Well there has been no slacking at codegent towers over the holiday season. Even on New Year's Eve half the office is still here finishing off bits and bobs for the various January campaign launches we are doing for our clients. Dedication to the cause!

2009 looks like an interesting and tough challenge for us all, but one we are relishing. We expect clients to be looking very hard at what they are getting for their money. It's something we've always believed is important but never more so than now. We're an ideas-led agency but we always make sure that they relate back to the client's commercial requirements. We call this process a "Return on Ideas" and it's something we're looking to refine over the next few months.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone
Mark, David and Luke

PS We couldn't sign off without giving you a little pressie now could we?

Feel free to play with Youth Music's Elf band and slap down your very own remix of Jingle Bells whilst you catch up on what Youth Music have been up to in 2008.
http://seasonsgreetings.youthmusic.org.uk/ »

And if you have experienced the embarrassment of a card turning up from someone who failed to make your own list all is not lost! We knocked this little app together in one day as a proof of concept for our latest gizmo, the "Snapper"... more on that one in January :)
http://lastminutexmascards.appspot.com/ »

Have heard about our latest development?!! Don't tell me you have never heard of Twilert, I won't believe you! Twilert has been a real buzz machine since its launch a few weeks ago and in this world where empowered users can express anything they like, you had better start using it straight away! Before looking at Twilert world’s coverage, let’s first explain how it works and how it can help you...

Twilert stands for Twitter + alert.

In a prior post, I mentioned the manual monitoring tools like Twitter Search or Tweetscan. But wouldn’t it be far better to receive regular email updates of tweets containing any keyword you want to monitor?

Twilert is an email alert/notification service for Twitter. It’s like Google Alerts but for Twitter! This Twitter application, built by the Codegent Team in less than 3 weeks, is an amazing tool for people who need to listen what is being said about their name, brand, products, services, industry, employees...

Twilert is much more than a mere search alert service. By using the "Advanced settings", you can filter relevant tweets by keywords, author, recipient, location, link-location, and attitude (positive, negative or neutral). For a bit more insight on the features, here is a video created by a Twilert user:

Today, Twilert has 2000 users in 70 countries, receiving more than 5000 Twilerts. Many people are talking about Twilert on Twitter and on their blogs both here and abroad! Google Blog search shows that there are over 7,000 blog posts about Twilert. Below you can appreciate a small bit of this amazing global buzz:

English:

• Chatting with the man behind Twilert - the new Twitter alert service
• Twilert makes it easy to follow tweets about your clients. (And your agency.)
• Twilert: Tweet alerts via e-mail
• Two ways to track brand buzz on Twitter to suit your information diet
• Twilert: digital data mining and identifying motivated audiences

Spanish:

• Twilert: Alertas de Twitter para seguimiento de marcas o parejas
• Twilert: Alertas por correo de Tweet interesantes
• Twilert: Recibir alertas para determinadas palabras en Twitter

French:

• Twilert, un Google Alert dédié à Twitter
• Twilert - Alerte par mail de certains Tweets
• Twilert : Alerte mail Twitter

Brazilian:

• Acompanhe a opinião do pessoal do Twitter por e-mail
• Twilert, um aplicativo Twitter que rastreia palavras-chave escolhidas por você
• Twilert: Receba por e-mail tweets relevantes

Deutsch:

• Twilert: Benachrichtigungen, wenn bestimmte Begriffe getwittert werden
• Themen-Monitoring bei Twitter mit Twilert
• Twilert schickt Twitter-Mails

Italian:

• Scopri se su Twitter viene citata una determinata parola con Twilert
• Twilert, monitora una parola su Twitter e ricevi degli alert quando viene citata!
• Twilert: Rimanere aggiornati in Twitter via email

Japanese:

• www.socialmedia.jp
• web-marketing.zako.org

Amongst all these blog posts about Twilert, 3 of them in particular drew my attention:

Firstly, KidTechGuru, a 14-year-old boy from Singapore, who’s probably one of the world's youngest professional bloggers and technology expert, explains in a great post what Twilert is all about and how it works.

Then, Twilert was recently cited in a post on Mashable as a tool to help you focus on the signal rather than all the Twitter noise.

Finally, The social media guru Guy Kawasaki, author of Reality Check, wrote a really interesting post on How to Use Twitter as a Twool listing Twilert as a tool to monitor what people are saying about you, your company, and your product.

In addition to this great coverage on blogs, Twilert was named Mashup of the day on the 5 December 2008.

Via word-of-mouth the news is spreading fast; the tool is powerful, so why don’t you give it a try at www.twilert.com? Set-up any keywords you would like to receive alerts about and start interacting with other twitter users discussing topics aligned to your keywords.

Our work on Ben10 - My Favourite Alien was showcased as part of Cartoon Network's showreel entry into the shortlist of this year's BAFTA Kids' vote. The showreel highlighted the best creative work from across Cartoon Network this year so it was an honour for our project to be included.

The BAFTA Kids' Vote embraced all media platforms and celebrated the rich diversity of children's media. For the first time, children got to have their say in a nationwide poll to choose their favourite film, television programme, website and video game.

A big shout should also go to the glorious Aidan from Sheffield whose "flaming" antics in his back garden were the standout highlight of the campaign :)

A great effort all round on Movember. Some were a bit more whispy than others but the Mo's on display were certainly distinguished in every way. The blocked plughole in the bathroom sink on 1st December was probably a welcome sight to some of the participant's partners though!