The web content management system Cmsbox has won the Red Dot Design Award 2009. The team from the young Swiss company Cmsbox impressed the international jury with its interface design. "Our aim was to develop an application that is almost invisible," says Simon Raess, Application Designer at Cmsbox. This allows users to edit their content directly on their own website.
The Red Dot seal of quality is awarded every year in a worldwide competition. This year, a jury of 18 international design experts had to decide on the design quality of more than 6,000 entries from 42 countries as part of the Red Dot Award: Communication Design. A total of 471 entries were honored.

That's how quickly science fiction can become reality. Two years ago, the search engine multinational launched the Google Maps service on the Internet. Now it is already possible to navigate three-dimensionally through the streets of Bern, Zurich, Winterthur and Geneva. Around a large media conference at its European headquarters in Zurich, Google today launched the Street View service. After millions of photos have been taken in recent months with the special cameras mounted on a car, sights, restaurants, hotels or the future residential district can now be beamed onto any computer or even cell phone with a simple click of the mouse thanks to 360-degree images. Street View can be found at Maps.google.ch. There it is enough to place the small orange man, located on the left under the command bar of the map, on one of the streets that appear in blue. How to navigate there and even zoom in on details is explained on the Info Site explained in detail. A simple trick is also to simply zoom in to the largest possible zoom on the previous maps, then the image automatically jumps to Street View.

For the realization of this new service in Switzerland, Google worked closely with the national data protection commissioner. With this in mind, all faces and car numbers were pixelated with a specially developed tool and thus made unrecognizable. "Everything is compliant with the law," Raphael Leiteritz, Product Manager Europe for Google Maps, was able to confirm at the launch. Anyone who nevertheless feels that their privacy has been violated will find the "Report a problem" button next to the images. A special team at Google then immediately clarifies the case and can remove unwanted images with a "very simple tool." Conversely, users can upload their own photos of details or even historical shots of a particular address. These are then integrated into the system. "Google provides the basic service, then the Internet can continue to play the idea interactively," is the philosophy here.
Homegate.ch and Switzerland Tourism are also enthusiastic about the new possibilities. The two launch partners have also integrated Street View into their own websites with immediate effect. With the pictorial addition, potential buyers or tenants can "virtually explore the surroundings of their new apartment," says Urs Hügli of Homegate. Thomas Winkler from Switzerland Tourism demonstrated how prospective buyers can already look at www.myswitzerland.ch can test whether they like the view from the balcony of the vacation home. So far, the tourist regions in the Drei-Seen-Land, Thun, Grindelwald, and Interlaken have been developed.
Street View is also practical if you want to find out whether there are parking facilities, restaurants or stores at a particular address. In the future, online media will be able to use Street View to virtually place the scene of a news story next to it for their own research. Because Google offers the service free of charge for integration also on other platforms or private web pages, like Google Maps, which are already integrated on 150000 partner sites. Which cities will follow in the future and when, Google did not want to announce at the current time. Likewise there is no information about the costs of the gigantic project. It is financed by the advertising generated by Google.

Andreas Panzeri

Marius Born will take over as editor-in-chief of "Eco" on December 1, 2009. The 40-year-old succeeds Kurt Schaad, who will produce a series of reports on Africa for SF in the run-up to the World Cup. Marius Born has already worked as a freelancer for various Swiss television editorial teams ("10vor10", "Reporter", "Eco"). In this role, he accompanied the launch of "ECO" in the fall of 2007 and has been a freelance author for the business magazine ever since.
After studying business administration, Marius Born worked as a management assistant for IBM in New York. He entered the world of business journalism as an editor at Cash-TV, where he later took on the role of producer/recording manager. Parallel to his work as a journalist, he set up his own production company in 2003. Marius Born is also a lecturer in television and photojournalism at the Institute for Applied Media Studies in Winterthur and at Maz in Lucerne.

With the launch of Street View in Switzerland, you can now take a virtual stroll through local cities. The images are quite sharp and everything is recognizable. What about privacy protection? Aha, a click on the Google info page shows that the search engine giant has also thought about this. "Learn how Google protects your privacy" is the promising message on the homepage. Firstly, images are not displayed in real time, but are edited first. Secondly, people would be made unrecognizable. However, the third point shows that you can't really rely on this: request the removal of an image. This means that if you want to be sure that you are not included, you have to take matters into your own hands. Constantly searching all the places where you have been in the last few months seems - to put it mildly - a bit cumbersome.
The only real solution is presented by the fictitious news channel Onion Network News. If you want to effectively protect yourself against Google's data collection mania, you have the option of being transported to the remote "Opt-Out Village", where you are guaranteed to no longer be spied on. The video below explains exactly what a drop-out can expect in the "Google-free village". Interested parties can contact Google via the "Opt-Out" function on the Google homepage, or follow the newsreader's advice and ask a friend for help via email - Google will be in touch shortly.

Google Opt Out Feature Lets Users Protect Privacy By Moving To Remote Village

McCann Erickson Switzerland is strengthening its management, consulting and creative teams. Katharina Lohse comes on board as the new CEO and will relieve Beat Mühlemann, who will take over the position of Chairman. Lohse was most recently Managing Director of various international and national clients of McCann Erickson Frankfurt, including Credit Suisse. Katharina Lohse's other positions include Publicis, where she was responsible for Procter and Gamble and Draft FCB. At the same time, Susanne Jungbluth has been appointed from Joint Managing Director to Managing Director Zurich.

The advertising subjects that Euro RSCG Zurich designed for the Cantina restaurant show vegetables with human characteristics that are almost looking forward to becoming part of one of the menus served in the Cantina restaurant. Carrots willingly lie under the knife and onions jump martyr-like into the chopper. According to the advertisers, the images, which can be seen in print and in the cinema, are a cheerful and grotesque reminder that Italian cuisine stands and falls with the quality of the ingredients used. By the way: no vegetables had to "suffer" for the photos, the images were taken purely digitally.

Responsible at Commercio Piccadilly: Nicolas von Graffenried, Corinne Sutter (advertising management). Responsible at Euro RSCG Zurich: Axel Eckstein (CD), Philipp Lengyel (AD), Wolfgang Bark (text), Roswitha Brülisauer (graphics), Anna Colby (art buying), Sarah Gianesi, Walter Tagliaferri (consulting), Frank Bodin (overall responsibility). CGI studio: MDI Digital Ltd. visualization: Mat Dartford, Alex Jefferies.

The Swiss bed manufacturer Robusta has had its Swiss Line product line repositioned by the BSSM advertising agency. The range includes mattresses and insert frames and is sold throughout Europe via specialist retailers. Key visuals, a product brochure, POS measures and other advertising materials were developed in line with the Swiss Line brand name and its Swiss origin. The agency also created new product names for the mattress line.

Responsible at BSSM, Basel: Urs Schneider (CD), Hannes Müller (text), Pascal Rehmann (AD), Roger Berthoud, Sylvia Halbeisen (consulting), Ralph Lehner (photography). Image processing: Detail, Zurich.

The Rhaetian Railway (RhB) has to look for a new Head of Sales and Marketing. Executive Board member Jacques Hefti is leaving the railroad company at the end of August for personal reasons and is taking a new direction. The 46-year-old took over the Sales and Marketing division, which also includes train crews, in September 2007. Until a successor is elected by the Board of Directors, Piotr Caviezel, Head of Sales Switzerland/International, will manage the division with a total of 190 employees, as the RhB announced on Tuesday.

The Eastern Swiss company Quickmail, which belongs to MS Mail Service, is now planning to definitively launch in the letter segment over 50 grams in the cantons of St. Gallen, Appenzell (AI/AR) and parts of the canton of Thurgau in October 2009. At a conference held on Tuesday, Quickmail Managing Director Christof Lenhard explained the concept of the new letter delivery company. The service provider does not see itself as a competitor to traditional postal and contracting companies, but rather as a supplement and alternative for mail order companies, retail chains, charitable organizations and other companies. The service includes the delivery of addressed mailings, catalogs and customer magazines. There is also the option of tracking bulk mailings. Delivery is concentrated on the two weekdays Thursday and Friday.
A sorting center is opened at Quickmail's headquarters in St. Gallen. The delivery area is to be continuously expanded. The aim is to cover over 85 percent of all households by 2010. Within three years, 300 jobs are to be created, 120 of them at the St. Gallen site.

Since Monday, Blick am Abend has also been available in the St. Gallen, Zug and Lucerne regions with its own local section. Scholz & Friends Zurich is advertising the evening newspaper on billboards, at railroad stations and on public transport to mark the expansion of the territory. The claim "Hier steht, was geht" developed in 2008 is being continued. With blackberry-colored advertising material with headlines such as "From 4 p.m. the evening becomes more colorful" and "The daily pit stop in the evening", the free commuter newspaper is to be positioned as a colorful enrichment for the evening.

Responsible at the Blick Group, Ringier: Corina E. Schneider (Head of Reader Market), Marie-Eve Aegerter (Head of Advertising). Responsible at Scholz & Friends Zurich: Uli Geiger, Pascal Baumgartner, Mathias Rösch (consulting), Joerg Jahn, Markus Hammer, Teresa von Einem, Conrad Malcher (creation).

The Wunderman agency has launched a campaign for Phonak Switzerland in collaboration with Disney Pixar. The campaign uses images from the latest animated film "Oben" to promote the hearing aids of the Stäfner company. The 78-year-old hearing aid wearer Carl Frederiksen can be seen attaching balloons to the roof of a house and flying off together with the house. The advertising material is intended to show that it is never too late to discover a new world. Modern hearing aids can also turn old age into an experience and bring back long-forgotten sounds, the message goes.
Potential customers are encouraged to take a hearing test or try out a device via direct mailings, advertisements, outdoor and POS measures in specialist stores. The competition prize is a balloon flight. The campaign was developed centrally in Switzerland for Phonak and made available globally to the national companies.

Responsible at Phonak: Simon Stauber (Director Marketing Communication), Adrian Hunn (Marketing Manager), Kathrin Aebersold (Marketing Management Phonak Switzerland). Responsible at Walt Disney Motion Pictures, Switzerland: Christian Baur (Product Manager Disney Studios). Responsible at Wunderman: Rahel Güttler (Consulting), Renato Di Rubbo (Managing Director), Michael Gallmann (AD), Nora Angstmann (Graphics), Samuel Textor/Patrick Erni (Text), Roger Rüegger (CD).

Swiss newspapers and magazines earned significantly less from advertising in July. Revenues amounted to a total of CHF 79 million. This corresponds to a decrease of 22.7 percent compared to the same month last year, as reported by Wemf AG für Werbemedienforschung on Tuesday. Job advertisements were particularly lacking. Here, income shrank by 44.8 percent to CHF 9.8 million. Property advertisements fell by 18.5 percent to 4.4 million francs.
Commercial advertising fell by 17.9 percent to CHF 61.9 million. There were also fewer brochure inserts last month. Here, income fell by exactly one fifth to CHF 2.8 million. Of all media types, the Sunday press suffered the biggest drop with a fall of over 35 percent. The regional weekly press, on the other hand, fared less badly, with advertising revenues falling by 1.5 percent. The 22.9% drop in the daily press was just above the average for the titles included in the advertising statistics.