Stooshe’s music video for ‘Love Me’ got a lot of attention when it launched. We encouraged a lot more traffic to the video with a link sharing competition.

Fans could generate a unique link to the video and earn points for every click their link receives. The fan at the top of the leaderboard won tickets to see Stooshe live with Labrinth in London. 9 runners-up would all receive a signed copy of the StooshTape on CD.

Having run similar campaigns for All the Young and Clement Marfo & The Frontline, I had a solid template to work from. It didn’t take me long to set the competition up and launch it as a Facebook tab.

The system includes an admin panel allowing us to monitor total clicks and unique clicks for each entrant as well as retrieving their details to contact the winners.

The competition did incredibly well driving thousands of clicks and YouTube views.

The music video for ‘Bada Bing’ launched as a ‘like to view’ tab on Benny Banks’ Facebook page.

Building on the design by Kate Brighouse I used the same set-up as the holding page to insert a jQuery countdown timer styled with @font-face.

A few minutes before the launch time I set an unlisted YouTube video to be embedded and played as soon as the countdown hit 0.

The tab also included sharing functionality to promote the video across social networks.

To hype up the anticipation for the release of the ‘Bada Bing’ video I built a holding page counting down to the second the video would go live.

I used Keith Wood’s jQuery Countdown plugin to render a timer. The script was very easy to use and the additional settings made it easy to style and configure. The timezone setting allowed me to specify that the countdown should end at 11am UK time rather than the visitor’s timezone.

By using @font-face, I was able to render all links and even the numbers in the timer with the same fonts used on the single artwork.

The video premiered on a ‘like to view’ Facebook tab. So at 11am on Fri 13th Jan the countdown was switched with a message and link to watch the video on Benny Banks’ Facebook page. After the premier finished I embedded the video directly into the holding page.

We wanted to engage Clement Marfo & The Frontline fans and get them to spread the new video for Mayhem (feat. Kano) like wildfire.

I took the link sharing system I’d built for All the Young and made some major improvements. To start with I created a setup file and optimised the app to make it more templated. Now all the text, links, sharing optimisation, competition details and php functions only need to be defined once for the entire app.

We wanted to reward the fans with the links that genuinely get the most clicks, so I added functionality to count unique clicks separately. The leaderboard ranks users based on their unique clicks but the total activity on their link is still recorded and accessible through the admin section of the app.

I built an admin section that allows us to view all link activity, user details and the total number of clicks that the campaign has generated. This section is password protected to ensure that the results are secure.

To improve the app further I integrated bit.ly url shortening to automatically generate a short url for each fan that signs up.

The app was created to run as a Facebook tab so sharing had to be optimised for Facebook sharing. Each user’s unique link is bundled with personalised sharing meta tags. So posting someone’s url will share a link with a title and description explaining that you can help them win the tickets by simply clicking on the link.

On the 8th October All the Young played a momentous headline gig at the Kings Hall in their home town of Stoke on Trent.

Two weeks before Christmas, I was given the task of releasing a free live album of the show in an innovative and exciting way – before Christmas!

With the time limitations it was obvious that I’d have to build the project myself and needing an instant delivery mechanism led me down the path of HTML5 web apps.

This was my first attempt at proper HTML5 development and I had a lot to learn about web apps too.

I got to work using the jQuery Mobile framework which makes mobile web development a lot easier.

Knowing that a lot of people would also view this site on a desktop, I had to make a number of css rules to keep everything in check. CSS media queries made the site a responsive web design, adjusting to the screen size and adjusting all the elements for the best view on a smartphone, tablet or desktop.

To make the app operate like a native iOS app I added a fixed iPhone style navigation to the bottom of the site. This also resizes depending on the size of the visitor’s device.

The music section is powered by Soundcloud and Matas’ classic custom jquery soundcloud player. I added a loading message that waits for the player to load before displaying it and styled the player to suit the band’s style.

I found an amazing plugin to power the photo gallery. Photoswipe makes it a synch to add a full screen gallery with touch-powered sliding navigation. The default setting has 3 thumbnails across the width of the page which didn’t look great on an iPad or desktop screen. So I used css media queries to adjust the thumbnail size and order as your screen size increases. An iPhone displays 3 thumbnails wide, an iPad displays 4 in portrait mode and 5 in landscape. Desktops also adjust responsively depending on the use’s screen size.

The videos section displays YouTube videos with the iFrame embed method to allow mobile playback. I wrote a lot of custom Javascript and CSS to display this page. The size of the embedded videos adjusts according to the user’s screen size, so they always fill as much space as possible.

The app uses Font Face to render all text in the band’s font. Including the headings, buttons and the liner notes.

I included a send page that allows fans to share the app with friends via email or social networks. It also allows them to sign-up and receive a direct download link for the mp3s.

The responsive design meant that all the sections could be optimised for the best view on different sized devices. Desktops with large monitors or tablet devices display content side-by-side in columns. Smaller devices will stack the content, so that the page only scrolls up and down.

One of the big challenges I set myself for this project was offline storage. The app uses the cache manifest method to store core files offline. The audio and video need to be streamed so offline browsing presents the user with a fallback message.

If users add the app to their home screen it will run full screen like a native app. I used the ‘add to homescreen’ script to display a pop-up message the first time iPhone or iPad users visit the web app.

Finally I had to simplify the app for visitors with old browsers or incompatible devices. I created a very basic page that allows visitors to sign-up and have the download links sent to them. The site detects whether the app will display correctly and only loads it if all requirements are met.

All the Young sent the web app to core fans on Christmas day and had a brilliant response. There are now plans to use the app and content in a much more widespread rollout.

While building the app so quickly was stressful, it was a good crash course in HTML5 and web app development. I learnt a lot in a short space of time and it certainly piqued my interest in doing more advanced web apps in the future.

Tawiah released a brilliant EP as a free download over the 2011 festive season. The ‘holiday gift’ features her new song ‘Run’, along with a remix, acapella version, a song called ‘Don’t Know You Yet’ and a powerful version of ‘Little Drummer Boy’.

To give the EP widespread reach I made an email sign-up widget, optimised for sharing on social networks and easily embedable on blogs and websites.

Having built many free download widgets over the past year I’ve always wanted to streamline the process with a more templated system. I used the ‘Run EP’ widget to start working on a dynamic system that remains quite flexible.

All the free download details are stored in a MySQL Database where the widget is assigned an ID. All image assets, mailing list information, text and meta data for sharing is then loaded and displayed dynamically when the widget is viewed.

The widget is mobile-friendly, providing an iFrame embed code to easily add it to blogs and websites.

To enhance Facebook sharing I built a Flash version of the widget that accesses all the data from an xml feed. This means that users can sign-up for the free download and share it without leaving their Facebook news feed.

I have a fair bit of work to do on the CMS as well as adding more flexible options, but this widget has helped me lay a lot of the foundation for a really powerful and easy to use system. Stay tuned.

To help increase Facebook activity for Paper Crows we created a ‘Like to Download’ Facebook tab giving fans access to the B-Side ‘Gone’.

Kate Brighouse designed the tab using stills from the online video for ‘Cloudbusting’. I put the PHP, HTML, CSS and Javascript together to create the ‘like to view’ functionality.

The tab includes a Like button on the page that is only displayed to non-fans. Once clicked the page refreshes to reveal the download link.

While Fenech-Soler were on tour with Example they handed out wristbands with a url printed on them. Visiting fenechsoler.co.uk/freedownload allows fans to get a free download of ‘Golden Sun’. There were a few aspects to cover considering that a lot of people would access the url from their mobile phones.

The band’s management wanted to drive more Facebook activity without limiting it to Facebook fans. I made the URL redirect to a Facebook tab, but only if Javascript is enabled. If Javascript isn’t enabled the visitor is presented with a sign-up form where they can join the mailing list and have the mp3 emailed to them. If it is enabled they are redirected to a Facebook tab.

The Facebook tab is fairly basic ‘like to download’ functionality, with an inline like button that refreshes the page to reveal the link once clicked. The tab includes a jQuery drop-down that displays a sign-up form for fans that don’t want to use their Facebook account. They can join the mailing list and have ‘Golden Sun’ emailed to them instead.

At the end of November 2011 Warner Bros released a special edition version of Hugh Laurie’s debut album, ‘Let them Talk’. In addition to the three new studio recordings, we wanted to deliver a special deluxe digital product. With this in mind we created a bespoke iTunes LP, loaded with additional content.

I sourced plenty of content including new photographs, unreleased video and additional writing by both Hugh Laurie and his acclaimed producer Joe Henry.

The iTunes LP reads like a book, with Hugh’s notes on certain songs, thoughts on recording the album and his recollection of working with legends like Dr. John, Sir Tom Jones and Irma Thomas. Joe Henry also contributed a detailed introduction to all the talented musicians that performed on the album.

The LP is packed with great video content too. The ‘Live in New Orleans’ DVD contributed two live videos featuring Sir Tom Jones and Irma Thomas. I also included a six part documentary that covers Hugh’s journey to New Orleans and his time in Ocean Way Studio.

Once the iTunes LP was ready for release I briefed the team at Electric Lighting Station to create a trailer for the product. Oggy Hawkins did a superb job and created the video YouTube video embedded on the left.

The ‘Let Them Talk’ iTunes LP went on sale worldwide in December and was incredibly well received. It is great to know that something I created has reached such a wide international audience. Especially with Kate Brighouse and my names in the credits.

One of the latest signings to Warner Bros. UK is the acoustic duo Lilygreen & Maguire.

Kate Brighouse designed a simple holding page using a photograph by taken by Sam Stubbings. I then built and set the holding page up on lilygreenandmaguire.com.

The sign-up form uses Javascript to validate and submit email subscriptions, with a standard html form as the fallback option.

Our team recently started helping out with the occasional Rhino UK project. One of the first jobs we had to work on was a free download page for the new Alvin & The Chipmunks soundtrack.

Kate Brighouse designed the page, which I sliced up and converted into a php microsite.

The sign-up form is validated and submitted via jQuery to keep the process as smooth as possible.

The free download is only available for UK visitors so I had to build in geo-targeting capabilities to ensure that the sign-up form is only displayed to visitors from the UK. I used the MaxMind database to run IP detection and determine the page contents based on the visitor’s location.

In November 2011 Muse released an incredible coffee table book filled with photographs from The Resistance Tour. The book was released exclusively through muse.mu and the band needed to get the word out to fans.

I was asked to build a gallery to preview some of the photographs. I built a gallery using jQuery to elegantly fade the images in and out as a user pages through them. I put together some iFrame code so the band’s management could easily add the gallery to the product page in the online store.

To take it further I developed a slightly smaller version of the gallery to sit in a Facebook tab. The tab links back to product page to encourage purchases. The tab includes social sharing options linked to the product page. So fans who click ‘like’, ‘tweet’ or ‘share’ on the Facebook tab would share a direct link to the product page on muse.mu.

To enhance the sharability of the gallery I created a small Flash version for improved Facebook sharing. Anyone sharing the product page or hitting ‘like’ on the page or Facebook tab would post a preview directly to their wall. The small flash gallery loads in the news feed and ends by linking back to the product purchase page. Sharing the product in this way made it far more engaging and appealing, while driving traffic to the store.

Finally I made sure that the jQuery gallery degraded gracefully for users without Javascript enabled. Instead of using a smooth jQuery transition, the gallery still allows users to flick through the photos easily.

The gallery seems fairly simple at first glance, but there are a number of clever bits of code working together to provide the best product experience.

Just before Stooshe launched their lyric video for ‘Betty Woz Gone’ they put a mixtape up on Soundcloud which was covered by numerous blogs and music sites.

We also made the StooshTape available as a reward for fans joining the girls’ mailing list. To further promote the sign-up incentive, I built a widget that could be embedded on sites, blogs and social networks.

This was one of our usual sign-up widgets, built in Flash with an html5 fallback option. It is optimised for social sharing to allow in-feed embedding on Facebook, as well as Google Analytics to track it’s success.

Visit clementmarfo.com for the official Overtime lyrics.

Clement Marfo & The Frontline’s marketing manager, Nathalie Barnett, came up with a fun way for fans to engage with the band’s current single.

Her idea was for fans to be rewarded for posting the lyrics to Overtime, which lend themselves very well to status updates and tweets.

I commissioned The New Black to build a Facebook app that would personalise a random lyric from the song and post it to Facebook or Twitter.

I had to convert all the lyrics into ‘status friendly’ lines that could include the person’s name and gender.

The app randomly selects a lyric and adds your details to it. You can then post the lyric or select another one.

All the fans who use the app are then entered into a draw to win various CMTF prizes like tickets and merchandise.

The app worked brilliantly as a tool to promote the single whilst rewarding fans for engaging with the song and spreading the word.

When fans join the mailing list on the website or through the widget their free download link is delivered via an automated email. We needed to style the email to fit in with Marlon Roudette’s branding.

Kate Brighouse designed a mailer template and I assembled all the html and css to deliver the emails.

To promote the release of Marlon Roudette’s Riding Home EP, we created a data capture widget with a free download of a song called ‘Brotherhood of The Broken’.

The widget is flash based with a mobile-friendly html & javascript fallback option. The Flash version also plays a preview of the song.

Kate Brighouse designed the widget and a mailer template that I set-up as an automated response to deliver the free download to fans that registered for the UK mailing list.

Marlon Roudette (the former Mattafix frontman) has an irregular record deal. He was recently signed to Warner Bros for the UK release and promotion of his album ‘Matter Fixed’. While we look after him in the UK, he is also signed to Universal Music Germany (and Universal for additional territories).

This proves to be a challenge for online promotion where the internet is global. Universal’s German team have been incredibly helpful in allowing us access to Marlon’s online estate. While they’re much further into the campaign than we are, it was decided that a simple splash page would be the best point of contact for UK fans.

I wrote a simple geo-location script that checks the MaxMind database of IP addresses and redirects any UK visitors to marlonroudette.co.uk. The script also drops a cookie to prevent the need to check the database every time a returning visitor loads the site.

The splash page was designed by Kate Brighouse and features a YouTube embed, link to buy the Riding Home EP, a sign-up module that validates and submits via jQuery and a tour dates listing powered by the bandsintown facebook app.

By hosting the splash page on marlonroudette.co.uk we are able to keep the site updated without needing to involve the German team. The geo targeting script works very well to ensure that visitors always land on the site most relevant to the territory they’re in.

Pete Tong signed Paper Crows to his FFRR label and I’ve been helping out with the band’s online estate.

As the band are starting out, they wanted a fairly simple website so we decided to build the site on a Tumblr blog.

I set about building a custom tumblr theme to make the site more than a basic blog feed. The navigation works in conjunction with Tumblr’s static pages feature. I added static pages for music, videos, contact details and the mailing list. The music page is a collection of Soundcloud players while the Videos page is a bunch of embedded YouTube videos.

I configured the sidebar to contain a mailinglist sign-up module. The form uses jquery and ajax to validate and submit the users details seamlessly.

The sidebar also includes a Facebook like box, with customised css to improve the styling and integration with the site.

Paper Crows use the BandsInTown app to power their tour dates on Facebook and Myspace. I included the Javascript widget to include a tour dates page and sidebar widget.

Cufon made it easier to style the headings and navigation, adding a bit more style to the page’s design.

All posts include AddThis sharing with custom buttons. I also included Omniture tagging to track website traffic.

Finally I switched the A record for papercrows.com to make the tumblr blog the band’s official website at papercrows.com.

The Platinum Edition of the Overtones’ debut album went on sale with an even more deluxe version in iTunes.

The iTunes LP presents the album along with additional content within a very slick design by Kate Brighouse.

The iTunes LP includes the entire album as well as additional bonus tracks. The videos section covers all the group’s music videos, a number of behind the scenes clips, live footage and clips of the band interviewing each other. There are also two photo galleries with various press shots and behind the scenes photos.

To promote this version of the album and make sure fans understood the additional content I had Oggy Hawkins create a preview video. He did an incredible job and the video did a great job driving sales of the premium digital product.

During a brainstorming session about expanding All the Young’s fanbase we decided to create a system that would reward points for sharing content.

We decided to focus the campaign on the forthcoming release of ‘Quiet Night In’. Fans would earn points for sharing a unique link to pre-order the album. The fan with the most active link would win a gig from the band in their local pub. Runners up would receive a signed guitar and signed vinyl.

I set-up a MySQL database to hold all the user data and wrote the system using php.

Fans register their details and the database returns a unique link tied to their ID. I set-up addthis to make sharing the link really easy and set-up all the correct meta data to personalise the sharing system on social networks.

All the Young’s fans took to the competition really enthusiastically and passed their links around everywhere they could, driving loads of traffic to the iTunes pre-order page for ‘Quiet Night In’.

Later in the campaign we changed the link’s destination to a free download tab on the band’s Facebook page, by extending the competition’s reach we were able to drive a lot more new Facebook fans for All the Young.

The system worked really well and will be something we can easily repurpose for other artists.

To help drive Facebook likes on Clement Marfo & The Frontline’s Facebook page Alex Burford came up with a plan to reward Facebook fans with exclusive content.

Alex designed a tab to display behind the scenes photographs from the Overtime video shoot and I got to work building it.

The page used php to dynamically load thumbnails from a folder. I configured fancybox to open the full size images in a slick lightbox.

If a visitor isn’t a fan on the Facebook page they will see the thumbnails but they’re faded out and the link to the full sized image will be disabled. I floated a like button over the inactive gallery which reloads the page and disappears after a user clicks on it.

A few weeks later we were given the Cruelty Remix of Overtime to give away, so the exclusive content changed to a download link for Facebook fans.

I reconfigured the page to display a download link for existing fans and a like button for non-fans. The meta data on the page also needed to be edited so that the sharing functionality would post an updated message about the exclusive content on offer.

Just before the release of Jason Derulo’s sophomore album we launched a competition for fans to show of their dance moves.

Jason’s UK marketing manager, Katherine Parrott, wanted to run a competition where fans learn the dance routine for ‘Don’t Wanna Go Home’. She arranged for Jason and his choreographer to create an instructional video.

I was tasked with creating a microsite to house the competition alongside a stream of the new album. Kate Brighouse designed a page and I got to work on the code behind it. The competition element is really simple and just includes a YouTube embed of the instructional video and a link to enter the competition with a video response. I also configured the meta data so that sharing the page on Facebook or liking it would embed the YouTube video in the post.

The challenging part of the brief was including the stream of the new album. I used Soundcloud’s html5 player to build a playlist and then got to work on heavily modifying it to suit our needs. I encased the Soundcloud players in a content slider so that only one player is displayed at a time. Hitting the navigation buttons will slide the next or previous song into place. I took it a step further and modified Soundcloud’s JavaScript to trigger the slider whenever a song ends and a new one starts playing. This means that you can hit play on track one and the slider will keep up with the playlist as you listen to the entire album.

I’ve embeddded the actual microsite on the left to demonstrate how the player functions.

StooShe had a massive launch for their ‘Betty Woz Gone’ lyric video. Our aim was to drive views on YouTube and push people to Facebook.

We decided to build a Facebook tab with three elements: an embed of the YouTube video, a ‘like to access’ free download of the StooshTape and a ‘share to access’ free download of the track HotSteppa.

The result was that people would need to like StooShe on Facebook to get the StooshTape and they’d have to share the ‘Betty Woz Gone’ lyric video on Facebook to access the HotSteppa download.

Kate Brighouse designed the tab and I put all the necessary code together to embed the video and control the liking and sharing functionality.

The Facebook tab worked alongside loads of tweets & blog endorsements to help the amazing lyric video that Jess Gorick created storm up the YouTube charts establishing StooShe as a force to be reckoned with.

Along with the launch of Lianne La Havas’ EP and a redesigned website, we had an amazing set of live songs to give away as a sign-up incentive. ‘Live in LA’ is a four track recording of a gig that Lianne La Havas recently put on in the states. The songs sound incredible and make a brilliant sign-up incentive.

Kate Brighouse designed the widget and I assembled the swf to embed on the website and spread around blogs and social networks. I created an html fallback option for mobile phones and devices that can’t use flash. This time I extended the functionality to include jQuery form validation and submission running in the background so that the user never leaves the page.

As usual the widget is configured for enhanced sharing on social networks. Sharing the widget on Facebook will embed it into the news feed, allowing people to sign-up without leaving their Facebook home page. It is also set-up for easy sharing on Twitter and the embed code is easily obtained for bloggers to embed it on their own sites.

To give the free download maximum exposure on her networks I also created a Facebook application to include the widget on a tab.

To deliver the free download we needed a new html email template, so Kate Brighouse designed a new template to match the widget. Alex Burfurd then set it up to deliver the free download once you sign up. The widget proved to be hugely popular, instantly lifting Lianne’s fanbase and quickly spreading across all the blogs that are in the know.

The very talented Lianne La Havas needed a fairly simple but classy web presence at this early stage in her career.

We decided to build a clean holding page for her site and use the very popular Tumblr platform to power her blog. Kate Brighouse designed the two holding page and blog which I converted into a custom Tumblr theme.

The holding page is a static html page with three embedded videos, a free download widget, a sign-up form and tour dates. The sign-up form uses jQuery to validate the email field and submit the form without leaving the page while the tour dates are pulled in from the BandsInTown Facebook app and then formatted with the custom CSS styles I set up for the page.

To get started with the Tumblr theme, I used Minimalist as a template and adjusted it. Kate’s design was wider than the Tumblr default so I had to make a number of adjustment to account for that.

To ensure that videos are displayed at full width (rather than the default 500px) I used two Javascript functions. Matthew Buchanan’s script handles YouTube while some Javascript from Alex Hallajian resizes videos embedded from Vimeo.

I configured AddThis to place customized sharing buttons for Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr on every post.

The design also required a specific font for the post titles so I configured Cufon to make sure that the headings and menu items always looks great, whilst also degrading gracefully for browsers that don’t support Javascript.

The Lianne La Havas website and blog look very basic, but have a fair bit going on to ensure that the stylish design is always maintained.

Following a hugely successful run on the summer festival circuit Fenech-Soler embarked on their headline tour of the UK. To maximise engagement around shows Alex Burford came up with the idea of adding content from every show to a map of the country on a Facebook Tab.

While the concept and user experience seems very simple and clean, quite a bit went into the back-end development of the Facebook tab.

Kate Brighouse provided a map of the UK as a very clean black outline on a white background.

I created a MySQL database to hold all the info for each event as it gets added. The database let’s the map know whether there is any content available for a show. I used vtip to create pop-up boxes for each event. Hovering over the event marker displays the details for a gig. If the show hasn’t happened or if content hasn’t been added then the marker stays faded out and links to a ticket purchase link. If the show is sold out then the link is removed and SOLD OUT is displayed in the info box.

The map detects if a video, blog or any photos have been added to the database and opens a fancybox pop-up to display the content.

The map would need to be updated as rapidly as possible so I wanted to give the band the tools to do it themselves. I built a mini CMS to manage the content.

While on the road Fenech-Soler could log in and edit each date by writing a blog, embedding a YouTube video and uploading photos.

They could also easily update the details of forthcoming dates by changing the ticket purchase link or marking the show as sold out.

Creating an upload feature for the photos was the most complex part of the CMS. The content lightbox displays square thumbnails which would need to be resized, cropped and filed during the upload process. I looked at various scripts and eventually found a great chunk of php to do the job. The band could easily upload photos for each show.

I wrote a custom php script to generate the gallery. The script searches the directories for photos and lists all the thumbnails with links to the main images to open in a lightbox.

To make sure the tab could be shared properly I created a static html page with all the relevant meta data for social sharing. This page has a meta refresh tag that redirects visitors to the tab on Facebook. I then configured sharing buttons on the map to ensure that it always uses the correct information when posted across Facebook and Twitter.

The map looks great and is serving as a really engaging tour diary for Fenech-Soler.

I had to build the system in-house so set about creating a PHP & MySQL powered quiz system.

I spent ages modifying ElenMan’s PHP quiz system, converting from SimpleXML to a MySQL database, adding a timer to the score, forcing the user registration and styling it to suit Katherine’s website. While the system worked well most of the time it would occasionally drop sessions and fall apart unpredictably.

On the tube ride home the night before the competition launched I decided to start from scratch and sketched out a new flow diagram on a newspaper.

I went back to basics and wrote a php system that uses classic html forms to process the data and post the scores to a MySQL database.

The competition was limited to Katherine’s Diamond Club members’ area so I had Iwan Moore at Isle Interactive build a dynamic page that registers the user’s Diamond Club membership name and sends it to the quiz. My quiz system then processes that along with the users’ results. To prevent anyone from improving their score I ensured that fans could only take each quiz once.

Each quiz is made up of six questions, with five answers each. I used some Javascript to disable the submit button until one of the multiple choice questions had been selected.

Next, I added a timer system to record how long a fan takes to complete a quiz, this would be used to even out any tie-breaker situations.

I configured the results page to show users how they scored on each question. Correct answers are highlighted in blue while incorrect answers are highlighted in red.

Finally the users are presented with a leaderboard to show them where they placed in that particular competition.

The competition ran across 15 concert dates, so I had to duplicate the quiz for each show and set-up the different questions compiled by Jonathan Pumphrey, Alex Burford & Katherine’s management.

All the Young have two massive events coming up in the next few weeks. The band will be releasing their new single, ‘Quiet Night In’, and playing a momentous gig at the Kings Hall in their home town of Stoke.

To build anticipation for both events Sam Stubbings briefed me to create a countdown for the band’s website.

I went in search of some opensource clocks and timers and discarded numerous Flash systems until I found a very stylish jQuery project.

The library needed some modifications to suit my needs. I found a modification that allows counting down to a specific date and time but there was a glitch that kept making the seconds start counting down from 99 instead of 59. I found that appending a 0 to the front of numbers less than 10 did the trick.

There was a second bug that made the timing a bit haywire in Internet Explorer. This was resolved with a simple fix by adding an additional DIV around one of the elements.

I added the code to a Lightbox system on All the Young’s official website so that it is the first thing visitors see when they go to the site.

We also wanted to give away a free download to Facebook fans, so I built a tab to include the countdown timers as well as a download link that is only visible to Facebook fans.

With the launch of Katherine Jenkins’ new album came the opportunity to refresh her official website.

I project managed the build with Kate Brighouse designing the site and Isle Interactive building it.

The website is clean and simple, making it easy to navigate. It includes all the standard features that go into our artist sites as well as a special Twitter integration. For some time I’ve wanted our website to seamlessly merge with our artists’ tweets. Artists like Katherine Jenkins are very active on Twitter but don’t spend much time blogging or contributing personal content to the website. To give her a voice on the site, I briefed Isle to make the twitter feed display rich-media in-line. Now when Katherine tweets a photo or video it will appear on her website like a blog post. The integration works so well that the website is a more interesting place to read Katherine’s tweets than Twitter itself.

The rest of the website looks great and the fans gave us an overwhelmingly positive response.

Kate Brighouse designed a Myspace Layout and I assembled all the image slices and html to make it work.

I included a Flash widget that I built to display Katherine’s tweets as well as a sign-up widget to allow people to sign-up for her mailing list.