Extension: Malibu Rum Nights & Events

After a successful launch in April we have now extended Malibu Rum’s website to feature a nights & events area where users can view future parties and at the same time check out past events with photos. The features are described when you continue reading. Enjoy Malibu Nights & Events

Features

• Photos are being loaded into the gallery dynamically while parsing an XML file
• Watermarking photos with the Malibu Rum logo for consistent branding
• Smooth transitions between pictures
• Easy photo-upload in the administration area with status indication, automatic ZIP-decompression and XML creation
• Administration area with different permission levels

Screenshot

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Design: Die Welt Debatte

Die Welt Debatte is Axel Springer’s most recent project focusing on user generated content in terms of comments, debates, votings and caricatures around recent news and topics.

Welt.de has 6.477.327 visits and 41.830.036 page impressions per month (May 2007) making it the biggest (in terms of users) project I have worked on so far.

The top priority was to build an easy-to-use website that holds masses of information provided by the publisher and its users. In a very short period of time I worked closely with the product manager of Axel springer to churn out over 40 different screens showcasing the various site layouts, navigations paths and AJAX features.

In terms of technology, the open source CMS Drupal was selected and customized by Berlin-based agency Maguro, as it fit the site’s concept perfectly.

A couple of layouts and Drupal’s features are showcased after the click, the complete website can be seen online at http://debatte.welt.de

Drupal’s out-of-the-box and customized features:

• Flexible user registration + privileges system
  • Core: used for authors, bloggers, subscribers, commenters
• Articles
  • Articles module: used for Kommentare, Leserbriefe
• Possibility to invite external authors to run a blog
  • Blog module: used for selected popular bloggers
• Forum, Comments, Voting-API
  • Customized Forum Module
  • Comment module enhanced with voteAPI
  • Poll module
• Various OS and customized modules increasing the speed of development
  • Used for authors, bloggers, subscribers, commenters
  • Trackback module enables receiving and sending trackbacks
  • Quote module enabling users to quote posts (comments, forum threads)
  • Live Discussion module to display the newest comments, for ex. related to articles
  • PrivateMSG module enabling users to send private messages in the system
• Nice/Clean URLs
  • Pathauto module

Further reading

• IBM Study: Drupal as CMS
• Article on Drupal.org: Die Welt using Drupal

Screenshots

Homepage

Debates

Controversy

Caricatures

Author Profile

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Launching Malibu Rum’s Relaxed Brand Experience

We have been working on Malibu Rum’s new website for the Austrian market the past months, thus I am very happy to present a full-featured flash website launching on time and with great focus on nifty details.

Metaphorically speaking we translated Malibu Rum’s slogan “Seriously easy going” into “Seriously easy web surfing”. This means we have taken great care to produce a relaxed brand experience with a cozy beach atmosphere (ex. moving ocean waves) and supporting nature sounds. The user can either choose to explore the site by moving left/right on the beach (upper area) or by simply clicking the standard navigation at the bottom. The scenes are based on a 3D engine, so by clicking on specific objects the user zooms in or out of the area (ex. Games, TV-Spots) thus getting a more dynamic feeling.

Malibu Rum - Home

Outstanding Features

• Jump’n'Run Game with a highscore list where users can win cool brand goodies
• Age-Check to keep people out who are under age
• Download Wallpapers for the desktop perfectly matching the site’s theme
• Watch the Malibu Rum TV-Spots, which are always a great laugh
• Tracking user visits, downloads, etc. using Google Analytics inside Flash
• A lot more: “Tell-A-Friend”, Product showcase, …
• Coming in May 2007: Malibu Nights & Events with party photos and event updates

CMS (Content-Management-System)

We have build an easy-to-use CMS where the client can change teaser texts for the homepage and check out the Jump’n'Run game winners of the current and past months. As the administration system is very flexible we will be able to adapt it to future needs.

Malibu Rum - Administration

More Screenshots

Malibu Rum - Games

Malibu Rum - TV-Spots

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Pernod Ricard Austria Website Launches

After a intense work period of two months, spirits company Pernod Ricard Austria and I successfully launched their new website.

The website includes information on over 40 products with each approx. 4 different qualities (7yr, 12yr, …). Each product page features textual information accompanied by flash-visuals, logos and links.

One of the specials is the possibility to brand their 10 main products pages, ie. Jameson Whiskey or Havana Club Rum. Furthermore the client can write great looking press releases and visitors can check out contact persons in a flash-based map of Austria.

Technically the site is built around the excellent WordPress CMS, which made the process of creation not only very flexible but also powerful in terms of feature enhancements (Plugins).

Functions / Tweaks / Plugins

• Custom fields, custom fields, custom fields, …
• Custom PHP-Code
• Handmade Age-Check Plugin
• Page templates
• Static Frontpage
• WP-Email
• WP-Cache
• WP-Contact

I want to thank Pernod Ricard Austria for the great time we had building the website and the WordPress community for providing this amazing Content-Management-System.

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