Posted on April 19th, 2012 by Luc
I just put live a long overdue update to my sister’s company website boldbeanies.com. She makes and sells cotton beanies designed for people that have lost their hair, it’s a small and relatively successful business run from her home in North Wales, but until now has been severely held back by its static and out-of-date website.
Having finally got our acts together to do something about this my sister and I have made a new version – much the same visual design (although I think a facelift is definitely on the cards soon) but now sporting all the functionality she needs to grow her business online.
Bold Beanies now has a CMS, Social and e-Commerce functionality along with enhancements to SEO and Analytics. I’m not much of a developer so I can’t claim this is exactly the Rolls Royce of solutions, but it does make good use of the ever impressive WordPress to provide the basic CMS and the WP-Ecommerce plugin to handle the product side of things – which is much less impressive, but for the most part works. It was pretty straightforward to put together, although I do wonder how long it will be before the limited back-office becomes an issue, and there are some usability issues (mostly around the shopping plugin experience) that I’d like to tackle at some point.
But it must be a about 3 and a half times better than than the old site! so take a look: www.boldbeanies.com and while you’re there why not buy a beanie?
Posted on March 20th, 2012 by Luc
Everything I do these days involves social networks, from building brand new ones, such as favourit.com (a site I’m working on a the moment) to advising companies on how to integrate their content with existing sites like Facebook and Twitter.
When it launches Favourit.com will be a community for fans of live sports and entertainment and I’ll write more about it soon (we’re close to being able to show it to the world), but in terms of social networks I think it will be a good example in the new trend for niche networks. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on February 11th, 2012 by Luc
I am a bit sad that Deal or No Deal Live is no longer with us, of course nothing stays live forever, but this one never really fulfilled its potential. It’s been taken down now, although I wouldn’t be surprised if the format itself is resurrected someday.
Before leaving Endemol however I did take some footage of it running, which i’ve posted here for posterity.. no sound for some reason, sorry about that, although I have to say the the music was a bit annoying..
Deal Or No Deal Live Social Game from Luc Houselander on Vimeo.
Posted on June 27th, 2011 by Luc
The very nice chaps at Channel 4 put the Million Pound Drop Play-along game up for three awards earlier this year and last Thursday it won the New Media Age award for Entertainment, meaning we have scored some kind of unholy awards trifecta in this area. To be honest I would have been happy with any one of these gongs (the others being a BAFTA and Broadcast Magazine award), but to pick up all three is obviously very cool indeed. The good news for anyone that reads this occasional blog (hi mum!) is that this should be the last time you read about TMPD winning anything on here.. should it be entered in for anything next year, then I, like you dear reader, shall be only an avid spectator. Obviously I’m very chuffed to have been part of something that has resonated so well with the digital industry back in Blighty, the challenge now is to do the same here in Australia, more on this soon I hope!
Posted on June 17th, 2011 by Luc
The Million Pound Drop Live play-along game has picked up another award, this time from the UK’s leading TV biz magazine Broadcast’s Digital Awards for ‘Best use of Digital Technology’. It’s a shame I wasn’t there this time – it’s slightly out of my way these days.. but great to see the chaps from Endemol, Monterosa and Channel 4 were there in force, and black tie, to scoop this one up, well done everybody!
Posted on May 15th, 2011 by Luc
Last Sunday was my last night in the UK before setting off to my new home in Australia, so it’s hard to imagine a better send off than the one we had courtesy of
BAFTA at the 2011 Television Craft awards. Channel 4 had put forward the Play-along game from the
Million Pound Drop Live for the Digital Creativity award, and against some stiff competition (mostly from other Channel 4 shows!) ours won out. Of the four of us listed on the award there was myself and Nick Hall representing Endemol UK, Simon Brickle from Monterosa and Jody Smith, the cross-platform comissionner from Channel 4 responsible for the show. It was a great night both personally and for the team behind the show and winning the award the was as unexpected as it was welcome. It also provided me some interesting problems carrying the award back the following day.. it weighs 4kg and raised a few eyebrows at the security at Heathrow!
Hopefully awarding The Million Pound Drop the BAFTA is a recognition that interactivity can be a successful and central part of new TV formats and hopefully this will encourage more shows like this to be developed and commissioned in future.
Posted on May 15th, 2011 by Luc
My last project for Endemol UK was putting together this application website for the 2011 series of Big Brother. Built in a few days following the announcement that BB was to find a new home on Channel 5 and timed to launch along with official announcements in the Northern & Shell the site provides an online form enabling potential contestants an opportunity to apply for a chance to audition for the show. This site posed some interesting challenges, not least of which being the design, which needed to have an identity but not be too strong as the overall design of the show had not yet been started. If you fancy becoming a housemate on this years show then why not apply now? www.bigbrotherauditions.com
Posted on April 9th, 2011 by Luc
So some big personal news: after six years at Endemol Digital Media I’m leaving and moving on.. quite a long way as it goes, to Melbourne, Australia!
It’s a move prompted by my Aussie partner’s wish to be closer to her family and to give our little girl the kind of outdoor life she would struggle to get in our particular patch of South East London. It’s an exciting time, and from a work perspective a sad one too as I’ll be leaving a great job and team here at Endemol.
But I’ll be leaving at a time when EDM is somewhat on a high (a testament to my boss Nick Hall and his work turning around the department over the last couple of years!). In a few weeks we’ll back in the OB truck pulling the levers on our Bafta nominated play-along game for series 4 Million Pound Drop Live, we’ll be launching an energetic new Facebook game based on our hit show Total Wipeout – (more on this soon!) and of course there’s the move of Big Brother to its new home on Channel 5 – expect a whole slew of new digital projects around this in the next few months.
As for me I’m currently putting my feelers out to the Australian television and digital media industries and looking for my next role. I plan to have a little holiday once I arrive Down Under, but will be ready for action towards the end of May – to that end if you want to find out more about me then check out my online CV here: cv.luc.me.uk and please keep checking back to this site for updates.
Posted on December 2nd, 2010 by Luc
So the 12 week run of
This Just In.. is over, it went pretty quickly, don’t you think? I’ve loved it, especially as most of my work on it was in the build up to the launch, which meant I’ve been able to enjoy the fruits of Phil Gilbert (
@Sundaydefensive) and the
Zeppotron team’s daily comedy pretty much as a regular punter.. I think they did a great job and overall the site has been well received, in particular the impressive range of videos created for it.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on November 30th, 2010 by Luc
An interesting seminar this afternoon hosted by Channel 4 on the subject of connected TV’s. David Abrahams, C4′s CEO headlined the discussion by outlining where the company stands in respect to the ongoing rise of connected and smart TV’s.
Naturally the event was heavily geared toward YouView, the technology platform joint venture between C4, BBC, ITV, Channel 5, BT amongst others. This platform, we were told, will be reaching consumers towards the end of next year and clearly C4 are banking on it to deliver them the next generation of interactive entertainment experiences. But not content with just backing the technology C4 are proving how serious they are by restructuring their commissioning team to bring cross-platform into the very heart of what they do, they have also ring-fenced £2m to spend on YouView related formats in 2011.
Happily for us Abrahams mentioned The Million Pound Drop Live as a great example of the kind of connected TV experience C4 want to be doing more of, but what was more interesting was the realisation that these new TV experiences will be created not from the old, linear ways of making television, but from the new interactive starting points; TV should be taking its cues from video games not film.
Of course digital folk like me have bleating on about this kind of thing for years, but it’s still great to hear it echoed back from the people that can really influence things. What was less clear from the presentations this evening is just what YouView ‘is’ and what kind of interactivity toolbox we can start using to create these next-gen formats. It’s ‘open’ credentials as a platform are being billed as its killer feature, but we’re already seeing with platforms such as Google’s Android that it can be an Achilles heel also – fractured experiences across devices and often poor quality apps can sour the experience for users. If YouView can crack this and (crucially) make it simple for users to pay for TV apps then they could be onto something big; it will certainly be an interesting space over the next couple of years. There are a bunch of technical docs on the YouView website.. guess it’s time to take a look!
I just put live a long overdue update to my sister’s company website boldbeanies.com. She makes and sells cotton beanies designed for people that have lost their hair, it’s a small and relatively successful business run from her home in North Wales, but until now has been severely held back by its static and out-of-date website.
