We specialise in dynamic websites, online stores and E-newsletters.

As part of O2’s new look web-site ‘Blue Dawn’ we were up all night - switchover was scheduled for 11pm with availability required until 3am in case of a roll-back situation. Fortunately O2 managed to synchronise the up-dates of 100’s of 3rd party websites and everyone managed to go live. Asymmetry manage the Multimap based Store Locator at http://o2.asymmetry.co.uk, which uses a clever bit of technology to pull in the top menu and footer from the O2 servers - this means the O2 content team can make changes to the navigation and menus on their web site and we will pick them up from their server automatically. This also allows us to Host and Manage the store locator.

We also went live last week with a Multimap based Store-Locator for Evolution Chips - an international car performance company, who switched from Google Maps to Multimap Mapping: you can see this implementation here

What Asymmetry is, according to Wordle, Thanks to Iain at the Encounter Business

Recently we’ve completed Store Locator enhancements and improvements for the following organisations:

Next - Now shows International Stores around the world (and is a lot brighter in look and feel too).

Coop - We’ve helped alter the colours, integrate different aspects of their data-feeds and stream-line some functionality.

O2 - We’re now hosting the O2 store locator at http://o2.asymmetry.co.uk which gives us the flexibility to make changes for them a lot quicker and more effectively.

Happy Christmas everyone, I hope 2009 is an exciting and proposperous one for you all too!

is this the most significant development of the internet since Google maps?
Download it here and have a look.

We’ve just launched toughquestions.org for Bob Eckhard, and london language learning for Stefan Anstis - two smaller sized projects to keep our eye in - it was quite a joy to build some static simple web sites (laced with Google Analytics and some basic Search Engine Optimisation) for a change - Stefan’s design was provided by up-and-coming musician and designer Bobby Cole at catch22media. There’s been a lot more going on than meets the eye but most of the other projects are in-house or not ready for publishing yet.

We’ve just completed our first implementation using Multimap’s latest javascript API. Primarily it provides the familiar ’slippy’ (draggable) map interface gracing the latest version of Multimap’s web site and that featured on Google maps. The advantages of using Multimap’s Javascript API over other providers are the following:

1. You can pick up the phone and get support from a human being in this country!
2. You get a guaranteed service, no possible future changes to the terms and conditions for the duration of your contract
3. A really powerful suite of geocoding management and distance calculation tools.
4. The service is fully documented, which on the whole is pretty comprehensive.

You pay for this privilege, but you are paying for access to Multimap’s 12 years of online mapping experience. Our latest implementation can be seen on the Aspire Property web site  where we have integrated the Multimap API with Aspire’s current web site and web design.

It features:

• automatically zooming ’slippy’ maps to fit your search criteria
• a full location search by property price, property type
• location branch details highlighted with branch icons and info
• custom property detail pop up windows
• integrated local information, including schools, train stations and tube stations

There are loads more improvements and features the Multimap API will let us do and we’re hoping to be let loose on more clients to implement them in the future.

We’ve previously used Google Maps to create a similar ’store-locator’ product however now Multimap have introduced this new API we can now utilise their advanced spatial (and non spatial) filtering and searching systems rather than having to build them bespoke for each implementation and then integrate with the Google Maps API.

We’ve been working with the Get Bike team for almost 2 years now and after drastically reducing their Google Adwords spend and increasing their ranking in the main Google results we are making good progress (have a look at CBT London in Google: that’s number one of about 1 million and that’s just one term.)

Internally they now have an intranet based Booking Calendar to book in the thousands of people they help through their Compulsory Basic Motorbike Training each year. As part of our gradual roll out we have just released the Online Booking Element which checks their intranet for booking availability and allows pupils to reserve a space on the web site.

Rather than re-invent the calendar system, we have used Yahoo’s excellent calendar plug-in too - part of the set of user interface tools Yahoo have kindly released to the developer community. We also use Ajax technologies so that the office based system automatically updates itself whenever a new online or office based booking is made. As you can see from the booking system we are going for a gradual release - it’s not fully automated yet, because the pupil must be able to provide their licence to take the course, although we are hoping to move that way soon.

Once a booking is made online and confirmed or in the office then Get Bike’s internal 3rd party accounting system is automatically updated with the pupils details and their payment information.

It looks that we will seriously save admin time, decrease the mistakes in the paper based system and allow people to book out of hours: this truly fits with our vision for Online Business.

Next up it’s time to make the Get Bike site look as nice as it performs.

Watchmouse, who we use to monitor our client’s web sites (and obviously our servers) introduced some interesting statistics over the summer. They monitor our web sites from checkpoint’s all over the world and notify us within seconds by email if any of the monitoring stations detect a significant slow down. They also have some great Apple Mac desktop widgets which allow us to see at any time the health of all our web sites and servers. From approximately 60 web sites on 5 servers I think we’ve only experienced one hour of downtime combined over the entire last year: that’s better than 99.9% of the time.

It’s also very reassuring when they email you back to tell you the site’s are back up too! Although judging from the research they have conducted analysing the average performance of all the web sites they monitor we don’t have to worry about this so much. They say Open Source web sites are more reliable and load faster than Windows-based websites, and they all say the web server we use outperforms those on Microsoft based web servers. They say that in this country big business tends to prefer Microsoft based solutions, but that in fact they would be better off using Linux/Apache solutions - it’s no surprise it’s the kind of technology that powers the major internet companies web sites around the world.

You can leverage that performance and up-time by ensuring you deliver your next web site using this technology too.

You can read the full article here, and don’t forget to sign up for Watchmouse to check your websites too - and when you need to switch to Linux, get in touch.

Multimap have a new web site, and are slowly transitioning their users across to it, if you haven’t seen it aleady then it’s well worth a look - follow the “try our new site” link under the logo. The new Multimap site, the first new iteration since I left is wonderful, it’s slick, it’s left brain, it looks and feels like a Mac application or a modern 2007 web application, it’s more than a web site. The maps can be as big as you want them - my 17″ widescreen Imac was filled with Bartholemews map data, I can click and drag and pull maps around, I can save locations to access later.

The route planning has also had a major overhaul and is now cleverly split into 3 panels - an overview of the entire route, a smaller map of the starting location and a similar one of the end point. The interface in all of the sections is simply lovely, clean, and easy to use.

The exciting thing from my point of view is that we are now starting to see the site working like a true mapping application, it’s more than a web site. I can easily use the bits I want to, hide the bits I don’t, save the things I want to return to, print out the results and send them to my friends. Interestingly you’ll probably use it in a completely different manner to me, you’ll have a completely different experience and hopefully you’ll love it just as much.

In fact when Simon demo’d the site to us in a meeting last Friday I discovered so much more to the site than first meets the eye, and also there’s so much more to come, as if the Ebay mash up, point saving, and worldwide integration wasn’t enough!

They’re still transitioning to the new site so at the moment you’ll have to select the “try our new web site” under the logo (and can return to the old site at any time).

As always with Multimap and when you’re dealing with new technology and 10million users it’s sometimes a little slow or there are small glitches but overall Simon Lewis, and the team at LBi have done a fantastic job. More interestingly all the functionality on the web site, is available to Multimap business customers using their API, so if your business has an old fashioned store locator, maybe it’s time to get in touch and upgrade it to the new Multimap system, take advantage of all the fantastic new features and more importantly that beautifully slick user experience. If Apple Mac made maps this is what it would be like.

We’re pleased to announce probably our most significant development to date: the Homebase.co.uk store locator. This service uses the Multimap service to provide ‘find you nearest’ store functionality for the UK and Eire on the Homebase web site. We turned the implementation round in a few contracted days to deliver this fully functioning store finder. Do you need to show your customers where your stores are on your web site, or need your store finder upgrading or enhancing then get in touch.

We’ve also upgraded the Carparks4u.com web site which now uses the Multimap API (XML based) to deliver it’s mapping which provides enhanced functionality such as data piracy prevention, enhanced search engine optimisation, click tracking and reporting. If you need a php based application to do this - then we’ve already written the code so maybe we can help, and if you need further integration with your internal systems then we’ve already done the hard work so we can concentrate on the cool bits.