We played a key role in helping the organisation choose a solution to meet its complex needs as a sports governing body, throwing the focus firmly on building a thriving, interactive community in the runup to the 20th Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in 2014.

Scottish Hockey has a clear vision for its e-channel but needed Dotden’s assistance to analyse and sanity check a number of proposed solutions from a range of supplier and solid, pragmatic advice for management of the project.

Ruth Crawford, the organisation’s head of business and finance, said: “We had done a lot of initial work in-house and were fairly comfortable with our position. However, we felt we needed some external expertise to both audit the work we had done to date, and provide some expert advice as to how we took the project forward – particularly to add another layer of technical expertise and experience we did not really have.

“Dotden came in and provided exactly what we were looking for – sound, pragmatic opinion based on years of expertise in the area, with a sound understanding of sport business – and all in a timely and professional fashion. Most importantly, we felt we were dealing with someone was actually really interested in the project and cared about us getting it right; someone we could trust.”

Dotden’s Dennis Greene has wide experience in sport and was director of production for market leader CBS Sportsline when they launched their pan-European Sports.com operation. Prior to that, he ran Express Newspapers online media operation which launched Sportlive, a state-of-the-art sports website that offered full social networking and personalisation long before Facebook – including online chat and video interaction with leading sports celebrities.

Dotden Media has announced a new business relationship with Suntec Web Services PVT in Delhi, India, to support development work with UK clients.

Suntec has more than nine years experience with 450 clients in 18 countries and offers a range of services from web development and business process outsourcing to data entry and e-book publishing.

Dotden’s Dennis Greene said: “I’ve run offshore development teams before and know how good they can be – I also know where the pitfalls can occur if you don’t choose the right partner. We’ve been looking for a partner who could offer us a seamless relationship with solid support across the project lifecycle and on a wide range of platforms. We spoke to a number of Suntec clients and were impressed by what they had to say.”

The new arrangement means Dotden Media is now able to supply development and data input resources as part of a range of services which include consultancy, digital content and asset management, search engine optimisation, content distribution and cloud services.

This was a complex application requiring multiple user inputs and a large number of parent-child relationships. A tight delivery timeline meant that rapid prototyping techniques were used to build out the customer journeys and supplement the existing business requirements and specification.

Basil Shall, CEO of Sisk Technology, said: “The quality of the work was excellent. Dotden Media was reliable, delivered on promises and worked well with the offshore developers. I recommend them unreservedly, and would certainly use them again on future projects.”

We can supply insight at any stage of your web project large or small – from early planning and advice, through to detailing requirements, business analysis, supplier selection, resourcing and running the project.

• Web design and build to your specifications
• Content and catalogue management
• Management of UGC, user-generated content
• User interface development – including customer experience and accessibility issues
• Search engine optimisation and search engine marketing
• Rapid prototyping
• RSS feed development and multimedia distribution

For more information or a free consultation please contact us at hello@dotden.com

• Good user interface designers and coders with an eye for customer experience
• Web editors with crisp copywriting skills and strong production values
• Project managers and business analysts with strong online media experience
• API and widget-friendly developers with up-to-date XML/XSLT and php skills
• If you have european languages that’s a big plus – especially Spanish or German

If you’re interested in working with us, please email jobs@dotden.com with a full CV and examples of recent, relevant work. You can also find Dotden Media on the o-Desk system at www.odesk.com.

The iPhone - a great device but still a walled garden

There continues to be massive interest in developing for the iPhone App Store but in recent months we’ve noticed a new air of realism kicking in.

While it’s true that some small developers have made significant sums of money out of their applications, most have not. And the realisation that iPhone apps are not necessarily a goldmine, has finally dawned on many would-be entrepreneurs.

What has happened though is that the vast number of apps has increased the value – and hence profitability – of Apple’s iPhone ecosystem.

It’s our hunch that the following rules will apply increasingly on the mobile phone internet

1. Open standards will triumph
2. Economics will favour web-based solutions over ‘apps’
3. Media RSS will be the dominant format for media delivery
4. Phones will become increasingly connected and personalised
5. Google will be a massive player

An interesting piece – An App for Everything – in today’s Guardian G2 by Stuart Jeffries makes a couple of good points. One is that the App Store is too much like a ‘bucket’ and not enough like a supermarket, making apps difficult to find.

Google is convinced that the future is web-based (of course, they would say that wouldn’t they!). But is is true that in many ways the mobile phone internet is still very 1995, and – especially in the case of Apple – a walled garden.

Browsers are not consistent, access can be expensive, users find it confusing and complex to understand. Could Apple perhaps be the Microsoft that emerged as a standard platform for PC development in the 1980s and 90s? At the moment it is not clear – Symbian, Android, Microsoft and Palm would all vehemently disagree.

It’s our guess that this won’t last. Google Android will probably open the doors to web on mobile fully and there are some interesting handsets coming through that are likely to exploit the web more fully – such as the Palm Pre and Google’s Nexus One, an untethered Android handset. Google Voice is something to keep a close eye on as a possible game-changer.

We’ve just helped our friend Helen Toogood at Hotchilli Consulting get her website off the ground, helping with design and templating and integrating some cool features such as Twitter updates.

Helen’s Hotchilli approach was a huge success at Unilever, where she worked at senior level before setting up on her own.

Helen said:”Dennis was great to work with. He set up everything with the minimum of fuss and seemed to know what was needed quite intuitively. Users really love the site, which is so simple to use, it’s great.”

DMA Media, the broadcasting consultancy - now with added web impact

Dotden has completed a series of assignments with DMA Media, the internationally known media consultancy who earlier this year successfully launched the BBC’s new Persian channel.

DMA asked us to build a strategy around its online products and to help with business development of its web operations services – which have delivered content management, customer experience and user interface development for Royal Mail Group since 2000.

We also played a major role in product development of its Enroute digital signage system, which is set for success and expanding out across the UK’s Healthpoint pharmacy channel and trialling with a number of other customers. We established business requirements and helped establish relationships with new suppliers to deliver the system.

In the back office, Dotden rationalised the existing web infrastructure and helped build the company’s cloud-based video distribution network, substantially reducing costs. We also introduced a format for email marketing of the company’s services and were directly involved in business development.

DMA Chief Exec, Rob Beynon, said: “Dennis made a massive difference to us in numerous ways, helping us to resolve some very difficult issues and allowing us to really establish our Enroute system as a credible product in what is a very competitive marketplace. His  understanding of media operations is first-rate, as you’d expect given his background as a professional journalist, but he also showed great commercial insight and was able to communicate this clearly and objectively.”

DMA’s main areas of focus are broadcast consultancy and outsourcing. It has an international reputation, particularly in the Middle East where it has worked extensively with Abu Dhabi TV and the Abu Dhabi Media Zone (www.twofour54.com).