Exciting times here at Codegent, we've just completed and launched a new website for Nickelodeon.

Nickelodeon presented us with an interesting challenge, they needed a website that could showcase their on-air summer content. This content consisted of (amongst other things) a competition to find SpongeBob Square Pants' biggest fan. Here's an example of one of our favourite entries so far. The other main part of the site was TEENick, a magazine style show aimed at teenage girls.

The challenge came in finding a way to create a cohesive site that would encourage the 2 different audiences to engage and interact with these seemingly disparate elements.

We wanted to incentivise people to travel through to the different parts of the site so we designed 5 SpongeBob cards that we 'hid' on various pages. When a user found a card they could click on it and were then given the option to download and print the card. 4 of the 5 cards incorporated a marker which, when printed and held up to a webcam, would display a 2D message from a character from SpongeBob. Finding the fifth card unlocked an augmented reality, 3D SpongeBob which the user could interact with by pressing their space bar. You can view a demo of the SpongeBob AR here:

These cards helped us to tie the site together and to generate page impressions, however we didn't want to incentivise people to travel through the site if we couldn't be sure that they were engaging with the content, so we constructed a points system that rewarded good behaviour, such as commenting, rating entries, entering the competition etc. Points are accumulated during the visit and when you reach certain milestones you unlock Nickelodeon 'goodies'.

We also wanted the user to feel a bond with the site which is why we added a badge creator. This allows users to create a badge with their unique username and design, this badge is displayed whenever they leave comment on an article. Here's an example of the badges in action.

The competition has had hundreds of entries and from the stats we've got so far, page impressions and time spent on site is looking good. The augmented reality aspect has had great feedback in terms of how it looks but also how it gives the user something new, exciting and valuable in exchange for their time and attention.

Definitely something we want to do again soon!

Is that a Jeroboam of champagne in your pocket or are you just pleased to see us?!!

Last night codegent scooped the FITC Award for Motion Graphics for our work with 40|30 at The Gherkin.

We beat off some really strong competition to win this award as we were short-listed with Coca-Cola and Warner Brothers so a huge congratulations to the codegent team for an amazing job – it makes me really proud!

Next up: the Webbys! You can help us put our trophy cabinet under further strain as there is also People’s Choice Award - you can cast your vote at http://pv.webbyawards.com. Our nomination section is Website » Ballot » Marketplace » Restaurant or click this link to go direct (you have to login first).

I'm off to iron my tux...

Wow! We are one of only a few UK based agencies to be included in this year's prestigious Webby Awards for our work on 40|30 at The Gherkin.

Hailed as the "Internet's highest honor" by the New York Times, The Webby Awards is the leading international award honouring excellence on the Internet.

"Nominees like Codegent are setting the standard for innovation and creativity on the Internet," said David-Michel Davies, executive director of the Webby Awards. "It is an incredible achievement to be selected among the best from the nearly 10,000 entries we received this year."

In a similar vein to our FITC Award nomination, we also eligible to win a Webby People's Voice Award, which is voted online by the global community. From now until 30 April, you can cast your vote at http://pv.webbyawards.com.

Our nomination section is Website » Ballot » Marketplace » Restaurant or click this link to go direct (you have to login first)

I can't believe it's the second time I am asking this in a month but if you could take a few minutes out to vote for us then I think you improve your chances of a place in Heaven ever so slightly :)

It's an amazing time for us right now and I cannot think of a better way to celebrate our 5th birthday on 1 May! We are so proud of the team that worked on this project.

We fly out to Toronto on Monday for the FITC awards...

The following email snippet was joyous music to our ears...

Congratulations!

You are one of the finalists for the FITC 2009 Awards!

Your project: 40|30, The Gherkin, 30 St Mary Axe
Has been nominated in the Category: Flash Motion Graphics

Our Awards show is on April 27th in Toronto and it will be during the show that the winners will be announced. So good luck!

To say we are a bit pleased would be an understatement. It's a great honour to be shortlisted at the awards for such a major flash event but we are up against some pretty stiff competition in Coca-Cola and Warner Bros. Fingers firmly crossed!

But you can help!

In addition to the formally judged categories there is a people's choice award - you could do us a massive favour and vote for us here. We will love you forever and ever if you do!

AS3 for Flash Player 9 is so amazing. Everyday people around the world discover new things in it to play around with and the performance is a big bonus for developers. Today I found a site that has benchmarks on each animation tool in Flash (including AS2 too). The performance for the new tweening tool is very impressive and this site demonstrates how it works really well. Check out codegent's own performance test using Baked Beans! (Requires Flash Player 9 to be installed)

More power, more creativity.

A lot of 3d flash is, "Flash for Flash's sake". Often the ability to spin something around, outweighs the consideration whether or not we should spin something around. Here's a great example of how 3D enhances the experience, in fact the experience is so seamless you almost forget that you are operating in a 3D space.