1. Greetings

Welcome! Spirits are high in the Imagine camp as we have been able to take full advantage of the garden and surrounding sporting activities during this fine weather. Not that it has kept us from pushing the creative boundaries. Indeed, we have been leading by example revealing today an updated portfolio section within our website, plus a range of goodies for you and our many site visitors to download! Go and see the Portfolio section or choose a file below to start your download right now:

• Imagine Journey Screensaver* - Click for PC | Click for Mac
• Viral Advert - Click for PC | Click for Mac
• Monkeybark picture - 1024x768px resolution
• Blue Snapper - 1024x768px resolution

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2. Morph

Let us introduce Morph - a fresh new band heading for the big-time. Formed only a few months ago, Morph (Carl, James, Gerard and Jim) are making quite a splash in their home town of Oxford (home for all but Frenchman Gerard on bass guitar). They have had 23 gigs in the last 6 months, recorded their first single and are finishing a series of new tracks right now. The website, www.morphtheband.com has been equally successful. It has been live only 3 weeks yet has had over 600 hits thanks to promotion at previous gigs by front-man Carl and a poster campaign around Oxford by manager Mark. Visitors have given positive feedback too and have been signing up to the mailing list via the site. The band hopes the site will strengthen its image when it starts looking for promoters later this year. In the meantime, Imagine has developed an online Marketing Strategy to drive music lovers to the site from portals such as Napster, GetOutThere, UnsignedMusic, PeopleSound plus local community portals. Of the world-wide online population, 61% of 18-24 years olds download music from the net, 42% of 25-34 year olds and 29% of 35-54 year olds (Ipsos-Reid). Visit the site to listen to streaming samples of 3 Morph tracks via a neat Flash interface.

3. Key Stats

Interesting demographic patterns are emerging in peoples Internet access around the world with Asia growing fast. The recent annual study by Ipsos-Reid gives us an opportunity to overload on stats:

• Size: 13% growth in Internet use in 2000 to 350 million people world-wide (end of 2000).
• Gender: Growth of women online from 41% (1999) to 44% (2000).
• Global Share: US share fell from 40% to 36%. Western Europe share grew from 18% to 22%.
• Country Use: 1. Sweden 65%, 2. Canada 60%, 3. U.S. 59%, 4. South Korea 45%, 5. Singapore 46%, 6. Germany 37%, 7. Belgium 36%, 8. United Kingdom 35%
• Mobile: Use remains low except in Japan where people love i-mode mobile Internet services.
• How: Desktop PC 92%, laptop 7%, wireless device 1%.
• Language: Where English is not the main language spoken, 9 in 10 Internet users prefer to get local information in their own language.
• E-commerce: Nearly two-thirds of American Internet users have bought online, as have four-in-ten users in other leading markets.
  

4. Feature - Part 1. Online Marketing

It is a shame to hear of websites that have been well planned in terms of content, layout and navigation but lack a Marketing Strategy. Unfortunately, Internet users do not happen to come-by your website, they need to be told that it exists and that it can do something for them. In this series of features on Marketing, we will consider some of the activities you can implement to improve your use of Marketing. This month we identify Online activities to drive traffic to a site:

• Search Engines - a site needs to fulfil many requirements to gain a high ranking position in search engines although there are cunning ways to improve rankings through the use of 'gateway' pages. Search engines remain a useful way of gaining targeted traffic.
• Email - keep in touch with your regular visitors / clients via regular Newsletters such as this one. Build up a Mailing List in all your online and offline marketing.
• Free Tools - by creating branded tools such as desktop pictures and screensavers for users to download, you can gain long-term brand exposure on home or office computers.
• Viral Content - if the site provides a resource that people find useful, amusing or educational, they are more likely to recommend the site to friends. Alternatively, create a viral advert like ours (see link above) to inspire people to pass on the message and visit the site.
• Link Exchange - another long established but often under-utilised method of marketing. With a few hours spent contacting complementary sites, agreements can be made to exchange links and give each other valuable targeted traffic.
• Banner Advertising - often a more expensive marketing channel but the cost of banner advertising has fallen by 30% over the past year to an average of €20 per 1,000 page impressions in May 2001 (Jupiter Media Metrix).

5. Useful Sites - track down old school friends

Thought about getting back in touch with Sophie Bloggs from year 8? Friendsreunited is a great website to help you do just that. With a database listing over 28,000 UK Secondary and Primary Schools and Colleges you can be pretty sure to find your school there. By simply entering the name and address of your school, your details and the year that you left you can find yourself surrounded by all your old class mates once again! You can leave notes and photographs of yourself and email friends straight from the site. Friendsreunited can also email you when someone else from your school signs up. You can even look at photo's of your old schoolmates.

6. Innovations - Place your Stakes

Stakeholder pensions have been all over the news since their recent launch, although the take up by low income earners has been slower than hoped. Perhaps an innovative new product launched this week by British company Transacsys will help bridge the gap and make it easier to open and manage pensions. Based on the company's GiroVend smartcard technology, employees can access and make contributions into their stakeholder pension through an Internet kiosk within their place of work. This will enable all employees to make payments whenever they want, for whatever amount, simply by using the electronic purse held on their existing smartcard. This latest innovation adds to the smartcards' ability to make canteen payments, offer hierarchical access to secure/restricted areas and provide employee time and attendance systems. Another step towards a bright technical future.

7. Website of the Month

Imagine the confusion faced by an alien species arriving on Earth, the implications could be disastrous, possibly ending in war. If only the aliens had a guidebook to refer to, then the quality of their visit would be greatly increased. With this in mind, the late Douglas Adams (1952-2001) started a website called H2G2, its simple aim is to provide a hitchhikers guide to the galaxy. Practically anything you want to know about anything is in H2G2. Visitors contribute by adding their own area of expertise, meaning the guide is constantly growing and expanding. Whether you want advice on how to ride a Water Buffalo in Thailand or how to solve The Times Crossword Puzzle, you will find it all here.