Digital Pulp Blog

What better way to appreciate the creativity and energy of Emerson College than to engage with its students, faculty, and alumni online? That was the driving concept behind Emerson College’s new web presence, which made its debut this past month.

Virtually every page of Emerson’s new website includes related videos and links to the College’s Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Flickr, and ProArts Connect portals. Visitors can participate in the community within those sections and also by reading and commenting on the numerous blogs throughout the website. More from the team behind the work…

Andy, VP for Communications and Marketing says: “As the only college in America focused exclusively on communication and the arts, our goal was to highlight the community’s creative vision and outgoing personality by showcasing the work of Emerson’s students, faculty, and alumni.”

Marta, Web Content Developer says: “While the most critical function for any college’s website is to provide information, we also wanted to create ways for our visitors to participate in conversations, hear directly from Emersonians, and as much as possible, experience Emerson live.”

Erika, Senior Producer says: “Emerson College has many talented students and providing them with a means to showcase their work in a fun an innovative way, Emerson Live, was very rewarding.”

Dan, Developer says: “I really enjoyed building the home page main feature area. It was especially fun collaborating with our design team to achieve the impact of a flash feature while using only javascript, HTML, and CSS.”

Special thanks to the Emerson communications team as well as Chris, Erika, Katherine, Kiu, Dan, Alex, Ryan, Alexander, James and Josh for bringing the site to life. Nicely done.

We have always been a strong proponent of web standards. Without them we couldn’t execute our designs perfectly across browsers. So recently hearing and seeing the possibility of HTML5 and what that could mean for us as a digital agency was very exciting…

• Visually arresting typographic layouts… that are search engine friendly
• Videos that play on any site… or mobile device seamlessly

The realities, however, are slowly coming to light. Streaming Media released a study showing that less than 50% of publishers were ready to implement HTML5 video and by implementing the standard there are some drawbacks to the flexibility of display. And then Apple released an HTML5 showcase that dazzled us for sure but only two of the demos actually use HTML5. There will be more to this story for sure.

So where does that leave us?

Well the good news is we know it’s coming and can plan accordingly. Every client should be thinking about their digital experience and how it works across browsers, on mobile devices like the iPhone and Android as well as the up-and-coming iPad. So we may continue to see some Flash development in the short run but as HTML5 matures Digital Pulp will be looking to leverage the best of these new web standards to help our clients take advantage of the best of what’s possible.

According to a survey released in June, the Direct Marketing Association has found marketing e-mails using a house list are seeing an average open rate of nearly 20%. Click-through and conversion rates are still extremely low at 6.64% and 1.73% respectively. How does your list measure up?

We’ve worked with a number of content management systems over the years, and one of our favorites is Radiant: an open-source Ruby on Rails project. That’s why we’re looking forward to its next major release, due any day now.

There are a number of features which make this an especially exciting release, like the artfully redesigned admin interface and support for international and multilingual teams. But we’re particularly pleased because a lot of the new enhancements come from Digital Pulp’s own development team.

Working closely with an open-source project (Digital Pulp has employed several core Radiant developers) doesn’t just give us a warm and fuzzy feeling; it’s a great way to tailor the product to our specific needs. Larger content management systems fill a niche as well, but none of them can boast that some of their best features were written specifically for a Digital Pulp client.

We’re all excited to continue working with Radiant and the talented developers who run the project. If you have questions about Radiant CMS tweet @digitalpulpinc.

We are very proud to announce the launch of a new streamlined and socially connected mobile experience for ChildFund International!

http://m.childfund.org/

So take out your mobile phone, click around and don’t forget to “Text a Gift”. More about this exciting launch from the those behind the work…

Pauline, Marketing Director says: “We’ve helped ChildFund establish a strong presence for the mobile audience, and they can now take advantage of ‘text-to-give’ as a new channel for fundraising.”

Cynthia, Director of Communications says: “We know our supporters are committed and passionate about helping children around the world, and this mobile site provides them with portable access at all times. They can share information with others through the site and if they are moved, they also can donate quickly and easily. Best of all, the site provides direct access for those who have decided to commit to sponsoring a child.”

Shirley, Digital Producer says: “I love that we were able to use content, message, and technology to deliver a unique experience and potentially open up ChildFund to new audiences.”

Laura, Marketing Director says: “The mobile site looks great! Wow!”

Special thanks to the ChildFund marketing team as well as Shirley, Pauline, Katherine, Stuart, Jeff and Josh for their beautiful execution. Amazing effort all around!