This snazzy little app lets the great movie going public scroll through the 2010 Oscar nominations in all the leading categories, view trailers and even vote thumbs-up or down for their favourite films. Who needs an awards committee?

Folks can then link directly to the purchase screen of each film to buy straight away, or if it’s still hot out of the projector, they can be emailed with a notification of the film’s release date.

Not wasting any opportunity to butter-up the discerning Play.com movie consuming crowd, there’s also a Movies You May Be Interested In section that lists other titles by similar directors, actors and subject.

A Top 5 Customer Rated Movies facility also allows Play.com customers to decide which movies are the real stars of this year’s Oscar show, and which ones were merely poorly dressed extras without any lines.

It’s a great way of tapping into the movie excitement of the moment and capitalising on great publicity. If you thought ‘Avatar’ should have won best picture or that ‘The Hurt Locker’ was aptly named purely because of how it felt to watch, then have your say on the Play.com Movie Awards Widget.

Here at The Pixel we’ve made a range of widget applications for Play.com, helping to create a new way for internet customers to shop, experience and enjoy their purchasing. Other examples include our Clothing Widget Application and a large range of e-Catalogues.

If you’d like any further information on what The Pixel can do for you, widgets and all, please don’t hesitate to contact us via The Pixel contact form or call free on 0800 043 1040 for a bit of a chat.

Video games have slowly become as narrative driven as any movie or TV show, and most now feature an array of leading characters and a big fat storyline to boot – which lends itself perfectly to our video banner services.

The Aliens Vs Predator video banner features an eerie starting sound track that explodes into an adrenaline filled action fright-fest, with a combination of real game footage and promotional material, inter-cut with punchy promotional tag-lines.

The Bioshock 2 video banner uses dramatic voiceover footage and menacing game sounds to create an atmospheric and spooky depiction that rings true to game. Cleverly incorporated game reviews are also nested within the action to create an alluring trailer.

The Dante’s Inferno video banner features an apocalyptic score with a dramatic climax that booms out behind old-style textual descriptions. Outer worldly imagery and an intense montage of real game footage and slow motion video create an epic, absorbing experience for the viewer.

If you like the look of what you’ve seen and think your store could benefit from our video banner services, please contact The Pixel – we’ll be happy to have a chat and show you a few more examples of what we can do for you.

‘Backbreaker’ is the upcoming American football game (well it’s not really football is it?) from NaturalMotion. It’s been built using their euphoria engine that uses full 3D character animation to generate animations as the game is played – so every tackle is unique and not a recording.

What this means then, is no more sports stars dressed up in funny tights with sensors strapped to their every orifice. A shame, but nevertheless ‘Backbreaker’ is set to change videogame football forever – and we’re very pleased to be a part of that.

To see our logo animation in action, check out the Natural Motion YouTube Channel. ‘Backbreaker’ is due for a spring 2010 release on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

For more information on the types of video services we offer, check out our Video Banner services page, or contact The Pixel via our contact page.

It’s global – It doesn’t matter if your customers are in Outer Mongolia or inner Macclesfield, your mail-out will reach them for exactly the same cost, in exactly the same condition, and in roughly the same amount of time.

It’s cheaper – Designing and sending an email campaign can be up to 80% cheaper than with a traditional mail campaign, removing costly printing and mailing costs.

It’s interactive – Email campaigns can link to videos, music and even games to grab the attention of your prospective customer.

It’s personal – Clever personalisation of emails using shopping habits and recipient specific details can help to build a rapport with customers that’s simply not cost effective or practical to do with traditional mailing.

Click-throughs – Accurately measure click-through rates to know exactly if what you have sent  has actually worked – near impossible with paper marketing.

Conversion rates – How a person has arrived at your website and what they’ve bought can be analysed to determine the rate in which your marketing campaigns are turning browsers into buyers.

Accuracy – More accurate methods of targeting can be used, based on real-time buying and spending habits of your customers, unlike outdated traditional mailing lists that are often too long in creation to strike while the iron’s hot.

Opt-in or out – Emails can contain opt-in and opt-out options which helps shortlist your prospects to those that are genuinely interested. This is not only useful for sales conversions but also in forming a trusted public image.

Speedy response – The time it takes a customer to respond to an email is the time it takes to read an email and click a mouse, which most customers will do on the day of sending.

So there we have it. Have you got your email marketing campaign up and running yet? Click the following link for more examples of our email marketing campaigns, or the link after to read more on our email marketing services.

The story’s set in a town where food falls from the sky. Flint Lockwood’s an inventor who’s desperate to create something that will improve everyone’s life – and somehow manages to turn water into food.

It’s not a bad idea, but of course there’s quite a lot of water on the planet, most prominently of which the type that falls from the sky. Thus it rains meatballs and various other foodstuffs – to fun and enjoyable effect.

Our Video Banner plays movie footage to entice viewers to buy with real cinematic falling meatballs and such, providing a trailer of the feature film and a big juicy product link.

Video Banners and interactive banners in general are overtaking standard banners in the race for those ever illusive click-throughs and sales conversions, because of their obvious advantages over boring old static banners.

If you would like a banner that leaps off the screen and grabs customers by the metaphorical scruff of the neck, then contact The Pixel and we’ll be happy to help and explain. Or click here to receive a Video Banner quote via our online quote form.

T’was just last year when we all noticed Magento dramatically multiply by the ecommerce dozen, with scores of websites converting to the ecommerce application.

Being curious beings, we at The Pixel set-to with fathoming why this was so. Have no illusions my friends, we know the fabulous reasons why a squire would choose Magento as his honourable ecommerce steed – for it has been said in words of no uncertainly right here: What is Magento?.

But what tickled our fancy most, was finding out if there was just one noteworthy reason that so many websites wish to be transformed. We scoured our own inquires and the internet to conclude that the premier reason was Magento’s ability to help businesses grow faster than dung leaves a stable boy’s shovel.

Think about it for flobs sake! To have all Magento’s features built from scratch, to fit an in-house CMS would cost a million gold sovereigns even if you bartered for an hour!

Bespoke systems are tailored specifically to clients’ requirements – yes we know the advantages, so don’t think we don’t! But place upon your mind that Magento is open source and can be fully customised to the extent of any in-house system, and your reasons for wanting your own individual CMS suddenly become very slim indeed now don’t they?

By increasing  functionality with search engine friendly URLs, Google Analytics integration, batch product updates, sales reports – oh my goodness the list is longer than my mutton chops – without having to fork out huge bags of pennies, your store and sales can grow faster than a piglet squirms from the arms of a butcher.

Ladies, gentlemen, orcs and other – Magento appears to be the chosen platform for growth in 2010. Pray tell your engagements for the new year? May I suggest it be to contact us via our Magento Development Quote Form, call or send all pigeons to the usual address: The Pixel Towers, fifth window on the right.

Why such a high conversion rate? Well our Clothing Widget lets you choose clothes from Play.com’s fabulous range, add them to your virtual wardrobe and then arrange them creatively on a mannequin to see what stylish outfit you’ve selected.

This type of facility allows users to combine different garments much like they would in a changing room in a shop. This in turn helps give the high street shops a run for their money, removing the need to leave the house – thus leading to a lot of people clicking ‘Buy’.

The flashy interface is created using…Flash, and the database using PHP. The main problem we faced when creating such a dynamic system is that all Play.com stock levels and prices are constantly changing based on what users are buying.

Our Clothing Widget automatically connects to the website to constantly update prices and stock, so all the items being browsed are available and display up-to-date prices.

So it really is as good as hitting the high street, and some might say (me) even better as you don’t have to waste time trawling the shops gagging for an overly priced latte.

If you like what you’ve read and think your company might benefit from our services, widgets or not, please take a look at our services pages on the right or just give us a shout from our contact page.

Just take a look at what we’ve done for our clients and friends at Natural Motion, the game developers/animation pioneers. Natural Motion entrusted in us the honour of producing their new logo animation.

The brief was simple; conjure-up some moving-image sorcery that faithfully represented the Natural Motion brand of animation excellence.

So that’s just what we did. It wasn’t easy mind you; quite a few man hours and sore eyes go into producing animations of this visual depth.

Natural Motion showed us examples of what they liked and gave us certain themes that needed to be included. We were then left to our own devices to come up with a storyboard and theme that fitted what they were after.

The client asked specifically for the particle effect that can be seen throughout the background of the animation. Using Adobe After Effects, we used the plug-ins Trapcode Particular for all the abstract design elements which form the glowing wave, and explosion. Trapcode Form was used in the original version to create the exploding sphere.

After several drafts in which various elements/frames were removed on the client’s request, we finally came to a result that everyone was happy with. Click the image below to have a look at the finished result.

For more information about our video services and what we can do for you please click here

The service will be affordable to both small and large businesses, whether new to the internet or established traders, and will feature the vast array of facilities present in the Magento ecommerce platform.

These include: CMS for easy webpage updates, search engine friendly URLs, customer accounts, control of multiple websites from one panel and printed packing slips. For more features take a look here.

With an already established track record of ecommerce success, we’re aiming to bring our development and internet marketing skills to a wider market.

We know how easy it can be to setup an ecommerce store but then not have the knowledge or experience to help that business grow. That’s why many web stores fail: by not optimising correctly or understanding where they need to invest.

Our Magento service combines the fantastic ecommerce application with our own skills and experience, so our clients are not left to tackle the internet on their own.

Please take a look at our website: http://www.thepixel.com/magento/. Here you’ll find all you need to know about Magento and what we can offer.

No? Never-matter, as it’s old hat. Our score of 8.09 was bold enough to defeat all web design specialist foes (and worthy competitors they were…) to gloriously present us with the Site of The Month award. Site of the Day is so last blog.

That’s right, we’re officially the greatest, most expertly designed and bestest written web blog in all the cyber-world – and the most humble.

Just to remind you, as if you didn’t know, The CSS Awards use a strict valuation system and only award the finest, most innovative designers from the web using a panel made up of the most esteemed international judges.

Please don’t just take my trustworthy word, take a peak for yourself right here by taking a leisurely scroll down to the page bottom.

But it hasn’t gone to our heads. We’re just the same old web design and marketing gods that we’ve always been, with our trotters firmly on the gold plated floorboards we’ve just installed in the windmill. So long…