Jordi Romkema

Just a quick message here! I haven't been able to blog for a while: it's been hectic at work as usual and also because me and my girlfriend bought a new house. So we're busy choosing a kitchen, bathroom, decoration, furniture, etc. Fun stuff, but also less fun stuff such as taxes, payments, mortgage. Our new home is still under construction, from time to time I post pictures on my Facebook account.

Something totally different that I wanted to share: This Friday I'll be giving a presentation at the Adobe User Group meeting in Amsterdam. Theme for this meeting is Young Talent and they asked me to show some stuff from my portfolio. So that's what I'll be doing For those interested, it starts at 12:30. You can get more information at the Adobe User Group website. The presentation will be in Dutch.

Next time I promise to write a little more, but for now this'll do

Recently we at MTV Networks launched a big SpongeBob SquarePants vertical in The Netherlands at www.spongebob.nl. The Dutch SpongeBob website is an online fanclub facilitated to kids so that they can soak up everything about Spongebob and the other characters such as Patrick, Sandy, Mr. Krabs, Plankton, Squidward and Gary. The content on the website varies deeply from regular online games to complete episodes, coloring pages, but you can also register yourself as a genuine SpongeBob fan!

Strategically the most important goals for the site are: supporting local marketing initiatives such as special episodes, 10 year anniversary of Spongebob and increasing (online) brand engagement. Also, the local webshop (nickshop.nl) is featured heavily throughout the website to increase awareness for all the cool SpongeBob gadgets and gifts out there.

Later this year the site is planned to be expanded with weblogs from the creators and an achievements system for the registered fans.

The site has been designed by me with the absolutely fantastic help of Roy Schieving (Design Intern) and has been built by Niels Filmer (Developer) and Fabian Scheepers (Developer).

Homepage

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Last weekend I finally had the chance to upload the photos we made during our last vacation to my Flickr photostream. We went on a ski road trip through the United States passing through Utah, Nevada and California visiting several ski resorts such as Northstar-at-Tahoe, Heavenly, Mammoth, Brian Head, Brighton, Deer Valley, Snowbasin, The Canyons, Solitude and Powder Mountain.

Besides skiing we also visted Las Vegas, Salt Lake City and many other attractions and parks such as Death Valley and Antelope Island. For the full collection, click here to see all photos from the road trip.

Good news, I'm back home again! So this site will hopefully come back to life again. Right now I'm trying to sort through all of my vacation photos so I can upload them on Flickr. Besides, there are still a million things on my todo list so it might take a while!

On a work related note, stay tuned for spongebob.nl

Hey everybody. It's been a while since I posted but I've been really busy lately. Not only with work but me and my girlfriend also bought a new house so that's taking up a large chunk of our time. To make things even more hectic: Next Friday we're going skiing (3 weeks) in Salt Lake City and the Lake Tahoe area, but also visiting Las Vegas for some much needed rest in between. After our skiing trip we're also going to New York for a week so it looks like there won't be many new posts in the next month

Anyway, I'll keep you updated with pictures when I return and promise to write something when I come home!

We’re currently looking for a Web Developer Intern for our Digital Media department at MTV Networks in Amsterdam. So if you study and live in The Netherlands and you are interested, please read on… Read the rest... »

I use Google Analytics for my own site and other sites I work on as well. But I never quite figured out how to get an overview with exit links in Google Analytics. Sure, there is the list of exit pages. But that doesn't tell you exactly where the user has gone to. I googled for a solution and found this wonderful piece of javascript from Danny Ng. I prefer working with the Prototype javascript framework and therefore I decided to rewrite it. Read the rest... »

It’s probably a safe bet to say that this is my last blog post of 2008. Therefore I would like to take this opportunity to wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a fantastic 2009!

See you next year!

The last few weeks of 2008 is generally the perfect time to look back to all the wonderful things we have done in the last year. Some of the things were successes and were celebrated but some of the things aren’t as visible as others. That’s why the company I work for, MTV Networks, decided to create the MTV Networks Awards. It’s an awards ceremony for MTV Networks employees to raise awareness throughout the company of the successes individuals or teams have had in the last year. There are three categories in which every employee could nominate individuals or teams. Then a shortlist was made with three nominees in each category.

A website was created and designed by me where everybody could vote for their favorite nominee. Each category has its own logo, here are the three categories:

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Superster The Family Battle is an exciting television program and singing contest on Nickelodeon. In Superster The Family Battle kids (8 to 14 years old) sing together with one or more family members. The best family will win the Superster trophy and a special live performance on another popular Nickelodeon television show, SuperNick.

The contest exists of two weeks of auditions, 5 weeks of live shows, two live semi finals and one spectacular finale. The show can be seen every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday at 7.20 PM on Nickelodeon in The Netherlands. Each episode is 12 minutes, short but very powerful!

Each week there will be three battles: on Monday there will be the singing battle, on Tuesday the dancing battle and on Wednesday they have to bring those components (sing and dance) together in the ultimate battle. Then the jury chooses which family can continue to the semi finals.

The finale consists of three spectacular family performances. Three families will battle each other by delivering their ultimate performance!

The website closely follows all participants. Kids can participate in quizzes, watch backstage videos and view profile of all the candidates. They can also leave messages for the different families, the presenter and for the jury members. The Superster The Family Battle was designed by me and built by Desk02.