The Apple iPhone is turning Orange

Following the news that Orange and T-Mobile will be looking to merge is the news that O2 has lost the exclusivity deal to supply the iPhone 3GS to the UK market. In a deal that has been rumored about for the last few months Orange will be offering the iPhone to UK customer 'before the end of the year'.

The possible advantages to having more than one service provider is that the tariff costs should start to come down! No idea yet as to what packages Orange will offer but I think it's a given that they'll match and probably beat the O2 offerings from the start.

They're currently asking for people to 'register their interest' so if you fancy a shiny Apple iPhone 3GS with an Orange sheen, head over to their site: Orange Mobile

UPDATE: Hot on the tail of the Orange announcement is the news that Vodafone will also be offering the iPhone 3GS, visit the store to register your interest!

Just a minute... video information!

Are you looking for ways to push content to your audience? Well, our friends over in Learning Resources have come up with an idea of one minute videos.

A quick and easy way to present a lot of information in bite sized chunks. They have a series of these planned and we'll be adding them to a playlist on our YouTube channel so if they look of interest make sure you subscribe!

Easy shortening of URL's tip

If you're looking for a way of shortening your URL's for Twitter posts then why not try out the services of bit.ly

It turns URL's such as this: http://www.beds.ac.uk/courses/bysubject/artdes/ba-intarc

Into Twitter friendly URL's like this: http://bit.ly/ytTuy

Ideal if you're short on characters in a Twitter post or SMS message!

'Battle of the Brands' - Could it result in T-Orange?

So, T-Mobile and Orange have proposed a joint venture? Could this mean the appearance of a new brand in the next two years or will one of the companies come out victorious? Personally, I think the Orange name will stay and the T-Mobile client base will be absorbed to form a mobile provider with a 37% market share. This would put Orange as the largest provider in the UK, ahead of O2.

The issue of who's brand should remain when two large organisations merge can have a huge knock-on effect to the customer. Those with a loyalty to one brand may feel so disheartened by the loss of their beloved companies name that they leave all together. The management of the process and softening the blow can be crucial in ensuring that the joining of the companies keeps a significant enough proportion of the customer base to warrant the merge in the first place!

Fallon currently handle the advertising for Orange with Saatchi & Saatchi looking after T-Mobile so another battle will be on the cards for who takes over that account!

We've been shortlisted...

Great news for our new internal staff site, it's been shortlisted for a CIPR award! The new staff website was launched in August 2008 having had a complete transformation from a flat HTML website to a site sitting within our Content Management System (CMS). It was completely redesigned to match in with the new University of Bedfordshire branding and has shown some rather impressive stats for an internal site.

The awards aren't decided until the end of November so we'll be keeping our fingers crossed that we'll be able to class the staff site as award winning as well as the main site!

The joys of Google Analytics... the frustrations of reality!

Well, we are well and truly into the Clearing campaign and things are looking rather rosy... for our website traffic anyway! The initial report for August puts our overall site traffic up 31.2% on last year and the Clearing specific traffic is up an impressive 51.4% in total.

This may be down to a small, more targeted marketing campaign this year or it could be due to the increased number of Universities that potential students are looking to apply to. Unfortunately though, a large part of the increase is probably down to the media frenzy that has surrounded Clearing this year. Stories such as 'Student place scramble continues' on the BBC and 'Mad scramble for limited university places after record A-level year' on the Times Online have helped to increase a sense of panic with A-Level students.

Yes, the media have taken the opportunity to build up the story to a maddening level, it is silly season after all, but the sad reality is that available places have been capped this year and that means that some people will miss out on a place at University. If the Government want a population of well educated and skilled individuals they need to ensure that those students who have the relevant qualifications and the interest to go to University are able to secure a place!