What is HTML5?

With more and more Apple products being used for web browsing, the need for an alternative to Flash is becoming more apparent and HTML5 is looking like it is the next generation language, but what is it? HTML or Hypertext Markup Language is a formatting language that programmers and developers use to create documents on the Web. The latest edition HTML5 has enhanced features for programmers such as canvas, video and geolocation elements. You view a Web page written in HTML in a Web browser such as Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome. The HTML5 language has specific rules that allow placement and format of text, graphics, video and audio on a Web page. Programmers use these programming tags or elements to produce web pages in unique and creative ways. Tags such as , , enable the creator to make a more efficient and intelligent web page. Users will not have to use a Flash plug-in for video and audio content. Visual Studio users typically write code in HTML5 when creating web site content."

With Internet Explorer only being 26% ready though there is still some way to go.

http://www.focus.com/images/view/11905/

Aggregated News should form part of your corporate communications

Media have changed in ways that now make aggregation essential in order to cut through the overwhelming volume of noise out there and concentrate on content that is relevant to your audience. It offers an opportunity to create real value to your clients by doing the job for them and providing content from your industry that is relevant, interesting and beneficial. There are now some great sites and apps such as Pinterest and Flipboard that potentially point the way of web use in the future. To really benefit from these opportunities it is still essential to have a clear and concise strategy outlining what you are trying to achieve so that you do not allow the technology to drive the process and end up with a jumble of confused content. Here are a couple of things to think about before you start looking at the options:


1. Automated or human-driven?

The easiest way to get into aggregation may simply be to create an automated feed of the latest headlines from other news sources. That brings new information to your site and doesn’t add any workload.

But it’s far more useful to involve human editors as it provides that extra filtration that it is very difficult to automatically replicate.

2. When and where will you post aggregated items?

There are two ways to approach this: Mix individual aggregated items in with your other news reports, or create a separate blog or other space dedicated to external content. We are recommending to a couple of clients that they should create a quarterly update. Campaign Monitor has recently launched an aggregation service taking content from relevant blogs and eBlasting it via "newsletter" to the mailing list at predetermined times.

3. Choose what to aggregate.

Valuable aggregation does two things well: It discovers relevant news stories and highlights the most relevant parts of those stories.

The most valuable sources to aggregate are ones your audience may not otherwise read. Think of news sources that may be smaller or less widely read than yours, or that cover a different topic or geography. Try to identify sources whose coverage is tangential to yours — close enough to be relevant once in a while, but not so similar that your readers probably read it already.

How can you do this? The best tools are to subscribe to RSS feeds for key sites and then cast a wider net by subscribing to Google News Alerts for important keywords.

4. Should you simply link or summarise?

This may be the most debated aspect of aggregation strategy.

Aggregation that sends readers directly to the original piece is fairly uncontroversial. More controversial are summarised aggregated stories that provide little reason to read the original version. If you take this approach, the business advantage is that more readers spend more time previewing, sharing and discussing the content on your site instead of the original site.

5. How do you decide among multiple sources?

For some stories, there will be several sources you could choose to aggregate. You should think through in advance how to handle this. Go with the first story? Go with the most complete story?

If each contains some unique information, the best option would be to link to all of them from one place. It’s best to link within the story text in a way that the reader knows what each source is contributing.


6. How can you empower your users?

Once you begin a good aggregation strategy, your site will attract loyal users who appreciate it. Some of them will want to help.

If you have the development resources to customise your site, you can add features to enable users to suggest stories to aggregate or vote for which ones should be featured prominently.

Authenticity will define 2012 - Brilliant words from Wally Olins

So what do we really want – cheap and nasty, or responsible, sustainable and authentic?In October 2011 Asda lowered its prices. Again. 3,000 products had their prices slashed and there was a special offer: spend £40 this week and you get £5 off the next £40 you spend. Tesco also cut prices like crazy and Sainsbury had ‘brand match’ – whatever you cut, we’ll cut too. Even Waitrose started comparing prices – in a rather genteel way, of course. As for Aldi and Lidl – don’t ask. Christmas and post-Christmas was a price-cutting bonanza. And it hasn’t stopped.As household incomes go down, shoppers get much more careful and prices come down too. Chickens – £1.99. What kind of a chicken can you get for £1.99? Only one that has been tortured to grow fat since its birth six weeks ago.When things get tight nobody wants to know anymore about factory farming and all its associated ghastliness. It’s all been quite forgotten – at least for the time being. Nobody is interested in the pressures on suppliers either. We don’t want to know about sheep farmers going bankrupt as long as lamb prices stay low in our supermarket. It’s price, price, price at the moment.So, does this mean that responsible, sustainable, local, authentic, organic was a brief fad – that now with the nation in an apparently profound and long recession we recognize it was a dream? I don’t think so. Somehow or other organic products keep on getting more shelf space and supermarkets still like to talk about their loyal suppliers with their local roots. Farm shops still flourish. Authentic, organic, local – all that stuff is still in the frame – if only just.So, what’s going on? Do we want cheap and greasy on Monday and higher quality and tasty on Wednesday? Of course we’re conflicted. Of course we want both at the same time, or at least in rapid succession. But it doesn’t look to me as though ‘environment’, ‘sustainable’, ‘natural’, ‘organic’, ‘fresh’, ‘local’ have been chucked out of the window. On the contrary, wherever you walk – even in the tawdriest supermarkets – you see these words popping up. And it isn’t just supermarkets either. It’s everywhere.McDonald’s, always a bellwether where public taste is concerned, has been going green literally for the past couple of years. Although McDonald’s still retain what they risibly call their ‘ Golden Arches’, the facias have changed colour from a startling scarlet that looked like it was bursting a blood vessel to a profoundly bucolic green. It’s so green you expect to see cows walking all over the interiors. So presumably McDonald’s have researched themselves silly in their efforts to find out where to go and what to do and they’ve taken the view that the environmental values are here to stay. And they have modulated their branding to match.For what it’s worth, that’s my view too. Right now business is terrible – there’s one economic crisis after another and everybody, except bankers, is looking to save some cash. Even Goldman Sachs incurred a loss recently. Terrible isn’t it? Budgets are going down and everybody is shopping around for a bargain so a lot of branding is emphasising price.But in the longer term I feel sure there has been a profound change in the way we think about ourselves in relation to the environment and particularly in relation to food. All those Heston Blumenthals and Jamie Olivers and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstalls are not just talking to themselves. We are moving towards what you might call ‘authenticity’. We want things to be real, we want things to be properly crafted, we want things to taste as though they come from somewhere. And that’s having a big impact on branding.There are a number of different and apparently separate movements that suggest this. The focus on local foods is one, the power of the celebrity chefs, the encouragement to emulate them at home and the striking success of organics is another. And it isn’t only food. The anti-banking protest movement, Occupy, is another manifestation of the desire to make life a bit simpler, a bit nicer. There is a feeling that we’ve had too much, too much of everything. Too much greed. Too many cars. Too much drink. Too much drugs. Too many clothes.There’s a feeling around that we need a bit less of everything and that we need to find something a bit simpler and more profound and less superficial in ourselves.The post-modern exhibition at the V&A Museum in London exemplifies the era we have just been through that is just ending. Post-modernism was about the rejection of modernism, of form follows function, of simplicity, in favour of fun, excess and exaggeration. And now post-modernism is ending too.Brand builders are an integral part of the dominant contemporary culture. For the last couple of decades many really successful brands have represented, however obliquely, post-modern ideologies – they have been funny, superficial, oblique and maybe a bit fantastic.That era is ending. Now it’s not only about price, it’s also all about authenticity. Where it comes from, who made it, how lovingly it is produced. Country of origin; even city of origin. Staffordshire china.Authenticity is back. Brand builders – you had better recognize that. Tomorrow, I believe, the world will be about authenticity. No more excess. So what does that mean for brands? It means that you have to try to be yourself, you have to try to be restrained, you have to try to be modest, you have to try to be authentic.

We are creating an online e-learning platform with AMEC

With 26,000 employees working in 36 countries AMEC is one of the world's leading engineering, project management and consultancy companies. We are working with them to create an online environment where employees can learn in real time, at a time to suit them and in their own language. The platform uses video, quiz and bullet summaries in easy to digest chapters that can be paused and re-started so employees can pick it up and return as and when time allows.

Tredders trading for Christmas

tredders.com is up and running for Christmas trading. If you are looking at quality footwear to put into your stockings or indeed the other way around then as a client of CJP you are entitled to 10% discount (and free postage). Simply use code TQF10 at the check out.

Westminster Parking will be a disaster for local businesses

We are fully supportive of  the residents' society of Mayfair and St James's campaign against the new parking charges. From 9 January 2012 there will be no free parking on meters or yellow lines from 8.30am until midnight, Monday - Saturday, and from 1pm-6pm on Sunday. Tony Lorenz chairman of the society is heading a campaign to vote against the changes. If you are a local business or resident vote no here We are submitting the petition shortly so don't delay.

The smart phone version of the Lorenz Consultancy website is now live allowing users to search for over 40,000 commercial properties throughout the UK. The site can detect where the phone is located and create a search within a specified distance of it. If you have an iPhone why not give it a try by going to thelorenzconsultancy.co.uk