Storm Ideas, our innovations development arm, have secured a deal with University College Falmouth for collaborative workspace product, Colaab.

colaab will allow students across the schools of Art, Design, Media and Performance at University College Falmouth to review and collaborate on all kinds of resources, including video and massive images, in real time. It’s the ideal tool for Falmouth’s students because it exists 100% in the browser, so whether they’re in the classroom, workshops, studios or at home they will have instant access to their collaborative projects. colaab also supports a range of features, allowing users to communicate via an internal instant messaging application.

Bob Thomson, Storm Ideas co-founder, said: “Real-time collaboration is a huge meme for 2010 – we only saw the tip of the iceberg in last year’s global fascination with Google Wave. The ability to review a range of materials like this is going to be increasingly crucial as educational institutions seek to give their students the edge in a fast-moving working environment. We’re delighted that University College Falmouth is leading the way by adopting colaab.”

Ben Bull, Senior Learning Technologist at University College Falmouth said: “UCF has built a reputation for innovative arts pedagogy supported by a curriculum which allows students to develop their potential through creative problem solving, team-working and networking.

colaab is allowing us to enhance and develop these skills for a still more diverse cohort collaborating professionally across a range of disciplines within art, media, design and performance - be they on campus, in work or at home.”

You can find out more about Technology Ehnanced Learning at University College Falmouth by visiting their virtual learning envrionement (http://learningspace.falmouth.ac.uk) or their website (http://www.falmouth.ac.uk).

You can try out Colaab for yourself too.

In fitting with the national blizzard sweeping with the country, we’re pleased to have launched the Dancing On Ice Twibbon destination, allowing users to support their favourite contestants online. This year promises to be more exciting than ever, with the likes of Heather Mills, Bobby Davro and Daniella Westbrook getting their skates on and thrilling the audience.

You can see the destination and grab your Dancing On Ice Twibbon here.

Watch the first episode on Sunday evening at 6.45pm on ITV1.

After successful campaigns with hit shows, The X Factor and I’m A Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here, ITV has commissioned Edinburgh’s Storm Ideas to enhance engagement with fans of the hit show Dancing On Ice on social networking sites.

Fans on Twitter and Facebook will be able to overlay images depicting their favourite celebrity skaters onto their profile picture, using Storm Ideas’ viral application Twibbon. Users will be encouraged to link back to the ITV website, where they can view and interact with exclusive video content from the show itself, while the programme’s sponsors, Macleans, will also have a presence on the customised Twibbon destination.

X Factor branded profile pictures were seen by more than 1.3 million Twitter users through streams and feeds, while I’m A Celebrity online video views were up 330% on last year.

Bob Thomson, Storm Ideas co-founder, said “Increasingly we’re seeing a real-time, two screen approach to television. Users want to be interacting with programmes while they watch them, and we’re pleased that Twibbon offers people a unique visual approach to consumer engagement. ITV’s recent fortunes aren’t just down to good luck, but a very well conceived marketing plan, one in which social media is playing a more influential part than ever before.”

ITV’s Social Media and Engagement Manager, Ben Ayers, said: "We got a great response to the Twibbons for I'm A Celebrity so we're delighted to be working with Storm Ideas again for Dancing on Ice. As usual we expect the show to generate a lot of web chatter and by allowing fans on Twitter and Facebook to show which of the skaters they're supporting in the competition, Twibbons provide a great talking point."

The programme is due to hit television screens in January 2010, and ITV will be hoping to continue to build on recent impressive ratings into the new year.

In an exciting week of awards for Storm Ideas, we've been shortlisted for an eConsultancy Innovation Award in the category of 'Innovation in Social Media'. 

We're in strong company on the shortlist, alongside the likes of Channel 4, Virgin Atlantic and Brandwatch. The shortlist is whittled down once again on December 7th, so watch this space to see if we make the cut.

Meanwhile, tomorrow we'll be heading to Glasgow to see whether Storm Ideas has won in the 'Not For Profit Campaign' category in the HeraldScotland.com Digital Business Awards, for our work over Breast Cancer Awareness month.

We are delighted to announce that Storm Ideas topped the 'Best Application' category in the inaugural Golden Twits awards last night, celebrating the best in Twittering nationwide.

The award was given for our application Twibbon, which promotes awareness of causes, brands and campaigns on social networking websites, including Twitter. Specifically, the judges focused on the role of the @twibbon Twitter account in promoting and building the service prolifically, yet responsibly.

Appropriately, recipients of awards on the night were limited to delivering acceptance speeches no longer than 140 characters. Dutifully, we responded: "@goldentwits #twibbon. 3 months. 22,00 causes. 750,000 users. 270,000followers. 1 GoldenTwit. #honoured and #humbled."

Other award winners included @Aleksandr_Orlov - the popular comparethemeerkat.com protagonist, BBC Dragon Duncan Banatyne, as well as Storm ID's client partners, Scottish Ballet.

For more, read the Guardian's review of the event or visit the Golden Twits website.

Careers

Founded in 2001, Storm ID delivers end-to-end digital solutions covering strategic consultancy, creative design, software development, digital marketing and hosting.

Financial Officer

Storm ID is looking for a financial officer to assist in the company’s handling of accounts and payroll. We are looking for someone with a general understanding of accounting, including the relationship between the profit and loss account, and the balance sheet. This is a part time position. The successful applicant should be prepared to commit 1-2 days a week.

About Storm ID

Here at Storm ID, we place great emphasis on the cohesion and effectiveness of our team. We are a full service digital agency with a fantastic track record of employee retention. Here are some things you’ll like about Storm:

Financial Stability: No external investment. Storm ID is the only company on all Scottish Framework agreements.

Great Location: Just a stone’s throw away from the Leith shore, we occupy The Corn Exchange, a large building bursting with character.

Award Winners: With Storm ID’s pedigree for receiving awards at national level, including ‘Best Digital Media Software Solution’ in the 2008 Scottish Software Awards, you’ll be working alongside a group of dynamic and highly talented individuals.

Key Responsibilities

The main duties of the financial officer will include:

· Budget preparation and financial reporting,

· Entering client and supplier invoices,

· Recording client receipts,

· Making and recording supplier payments,

· Preparation of VAT return,

Desirable Skills

· The successful applicant will demonstrate impressive numeracy and literacy skills. Experience of Sage accounting system or similar would be ideal.

· All around good communicative skills.

· Must be able to prioritise workloads and use initiative to resolve problems.

· Computer literate, familiar with Microsoft Office suite.

Personal Character

· Committed

· Enthusiastic

· Diligent

Renumeration

Salary/hourly rate negotiable.

To Apply

If you are drawn to an exciting and creative environment and want to work with a portfolio of top private and public sector companies across Scotland and the UK, please email a CV and covering letter toinfo@stormid.com, with the subject headed ‘Financial Officer Application’.

Storm ID is an equal opportunities employer.

During his keynote speech at the Microsoft Professional Developer (PDC) conference, Scott Guthrie announced the availability of Silverlight 4 Beta, going on to demo many of the features and improvements this release brings to the table.

With Silverlight 3 only three months out of the oven the pace with which Microsoft is iterating on this product is unusually fast for the Redmond behemoth, continuing to demonstrate their commitment to the technology and to pushing Silverlight on to ever more devices with ever more functionality.

Silverlight 4 brings a whole host of new tricks to the party, with some 70% of them coming straight off the feature request lists from users and developers, one of the best ways of ensuring that the product is meeting the needs of its core audience. Prepare yourself, the main feature additions / improvements list looks something like this:

• Improved Tooling – Visual Studio 2010 Visual Designer for Silverlight, Blend 3
• Printing API – Send visual tree to printer, basic print preview
• Right-click support – Required flaky hacks until now
• Webcam/microphone access – capture output from these devices, a world of possibilities
• Mouse wheel support – required custom code up until this release
• RichTextArea Control – the most requested control, useful for display and edit
• ICommand support – helps when building Silverlight apps in a more testable manner using techniques like MVVM
• Clipboard API – previously required Flash and Javascript hack
• HTML Hosting with WebBrowser - display HTML content in your Silverlight application
• Elevated trust – get more access to the local machine in OOB apps
• Local file access – via elevated trust above
• o COM interop – via elevated trust above
• Notifications API – OOB apps can pop up alerts
• Network authentication – when using remote services
• Cross-domain Networking changes – no cross-domain policy file required on remote servers in elevated OOB apps
• Keyboard access in full screen mode – in elevated OOB apps
• Text trimming – automatically add ellipsis when text reaches certain length
• ViewBox – simple but useful layout control
• Right-to-left, BiDi and complex script – oft requested for certain regions
• Offline DRM – for media owners who haven’t woken up yet
• H.264 protected content – still sleeping? Use this.
• Silverlight as a drop target – drag and drop to the Silverlight application, how long until we see drag and drop uploading inside the browser?
• Data binding – some small additions that make databinding ever more powerful
• IDataErrorInfo and Async Validation
• DependencyObject Binding
• StringFormat, TargetNullValue, FallbackValue
• Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF) – powerful extensibility framework useful as your applications become more complex
• DataGrid enhancements
• Fluid UI support in items controls
• Implicit theming – saves on typing, makes changes easier
• Google Chrome support – Ballmer may think it’s a “rounding error” but someone on the Silverlight team doesn’t.

We won't bore you with all details of that lot here (although, to an extent, we just did!) but having spent the last couple of years reading feature requests on the Silverlight.net forums I can attest that with this release Microsoft are including the vast majority of the most requested features. Microsoft are addressing the most obvious remaining gaps in the product, eliminating many of the last places where competing technologies such as Flash and Air still had the upper hand.

So what are we most excited to start experimenting with? Without doubt for me it’s Webcam / Microphone Access.

At Remix Brighton in 2008 I asked Scott Guthrie when we could expect to see a Silverlight powered Microsoft Office delivered online through the browser and when we could get WebCam and Microphone support in the Silverlight plugin. He didn’t give much away other than to leave the impression that both were already on a roadmap.

With Office 2010 web apps we see some use of Silverlight to power online Office applications, although personally I feel they could have gone much further with this, and may well do in the future.

With Silverlight 4 comes the WebCam and Microphone support many have been after and I don’t think the impact of this should be underestimated. The ability to easily capture audio, images and video on the client, do some processing on them client side and then send them off to a range of services enables a whole range of use cases.

Imagine logging in to a browser application using Facebook connect, clicking a record button to record through your WebCam and Microphone and adding some optional text comments via the keyboard. Review and edit the result there in the browser and when you’re complete publish it to your Facebook account with one click. All this is not only doable, but with this release is doable quickly and with the result being cross platform and cross browser.

The multi-billion web conferencing industry is already in the midst of a shakeup with cheaper, more innovative start-ups challenging the incumbents like Cisco owned WebEx and with this addition to the Silverlight feature set I’d expect to see an explosion in browser based, Silverlight powered video and audio conferencing and collaboration applications covering a whole host of areas.

We’ve always seen video and audio as a natural addition to our Silverlight collaboration application colaab and will be looking at how best to integrate the new features as the Silverlight 4 timeline progresses.

In other areas we see Elevated Trust for Silverlight Out of Browser (OOB) applications as being an interesting step. In non-technical speak this means you can install a Silverlight application so that it no longer runs inside your web browser and you can give that application permission to have more access to your local machine than a browser based app would. Say I want to show a user a list of images they have in their “My Pictures” folder within my Silverlight app – this would previously be impossible due to the security restrictions. Now the user can install the application as an OOB app, agree to elevated permissions and open up a new range of possibilities.

We’re much more focused on web based applications so I don’t imagine using this feature too much (we aren’t writing Twitter clients) but it does throw up a question as to the commitment to, and future direction of WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation the current suggested technology for building desktop applications on the Windows platform) within Microsoft.

With the release of Silverlight 4 with elevated trust a possibility the subset of applications where WPF is the correct choice becomes ever smaller. Why build a WPF application that’s tied to the desktop when you can write a Silverlight 4 application that’s cross-browser, cross-platform and can be installed as an OOB application and run with elevated trust, giving access to local resources?

One area of desktop application that’s bucked prevailing trends and seen some traction in the last couple of years is notification applications, primarily Twitter clients like Seesmic and TweetDeck. Indeed if you look at the most popular Adobe Air applications then the majority of them fall into this category.

One of the key things a desktop based application can do in this scenario that browser based apps cannot is serve up small notification windows, alerts or “toast” messages, typically in the bottom right corner of the screen. Silverlight 4 comes with an API for these, only accessible to OOB applications, which is a deceptively important feature for this type of (increasingly popular) application.

In other areas we see this release as sorting out some basics. For example, up until Silverlight 4 the platform had pretty shoddy printing support, involving printing from the browser and crossing your fingers. For many people there’s little point in having powerful charting controls at your fingertips when you can’t print the output. Silverlight 4 introduces a Print API allowing a developer to either send what’s on the screen to the printer or to assemble controls in memory and send that to the printer, with basic print preview functionality too.

Another basic requirement in many applications is the display and editing of rich text, something that is painful in previous Silverlight versions. The v4 release brings with it the RichTextArea control to address this shortfall, and when you want to copy and paste text from that control the new clipboard support means you don’t have to do this via a Javascript / Flash hack anymore.

More basic complaints are addressed with native support for mouse scroll wheels and Right Click support allowing custom context menus at last, something else that required nasty hacks to achieve previously.

On the performance front, Microsoft are claiming around 200% gains over Silverlight 3 overall with 30% faster start up times, we’ve yet to put that to the test but it sounds promising.

Overall we’re looking at another major step forward for the platform, with a whole host of the most common complaints and requests being addressed by this release. Microsoft is now claiming that 45% of internet connected devices have a version of the plugin installed, saying the rate of adoption is accelerating. With Windows 7 set to engender a wave of PC purchases and upgrades worldwide this figure should continue to rise…

Indeed the combination of a the bottoming out of the recession, a successful Windows 7 launch, and these most recent announcements from PDC seems to have the markets at least considering that Microsoft is headed in the right direction over the last six months:

The next phase is the most exciting one for us, which is to investigate and explore what new scenarios are enabled by the advances in the underlying platforms and technologies, watch this space for what we come up with.

Following the success of their contribution to the X Factor’s ongoing social media drive, Storm Ideas has worked closely with ITV’s production and design teams to complete the official Twibbon destination for ‘I’m A Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here’.

The fully branded web destination will allow users to show their support for their favourite contestant in a visual and viral way by overlaying contestants’ designs over their Facebook or Twitter profile pictures. These Twibbons aren’t for the squeamish though – the designs are adorned with the creepy crawlies that will be all too familiar to the show’s contestants. If users haven’t decided on a favourite yet, they can show their appreciation for the show itself.

This year’s show has grabbed the headlines after former jungle favourite Katie ‘Jordan’ Price was brought back down under to challenge the likes of George Hamilton and Jimmy White for the Celebrity crown. The first show of the new series boasted the best viewing ratings since 2004’s launch, with 10.7 million tuning in to watch Sam Fox and Gino D’Acampo take part in the first gruelling Bushtucker Trial.

Storm Ideas’ Bob Thomson said: “It’s great to be working with ITV again on ‘I’m A Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here’. ITV are really setting a benchmark in engaging their online audience with innovative social media applications, and it’s a pleasure to be able to deliver a branded destination and campaign to invigorate the programme’s online presence.”

Ben Ayers, ITV’s Social Media and Online Engagement Manager, said: "Fans want an easy, visual way of showing friends what they're enjoying and, most importantly, who they're supporting. Shows like the X Factor and I'm A Celebrity lend themselves perfectly to the Twibbon concept and we're delighted to work with Storm to bring these shows to life for the growing number of TV fans sharing their passions on Twitter and Facebook.”

Storm Ideas has completed a rich interactive mapping application and web site for the Scottish Government, visualising a wealth of data for the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD). The web site comprises a careful balance of the latest advances in mapping technologies and optimised accessibility, engaging as wide an audience as possible with this data.

The SIMD identifies concentrations of deprivation across Scotland. Indexing these areas allows effective targeting of policies and funding with the aim of focusing on concentrated areas. The mapping application incorporates a broad range of data indicators covering areas such as income, health, education and crime and is publically available through the SIMD website.  In addition, it is hoped that the application can be shared and adapted for use by stakeholders both within the Scottish Government, and Local Authorities and NHS boards.

The mapping application, developed using the established and familiar Bing Maps framework, colour codes geographical ‘data zones’ to give a visual representation of these statistics and seamlessly offers an alternative satellite aerial view.

Users will be able to compare current geographical statistics with data sets from 2004 and 2006 and view more than three hundred variations of map through a range of changeable domains, classifications and colour schemes.

Storm Ideas implemented two versions of the mapping application to accommodate the diverse viewing habits of the Scottish public. An HTML version will be widely accessible and will allow the web site to be indexed by search engines. Users can engage with the interactive Microsoft Silverlight version for a richer experience with added functionality.

The Silverlight map allows users to view the whole of Scotland, in addition to particular regions and areas. Users can also free scroll and zoom around the entire country employing market-leading Microsoft Visual Earth technology, compare the data sets for two regions and alter the opacity of the colour coding. Both versions of the application offer a simple, intuitive experience for the end user, who can view these statistics by region using familiar navigation tools.

Storm also integrated powerful search functionality, allowing users to discover relevant information quickly and easily. Users can search by postcode or by any location that can be matched to recognised intermediate geographies such as Local Authorities and Constituencies.

Project manager for the Scottish Government, John Fraser, said: “We are really pleased with the new web site which offers our users significant improvements in terms of both functionality and intuitiveness over our previous system. Storm took the time to understand our needs and those of our users and have worked hard to create a site which fully meets our original requirements. Throughout the very tight timescale of this project there has been a real feeling of combined determination to produce a high quality product which has certainly paid off. We are already receiving very positive feedback from our stakeholders.”

Storm Ideas’s Paul McGinness said: “We’re delighted to bring this crucial information to the public using industry-leading mapping technology. It’s quite an achievement to represent this extraordinary level of detail, while maintaining the performance and accessibility of the mapping application.”

We will be posting more on this project in the near future, including a video explaining the full functionality of the mapping application.

Over recent months, Storm has built a number of rich Silverlight mapping applications for Scottish Government web sites, including the Drinking Water Quality Regulator and Government Summer Cabinet 2009.

Storm Ideas have unveiled an official branded destination on their popular Twibbon site to reinforce The X Factor’s presence on social networking websites.

Working in association with ITV and FremantleMedia Enterprises, the destination launches to coincide with the live phases of the hit series this weekend. Building on a larger multi-platform strategy, this social media vehicle will reinforce the efforts to engage fans with their favourite entertainment brand. Additionally it’s the ideal complement to the official website (http://xfactor.itv.com/2009) which has just set new records achieving 1.7m page impressions last week.

It’s the first year where the performance and result shows have been split across the weekend on Saturday and Sunday nights and the voice of the viewer has become even more important, with a crucial 24 hour window during which the nation can deliberate over which contestant to back as excitement builds to the results show.

Using Storm’s viral brand awareness service, ‘Twibbon’, fans of the programme will be able to overlay an icon depicting their favourite of the twelve finalists onto their profile pictures on Twitter and Facebook.

Ben Ayers, Social Media Manager at ITV.com, said: “The X Factor is huge on Twitter and Facebook so we wanted to make it as easy as possible for fans to show their allegiance to their favourite X Factor act in a quick and visual way. Twibbon was the ideal solution.”

Commented Robert Marsh, VP, Interactive & Telephony, FME UK, “Managing a brand like The X Factor across a multitude of new media platforms requires creativity and great partners. Storm Ideas offered something that truly benefits the broader brand experience.”

Storm Ideas’ Bob Thomson said: “People can’t stop talking about The X Factor at work, at home and of course, online. We’re delighted to be contributing to the enormous buzz around the show going into the all important live phase with the official branded Twibbon destination.”

Storm Ideas’ Twibbon is part of an overall marketing campaign for The X Factor conceived by ITV and BBH, which uses the famous The X Factor ‘X’ positioned in a box, mimicking the well known election voting symbol to highlight the importance of viewers’ votes as they decide which contestant they are backing to win.  The X Factor campaign will cut across a range of media including digital, outdoor, press and on-air promotions.

As well as showing their favourite act on their profiles, fans will also be able to download a Facebook application that will send the latest updates about their favourite contestant direct to their news feed and comment live on the show during transmission at ITV.com.

Visit the Twibbon destination at http://xfactor.twibbon.com