We came across these helpful naming convention tips from our friend Henrik de Gyor at Another DAM blog. Note: We’ve made a few changes to Henrik’s post - we couldn’t resist adding a little bit of our own MediaValet flavour.

In order to maximize the value of your digital asset management system, it’s important to create and maintain a clear file naming convention. These simple tips will help you get started:

1. Create a clear naming convention: When you’re creating the convention, think about your company’s current needs, but also keep in mind how your company will evolve and change. Your convention will need to scale alongside it.
2. Distribute your naming convention: Create guidelines and samples for your employees – make sure that there’s only one version of the guidelines and that everyone is informed of changes.
3. Train employees: It’s important that your employees understand and appreciate the role that they’ll play in the new naming convention. Training is a great way to answer employees’ questions and to make sure that everyone is clear on how to use the guidelines. Remember – training should be fun as well as educational!
4. Evaluate employees: An informal evaluation at the end will help you ensure that your training was effective.
5. Follow the convention after you’ve trained and evaluated employees.
6. Monitor progress: Monitor employees’ use of the convention. There are bound to be a few mistakes, and when this happens, you can simply follow up with the employee to clarify the importance of the guidelines, and answer any questions they might have.

Microsoft Azure, the cloud platform on which MediaValet is based, is named the fastest cloud based service by Information Week.

In a comparative measure of cloud service providers, Microsoft's Windows Azure has come out ahead. Azure offered the fastest response times to end users for a standard e-commerce application.

Please click here to read the entire article.

This Cloud Insights article outlines some of the environmental benefits of moving to the cloud.

Proponents of the notion that cloud computing delivers green benefits have developed a compelling argument. Based on the idea that the cloud represents the most efficient way of providing compute resources, the starting point for the green cloud argument is illustrated in the following well known graphic. In the figure, Amazon has drawn a capacity-utilization curve to demonstrate how on-demand services more closely align with actual usage – thereby avoiding the over-provisioning of computing resources.

Please click here to read the entire article.

An astute commentary on cloud computing by Mark Beaumont describes how cloud computing can provide a competitive advantage for today's corporation.

Cloud computing is a hot topic at the moment, and for good reason. With it, companies have the potential to gain competitive advantages that could make a real difference to business performance.

Whether shorter time to market; services that can be quickly turned up or down; or reduced upfront IT costs, to name but a few. Yet despite its continued evolution, concerns remain. Is cloud computing secure? Will it provide reliable availability? Can an organization maintain control over business-critical systems and data that exist in the cloud?

Click here to view the entire blog post on ECM Plus.

Microsoft announced today that they’ve added Moscow to their extensive network of nodes that make up the Windows Azure Content Delivery Network (CDN). Microsoft continues to show their commitment to expanding their CDN in support of the Windows Azure Cloud Platform as they continue to add physical nodes to their global CDN. In the fourth quarter of 2010, Microsoft added Seoul and Taipei, the 21st and 22nd nodes, with Moscow bringing the total number to 23 this month.

To see a list of all 23 nodes, click here.

Since the Windows Azure platform became generally available one year ago, it has been adopted by customers across 41 countries who are creating new services and gaining greater efficiencies as they take their companies to the cloud. Among them, T-Mobile USA and Xerox have moved to the Windows Azure platform to address customer needs quickly with innovative solutions that are cost effective and reliable. You can read more about these customer stories and the one-year anniversary in a press release here. To learn about VRX Studios, MediaValet and other companies who have deployed the Windows Azure platform, click here.

We couldn't resist posting this blog post from Engaget:

UN: Worldwide Internet Users Hit Two Billion, Cellphone Subscriptions Top Five Billion

The UN's International Telecommunication Union predicted last fall that the number of internet users worldwide would hit two billion by the end of 2010, and it's now issued its full report that confirms just that -- 2.08 billion, to be specific...

Click here to read the entire blog post on Engaget.

Henrik de Gyor wrote an excellent article entitled, How Can I Measure DAMS Progress, in April 2009 that is still very relevant today. In his article, Henrik discusses how to measure the success of a DAM initiative by tracking a variety of metrics using your DAMS’ reporting feature. Here are several of the metrics he recommends tracking on an on-going basis (and we agree whole heartedly):

• How many active DAM users do you have?
• How many departments or groups in your organization use your DAMS?
• Who are the most active groups or users?
• How many assets are being ingested into your DAMS?
• How many assets are catalogued?
• How many assets are being downloaded from your DAMS?
• What type of asset is the most popular download?
• When does the activity in your DAM peak?
• Where are the most active users of your DAMS located geographically?

We came across this blog post on TopRank, a blog about online marketing and SEO, and we thought you might enjoy it:

5 Ways to Show Digital Assets a Little Respect

Don’t fight it: Blended search results, and hence digital asset optimization, are here (at least for now).

Text content may be your SEO poster child, but with images, video and audio content often appearing in standard search results, digital assets can no longer be treated as the ugly stepsister in the online marketing family. Many companies produce a variety of content and media that never make it to the public web.

To this point, the majority of marketers have either overlooked or ignored optimization of non-text digital assets.

As part of Microsoft’s Real World Windows Azure series, the Azure team spoke with our CEO, David MacLaren, about why VRX Studios chose to use the Windows Azure platform for MediaValet. To read what he had to say, click here.