I almost forgot, we turned two on August 17th! What a few years it’s been aswell… Let’s just see what the 3rd year brings, expecting some very exciting things to happen over here at Caffeinehit Acrhes.
Watch this space 
CATEGORY: Announcements, caffeinehit
All this blogging at once, I don’t know! Well, to be honest I’ve been putting this off for ages and figure that in this 5 minute restbite I’d remind my nearest and dearest that we are actually busy beavering away here at Caffeinehit HQ.
MyPhysioRehab.com was a very different project for us. Firstly, it was just development, not really any design. The site itself allows administrators to create injury profiles and gym routines for clients. With a simple CMS administrators can create detailed injury profiles and routines and then email it directly to the client as a PDF.
A really exciting site that we feel has some serious potential. We’re already looking forward to getting stuck into v2
CATEGORY: Design, Development
Well, we thought we’d help out our lovely new neighbours (Underground Rebel Bingo Club) with a cheeky little revamp of their website. Keeping in theme of the ‘operating from our bedroom’ we put together a quick and dirty redesign for them.
If you like bingo, drawing all over yourself and having a damn good time then, my friends, Rebel Bingo will take over your life!
Caffeinehit’s latest client project is launched today (Tuesday 9th June 2009). The new website design and UI design for G3 Global.
Having sat in the duldrums for some time and been the victim of stinted additions to the site over a long period of time the G3 site design had been left disjointed, clumsy looking and overloaded with text. Working with the G3 team we stripped down the content and created a more unified site with slick UI and obvious service / product highlights.
The site now has a much simpler site structure and the introduction of photographic and visual elements gives the site a fresher and cleaner and feel.
We’re looking forward to hearing what sort of feedback comes through.
Take a look at the live site at http://g3it.com and some screengrabs here.
CATEGORY: Announcements, Design, UI Design, caffeinehit, web 2.0
I purchased my Apple “boys-toys-make-me-look-cool” TV kind of way back in August and I hate to say this, but I haven’t actually watched any ‘normal’ TV since. Not only does this mean my index finger is slowly slipping off the pulse of popular culture but it’s also putting me at risk of having my flat reposessed (I know I rent but it’s more for effect!).
So why is this so revolutionary? Well, to be honest it’s not for most of you. It is for me, I missed out on TiVo and the like so here I am, rambling…
Apple TV is quite possibly one of the best (and worst) purchases I’ve made, this year at least. The pure volume of content that they’re starting to get on there is awesome. I know it costs less to buy the DVD’s and have them in ‘real life’ from Amazon or Play but the problem (for me at least) is that I want it NOW!
Saying that Apple TV is great and wonderful and everything is all well and good but there are definitely some improvements that could be made to help suck more cash out of our pockets.
Make the box more eco friendly.
It’s very difficult to switch the box off, on the first software release you used to be able to switch the box off in any menu or even watching movie/tv by simply holding down the menu button. So, rather than faff around and find the top menu I just leave it on, thus increasing my already large carbon footprint.
Suggest content with friends
Now I know this probably isn’t Apple’s cup of tea, having a social network within the Apple TV box BUT it would be great if you could suggest a movie / tv programme to a friend. Having suggested stuff to friends in the past it would be a nice little touch if you could do it from the TV itself.
Apple TV Suggestions
By making more of tracking the content that I am rating (and how I rate it), the content within my favourites and what I’ve purchased it should be able to start to see what sort of stuff I might like. At the moment there’s no use of the suggestion system that they’ve just started to use on iTunes. It could be so much more powerful if you have more than the “people who purchased this also purchased…”, that only goes so far and really doesn’t make the most of what Apple TV knows about me.
Review content via Apple TV
Now this wouldn’t have to be a full on review, a simple star rating system for you to review what you’ve just watched.
Marking purchases
One thing that annoys me is that if I’m buying programmes from a series I have to check back with My TV programmes to check what I have or haven’t got yet. I know it comes up with an alert if you are re-buying something but that could be quite time consuming. If there was a simple icon next to an episode you’ve bought.
Alerts
For example I’m watching Season 5 of Entourage and Season 6 is out in December on Apple TV. It would be great if I could either pre-order a season pass or simply get a little alert when I next turn the box on letting me know that it’s now available for download.
Another nice touch would be to have the ability to flag movies you’d like to watch or download using Apple TV when they’re realeased. I know that there could be a horrific amount of time inbetween when you watch a movie trailer to when it’s actually released but you never know it could be quite useful. Maybe just having the ability to ’save a trailer’ into a favourites folder would be enough.
Season Passes
Now these are all well and good but generally I use Apple TV to discover new programmes that have either been suggested to me by a friend, I’ve wondered what it was like or I actually know I want to watch it. The problem with a season pass or buying an entire series is that you don’t want to fork all that cash out on something you’re not sure you’d like.
At the moment if I buy two episodes of a TV series and I then decide that rather than either going through and buying each episode individually I want to get a season pass or buy the entire series. The problem with this is that if you do that you are paying AGAIN for the episodes you originally bought. All good for Apple I’m sure but it’s a bit of a piss take to charge you twice!
Ordering programmes
Looking through my list of TV programmes for some reason is displays various seasons of programmes in random orders. I want it to display the most recent first (or last), I want to have the choice to do both.
I think the most interesting thing is what exactly is going to happen when the UK goes fully digital in 2012. Who would want to pay a license fee to the BBC when they can get all of this other content over the web directly into their televisions. I’d much rather fork out the equivalent for the license fee on some sort of license for my Apple TV. At least then you’re not going to have a few over-paid fuckwits like Jonathan Ross but hopefully see it spread out more evenly across the industry.
Either way I love my Apple TV, the biggest problem is the damage that it’s doing to my credit card!
A massive congratulations to Tom, Harry and all the guys at Formula (Top10) for bagging this award. I know they’ve worked tirelessly on this product and Caffeinehit has been fortunate enough to work on it with them. Full press release below. Well done chaps!
Top 10 Broadband overcame stiff competition last night at the A4U Awards 2009 ceremony to win the award for best technology and telecoms affiliate.
After exponential growth since its foundation just two years ago, Top 10 Broadband saw off challenges from Artemis 8 and Net Media Planet to be named best affiliate marketing company in the Technology & Telecoms category.
In recent years, the broadband market has changed beyond recognition, with the enormous growth of mobile broadband and a surge in home broadband connections. Thanks to the development of innovative tools and user-centric design to aid price comparison, Top 10 Broadband has capitalised on the explosion of demand to become the largest broadband comparison site in the UK.
The judges said the award, which recognises marketing companies that excel within their vertical sector, was testament to Top10’s innovative web design, online marketing and commercial strategy.
Tom Leathes, director at Top10, said: “We’re very pleased to have won this coveted award, especially against such tough competition. It’s a tribute to the ongoing hard work, passion and commitment of our team.”
He added: “We’ve positioned Top10 as a comparison service that strategically supports its partners, whilst giving our users the best possible experience – an approach we will be continuing to push as we grow the Top10 brand.”
Top 10 Broadband delivers thousands of broadband sales per month to over 20 broadband suppliers including O2, BT, Vodafone and TalkTalk.
Earlier this year, the team launched www.top10.co.uk with a mobile phone channel and new comparison tools. Top10 will be entering other sectors next year and have plans for massive growth.
CATEGORY: Uncategorized
We’re on the lookout for a seriously talented web designer. Not only are we moving to a funkier part of town (Shoreditch) we’ve got room for some more people to join our small (but perfectly formed) team.
At the moment we’re so snowed under with work we’re going to start with our first full time hire: a middleweight web designer.
If you an awesome designer (web, graphic, UI), write beautiful code (html/css), have a penchant for coffee and music and posess social skills (in no particular order) then we’re looking for you. You should feel totally at home working on anything from a new exciting startup all the way through to big brands like MTV, Nokia and Channel 4. Great time management skills and superior self-motivation are a definite plus.
So, think you fit the bill? Drop us an email with an intro and portfolio links to jobs@caffeinehit.com or apply online.
It’s a full time position and potential wages are based on experience (and how good you are).
CATEGORY: Announcements, caffeinehit
Yep, and not a moment too soon! After nearly 2 years in our current offices we’re spreading our wings and moving to a nice new office on Rivington Street in Shoreditch. It gives us a bit more space and should allow us to expand over the next year or so.
Our new address is:
Caffeinehit Ltd
Arch 462 Kingsland Viaduct
83 Rivington Street
London
EC2A 3AY
If you’re anywhere nearby pop in for a coffee!
CATEGORY: Announcements, caffeinehit
The new, shiney Trusted Places went live today and we’re proud to say that Caffeinehit played a big part in the new site design and fresh UI design.
Following on from the relaunch of Qype last week I think TrustedPlaces has the upper hand, visually (obviously). Still a long way to go but with the site bringing in close to 1,000,000 uniques a month it’s just going from strength to strength.
As with all social networks it’s going to be interesting to see the reaction of the community that use it. When the latest version of Facebook was released the general feeling was that it wasn’t any better, maybe more confusing if anything else. Fingers crossed the reaction will be different in this case, with a much cleaner product it should make finding and understanding content a lot easier.
Either way, well done guys. The site’s looking great and I know that it’s just going to get better based on the plans you’ve got and the super team you’ve got working on the product.
Check out the new look TrustedPlaces here.
CATEGORY: Announcements, Design, Social Networking, UI Design, caffeinehit
A slightly random post but I thought I’d highlight some of the hottest re-designs and startup launches (that I know of at least) recently and in the not too distant future…
Know of any other cool startups / redesigns that are about to hit the web? Add them as a comment…
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© 2010 Caffeinehit Ltd