Brazil bits and bytes

Mr. van Katwijk is in Sao Paulo for the big week, and this is what he can share with us, "Yes, today was the day we have been working very hard towards for the last two months. I still think that given the resources and more importantly the time constraints that we had, we can really be proud of what we have achieved so far.

In reality the site went 'live' last week Friday. Today was the official delivery date for the beta release, and this Wednesday is the official announcement (internal to Abril) about the product launch. The 'hard' (public) launch will be in about two weeks time, though we will scale down the feature set slightly so we can use the remaining time to concentrate on getting the important features working 100% and ironing out some small bugs.

We will also revisit some look-and-feel issues, as the general consensus is that the site currently comes across as being for a young market segment. A new logo and unique catch phrase will be on the cards, and we will focus on delivering a combination of features that on the whole will out-do that of any competitor - a tough challenge but a necessity for a market that locally has a lot of competition.

On the whole, the site is generating some good feedback and only positive suggestions, so all indications are that we are on the right track."

The site will publically available soon once the soft launch period is over. The next few weeks are about testing and refining and then the hard launch will be set in motion and the site will be released to the public here in Brazil.

In my view the site looks stunning and Richard and Neil and everyone on the Abril side have done some amazing work here!

Posted by Ronnie Apteker