“Brand Thunder browser themes have always attracted global attention,” said Patrick Murphy, founder and CEO of Brand Thunder. “The breadth of appeal is easy to see with the visual nature of the theme, and the drag-and-drop ease of use makes allows anyone to create their own.”

BT:Engage allows users to select images from the library of graphics offered by Brand Thunder, or upload their own pictures and graphics to create the theme backgrounds. Adding buttons is as simple as typing a title and a URL. News feeds are added by copying a URL for an existing RSS feed, or using the included RSS feed generator. The combination of visual and interactive components lends itself to increased brand awareness and engagement between publisher and fan base.

Brand Thunder is the leading choice in official browser themes with more than 200 world-class brands and thousands of web publishers. 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.

About Brand Thunder:

Brand Thunder is the world leader in browser themes and custom interactive browser themes for Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Chrome. Brand Thunder formed in April 2007 to leverage the power of customization within the web browser and offer companies a compelling, patent-pending solution for creating a more persistent presence with their Internet consumer. Brand Thunder has branded the browser and extended its functionality for some of the most recognizable brands in sports, music and the Internet including: Bob Marley, CBSSports.com College Network, CollegeHumor, The Huffington Post, IGN, MLB.com, NASCAR, NBA, NFL, SONY Music, Universal Music, WeatherBug and many more. Create, find or have us build your browser theme at http://brandthunder.com.

Contact:  
Patrick Murphy, CEO
Brand Thunder, LLC
614-304-1316

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Image by Getty Images via @daylife

At the start of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, there were 34 teams with browser themes. Thirteen teams  that reached the Sweet 16 offer their alma mater browser themes. Guess what it takes to be a winner? The positive energy of a connected fan base, of course! Though a talented team, good coaching and solid free-throw percentages don’t hurt either.

It’s not too late to get on the bandwagon of your new favorite team. The official browser themes of the Sweet 16 schools are all listed below. If you want to hedge your bets, you can follow all the March Madness with Brand Thunder’s Bracket Madness theme.  But don’t forget, it’s easy to switch between themes. So, install as many as you like and be ready come tip off!

SOUTH

1. Kentucky

Kentucky Wildcats browser theme

4. Indiana

Indiana Hoosiers browser theme

3. Baylor

Baylor Bears browser theme

10. Xavier

Xavier Musketeers browser theme

WEST

1. Michigan State

Michigan State Spartans browser theme

4. Louisville

Louisville Cardinals browser theme

3. Marquette

Marquette Golden Eagles browser theme

7. Florida

Sorry, no official browser theme for Florida. Have the Athletics Dept. contact us or build your own personal theme.

EAST

1. Syracuse

Sorry, no official browser theme for Syracuse. Have the Athletics Dept. contact us or build your own personal theme.

4. Wisconsin

Wisconsin Badgers browser theme

6. Cincinnati

Cincinnati Bearcats browser theme

2. Ohio State

Ohio State Buckeyes browser theme

Midwest

1. North Carolina

North Carolina Tar Heels browser theme

13. Ohio

Sorry, no official browser theme for Ohio. Have the Athletics Dept. contact us or build your own personal theme.

11. NC State

NC State Wolfpack browser theme

2. Kansas

Kansas Jayhawks browser theme

Related articles

• Official Browser Themes of the NCAA Tournament Teams (brandthunder.com)
• Download Themes in New Gallery (brandthunder.com)

What’s different from year’s past is it’s no longer acceptable to have that blue E pull up a boring gray browser. Internet Explorer skins for your browser give you the ability to personalize your Internet experience and enjoy a little style when you’re online. Whether you enjoy professional sports, the hottest music artists, your college alma mater, the latest in news or just nice elements of style – the following is a sampling of some of the IE Skins you will find in Brand Thunder’s Theme Gallery.

Alabama Crimson Tide 2012 BCS National Champions Skin

Regardless of what you think of the BCS Bowl Championship Series, you can appreciate a classic theme from a storied college team that has returned to top form. When you surf the Net, you should also Roll Tide with an IE Skin.

Jacob Latimore Skin

No need to wait for his next appearance on 106 & Park, with Sony Music’s Jacob Latimore browser theme – he’s with you whenever you’re on the Internet. We asked Jacob for his thoughts on browser skins. No surprise that he “Like ‘Em All.”

NFL San Francisco 49ers Skin

The 2011 49ers team is full of surprises with first-year coach, Jim Harbaugh, and their first playoff appearance since 2002 – and their first official browser skin. Get your IE browser on the 49er bandwagon this NFL Playoff season.

NHL Western Central St. Louis Blues Skin

We’ve got a long way to go in the NHL season, but the Blues at the top the standings of their division. And they can sit on top of your IE browser when you get this theme.

Huffington Post Skin

With the election year finally upon us, we know the news and political spin is going to be flying fast. There’s no better place to keep up with the latest and to engage in the discussion than on The Huffington Post. If you’ve got skin in the political game, get this Internet Explorer skin.

Blue Nebula

The ever productive MaDonnas Personas will astonish you with her productivity and her consistently outstanding portfolio of work. Here’s a space inspired skin that will make your Internet Explorer look out of this world.

Dragon

Arya Mathur used Brand Thunder’s BT:Engage to create this astral vision of a Dragon, and then kindly published it to the Brand Thunder Gallery to share with everyone.

And remember, if you don’t find what you want in the Gallery, you can always design and build your own browser skin with Brand Thunder’s BT:Engage. You can choose images from the catalog of images or upload, then drag and drop your own into the browser design. It’s 100%  free to build, share and download your own browser skin.

Related articles

• Internet Explorer 8 Themes (brandthunder.com)

The first desktop wallpaper, as used on the Xerox Star in 1975. -Image via Wikipedia

Community toolbars have been around for years helping online publishers build engagement with their fans and online community. The power of this tool has helped build Conduit, the leader in this space, into what some say is a billion dollar company. Engagement is a powerful tool.

For many years more, desktop wallpapers were the path to customization and personalization for the personal computer – from family photos to wonderful waterfalls – we’ve either seen or tried them. They are easy to install and change. There is no way to interact with the wallpaper, they exist simply for the visual enhancement they offer. The only real downside? Wallpapers spend the majority of time covered by the applications running on the computer. You get to enjoy that beautiful graphic when you start up and shut down your computer – hello and goodbye.

So, what’s it like to take two great ideas and merge them into one. It’s like asking the question, can you get two great tastes to taste great together?

Your Web Site on a Custom Community Toolbar

Conduit Platform gives all web publishers, regardless of size, the ability to create and publish a branded, customized Community Toolbar. Anything you can put on a website can also be deployed on a Community Toolbar including: applications, content, gadgets, feeds, social media tools, personal account data, games, services, links, and more.

With over 230 million publishers taking advantage of the Conduit platform, there’s no shortage of people that see the value of extending their web presence to the platform with the most Internet engagement – the Internet browser. There’s great upside to putting your content in the browser and creating a persistent presence whenever a user is online.

While toolbars are still core to their offering, Conduit has extended their approach of simplifying the build process of technical marketing tools and branching into the very hot category of mobile and browser apps.

Your Favorite Image on Your Computer

Your computer monitor is an elaborate picture frame. Picking the image is probably the hardest part of deciding how to customize your computer desktop. On my computer, I can literally right click on any image and “Set as Desktop Background.” It can be a bit overwhelming if you think about it. Every image you encounter is an option for you.

That’s where sites like Desktop Nexus come in. Between the site and their very active communities, they curate the visual selection for you. Landing on the web site gives you an immediate view into “Recently Popular Wallpapers – By Member Votes” so you can grasp what people like. They also offer Galleries, tags, sorting, creators and just about any other navigation method you may prefer. Really well done. And they’re well on their way to meeting their goal of the household brand-name to answer the endless demand for computer wallpapers.

Desktop Nexus provides a medium for members to share their desktop creations with the world. For designers, it’s a great showcase for their work and opportunity build their following. You’ll even find some designers using a site like this to cross-promote their work on other services. Like this 2012 Seasons wallpaper with links to browser theme options.

Toolbar + Wallpaper = Browser Theme

Whether you’re looking for the latest Chrome browser theme from Kelly Clarkson, the Firefox theme for BCS National Champion contender Alabama Crimson Tide, or an Internet Explorer theme featuring a favorite coupon and deals site like Presto Savings – Brand Thunder has been the place for online marketers to turn. What each one of these offers is a combination of community toolbar and desktop wallpaper.

While a browser theme can’t match the visual real estate of the desktop wallpaper, it is assured exposure whenever consumers are online – often hours a day. So no matter how many hours someone is spending on Facebook, they can be spending every minute of it in an experience you designed.

As for toolbars, there’s little in terms of functionality advantages that one product has over the other. Community toolbars and interactive browser themes each have the highly desired presence when someone is online, and enjoy the benefit of a persistent communication channel to the end user – and hence the ability to engage those users.

Following the lead Conduit established for its toolbars, Brand Thunder launched BT:Engage and put the power of creating interactive browser themes into the hands of any online publisher. Now any web site, online community or individual can build their own custom browser theme by simply uploading any images they want into BT:Engage and then dragging and dropping them into the theme. It’s just as simple to add buttons and content feeds.

When you combine the two great ideas of community toolbars and desktop wallpapers – you get interactive browser themes, the Reese’s cup of the Internet.

Related articles

• Conduit Community Toolbar vs. Browser Theme (brandthunder.com)
• Using Browser Themes to Create Free Desktop Backgrounds (brandthunder.com)
• Theme Spotlight: Digital Blasphemy Wallpapers & Background Themes (brandthunder.com)

The judges have cast their ballots and here are the top five from the Best Holiday Browser Theme Contest. Each is a winner in its own right, but now it’s up to you, the browser-theme community, to choose the ultimate winner. Over the next week, we’re gathering your votes to determine first prize.

Each of these browser themes were built using BT:Engage, the first do-it-yourself browser theme creator. You can drag & drop images, toolbar buttons and more into the browser theme using a gallery of images or any images you upload yourself. Click Finish and you instantly create a browser theme for both Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer. You can share with family and friends, or post immediately to Brand Thunder’s Browser Theme Gallery. So, after enjoying one of these winning themes for the holiday season, come back to Brand Thunder and try one of our themes for Chrome, Firefox or IE.

Vote Daily

Every day vote for your favorite holiday browser theme. The theme with the most votes on Friday, December 23 (voting closes Dec. 22), is declared the Best Holiday Browser Theme of 2011 and its creator wins an iPad 2. All other finalists take home a $25 Amazon gift card.

1. Xanapus` Lair Christmas Theme

An edgier look at the holiday season, Xanapus` Lair offers a contemporary look at Christmas in this holiday browser theme.

2. Perfect Christmas Eve

Perfect Christmas Eve captures an idyllic view of the night flight of Santa and his reindeer in this browser theme.

3. Christmas Ornament(:

A hint of abstract art embodies the holiday browser theme of Christmas Ornament(:

4. A Year to Celebrate

An exquisite view of the holidays and this season of celebration in A Year to Celebrate browser theme.

5. Holiday Snow

Whether you want a White Christmas or just to Let is Snow, Holiday Snow browser theme delivers.

Most Votes Wins First Prize

View This Poll

This is an added bonus to the redesigned browser theme gallery for anyone seeking Chrome themes, Firefox themes and IE themes.

Theme Gallery

Brand Thunder browser themes were usually found on the websites of their clients. With the increase in demand for browser themes driven by the customization available in Chrome and Firefox, Brand Thunder is giving users a destination site to find the best themes for Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer.

And why not? What we’ve seen over the years is users move across themes sometimes based on mood, other times by season, sometimes just for a change. Personalization is so easy with Brand Thunder. Whether you want a theme from the Buffalo Bills, Greyson Chance or something for the latest holiday, you’ll find something to enjoy. And once you’ve installed more than one theme, you can cycle through the convenient theme selector to choose the theme you want at that precise moment.

User Generated Themes

When Brand Thunder released BT:Engage, we offered a Share page giving the URL and quick access to sharing across Facebook, Twitter and more. Well, we’ve finally remedied one of the omissions – BT:Engage users can now publish their themes to the Brand Thunder Gallery.

It’s a simple as clicking the Publish to Gallery button. Once you do, it’s immediately pushed to the Gallery. Unless you publish to the gallery, the themes are kept private and only viewable by users with whom you share the URL for the download page.

Free Publicity

Who doesn’t like a little free publicity? With placement on our Gallery, it’s additional exposure for the theme and the designer behind them. We’re also using the Gallery homepage to feature some of the best themes we find. It’s our way of showcasing the amazing browser themes being generated from the community of Brand Thunder clients, designers and users.

Explore the Brand Thunder Gallery yourself to see the full range of styles your browser can enjoy. If you don’t see what you want, create your own at BT:Engage.

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

The Christmas Holiday themes are rolling in for Brand Thunder’s Best Holiday Browser Theme of 2011 Contest. It’s one of the easiest ways to win an iPad 2. Just design your browser theme with the world’s only DIY browser theme creator for Firefox and IE.

Here are examples of early entries. You still have plenty of time before the December 15 deadline. So, enter your holiday browser theme today! Feel free to also sit back and enjoy by downloading one of these or any of the Christmas or Holiday themes in our browser theme Gallery.

Pictures of Christmas

It’s the time of year spent looking for Christmas wallpapers and holiday wrapping paper. Since many of us spend hours looking at the computer, Brand Thunder thought it’d bring a little incentive to adding Holiday joy to your desktop. It’s as easy as capturing your own picture of Christmas and transporting it into your browser with BT:Engage.

If you don’t have your own Christmas photos to use, there’s a special selection of Holiday images for you to use. It takes less than 5 minutes to build your own holiday browser theme. You just double-click or drag and drop the images in the theme creator. The longest part will be finding your own Christmas pictures or holiday images that you want to upload into BT:Engage.

Christmas Lights and Christmas Tree

Your time on the Internet has never felt so Merry and Bright.

Spirit of Christmas and New Years

With this theme titled “A Year to Celebrate” you get the feeling of the season and it won’t run out by New Years.

Kinkade Kind of Christmas

It’s like it was inspired by the painter of light. These bucolic scenes of small town Christmas.

Silent and Holy Night

This holiday imagery captures the magic of the season.

Enter with Your Picture of the Holidays

Whatever your vision of the holiday season is, you can capture it in a browser theme and enter the contest for your chance to win an iPad 2. Build the theme with BT:Engage and send us an email. It’s definitely worth the few minutes of time it takes to build a theme. Find all the details at our Best Holiday Browser Theme of 2011 Contest blog post.

Good luck with your entries!

Related articles

• Best Holiday Browser Theme of 2011 Contest – Win an iPad 2 (brandthunder.com)
• Christmas Wallpapers and Your Browser Theme (brandthunder.com)

Chrome, Firefox and IE Christmas Themes:

Traditional Christmas Browser Theme with Wallpaper Option

Snowman Christmas Holiday Browser Theme with Wallpaper Option

Our latest Christmas theme features Santa Claus and his Reindeer

Available for Firefox and Chrome.

Christmas Wallpapers

One of the secrets of Brand Thunder’s browser themes is how easy it is to turn our “new tab” image in Firefox into a desktop wallpaper on your computer. After you install one of our Christmas holiday themes above, open a new tab. Move your cursor over the picture and Right Click then select View Background Image. That will load a new page showing just the image, Right Click on that image and select Set As Desktop Background… You’ll immediately have that image as your Christmas holiday wallpaper on your desktop.

Your Personal Christmas Holiday Theme

If you’re like a lot of us that tend to handcraft our own holiday experiences, whether it’s baking family recipes or your own holiday decorating traditions – here’s your chance to build your own Christmas holiday browser theme. Brand Thunder has a selection of holiday background images and logos in BT:Engage, where you can build your own browser theme., including images for Hanukkah and Kwanzaa. Once you’re Finished building your holiday theme, you can easily share with friends and family through Facebook, Twitter, Email and more. Start a new holiday tradition!

Don’t forget you can always add your own images to make the best holiday theme for you and your family.

Examples of the free holiday themes you can create

Family Theme

Family & Fun Theme

Religious Theme

Santa Claus Theme

Free to build, share and use.

1. Go to BT:Engage and click the Get Started button
2. On the Background and Logo tabs, click the Holiday link to see the special image options
3. Double Click or Drag & Drop those images to add them to the theme. Use the green arrows in the Properties box to move images to the front or back.
4. Widgets are buttons and feeds you can Drag & Drop into your theme. You’ll need to select where to point them, like your online gift wishlist, Facebook page or Flickr photo album.
5. Add your own photos under the My Images tab. They can be uploaded as Backgrounds or Logos
6. Find links to videos tutorials at the BT:Engage FAQs.

Holiday Theme Contest

If you really want to show case your browser theme talents, be sure to enter our Holiday Browser Theme Contest. First prize is a new iPad 2 and gift certificates for the runner’s up. All the details are found in the contest blog.

Image via CrunchBase

Win an iPad 2 in less than 5 minutes

You can win an iPad in less than 5 minutes. Sound easy? It is.

There is no purchase necessary to enter or win.

Just create your own Christmas or holiday browser theme using BT:Engage and share it with us – you’ll be entered to win. It only takes a few minutes. A panel of judges will select 5 finalists, then the public will vote on the winning entry. Enter by 12/15/11, finalists will be announced on 12/17/11 and winners announced on 12/23/11. First prize gets a new iPad 2, the other finalists will each receive a $25 Amazon gift card.

All the details for participating are below. Enter early and often, and have fun!

Holiday Theme Your Way

BT:Engage makes it easy to create your own browser themes for Firefox and Internet Explorer. For a completely custom look, upload your own images then drag & drop to the browser theme. In a few minutes, you’ll have a new Internet experience that’s personal and fun.

The Rules for Winning

1. You must create your holiday browser theme with BT:Engage. It’s 100% free.
2. Tweet: I entered @brandthunder’s holiday browser theme contest (http://ow.ly/7pFcY). See my theme: PASTE YOUR THEME URL
3. Email info@brandthunder.com with the URL to your theme’s download page by 11:59PM EST on 12/15/11.

***NOTE: If you don’t use Twitter or have a Twitter handle, simply indicate this in your email submission and you won’t have to Tweet it to win.

Finalists will be promoted in our blog. You can send your fans to that post to vote up your theme!

How BT:Engage Works

Here’s a short preview of how the BT:Engage product works. You can always find more help and links to “How to” videos at http://bt-engage.com/faqs.

Free to build, share and use.

1. Go to BT:Engage and click the Get Started button
2. On the Background and Logo tabs, click the Holiday link to see the special image options
3. Double Click or Drag & Drop those images to add them to the theme. Use the green arrows in the Properties box to move images to the front or back.
4. Widgets are buttons and feeds you can Drag & Drop into your theme. You’ll need to select where to point them, like your online gift wishlist, Facebook page or Flickr photo album.
5. Add your own photos under the My Images tab. They can be uploaded as Backgrounds or Logos
6. Find links to videos tutorials at the BT:Engage FAQs.

Eligibility

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN. THE CONTEST IS VOID WHERE PROHIBITED BY LAW.

Contest is subject to all applicable federal, state and local laws. Open only to permanent, legal U.S. residents who are physically residing in one (1) of the forty eight (48) contiguous United States or the District of Columbia (excluding Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands and other United States territories), and who are eighteen (18) years of age or older and of the age of majority in their state of residence as of the start of the Contest Period.

The Contest is governed by U.S. law and subject to all applicable federal, state and local laws and regulations. By entering the Contest, participants agree to accept and be bound by all terms of these Official Rules and Regulations.

The competition among coupon websites is high so companies are looking to get a leg up on the competition to provide instant access to the latest coupons and deals. Online Coupon site “Presto Savings” looked to Brand Thunder to help them create a more persistent presence with their visitors along with instant access to the latest coupons and deals delivered directly through their custom browser theme.

Brands that have used custom browser themes have regularly seen more engagement and more traffic from fans that use their browser themes over regular visitors. In fact, brands like the Huffington Post have seen 8X more visits on a regular basis from users of their theme than from regular website visitors. Presto Savings Coupon Site saw the potential and then looked to Brand Thunder to help them create this type of engagement with their fans.

Introducing the Presto Saving Coupon Theme

Download the Theme

The Brand Thunder team worked to provide a theme that matched the look and feel of the PrestoSavings.com website with the light blue background. Fans of Presto Savings love coupons and great deals, so the addition of quick links to top “Grocery Coupons” and other “Online Coupons” was added to the lower part of the theme.This provides instant access to the top deals and coupons available on the Presto Coupons website. Now fans have access to their coupons every minute they are surfing the web. Pretty powerful, huh?!

On the right side of the theme, a “feed” of the latest coupons was added so fans could scroll through and find the coupons that appeal to them. A quick link to their homepage is also added on the far right along with the logo of the company for branding purposes.

Again, this persistent engagement provides users with quick access to many of the coupons offered by the company, AT ALL TIMES. Unlike a Facebook fan that “might” see your Facebook wall post, a browser theme user WILL see your offer every minute they are surfing online. I’m not sure what other social media tool can provide this type of engagement other than toolbars.

To give you a feel for the look of what this might look like on your entire computer screen, take a look below…

If you are a coupon website or an E-commerce website offering “hot deals”, coupons or related items, consider offering your users a custom branded browser theme. It has been proven to increase engagement, visits and clicks to commerce offers. You can have Brand Thunder design your custom theme, but if you’re looking for a quick and FREE way to develop your own, consider using our Browser Theme Creator tool to develop your own.