http://www.chocchip.com.au/articles/recent Fresh News and Articles on Choc Chip multimedia en http://www.chocchip.com.au/blog/fresh-new-look-to-old-spice-creates-viral-hit <p>I can&rsquo;t remember the last time I saw Old Spice products on a supermarket or chemist shelf, but that&rsquo;s because I wasn&rsquo;t looking out for them. The Old Spice guy has ensured that, like buying a new car and then seeing it everywhere you look, Old Spice products will again start floating across our radars.</p> <p>Old Spice is an old brand and this marketing campaign is a clever way to update it and make it relevant to a younger market.</p> <p>What started as a clever series of Old Spice commercials has become a viral web phenomenon. The sole star of the commercials, the enigmatic Isaiah Mustafa, is having great fun making the most of it and is becoming more famous than the product he&rsquo;s promoting.</p> <p>Mustafa, a former American football player, has won global attention as &quot;The Man Your Man Could Smell Like&rdquo;. He&rsquo;s also appeared on Oprah and signed a talent deal with US network NBC.</p> <span class='read-more'><a href="http://www.chocchip.com.au/blog/fresh-new-look-to-old-spice-creates-viral-hit">&nbsp;...&nbsp;read&nbsp;more&nbsp;&raquo;</a></span> http://www.chocchip.com.au/blog/fresh-new-look-to-old-spice-creates-viral-hit#comments Blog Internet Marketing Mon, 26 Jul 2010 14:13:50 +1000 James 211 at http://www.chocchip.com.au http://www.chocchip.com.au/first-principles/seo-much-more-than-meta-keyword-tags <p>There's a common misconception that an important part of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is to place 'Keyword Meta Tags' into the site code.</p> <p>Comments I get often sound like: 'I want to appear in Google for &quot;Exclusive Widgets&quot; and someone told me that you should put in a meta keyword tag to make that happen'.</p> <p>The truth is that while we're happy to embed meta keywords in the code if that's what you want, <strong>Google and other search engines place no relevance on meta keywords</strong>.</p> <span class='read-more'><a href="http://www.chocchip.com.au/first-principles/seo-much-more-than-meta-keyword-tags">&nbsp;...&nbsp;read&nbsp;more&nbsp;&raquo;</a></span> http://www.chocchip.com.au/first-principles/seo-much-more-than-meta-keyword-tags#comments First Principles SEO Tue, 08 Jun 2010 13:20:56 +1000 James 210 at http://www.chocchip.com.au http://www.chocchip.com.au/news/new-web-hosting-server-offers-faster-speeds <p>If you've got your website hosting with Choc Chip, it could be about to get faster and more reliable.</p> <p>We have recently purchased a new server in Melbourne that we're using for all our new website hosting.</p> <p>This server is housed in a state-of-the-art datacentre in Port Melbourne complete with security, hardware backups, safety measures and (most importantly, we think) super-fast speed for local users.</p> <p>Visitors to your website in Australia will notice a significant speed increase when using sites hosted locally, especially if they are downloading large files or media. This is due in part to the location of the server as there is physically less distance for the website data to travel.</p> <p>Our new server hardware is also fast and powerful, meaning processor-intensive tasks are handled more easily, delivering your website pages faster.</p> <span class='read-more'><a href="http://www.chocchip.com.au/news/new-web-hosting-server-offers-faster-speeds">&nbsp;...&nbsp;read&nbsp;more&nbsp;&raquo;</a></span> http://www.chocchip.com.au/news/new-web-hosting-server-offers-faster-speeds#comments News Wed, 19 May 2010 11:28:16 +1000 James 208 at http://www.chocchip.com.au http://www.chocchip.com.au/geelong/geelong-young-professionals-presents-rachael-robertson <p><a href="/files/u1/geelong-young-professionals_0.jpg"><img border="0" align="right" width="83" vspace="5" hspace="10" height="110" alt="RAchael Robertson at Geelong Young Professionals" src="/files/u1/geelong-young-professionals_0_0.jpg" /></a>Rachael Robertson was leader of the 58th Australian National Antarctic Research Expedition and on June 16th 2010 she will be sharing her adventures with Geelong Young Professionals.</p> <p>Rachael recounts her experiences with humour and vigour, sharing what it's like to lead a team for a year in the highest, driest coldest and windiest place on earth.</p> <p>Hear what these extreme conditions taught Rachel and her team about about the power of preparation, training, planning, systems, teamwork and trust.</p> <p>The event is at 'Bistro @ 310' at 5:45 pm. Tickets are $30 per person and include nibbles and drinks on arrival.</p> <span class='read-more'><a href="http://www.chocchip.com.au/geelong/geelong-young-professionals-presents-rachael-robertson">&nbsp;...&nbsp;read&nbsp;more&nbsp;&raquo;</a></span> http://www.chocchip.com.au/geelong/geelong-young-professionals-presents-rachael-robertson#comments Geelong Thu, 13 May 2010 09:30:23 +1000 James 209 at http://www.chocchip.com.au http://www.chocchip.com.au/book-review/book-review-think-less-be-more <p><iframe scrolling="no" frameborder="0" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&amp;bc1=000000&amp;IS2=1&amp;bg1=FFFFFF&amp;fc1=000000&amp;lc1=0000FF&amp;t=chocchipmulti-20&amp;o=1&amp;p=8&amp;l=as1&amp;m=amazon&amp;f=ifr&amp;md=10FE9736YVPPT7A0FBG2&amp;asins=0855723947" style="width: 120px; height: 240px; float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 5px 5px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0"></iframe></p> <p>I read this book some time ago, over the Christmas break, and I've found myself returning to its ideas and principles in my mind over the months since as the hectic pace of work has picked up for the year.</p> <p><em>Think Less Be More</em> is a book written by one of my clients, Dr Christine Maingard. It's about handling stress through the practice of what she calls 'mindfulness'.</p> <span class='read-more'><a href="http://www.chocchip.com.au/book-review/book-review-think-less-be-more">&nbsp;...&nbsp;read&nbsp;more&nbsp;&raquo;</a></span> http://www.chocchip.com.au/book-review/book-review-think-less-be-more#comments Book Review Fri, 30 Apr 2010 10:36:32 +1000 James 207 at http://www.chocchip.com.au http://www.chocchip.com.au/first-principles/credibility-whos-going-to-trust-you <p>When creating ecommerce websites for our clients, part of the planning process is to advise on how to get the best outcome from the website.</p> <p>And in the case of ecommerce, the best outcome is <strong>more sales</strong>.</p> <p>One thing that is often overlooked with online sales is that you need to appear credible.</p> <p>This is especially true if you are a small to medium business. Chances are your users haven't heard of you until they've arrived at your site from a search engine. Before they give their credit card details to you they need to have a high level of trust.</p> <p>The look and feel of your website as well as specific details about your business immediately build trust in the user's mind. Being able to find out more information about you when they want to increases that trust.</p> <p>Here's a checklist to consider produced from information in a <a href="http://credibility.stanford.edu/" target="_blank">Stanford University credibility study</a>:</p> <span class='read-more'><a href="http://www.chocchip.com.au/first-principles/credibility-whos-going-to-trust-you">&nbsp;...&nbsp;read&nbsp;more&nbsp;&raquo;</a></span> http://www.chocchip.com.au/first-principles/credibility-whos-going-to-trust-you#comments First Principles Internet Marketing Website design Fri, 23 Apr 2010 11:58:04 +1000 James 206 at http://www.chocchip.com.au http://www.chocchip.com.au/blog/launch-vegetarian-celiac-cookbook-website <p><a href="http://www.vegetarianceliac.com"><img border="0" align="right" width="200" vspace="4" hspace="8" height="282" alt="Vegetarian Celiac cookbook" src="/files/u1/cover-3d.png" /></a>I've always wanted to write a book, but I had no idea that my first would be something like this: a <a target="_blank" href="http://www.vegetarianceliac.com">cookbook for vegetarian celiacs</a> where all the recipes are gluten-free.</p> <p>This project was born after talking to friends and family about the problems of cooking for people with very specific dietary needs. I'm not vegetarian and most likely not celiac either (although I am booked in for the blood test just to check). But I have family members who are both, and so do some of our friends.</p> <p>So I've teamed up with mother-in-law Kym, who became a vegetarian in 1991, to produce this series of short cookbooks. We both love to cook and to entertain people with food no matter what diet they have.</p> <span class='read-more'><a href="http://www.chocchip.com.au/blog/launch-vegetarian-celiac-cookbook-website">&nbsp;...&nbsp;read&nbsp;more&nbsp;&raquo;</a></span> http://www.chocchip.com.au/blog/launch-vegetarian-celiac-cookbook-website#comments Blog Online Resource Mon, 29 Mar 2010 11:01:43 +1100 James 205 at http://www.chocchip.com.au http://www.chocchip.com.au/blog/amazing-new-mapping-technology-microsoft <p>The idea of 'augmented reality' is like something out of Sci-Fi.</p> <p>On&nbsp;your computer&nbsp;screen you see a map overlaid with a mixture of photos and video delivered realtime. Pretty amazing in itself that the thing can match up the video and photos on the fly.</p> <p>Then,&nbsp;over the realtime video, information&nbsp;symbols point&nbsp;to highlighted objects or places in the video. These can link to anything, and the whole thing happens automatically. The video 'knows' what it is showing you and overlays more information about it.</p> <p>Blaise Ag&uuml;era y Arcas is the architect of Bing Maps at Microsoft where he&nbsp;builds augmented reality into searchable maps. In this amazing video that draws grasps from the crowd you'll see the current power of Bing Map's augmented reality offering.</p> <p>And the most mindblowing thing is that this is current technology, available right now. Albeit a little glitchy, but it works.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <span class='read-more'><a href="http://www.chocchip.com.au/blog/amazing-new-mapping-technology-microsoft">&nbsp;...&nbsp;read&nbsp;more&nbsp;&raquo;</a></span> http://www.chocchip.com.au/blog/amazing-new-mapping-technology-microsoft#comments Blog Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:09:05 +1100 James 204 at http://www.chocchip.com.au http://www.chocchip.com.au/geelong/adam-elliot-speaking-to-geelong-young-professionals <p><a href="/files/u1/image002.jpg" target="_blank"><img border="0" align="right" width="190" vspace="4" hspace="8" height="269" src="/files/u1/image002_0.jpg" alt="Geelong Young Professionals presents Adam Elliot" /></a>Be inspired and entertained by film maker <strong>Adam Elliot</strong> when he speaks&nbsp; Geelong Young Professionals on Wednesday 17th March.</p> <p>Adam is the Academy Award-winning writer and director of claymation films such as Harvie Krumpet. Hear how this Melbourne man started an animation course in 1996 and accepted an Academy Award seven years later.</p> <span class='read-more'><a href="http://www.chocchip.com.au/geelong/adam-elliot-speaking-to-geelong-young-professionals">&nbsp;...&nbsp;read&nbsp;more&nbsp;&raquo;</a></span> http://www.chocchip.com.au/geelong/adam-elliot-speaking-to-geelong-young-professionals#comments Geelong Small Business Fri, 26 Feb 2010 12:10:29 +1100 James 203 at http://www.chocchip.com.au http://www.chocchip.com.au/website-design/a-lesson-the-road-the-quickest-way-not-always-the-best-way <p>I had an interesting experience on the road last week that made me think of how the decisions we make as travellers should affect website design.</p> <p>Before going to visit a potential client I plugged their address into <a href="http://maps.google.com.au/maps?f=q&amp;source=s_q&amp;hl=en&amp;geocode=&amp;q=Choc+Chip+multimedia,+9%2F147+Marshalltown+Rd,+Grovedale+VIC+3216&amp;sll=-25.335448,135.745076&amp;sspn=67.196122,135.263672&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;hq=Choc+Chip+multimedia,&amp;hnear=9%2F147+Marshalltown+Rd,+Grovedale+VIC&amp;z=17">Google Maps</a> to see how to get there, and I was suprised to see the route that it showed.</p> <p>To me, the obvious path seemed to be straight up the highway and then down a major road that their business is on. But Google said the quicker and shorter way was along a series of smaller back roads.</p> <p>I pegged out the route I thought better on the map and found that it was several kilometres longer and would take me three minutes more.</p> <span class='read-more'><a href="http://www.chocchip.com.au/website-design/a-lesson-the-road-the-quickest-way-not-always-the-best-way">&nbsp;...&nbsp;read&nbsp;more&nbsp;&raquo;</a></span> http://www.chocchip.com.au/website-design/a-lesson-the-road-the-quickest-way-not-always-the-best-way#comments Website design Fri, 12 Feb 2010 13:25:17 +1100 James 202 at http://www.chocchip.com.au http://www.chocchip.com.au/internet-marketing/use-google-alerts-to-hear-whats-being-said-about-you-behind-your-back <p>No matter what sort of business you run or the size of your profile, chances are that at some point it will be mentioned on the web.</p> <p>When it is, will it be good or bad? Wouldn't it be great if you knew what people were saying immediately so that you could respond either way?</p> <p><a target="_blank" href="http://www.google.com/alerts">Google Alerts</a> lets you monitor specific keywords in the Google search engine, and it will send you an email every day (or however often you choose) with links to new pages that match your search phrases.</p> <p>This can be useful for people doing research, following a breaking news story or who are simply interested in a particular topic. But another key reason to set up an alert is to monitor your brand.</p> <span class='read-more'><a href="http://www.chocchip.com.au/internet-marketing/use-google-alerts-to-hear-whats-being-said-about-you-behind-your-back">&nbsp;...&nbsp;read&nbsp;more&nbsp;&raquo;</a></span> http://www.chocchip.com.au/internet-marketing/use-google-alerts-to-hear-whats-being-said-about-you-behind-your-back#comments Internet Marketing Online Resource Small Business Fri, 29 Jan 2010 15:50:22 +1100 James 201 at http://www.chocchip.com.au http://www.chocchip.com.au/internet-marketing/using-google-search-on-your-website <p>Recently a friend asked me to look at a website he's creating for a church organisation he's part of.</p> <p>My friend is not a website designer by trade but he's done a fairly good job with the site. There were a few things I told him to change, but I went easy on him for the most part. One thing I was adamant he remove is the 'search the web using Google' box he had place in the header on the front page.</p> <p>'But if I put it on there people will bookmark this page and use it regularly,' he said.</p> <p>No, they won't.</p> <p><strong>People will use google.com if they want to search using Google.</strong> Why would you ever go to a site other than a search engine to perform a search?</p> <p>If you want people to visit your website you need to offer them something unique, something they can't get elsewhere. It doesn't have to be complicated but it should be information or a service that people want.</p> <span class='read-more'><a href="http://www.chocchip.com.au/internet-marketing/using-google-search-on-your-website">&nbsp;...&nbsp;read&nbsp;more&nbsp;&raquo;</a></span> http://www.chocchip.com.au/internet-marketing/using-google-search-on-your-website#comments Internet Marketing Website design Mon, 25 Jan 2010 16:39:51 +1100 James 198 at http://www.chocchip.com.au http://www.chocchip.com.au/blog/internet-growth-in-2009 <p>Have you ever wondered how big the internet actually is?</p> <p>The answer is: big. Really Big. And growing bigger every year.</p> <p>2009 saw some amazing growth again, as shown in these stats release by entireweb.com</p> <span class='read-more'><a href="http://www.chocchip.com.au/blog/internet-growth-in-2009">&nbsp;...&nbsp;read&nbsp;more&nbsp;&raquo;</a></span> http://www.chocchip.com.au/blog/internet-growth-in-2009#comments Blog Mon, 18 Jan 2010 17:28:13 +1100 James 199 at http://www.chocchip.com.au http://www.chocchip.com.au/geelong/designing-a-media-relations-strategy-geelong-workshop <p><img hspace="8" height="120" border="0" align="right" width="180" vspace="6" src="/files/u1/iStock_000005307207Small.jpg" alt="Newspaper" />Design Victoria is running a workshop in Geelong to help local businesses create and maintain a successful media relations strategy.</p> <p>Could your business profit from greater media exposure? Media relations can enhance your image, help connect with your customers and improve your bottom line.</p> <p>This free workshop, held on Wednesday 10 February 2010, will show the business advantage of a media relations program that is simple to devise and implement.</p> <p>Register on the <a target="_blank" href="http://www.designvic.com/Events/DesignVictoria/2010_02_10_Designing_a_media_relations_strategy.aspx">Design Vic website</a>.</p> <span class='read-more'><a href="http://www.chocchip.com.au/geelong/designing-a-media-relations-strategy-geelong-workshop">&nbsp;...&nbsp;read&nbsp;more&nbsp;&raquo;</a></span> http://www.chocchip.com.au/geelong/designing-a-media-relations-strategy-geelong-workshop#comments Geelong Small Business Thu, 14 Jan 2010 15:35:26 +1100 James 195 at http://www.chocchip.com.au http://www.chocchip.com.au/online-resource/small-business-website-government-resource <p>The Australian Government today launched a new <a target="_blank" href="http://ato.gov.au/businesses/content.asp?doc=/content/00221703.htm">Small Business Support website</a> to help people starting or running a small business understand their legal and tax obligations.</p> <p>The site talks about starting a business and covers topics like tax, record keeping and becoming an employer. It also helps you understand your entitlements and has a list of places that can give you more help.</p> <p>While the website layout is a little hard to understand and the visual design ugly, the content is simple and sound. If you are just starting out it will be the perfect resource to answer common questions.</p> <p>There are also links from almost every topic to more information, so even if your questions are hairy you'll likely find a link to a page that will help.</p> <p>Visit <a href="http://ato.gov.au/businesses/content.asp?doc=/content/00221703.htm" title="http://ato.gov.au/businesses/content.asp?doc=/content/00221703.htm">http://ato.gov.au/businesses/content.asp?doc=/content/00221703.htm</a> to start using the website.</p> http://www.chocchip.com.au/online-resource/small-business-website-government-resource#comments Online Resource Small Business Thu, 10 Dec 2009 16:22:29 +1100 James 193 at http://www.chocchip.com.au http://www.chocchip.com.au/internet-marketing/google-announces-7-new-features-in-analytics <p>The Google team are always introducing new features to their products, and the latest to receive major upgrades is Google Analytics, the powerful statistics tool that is used to track visitors to your website.</p> <p>Yesterday Google announced seven new features in Analytics, some are improvements to existing features like goals while others allow new analysis like tracking mobile marketing.</p> <h2>The Announcement from Google</h2> <p>Read on to read the announcement from the Google team and then <a href="http://www.google.com/analytics/"><strong>sign in to your account to try these features</strong></a>.</p> <blockquote> <h3>Expanded Goals and New Engagement Goals</h3> <p>You can now track even more conversions by creating up to 20 goals per profile. Measure user engagement and branding success on your site with Time on Site and Pages per Visit goals. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGqq4bvrxPU">Set up your first Engagement goal</a> in minutes. </p> <span class='read-more'><a href="http://www.chocchip.com.au/internet-marketing/google-announces-7-new-features-in-analytics">&nbsp;...&nbsp;read&nbsp;more&nbsp;&raquo;</a></span> http://www.chocchip.com.au/internet-marketing/google-announces-7-new-features-in-analytics#comments Internet Marketing SEO Fri, 04 Dec 2009 11:27:43 +1100 James 192 at http://www.chocchip.com.au http://www.chocchip.com.au/drupal/case-study-visit-great-ocean-road-tourism-website <p><img width="300" vspace="6" hspace="8" height="321" border="0" align="right" src="/files/u1/Visit-Great-Ocean-Road.jpg" alt="Visit Great Ocean Road website design" />Choc Chip recently completed a major website design and online marketing campaign for <a href="http://www.visitgreatoceanroad.org.au/">www.visitgreatoceanroad.org.au</a> using the Drupal CMS (Content Management System).</p> <p>GOT (Geelong Otway Tourism) contracted us to build the new website to provide tourism information and represent the tourism association members by giving them prominent pages on the site.</p> <h2>Site Build</h2> <p>As well as an attractive, dynamic design, this site includes a considered navigation structure and content targeted to attract site visitors and lead them to the member pages.</p> <p>The challenge in building this site was to incorporate data for the tourism association members from two different external sources.</p> <span class='read-more'><a href="http://www.chocchip.com.au/drupal/case-study-visit-great-ocean-road-tourism-website">&nbsp;...&nbsp;read&nbsp;more&nbsp;&raquo;</a></span> http://www.chocchip.com.au/drupal/case-study-visit-great-ocean-road-tourism-website#comments Drupal Geelong Internet Marketing SEO Website design Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:26:31 +1100 James 189 at http://www.chocchip.com.au http://www.chocchip.com.au/blog/movember-a-good-website-and-a-great-cause <p><img vspace="6" hspace="8" border="0" align="right" src="http://au.movember.com/uploads/members/profile/4/4195/419596.jpg" alt="My Movember profile" />Due in part to the Movember campaign's <a href="http://au.movember.com">well-designed website</a>&nbsp;I'm currently growing a moustache to help raise awareness and funds for men's health issues</p> <p>The Movember campaign is a good example of how social media can interact well with traditional marketing.</p> <p>As a participant I can log in to the Movember website and add photos of my mo's progress while also commenting on other members and interacting with the rest of my team. My personal profile page is aptly named my 'mospace' page.</p> <p>A running total of donations for both myself and my team is encouraging and also makes it a little competitive. Which men like, as a rule.</p> <p>There are also options to automatically update my facebook and twitter pages if I want to.</p> <span class='read-more'><a href="http://www.chocchip.com.au/blog/movember-a-good-website-and-a-great-cause">&nbsp;...&nbsp;read&nbsp;more&nbsp;&raquo;</a></span> http://www.chocchip.com.au/blog/movember-a-good-website-and-a-great-cause#comments Blog Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:55:40 +1100 James 190 at http://www.chocchip.com.au http://www.chocchip.com.au/blog/the-xo-and-the-one-laptop-per-child-project <p><img height="208" align="right" width="240" src="/files/u1/xo_laptop.jpg" alt="XO Laptop" />I was lucky enough to get a hands-on play with an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OLPC_XO-1" target="_blank">XO laptop</a> at last night's <a href="http://www.meetup.com/The-Geelong-Web-Technology-Meetup-Group" target="_blank">Geelong web tech meetup</a>.</p> <p>The XO is a small, robust laptop computer that has been specifically designed for the &quot;One Laptop Per Child&quot; (OLPC) movement.</p> <p>The OLPC project has a vision of getting a simple, rugged laptop into the hands of every underpriveleged child in the world to enable education and opportunities that they would otherwise not have.</p> <p>The laptop itself is impressive, especially considering the mere $180 price tag. It's sturdy with a solid casing and a small screen that's made to be hardy and easily carryable. It's waterproof and dustproof and uses very little power, lasting around three hours under average usage.</p> <span class='read-more'><a href="http://www.chocchip.com.au/blog/the-xo-and-the-one-laptop-per-child-project">&nbsp;...&nbsp;read&nbsp;more&nbsp;&raquo;</a></span> http://www.chocchip.com.au/blog/the-xo-and-the-one-laptop-per-child-project#comments Blog Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:43:27 +1100 James 188 at http://www.chocchip.com.au http://www.chocchip.com.au/blog/book-review-i-want-what-shes-having <div style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0980328403?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=chocchipmulti-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0980328403"><img height="160" border="0" width="113" src="/files/u1/41SIJ31vZRL__SL160_.jpg" alt="I Want What She's Having" /></a></div> <p>Naomi Simson is one of Australia's lauded young business entrepeneurs and <em>I Want What She's Having</em> is her book describing the building of her successful corporate gift business, <a href="http://www.redballoondays.com.au" target="_blank">RedBallon Days</a>.</p> <p>In my mind there's two basic types of business books: instructional and inspirational. This offering falls mainly into the second category.</p> <p><em>I Want What She's Having </em>is an entertaining look into the struggles and joys of business as RedBallon Days goes from a small startup to the thriving trans-Tasman business it currently is.</p> <span class='read-more'><a href="http://www.chocchip.com.au/blog/book-review-i-want-what-shes-having">&nbsp;...&nbsp;read&nbsp;more&nbsp;&raquo;</a></span> http://www.chocchip.com.au/blog/book-review-i-want-what-shes-having#comments Book Review Small Business Mon, 26 Oct 2009 11:41:42 +1100 James 186 at http://www.chocchip.com.au