This month we have re-launched our very own Chameleon Net website with a brand new look. When I came on board as Creative Director at the beginning of 2006 one of my first tasks was to undertake a re-working of the 'then' current branding. Far from throwing away everything that had come before and creating something completely new I wanted to capitalise on everything we had already achieved as a company, and the recognition we already had within the new media sector. I saw it more as an 'evolution of the brand' and in approaching the recent re-design of our website I really wanted to stay focused on the principle of evolving our online proposition rather than going back to the drawing board.

Our development team have spent a lot of time creating a flexible, scalable .NET and XML based solution that is robust and easily maintainable. Likewise we have invested many man hours, creating relevant copy to achieve a very search engine friendly, accessible site. So the design brief was quite simple; Bring the website in line with the current branding and communicate our design abilities without effecting any of the underlying code or foundation work already undertaken.

Interestingly enough this scenario is not uncommon among many of our clients. There are of course occasions when their current solution is too old to cost effectively salvage technology, but many of our projects have involved existing systems or required collaboration with an in-house IT team to effectively re-skin their offering. With contemporary standards based development techniques like CSS ( custom style sheets ) we can 'skin' just about any system.

So back to the new Chameleon Net offering. We have added a dynamic Content Managed Flash Banner to our homepage and in the long term we will be re-tasking this space with multiple promotional panels featuring video, animation and motion graphic work from the design team. We have further utilised flash, and specifically siFr, to convert structural headings ( H2, H3 etc.. ) into our brand font on the fly,  whilst retaining an accessible, standards compliant layout for users without the plugin.

I hope you like the new look Chameleon site as much as we do, and if you have any comments or ideas I would love to hear from you.

We are currently running a free offer! If you are running a paid search campaign on Google Adwords then you might be interested in our FREE PPC audit. The audit will include bespoke advice on your Google account structure, the quality score and tips on how to make the most of your paid search spend. Take a look at the audit page for more information.

In the autumn of 2004 I was sitting on a train with a friend of mine, Karen Jepp, and we were discussing climate change. We’d both been reading about it (Bill Bryson started the whole thing as I recall) and had both, unbeknownst to each other, been going through a whole range of emotions about the subject: interest, fascination, amazement, incredulity, anger, disgust and fear. We were both clear about one thing: it was not the latest fad, it was not hysteria. We (by which I mean ALL of us) were sleep walking into the biggest disaster the human race had ever faced – Climate Change.

You see even re-reading that sentence somewhere I cringe. Talk of disasters, sleep walking, even “the human race” somehow sounds over dramatic, an exaggeration. Yeah, yeah, another global threat, another disaster. It’ll be fine. It always has. Except this time it is highly likely that it just won’t be fine at all.

It is a misconception that email marketing is solely deployed to promote a company and/or its products to random people.

Having just got back from my round the world, (well, Vietnam and Cambodia) charity travels. I arrived back at work and like any good employee, headed straight for Facebook. I am really excited about Facebook this year (especially now I’ve posted the video blogs from my trip.) Actually it’s the advertising on Facebook that’s really caught my eye. I’ve been checking out Facebook’s advertising interface and the list of targeting parameters is endless,

I have been back for a few weeks now but just thought I should let you know how the rally ended. The victory parade was good fun; we got lots of smiles and waves from passers-by. We drove through the presidential arch, which is normally reserved for the President. Only 2 cars broke down on the parade route, which was quite an achievement!

Then on Saturday we prepared the cars for the auction on Sunday. It was sad to see the car go, it had served us well – even in the desert the engine temperature had hardly risen, while cars all around us where packing up. The worst failure being the rear axle of an Opel separating from the rest of the car and flipping the car over in the process – luckily no-one was seriously hurt. Our car and it is contents (car and camping accessories, which were auctioned separately) rose over for £800 for Gambian charities, which in a country where most people only earn a couple of pounds a day, will go a long way.

I would be delighted if you would also give something to charity for our efforts and have set-up an on-line fundraising page, for Médecins Sans Frontieres at: http://www.justgiving.com/msf-plymouth-to-dakar. Simply pay on-line by credit/debit card and the money will go directly to the charity, to provide much needed medical care to many more people across Africa and the world.

I am glad to be back but I had a fantastic adventure, raised money for charity and possibly made some life long friends - not bad for a 3 week trip!

I hope you have enjoyed reading this blog and if you feel like taking part in the Plymouth to Dakar challenge yourself, next year, see: http://www.plymouth-dakar.co.uk/ for further details.

When I get all my pictures together I will put them on-line and be sure to post the URL on the blog, so watch this space!

I thought it might be useful to create an area where we can compile and keep track of any websites that mention/report on Chameleon Net's activity. Mainly news sites and online press.

So in the spirit of web 2.0 I've set up a de.licio.us account to bookmark such bits and pieces.

Feel free to check it out: http://del.icio.us/danm_chameleon.

Little did we know the most challenging piece of road would be in the Gambia. We crossed from senegal to the gambia with little stress but once we got to the gambia we found the worst road we had yet to encounter. It was almost impassable for 2 wheel drive cars and despite destroying yet another wheel and another shock absorber, we managed to limp in the dark to an eco-report on the banks of the river. Just as well because the surrounding fields were ablaze and the countryside home to crocodiles, leopards and even hienas.

The next day was easier, we made it to Banjul without too many problems; the road improved although a lot of it was still under construction so we had to dodge bulldozer and men at work but at least the car kept on going. Despite taking the most difficult route through the gambia we were suprised to find we were amongst the first to arrive. Apparently there is a victory parade in a couple of days time and then the cars will be auctioned for charity.

The car took a hammering in the desert and everything is covered with a layer of sand. We have had 3 flats and now only have a space saver spare but as long the car keeps moving, so will we! We are now only a couple of days away from banjul, our final destination!

We made it through the sahara or at least the edge of it. We got stuck countless times but we let the tyres down so they were virtually flat, dug the car out and pushed - tiring but effective. The first night in the desert we camped by a sand dune and the second night we reached the ocean and camped on the beach.

We then made a dash for the border and after 5 hours of tough negotiation we eventually managed to get into senegal on a car ferry that i thought was going to sink at any moment. We then found our way in the dark to a tiny campsite on the edge of a national park, just south of st louis.  After a rest day, we then pushed on to Dakar. We are now on our way to the gambian border, i am sure with many hours of negotiation to come.

We are now at the edge of near civilisation in the western sahara, we have a short 450k on tarmac through the desert today before we go off road for real and will be at the mercy of the local guide to take us through the sahara to rejoin a road further south. Apart from a puncture, there have been no problems with the car so far but the next four days will be the real test. Not sure when we will be able to communicate again but watch this space...

We are now close to completing the second part of our trip through Morocco. We have experienced the madness of the Marakesh roads at night, stayed at a beautiful Riad, snowboarded at 3000 metres in the atlas mountains surrounded by desert and driven through winding roads through the atlas mountains......

So we have made it to Africa! We have had a very eventful journey so far...

As many of you may know I am taking part in the Plymouth to Dakar rally. A colleague and I will be setting off tonight, to drive to Portsmouth to catch a ferry bound for France. The plan is that we will then drive through France, Spain, take a ferry over to northern Morocco and then on through Western Sahara, Mauritania, Senegal and finally arrive in The Gambia in about three weeks time.

2007 showed phenomenal growth for “Facebook”, by the end of the year it had 7.6M active UK users, that’s 12.5% of the population. With so many active users participating on the social networking site some form of advertising system to target these users was inevitable.

With some major shake-ups in the Online Marketing world over the last twelve months, 2008 looks set to be a balance of new strategy and contingency. As PPC advertisers grow in number, an increasingly crowded marketplace will force some to experiment with more niche engines to ensure a return while the search engines will all be tweaking their natural algorithms every which way they can (Google patenting new image reading technology for example). 2008 is going to be a year of surprises, but let’s see if we can foresee a few trends:

Clients often ask Chameleon what resources they need to allocate to a project. Most of the time they are thinking about content migration/population of a new content managed site and this is important. However, arguably the most important stage of any project is the scoping stage......

Does anyone recall those childhood Christmassy charity drives? You know, those ‘Sponsor me to eat 10 mince pies’ type of things. You were cajoled into walking around in the bleak mid winter weather, knocking door to door with a soggy piece of paper asking for sponsorship – only to have to go through the same dreary saga after the event itself just to collect the money? – All that, and I don’t even like mince pies!! Well, what with the latest in internet trends, social networking and fancy applications, fundraising has never been so easy – or fun for that matter! You no longer have to brave the extremes (until the event itself that is!) You can do all your fundraising and collecting online from the comfort of which ever festive environment you prefer.

You may know that this December we have launched a seasonal desktop widget - the Karma Calendar.

The widget is your portal to top tips, fun items, blog posts, and even some Chameleon pressies all the way up to Christmas, updated daily to your desktop.

What's more - this is a call for your Top Tips...

I thought it'd be worth outlining three particular areas discussed in conversations at breaks and during the Q&A slots at the end of each session at the recent seminar.

In short: Creating a corporate Facebook; AdSense - useful or not; Allowing and handling negative UGC.