martijndevisser.com

Last night, Lost Boys won the only Esprix Gold Award for the Chatman campaign we did for our client Hi (mobile telco in the Netherlands), which we also won gold with for the Hi Bling Bling campaign.

Obviously, we are very happy with this reward. This campaign spanned a lot of different media (including the Chatman MSN buddy-bot, Chatman blog, TV commercials, posters in cities, banners, MSN homepage ‘takeover’).

The main idea behind the project was is that a character named ‘Chatman’ had to motivate the target audience to start using MSN on their mobile phones. Chatman is a bit of an anti-hero, completely MSN addicted, always online and very self-centered.

You can talk to him through MSN (buddy name is blabla@chatman.tv, note that Chatman only speaks Dutch :-), but he has this habit of changing the subject of most conversations you have with him into something that interests him, not you.

It was great fun working on this project, the reward is fantastic and, for the insiders: “Jani, deze is ook voor jou!”

I’m looking for bèta testers for a new version of FLV Player. Interested? Read this post to find out more on how to participate.

I’m looking for feedback on how to improve FLV Player. FLV Player is rather simple at the moment, but I want to make some time to improve it, as a lot of people seem to use and enjoy it. Also, I have been provided with a license for mProjector by the kind folks at Screentime, so that also brings a Mac version into view. Thanks guys!

My personal wishlist…

• better detection of available metadata, so resize buttons always work (I found a way to do this using good ol’ Video object instead of the MediaPlayback component I’m currently using)
• add fullscreen option
• add multi language system for texts in UI
• add possiblity to cueue FLV’s and play in sequence
• add access to deblocking filters and video smoothing
• check if FLV file association still exists on startup (and restore automatically)
• remember last position on screen
• error reporting if RTMP stream is not found
• check for new version automatically
• Mac OS X version

Wishlist from visitors so far:

• Display time in HH:MM:SS:MS format
• Optionally display video only, without UI
• Frame-by-frame comparison shortcut
• Zoom-lock, remember zoom preference
• Pallette swatch to change background color (perhaps even a “load background image” option?)
• Always on top option
• Save current FLV frame as JPEG

Last night, the Dutch Spinawards (an annual happening where the best Dutch online creations are rewarded) were held at the Westergasfabriek and guess what: we won two prizes! So we really had something to celebrate at the party afterwards!

We won the first prize in the category “best online campaign” with the Hi Bling Bling project we did for Hi, a Dutch mobile operator. I’m especially proud of that prize, as I was very much involved in creating and delivering that project.
On top of that we won one of the silver ’spins’ (no gold was awarded in this category) for “best gaming concept” with a project called Sportlife DEEP, we did for Sportlife.

Right now, I’m sitting behind my desk with some strong coffee, trying to clear my somewhat foggy head, as there is another deadline to meet today…

I’ve just released a new version of FLV Player. This is only a minor update that solves a glitch involving temporary files not being deleted when quitting FLV Player.

So, nothing fancy here. Still no fullscreen option :-). On a sidenote, I’m interested in users who are having problems with the zoom buttons and the backward / forward buttons.

On the zoom buttons: these may not work properly if the FLV you are playing doesn’t contain correct metadata. If you have an FLV that doesn’t zoom, please send me the file, so I can check if that is indeed the case. Incorrect or missing metadata info may affect the playback buttons as well.

Please note, if you are having problems, first check if updating your FLV file with Buraks FLV Metadata Injector solves the problem (for example, Sorenson Squeeze does NOT seem to inject correct metadata!).

If this step doesn’t help, please let me know (click the ‘About’ link in the upper right corner for my email address). When emailing me, the following information helps me identify the problem:

• what version of FLV Player you are using
• what operating system you are using (Windows XP and 2000 are supported)
• where do you play the flv’s from? local disk, network, streaming?
• could i get the offending flv?

Yesterday, Emma Thompson launched the online Anne Frank Tree, a project Lost Boys and Unit32 have been working on in close collaboration. At the website, you can visit the chestnut tree Anne wrote about in her diary online and leave your own leaf.

The project is partly Flash, partly HTML. In the Flash part you see the tree from below, as if lying on your back. The branches and leafs are gently rocking in the wind, giving the whole a distinct and serene atmosphere.

From the website (or perhaps more appropriate: monument):

Anne Frank often looked from the attic window at the chestnut tree behind the secret annex. She wrote about it in her diary. Now the more than 150 year old tree is diseased, but online it will live on. Leave your leaf in the virtual chestnut tree, forward it and keep Anne Frank’s ideals alive.
[...]
Anne wanted be useful to others after the war. Not only to the people around her, but also to people she did not know. Anne did not survive the Holocaust but her diary has inspired millions of people all over the world to do their best for a better world. Anne’s wish came true after all.
[...]
With your leaf you can show that you too have been inspired by the diary of Anne Frank.

Head over to the Anne Frank Tree and leave your leaf. And while you’re there, you might want to give the screensaver a try as well.

Unfortunately, the lifespan of this campaign has ended, so I have removed all external links. You will have to take my word for it that this was a cool campaign site :-).

A while ago, one of our clients asked us to create a clear overview of a number of Volkwagen Transporter models, specifically the models with a double cabine (extra passenger seats in the back).. We created a Flash based campaign site that offers both a detailed visual impression of each model (both interior and exterior), as well as a feature-by-feature comparison table. I personally like clicking the labels in the interior and the exterior sections most, as that triggers a nice zoom-in / zoom-out effect. Also checkout the comparison table (under “vergelijken”), you can select multiple models to compare the features and price of each model.

For me, the most interesting parts of this assignment, were the comparison table and the loading mechanisms for the zoom in feature for the interior and exterior mode of each model. When an interior or exterior section is loaded, all detailed zoom-in looks are subsequentially loaded, as each of these zoom effects consists of a single swf that was handmade by our designers to deliver the best possible experience for each zoom animation. All clickable labels listen to the progress of these zoomed views being loaded.

Please note that this site is targeted for the Dutch-speaking market, so beware, although I think most of the button labels will be clear enough for English speaking folk as well.

When developing Flash based sites, you’ll quickly discover that the regular visitor statistics tools don’t work, as Flash doesn’t request plain HTML pages, but dynamically loads .swf and .xml files, depending on user interaction.

In order to be able to track what your visitors are doing in your Flash site, you need to call stats-triggers from within your Flash application. This can be as simple as calling a Javascript statement in the containing HTML file, which in turn sends a statistics ping to your reporting server.

But often, that’s not enough. We want to be able to track not only what users are doing inside the app we built, but also how users that originate from different websites behave. For example, perhaps Banner A is clicked 5000 times, but only 0.5% of those people actually make a transaction, once in the site, whereas Banner B is clicked only 1000 times, but 12% of those visitors are buying stuff in the Flash app.

So, it’s not only important to know how people behave, but what conversion ratios are realized from each banner, emailing or DM campaign. So we teamed up with a company named OneStat, as they are also interested in improving measurement of user behaviour in Flash sites.

As a result, we’ve been implementing a statistics ActionScript class for some time now that handles all reporting to the OneStat server through LoadVars (thus eliminating the need for the Flash > Javascript > Image object refresh trick).

The main event management code in our application can be instructed to send each and every mouse click if needed, but usually we measure visiting certain sections of an app and subscribing to newsletters, making transactions and the like. Below, I have represented our current stats reporting flow (in this case for the Hi Bling Bling campaign):

As you can see, when a user clicks a banner or link in a newsletter, he or she is first forwarded to the OneStat server, which records the click-in and retrieves the correct campaign ID the clicked link belongs to. This happens in a split second, visitors don’t notice this at all. Next, the actual Flash site is launched and the campaign ID is transmitted as one of the initial variables. All consequent clicks and conversion / transaction points we want measured are then reported to the OneStat server, including the initial campaign ID.

This setup enables us to get a very detailed impression of what banners work and which don’t, so we can help our clients in choosing the right sites to place banners on etcetera. It also gives us a great insight in the usability of a Flash based site. Do people just land on the main page, get confused and leave? Or do they really interact and visit multiple sections of the application? Are there steps in the application where many people tend to drop out? That’s interesting information.