With all the hype about Back to the Future last week, we thought this video was very apt.

Foursquarestival

Foxes & Hounds, getting local companies involved with Foursquare and putting Cheltenham on the creative map!

“Foursquare is a cross between a friend-finder, a social city-guide and a game that rewards you for doing interesting things. The aim is to build things to not only help you keep up with the places your friends go, but encourage you to discover new places and challenge you to explore your town, city or village in new ways.” – Foursquare

We’re teaming up with creatives such as Holly Knowlman @DirtyEnid in Cheltenham is harnessing the power of Foursquare to create a unique participatory event – Foursquarestival. Players will compete in a foxhunt that will lead them around points of artistic and cultural significance in the town, visiting independent traders along the way and finally finishing at a secret party location.

The Foursquarestival team will prepare for the event by adding a series of tips and clues to a pre-determined set of locations. This will also involve liaising with local businesses to secure their involvement and make them aware of the promotional opportunities that can come from Foursquarestival and from Foursquare itself.

On the event day participants (the ‘hounds’) will have to locate a series of ‘foxes’ – each one will provide a clue as to the location of the next. Each fox will stay at their location for a certain amount of time before moving on. If the hounds turn up and the fox isn’t there, the manager/owner will hand over a clue or there will be a notification on the door that the fox has moved to a new location.

The aims of Foursquarestival

To enhance perceptions of Cheltenham as a town which has great
opportunities for creative activity.

To support local independent traders and increase footfall to their
businesses.

To test the potential of Foursquare as an application that can be
used for event management.

To give each team member a chance to add a significant and unique
piece of work to their respective portfolios.

To create an event template which can be presented to brands or
organisations looking to capitalize on Foursquare’s growing popularity.

For latest updates:

visit – www.foursquarestival.co.uk

Twitter – www.twitter.com/4squarestival

Earlier today we asked our Facebook fans and Twitter followers to choose the theme of today’s blog post, the choices were brand, social media or ridiculousness. One of our Twitter followers @ukmadlz was the first to respond with ‘Ridiculousness’. So, here you have it. We found the most ridiculous fight ever, courtesy of You Tube. Enjoy!

The internet is going to get ridiculously fast soon, ‘Broadband’ will be a thing of the past and be replaced by ‘Next Gen’. Next Gen will be capable of 20-40mb data transfer per second!

Increasing internet speeds will mean the world’s attention span gets shorter, as a result people will expect information quicker. So, it’s vital that your website is read and understood both quickly and effectively.

Does your website tell people what you do in an instant? If not, it might be time to take a step back, look at your website and de-clutter. This doesn’t mean taking a way all design elements, it might just mean reducing the amount of copy on your home page or actions visitors have to take – for example, is there too many buttons/link to click?

To begin a de-cluttering mission, figure out what visitors are currently doing on your website. This might sound like a tricky and expensive task but as usual, Google has a FREE tool to help – Google Analytics.
Most people in the world who have a website are familiar with Google Analytics, but are not so familiar with the wealth of tools and features available. Two tools/features in particular – ‘Site Overlay’ and ‘Bounce Rate’ will help you find out what current visitor behavior is:

Google Analytics – Site Overlay:

Site Overlay – This tool places an overlay on top of your site, so you can view what people do when they visit your site. i.e. which parts of the navigation do they click the most.

Google Analytics – Bounce Rate:

In simple terms Bounce Rate will show you how many visitors come to your site and leave within 5 seconds or less. Having a high bounce rate 60-100% tells you that visitors are put off by your site, maybe there’s too much content or they’re not sure what you do. A bounce rate of 50-30% seems pretty standard but ideally you want to get your bounce rate as low as possible.

What to do when you’ve discovered what current visitor behaviors occur
on your website?

Once you’ve been through Google Analytics it’s time to decide what to remove and/or edit on your website, this is where we come in! A good digital design agency i.e. Jealous Design (free shameless plug), can help your get your site ready in time for ‘the new era of shorter attention spans!’

p.s. Maybe the title for this post should be “A nu era of shrtr attentn spns”…

To re-use is better than re-cycle. So, rather than just throwing old jars in the glass recycling bin, screw them to the bottom of shelves!

Getting rid of desk clutter and saving the planet. Brill!