Accelerated Intelligence Ltd recently launched online activity for Eon Productions, the production company behind the James Bond films. 

A website (http://www.007.com/) launched on Monday 2nd January to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Bond franchise. A fully bespoke HTML sits on top of Wordpress, that is used to deliver content. As well as the desktop site there is also a dedicated mobile build. Website design and build took six months; there is a dedicated iPad experience in the works.

I expect there was a great deal of involvement from current Bond producers Barbara Broccoli & Michael G. Wilson as EON is still very much a family business. 

Dedicated social media activity on Twitter & Facebook launched before Christmas to coincide with the start of filming on the 23rd James Bond film Skyfall. The website is linked to the US Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/JamesBond007) but there are regional pages (http://www.facebook.com/JamesBond007?sk=app_300688616626204) that are updated in local languages. A number of custom tabs for Skyfall, Bond in Motion & a welcome page are driven from content on the website. 

The website launched with light content, mainly due to the length of time until Skyfall’s release but you can expect some great content for the social channels in the future. To support the 50th anniversary Ai has access to the EON archives (who own copyright and TM of Bond characters and elements) and will be posting images (https://twitter.com/#!/007/status/153415201167912960) and the history of the franchise (

OTDIBH: 1973, Guy Hamilton shot the scene in which #007 first meets Solitaire in the Fillet of Soul club in Live And Let Die.

— James Bond (@007) January 4, 2012

8.45am, 07/11/11: 'Action!' was called for the first time on the 23rd James Bond movie, Skyfall.We are officially go! twitter.com/007/status/133…

— James Bond (@007) November 7, 2011

Personally I would love to see social functions so people can check in when they are watching a Bond film, playing games associated with the franchise via a partnership with Zeebox or GetGlue. 

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[View the story "Storify launches social curation tool" on Storify]

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Google has added a Message Log Search feature to its hosted Postini email security platform. The feature provides visibility into how your messages were processed, filtered and delivered, and insight in the traffic patterns for your domain.

In a nutshell if a user is expecting to recieve or has send an email that has not been recieved the log search allows you to search for emails from a specific sender, recipient, domain, or IP address. You can click on the message and see more information about the email including spam scores. 

More information at http://www.postini.com/webdocs/rel_notes/announce/message_logdata.pdf

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What is a URL shortener?

A URL shortener is a service that will allow you to enter website address (URL), the service then returns a shortened version of that address

Why do we need URL shorteners?

Website addresses can be too long and can be scary for users. When coding HTML, you can specify a TITLE tag so http://www.google.com can be displayed as Google. However when not using code, you need to add the whole URL – these need to be shortened to fit into Twitters 140 characters. We have all experienced the problem of emailing a long link, only to find people you send it to say its broken as it falls onto two lines

Why are URL shorteners good?

They provide an easy way to include long URLs in tweets, emails or anywhere

Many services allow you to track clicks on the link. This means you can track visits to a site, something you can only normally do with analytics if you own the site

They provide an easy non technical way to use links without the need to know HTML

They make it easy to share URLs offline, not everyone can setup redirects so just saying “Type this into your browser”

Why are URL shorteners bad?

I don’t think they are, but you could argue…

They add an extra point of failure

They are used by spammers as unlike HTML links that allow you to preview the link destination there is no way to tell where the link will go until you click it

Does not pass on pagerank (link juice)

If the company providing your short URLs goes bust none of your shortened links will work (e.g. tr.im When Short Url Services Die)

How

http://bit.ly/ – My current favorite, allows you to access stats by simply adding a + to the end of the shortened URL. Additionally if anyone has previousley shortened the URL you have entered you can see the stats so far.

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There are many tools out there designed to monitor that amount of time that a server is accessible on the Internet, know as uptime. This post will give you some basic guides on why and how you can monitor server uptime.

Why do I need monitor uptime?

• Alert you when your server is not available or responding slowly, allowing you to take appropriate steps to fix the problem.
• Monitor uptime of hosting services provided by a 3rd party against an agreed SLA (Service Level Agreement).
• For sites that are business critical a competitor could just be a click away so reducing downtime is very important and ensuring you are getting a value for money service is essential.

Why use an external monitoring service?

• Your server /website can be checked form several locations and from outside your network own
• Several protocols monitored
• No software
• Zero capital investment
• Instant setup & monitoring
• Immediate notification via SMS / email etc
• Build faith in the website by adding a badge showing the site is monitored for avalability, expecially important if online is your business

What services are out there?

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Greenroom @ Momentum have recently launched the UK website for the Heath Leger’s anticipated last movie The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus for Lionsgate.

The Flash site currently only features trailer, synopsis and option for visitors to register for email updates. Interestingly as well as the expected links to a Facebook fan page and Twitter account there is also a link to a "Support Site", this is a US based fan created Wordpress site.

Running with the imaginarium theme users are invited to show Terry Gilliam whats inside their minds and submit works that are then displayed in a gallery for a chance to win prizes.

I cannot help feel the site is rather safe at the moment and really do hope there is more to come – get back in the Imaginarium Greenroom!

Imaginarium tells the story of Dr. Parnassus and his extraordinary ‘Imaginarium’, a travelling show where members of the audience get an irresistible opportunity to choose between light and joy or darkness and gloom. www.doctorparnassus.co.uk

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The good people at Franki & Jonny have relaunched the website for leading art-house film exhibitor Curzon Cinemas. Founded 1934 in Mayfair, Curzon is part of art-house distributor Artificial Eye and includes the Renoir, Chelsea and Richmond Curzon. Franki & Jonny have been working with Curzon since theu launched their first website in 2005.

The website is a sophisticated design and just like the Curzon it is a million miles from the giant multiplexes run by the other cinema chains. Content is split between three column, the first is for sub navigation and essential information, the second is for main content and the final column is reserved for internal adverts pushing specific films and events. 

A searchable index of films includes typography for each venue making it clear where each film is screening. As well as bog standard synopsis, cast and crew information the film pages incorporate trailers embedded from Preview Networks (filmtrailer.com).  There is seamless integration between the site and the chains Newman (www.newmanonline.org.uk) back-office system allows tickets to be purchased online.

As the site makes a point of pushing Curzon membership it would have been nice to see some community type features allowing members to rate or review movies that they have seen or communcate with other Curzon members.

The site is built on the Ruby on Rails framework with a custom CMS allowing management of content. There is some impressive Ajax with the developers making use of the scriptaculous library.

The website launch comes on the week that the company announced a joint venture with HMV to create in-store cinemas. A separate website for the joint venture at www.hmvcurzon.com was launched using HMV branding, at first I wondered why the new venue was not integrated into the main Curzon site but it is clear the HMV venture has more  of a mainstream audience.

Read more about the HMV / Curzon partnership at
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
http://www.screendaily.com/

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London based agency Franki&Jonny have designed and built a Flash based website for Charles Darwin biopic Creation. The clean and elegant Flash site is navigated with a magnifying glass and brings together production assets (standard synopsis, photos, video) and other Darwin related material.

An interactive map allows users to browse Darwin facts and submit their own facts, these link to external websites with further information about the discoveries. Users can "Share" facts but this simply allows them to copy and paste a deep link.

A Facebook page and Twitter profile supports the films online PR campaign that is being handled by the nice people at Think Jam.

Franki&Jonny 
Creation Website
Icon Movies

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