This week we have launched the first phase of our new property website Tepilo, a joint venture with Sarah Beeny.

In the gloomy economic climate, the property market is suffering badly. People want to not only save as much money as possible, but also be in control of the way their property is marketed. Tepilo (an imaginary castle that Sarah's father used to describe to her when she was a child) was set up to give people a new way of buying and selling their property.

This is the first time we have joint ventured with a client for equity in the business rather than agency fees. We have been offered equity deals numerous times before but had always turned them down until now.

Sarah was an existing client who we had worked well with previously and arguably was in a prime position to start an online property business as host of Channel 4's Property Ladder and as one of the most trusted authorities on the UK property market. The brand building exposure she can produce is something that most start-ups lack or cannot afford to generate. The buzz has started already...

• Tepilo on Brand Republic
• Tepilo launch Webcast on Money Supermarket
• Hype on Property Portal Watch
• Tepilo noise on Twitter

As a result some really large brands have already approached us tabling potential partnership deals and mass exposure for the new site. Brand Beeny is certainly opening a lot of doors!

The full site launches in July and we will be hitting the mainstream press at that point as well. Watch this space for more info over the summer. In the meantime I would love to hear your thoughts on our decision to JV on this project - good or bad :)

www.tepilo.com or follow @tepilo on twitter.

Well... actually a Vice Chair. At the BIMA (British Interactive Media Association) AGM last week, David was successfully elected to Vice Chair and will serve with Justin Cooke as Chair. Justin is Managing Director of agency, Fortune Cookie. The executive committee saw 9 new members joining the team.

David said: "We were amazed at the calibre of people standing for election for this year's executive committee. The experience and the will is there to enable us to make some significant changes and re-engage with everyone involved in the industry. This year we want to really push the idea of the UK being a world-class centre for digital innovation and build on the superb work that has been done by BIMA already in fostering future talent among schools. We're also going to really look at how we can bring more benefits to members in the areas of publicity, networking and education."

David joined the BIMA executive committee a year ago. It's great that one of our own has received this accolade from his peers and whilst it means that he'll have to spend less time doing Codegent stuff, we all think that improving the industry in which we all work is a worthy cause and well worth the effort.

BIMA