With Google recently announcing it is withdrawing support for IE6 from March 1 and YouTube support slated to be dropped on March 13  the web has been alight with celebratory posts, tweets and blog comments. There's even been a funeral arranged. Are we finally seeing the beginning of the end for the webs most hated browser?

There's plenty of articles bemoaning the digital barnicle that is IE6, but not so many people seem to be looking at what's actually happening in terms of actual usage. Yes there's plenty of alternatives such as Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari (hell- even upgrading to IE8 isn't that bad) but the uptake seems to be slow.

Global browser trend stats from Hitslink tell a slightly more depressing story. At time of writing 20% of users are still using IE6. 10 months ago it was 30%. Its simple maths, IE6 usage is dropping around 1% point every month. Take a look (click the image for a larger version):

At Frame Digital we wouldn't consider dropping support for a browser unless it was well under 10%. At the current rate of decline it looks we'll still be applying IE6 specific CSS and javascript PNG hacks probably until the end of the year. Not to mention the additional development hours testing and supporting the piece of junk dated software.

Fingers crossed with the big online mega-corps starting to withdraw support it will force the remaining IT managers and home users to finally upgrade. 

Shelter is a charity working to alleviate the distress caused by homelessness and bad housing. They are a leading expert in the housing sector providing a wealth of knowledge, information and services. In addition to this they undertake a variety of challenging work including lobbying government and local authorities to tackle housing issues.

The Scottish Government have committed to providing a home for everyone in Scotland by 2012 and Shelter asked us to work on their 'Countdown to 2012' campaign, to urge the Scottish Government to commit sufficient funding to build enough affordable homes to make the target of 30,000 homes by 2012 a reality.

We were tasked with developing a Flash based application encouraging users to show their support for the campaign by creating a home of their own. The application allows users to select a number of backgrounds, house styles, pets and extras to build their own home. Items can be dragged and dropped, allowing for a degree of customisation and flexibility and once complete, homes can be saved to both users' desktops and a Flickr gallery which lives on the existing Shelter website. The application also contains a countdown to 2012 and live stats showing the number of homes created and required by 2012.

Working in collaboration with Shelters' existing web team and existing technical framework we delivered the core 'Build a home' Flash application and a standalone application containing live stats and a countdown to 2012 for use within the existing Shelter website and within the Shelter Scotland Facebook page.

Since the site went live over 1,800 homes have been created, show your support by building a home for Scotland.

Since launching our new google maps and flickr mashup creation tool iMapFlickr two weeks ago users have created around 500 Google maps with flickr photosets.

We've been busy too, and have introduced a number of new features. We've started announcing updates on get satisfaction, but there's been so many updates we thought we'd list them here.

All maps will be automatically updated with all these new features. Read more »

For the last few months, we've been hidden away in the Frame Digital secret lab playing with a new website making heavy use of the Google Maps and Flickr APIs. After getting our way through a mountain of coffee, lots of late nights and more than just a few beers, we finally finished our new google maps and flickr mashup creation tool iMapFlickr. Read more »

The Mall own twenty shopping centres across the UK and have engaged Denise Van Outen to be the face of The Mall this summer.

As well as supporting this in-store, The Mall asked us to leverage the offline content and collateral in different ways across their website.

We worked with The Mall and Denise's agent to develop online creative to be used throughout the site, particularly on the Home Page, in the Health and Beauty magazine section of the site and in Flash banners throughout.

We also repurposed content used in an offline magazine style printed piece, to develop a self-contained, interactive Flash application within the site, that brings to life a variety of clothes and accessories chosen by Denise from The Mall's retailers as well as providing health, beauty and fashion tips from Denise herself.

The Denise activity launched on Monday July 6^th and results from Google Analytics show that site visitors are interacting with promotional content throughout the site as well as the interactive Flash application.
 

Subway is a complex organisation in that as a franchise business and a national brand, it has both Business to Business and Business to Consumer marketing objectives and a high level of responsibility to its franchisees with respect to both driving consumers in store and using franchisees marketing contributions responsibly and effectively.

In mid 2008 the Subway site contained a great deal of B2B information, but there was little there for the consumer. Moreover, it had grown organically over time and was no longer intuitive to navigate or use.

We were tasked by the National Marketing team at Subway, to redesign and redevelop the brand website to make it more appealing to consumers and more effective in terms of converting franchisee or property prospects into bona fide enquiries.

Read more »

Subway was one of the three headline sponsors of Comic Relief in 2009. In order to communicate to consumers how they were supporting the charity and to give consumers a chance to join in with their own support, they commissioned us to develop a co-branded Subway and Red Nose Day microsite.

It was vital that the site promoted the Subway brand as well as adhere to stringent Red Nose Day brand guidelines and close collaboration with the client and the charity enabled us to create a site that met the objectives of both parties, while remaining engaging for the consumer.

We used extensive Flash animation for key elements in the site, particularly the animation of the red nose device and key information panels.

We also commissioned three celebrities, the TV presenter Gok Wan, the actor Tom Baker and the Radio 1 DJ Tim Westwood, to record a number of mobile ringtones. Consumers could listen to the ringtones and other outtakes from the recording sessions via the website and we able to text a short code to download a ringtone direct to their mobile phone at a charge of £1.00 (with around two-thirds of that going direct to the charity).

The microsite was a great success in that it managed to communicate updates about Subway's support for Comic Relief to thousands of consumers over the promotional period.

The ringtone promotion itself raised a substantial amount for the charity as well as raise awareness of the cause in a traditionally difficult to reach late teen target market.
 

2009 is the year of Homecoming Scotland, a celebration of contemporary Scotland which marks the 250th anniversary of Robert Burns birth.

Robert Burns is a truly international character whose personality, works and philosophies are celebrated around the globe. A man who was in many ways ahead of his time, Burns enjoys a great deal of contemporary relevance and is celebrated internationally through the ritual of the Burns supper.

In September 2008, Homecoming Scotland, in partnership with The Famous Grouse, briefed Frame Digital to create a website that would provide a vehicle for fans of the Bard across the Scots diaspora to come together and share how they would be celebrating their Burns Supper in 2009.

One of the core functions of the site was to provide a useful resource to 'affinity Scots' who wanted to celebrate a Burns Supper. As well as examples of Burns poetry, the site also offered a downloadable pack, which included templates for invitations, menus, placeholders and other collateral to help participants organise their Burns supper.

All of these were branded with The World Famous Burns Supper logo to help build a sense of a joined up, global celebration of the Bard. The site also featured a selection of recipes and cocktail mixes provided by The Famous Grouse (courtesy of their award winning executive chef, Steven Craik) which helped participants create a genuinely Scottish Burns supper, whether they were hosting an relaxed dinner for four or a formal dinner for forty.

Read more »

In July 2008, subway launched the limited edition Reggae Reggae Chicken Sub in store. As well as supporting this with television, press and point of sale material, the client asked us to consider how this could be integrated with online activity that would provide a deeper layer of consumer engagement.

We designed a Reggae Reggae Chicken Sub microsite to communicate the promotion and provide key product information (ingredients, nutritional details, etc.).

The microsite also featured recordings we made with Levi Roots (the creator of Reggae Reggae sauce and Dragon's Den winner) saying and explaining a number of Jamaican patois phrases in his own inimitable fashion. As well as streaming these audio clips within the microsite, the MP3s were featured as downloads that could be used for mobile ringtones.

We also supported this with presence on social media sites including Facebook, Bebo and MySpace.

In the first month that the campaign microsite was live, over 100,000 unique users interacted with it, helping to drive footfall in store as well as promote Subway's active approach to marketing support to existing and potential franchisees.

The social media activity touched a community of over 1000 consumers in a space that is traditionally hard to reach for retail brands.