KMP Digitata

Fantastic 5 from August

2010-08-27T13:13:10Z

Is summer nearly over already? If the weather is anything to go by then the Autumn is definitely near early. As always our digital industry has been very active with some great and strange news occurring. This is what we have been reading at KMP Towers for the month of August.

A new Twitter user appeared this month that raised a few eyebrows. Following the creation of their YouTube channel last month, North Korea has now also moved to Twitter to share their news and have already reached over 10,000 followers in just over a week. The site was immediately blocked by South Korea and from what we can understand the majority of what they are talking about is pure propaganda, but none the less it’s an interesting move by the extremely secretive country

North Korea joins Twitter

On the 18th Facebook called people to their headquarters in Palo Alto to announce the launch of their Geolocation service called “Facebook Place”. The option is only available in the USA at the moment but with notifications on the iPhone saying “coming soon” but we are interested in playing with the new feature when it launches in the UK.

Facebook launches “Facebook Places”

We’ve known about the Facebook movie for a while now and how it follows Mark Zuckberg’s first year at Harvard when he created the Social Media website. Now it seems a movie is going to be created following Google creators Sergey Brin and Larry Page.

Google to move onto the silver screen

With the launch of the iPad, tablet PCs and e-readers, consumers are now able to read books and other publications in a variety of ways. There is now another way that you might be able to read your favourite books thanks to Twitter. One man, @biblesummary, has decided to Tweet the Bible over the next 3 years. Could this trend catch on with other people choosing to Tweet their favourite books?

The Bible to be Tweeted over the next 3 years

Not since the battle between Ashton Kutcher and CNN to be the first Twitter Account to reach 1 million users back in April 2009 has there been much publicity about who has the highest number of followers because Britney Spears held that title for quite a while. If there was anyone to knock Britney off her Twitter Throne it had to be Lady GaGa.

Lady GaGa over takes Britney Spears on Twitter

Christian Aid embraces Social Media to help Fund Raising

2010-08-27T14:45:54Z

Charities have been using Social Media as a way of spreading the word about the great things they do and help get exposure for their future activities. A good example of this is the “justgiving” pages people are able to add to their Facebook pages to help raise money for charity.

More often than not social media has been used to raise money by people who then do activities like marathons and sky dives but Christian Aid has seen an opportunity to use social media as the activity rather than just a communication tool.

Christian Aid’s Twitter QuizAid

The Twitter Quiz launches Christian Aid’s annual fundraiser, Quizaid which takes place between 13 and 19 September and aims to raise £230,000 for Christian Aid’s work with communities in 50 of the world’s poorest countries.

The Twitter QuizAid is a live Quiz that takes place over Twitter, with comedian Omid Djalili being this year’s official Quizaid Master. He had this to say about the event:

Twitter is the perfect way to get thousands of people quizzing at the same time, no matter where in the UK they are. The challenge will be to keep the questions under 140 characters. There are no prizes, just the glory of beating your friends, family or work colleagues.

Anyone can get involved in the Twitter Quiz and also set up their own own QuizAid event at home, work, school or in their local pub by simply applying for a free Quizaid pack online at www.christianaid.org.uk/quizaid. The pack includes the quiz questions and answers and everyone who enters a quiz makes a donation.

The money raised will help change the lives of some of the world’s poorest communities. £2 could buy four school books for children in Burundi, £12 could pay for six months of school fees for one child displaced by conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo and £29 could pay for a year’s supply of stationery and uniforms for a child orphaned as a result of HIV in South Africa.

So whatever you’re up to, log on to Omid’s Twitter account, get your brain into gear and get quizzical!

More news to come at Christian Aid’s online PressRoom.

KMP Digitata and Manchester Airport are flying high with Twitter

2010-08-12T15:10:05Z

Today everyone at KMP Towers were filled with pride as we found out Manchester Airport was voted “Best Airport on Twitter”. We helped launched the @ManAirport Twitter back in 2009 and guided then with their first steps into social media. Just like when one of your children come back from school with their report card we were overjoyed to find out that our child was top of the class.

A global survey done by AirGate Solutions had the goal of finding out which Airport was number one on Twitter. Their method of working out rankings was not just based on who had the most followers but instead took into consideration the size of the airport and the number of passengers that use it. AirGate simply compared followers to passengers to determine which Airport’s Twitter was the most effective and who engages best with their community.

Manchester Airport was ranked at the top of the list, beating the likes of Heathrow, Boston and LAX, proving once again proving that Manchester Airport’s Twitter Team is still the authority when it comes to social media engagement for the Aviation industry. The top 10 rankings are as follows;

Manchester, UK
London Heathrow
Boston
Baltimore-Washington
London Gatwick
Orlando
Phoenix
LAX
Minneapolis ST Paul
Dallas/Fort Worth

@ManAirport’s success has come from their hard work and ability to communicate effectively with their customers during demanding times such as the severe weather conditions over Christmas and the ash cloud caused by the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in April, which was aided by our Tweeting Departure Board.

We look forward to the future and hope that @ManAirport can continue their great success with Twitter. I’m sure this isn’t the last you have heard about Manchester Airport’s successful Twitter Strategy.

KMP Digitata brings the Trekking world alive

2010-08-10T12:55:09Z

Back in February KMP Digitata announced our new partnership with TrekAmerica, part of the TUI Travel Group, and after months of hard work KMP are happy to announce that they have launched the new TrekAmerica community platform, TrekAmerica Live, which is set to change the way online social media is used in the travel industry.

With TrekAmerica Live KMP Digitata wanted to develop a place that brings past, present and potential trekkers together to share their experiences. TrekAmerica Live is not in competition with Facebook (where Trek already has a strong community of nearly 15,000 fans) but integrally linked, allowing for content to be published across both networks.

How It Works

After booking themselves onto a TrekAmerica tour each passenger receives a unique URL, linking him or her to their own individual Trekker Profile on TrekAmerica Live. The system pre-populates the page with the Trekker’s details and loads an interactive map of the tour they have booked themselves on.

The system is designed to allow the Trekker to invite their family and friends to login and keep track of their progress during the trip. The interactive tour map displays exactly where the chosen Trekker on any particular day and provide the users with extra information on all the destinations they visit.

In addition to allow friends and family to follow Trekkers the site encourages users to interact with people who will be travelling on their chosen trip or speak to previous Trekkers to receive advice.

The personal profiles allow passengers to upload photos and videos, write travel blogs, post comments to Facebook and send Twitter updates whilst on the road. To save time on uploading photos the site is able to publish photos the user has already uploaded to their Facebook account, avoiding the issues of uploading the same photo multiple times on different sites.

TrekAmerica Live is fast becoming a reliable resource for anyone researching travel in North America and the site has been designed so that none members can still browser the site and find information about the tours in addition to that of the main TrekAmerica website.

The Results so far

TrekAmerica Live launch on and has over 500 active users who have uploaded 1200 photos and 85 Trekkers writing their blogs as they travel at the moment of this release.

With a 99 per cent satisfaction rating, comments about TrekAmerica are overwhelmingly positive. This what some of the current users had to say about the service;

“Seen a couple of the blogs on here, so I’m making a little diary of what we did – hope it will be useful to other Trekkers”
This is a really great feature for the website, I hope I can find some fellow travellers…!”
“Would love to find out a bit more about the people we are travelling with. It makes it easier when we meet for the first time, no strange looks hahaha”
“I’ll be taking my camera and netbook as I was planning on making a blog about the trip anyway, so this will be very handy for me.”
“Loving this new site. Joined up straight away”

We are excited to see how the community around TrekAmerica Live continue to embrace this new platform and look forward to more and more user generated content being uploaded to the site.

Fantastic 5 from July

2010-08-09T09:19:43Z

We are at that point of summer where people are getting away from the stress and strain of work and going to sunnier shores. If you went away on holiday you might have missed some of what happened, so here is what we have been reading in the month of July.

Social media, in particular Facebook, reached a huge milestone on the 21st of July when it went beyond 500 million users. No one could of predicted this amazing success 6 years ago when Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook. To celebrate this milestone Zuckerberg announced Facebook Stories, showcasing interesting ways that people have used the social network around the world. If Facebook was a country it would now be the 3rd most populated after China and India.

Facebook reaches 500 million users

It’s not been a smooth few weeks for Apple since the launch of the iPhone 4. With wide spread coverage of the antenna problems and damning reviews by the likes of Which? Magazine, Steve Jobs and Apple had to react in a positive way rather than burying their heads in the sand. Apple’s solution? Call a press conference (and only invite journalists who write positively about Apple) and announce that every iPhone 4 owner will receive a free bumper or a refund for one they have already bought.

Apple gives out free bumpers to fix iPhone 4

Following the news of Facebook going beyond 500m users, fans of Facebook were shocked when Ron Bowes, a Canadian security consultant, collected data from 100m people on Facebook who had not set their profile to private. It strengthens the importance of reading your privacy agreements and double check what information you share online.

Details of 100,000,000 Facebook users published online

Google attempted to break into the Mobile handset market with the Nexus One back at the beginning of the year but on July 16th the company announced that it received its final delivery of the handset and that it has been discontinued. Although it did not sell as well as Google had anticipated many believed it served a purpose and showed other phone makers what the Android OS is capable of and drove them to produce better quality phones.

Google discontinues the Nexus One

The end of July brought some sad news, with the announcement of the death of the world’s oldest Tweeter and Facebook user, at the age of 104. Ivy Bean became famous in the Social Media world when the workers of her care home created her a twitter account and got her tweeting. The world embraced her simple tweets about afternoon tea and the photos she posted up of her and her friends on day trips out.

Ivy Bean passes away at the age of 104

We are on the search for an Experienced Web Developer

2010-07-22T09:30:55Z

As part of the continuing development of the KMP Digitata team we have another job vacancy available.

We are currently looking for an experienced web-developer to join our technical team in Stockport. The role would involve a combination of new project web development, helping to estimate and cost work, liaising with clients / internal project managers and technical managers to develop cutting-edge solutions for a variety of blue chip clients.

The job will also involve improvement and support of client websites and legacy systems. You will be working within a 5-man team to provide the technical capability at KMP, including mentoring of junior developers and contractors.

Essential Skills

Thorough understanding & Experience of Java (1.4 or greater) or C#

Experience of SQL (preferably DB2 or SQL Server)

Java Script

HTML/CSS experience

Desirable Skills

Experience of .NET 3.5, MVC

Experience of IBM Web Sphere

Experience of jQuery

Experience of PHP

Experience of one or more of the following CMS Sitecore, Umbraco, Drupal

Additional Information

Location: Stockport, SK4 2HG
Duration: Permanent
Probation: 6 Months
Salary: Negotiable

Send your applications and CVs to recruitment@kmp.co.uk or ring us on 0161 4291497

* No Agencies Please*

2 Great opportunities here at KMP Digitata

2010-07-20T09:07:07Z

We have a couple of amazing opportunities here at KMP Digitata for two lucky people. Are you looking to get experience as either a web developer or designer? If so then ourselves and Vision & Media can help you.

We are extremely happy to be working with Vision & Media to support two trainee placements for a Trainee Web Developer and a Trainee Web Designer, starting in September.

So if you’re a talented, ambitious designer or developer who is looking for their first career opportunity and expand on their experience then these placements are perfect for you.

These are not jobs – they are training experiences which will be carefully managed by KMP Digitata and Vision & Media to ensure you get everything you need out of the experience, while gaining the skills and knowledge to become a professional web developer or designer. The selected Trainees will receive a training allowance for attending the placement, which will be geared towards an entry level salary for the web industry.

We have a long history here at KMP Digitata of nurturing and developing new talent within the digital space, many of whom stay with us long after their placement period is over. If you are interested in becoming the latest member of the KMP Digitata team then please apply on the Vision & Media Placements page. Any applications sent directly to KMP will be unsuccessful. For more information and to start your application, then please click on the following links;

Apply for the Trainee Web Developer position

Apply for the Trainee Web Designer position

We look forward to seeing you here soon

The KMP Digitata Team

Prestigious Award for KMP Student

2010-07-15T09:39:25Z

KMP are proud to announce that one of our students has won an award!

You might remember back in June we that announced Graham Smith, who has been diligently completing his Year in Industry with us here in KMP Towers, had been selected to receive an award, nominated by the British Computer Society, as a reflection of the enterprise he had demonstrated while being with us. Although back then we had no idea what this award would be, and as you can imagine, a few choice suggestions were offered in jest.

Graham Smith, arrived at KMP Digitata in August 2009, and quickly established himself within our office, never shy and more than willing to add his two pennies worth when it mattered. Over the course of the last 10 months he has excelled in his project work for KMP, culminating in last nights Year in Industry Awards Ceremony which recognised Graham as the “Most Promising Year in Industry Student working in a computing field”.

So, what did Graham do to win such an award? Well, at the end of each year the students who have taken part in YINI are invited to enter their work into the ‘Contribution To The Business’ competition where their work is judged on its quality and how it has benefited the company they were employed with. With his outstanding work on the KMP Twitterfall and the Trek America 8 Mates across the States Facebook application, Graham was rightly rewarded for his hard work and ingenuity.

Graham was chosen from approximately 40 entries and we’re all very proud of his achievement!

KMP have been offering students the opportunity to gain real-world experience of all things Web for many years, with several of the students going on to complete their degrees and come back to work with us full time. This award goes to show that by offering our support to students, we can help make a real difference to their education and future career.

And so, we will leave the final word to one of his projects, as the TwitterFall proclaims; “Well done Graham, Excellent”

Celebrations and trophies at Big Chip 2010

2010-06-30T13:32:38Z

The heads are slightly sore here at KMP Towers after a great night at the Big Chip Awards 2010. The Palace Hotel was once again the place to be last night for everyone involved in the digital industry and looking for a bit of a party.

The Big Chip Awards brings together the best companies in the North West digital sector for a night of food, wine and celebrations. Terry Christian once again returned to host the event for the 3rd successive year and we were lucky enough to listen to Shameless actor, David Threlfall, who gave an emotional speech on behalf of the homeless charity Byte Night.

After the meal it was time for the main event to start and the awards given out. Congratulations to all the winners, in particular StarDotStar who won an amazing 3 awards on the night. We were up for “Best E-Business Project” that was ultimately won by 11 out of 10 for their work on the Pure Gym project. Another notable winner was Cahoona, who won the “Tasty Website” award that is voted on by the public.

Thank you to everyone who made the night such a great success and we look forward to the next one.

Photos from our night out can be viewed on our Facebook page and for the full list of winners check the Big Chip website.

One of our Students is an Award winner

2010-06-30T13:31:46Z

For a student entering into a company on a Year In Industry (YINI) program it can be daunting and intimidating at first, because you have to start at the bottom of the ladder, making cups of tea and making sandwich trips to the cafe for the whole office but with hard work and persistence these programs can be hugely beneficial to both the student and the company.

We have mentioned many times before about our support for the Student Year in Industry and today we have received some great news for one of our students, Graham Smith.

At the end of each year the students who have taken part in YINI are invited to enter their work into the Contribution To The Business competition where their work is judged on its quality and how it has benefited the company they were employed with. With his outstanding work on the KMP Twitterfall and the Trek America 8 Mates across the States Facebook application, Graham has won one of three awards at this year’s ceremony.

Graham was chosen from approximately 40 entries to receive one of four prizes, unfortunately we have to wait until the 13th of July to find out whether he has taken the top prize at the award ceremony.

The award ceremony will take place on the 13th of July at Lancashire County Cricket Club and we will be there to see Graham collect his award and take photos, so be sure to check the blog to see if Graham wins this prestigious award and hear everyone’s reaction.

Good luck Graham