CSI Blog

To begin, Google's Drive service has now been launched, and amid much speculation about features and storage (as well as comparison to other services), there seems to be a lot of noise about a section of Google's TOS that covers this:

"Your Content in our Services: When you upload or otherwise submit content to our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide licence to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes that we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content.

The rights that you grant in this licence are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting and improving our Services, and to develop new ones. This licence continues even if you stop using our Services (for example, for a business listing that you have added to Google Maps)."

Google is, first and foremost, an advertising company. That is their main revenue stream, and what the majority of their products aid. Google products collect data about you, which is then used with their advertising services to display relevant ads - more relevant ads result in a higher click through rate and therefore are better for the people paying for the ad to be placed, as they get better value for money (lower cost per conversion). So, of course Google is going to mine your data to display ads that are relevant to you, these services have to make money, Google is a business (though I must stress that some Google projects apparently don't).

When you use any free service that mines your data, you are the product, not the customer. Your data is used to make money - that's why it's valuable (often also why the service is free to the user, too) and that's how companies that do this make their money - and there's nothing shady or invasive about that. You make the decision to hand over your data in exchange for these services, it's up to you to read through the terms of service and decide if it is acceptable to you - if not, don't use the service.

We often use Google's targeted ads system to achieve fantastic cost per conversion rates for our clients, this would not be possible without those millions of people having their data scanned and interpreted. Google penalise you for displaying irrelevant ads by putting the cost per display of that ad up, and help to display relevant ads by lowering their cost per display. This directly benefits the user, as they're seeing ads relevant to their interests and directly benefits advertisers by showing their ads to people most likely to be interested.

Something that seems to be forgotten all too easily is what the internet was like before the arrival of such targeted ads: intrusive advertisements that often were of no interest to the user and often saw terrible cost per conversions for the advertiser. Isn't having your data mined to display relevant ads that might be of some use to you (and driving down the cost per conversion to advertisers) a good thing?

http://www.google.com/policies/terms/

This is purely this writer's opinion, and not necessarily that of CSI Media or it's clients. Though every effort has been made to ensure that the information expressed and referred to in this blog post is accurate and up to date, no guarantee is expressed or implied as to it's accuracy or completeness.

Have you heard of Pinterest yet?

Well you should take a look. Pinterest is now the third biggest social media website behind Facebook and Twitter.  It is rumoured to be one of the fastest growing websites in history to reach 10 million visitors. It is claimed that nearly two-thirds of the users are females.

So what is Pinterest and how does it work?

 Pinterest is a social networking tool that allows users to create online mood boards about their interests and in their words, ‘organise and share beautiful things you find on the web.’  Users request an invite and then design an unlimited amount of boards ranging from hair and beauty to fitness to travel. Pinners share their interests as images, videos or discussions in these themed boards which save their links. What’s more they can be repined by other users, which is what makes the website so powerful. Within minutes images and links can be spread.

So how can Pinterest help to promote your business?

For companies involved in design the answer seems pretty obvious- the website can be used to create online visual portfolios. But how about those involved in the Travel Industry? Images can be extremely powerful; they can evoke strong feelings and some travel companies have honed in on this by creating boards displaying beautifully inspiring photos, which have certainly encouraged me to want to plan my next travel adventure! Others have set up clever competitions challenging Pinners to create boards such as their wish lists of holiday destinations.

As with all social media websites there are possible problems to consider. Some have shared concerns about the mass sharing of unauthorised images. The way around this could be to only use content you own or have the right to use.

Either way Pinterest is a creative, visual and influential website that surely cannot be ignored.

Happy pinning!

We are delighted to announce that CSI Media have made it into top 50 of The Drum’s 100 Design Companies 2012. We actually ranked number 41 out of over the 400 of the design companies who took part on the survey. For our North West region we ranked joint 7^th, something which the whole team can be proud of.

The Drum Magazine, who describe themselves as, “a leading resource for Advertising, Design, Media, Marketing, Digital, Social Media, PR - News, Information & Jobs,” set out on the task of finding out how the landscape of the UK’s design industry had changed over the last 12 months. They carried out a major survey of a variety of design agencies in the UK, which ranged from graphic design studios to digital agencies.

CSI Media were ranked on UK fee income from our design activities for the 2011 calendar year. The report, which is published online; see the link below, includes profiles of all the 100 agencies, which includes company details and information about clients and recent campaigns. There is also a gallery of design work, which reveals our design for the soon to be live Outside Edge website.

Well done team!

http://www.thedrum.co.uk/news/2012/03/28/drum-design-100-numbers-59-40-revealed

So, we grew our mos for the whole month, and now the most spectacular of the lot has graciously allowed us to photograph him shaving it off. After a little bit of over-exposure, he looks an awful lot like Keith Lemon...

Pretty impressive mo, even if the picture is a little '40s… flying jacket, anyone?

And, now, on with the shaving!

All done... we could easily do the whole ten years younger thing, just shave off your moustache.

If you fancy donating to this majestic mo, just head here:http://mobro.co/thetashingmrford

Well, as some of you may be aware it's MOvember and a few of us in the office have been joining in. From the spring lambs with barely a hair to show, to the Elders of Code with full-on face furniture.

We've not shaved them since November the first, and they won't be leaving til December the first! Come the first of December, we'll shave off these majestic mos and we'll post pictures of the grand de-tashing here to show you all our efforts.

Movember is all about raising money for men's cancers, and raising awareness. Sad to say it, but us blokes don't go to the doctors as often as we should, nor do we discuss our family history like supposed to either. The idea of having something in-your-face like a  moustache is to prompt questions and a discussion about what Movember is, and thus raising awareness.

Taken from http://uk.movember.com/about/ - Mo Bros effectively become walking, talking billboards for the 30 days of November and through their actions and words raise awareness by prompting private and public conversation around the often ignored issue of men’s health. 

The funds raised in the UK support the number one and two male specific cancers - prostate and testicular cancer. The funds raised are directed to programmes run directly by Movember and our men’s health partners, The Prostate Cancer Charity and the Institute of Cancer Research. Together, these channels work together to ensure that Movember funds are supporting a broad range of innovative, world-class programmes in line with our strategic goals in the areas of awareness and education, survivorship and research.

Please donate to Movember: https://www.movember.com/uk/donate/your-details/type/donate-to-cause/member_id/96/

As some of you may have noticed we have been a lot quieter than usual and are not attending many of the exhibitions we normally participate in.

Why?

To put it simply we have been sooooo busy!! We have quietly launched 7 web systems and sites over the last 2 months with 6 more due over the next couple of weeks.

We have also won 12 new contracts within all sectors, a lot of which are still in travel, but 3 of which are mobile applications. How exciting.

Here are some of the fantastic successes we have enjoyed recently:

1) We launched a travel website a few weeks ago that took over one million pounds in its first 5 days! WOW, but guess what we can't tell you a single thing about it :-(  - Actually we had our best day on the Travelberry platform 7 days ago, taking a whopping £800,000 + in one day!

2) We launched our new ecommerce platform that has already increased sales for two clients by over 300%. Look for these on our portfolio soon.

3) We have sold 6 new tour operator solutions, two of which will add over £250,000's worth of new development and features over the next 6 months.

4) We have now increased our team by 6 in the last 3 months. The good news is they all make a great brew.

We are incredibly proud of our achievements of the last few months and are very sorry that we might not be able to see you at the WTM or Travel Technology Europe show early next year. Our existing clients must come first and by hopefully working together with them, you will be able to follow their successes as well as ours.

Don't forget if you have any exciting projects for next year or you want a chat you are more than welcome to pop up and have a cuppa with us northern folks.

Toodle pip for now.

switch (ruleCondition.Field)

	{

	case Fields.FirstName:
		

		return search.CustomerInfo.FirstName;

	case Fields.DOB:
		

		return search.CustomerInfo.DOB;

	}

List foundPeople = people.Where(x=>x.FirstName == "Andy").ToList();

people.Where(x=>x.FirstName == "Andy")

List foundPeople = new List();

		foreach (Person x in people)

		{

			if (x.FirstName == "Andy")

			{

				foundPeople.Add(x);

			}

		}

ParameterExpression inputPerson = Expression.Parameter(typeof(Person), "x");

Expression firstNameField = Expression.PropertyOrField(inputPerson, "FirstName");

The above statement is creating an expression for getting the value from the "Person" instance via the property or field "FirstName". PropertyOrField means it will look for either a public field called "FirstName" or a get property called "FirstName". We are passing in the "inputPerson" parameter, which is our "Person" instance, so effectively we are writing "x.FirstName"

ConstantExpression nameValue = Expression.Constant("Andy", typeof(string));

BinaryExpression equalsCondition = Expression.Equal(firstNameField, nameValue);

Expression<Func> expr = Expression.Lambda<Func>(equalsCondition, new ParameterExpression[] { inputPerson });

Func compiledRule = expr.Compile();

List people = this.GetAllPeople();

List matched = people.Where(x=>compiledRule(x));

String name = this.GetName();

ConstantExpression nameValue = Expression.Constant(name, name.GetType());

OperatorKey key = this.GetOperator();

BinaryExpression condition = null;

		

		switch (key)

		{

			case OperatorKey.Equals:

				condition = Expression.Equal(firstNameField, nameValue);

				break;

			case OperatorKey.NotEquals:

				condition = Expression.NotEqual(firstNameField, nameValue);

				break;

			case OperatorKey.LessThan:

				condition = Expression.LessThan(dobField, dobValue);

				break;

		}

DateTime dob = this.GetDOB();

ConstantExpression dobValue = Expression.Constant(dob, dob.GetType());

string lookupField = this.GetLookupField();

Expression field= Expression.PropertyOrField(inputPerson, lookupField);

BinaryExpression dobCondition = Expression.Equal(dobField, dobValue);

BinaryExpression nameCondition = Expression.NotEqual(nameField, nameValue);

BinaryExpression completeCondition = Expression.AndAlso(dobCondition, nameCondition);

A team of us climbed Snowdon at the weekend to raise money for the charity Make-A-Wish Foundation! 14 members of the CSI Media team (and Sally the dog) got their walking gear on and tackled what was probably one of the most difficult physical challenges any of us have ever done before (with the exception of Nick who is a pro at this kind of thing).

It was a scortching hot day and many of us soon realised that we were in for a hard day of walking (much of it actually climbing up some pretty big boulders), but we couldn’t give up after raising just over £900 so far for such an important children’s charity.

We managed to complete the climb in less than 6 hours, 3 hours up and 2 hours 45 minutes down. Not bad considering the sign at the Visitor Centre states that our chosen trail up is ‘Very Challenging’! It was very relieving to see the top of the peak within a few strides, the only disappointment for many of us was that the bar at the summit was closed.

Anyway, we are all recovering quite well with a few stiff legs and blisters but nothing too severe, and some people have actually been talking about possibly climbing Scafell Pike next year for charity.

Enjoy the photos and feel free to donate to Make-A-Wish Foundation, it’s not too late and will make some very poorly children’s dreams come true :)