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

We’re working to build a web property of our own again, we’re proud to announce the pre-launch page for Cofacio, our new conversation web site. Sign up on the site to be notified when it is ready, and let me know what you think of the sock puppets!

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

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’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.

It was very refreshing to hear the death knell of the brand last night at Iain Curruthers’ book launch, Great Brand Stories: Dyson. Iain had chosen his venue wisely - we were surrounded by the creative output of the psychotherapeutic department at the Regents Park Conference Center - and there were a pleasing number of people from Dyson’s team present for Iain’s independent investigation of their brand.

His talk, and ideas seemed more appropriate to stimulate a lively discussion rather than a book launch and I was itching to discuss his ideas further, although unfortunately we weren’t given the opportunity. It just felt so honest and refreshing to hear and read that despite the marketeers James Dyson remained true to his cause and his ethos. He wanted to know how things worked and wanted his marketing efforts to reflect this and not some vacuous marketing ‘position’. Iain rounded things off by asking ‘When someone spends two hundred pounds on a Dyson how much of that are they paying for the Dyson and how much are they happy to pay for the story of the great British inventor.’

Well according to the Dyson marketeers in the room the Americans are lapping up the concept of the latter. Although apparently Mr Dyson is resisting their attempts to make him wear glasses and a white coat. You can buy the book here from Amazon and read all about the final throws of brand at Iain’s new web site www.encounterbusiness.com. It’s another fully content managed web site built by Asymmetry, this time based on the fabulous wordpress blogging platform.

After the book launch it was off to Unique Digital’s pub, yes that’s right, Unique’s management team own a pub! I must thank the Unique management team for collecting all the faces new and old together at The Albion for a great party.

It kind of sneaked through just before Christmas but we’re pleased to annouce the new BSMGP web site, which we feel, acts as a great show case for the Stained Glass windows of the BSMGP. We teamed up with Sarah Trueman at zenego.com to put the design together. It was quite a challenge to get the design signed off from a committee of very visual and artistic people but I think Sarah’s done a great job.

Once again it’s running on the now mature Asymmetry Content Management System complete with user documentation and help - the BSMGP committee admit to being pretty non-technical and we are all very pleased with the quality of the final result. Once again the CMS provides search engine firendly pages, a great portfolio gallery and online purchasing of journals and event tickets using paypal.

the old New Wine web site was one of our first projects and had been live for around 18 months so Sarah and I got together with the staff at New Wine to create a slicker, cleaner interface which works better with the professional marketing communications that New Wine have off line. So thanks to Lucy and Ali at New Wine for helping out with the re-design too. The new site was built as part of our ongoing Support Agreement that we have with New Wine and follows our ethos of not simply building a site and leaving our clients to work it all out for themselves. We meet regularly, advise and listen to how the web site can be improved and continue to engage it’s users. This helps the sites we build stay fresh and leads to a great on-going relationship for all parties. Take a look.

Once again Dan Etheridge, the web designer at Soul Survivor, has managed to create a rather cool looking new splash page for their site. As part of our ongoing Support Agreement with them, we built a tiny little application in about an hour which would pull in a random set of flash images on to their page. This means that every time you visit their web site you get to see a different set of graphics… very nice and the kind of thing that’s great to maiintain user interest in your web site. And if Dan wants to have a new set of images to greet new users he simply uploads them to a folder on the server.
Take a look (and refresh your browser).

It’s been under beta test for a while now but Soul Survivor have just gone live with our template based event booking tool. It’s got an administration area which let’s their people choose the field validation, it’s template based which means their web designer (Dan!) can customise the look and feel, it’s integrated with secure hosting to take credit card payments, and delivers files (nash not XML) back to their legacy internal database. It’s running securely under ssl too. Take a look here.

Soul Survivor are one of our favourite customers since they took our Content Management System for Soul Action, use our E Newsletter system to deliver about 30,000 email newsletters every week, and have taken our Open Source Support Program which gives them support and development time each month.

We’re pround to announce the Asymmetry CMS powered Meburn Ellis web site at www.mewburn.com - the content of which is completely managed by their in-house editors.

Snazzy features include:

• fully css driven html
• sophisticated pdf search engine
• site search engine - including Google “did you mean” spelling suggestions (see bit on API’s coming soon)
• an amazing personnel gallery
• optimised to be gobbled up and indexed by search engines
• pages prebuilt and optimised for a faster more responsive user experience
• and dynamic flash integration

We love the site and hope you all do too.