands of the user by allowing any picture on their computer, or any image on a web page, to be set as the theme for their Internet browser. Canvas is available for download at http://brandthunder.com/Canvas and represents the easiest method to customize the browser on such a personal level.

“Brand Thunder was built on the premise of allowing users to personalize their browser experience,” said Patrick Murphy, founder and CEO of Brand Thunder. “Today, with Canvas, we radically redefine what that means. There’s no other tool that’s as easy to use and gives this amount of visual control over the user’s existing browser.”

With Canvas installed, users may instantaneously wrap the browser with images or photos found on sites like Flickr and Facebook, even animated gifs by right-clicking the image and selecting “Add to Image Canvas.” Any image added to Canvas becomes part of the “MyPix” button, the equivalent of a browser photo album where the user can switch browser themes any time they wish. Clicking the Manage button allows the user to add and remove images, or to modify the look by changing image position, background color and tiling.

“The browser theme offers one of the most visible customizations for the computer,” Murphy said. “Wallpapers and screensavers have been available for a long time, but once software is opened the wallpaper is hidden. The screensaver is primarily on when you’re not at your computer, so you don’t get to enjoy it much. We’ve put the same kind of personalization and ease of use into an application that is open for hours at a time, the browser.”

Brand Thunder’s browser Booms are free, lightweight active customizations that can include themes, toolbars, sidebars and other content or functionality. With a Boom!, users can switch real-time between any of the browser looks they created without restarting their browser. Canvas works with Brand Thunder’s other Booms! offering a custom browser experience as often as users like.

About Brand Thunder:
Formed in April 2007, Brand Thunder creates custom-browser experiences. Brands enjoy a more persistent connection to their Internet consumer through the custom browser Boom!, which increases website 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 custom browser Booms! 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 Huffington Post, Major League Soccer, NASCAR, NBA, NCAA, NHL, 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: brand thunder, Brand Thunder Boom, Branded Browser, browser boom, custom browser, Facebook, Flickr, Huffington Post, Major League Soccer, Patrick Murphy, Yahoo | No Comments »

Brand Thunder and Surf Canyon Partner to Bring Personalized Search to Custom Browsers by Patrick Murphy

Columbus, OH (PRWEB) May 19, 2009 — Surf Canyon Inc. (http://www.surfcanyon.com) and Brand Thunder, LLC (http://www.brandthunder.com) announced today an agreement to integrate Surf Canyon’s highly praised personalized search application into Brand Thunder’s custom browser Booms!. Given the complementary nature of the two products, the partnership will focus on improving the search experience for users of Brand Thunder’s Booms!.

Surf Canyon enhances major search engines by improving relevancy and accelerating discovery of appropriate search results. The improved relevancy comes from the connection between Surf Canyon and the Brand Thunder Boom!. For example, a query for “King James” from a Cleveland Cavaliers Boom! could favor results for LeBron James over results for the 16th Century’s King James VI & I. Additionally, Surf Canyon uses clicks within the search results page to quickly refine suggestions and speed the time it takes a user to find the desired results.

“This is the first bundling partnership for Surf Canyon,” said Mark Cramer, CEO of Surf Canyon. “We’re excited about working with Brand Thunder as they offer an excellent showcase of how much better search can be when an audience’s interests are factored into their search queries.”

“Search is so core to a user’s Internet experience,” said Patrick Murphy, founder and CEO of Brand Thunder. “Surf Canyon has received such a positive response, we felt it was a natural extension to our goal of providing a better and more personal browsing experience.”

Brand Thunder’s browser Booms! are free, lightweight active customizations that can include themes, toolbars, sidebars and other content or functionality. Users can switch real-time between any installed Booms!, or change from a full Boom! view to a small Boom! (toolbar only), all without restarting the browser.

About Surf Canyon:
Surf Canyon develops real-time implicit personalization technology for Internet search. Its patent-pending Discovery Engine for Search™ transforms result pages from lists of static links into dynamic knowledge resources, enabling users to more quickly and easily find pertinent information buried among all the irrelevant results, significantly accelerating the search process. The company is headquartered in Oakland, CA and was founded in 2006. For more information please visit www.SurfCanyon.com.

About Brand Thunder:
Formed in April 2007, Brand Thunder creates custom-browser experiences. Brands enjoy a more persistent connection to their Internet consumer through the custom browser Boom!, which increases website 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 custom browser Booms! 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 Huffington Post, Major League Soccer, NASCAR, NBA, NCAA, NHL, Universal Music and Yahoo!. Samples found at http://brandthunder.com/gallery/.

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

###

Posted in Press Releases | 1 Comment »

Brand Thunder at Soccerex London Forum by Kevin Dwinnell

Brand Thunder will be at the Soccerex London Forum on Wednesday. Boyd Butler, KAM Sports International, will be representing us. Contact us if you want to meet with Boyd.

This is an advantage of working with channel partners that are experts in their markets. By having a partner in the UK, and one that is a specialist football agency, it was an easy call to send a representative. We also have data to support the decision based on the response to the Kansas City Wizards Boom! and our Euro Football custom browser.

Brand Thunder is still a start up and we try to be frugal. Being frugal doesn’t mean don’t spend, it just means spend wisely. This feels worth it.

Thinking about a post last week discussing how our business development team is working on developing new verticals for our product. These take time, but we’re also the most experienced selling our product – so we take on the majority of that work. Once a channel opens up, we leverage our partners to grow it. With some demonstrated success, having an expert in the football field seems like the natural person to attend this forum.

Posted in Commentary | Tags: Association football, boom, brand thunder, Branded Browser, custom browser, Kansas City Wizards, soccer, soccerex | No Comments »

Brand Thunder Drawn into World of Webcomics by Kevin Dwinnell

Blind Ferret Entertainment’s Looking For Group was a fun project for us, and not just because it marks our first comic-focused Boom! (custom browser). It’s a great example of the visual styling that can take place within the browser (more on that below). The Blind Ferret team did a fantastic job with it.

If you’re not familiar with LFG, it’s an irreverent fantasy-themed webcomic. Don’t worry if you feel you’re late to the story line. With the full archive of comics available, you can get as much back-story as you need.

This Boom! is also a good example of partner-controlled graphics. Since it’s a company of artists, the request was for full control over the look and feel of the browser. We handed over the design templates, and they handed back some amazingly detailed art. This creates the perfect environment, within the Internet browser, for the LFG fan. You can (and should) see it here.

It also demonstrates another dimension of a Brand Thunder Boom! – client control. We tout our expertise in the custom browser space and are prepared to manage the entire process for you. But that doesn’t make us experts at knowing your audience, and where you want to have control – we’re prepared to work with you there as well.

Posted in Commentary, News | Tags: brand thunder, Brand Thunder Boom, branded browswer, Comics, custom browser, lfgcomic, looking for group | 1 Comment »

Casting a Wider Net – Sales Discipline to Grow Your Start Up by Kevin Dwinnell

For a young company, early success can define you as much as it can ensure your immediate survival. The question is whether staying with that success is good, in the long run, for the company.

Brand Thunder has been fortunate selling its custom branded browsers early on to major teams in major sports leagues. It wasn’t a surprise as sports teams regularly encourage the connection between the team “brand” and the fan. What was a surprise is how slow certain verticals, like TV and Movies with equally avid fan bases, have been to get on board and how quickly the comment of “oh, you do that sports-browser thing” came up despite having strong clients like the Huffington Post, HowStuffWorks.com and Universal Music Group.

As a start up, anything that moves you toward profitability in a significant way is vital to pursue, but equally vital is continuing to do the hard work of building the full market potential of the product. It’s still early in our company’s life to predict its outcome, but it feels right to keep pushing toward the broader market. I credit our business-development lead, Ryan, for bringing sales discipline and structure to the company. We did the formal planning of which markets would be a priority and how we’d go about approaching them. It was painful at the time, as it felt like we should be selling – sending emails, making calls. Those came in time and we’re hopeful we’ve chosen the right priorities. While sports is among them, it’s not the only one and we’re making our in roads.

Check out our Gallery, there’s lots of progress. You’ll see the latest cool launches for the Chicago Blackhawks as well as a special-addition Playoff Boom! for the Canucks. You’ll also find lots of other new Booms! for brands like the leading pet community sites Dogster and Catster, Hard Music Magazine, How Stuff Works, FLW’s Fantasy Fishing game (good fun, btw). There’s even a few of our own offerings like our holiday spin for Mother’s Day and a Boom for fans of The Office.

And when we hear “oh, you do those cool Boom! browser things” we’ll know we’re really on our way.

Posted in Commentary | Tags: brand thunder, Branded Browser, browser boom, Catster, Chicago Blackhawks, custom browser, Dogster, HowStuffWorks, Huffington Post, Universal Music Group | No Comments »