Jordi Romkema

The majority of this year I have been working on a personal project in my spare time. Some of you might know, but I know most of you don't. I haven't really told a lot of people about this because I didn't want to jinx it. But now the day has finally come that I can say that this project is finally ready to be released online!

The name? Snospace. What is it? It's a mix between a guide for ski and snowboard resorts and an online community. The site offers loads of information about almost every ski and snowboard resort in the world: reviews, videos, photos, statistics, snow reports, weather updates, twitter updates, news articles. Most of these subjects have already been covered by other sites obviously, but the most interesting part will be the community.

As you can imagine, right now at the start the community is still pretty much nonexistent but I invite you to join it as you can do so many things such as uploading photos, importing photos from Flickr, create your own powder tracker (you can use this to check where the fresh snow is falling), create your own SnoMap (and show off where you have been to or what to go to), write reviews, write comments, connect with other members and much more (cliché, I know it... but it's true). You don't have to create an account though, you can also use your Facebook account to log in instead.

You can check it at snospace.com and please spread the word! To get more updates you can also follow @snospace on Twitter or become a fan of the Snospace fan page on Facebook.

Snospace Homepage

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Television show Leukste dorp van Nederland (roughly translated: Best small town in the Netherlands) revolves around the search of the best rural town in The Netherlands. In this show you follow TMF VJ’s Willy and Saar in their search of this special town.

What’s so special about this show? You can follow it on television but also online. People had the chance to submit their own town to TMF and now the 12 best towns have been picked to participate in the show. In each episode the people from these town do their best to get as much points for their assignments. These assignments range from who has the best looking girl in the local supermarket, who can make the most noise with their tractor, etc.

Besides the total score of these towns on television there’s also a big online challenge: To get as many friends on Hyves (biggest social network in The Netherlands). If you have more friends on Hyves, then the town has a bigger chance of winning the race.

After twelve weeks the two best towns will compete with each other in the finals.

Homepage

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SuperNick has returned to Nickelodeon after enormous success of the previous four seasons. SuperNick is a popular Saturday morning live show for kids presented by Terence Scheurs and Patrick Martens.

During SuperNick well known people from the Netherlands visit and are challenged to tell their secrets. Kids compete with each other in a quiz and in the Superrace. In Make Me Famous kids can become a big celebrity through a makeover. The whole shows revolves around a continuous battle: Will the girls or the boys win?

SuperNick homepage

Most of the games in the show require online registration first and therefore a website with a playful layout that matches the decor was needed. The site has been designed by me and built by Fabian Scheepers and Niels Filmer at MTV Networks.

If you have missed an episode you can view it on the Supernick website. Besides the close connection with the television show, the website also offers online games and a weblog containing updates from the presenters.

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Lately I've been working on some SMS to Screen designs. Most of them enable the user to send a text message to a special number and their message will be desplayed on television. To be honest it's not groundbreaking work design-wise, but for me it has been really satisfing seeing my work on television. I'm used to seeing my work online all the time, I remember back when I first started doing web design I got that same excited feeling everytime I put something online. So eventhough these are all small jobs, it's very rewarding seeing your work on national television. Here are some of the latest SMS to Screen designs you might see on Dutch television channel TMF:

Design for television show Kijk dit nou with SMS chat and SMS voting. On air photo here.

Design for the TMF Awards. Breaking news and winners were announced and viewers could chat about these Dutch music awards through text messages.

Design for TMF Chat, a television program with music videos viewers can chat about through text messages.

This post is long overdue since the site I'm about to write about has been online since February this year but I never got around to write about it. The site is called Kijk Dit Nou and plays a vital role in the daily live television show on TMF with the same name. Not to be confused with an earlier post I wrote about Kijk Dit Nou, the site in the previous post is totally different and it has been rebranded as De Loads.

The site is basically a daily updated weblog written by the VJ's/presenters of the show. They write about their life, current events, lifestyle, movies, music and everything else that's interesting for their young viewers. The visitors can decide if a post should be discussed in the show at the end of the day. Visitors are constantly up to date through RSS feeds, Twitter and mobile photo uploads from the VJ's/presenters. The television format thrives on input from the viewers and website visitors and currently has a strong following both online and on air.

Kijk Dit Nou is currently on a summer break but next week they're back online and on air again every day on TMF at 16:30

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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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.

Today we released a new online campaign at MTV for the new XBOX 360 game Fable II. In Fable II every decision you make has consequences for the development of your in-game character. You can be good or evil. Who will you become?

This video based contest revolves around a highly annoying girl, Dorien. She has a special Fable II edition of the XBOX 360 console in her possession. You can win this special edition contest but there’s no way this irritating brat will give it to you. Or is there?

You can be nice or cruel to here, it’s your choice. There are dead ends but you can also end up as the winner! Who will you become?

For my foreign visitors: Finally a site for you to enjoy, it’s all in English!

Credits for this campaign go to: Dorien de Voogt, Allan Sperling, Hessel Roos, Matthijs van Dongen and Jordi Romkema.

Recently TMF launched a new website called Kijk Dit Nou! Roughly translated it means Watch This! It’s a user generated content platform for television channel TMF. However it’s not like YouTube or Vimeo where you can only upload videos but you can also record movies with your webcam and upload audio and photo’s.

The website also plays a supporting role for the television show TMF Reaction . With Kijk Dit Nou! the show becomes more interactive as viewers are encouraged by the presenters to upload their funniest content to be shown on television. Furthermore advertisers can use the new UGC platform for their own campaigns. The webcam recording ability is especially popular among advertisers.

Kijk Dit Nou! - Homepage

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