Don’t worry we’re still alive

Contrary to popular belief we are still keeping busy

It's been a turbulent last few months with some real highs and sadly, some lows. There has been some big changes made inside the company and disappointingly as part of these changes we have had to let a number of staff go which is always a sad time but even more so considering the quality of the staff we had.

However it's not all doom and gloom we've also moved offices into the shiny new Boho Building and we have been given a great opportunity to focus our efforts on our other company WhoCanPlay to build on the successful Alpha test and really get some momentum behind the service and that's what's keeping us busy right now.

So in a nutshell Thap is still here and still doing work but at the moment we are fully committed to delivering WhoCanPlay for at least the next three months. However, if you want to speak to us about a project you have in mind or want to pick our brains then please feel free to give us a shout. At the very least, if we can't be involved, we will make sure we put you in touch with the right people locally.

For now keep an eye on http://www.whocanplay.co.uk and let us know your thoughts.

Cheers

SEO success and web development

Our latest SEO job has proved a success for all

As Adams time is tied up in various projects, organisation and wooing clients with our new time tracker tool (more on that later) as our resident Search Engine Optimiser I have been given the job of updating the News Section. I'm sure Adam will do the odd guest post now and then for those of you who will miss his particular brand of frantic and often late news (just kidding Adam).

So, what have we been up to?

Our latest phase of SEO work for Perry process equipment ltd has come to an end after we helped them not only double their non-paid search traffic but maintain their conversion rates too. Never one to blow our own trumpet but delivered exactly what we promised and helped dramatically cut back on their Google AdWords budget:

We are pleased to have achieved our goals here and proud of the work completed, we not only helped them with SEO but a range of web consultation which proved to invaluable to them.

The New Thap website is on its way but as always Clients come first! Everyone here is excited to see the new design, it should really represent us the way we feel we deserve. Lots of cool features along with rock solid development, great looks and usability. This is one to keep an eye out for, I'll let you know more when I do.

Chronos has had its first outing and is getting fantastic feedback from the customer organisations users. We are almost finished adding the plethora of new features which make Chronos even easier to use and more helpful. Now that Chronos is finding its feet it'll be interesting to see who adopts it and how it grows over time but if the current feedback is anything to go by it looks promising to say the least.

If you want to ask us about anything I've mentioned above or for a free 'SEO health check' then drop an email over to editor@thap.co.uk and I'll do my best to get back with something sensible.

Chronos goes live

Our first Adobe Air application gets released

It's been a long time since the last news update, I know it and you know it so let's not get too hung up about it and just enjoy the news I do have to tell.

There is a lot to tell since last news post, we have submitted our first OJEU (Official Journal of the European Union) tender and should find out the results pretty soon so fingers crossed on that one. We have some interesting projects in the pipeline and as ever they are completely different to everything else we have done before. We have some smaller CMS projects popping up as well which might lead us to creating a little CMS product of our own but only time will tell.

As well as all that at the back end of last month Graham went on a Carson Workshops event to make sure he was on top of his game with UI and UX design. Good news, turns out we are pretty much managing and delivering our projects in the same way as some of the big boys like 37signals are doing it. Also most of the team are off 'networking' next week, I use the term loosely because in actual fact I think it's more of a quest to see an elusive Microsoft Surface, will keep you posted , hopefully with pictures on that one.

There is so much more I have to tell about Kev Mann leaving to go to America, his frantic preparation before going and final curry with the guys before jetting off on his three month tour. There is also the opening of Boho One our soon to be new home in about two months time and a heap of other stuff that I can't remember right now. Rest assured it's been a busy month and a half since the last news.

And finally we have our first product in the public domain and even more shocking it's an Adobe Air application. In a nut shell we've made a time tracking tool, just a really quick easy to use tool to get staff logging their time. The idea is someone sets up the projects and the sub tasks and at a fixed interval the Air app fires up a little notice to get the team member to log what they have been doing for the last hour. It's a pretty easy way to go about doing some time monitoring but also gives a really good log of what can be claimed for R&D. Anyway, I'll post some more about it soon because it already looks as though we have a few people interested and we seem to be adding new features by the day.

If you want to tell me how rubbish I am at updating the news or ask us about anything I've mentioned above then drop an email over to and I'll do my best to get back with something sensible.

North East Digital Awards Winners

Winners of 'Best not-for-profit website' and 'Best Software Solution'

Late as ever but at least I bring good news.

We did really well at this year's North East Digital Awards and scooped two awards for 'Best not-for-profit website' and 'Best Software Solution'.

The North East Digital Awards has been setup to celebrate the excellence of the growing digital industry in the North East of England showcasing the best of the region's digital talent. Last year we were delighted to walk away with 'Best use of advanced practises in web development' and this year we have gone one better and walked away with two new awards for the work we did with the TJFA and Take Publishing.

We've already got our eyes on the awards for next year with the projects we are working on at the moment, so fingers crossed we walk away with even more next year.

A huge thank you to everyone who voted for us and if you want to know anything more about the awards then feel free to drop an email over to .