COLUMBUS (July 22, 2010) — Brand Thunder LLC (http://www.brandthunder.com), the browser customization specialists, announced its first entry into the video game market with the launch of the IGN interactive browser themes for Firefox and Internet Explorer.  IGN, the premiere online media outlet for videogame reviews, news, trailers and videos, will provide content previews, links to its site and its visual style through the browser themes.  The free downloads are available at http://pages.brandthunder.com/ign/download?ref=anc.

The browser theme tightly integrates with IGN’s web presence.  Users will find full navigation to the gaming platform of their choice, like PS3 and Xbox, or to other IGN site categories including movies, TV, comics and video.  The themes also feature quick links to IGN’s pages and channels on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

In addition, both Firefox and Internet Explorer 8 users will have information previews at their fingertips.  Firefox includes a sidebar with Top Stories and Reviews, making it easy to scan the latest features while visiting other web sites.  Internet Explorer 8 theme users will get some of their content delivered in web slices, the new preview feature in the latest version of Internet Explorer.

“The IGN community is constantly looking for the latest news and information on upcoming game releases and the games they’re playing,” said Scott Moe, Director of Online Marketing.  “Brand Thunder’s browser themes deliver that news quickly and conveniently, so we know we’re meeting those needs even better.”

“We’re proud to launch the IGN browser themes simultaneously on Firefox and Internet Explorer,” says founder Patrick Murphy.  “Each browser offers unique capabilities to showcase IGN’s premiere content and we think the IGN community will love it.”

Brand Thunder’s interactive themes provide an extreme makeover of the Internet browser.  They are free, lightweight active customizations that can include themes, toolbars, sidebars and other content or functionality. Users can switch real-time between any installed Brand Thunder themes.

About Brand Thunder
Formed in April 2007, Brand Thunder creates extreme makeovers for the Internet browser.  Brands enjoy a persistent connection to their Internet consumer driving more website visits and increased revenue.  Through a software installation, end users change the drab Internet browser into an immersive experience from their favorite sports team, entertainment franchise or Internet site.  The interactive browser themes feature official logos, colors, content and functionality, and can also extend capabilities including video, music players or other Internet widgets. Current business partners and clients include Bing, The Daily Beast, Huffington Post, Major League Soccer, NASCAR, NBA, NCAA, NFL, NHL and Universal Music. Samples found at http://brandthunder.com/gallery/.
Contact:
Patrick Murphy, CEO
Brand Thunder, LLC
614-408-8202

About IGN Entertainment
IGN Entertainment, a unit of News Corporation, is the leading Internet media and services provider focused on the video game and entertainment enthusiast markets. Collectively, IGN’s properties reached more than 36.6 million unique users worldwide May 2010, according to Internet audience measurement firm comScore Media Metrix. IGN’s network of video game-related properties (IGN.com, GameSpy, FilePlanet, TeamXbox, Direct2Drive and others) is one of the Web’s leading video game information destinations.  IGN also owns the leading men’s lifestyle website AskMen.com, and provides technology for online game play in video games.  IGN is headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area, with offices across North America, Europe and Australia.

CONTACT:

Kris Sharbaugh
IGN Entertainment
415.519.6526 (cell)
ksharbaugh@ign.com

###

Reposted from Mike’s Musings

After I introduced Personas Interactive, I indicated that my next topic was going to be Enhanced Personas. As I was writing that post, though, I realized that I was putting the cart before the horse. Before I explain how we’ve enhanced Personas, I need to give more detail as to how you can put Personas on your website. Then we can talk about the enhancements we’ve made and how you can use them in your Personas. Remember that to really see these things in action, you need Personas Interactive. You can download it from here.

So what exactly is a Persona? You probably think of a Persona as just an image that goes in the background of your web browser. But Personas are not just the images. They are also a JSON file that gives a little bit of information. Here’s what a bare bones Persona looks like:

{"id":"mypersona@kaply.com",
 "name": "My Persona",
 "headerURL": "http://kaply.com/images/mypersona.png"
}

To use this Persona in a web page, Firefox introduced an attribute called data-browsertheme. To designate that an element on a web page defines a persona, you add that attribute to any element (usually an image):

<img alt="My Persona"
     data-browsertheme='{"id":"mypersona@kaply.com",
                         "name": "My Persona",
                         "headerURL": "http://kaply.com/mypersona.png",
                        }'
     src="mypersona.png"
     id="mypersona-preview">

Having the data as an attribute on the image isn’t enough, though. We need to have some JavaScript that hooks everything together. Personas works by using custom DOM events to indicate when an image is previewed, installed and reset. Here’s what preview looks like:

var event = document.createEvent("Events");,
event.initEvent("PreviewBrowserTheme", true, false);
document.getElementById('mypersona-preview').dispatchEvent(event);

Writing this code every time would be tedious, so I’ve created helper functions that do this for you. You can download them here. Attaching all the appropriate Persona events to a node is matter of calling attachPersona and passing it the node that you want to use for your Persona preview.

Now you may be thinking that it would be difficult to maintain JSON embedded in a web page, and you would be correct. What we need is an automated process to generate a Personas gallery. At the beginning of this article, I mentioned that Personas are described in a JSON file. What we want to do is store JSON files directly on our server and generate web pages that use the data contained in those JSON files. The reason for this is three fold. First, because it makes it easier to maintain, second because Personas can be updated by pointing to the JSON file directly, and third because we will use those JSON files for site specific Personas which we talked about in the previous post.

I’m a PHP developer, so the example I am going to provide is how to generate a Personas gallery using PHP. For my basic example, I’m using a top level directory with an index.php that will be my gallery and subdirectories that represent each Persona. Those directories are named for the Persona and contains a persona.json file, a PNG file used for preview that is named the same as the directory, and any other supporting images, like the background or icon. To generate a gallery item, you call the function generateGalleryItem passing it the name of the directory. Here’s some PHP code that does this:

<?php
function generateGalleryItem($name) {
  $handle = fopen("$name/persona.json", "rb");
  $contents = stream_get_contents($handle);
  fclose($handle);
  $persona = json_decode($contents);
?>
 <img alt='<?php echo $persona->name; ?>'
      data-browsertheme='<?php echo $contents; ?>'
      src='<?php echo $name; ?>/<?php echo $name; ?>.png'
      id='<?php echo $name; ?>-preview'>
<script type="text/javascript">
  attachPersona(document.getElementById("<?php echo $name; ?>-preview"));
</script>

With these code examples, you should be able to get a Personas gallery working on your website.

Earlier I talked about the fact that I was giving an example of a bare bones Persona. Now would probably be a good time to talk about what else you can specify in a Persona JSON file. Personas support the following attributes which are all strings:

Site Specific Personas

I mentioned site specific Personas, so I might as well give you that information as well. To enable a site specific Persona, add the following code to the header of your website:

<link rel="persona" type="application/json" href="https://mydomain.com/mypersona/persona.json" />

The href points to the JSON file that describes your Persona. If you want to use a Persona from getpersonas.com, navigate to the Persona and then look at the URL. You’ll see a number at the end of the URL. The format for Persona update URLs is https://www.getpersonas.com/en-US/update_check/%ID%. Just replace %ID% with the number at the end of the URL.

One other thing before I close this out. I find the site JSONLint.com invaluable for debugging my JSON. Not only can you paste JSON there, but if you put a URL to your JSON file, it will read it and check it. I can’t recommend it enough.

I hope this has helped you get started adding Personas to your site. Next post – Enhanced Personas. I promise.

COLUMBUS (June 21, 2010) — Brand Thunder LLC (http://www.brandthunder.com), the browser customization specialists, announced its first entry into the Indian market with the launch of the Sanjeev Kapoor interactive browser theme for Firefox.  The best of Chef Kapoor’s vast library Indian cuisine knowledge is now rolled into a free download available at http://pages.brandthunder.com/sanjeevkapoor/download/.

The browser theme is tightly integrated with Chef Kapoor’s web site (http://sanjeevkapoor.com) and offers a full range of videos and links to proven recipes and a host of information on the art and craft of cooking.  User’s install an add-on for their existing Firefox browser to have fast access to new and favorite recipes from Chef Kapoor, plus seasonal suggestions, monthly features, shopping and more.  The video sidebar offers an abundance of cooking presentations including both vegetarian and non-vegetarian selections.

“We wanted to offer our users something that would strengthen their relationship with Chef Kapoor.” said Mr. Adarsh Nigam, VP-Marketing (www.sanjeevkapoor.com).  “This interactive browser theme has brought together the right experience and content for our fans to enjoy.”

“Sanjeev Kapoor has an avid fan base in India and across the globe,” says founder Patrick Murphy.  “We feel the browser theme is a great opportunity to reach his widespread audience and share his inspiring explorations of Indian cuisine.”

Brand Thunder’s interactive themes provide an extreme makeover of the Internet browser.  They are free, lightweight active customizations that can include themes, toolbars, sidebars and other content or functionality. Users can switch real-time between any installed Brand Thunder themes.

About Sanjeev Kapoor:

Chef Sanjeev Kapoor is the most celebrated face of Indian cuisine today. Chef extraordinaire, TV show host, author of best-selling cookbooks, restaurant consultant, architect of a unique range of food products and winner of numerous culinary awards, Chef Kapoor is living his dream of making Indian cuisine the number one cuisine in the world. He hosts Khana Khazana the popular Cookery Show on Zee TV which has won the ‘Best Cookery Show’ award given by the Indian Television Academy year after year ever since its inception in the year 2000. The show has completed more than 700 episodes being telecast non stop for 15 years – the longest running TV show in any category on any channel. His website www.sanjeevkapoor.com is a complete cookery manual with a compendium of tried and tested recipes and a wealth of information on the art and craft of cooking. As a restaurant consultant he has granted his franchise to a number of restaurants abroad and in various cities of India.

Contact:         enquiry@sanjeevkapoor.com

About Brand Thunder:

Formed in April 2007, Brand Thunder creates extreme makeovers for the Internet browser.  Brands enjoy a persistent connection to their Internet consumer driving more website visits and increased revenue.  Through a software installation, end users change the drab Internet browser into an immersive experience from their favorite sports team, entertainment franchise or Internet site.  The interactive browser themes feature official logos, colors, content and functionality, and can also extend capabilities including video, music players or other Internet widgets. Current business partners and clients include Bing, The Daily Beast, Huffington Post, Major League Soccer, NASCAR, NBA, NCAA, NFL, NHL and Universal Music. Samples found at http://brandthunder.com/gallery/.

Contact:

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

###

I’ve had my home on the market lately and had to live “show ready.”  At a moments notice, the realtor could (and did) call saying “we’ve got a showing scheduled for today.”  The house had to be ready to sell.  Part of the difficulty in these moments is to see the issues with the items we live with every day.

When you’re getting the house ready it’s easy to spot the cracks that need patching, or the paint that needs a fresh coat.  It’s much harder to see what’s part of the everyday that might turn a buyer off, like when I forgot to clean up the yard after my dog.  I got dinged from a buyer on that.

When it comes to your web site, what are the things that get overlooked and your customers might step in?  Here’s a check list of considerations:

• Images – Are the screen shots and imagery you use current?  Are there elements in the images that might work against you.  (I used to work for a major portal and we always made sure our screen shots avoided the story of devastation that was the feature lead.)
• Descriptions – Is the language you’re using still current and accurate?  Are you using terminology that your customer uses?
• Links – Have you clicked through on links, especially after any site redesign or changes?  404 errors and page not found are killers.
• Legal – Is your TOS (Terms of Service) and Privacy Policy up-to-date?  This is another area that should be reviewed after any product or site changes.
• Copyright – Is the copyright current on your web pages?  Seeing a (c) 2005 just looks sloppy.
• Web Browsers – Have you looked at your site in different browsers?  Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Google Chrome.  They each have a large audience, and your standards-based web site should serve them all.  Does it?

Hope your site is “show ready” and it sells!  What are the other easy to miss items to review?

The kick off of the World Cup got me thinking about the marketing opportunity for companies trying to reach a multi-national audience with their product, and my own global expectations for Brand Thunder’s interactive browser themes when we were starting out.

For companies that can afford it, the mega sporting events like the Olympics and the World Cup offer a reach not found everyday.  I’m sure it makes sense for the larger companies to maintain their presence.  For smaller companies, we need to think more creatively.

Find Your Extended Sales Force

Brand Thunder leverages a distribution strategy that it began using in the U.S. – working with agencies and organizations that had the new media expertise and the brand relationships to extend the reach of our product.  It’s working well.  Our partner in the UK, KAM Sports International, brought the Scottish Premier League champion Glasgow Rangers into the Brand Thunder client fold.  We’re also about to launch product in Hong Kong through our partner HOTMEDIA, in India through our representative Kevin Jacobs, and are about to announce another large international market partnership.  Is there a sales channel that you can leverage beyond your own?

Leverage Your Product’s Natural Reach

With Firefox being built for the global community, we were prepared to act local for any global opportunity that presented itself at day one.  While we’re making strides in this area as mentioned above, it’s interesting to see that the users are adopting faster than the brands.  Our traffic trends show more than half of users coming from outside the U.S.  We have product categories where U.S. usage is only a third of the user base, and it’s not just in the obvious products like our Euro Football theme.  It’s some of the more general interest themes and it’s interesting to see where and what users find appealing in our gallery of products.  Needless to say, this extended audience wouldn’t be possible if the platform on which we work wasn’t international to begin with.  Is there an international opportunity with your product that you’ve overlooked?

Discover New Distribution Channels

Our clients and their reach to their audience have always been a critical part of our business.  But it’s not been our sole channel to market.  Part of the value add for partners and driver of our growth has been our own distribution efforts.  This includes making sure we’re available on the add-on galleries for the browsers we serve – Addons.Mozilla.org for Firefox and IEAddons.com for Internet Explorer.  We’ve also seen considerable success delivering our browser themes through freeware and shareware download sites.  This is made easier through the use of PAD files.  It has also allowed us to reach users through the sites that serve the product they use (the browser) and the sites that serve their market (download sites across the globe).  Where can you put your product in the hands of new users (more than just an international question)?

None of these suggestions are ground breaking.  However, if we were totally focused on a narrow definition of what our business is and how we do it, any of them could have easily been overlooked.  What are you doing that could easily be extended and expand your market giving you world class appeal at less than World Cup prices?  And what else should we be considering?

Interactive browser themes are like an extreme makeover for the web browser. With an easy-to-install browser add-on, end users transform their drab web-browser into an immersive experience. Where many Brand Thunder themes feature official logos, content and functionality like video, music players or other Internet widgets, the Expressions line limits functionality to popular sites like Facebook and Twitter and a sidebar with headline news videos.

“Many of our themes leverage the affinity relationship between a brand and its fans,” says founder Patrick Murphy. “We heard from our users that we were under serving an audience who prefers to change the style of their browser more frequently. Expressions were designed for more visual focus than our average interactive browser theme.”

Brand Thunder’s interactive themes provide an extreme makeover of the Firefox and Internet Explorer browsers. They are free, lightweight active customizations that can include themes, toolbars, sidebars and other content or functionality. Users can switch real-time between any installed Brand Thunder themes.

About Brand Thunder:
Formed in April 2007, Brand Thunder creates extreme makeovers for the Internet browser. Brands enjoy a persistent connection to their Internet consumer driving more website visits and increased revenue. Through a software installation, end users change the drab Internet browser into an immersive experience from their favorite sports team, entertainment franchise or Internet site. The interactive browser themes feature official logos, colors, content and functionality, and can also extend capabilities including video, music players or other Internet widgets. Current business partners and clients include Bing, The Daily Beast, Huffington Post, Major League Soccer, NASCAR, NBA, NCAA, NFL, NHL and Universal Music. Samples found at http://brandthunder.com/gallery/.

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

###

COLUMBUS (April 26, 2010) — Brand Thunder LLC (http://www.brandthunder.com), the browser customization specialists, announced today its browser themes for major league baseball. With the beginning of the baseball season underway, fans of the sport can enhance both Firefox and Internet Explorer with the feel of the ballpark. The free downloads are available from Brand Thunder at http://pages.brandthunder.com/baseball/download or the Microsoft Windows Internet Explorer Add-ons Gallery at http://www.ieaddons.com/us/Details.aspx?Id=8125.

These are interactive browser themes so baseball fans will get more than just a visual upgrade to Firefox or Internet Explorer. They will enjoy the latest league headlines and scores in the news ticker, quick links to the Major League Baseball site, tickets, and more. The theme features a multimedia sidebar that includes videos and a video news player. Plus, the theme has a customizable button, which fans can set to their favorite team’s homepage.

The theme is delivered through an easy-to-install browser add-on allowing baseball fans to transform their drab web-browser into an immersive experience that delivers the ballpark to the browser.

“We have a great portfolio of interactive themes on Firefox,” says founder Patrick Murphy. “As we extend this new theme capability to Internet Explorer, the Baseball theme offers a balance of design and functionality, and with spring here seemed a natural to release.”

Brand Thunder’s interactive themes provide an extreme makeover of the Internet browser. They are free, lightweight active customizations that can include themes, toolbars, sidebars and other content or functionality. Users can switch real-time between any installed Brand Thunder themes.

About Brand Thunder:
Formed in April 2007, Brand Thunder creates extreme makeovers for the Internet browser. Brands enjoy a persistent connection to their Internet consumer driving more website visits and increased revenue. Through a software installation, end users change the drab Internet browser into an immersive experience from their favorite sports team, entertainment franchise or Internet site. The interactive browser themes feature official logos, colors, content and functionality, and can also extend capabilities including video, music players or other Internet widgets. Current business partners and clients include Bing, The Daily Beast, Huffington Post, Major League Soccer, NASCAR, NBA, NCAA, NFL, NHL and Universal Music.

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

###

COLUMBUS (April 14, 2010) — Brand Thunder LLC (http://www.brandthunder.com), the browser customization specialists, announced today its relationship with The Hockey News to extend comprehensive coverage of the world of hockey to the Firefox and Internet Explorer browsers. The Hockey News browser themes will keep hockey fans connected to sporting news regardless of where they are on the Internet. The browser theme is a free download at http://www.thehockeynews.com/browserdownload/.

Users will find breaking news delivered to the browser via a toolbar newsreader, plus a multimedia sidebar offers videos and more to give fans the breadth of information they want. The theme is delivered through an easy-to-install browser add-on allowing hockey fans to transform their drab web-browser into an immersive experience that delivers the best of The Hockey News directly to the browser.

“Hockey fans are an engaged and energized group,” says Edward Fraser, Managing Editor of The Hockey News. “Anything less expressive and informative than Brand Thunder’s interactive themes would not have met their needs as thoroughly.”

“The Hockey News is essential reading for the true hockey fan,” says founder Patrick Murphy. “The intersection of relevant content with highly interested user is where Brand Thunder’s interactive browser themes excel by messaging directly to the user whenever they are online. It’s a natural extension to the communication channel The Hockey News has nurtured over the past 60+ years with its readers.”

Brand Thunder’s interactive themes provide an extreme makeover of the Internet browser. They are free, lightweight active customizations that can include themes, toolbars, sidebars and other content or functionality. Users can switch real-time between any installed Brand Thunder themes.

About Brand Thunder:
Formed in April 2007, Brand Thunder creates extreme makeovers for the Internet browser. Brands enjoy a persistent connection to their Internet consumer driving more website visits and increased revenue. Through a software installation, end users change the drab Internet browser into an immersive experience from their favorite sports team, entertainment franchise or Internet site. The interactive browser themes feature official logos, colors, content and functionality, and can also extend capabilities including video, music players or other Internet widgets. Current business partners and clients include Bing, The Daily Beast, Huffington Post, Major League Soccer, NASCAR, NBA, NCAA, NFL, NHL and Universal Music. Samples found at http://brandthunder.com/gallery/.

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

###

Between Firefox Personas and Google Chrome’s Themes, browser themes are getting a lot of attention this year. Brand Thunder is pleased to be at the front with such distinguished company. While each of us helps you move beyond the dull gray of the standard Internet browser and personalize your browser with enticing visuals, Brand Thunder is the only one to move the theme into the realm of experience. We make things happen in the browser to increase engagement, connection and interaction.

And to go a step farther, we are the only ones to bring this level of customization to the Internet Explorer browser. It’s an impressive feat and is in the early stages of rolling out.

Here are some of our themes that showcase the interactive capabilities of our browser themes.

Weather

The Weather Theme is a full integration using WeatherBug’s API and Brand Thunder design elements to create a browser theme that pulls in weather forecasts, local conditions, alerts, weather maps and more. The theme itself changes based on your local weather conditions. It also pulls in up to three days of forecasts into the theme (the user can set the number). Location can be set by the user, or the can choose Firefox’s built-in location services. The multimedia sidebar is a full weather station window with current conditions, radar maps, local weather cameras and more. It’s a truly amazing infusion of weather information in a stunning visual context.

The Daily Beast

The Daily Beast is a leading news site and their theme pulls an image from the latest feature story directly into the browser theme. The user can hover over it to get the story headline or click through to read the full story. The sidebar keeps users connected to the latest news via special views of the Cheat Sheet, Buzz Board, Blogs & Stories and Video sections of The Daily Beast. The Daily Beast Theme demonstrates several methods to keep their users connected to the breaking news of the day, and how to get users back to your site more frequently.

Movie Premiere

Brand Thunder’s Movie Premiere Theme is a fun and functional theme for us movie fans. Like the Daily Beast theme, Movie Premiere has a feature block that updates regularly with the movie posters of opening movies. Clicking on the poster takes you to an overview page of the movie with reviews, synopsis and more. The theme is also tightly integrated with Fandango for instant access to reviews, showtimes, tickets and even trailers and other videos in the sidebar. It’s a great example of how content and commerce fuse together in an interactive browser theme.

Baseball for IE

The Baseball Theme for Internet Explorer demonstrates a new frontier for building community and connection within the IE browser. The visual capabilities created through this add-on have not been seen in the Internet Explorer world. It makes the visual takeover as seamless of the end user as it’s been in Firefox. It’s a significant advance and will help us better meet the needs of our clients.

I think these are killer examples of what a browser theme can be – a better and more engaging browser experience. What do you think?

I’m going to double dip here and talk about the same thing we issued a press release on this week — the Brand Thunder Weather Theme. I’m doing so because I think the technology behind it and the experience in front of it are simply amazing.

Almost the entire background changes with the weather. This theme creates a new level of opportunity for our partners and users. Think of the implications if you’re in the business of “new.” Whether it’s fashion or celebrity, photo journalism or visual content, the ability to change the theme with the visual elements that keep it fresh and your audience in tune is pretty cool.

It also opens the opportunity to create new themes where the visuals update based on a timed sequence — something like a life-stage theme. It could be as simple as theme of Seasons, so last week’s vernal equinox would have welcomed in the Spring theme automatically. Or maybe an expectant parent theme tracking the changes in the unborn child. The communication channel created with these interactive themes are not left to the content feeds, they are inspired with the visual connection as well.

The Weather theme is a showcase of the functionality and what browser themes can become. We’re modifying your browser experience based on the local weather conditions. Your location is determined by entering your location or by letting the Firefox browser use its location services to determine your location.

For the weather content, we leveraged the WeatherBug API, which gave us a great resource for more weather information than you can imagine. With the API, we had a good foundation to work with for a rich sidebar featuring live weather conditions, radar weather maps and more. Plus, we had all the standard elements needed: current temperature and at-glance-forecast.

A portfolio of stylized weather conditions were designed for the browser theme backgrounds and they meld seamlessly with the forecast icons from WeatherBug. The theme also allows you to set the number of forecast days you want to see. It’s beautiful, interactive and useful on so many levels.

This is the next step in what a browser theme can be and I invite you to try it out at http://brandthunder.com/weather.

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• Weather Boom by Brand Thunder (kaply.com)