Apple’s iconic smartphone has been known to win hearts and minds, but can it also save lives? Apparently it can, according to this story from NBC Miami.

American Dan Woolley of Colorado Springs was caught in the collapse of the Hotel Montana in Port-au-Prince after the Haiti earthquake struck last week. He used a medical application he had downloaded and the light from his iPhone to diagnose and treat injuries to his foot and head, and to help prevent going into shock.

He also used the phone’s camera to map his surroundings and identify a safer location to await rescue, which followed 65 hours after the earthquake. Woolley is now recovering at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami.

It’s an amazing story that underscores both Woolley’s resourcefulness and the transformative power of those handheld computers in our pockets — which can perhaps even have the power to save a life.

[via TUAW]

Tags: haiti, iphone, iphone apps, medical, trending

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A good story has a lot in common with a good marketing presentation, and one of the best ways to deliver your marketing message is in the form of a story. It’s how you turn advertising into content, and content into a memorable experience. Web marketing presentations must engage, enlighten, entertain, and above all be memorable. If you leave out any of these elements your presentation will suffer.

The Dog Ate My Homework

We’re all familiar with the kid who goes to school without his homework and blames poor Fido for his trouble. It’s familiar to the point of being hackneyed, but let’s give Fido a break and blame something else, like maybe the young man’s computer. Who hasn’t lost some important work because they pressed the wrong function key, or maybe their laptop was infiltrated by HAL from “2001 A Space Odyssey,” or perhaps they just bought the wrong computer. That’s the story Apple tells in this very clever Switch Campaign commercial.

Apple Switch Campaign

Mac switch Ad – Apple Ellen Feis ‘the original’

Why The Technique Works

1. The Story

Using a story-style presentation provides a framework and structure for delivering a marketing message. All stories must have a beginning, middle, and end; in other words, they must take the viewer from one mental position to another. Marketing stories need to move your audience from curious to motivated. It’s a simple concept to grasp, but not so simple to execute.

One method of peaking an audience’s curiosity is to build your story around a relatable scenario or incident like the computer/dog ate my homework. It provides common ground between the seller and the buyer, and generating common ground is essential to all negotiations. And for online marketers, Web video presentations can be that first step in completing a successful sale’s negotiation.

2. The Storyteller

A story is only as good as the storyteller. It’s the storyteller’s character and style that engages an audience and connects to them on an emotional level, a level that brings believability and personality to the presentation.

There is a common misconception regarding the relationship between reality, acceptance, and motivation in advertising. It’s currently trendy to use client-generated content in advertising, and real employees as corporate spokespersons. Occasionally it does work but for the most part it is a mistake. Great advertising isn’t real, it’s hyper-real: hyperrealism is a communication approach that generates desire and motivates action by presenting a stylized version of reality through a more focused perspective that cannot be achieved by true reality. Reality is messy and confused; hyper-reality is concentrated and clear, and when it comes to marketing messages, concentrated and clear is the goal.

3. The Performance

A great concept, a well-written script, and superior production will still fail if the performance is lacking. The ability to communicate using verbal and non verbal performance skills in front of a camera is not something that should be left to amateurs – after all, it’s your identity and brand image that’s at stake.

The capacity to sell on a one-on-one basis, or even the ability to effectively deliver a speech in front of a live audience is not the same as performing for a camera. A video camera magnifies your appearance, your behavior, and any physical, verbal, or performance flaws you may have. But it’s not just a case of looking good, having a good voice, and getting through a script without stumbling over the words, it’s about leaving a memorable impression and that requires the unique ability to deliver a message with suitable personality and panache. On the Web, boring is as detrimental as incompetent.

4. Solve The Puzzle. Find The Gestalt.

Everyone has heard the expression “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” In the same way a pixel by itself is meaningless but viewed with a lot of other pixels it forms a picture. It’s a simplified version of the Gestalt philosophy that is the basis of a lot of creative thinking. The Gestalt approach stresses the human mind’s search for meaning in patterns. It’s a hardwired survival technique our ancestors needed to learn.

The human mind automatically wants to solve a puzzle, fill-in the blanks, or resolve a discrepancy. Those who couldn’t figure-out the sound in the bushes was something dangerous didn’t survive to procreate, and evolution did the rest. It’s something we needed to learn, and something that is ingrained in our psyche.

The Switch Ad never comes right out and says buy a MAC, the young lady just tells us a story and let’s us come to our own conclusion. By making the audience work at coming to their own conclusion rather than hitting them over the head with an obvious sales pitch, the message becomes much more powerful, and makes a much more memorable impression.

5. A Story With A Twist – Not In This Weather

The following Mercedes Benz commercial is structured very similarly to the joke in the opening paragraph of this article: it tells us a story with a clever twist.

It never verbally mentions the product and it allows the audience to put the puzzle pieces together without coming right out with a sales pitch. It’s clever, it’s smart, it’s sexy, and it has impact. In short, it too, is a Killer Campaign commercial.

Not in this weather! (Mercedes Benz Banned Commercial):

6. Where You End Is Where You Start

The next video illustrates how to combine a story scenario with a memorable tagline. The tagline is your brand destination: it’s the short form mnemonic that people use to remember your company. Finding the right tagline to end your video is the best place to start when developing a campaign.

In this case the campaign uses taboo language to punctuate the stories’ tagline. It’s funny, bold, and provides an unexpected shock. Like it or not, you’ll remember it.

Cause If It Ain’t Memorable, It Ain’t Content

The WaySpa.com campaign of a few years ago was a hysterically funny series of videos all based on presenting bold, relatable stories, superior storytellers, topnotch performances, and a “can’t believe he actually said that!” tagline.

In addition, this campaign squarely comes to grips with the idea that you have to give something up in order to gain something in return. Some people will absolutely hate this series of videos, but those that get it, will forever have the brand image embedded in their minds. All too often marketing fails because companies try to appeal to everyone, and that is an unachievable objective. It is a blueprint bound to lead to boring, uninspired, and instantly forgettable advertising.

Television has rules and broadcasters are licensed, so advertisers inherently lean towards the bland and innocuous so as not to offend anyone. Instead they rely on repetition and sound compression (make it loud) techniques to the point of psychological torture. The Web is different, your audience is not a captive of primetime programming and can choose what to watch and when, and most importantly, they expect you to provide a memorable experience, or they’ll never come back.

WaySpa Video Campaign THIS VIDEO CONTAINS R-RATED LANGUAGE, DO NOT WATCH IF OFFENDED.

WaySpa Forgot Video:

People are always willing to listen to an interesting, funny, or entertaining story, so if you have trouble getting potential customers to listen and remember what you have to say, then you should consider using the story technique as a way to get your message across. Wrapping your marketing message in a metaphorical story scenario is just one way a company can turn advertising in content and content into a memorable experience.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Killer Campaigns Volume 3 – Tell A Memorable Story

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What’s one of the single biggest media explosions of the past couple months? How about James Cameron’s massively epic Avatar? Aside from the much-documented use of Papyrus for the film’s logo, it was a pretty incredible film, especially from a visuals perspective (I thought the story was good, but not outstanding). This movie is about a lot more than the story, though. It’s all about the incredible digital creation of an entire digital world.

When I watched the film last week, I was really struck by the vastness of Pandora (especially since it’s only a moon), and the incredible imagination that went into the design of the various creatures. I don’t even know what too call most of them, but they all seemed to have their basic form in animals I recognized. There were giant beasts that looked like a highly modified rhino, smaller predators that ran like wolves in a pack, and a much larger predator that was like some sort of giant black panther on some powerful, mutating steroid (one of my personal favorites).

Obviously, though, one of the biggest parts of this budding franchise is the Na’vi, those wonderfully blue indigenous people of Pandora, who call themselves the People and are the guardians of their beloved world. It seems to me that these people have already completely captured the minds of the worldwide Avatar audience, and that this film could very easily establish an enduring legacy that will implant itself firmly in our cultural consciousness.

Just look at some of these examples of stunning fan art:

Neytiri by Orpheelin

Princess of the Omaticaya

Avatar Wallpaper

-Avatar-

Avatar

Na’vi

Avatar Na’vi

AVATAR

Neytiri

Jake Sully

There are some beautiful images here (and you can see even more below), and the implications of all these creations and astounding. The film has only been out for around one month, and many people have already seen it multiple times. I went to see it with a friend, and am considering going back to see it with my wife.

The film and it’s story appear to have already pieced deeply into our cultural fabric, and while I’m not certain that there is anything in the film quite as iconic as a character like Darth Vader or Yoda, the plethora of fan images and frenzy of discussion and activity surrounding the film will grow beyond the screen. I personally expect to see the foundation of an entire franchise, complete with novelizations, graphic novels, toys, possibly a cartoon series. I would even expect to see some sort of cinematic sequel, despite the massive cost of creating the first one.

Of course, the Na’vi people are at the very center of all of this, as we can see through even more artistic renditions of them:

Na’vi

DERP NA’VI OC

jake sully

Neytiri

Neytiri

The Na’vi Connection

neytiri avatar

Avatar’s Na’vi

Jake Sully Study

Neytiri

The immense popularity of these people raises some very interesting questions about exoticism and the human condition. I tried to include mostly original paintings and drawings here, but if you take even a quick look around deviantArt, you can easily find all sorts of instances where people have actually manipulated self-portraits in order to transform themselves into Na’vi.

This is nothing new, really. For years, there has been an entire sub-genre of fantasy in which people envision different types of humanoid creatures (often cat-like), in an effort to push past the mundane every-day-ness of their own humanity. It’s basically a form racial escapism (which is different from racism, since we are accepting that all of humanity encompasses a single race).

The very premise of the Avatar film takes this to a whole new level, though, since one of the key elements actually involves humans using technology to grow Na’vi bodies and temporarily transfer their consciousness into that body. It’s the ultimate fictional realization of this form of escapism! I think that this is at least part of the reason why these blue people, and the film surrounding them is proving so popular.

Avatar: Jake and Neytiri

Neytiri

My Na’vi

Na’vi

Neytiri

Ultimately, I see everything that’s going on here as a designer’s dream, albeit through a very specific form of design. I haven’t seen any interviews or special features myself, but I know enough about the special effects world to also know that hours and hours and hours of work must have actually gone into designing the Na’vi as a race. They had to look distinctly alien and foreign, but still resemble humans and be attractive enough for the audience to be drawn into their world.

It must have taken a significant investment, by a large number of incredibly talented people to bring the Na’vi from a conceptual people to an entire race of fully rendered digital characters.

Now imagine one of your own designs reaching such a level of cultural success as Avatar seems to be destined for. Perhaps it’s a logo that becomes as renowned as the Nike swoosh or McDonald’s golden arches. Or maybe it’s a poster that becomes so well known that an entire stream of similar designs emerge in tribute or reference, like the famous Uncle Sam poster. Maybe it’s a product, like the iPod, which defines an entire aesthetic, all on it’s own!

It would, I think, be incredibly arrogant and probably foolish to make such recognition the goal or purpose of any design. As designers our primary objective must always be to ensure the successful realization of a particular goal or purpose, which I do not believe should ever be fame itself.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t dream.

What do you think? I know I was kind of all over the map in this post, but I wrote it as a kind of showcase of and reaction to the incredible amount of beautiful Avatar artwork that I’ve seen popping up. Which ones were your favorites? Are there any other comments, reactions or ideas that you would like to add?

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Dana Todd of Newsforce recently sat down with WebProNews to discuss Storyteller marketing’s revival. She has some interesting things to say on the subject:

As noted by Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable, back in the summer of 2008, covering Search Engine Strategies in San Jose, Gary Stein, Director of Strategy for Ammo Marketing highlighted five stories that can be told:

1. Origin – where did you/your brand come from
2. Purpose – tells us why you are a business
3. Vision – similar to origin but is where are we going
4. Education – Starbucks educated people about traditions of coffee
5. Ethics – when someone walks the walks of what they are doing
6. Connection – reaching out and talking to the customer

In that same session, Sally Falkow of Expansion Plus added that the story should be simple, repeatable, and memorable. She also said that suggested that good places to find your brand’s story are from employees, your customers, and even suppliers.

As our own Abby Johnson points out in the above video, every business has a story. You may know what that story is, but if you look hard enough, you can find it, and you can use it. Chances are people will be able to connect with that story on some level (if it is the right story), and this can be a powerful way to keep your brand in people’s minds.
 

Related Articles:

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> The Future Of Online PR

> Is Retargeting the Most Under-Utilized Marketing Strategy?

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The iriver Story was released in the UK a few months ago to critical acclaim, although America was left out in the cold. Yesterday at CES, iriver announced that the Story was indeed coming to America “later this month” and that a WiFi enabled version was coming sometime in Q2 2010.

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We’ve often heard happy and successful people say, “It’s not the problems in life that define us, it’s the way we react to them.” Josh’s reaction to a problem has turned him into an internet sensation. Every major blog is writing about him and his video is quickly going viral.

Here’s the scene – Sunday night, at the Newark airport, a security risk shut down part of the airport for over six hours. All of the people waiting in Terminal C had to continue doing just that, waiting. Impatience and frustration started to fill the air as families trying to get home from the holidays were simply stranded.

Josh Wilson, an average guy with an average voice decided to take matters into his own hands and along with his guitar, he led the group in a massive sing along. Before you knew it, the entire terminal was smiling and singing “Hey Jude” as he brightened everyone’s spirits. This story touches my heart.

Here is his video from the event which has only been on YouTube for two days and already has over 160,000 views. Way to go Josh!

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She got married and had a baby very young, which led to a divorce and hard times. She is an example of someone who followed her dreams relentlessly and pulled herself out of the rut she was in. She was up against serious odds that would have made some of the strongest people crumble. Now she is taking that experience and using it to motivate and inspire others. It is people like her that truly make this world a better place.

My Twitter friend @dasaples, sent me this video below and I was so moved by it I had to share it with you. If you are in a situation where you are wondering whether or not to keep pursuing your dreams, you must watch this.

I know from being an entrepreneur for over a decade that at times we doubt ourselves and wonder if it is all worth it. We work so hard each day with no guarantee that it will all pay off. However, deep down we know that if we love what we do and feel that fire inside, we are on the right track and doing what we are born to do. We can take a deep breath and say, “Everything is going to be ok.” Be brave!

Watch Kandee Johnson’s story and you will be inspired to take the next step towards your own dreams. And, in Kandee’s own words, “May 2010 be filled with sparkles, love, dreams, and lots of hope!”

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You know me, I always encourage you to experiment, to learn new things, to reinvent yourself, but sometime the wheel doesn’t not need to be reinvented. Sometimes the best thing to do is to learn from the experience and wisdom of our “elders”. Such is the case of today’s blog post. Instead of sharing some of my own tips with you, I’ll leave you in the company of some of the world’s most famous authors and only interpret their teachings in the art of writing.

Easy reading is damn hard writing.
Nathaniel Hawthorne

Have something to say, and say it as clearly as you can. That is the only secret.
Matthew Arnold

It’s easy to get lost in words and ideas. It’s harder to keep your writing concise and to the point, to make it clear and easy to read. Focus on getting your ideas across, to your readers, in their most natural form. Nathaniel Hawthorne and Matthew Arnold both agree on this.

A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit.
Richard Bach

If you write one story, it may be bad; if you write a hundred, you have the odds in your favor.
Edgar Rice Burroughs

Writing is a continuous activity. You experiment constantly. You learn and evolve. The more you write, the better the chances to put something good out there. It’s “trial and error” until it becomes “trial and success”.

You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.
Jack London

It’s something I’ve always preached. Keep your eyes and ears open to the world around you. Look for inspiration in every single thing you read, hear and see. There’s actually no such thing as a “writer’s block”, but rather failure in finding a good starting point.

Tell the readers a story! Because without a story, you are merely using words to prove you can string them together in logical sentences.
Anne McCaffrey

Stories… even simple news have a story behind. Give people a story they can relate to. Give them a story they can understand and let them draw conclusions themselves. Give them the tools and let them build their own result.

The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof, shit detector. This is the writer’s radar and all great writers have had it.
Ernest Hemingway

I try to leave out the parts that people skip.
Elmore Leonard

Being a good editor is also a must for a good writer. Proof-reading and “shit detecting” as Hemingway calls it are required in order to make sure you get the best possible copy out there. What’s harder to achieve though, is being neutral, looking at your own work from an outsider’s perspective.

The two most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar and familiar things new.
Samuel Johnson

When 20 people are writing about the same thing, the only one to “make it” is the one putting it in a new light. There’s no point in doing the same things in the same way. Find your original angle.

What is written without effort is in generally read without pleasure.
Samuel Johnson

And your original angle comes from within your original voice. Put your heart and mind into your writings. Put passion into writing and passion with be reborn into reading.

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The news media is experiencing a renaissance. As we end the year, its state in 2009 can be summarized as a year of turmoil, layoffs and cutbacks in an industry desperately seeking to reinvent its business model and content. But despite the thousands of journalism jobs lost, the future has much hope and opportunity for those that are willing to adapt to a changing industry.

Much of that change is happening now. And in the coming year, news organizations will look to approach monetization and content experimentation that is focused on looking at the web in a new way. News in 2010 will blur the lines between audience and creator more than ever in an era of social media. Below is a look at several trends in content distribution and presentation that we will likely see more of in 2010.

1. Living Stories

---

One of the difficulties of the web is being able to really track a story as it develops and creating engaging formats for long-form articles. The article page is often the only thing that a reader sees and not the story in its full context. In 2010, news organizations will design stories that are more suited to the way readers consume online content.

One early sign of this is the recent collaboration between Google, The New York Times, and The Washington Post on the Living Stories project, an experiment that presents coverage of a specific story or topic in one place, making it easy to navigate the topic and see the timeline of coverage on the story. It also allows you to get a summary of the story and track the conversations taking place. This format contextualizes and personalizes the news.

2. Real-Time News Streams

---

Our news consumption has morphed into a collection of streams. Whether it’s from our Twitter homepage or an RSS reader or a Facebook feed, we get bites of information that sometimes satisfy us or direct us to places where we can get more information.

The move toward real-time news is increasingly important, and media critics and professors like Jeff Jarvis predict these streams will replace web sites. That change may not come in 2010, but streaming news elements will become a an integral part of traditional news sources. We’re already seeing Twitter streams and other visualizations incorporated into news home pages with updated financial and market information from new sources like Google Finance.

The challenge however, is that journalists need to accept that news breaks through real-time social media platforms like Twitter, said Alfred Hermida, an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia School of Journalism.

3. Blogozines

---

Another format that takes effort, but can be an engaging alternative to the traditional blog post is the blogozine. This could be great to keep a reader engaged in a long-form story. Though I don’t think we will see the death of simple blog posts, a rich-media and rich-layout approach from blogozines will gain momentum in 2010.

4. Distributed Social News

---

This year the social news trend gained momentum with the explosion of Twitter. Moving into 2010, news organizations will further distribute their content across social platforms that allow its users to create a personalized and socialized news stream. Personalized search has emerged in 2009, and 2010 will see more sites integrating applications that allow users to create personalized news streams.

More news organizations are beginning to establish a presence across multiple platforms and social sites, and it’s not just the popular sites like Twitter and Facebook anymore. Newsweek, for example, started a Tumblog because the “format is adapted especially well to magazine journalism, since it encourages a deeper engagement.”

Robert Quigley, social media editor at the Austin American-Statesman, said he thinks news sites will continue to exist for a while, but the “smart news sites will extend their tentacles into the spaces where people are communicating, and talking about news.”

5. News Goes Mobile

---

In general, 2010 will see a distinct transformation in the way people consume news as smart phones become ubiquitous. And as more startups enter the market of mobile transactions, news organizations could develop strategies or provide services for transactions to take place on mobile apps.

News companies should be prepared with a mobile-first strategy. Instead of just selling ads to business customers, news organizations can help small businesses develop applications that help them do business in the mobile marketplace, said Steve Buttry, C3 coach at Gazette Communications.

Mathew Ingram, communities editor at The Globe and Mail, said mobile also has great potential to increase the number of content consumers, especially if it is done in a geo-targeted way to reach a local audience. Something that news organizations should also be prepared for is e-readers gaining a larger market and the emergence of the Apple Tablet, which publishers like Wired Magazine are already getting ready for. Meanwhile, Time Inc. and other magazine publishers are looking to create a Hulu for magazines where consumers can purchase and manage digital subscriptions.

6. The Year of Geo-Location

---

Geo-location services will be the buzz of 2010, though it’s difficult to predict which services will rise to the top. Geo-tweets could take this space, but companies like Foursquare and Gowalla, which combine geo-location with social gaming, are highly addictive and have a lot of potential, especially with an advertising format that serves its users.

Mathilde Piard, social media manager at Cox Newspapers, said there is a lot of potential for news sites to get into the market of events and venue listings. “There are event listings and business directory listings out there but none that are good enough yet,” Piard said, and “Geo-tagging goes hand-in-hand with this stuff.”

Also, imagine the opportunity for news companies to work with advertisers to make ads more relevant to location. Imagine an iPhone app that buzzes when you walk by a bar telling you the daily drink special, Quigley from the Statesman said.

7. Story-Streaming

---

New storytellers means new ways of telling stories. We will see more story-streaming with the growing popularity of simple blogging platforms like Posterous and Tumblr.

An example of this is a project from Daniel Honigman and Len Kendall called the3six5, which aims to get 365 people – one for each day of the year – to write about something that is happening in the world that day and how it relates to them. Though neither Honigman or Kendall are journalists, the storytelling format of life streaming is what attracted the two to start the project. Honigman said it is an experiment in crowdsourced storytelling.

8. Social TV Online

---

2010 will see some big improvements in online video and even greater shifts of viewers moving away from their TVs to watch online as companies like Hulu and others reinvent the space. The coming year could see sites like Hulu becoming profitable, and even extending to international markets to increase viewership.

We’ve seen TV shows like PBS’s News Hour moving to YouTube, and 2010 will see an increased push for TV to reinvent itself online. One way of doing this is through “social TV.” Hulu, for example, lets Facebook friends watch shows together, and has account, rating, and sharing elements akin to social giant YouTube. We’ll see social TV take center stage in 2010.

9. Marketers as Producers

---

Marketers are also beginning to skip the journalist as a middleman to produce their message and are instead producing it themselves. Mike Sprouse, chief marketing officer at Epic Advertising, started a 28-page monthly (printed) magazine called Winning the Web. The magazine includes commentary and content on emerging trends in online marketing, and is produced by just two people working full-time. It’s distributed to about 3,000 people and is completely free.

Sprouse sees more marketers and other professionals in general moving into the direction of producing content themselves. He said most companies have a blog or a Facebook page, and going into the coming year, more companies will shift to produce content themselves in a “thought leadership” approach.

10. Social News Gaming

---

With social gaming sites growing in popularity (Facebook’s Farmville is bigger than Twitter), news media companies will surely experiment with creating their own social news gaming applications. Social gaming is highly addictive and if a news organization were to effectively execute their own game, it could serve as a way to keep news consumers coming back and a way to present stories or information in new ways.

NBC introduced a social media game for its series “Chuck” called Chuck Me Out that lets users gain points for spreading news about the show or getting friends to watch it. The person with the most points by March 8 will have their photo appear on the show or win one of another several prizes. Perhaps a similar concept could be applied to news content in 2010.

More journalism resources from Mashable:

- 8 Must-Have Traits of Tomorrow’s Journalist
- 10 Ways Journalism Schools Are Teaching Social Media
- The Journalist’s Guide to Twitter
- Why NPR is the Future of Mainstream Media
- Social Journalism: Past, Present, and Future
- Everything I Need to Know About Twitter I learned in J School
- 10 Must-Haves for Your Social Media Policy

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, ProfessorVasilich

Tags: journalism, Lists, new media, News

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This story is the sequel to the original children’s book and when you see the trailer below, you are going to be blown away. I love it when Johnny Depp gets into full makeup and takes on that aloof “Edward Scissorhands” attitude.

The original Alice in Wonderland story was written in 1865. The famous metaphor of “falling down the rabbit hole” and the white rabbit has been used over and over ever since. In this new film, Alice returns to Wonderland to take on the evil Red Queen.

I’ll be the first person in line in March when this movie comes out. I can’t wait!

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Just a few days ago we told you how Google was thinking about buying Yelp for around $500 million. Well unfortunately for those of you that love happy endings, this love story is already doomed. While Google wants Yelp, Yelp seems not to want Google.
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Having a blog as a freelance web designer should be practically mandatory, as it can help to convey all kinds of messages to your clients but it also helps to give you an easy medium in which to network with other people in your industry. This basic form of networking can help to grow your business in amazing and unexpected ways.

List of freelance web designers with awesome talent and awesome blogs

Lee Munroe

Freelance web designer based out of Belfast, Ireland
http://leemunroe.com

Michael Dick

Freelance web designer based out of Tulsa, OK
http://m1k3.net

Mike Precious

Freelance web designer based out of Brantford, Ontario
http://mikeprecious.com

Aaron Russell

Freelance web designer based out of Swindon, Wiltshire
http://www.aaronrussell.co.uk/

Ted Lermontov

Freelance web designer based out of Sydney, Australia
http://www.tedler.com/

Lelia Thomas

Freelance web designer based out of Austin, TX
http://www.leliathomas.com/

Matt Brett

Freelance web designer based out of Ontario, Canada
http://mattbrett.com/

Comments

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SCJ-Mr-Muscle-Clinginess-Crocodile-Print

I came upon these ads for Mr. Muscle which has a lot going for it in terms of concept. I’m always drawn to ads that tells a story, I think most people are and that’s what ads strive to do. Not all does a great job at it and this is one I feel is struggling to tell the story.

The message should be: Instantly getting rid of stubborn kitchen which are like monsters clinging to utensils.

The colours are very good. It’s smart to use high contrast colours to gain attention from a distance but I feel as if it’s lacking great execution. The execution of it is questionable and this is what makes the ad struggle to convey the story. To me the ‘monsters’ look like oil or coffee when it really should look more greasy if it’s for the kitchen. This communicates the wrong message. It’s as if this is for mechanics rather than housewives.

SCJ-Mr-Muscle-Clinginess-Octopus-Print

To communicate the message familiar imagery should be used. Imagery that women (men) can relate to. This is one reason that to me makes this ad struggle a little.

The photoshopping to me could have been better. I like the ‘Snake’ version as it’s the one closest to their message. To me the ‘Crocodile’ one seems like a reach and if the ‘Octopus’ was really clinging then it would have more than one tentacles attached, not just one.

SCJ-Mr-Muscle-Clinginess-Snake-Print

All in all I think the concept is great but in my mind I envision this being 10x better, much more graphic and realistic. Maybe budget is the reason they couldn’t go all out and that’s understandable. It’s just sad to see a concept not executed to its full potential. These are still just my perspective. What’s yours?

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Then, yesterday, I saw this video below for the first time and suddenly it all made sense. She is theatrical and colorful, a true artist. She has that unique talent of giving you something fabulous to look at while singing a great song. She tells a story. And, it is obvious that she is very inspired by fashion.

Her birth name is Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta and believe it or not, she is only 23 years old. Until recently, the only thing I knew about her was her famous cover on Rolling Stone magazine earlier this year where she was wearing only plastic bubbles. She is a natural brunette, but colors her hair blonde because she was often mistaken for Amy Winehouse.

According to http://www.mtv.com, she said, “When I’m writing music, I’m thinking about the clothes I want to wear on stage. It’s all about everything altogether—performance art, pop performance art, fashion. For me, it’s everything coming together and being a real story that will bring back the super-fan. I want to bring that back. I want the imagery to be so strong that fans will want to eat and taste and lick every part of us.”

This short movie/video has a very Madonna/Michael Jackson feel to it, and it already has over 16 million views. I’d say she is well on her way to achieving her goal!

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There’s a lot of hype behind measuring social media ROI. But what about the payoff on an individual basis? Those who invest time into social media on a daily basis need to see a return on that time to make it worthwhile. Journalists who regularly use social media tools such as Twitter and Facebook on the job with success make it part of their daily routine, and focus on communicating quality content that’s worthwhile to recipients.

Here’s a look at five journalists who use social media, their attitudes and approaches to it, how they fit it into their schedules, and the ROI they got from it. Though this post focuses on journalists, many of their tips can be more broadly applied to anyone working with social media tools.

What to Think About Before Jumping In

Daniel Honigman, digital communications supervisor at Weber Shandwick who formerly led social media efforts at the Tribune Co. and co-authors the blog Old Media, New Tricks, recommends that reporters think about their objectives for using social media. Is it to find sources, promote content, or build a readership? He added that reporters should think about who their audience and sources are and whether either group are even using social media, and which applications they’re using the most.

“Try to think clearly and objectively about your audience. Are they best served by me using social media? What channels should be used to tell my story?” he said.

Honigman also recommended reporters be honest about how savvy they really are with using social media. “If you’re not comfortable using social media to get your stuff out there, find someone who is and pick their brain,” he said.

5 Real-Life Social Media Workflows

1. Scott Broom

Scott Broom is a digital correspondent at WUSA-TV and has been in the TV news business since 1983. Since 2008, he has been a one-man band who shoots and edits his own video and writes stories for all his station’s media platforms.

Social Media Routine

Morning: Checks Facebook daily for potential story ideas and what his friends are interested in, because if a topic is of interest to them, it will be to others as well. Checks other media on Facebook to see what stories they’ve posted. Broom said he uses the social network like a personal news aggregator.

Depending what the story is, Broom will first search Google and then use Twitter’s search to find more sources or information.

Afternoon: After Broom posts his story to the web and reports on the TV newscast, WUSA tweets his content and posts it on the station’s Facebook page.

Use: “I’m not posting on social media nearly as much as searching for sources.”

Time: “To me, it doesn’t cost me a lot of time. In my search mode, it can save me a lot of time.”

Example of ROI: Broom used Twitter search to find a mother whose children were home from school because they had H1N1 to interview for a story.

Advice for making it part of the job: “My mindset early on: I need to find out what this is and I’m not going to find out by reading about it. I need to just do it.”

There are two basic things to understand about social media: It’s potentially a powerful platform to tell the world what you’re doing. You need to recognize it’s a tool for finding information.

“To create a compelling story, you need people who are directly affected by the story you’re reporting on. I use social media to find those real people. They’re out there tweeting. The beauty of these social media [sites] is they’re searchable.”

2. John Tedesco

John Tedesco is a staff writer on the projects team at the San Antonio Express-News.

Social Media Routine

Morning: Check e-mail and get on Twitter.

During Workday: Checks Twitter at work fairly frequently through the day.

“If I want to take a break from what I’m working on I’ll check Twitter.” If he’s at an event, he’ll tweet about what’s going on.

Use: He uses Twitter most frequently for sharing resources. On Facebook he posts links to stories. “I link to stories that are good watchdog stories. If it’s an example of what I think is good journalism, I’ll link to it.” He likes tweeting about other people’s work more than his own.

“Through the course of a day a reporter comes across a lot of information. We can either keep it locked in our minds or put it out there for people to use.”

Example of ROI: While live tweeting from a forum about a proposed expansion of a nuclear facility, Tedesco was able to instantly fact check what was being said by a participant at the forum, and share the facts with his readers based on his previous coverage about the same issue.

Advice for making it part of the job: Those who actually like using it see it as a benefit. “At the root, you like doing this stuff or you don’t, that’s a big part of this.”

3. Lindsey Mastis

Lindsey Mastis is a digital correspondent at WUSA-TV. She was hired in January to shoot and edit her own video and write stories for all her station’s media platforms.

Social Media Routine

Morning: Checks RSS feeds, local news web sites, metro blogs and Twitter to find good story ideas. Goes to her station’s morning news meeting, pitches story ideas and then goes out in the field to get the story.

Afternoon: After video is shot and being uploaded, she’ll tweet if she has an interesting story or to pose a question to followers. She’ll often use some of the responses in her story. “If I can engage people and make them a part of the story, I do that.”

After she posts his story to the web and reports on the TV newscast, WUSA tweets her content and posts it on the station’s Facebook page.

Use: She uses Twitter to ask followers questions and find sources to interview. She also asks questions on Facebook and posts stories after they have run. She also live tweets breaking news stories when she can.

Example of ROI: Mastis searched Twitter to find a source for a story on a recent Gmail outage.

Advice for making it part of the job: “I just get on it and figure it out.” It’s all about attitude, says Mastis. If you have the mindset that you can do it, then it helps. She adds that veteran journalists who don’t use social media don’t know how much better their reporting could be if they did use it.

4. Chad Graham

Chad Graham recently became the social media editor at the Arizona Republic. Before that he was a business reporter who wrote about jobs and workplace issues.

Social Media Routine

When he was a reporter, he updated Twitter eight to nine times a day. He posted interesting stories that focus on employment topics and tried to be a resource.

Use: As a reporter, he used Twitter to find new angles for stories and to ask followers questions related to his workplace beat, which helped him when he was on tight deadlines.

Time: Time spent on Twitter depended on the day and how quickly he needed something for a story.

ROI: Graham once tweeted asking if anyone had received their unemployment checks late as way to find sources and data for a story on the Arizona Department of Economic Security’s unemployment payments.

Advice for making it part of the job: “You’ve got to make it more of [a] conversation.” Be clear about what you’re posting.

5. Angie Goff

Angie Goff is a feature correspondent and traffic anchor at WUSA-TV and hosts the Oh My Goff blog. During the morning newscast, in addition to her live TV shots, Goff livestreams and chats online. Her “Oh My Goff” segment is part entertainment news and part a showcase of user-generated content from Angie’s Army listserv.

Social Media Routine

Morning: Tweets traffic updates throughout the morning. Updates her Facebook fan page with what’s coming up on her show, a current big issue, or takes questions from fans. Then she’ll send Facebook feedback to anchors in case they want to incorporate that into the newscast.

After the “Oh My Goff” segment airs, it goes out on the Angie’s Army listserv and is posted on sthe blog.

Evening: She spends an hour each night preparing a sheet for the producers on her content for the next morning’s show. Two to three times a week, Goff will go to events around town and shoot video and photos. She’ll upload those to Facebook and her blog. “This is a way for me to quickly cover events in the community.”

Use: YouTube and Vimeo are essential to Angie’s Army because that’s where users upload video that is shown on-air for the “Oh My Goff” segment.

Time: “I set limits for myself. … I’m constantly working against the clock.” It’s all about prioritizing. You have to budget time for it: either you commit to it or you don’t, but don’t over-commit.

Example of ROI: The videos and photos of local events and parties that users submit as part of Angie’s Army make their way on air and into her reporting. “It’s helped me out a ton.”

Advice for making it part of the job: “If you want to do it right it all takes time.” Find what you’re good at and something you can be consistent with. Make sure you’re doing it every day.

Tips For Building a Social Media Routine

1. If you’re going to start using social media, look at what your audience and sources already use, and meet them there.

2. Make time to connect to the people on social media platforms. For your audience to care about you on social media, you have to care about them. “People are more likely to read your news content if they have a connection with it and with you,” according to Honigman. “Reporters have to become more than a byline. They have to become a person.”

3. Make the social media tools one of the things you check several times a day.

4. Be willing to share your expertise and knowledge.

5. Don’t be afraid to involve your audience. “Look for opportunities to enlist your readers to help you tell your story,” Honigman said.

More social media resources from Mashable:

- The Journalist’s Guide to YouTube
- The Journalist’s Guide to Twitter
- The Journalist’s Guide to Facebook
- 12 Things Newspapers Should Do to Survive
- How Social Media is Radically Changing the Newsroom

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Phaif

Tags: journalism, Journalist, List, Lists, ROI, social media

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I’ve asked two of my favourite up and coming designer/illustrators to talk to me about mixed media illustration, specifically about the importance of telling a visual story with your pieces and what makes them tick. I’ve highlighted some of their best pieces and asked them to explain the deeper meaning behind them.

This multi person interview is a new type article on Designfeedr, if you want more of this stuff you know what to do, comment and let me know!

Thanks for taking the time to do this feature article. For starters please introduce yourself to the readers.

First, a big thanks to designfeedr for having Kode and I for this little dialog. My name is Anthony Harmon, I’m 25 and currently living in San Diego, California. I surf, snowboard, fly fish, eat a ton of chile relleno burritos, do my best to stay up on the latest discoveries with science, enjoy philosophy and discussions revolving around consciousness and claim The Big Lebowski as my all time favorite movie.

Names kode, I’m 23 from melbourne australia i run the company BossLogic. I have been a graphic designer well over 5 years now but I’m also studying Communication design and photography to expand my skill set.

Consciousness is a representation of how I imagine energies flowing in and out of the body during meditation. I incorporated the image of the Buddha for clarity of the concept. This was a really fun piece to make and has gotten a great response within the community. – Anthony Harmon

Respect is part of a 2 part series I did with the talented anthony. It depicts a powerful figure standing above the bleeding earth on the day of decent – Kode Abdo

It seems the line between design, illustration and art keeps on blurring. Blogs are calling illustrations “designs”, illustrators are referring to themselves as artists and artists are suddenly all over design sites. What is your take on this?

I think a distinction in language is important especially from the artist/client perspective. There needs to be a mutual understanding of what the client is asking for and what he/she should expect from an artist. That being said, I think this “blurring” of terminology is stemming largely from the fact that many artists, illustrators and designers are themselves putting their hands in several creative cookie jars. The dynamic flexibility offered in today’s applications lends itself to experimentation and the crossing of creative fields. It’s a natural and necessary progression that is/will continue to produce fresh approaches to design.

I agree with Anthony on this though I also believe that clients need direction at times and as designers and creative minds we should listen and paint the picture of their image, be that design, illustration or anything in between. That way we can go from pitching to actually producing.

What did you see is the image of the man that is left alone in this world. He saw all the wars, the agony and poverty yet could not change a thing – Kode Abdo

New illustrators often focus solely on style and forget to imbue a piece with a concept or story. What advice can you give in this respect?

That’s where I found myself when I started. These days I can only do design if it means something to me or the person viewing it. Style is what divides us from other artists but I can’t do a piece anymore without incorporating it with story.

My advice is that eye candy design is great to look at but with a story behind it you’ll feel something which puts the work on a whole other level.

I think lots of people view coming up with a concept as the expendable cherry on top while it’s actually the essential foundation for any successful piece to stand on. I’m not saying there aren’t plenty of aesthetically rich pieces without a concept, but when we “separate the men from the boys” the great designers consider every aspect of a design. The concept ties a piece together. It stitches the individual elements into one cohesive piece. It gives a sense of richness and completeness sometimes even on a subconscious level.

Getting into the habit of coming up with a concept as part of the initial design process will pay off in spades as you progress as an artist. It’s something that won’t go away and is certainly worth your effort, so do it!

Once you’ve found the inspiration for a new piece how do you proceed to flesh the concept out?

I’ll usually start with a very rough compositional sketch. Then I spend hours upon mind numbing hours searching for good quality stock photography (the fun part!). Next I crop out the elements of each image I’m going to use (the other fun part!). I then put the piece together layer by layer like a delicious 7 layer bean dip. After that I work on blending, the lighting and end with coloring and color correction.

See, Pen and paper for the win I too always start with my best friends the sketchbook and the pen. I basically draw out what I call blueprints, kind of like how movie makers do story boards. I then get the resources I can find online and bring out my Canon 5D MKII for the ones I can’t find.

Eden came about after reading a book on the indigenous shamanistic cultures in South America. In the book it discusses the Shaman’s ability to control the elements and in particular the weather. The concept was to have someone summoning the spirit of the earth. – Anthony Harmon

Need for greed symbolizes the higher power in the world today. Money is the only thing on their minds while we await the savior that will never come. – Kode Abdo

Follow the white rabbit obviously revolves around the Alice in Wonderland story. A little cliche, but whatever. I tried to join unusual perspectives from the stock to give a disjointed surreal effect. – Anthony Harmon

What is the one piece of advice you’d like to give struggling illustrators? Struggling how?

I know they’ve have heard it a million times before but don’t give up if you love doing it. Trial and error is what makes you great in the end, even if you keep getting bad feedback on your work build off that point and challenge yourself to do better on your next project. I have done hundreds of pieces I didn’t like in the end but still learnt a lot from since trial and error is key.

If you are struggling for ideas, can’t quite get things to look the way you want or are feeling plum out of creative juices (no pun intended) it may be time for a break. I have days where I’m so utterly upside down in what I’m doing that I drastically overwork a piece or waste hours upon hours “polishing a turd”. Sometimes the best thing to do is take a step back, take your mind off of art and go do something that makes you happy. Sometimes I drop everything and go surfing for an hour or two, come back and gasp at the monstrosity I thought was a stroke of genius hours earlier. Take a break and come back to it later.

World Domination shows the earth has reached it’s demise with evil being the victor. This version was straight out the mind of anthony – Kode Abdo

How important are trends in design and illustration? In your opinion does embracing the hot new thing as it comes along get you more exposure or can it actually work against you?

I think trends are an inescapable part of anything creative and they have their place and value. Trends help to propel the industry forward particularly from the consumer stand point. Personally I enjoy keeping tabs on the mainstream circuit. Experimenting with popular techniques and aesthetics keeps me in touch with what I am often asked to produce from clients. I see it as another trick in my bag, but am careful to not become absorbed or lose track of personal style. Depending on how you walk the fine line, trends can either put you in the lime light or sink your battle ship. Watch yar step mateys.

Exactly. It’s a double edge sword, you can get exposure out of it or you can be labeled a trend follower. In my opinion it’s the trend setters that shine in the end.

Fast forward five years into the future: What will illustration be like and how will you have adopted to this?

I think we are on the cusp of some serious revelations within the world of technology. I’ve been seeing more and more on the multi-touch screens that Microsoft claims will replace the need for keyboards and mice. Obviously this would open up a pandora’s box for software developers everywhere. I foresee much more hands on, interactive, animated design taking the front lines. I hope the good people at Adobe are having some serious brainstorming sessions as how to best utilize something like this.

A lot of designers are converting to 3D which is seeing more and more use. I’m not saying this is a bad thing, just that it will possibly be what design is in five years.

Thanks for the time guys. Be sure to check out the portfolios of both Kode Abdo and Anthony Harmon.

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According to security company Symantec, interest in Tiger’s accident and rumors surrounding its cause has given scareware peddlers "ripe opportunity" to "poison web search engines." Because the story has generated such a swell in web traffic and searches, malicious entities surely couldn’t resist. The story has appeared frequently in the top Google searches since the news broke.

Symantec says it has observed that some search results redirect users to different malicious domains, such as:

- vir-curemypc-now.com
- egafuki.cn
- online-scanner-free.net

"From an IT security point of view, this unfortunate incident is just another fruit ripe for the picking as far as malware writers are concerned," says Symantec’s Hon Lau. "It comes as no surprise that the creators of rogue antivirus or misleading application software have already jumped on the bandwagon and attempted to poison web search engine results to take advantage of this spike in web search activity."

Naturally, the company is advising web searchers and those interested in the Tiger Woods story to be on guard. Symantec reminds us that when you search for info on the web, it is best to make sure your computer is secure. In addition, stay away from online sources that seem to "strong-arm" you into buying anti-virus software.

On a related note, Tech Blorge notes that the Tiger Woods story was broken on Twitter, as opposed to traditional media. These cases always provide for an interesting look at how new media is changing in the era of social media.

Related Articles: 

> "Kanye West Died" Rumor Used as a Scareware Tactic

> Security A Concern For Online Holiday Shoppers

> Beware Holiday Emails

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What with Alex having advised you last week that the iRiver Story eBook Reader had hit the UK we can now also advise UK based readers who are looking for an alternative to Amazon’s own eBook reader, the Amazon Kindle, or offerings from other companies such as Sony, that the iRiver Story 6” eBook Reader is now available from Amazon UK for just under £230.
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iRiver are doing everything they can to gain more market share, hence why the company has just announced that their new e-book reader,the QWERTY keyboard touting iRiver Story, has now become available in the UK. Following to a debut in the Asian market last month, the iRiver Story is “stepping up to challenge Sony’s version and Amazon’s new Kindle”.

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Read the rest of iRiver Story e-Book Reader Confirmed for UK [iRiver Story Release Date & Price Announced]

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This is a huge deal for me. I still have a little trouble believing it.

For a long time—as in, for more than a decade—I’ve had “participate in Fray” as one of those little deferred dreams we all carry around in the background. I certainly could’ve submitted pieces all along, either for the original site or one of the live events, and might even have been accepted. The thing is, I wasn’t dreaming of simply getting a piece accepted and checking an internal to-do box. I wanted to participate the right way, by my own internal reckoning. That meant not only vying for inclusion, but doing so with a worthy story, one that felt right.

When Fray relaunched as a themed quarterly, I took notice. I often work better when I have something to work against; constraints energize me more than they chafe. The first issue’s theme, “Busted!”, called to mind a few childhood incidents, but nothing really coalesced. There was nothing that said, “I’m a Fray piece; write me.” The second issue’s theme, “Geek”, left me with far too many options. I couldn’t hook onto anything with the right vibe.

Then issue 3’s theme was announced, and I knew exactly what I was going to submit. No rumination of possible narratives, no idle exploring my past for ideas, no doubt at all. I knew, and it was right.

In fact, it was a piece I’d already written, except for the ending. The ending I had used was certainly good enough, and was certainly the right ending for the time and place I wrote and performed it. But there had always been a different, nearly unbelievable ending to that story and I’d always held it back, kept close to myself, never quite sure why. Now I know why. It was the piece that made that story a Fray story.

If you want to read it, you’ll need to pick up Issue 3 of Fray, which you can of course do very easily. You can pick up issues 1 and 3 together for a great price, or become a subscriber and get issue 3 as your first. Any of those would be awesome. Or, I suppose, you can wait until the piece is published for free on the Fray site, though I should tell you that it could be a long while until that happens.

I can’t thank Frayer-in-Chief Derek Powazek enough for including me in Fray. I am quite literally as proud as I was when my first book was published. I’ve passed a personal and professional milestone, and far from just ticking off a checkbox on some internal to-do list, I’m basking in the glow of a dream fully and properly fulfilled.

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What can you use the application for?


Fwix.com is a social networking site that features real-time local news. The site automatically detects the user’s local city and shows their latest local news stories. Users can share news stories on Twitter directly from the Fwix.com site. Clicking on a news story brings up the original article from its source, and users have a bottom menu bar which allows them to share the story, comment on the story, or go to the next story in the list. The home page features the latest news from all categories. There is a top menu bar which includes tabs for other categories, including Business, Crime, Politics and Sports.

The user has a Profile on the site, which shows their Shared Stories, Click Activity (news stories they’ve read), Friends and Comments. The Home page also shows trending topics, which are determined by the number of clicks a story gets or if a number of journalists are writing about the same topic. In addition, recent activity by other users is shown on the home page. The Crime section features a map showing local crime alerts. The site offers an iPhone app which allows users to snap a picture with their iPhone if they see local news happening, and post it to the site. The site also offers widgets for embedding a local news feed in the user’s blog or website. Fwix currently serves over 80 cities in the US, UK and Canada.

What is the history and popularity of the application?


San Francisco-based Fwix.com was launched in September 2008 by founder Darian Shirazi. He is currently CEO of the company, while Adrian Druzgaiski is CTO.

What are the differences to other applications?


Competition to Fwix.com comes from sites such as MSNBC local news and Yahoo local news. Both of these sites offer local news for major cities, but do not have the social networking provided by Fwix. Fwix does not compete with, but rather enhances local news outlets, as all stories originate from them and users are taken to their sites to read the full stories.

How does the application look and feel to use?


The Fwix.com site has a very clean and uncluttered look and feel. The site is well organized and navigation is intuitive. Page loads are quite responsive, and searches are returned quickly. There is a convenient top menu bar provided for navigation. Clicking on a news stories opens the story from its original source in a new browser tab. No advertising is displayed on the Fwix.com site.

How does the registration process work?


Registration to the Fwix.com site is free and is required to share content, comment on stories and have Friends on the site. The site requires a Twitter or Facebook account for sign-in – there is no separate registration process. The site can issue Twitter and Facebook updates directly.

What does it cost to use the application?


There is no premium membership offered to the Fwix.com site.

Who would you recommend the application to?


Fwix.com is recommended to anyone who wants a summary of the latest local news in their area. The site offers news in real-time, and uses newspapers, TV stations, local blogs and other local Internet publications as sources. The technology used by the site filters and categorizes the content very well, and the site is extremely easy to use. The ability to share news stories on Twitter or Facebook is an added plus.

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I’ve just discovered that Wonderland can be a creepy, creepy place. Unlike the Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland has a much darker side, and artists really love to show it off. Oh little Alice, what happened to you?

Disney’s version of the tale is absolutely obsolete as I can see… people don’t believe it as the cute story of a girl lost in a different land, but they do believe that Wonderland is one hell of a wicked place to be lost at. Poor Alice has lost her way… and thank God for illustrations like these to show us this dark side of the story… but still, there are some cute images in here, just to remember the good old days. Oh, and don’t forget to visit each author’s page! They’ll love it! Cheers.

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It’s one of the unofficial poster children of Web 2.0, and was one of the first social news sites to come out.

It gets millions of visitors every month (Compete says about 43 million in October 2009), and those visitors vote on thousands of stories every day.

In this article you can learn about how Digg came to be from its humble beginnings to the massive popularity it has now as well as the controversies that have surrounded it.

In case you’re unfamiliar with how Digg works, here’s a very brief overview:

Users can submit stories from anywhere online, giving each submission a headline and synopsis to help other Digg users determine if a story is worth their time.

After a story is submitted, other users can “Digg” (vote up) or “Bury” (vote down) that story. If a story gets a certain number of Diggs within a specified period of time, it might make the popular section within its category or even the home page.

If it gets buried enough times, it will disappear from the site’s main feed (and is only visible if users specifically include buried stories in their searches).

The exact algorithm that determines whether a story makes the popular sections or gets buried is kept a secret, and has been changed and refined numerous times throughout Digg’s history.

Early Development

Digg got started in late 2004 as an experiment by Kevin Rose, Jay Adelson, Ron Gorodetzky and Owen Byrne.

The name “Diggnation” was originally proposed, but the group decided the name was too long, and shortened it to “Digg” (Dig.com had already been registered by the Walt Disney Internet Group, hence the double “G”).

Digg was similar to social bookmarking sites, but had one fundamental difference. While sites like Delicious allowed users to bookmark sites and share them with others, they were aimed at saving sites you’d want to return to again and again.

Digg, on the other hand, focused on saving pages with temporary value: things like news stories and blog posts. Digg was the first true social news site.

The first ten stories on Digg were primarily tech-focused (Blog Box Applications, a CSS cheatsheet, and a torrent search engine were among them), though there was also a post about a buy-one-get-one-free deal at Jamba Juice. The tenth story seems to have disappeared; it’s been speculated it was a spam post and was removed.

Within 18 months, Digg grew to more than 800,000 daily visitors. But they’d also started receiving some negative attention during that time. One early allegation of abuse was over Digg users using the site to spread rumors of a Google acquisition of Sun, which led to artificial inflation of Sun’s stock prices.

Initial Development

The initial site launched didn’t have support for many of the things we associate with Digg today. Basically, the original Digg let users sign up for an account, submit content, and then either vote it up (Digg it) or vote it down (Bury it).

According to an interview with Mother Jones in 2007, Kevin Rose worried for the first six months or so about the content that would make it to the home page.

It was the first time a site had allowed users to become editors and determine which content was likely to be seen. But it ultimately turned out a success, with most of the content on the front page during those first few months being interesting, relevant news.

Digg 2.0
The second iteration of Digg added many of the features we associate with the site today.

It was launched in July of 2005, only about 8 months after the original site was launched. The ability to add friends was included, as well as a site redesign. They also removed the redirect to a “success” page after users dugg a story.

Digg 3.0
Roughly one year after Digg 2.0 was released, Digg 3.0 came out.

The new version included specific categories for Entertainment, Gaming, Videos, World & Business, Science, and Technology, along with an option to view all the categories at once.

Diggnation

Diggnation is the weekly video podcast show Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht produce.

Its primary focus is to talk about some of Digg’s top stories for the week among other things. The show airs online every Wednesday at 6PM.

There are an estimated 200,000 regular subscribers to the show. In addition the website distribution, the show is also available through iTunes and TiVo, and is available on-demand on Virgin America airlines.

Diggnation has received a number of awards, including the 2006 Podcast Award for best technology podcast, the Best in 2007 Podcast from iTunes, and a Webby Award in 2008 for People’s Voice Winner for the Technology in Online Film and Video.

Diggnation is produced by Revision3, which was founded by Jay Adelson, Kevin Rose, Dan Huard, Ron Gorodetzky, and David Prager and is now led by Jim Louderback. Diggnation was their first show, but they’ve grown to include more than a dozen other shows.

Advertising and Revenue

The original Digg site didn’t include any advertising. But as the site grew, the developers quickly added means of generating revenue.

They started out with Google AdSense, and eventually moved on to banner ads. But in the summer of 2009, the moved on to a different form of advertising: sponsored posts showing up within Digg’s regular news feed.

What really set this apart, though, was that these sponsored posts also included “Digg” and “Bury” buttons, like their regular content.

This was a pretty revolutionary new form of advertising. It allows users to vote up or down the ads they want to see, and according to a quote in the Bits blog of the New York Times from Mike Maser, Digg’s chief strategy officer, the response from users has been largely positive.

Considering the history Digg has had with user reactions to changes they’ve made, implementing this kind of advertising strategy was risky to say the least. But so far it looks like it’s paid off—Digg has tripled their ad revenue forecast for the year.

It’s also providing valuable feedback to companies running ads, as they can see exactly what Digg users think of their ads based on how they’re voted up or down. This means future marketing efforts can be better targeted toward the site’s visitors.

The Digg Effect

Digg has grown to such large visitor numbers that websites who make the front page often have a hard time staying up under the onslaught of traffic (if they’re unprepared for it, that is).

This is known as the “Digg effect”, though sometimes this is a result of the story being featured on multiple bookmarking and news sites simultaneously.

The Digg effect can send thousands or tens of thousands of visitors to a site within a matter of a couple hours, and has been known to crash sites on a fairly regular basis.

Numerous articles have been written (here, here, and here for starters) about the Digg Effect, what it really does, and how to prepare for it so your site doesn’t slow down too much or crash.

Controversies Surrounding Digg

Digg has been surrounded in controversy practically since its launch.

Everything from the “bury” option to the fact that it’s a user-moderated site have come under fire from critics.

One of the most common criticisms regards Digg’s algorithm (and changes to it). Digg has always kept its algorithm a secret, which has led many to believe that Digg’s creators often have a hand in censoring or burying particular posts they don’t agree with (or, alternatively, of bumping posts they particularly like).

Digg has always maintained that whether the content makes the front page or is buried is entirely up to the users, and that the developers and programmers have no hand in it.

Other controversies include the use of Digg as a marketing tool by entrepreneurs. While some companies become legitimate parts of the Digg community, others do little more than submit self-promotional posts in hopes of getting extra traffic (those posts are generally either buried directly or just never gain any traction).

Here are a few more controversies surrounding Digg:

Digg Revolt

So far, there have been two major Digg uprisings, one in 2007 and one in 2008.

The first one, in May 2007, revolved around the AACS encryption key used on HD DVDs and Blu-ray Disc.

On May 1, an article made it to Digg’s front page that offered up the encryption key for removing the digital rights management on HD DVDs and Blu-ray Discs.

Digg’s legal team recommended the story be taken down. Digg did so, and banned a number of users who had submitted the story.

But Digg users didn’t take this action lightly. Rather than let the issue drop, more and more Digg users started reposting the encryption key, both in comments and new posts.

Soon there were hundreds of stories appearing on the site, and Digg backed down. Digg’s official statement declared, “…you’ve made it clear. You’d rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company.”

They reversed their policy of deleting posts that included the encryption key and said they would deal with whatever consequences that brought.

The second major revolt happened when a change to Digg’s algorithm was announced. Many Digg “power users” felt the new algorithm would give them less power in influencing the content that made it to the front page.

A temporary boycott was called, with some even proposing the users move over to a different site entirely. Digg was also called out for being unresponsive to suggestions posed by users, and a general lack of communication.

Numerous other grievances were cited in letters to Digg, including a lack of transparency and Digg’s purported “auto-bury” list.

Before the revolt, Digg put up a blog post explaining that the changes were being made to create a more level playing field for all Digg users, and to give everyone a fair chance of having their submission make the front page.

Digg Bar

The Digg Bar was released in early April 2009 and immediately came under fire for multiple reasons.

The Digg Bar, for those unfamiliar with it, frames the original webpage rather than redirecting to the page specifically.

One major reason this has been criticized is that it can have a negative effect on a site’s page rank, because the shortened URLs the bar uses don’t give any credit to the original site (some CMSs and blogs have blocked the Digg bar or set it to redirect to the original page).

ForeverGeek-Gate

In April 2006, ForeverGeek called Digg out on a pattern of digging by what has been deemed the “Digg Army“.

Basically, he noticed a pattern of digging by certain users, and that some stories that made the home page had been dugg by a number of the exact same Diggers.

In fact, of the two stories he compared, both were from A List Apart, and were originally submitted by the same user. Of the first 24 users who dugg the story, 22 of them were the same (the first 16 were completely identical, right down to the order in which they dugg the stories).

Only two users were different on each story. Adding to the speculation surrounding this was the fact that Kevin Rose was included in the 22 users who dugg both stories.

A number of high-profile blogs (including BoingBoing and Slashdot) reported ForeverGeek’s findings, many of which verified the claims.

And some more traditional media sources also weighed in (including The Inquirer). And not long after that, ForeverGeek was banned from Digg (it became impossible to submit any stories from the site).

While Digg maintains that ForeverGeek was banned because they were suspected of using multiple accounts to vote up their own stories, there are a number of reports of other users who submitted similar stories who were also banned.

Eventually, ForeverGeek was un-banned. But reportedly a number of users in the “Digg Army” disappeared from the site, too.

The Bury Brigade

It has long been theorized that there is a network of Diggers who act as a unofficial censors to content posted to Digg that does not fit with their ideology. This network is often referred to as the “Bury Brigade”.

In early 2007, a user named David LeMieux figured out how to use the site’s Digg Spy tool to highlight which users were burying stories and why they were doing so. He was able to gather information on more than 1700 buries during a two hour period.

Digg has long kept information about buries shrouded in secrecy, so the data gathered by LeMieux is some of the only such data available. The story itself was then buried on Digg, and one user who submitted a duplicate story even found themselves banned.

Another user, Muhammad Saleem, posted some raw data and his analysis on the Bury Brigade in February 2007. He came to the conclusion that it proved the existence of a Bury Brigade, though other users doubted that conclusion (see the comments to the original article for specifics).

Both the Bury Brigade and the users trying to uncover the truth behind it seem to be grassroots-based and have no central leader or formal organization.

The Bury Brigade gained enough attention there was an official response from Kevin Rose posted on the Digg blog regarding the information released about it.

Basically, Rose stated that the data gathered through using the Digg Spy was only partial data, and shouldn’t be considered representative of what’s happening across the entire Digg community.

Whether a bury brigade actually exists or whether the stories purportedly buried by them are just a reflection of the bias of the majority of Digg users (or just the most involved) is still up in the air.

The Top User List

Up until 2007, Digg had a public list of who the top Diggers were. These were the most influential Digg users.

Stories they submitted and dugg got to the front page more often than those by other users. These top users enjoyed a position of power within the Digg community. So much so, in fact, that some were offered monetary or other compensation for digging sponsored stories.

And that’s where the controversy started. If powerful Digg users were being paid to digg stories, it would change the dynamics of the entire site.

If a sponsor paid ten or twenty of the top users to vote for a story, it could spur other users to vote for it, and the likelihood of it making the front page would drastically increase. The whole thing was at odds with what the Digg community was supposed to be all about (democratic, user control of content).

Those on the list were also accused of manipulating Digg content, paid or otherwise. So, Digg took action. They stopped publishing the list of top Digg users.

This resulted in outrage from some Digg users (mostly those who appeared on the Top Diggers list), who enjoyed the notoriety they gained from being on the list.

Some viewed it as removing any reward for submitting content, and speculated it could lead to decreased participation among some members. Whether the removal of the list had any lasting impact on Digg is unknown (it didn’t appear to).

The Existence of Auto-Bury

There has been ongoing speculation over the existence of an auto-bury algorithm or an internal bury system.

A few bloggers have published anecdotal evidence of some kind of internal bury mechanism, though Digg has maintained that there is no such system.

While some of the evidence against Digg seems pretty compelling, there’s nothing that proves the existence of any kind of auto-bury system. And since Digg’s algorithm is a closely-gaurded secret, it’s unlikely we’ll find out the truth behind this any time soon.

A Brief History of Digg Controversy has more information about controversies surrounding Digg.

Digg Events

Digg founders regularly participate in tech-related events and host Digg meetups.

In 2008 they hosted the Bigg Digg Shindigg at SXSW. Their first meetup was held in San Francisco in 2008, and other meetups have followed in Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle and New York.

They hosted a second Bigg Digg Shindigg at SXSW in 2009 that included a live Diggnation show and live music. It was attended by more than 2000 people.

In addition to live events, Digg also hosts online townhall-style meetings. They’ve held seven to date (you can watch all of them on their website).

These townhall webcasts are hosted by Jay Adelson and Kevin Rose, and included information on new features, answers to questions posed by community members, and site-related news.

The Future of Digg

Digg has reportedly been trying to sell itself for a number of years now, and was even courted by Google at one point (the sale fell through at the last minute). Kevin Rose was quoted in an interview in Mother Jones saying that he’d be happy to continue running Digg without being sold or going public.

A survey leaked in September 2009 gave some hints about the possible future direction of Digg.

It sought user input on things like a customized homepage that shows popular stories that might appeal to specific users based on their interests and vertical channels that would let users discover popular content in specific niche areas.

Other features mentioned included anonymous Digging (without requiring a user account), a “save to read later” function that lets you flag stories to look at later, and Digg groups that let users form groups to share content.

One of the more interesting features mentioned is a “Digg Breaking News” section, which could be targeted at taking some of Twitter’s market share when it comes to breaking news (which Twitter has become very adept at doing).

Written exclusively for WDD by Cameron Chapman.

What do you think of Digg and the controversies surrounding it?

If you find an exclusive RSS freebie on this feed or on the live WDD website, please use the following code to download it: n6KR6Q

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As you might observe, social marketing is the new black. Tons of studies predict huge budgets for social media strategies from the top shots, so the agencies need to sharpen their interactive skills in order to separate clients from their money. Lots of big advertising and PR networks created digital marketing divisions but given the fact that this is such a fresh trend, the independent studios have almost the same chances to land a big contract if they’re creative enough.

Long story short, here is a showcase of 50 outstanding websites of digital marketing agencies, interactive advertising studios and online PR bureaus. The majority follows the trends of modern web design – wide layout, projects carousel, text over images, crisp textures in the background, large headers, homepage smooth animations, and – of course – integrated Twitter & Facebook functionalities.

As usual, please share your thoughts and suggestions in the comments.

Interactive Studio and Socila Media Agency Websites

Second Story

Juxt Interactive

Mammoth

Blast Radius

Ideo

Razorfish

Evolution Bureau

Syrup

AgencyNet Interactive

Concentric

Resn

Rockfish

Red Interactive

Magic Shovels

Wirestone

Techlightenment

F-I The Interactive Firm

Blitz Internet Marketing

FL2 – Interactive

KZero Worldwide

Head Stream PR

Big Fuel

The Upper Storey

Wong Doody

Story Worldwide

The Tipping Point Labs

Social Fish

33 Digital

BuzzLogic

Social Agency

NVI Solutions

Ignite Social Media

Comet Branding

Karma Media Labs

Quango

M 80

Mr Youth

Fanscape

Opus Interactive

Deep Focus

Mojave Interactive

New Media Strategies

Wildfire App

Spring Creek

Sapient Nitro

Genex

Arc Worldwide

Method

Odopod

Frog Design

Area 17

Catalin Zorzini is a design blogger with a social media background. You can read his daily writing at Inspired Magazine and connect with him on Twitter.

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Last week the New York Times published a story by freelance journalist Lindsey Hoshaw on a plastic garbage patch in the Pacific Ocean that’s twice the size of Texas. The piece, though well-written, was unspectacular on its own. What makes Hoshaw’s article special is how it was made: it was the first piece of completely crowdfunded reporting from community-funded journalism site Spot.Us to make the leap to the New York Times, a publication that many consider to be the pinnacle of mainstream American journalism.

Having Hoshaw’s piece, for which over a hundred people raised close-to $10,000 to produce, appear in the Times is certainly a feather in the cap of crowdfunded news. In July, I posited that crowdfunding might be the future of journalism, and the success of Hoshaw’s piece lends credibility to the fundraising model.

From Concept to Completion

Spot.Us founder David Cohn gave kudos to the New York Times blog post, saying the paper acted like a “lean and mean startup” and that in the past he had spun his wheels with mainstream organizations. Cohn’s post offers a thorough analysis on how the pitch began, what it all meant, working with the Times, its test of fundraising, the live reportage, and what can be improved.

In the end, Spot.Us’s crowdfunding role for the story pitch is a win for Times, because the newspaper gets to run the story, but does not have to shoulder the expense of supporting a reporter on location. At a time when news organizations are being hammered with lower ad revenue and falling subscription numbers that have forced them to cut budgets and staff, such collaborations can fill a much needed void. Cohn said the role of Spot.Us is as a connector between freelancers and news organizations.

“News organizations have a shrinking staff and budget. They must rely more on freelancers but also don’t want to burn through the entire freelance budget on a single story. This is one reason why we are seeing less original long form reporting,” he wrote. “Spot.Us acted as the grease. I hope we can continue to grease the wheels between freelancers and the public or other news organizations.”

What Makes a Good Crowdfunding Pitch?

What makes topics more appealing in the crowdfunding process? The topic (story) itself being pitched can play a big role. Here are a few criteria that could make such a story pitch work:

– General importance. Will or should the audience care and is the topic in the public interest?

– The story is not readily accessible otherwise. Covering the story requires the reporter special access to the subject, and this is what makes the story unique.

– The topic is tied to some other, larger issue such as, in this case, the environment, global climate change, and pollution.

– The topic is relevant to some current topic being debated or discussed.

Having a publication lined up for the story pitch or at least the strong likelihood of it getting published doesn’t hurt either.

Does the Reporting Measure Up?

One worry of the crowdfunded approach is that the reportage won’t ultimately measure up to traditionally funded pieces that come out of mainstream newsrooms. The Columbia Journalism Review reviewed the journalistic quality of the published piece, and compared it to the original pitch.

Among CJR’s criticisms was that Hoshaw’s story was short on the “human connection” that she promised in her pitch, and that it lacked the first-hand sense that Hoshaw was reporting from a boat for a month rather than the “could-be-done-from anywhere variety” of reporting.

Though the analysis ultimately concluded that Hoshaw’s article “could have been much, much better,” it also pointed out that Hoshaw’s personal blog of real-time reports, compiled during the time she spent in the Pacific researching the story, was “good stuff.” The blog is “what the Spot.us funders paid for. It would have been nice if the Times article — the principal ‘deliverable’ in the Spot.us pitch — had resembled it more,” wrote CJR’s Megan Garber.

Conclusion

Does that mean that crowdfunding ultimately failed? Certainly for some readers the resulting article did not live up to the standards expected of a New York Times reporter on a month-long assignment. However, the Spot.Us and New York Times collaboration confirms that there is a hunger for original reporting from indie sources that might not otherwise be covered in mainstream media and that third-party fundraising entities and communities are stepping up to make it happen.

Even if Hoswhaw’s reporting left something to be desired, the crowdfunding experiment succeeded. The New York Times got a story they likely never would have paid for, the public got reporting on an under-reported subject area in which there was interest, Hoshaw got a chance to report on something that she wouldn’t have otherwise been able to, and those who funded the story (and anyone who tuned in) got a month of blog posts and multimedia direct from the trenches.

What do you think? Could crowdfunding be a legitimate way forward for news organizations, or is this just a flash in the pan?

See also: Is Crowdfunding the Future of Journalism?

Image via the New York Times.

Tags: crowdfunding, journalism, media, new york times, spot.us

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Steve Cunningham is the CEO of Polar Unlimited, a digital marketing agency. To win a signed and personalized copy of each of the books mentioned here, visit Read It For Me.

So you want to get up to speed fast on the latest social media thinking. Maybe give your colleague, boss or friend a dose of new social strategies. But where to start? Amazon nicely suggests 44,444 titles that they would be delighted to overnight direct to your bookshelf. Ummm, no thanks. Fortunately, you’ve got your own social media fairy right here. (Hi!) We’ve already done the hard part for you, and have narrowed down those 44,444 titles to 5 killer must-reads that can get you on the road to social media stardom. Abracadabra!

5 Social Media Lessons

This story is magically formatted for 2 types of people: readers and watchers. Look up for the video, or scroll down for the text. Magic. You’ll learn why trust is the new currency, from Chris Brogan and Julien Smith, how the social media revolution has “turned the bullhorn around” from Tara Hunt, the two pillars of social media success from Mitch Joel, why you need to work your face off from Gary Vaynerchuk, and lastly, the nitty gritty of some of the most effective tools out there to grow your business and personal brand with Tamar Weinberg. These 5 ideas are (almost!) all you need to create and execute a powerful social media game-plan. Let’s go…

Lesson #1 – You Need to Build Trust

This lesson comes from Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith.

The first step in building trust is to turn yourself into Donnie Brasco. That’s right, you have to become a member of the community. The movie Donnie Brasco is the real life story of Joe Pistone, the FBI agent who infiltrated the Mafia and brought them to their knees. Joey spent 6 months sitting on a barstool in New York, drinking, eating peanuts, and watching the scene around him. He knew that the only way to integrate himself into the mafia community was to watch and learn how it operated first.

You should feel free to take the same approach, sans peanuts. Go to the websites of the people you want to connect with, and watch how they interact with each other. When you feel comfortable knowing how to interact, start leaving thoughtful comments on other people’s blogs. That lets the blogger know you’re listening and it helps them build up credibility. Your credibility will follow.

Lesson #2 – Turn the Bullhorn Around

This lesson comes from The Whuffie Factor by Tara Hunt.

What you’ll learn, while sitting on your virtual barstool, is the fascinating part: you’ll learn quite literally how to transform your products and services. And that’s a big deal. Hunt gives us some great tips on how to properly put all this new information to work to your advantage: (1) use it to design a product/service for the broadest possible community, (2) make sure you respond to all feedback, even if it’s with “no thanks,” and (3) give credit to the people whose ideas you implement.

Lesson #3 – Learn the Pillars of Social Media Success

This lesson comes from Six Pixels of Separation by Mitch Joel.

You’ve listened to and integrated feedback, and now you are ready to communicate. The 2 pillars which should guide your communication are permission and content. Permission is grade-school easy: only share relevant and timely information with the people who have agreed to receive it. Content comes next. As Joel says, your ability to create compelling text, audio, video, and images is what’s going to build your story and get people excited about staying connected. He says to ask yourself these hard questions to decide what content to create: (1) What expertise and knowledge do I have, and how can I best share this with my customers? (2) Is there something I can create that will empower my consumers to connect to one another better? (3) Which medium am I most compelling with – text, audio, images, or video?

Lesson #4 – Work Your Face Off

This lesson comes from Crush It! by Gary Vaynerchuck.

Vaynerchuck’s not drugs, it’s drive. He wants you to work your 9-5 day job, go home and hug your spouse, kiss your baby, and then get working again from 9-2 AM on the thing you love. As he so eloquently puts it, “you’ll be bleeding out of your eyeballs at your computer.”

When you want to change the world, there’s no place or time for couch surfing Grey’s Anatomy, Wii, Scrabble, book clubs (there’s always time for 10 minute reviews on Mashable, of course), or online poker. So, be sure to pick something you are very passionate about, because there’s NO way you will work this hard at something you don’t enjoy.

Lesson #5 – Get Smart About the Tools

This lesson comes from The New Community Rules by Tamar Weinberg.

Editor’s Note: Tamar Weinberg is Mashable’s Director of Community.

Want the nitty gritty details of social media success? Weinberg (the Queen of Smart) has literally hundreds of great tips in this book. Some of the gems include: submitting your blog to various directories (a simple but often overlooked step), learning how to run contests on Twitter to drive traffic, how to become a power account user on the social news sites, and how to use Yahoo! Answers to create thought leadership for your brand.

So that’s the scoop. Five killer social media must-reads. This is a tech democracy we’re living in here – where the net and content overcomes traditional media gatekeeping. These 5 books are your roadmap to becoming a social media rockstar in 2010 – rock on!

More business resources from Mashable:

- 5 Advanced Social Media Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses
- 4 Ways Social Media is Changing Business
- 6 Must-Follow Steps for Selling in Any Economy
- 5 Easy Social Media Wins for Your Small Business
- HOW TO: Use Twitter Hashtags for Business

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, f4f

Tags: book review, crush it, List, Lists, six pixel of separation, social media, the new community rules, the whuffie factor, trust agents, Whuffie

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The story is a powerful tool when it is repeated frequently. It can pass through a community and as people connect with it they will also share and remember this story.

Building brands and how the use of stories can benefit the process.

You will find that all the great stories demonstrate a method for resolving challenges that people face. They reveal how people’s lives change and how they manage to beat adversity. They contain themes that we can all identify with such as; desire, weakness, fear, strength, and hope.

A great story can leave us with many feelings and emotions. It can bring up feelings of compassion, empathy, optimism, admiration, and happiness. These stories can really impact us greatly and encourage us to pass on the story to other people.  The stories stay in our minds and when we pass them on we share the feelings as well as the story.

When it comes to deciding on your brands story it is vital that you really understand your brand. This means knowing the values and benefits that it possesses that you would like other people to know about. You must decide on the type of story that you would like to tell.

If you have a really clear idea about what your brand involves then you will be in a position to create a story that will really capture people’s interest. Your customer will be able to turn themselves into the main character in your brand’s story.

The story with the NIKE brand – If you examine the NIKE story you will observe that it is all about beating the odds and to maximize bravery, stamina, strength, and performance. This is a story about personal reward. When the brand speaks to the audience it tells them to challenge themselves and be the best at what they do. They send the message that you are competing against yourself, but if you have guts and determination that you will fight until you reach your goal.

Related posts:

1. Knowing the culture of your brand
2. Five common mistakes that you should avoid when branding
3. Branding for the green conscious consumer

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We’ve already seen one story today about athletes behaving badly being punished severely for their actions, with the Internet playing a starring role. Here’s another: Elizabeth Lambert, a soccer player for the University of New Mexico, has been suspended indefinitely for one of the more unsportsmanlike moves you’ll ever see.

The video, which is nearing one million views on YouTube, features Lambert first punching an opponent in the back, and then later, pulling another down by her hair. During the game, Lambert was only issued one yellow card.

The story is actually quite similar to that of Florida’s Brandon Spikes eye gouging an opponent in a recent football game. Although not a huge deal during the game itself, it was the reaction to the YouTube clip making its way around the Web afterwards that ultimately led to a harsher punishment. Put simply: bad behavior on the playing field is going to get a lot harder to get away with when the eyes of YouTube are watching.

Tags: elizabeth lambert, soccer, sports, video, youtube

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Stuck in a cubicle all day? Hit a brick wall on that project? Not sure what to do next with your life? You need some inspiration, and you’re in luck because the web is full of inspiring stories captured on video. Video is the perfect vehicle for an inspiring story because it can make the story come alive like no other medium.

Below is a list of 7 of the most of the inspiring videos on the web, embedded so you can watch them here. Each video, which range in length from 3 to 20 minutes, has an inspirational message to impart. If you know of any other inspiring videos, please share them in the comments.

1. William Kamkwamba: Harnessing the Wind

William Kamkwamba was 14 when he built a windmill from scrap parts in order to provide enough electricity to power 4 lightbulbs and 2 radios in his home in his tiny village in Malawi. Kamkwamba’s story first came into the global spotlight when he spoke at the TED conference. He recently did a followup TED talk.

Kwakwamba’s inspiring story teaches us to dream big.

2. Jason McElwain: Autistic Basketball Player

Autistic basketball player Jason McElwain spent most of his high school career cheering his team on from the bench as team manager — until the final 4 minutes of his final game as a senior. McElwain didn’t waste any of his opportunity to get in the game, pouring in 7 shots and finishing the game as high scorer.

McElwain, who never complained about being left off the roster, shows us that attitude is everything.

3. Cat Lainé: Empowering Local Communities

Cat Lainé, who is the Deputy Director at the Appropriate Infrastructure Development Group, talked at the BIF-4 conference last year about how she and her colleagues empower communities in developing nations to change from within. Lainé believes in using human capital already within local economies to solve problems and develop solutions that work locally.

Lainé teaches that solutions are often right in front of your nose.

4. Blake Mycoski: Creating Sustainable Charity

Blake Mycoski didn’t just want to start a charity to put shoes on the feet of children who needed them — he wanted to do something more sustainable, something that didn’t rely on asking for donations. So Mycoski started TOMS Shoes, a for-profit company that gives one pair of shoes to a child in need for every pair they sell.

Mycoski’s inspiring message is about the necessity of innovative thinking.

5. Geoffrey Canada: Closing the Achievement Gap

According to Geoffrey Canada the American school system is broken when it comes to teaching children in inner-city schools, and most people wouldn’t disagree with him. But Canada’s inspiring approach to fixing the problem is something that no one before him had tried — a complete overhaul of the social infrastructure. Canada created a “conveyor belt” in a Harlem neighborhood that touches the lives of children and their families from birth through college.

Canada shows us that sometimes you have to take a radical approach.

6. Ben Underwood: Seeing While Blind

Ben Underwood is blind, but he gets around almost as well as people who can see, and even plays video games with his friends. That’s because he’s done something that’s very unusual: Ben Underwood taught himself how to echolocate. Underwood has trained his ears to listen for the echoes that tongue-clicking sounds that he produces make as they bounce back off of objects. He then processes that information to figure out where physical objects lie around him.

Underwood’s inspirational story proves that no obstacle is insurmountable.

7. Lewis Gordon Pugh: Utilizing Extremes

Lewis Gordon Pugh has swum in every ocean in the world, and was the first person to swim at the North Pole, where the waters are below zero degrees centigrade (which is the freezing point for fresh water). Pugh uses his extreme swimming feats to shed light on issues of worldwide importance such as global warming.

Pugh teaches us that you should strive to push yourself to your limits.

See also: Top 7 Places to Watch Great Minds in Action

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, cmisje.

Tags: inspiration, List, Lists, video

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A media release is like a short newspaper article that one may send to different media outlets in order to gain interest in a writer’s mind so that a story will be published about the organization in which one works for or the product which they are trying to promote. The persons reading the media release will be looking for stories that will interest their readers, viewers and listeners. An effective media release tells a story that will interest a number of people.   Media releases need to be about the story and just enough relevant information for the story to work. The release isn’t the place to list all the benefits of the business. A media release is published in the news media, whereas a press release is designed to be sent to journalists in order to encourage them to develop articles on a subject. A press release is generally biased towards the objectives of the author. A press release is written in order to highlight an important event, program, or piece of information by an organization that succinctly describes the who, what, where, when, why and how of the story.

Here is a very short yet informative  way on how to get your brand or product’s news worthy article get the necessary buzz and attention it deserves.

PRWeb in Plain English V3 – The most popular videos are a click away

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A (very) quick look back at the Google story over the last 11 years. From Stanford to Mountain View and around the world, featuring many different products, starting with BackRub (Search) up to Google Wave, StreetView and Chrome.

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The feature could give stories a better chance of getting more exposure when they otherwise wouldn’t necessarily made it to the front page. Digg’s Kurt Wilms explains:

Digg Trends identifies and highlights upcoming stories that have a high volume of activity (think Diggs, comments, favorites, shares, etc.). When we detect a new trending story, it will appear on the homepage for ten minutes. Based on the Digg and bury activity in those ten minutes the story will either become popular or not. To make it easy to follow the action, we’ve setup a Twitter account to tweet out when a new Digg Trend is up for voting on the homepage.

Digg says the goal of Digg Trends is to put high activity stories in front of the community quickly and present a fun way for people to express whether they like a story or not. "We only show the most basic information for each story so as to ensure that voting is as unbiased as possible," says Wilms.

Digg has often been criticized for being too clique-ish, meaning it has been hard to get on the home page without having the right friends, although Digg has taken steps to make the site better for more people in the past. This should help that as well.

Related Articles:

> Digg Elaborates on New Search

> Digg to Get All Twitter This Year?

> Digg Does it Again with Advertising

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It seems like everyone wants to steal a page from Twitter and their Trending Topics. Not too long ago we saw YouTube introduce trending topics, and today Digg is announcing their very own version of the concept too.

Dubbed Digg Trends, the new experimental feature launches today and will be a prominent element of the homepage experience. A trending story will be called out at the top of the page for 10 minutes at a time, with a timer counting down the minutes and seconds.

The trending story will be selected based on a high volume of diggs, comments, favorites, shares and activity, and users can then vote by digging or burying the story to determine its popularity. If the story gets enough diggs in the allotted time period it will stay on the homepage, if not users will be able to see that the trend failed.

According to Digg’s blog post on the newly released featured, “The goal of Digg Trends is to put high activity stories in front of the community quickly and to present a fun new way for people to express whether they like the story or not. We only show the most basic information for each story so as to ensure that voting is as unbiased as possible.”

Digg’s approach to trending topics is an interesting way to engage the site’s community and give users the power to have even more influence over Digg’s front page stories. The feature appears to be live, so check it out and let us know what you think.

Tags: digg, digg trends

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This post is part of Mashable’s Spark of Genius series, which highlights a unique feature of startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here. The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark.

Name: Splurb

Quick Pitch: Splurb is a cross-referenced list of the social web’s most popular links. To get listed, a link must be popular on at least two social websites.

Genius Idea: Community news aggregators like Digg, Reddit, and Tweetmeme are a great way to find interesting news links and stories. The only problem is that it can be difficult to keep track of all the news from all the different aggregators. This is Splurb’s mission: to simplify the social aggregators by only listing stories that have been deemed popular by at least two social sites.

Splurb aggregates stories that have become popular on sites like Digg, Tweetmeem, Fark, Reddit, Propeller, Yahoo! Buzz, and Mixx. Links can be viewed by category and are sorted by popularity over time. The size of a stories text indicates how many sources linked to it. It’s really nice because at a glance you can see how many sites are linking to a story and how many collective votes that story has received. Clicking on the link takes you directly to the original source.

I really like the idea of aggregating and ranking stories that have already been submitted other places on the web. There are only so many hours in the day and I know that if I see a story has been linked by four different sites, it’s a story that I might want to invest time in reading — as opposed to clicking on something that turns out to be sort of a dead-end.

Of course, sometimes, the comments attached to story on a social aggregation site are better than those on the story itself (I’m looking at you Reddit!). Splurb lets you view the comments at the sites linking the article (by loading them in an iFrame within an AJAX window) and you can leave comments on Splurb for the stories too.

Splurb has a clean, simple design and it delivers on its promise to offer a trimmed down list to the best links on the web.

How do you find new information online? What do you think of Splurb’s concept? Let us know!

Spark of Genius Series Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark

BizSpark is a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.

Entrepreneurs can take advantage of the Azure Services platform for their website hosting and storage needs. Microsoft recently announced the “new CloudApp()” contest – use the Azure Services Platform for hosting your .NET or PHP app, and you could be the lucky winner of a USD 5000* (please see website for official rules and guidelines).”

Tags: digg, fark, Mixx, reddit, social aggregation, splurb

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We’re trying out a new feature on Mashable today: Trending Stories. The idea is simple: whichever story gets the most social reactions from the community (eg. Retweets, Facebook shares) goes to the top of the homepage and article pages.

That’s right: we’re letting you decide which story rises to the top. Use your power wisely!

What do you think of Trending Stories? Let us know in the comments!

Tags: mashable, trending categories, Trending Stories, trending topics

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New work by Australia based Storm Design Brand DNA:

“This project was to re-design a range of packages for Gelati Sky, a
boutique, premium gelati range. The story of Gelati Sky had such strong
personality. It was based around Gelati Sky founder Paul Scalisi
memories of growing up in Rome, eating gelati – ‘a world where every
moment seemed frozen in an amazing sensory assault and every cloud in
the sky made you feel it was about to rain gelato’. We were looking for
something that was strikingly unique, represented his story and would
create conversation. The communication platform of ‘it’s what dreams
taste like’ was derived out of the brand strategy definition for Gelati
Sky conducted by Brand DNA. The goal was to express these feelings
through the package and the tastes through the flavors. The concept
that we came up with was born out of these ideas. We combined the
imagery of Italy with objects that looked like the flavor to create a
unique, organic and scrumptious shape for each flavor. The packaging
looks like it is part of memories and dreams from Italy. 

Gelati
Sky started as a boutique Gelati range servicing restaurants and
specialist food shops. The packaging was the strongest step to building
a brand consumer could connect with. As small ultra premium brand, the
package needed to take on a more delicate personality than the bigger,
more established companies. The package needed to not only reflect the
personality and story but also to look different while still
maintaining premium feel. The taste of the Gelati is simply amazing and
we knew that if we developed a rich, beautiful label, one that would
get buyers and customers excited it would be very successful.”

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But social media is also empowering regular citizens with the ability to break news stories as they take place or spread the word about events they consider to be newsworthy. The phenomenon is birthing a new wave of Citizen Journalism and it’s one of the major reasons news agencies are performing backflips trying to stay relevant.

A perfect example of online citizen journalism occurred in the UK this week, when blogger Jonathan MacDonald witnessed a London rail guard verbally abuse and physically intimidate an elderly passenger whose arm had become stuck in a train door. Midway through the incident, Jonathan had the foresight to whip out his video camera and film the exchange, during which the Transport for London (TFL) employee hurled insults at the passenger, swore loudly at him and threatened to “sling him under a train”.

When Jonathan expressed his distaste to another train guard and suggested that the abusive staffer would lose his job over it, she laughed at him. As a result, he felt compelled to blog the experience and tell as many people as possible as he believed the passenger was being bullied and an injustice had been done.

As well as blogging and tweeting about it, Jonathan posted the video on YouTube, filed an official complaint with TFL about the incident and sent emails to several members of the London press. Social media did the rest.

Outraged viewers of the video joined forces to spread the word, with Twitter users pushing the hashtag #TFL into the trending topics list. Bloggers linked to Jonathan’s post, shared the link on Facebook, MySpace and other social media networks. Within 24 hours the story made headlines on Sky, BBC, LBC, ITN and on the front page of the Evening Standard and the Telegraph. The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson became involved and at the time of this posting, Jonathan’s video has had nearly 145,000 views on YouTube.

As a result of Jonathan’s actions, the TFL employee has been suspended and is now the subject of an internal investigation.

The moral of this story? Never underestimate the power of social media.

From Jonathan’s blog:

“All I did was see something that shouldn’t be tolerated and used the ammunition we have in our hands – video/blogs/network… the main reason this story has flown is due to what happened on camera. We must remember that. It’s not me. I didn’t ‘invent the story’. I just blogged, like I do, and the Twitterverse powered the rest. The conversation may continue for a while and I hope that more citizens become aware of the power they already have to stop hatred, abuse and fear” he says.

Hats off to you Jonathan.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

%%Never Underestimate the Power of Social Media%%

Never Underestimate the Power of Social Media

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It looks like AMP might not be the only energy drink in hot water this week.

This story starts last month, when the makers of the Monster energy drink sent a cease and desist letter to Rock Art Brewery in Vermont.

Monster’s parent company, Hansen Beverage Co, wants Rock Art to stop using the name “Vermonster” on one of its specialty beers, because they believe it will cause confusion with the energy drink.

Using his company’s website, Facebook page, Twitter account, and now a YouTube video, brewery owner Matt Nadeau has been able to rally support, and now, talk of a Monster boycott is spreading. Users on Twitter have started using the hashtags #boycottmonster and #monsterboycott. Meanwhile, on Facebook, the group Vermonters and Craft Beer Drinkers Against Monster is up to nearly 10,000 members. The story has also received significant press coverage in recent days.

Nadeau and the attorneys he’s contacted believe that he’s in the right here, and that Monster has no case. However, he doesn’t think he can weather the financing required to take them on in court. Hence, we’ve got the perfect David v Goliath story playing out, with David now having thousands of social media users on his side.

How far will this story go? If the boycott talk grows loud enough, perhaps to the point that Monster drops what does seem like a silly and unnecessary trademark case. Watch Nadeau tell the story in the video below:

Tags: monster energy drink, social media

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The story was written and illustrated by Brooklyn native Maurice Sendak in 1963. The book is wildly popular in the US and regarded as a masterpiece of children’s literature. Where the Wild Things Are has also won numerous awards and metals.

Kids and adults alike are going wild about the book coming alive in theatres. Here are 5 wild things about the classic children’s story:

1. The original story featured imaginary horses. The characters were subbed for monsters since the writer could not draw horses. You cant go wrong with monsters.

2. The author Sendak could however draw decent caricatures of his relatives: Tzippy, Moishe, Bruno, Emile, and Bernard. I’d like to see the look on their faces when Maurice mentioned they were staring as ugly monsters!

3. The text of the story consists of just ten sentences.  I think this is the true beauty of this classic children’s story. Imaginative imagery makes the story feel timeless.

4. Where the Wilds Things Are took a couple years after being published to catch on and gain popularity. The book was criticized by parents for its portrayal of darkness, defiance, and anger. Once children started taking a liking to it and read it as a story they could relate to, the book would soon be found in every bookstore and library. Now 46 years after the story was originally written, Where the Wild Things Are will be released in theatres in October 2009. Check out the trailer.

5. According to Sendak, a film has been in the works for the past 18 years. Until Maurice meet with Spike Jonze, the director of the film, he was not convinced anyone could bring his meaning and characterization of the story to life.

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Toy Story 3, to be released on June 18th, is one of the most anticipated movies of 2010. While a teaser trailer for the 3D movie had been posted online already, the theatrical trailer hadn’t yet made it to the web, and no actual footage had been seen online.

This week that’s changing, as the full trailer has been posted to YouTube and other sites. Whether Disney decides to leave the videos up is another matter, but it would seem the leak is only adding to the, err, Buzz, around the release.

The social media chatter will likely be positive: the trailer not only hints at phenomenal animation, but also points to a decent plot. Thanks for the preview, interwebs!

Toy Story 3: Full Trailer

Toy Story 3: Teaser Trailer

Tags: toy story

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Pixelelement.com/news has launch a new “digg” like system for the online community to share the best news/stories in the categories of design, photography, inspiration, motion, illustration, technology, and video games.

When you submit a story, your story will appear in the “upcoming” stories section. Users of the system will be able to vote on your submitted stories, and promote the story to the front page on the “published” section.

In addition, when you submit a story to the system, your story will be posted on Pixelelement blog’s main site on the right sidebar under “User Submitted News”.

If you have a website/blog, you can submit your stories/news to the system and help increase the traffic to your website/blog. If you do not have a website/blog, you can still submit stories/news to share them with the online community.

Right now anyone can submit stories/news without registering. You’ll have to register in order to vote on stories. You can register in less than a minute, you only need a email address.

Visit the website at pixelelement.com/news

Click here to submit your news, or click here to register.

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This story has a refreshing twist to that usual reaction. It is a drunk driving story with a happy ending.

David Heim drove drunk 14 years ago and got into a serious accident. He didn’t hurt anyone else, but he himself lost the use of his legs, and he’s been wheelchair bound ever since.

He admits that driving under the influence of alcohol was the “dumbest thing he’s ever done.” He decided to make some real changes in his life. He decided to give his life meaning by devoting the rest of his days to helping others.

Fast forward to 2009: David, affectionately known as the “Wheelchair Recycler,” makes more than 100 custom made wheelchairs each year for people who would otherwise be immobile, spending their days lying in a bed. He makes these wheelchairs out of recycled parts from chairs that are donated to him. He charges very little money for these chairs, and if a family is unable to pay, then he just gives them the wheelchair.

David’s work has changed so many lives for the better that he even got the attention of the Christopher Reeve Foundation. They donated one of Christopher’s wheelchairs to David, and he was able to repair six other chairs with the parts.

David said, “Independence is the greatest thing.” Once you give someone the gift of mobility, you give them legs again. He has received a lot of National attention in the States, including an article in USA Today and an appearance on the NBC Nightly News “Making a Difference” segment.

Does he regret the decision which led to the car accident that left him wheelchair bound? David says, “I wouldn’t change a thing. The smiles on the faces of the people we’ve helped out are worth every hour I was in rehab.”

David’s motto: If you find something you love to do, keep moving, never stop. I think those are words we should all learn from. You can learn more about him here: http://wheelchairrecycler.org

This is a video posted on YouTube about two weeks ago. It was made to thank David for making Alvaro Cardenas a custom wheelchair and shipping it all the way to Peru. This is very touching.

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Leah Betancourt is the digital community manager at the Star Tribune in Minneapolis, Minn. She is @l3ahb3tan on Twitter.

Video blogging is nothing new — after all, video has existed on the web long before YouTube. But video equipment is now cheaper, post production software more accessible, and online platforms on which to distribute video — such as YouTube — are easier to use than ever before. Still, only some of the many people posting videos regard themselves as video bloggers.

Even though the notion of video blogging itself isn’t new, the actual endeavor is still novel to many people. This guide will explore concepts behind video blogging and the tools for creating and distributing that content.

Video Blogging is Still in its Infancy

Robb Montgomery, CEO of a public charity that promotes journalism education called Visual Editors, said in an email interview that web video consumption overall is a booming phenomenon but maintains that we are still at the beginning of an emerging art form and story form with video blogging and it may be too early to generalize about long-term effects.

It may seem surprising that video blogging hasn’t take off considering how cheap the equipment has become and how easy it is to shoot, edit and post video online. According to Adam Singer’s Future Buzz blog, some reasons it hasn’t include: it’s time consuming to produce compelling video, video is not searchable, and pros still have an advantage.

But the demand is there. In August, more than 161 million viewers watched an average of 157 videos per viewer, according to data from the comScore Video Metrix service. A whopping 81.6 percent of the total U.S. Internet audience viewed online video and the average online video viewer saw 9.7 hours of video in August.

Video viewing doesn’t show signs of slowing, but what about video blogging?

Web Video Puts People on Equal Footing

Video on the Internet does two things — it puts people on equal footing versus the top-down communication of broadcast media and it allows for direct talkback from the audience.

Michael Rosenblum, CEO of Rosenblumtv, said in an email interview, that the only reason people used to differentiate between average person and journalist is that access to the equipment and the ability to publish was just too complicated and too expensive. He said that went away with the web, which gave anyone the ability to write or publish whatever they wanted.

“Now that freedom comes to video — as the cost of cameras goes to next to nothing and the web carries video with the same fluidity that it carries text,” he said. “What we are looking at here is the true democratization of video — a real ‘free press.’ This, I think, is a very positive thing.

“The move to video blogging, just getting started, is to my mind the same as the move to writing books post-Gutenberg. It took the printing press to liberate writing from the few literate monks; now the web will liberate video from the few ‘video literate’ TV types,” said Rosenblum, who just launched an online video training site called the New York Video School.

What Makes a Good Video Blog

With lower costs for equipment and software, anyone with a video camera phone could become a video blogger. Technical barriers to video production are getting lower, but the big question is, what makes a good video blog?

Ryanne Hodson, a video blogger, editor, and trainer who, with co-founder Michael Verdi, launched Freevlog.org in 2005, said the number one tip for video bloggers is to be passionate and to cover topics they care about. She and Verdi, along with Diane Weynand and Shirley Craig, wrote the book Secrets of Videoblogging. “Be excited about something and go out and capture it,” she said. “If you have something to say and you want to share it, you have a venue.”

Montgomery said that most web video needs to get to the point right away. “Hit them with your best sound bite and start your story arc there to pull them in. People make a go or no-go decision usually within the first 10 seconds. Once you have them, standardizing on story length becomes less important. The key is to know how to keep the story moving at a good pace,” he said.

The length of video clips can vary depending on the style of the video created, but always keep your audience in mind.

“We live in a world of rather short attention spans. We find that two minutes or so is the ’sweet spot’. The whole notion of hours is kind of an abstraction. Think of music. Most songs are three minutes long and that works great, and delivers a great story and experience for the listener,” Rosenblum said.

Josh Leo, who has been video blogging since 2005 and has four vlogs, said good videos are a mixture of the basics of good production: editing, good, clear shots, and good lighting. Beyond that, he adds, it’s an incorporation of one’s personality. “You can create a copycat video, but you’re contributing to the noise,” he said. “It’s not about the quantity, but the quality.”

Leo tries to post a video every other week. He said he learned to improve his videos through trial and error — posting, watching them, and posting again. “The important thing is to post something and learn as you go,” Leo said.

Creating a Video Blog

Montgomery said choosing a video camera depends upon your beat, style, audience and frequency of posting. “I have seen people be effective with a mobile cam or laptop camera. At the other end of the spectrum are solo video journalists who have the chance to make high-quality stories from the field with small cameras like the Sony A1U and about an equal dollar investment in microphones and Final Cut,” he said.

The software Montgomery recommends is a mixture of low-cost and professional applications: Final Cut Studio, GarageBand, iPhoto, Fission, and Audio Hijack Pro for editing and audio.

Leo said that during his first three years of video blogging, he used a Sony Handycam for shooting and iMovie for editing. He now uses Final Cut Pro, an HD camcorder, and an iMac.

Hodson said she likes the Flip cam and Sanyo’s Xacti HD cams. She said Mac users can use iMovie and PC users can use Windows Movie Maker, and a step up from those are Sony Vegas and Adobe Premiere Elements.

Rosenblum said Flip cams and the JVC HM100u are great, and noted that shooting in HD is important for certain types of video blogs. “HD is necessary if you want to sell the content for broadcast, and the market for that is expanding all the time. So if you are going to buy a camera, I strongly suggest HDV,” Rosenblum said. He said he loves Final Cut Pro because it’s simple and accessible, and users can start editing from the first moment.

But it’s not just about the video — audio also matters, according to Montgomery. “It is far wiser to invest in microphones and recorders that capture high-definition sound than it is to go for a camera with high-definition pictures and a small lens,” he said.

In the end, though, video blogging is exploding because the barriers to entry are so low. “The bottom line is, if you want to get into video blogging it is remarkably simple and very, very inexpensive,” Rosenblum said.

Distributing a Video Blog

Hodson posts her videos on YouTube, Blip.tv, Archive.org and embeds clips on her blog. She also likes using Flickr for video and photos because she can email them from her iPhone 3Gs, then Flickr sends a link out to Twitter. But, she stresses, no matter where you post your videos, you should add your video clips on your own web site or blog as well.

Rosenblum said he loves YouTube because it is simple and so easy to embed, and that quality of Vimeo and Blip.tv is great and fast, while Montgomery said he uses Vimeo for its quality and YouTube for its search.

“It really helps if you engage with your audience in social media. I got 9,000 YouTube views in one day for my ‘Obama in Cairo’ report (second only to Al Jazeera) because I used Twitter, keywords and other social media to promote the publication at the right moment and in the right social space,” he said.

Leo posts his clips to Vimeo, YouTube, Facebook and his blog sites. He points out that people are loyal to their video providers, so uploading to multiple sites is smart. “It’s just giving people the opportunity to choose how they want to view your video,” he said. “Not everyone uses an RSS feed. Find who your audience is and post it to where they are.”

Video Blogging Tips from Robb Montgomery:

- Only avoid using a tripod when it is impractical

- Be yourself

- Avoid trying to copy TV news formulas

- Film exciting and visually interesting B-roll

- Audio matters for brand identity

More social media resources from Mashable:

- The Journalist’s Guide to YouTube
- The Journalist’s Guide to Twitter
- The Journalist’s Guide to Facebook
- 12 Things Newspapers Should Do to Survive
- How Social Media is Radically Changing the Newsroom

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, jorgelum

Tags: video, video blog, video blogging, vlog

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One of the best ways to really trip deeply into imagination is to check 3D works! Yes, 3D opens wide possibilities for stories, as we see new characters, still to have their story written. Seriously, thank God for 3D artists, like the ones featured here.

These renders are as amazing as it gets. The artists are getting more qualified each day, and it awes me to see their work! All of these were done by the fine artists from CGSociety. I totally recommend you to visit each artist’s page by clicking the images because you’ll get to see it in full view and also you’ll get to see their full portfolio, which is really worth it. I hope you guys enjoy this! Cheers.

Jarek Switalski

Phil Shoebottom

Mashru Mishu

Jelmer Boskma

Thomas Schreiter

Jorge Barrero

Paulo Welter

Petr Chegodaev

Joel Mongeon

Gabor Cseh

Paul lin

gene Teh

Christopher Tackett

Eric Zhang

Russell Barton

rui dai

pascal ackermann

lufei bi

lufei bi

Jian Xu

WeiLin Ke

Jorge Suarez

Jimmy Chow

heon-hwa choe

Yury Rybakov

Riyahd Cassiem

Deniz Özemre

Joseph Harford

Ricardo C. Rocha

Lee Perry-Smith

chengjie wang

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Anyone that works in online news can tell you that being early to a story can make a huge difference in terms of the traffic and attention an article receives.

The AP apparently knows this too, and is now considering charging publishers to get a head start on the competition with breaking news.

According to an AP story (fitting) about the idea, publishers could have a story exclusively for up to 30 minutes, giving them a major advantage in terms of the inbound links, social media sharing, and search traffic that online news sites depend on.

The devil is in the details here, and the details at this point are far from certain. The organization is simply considering the concept, which CEO Tom Curley discussed earlier today at the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents’ Club.

In principle, this doesn’t sound like a bad idea, as there’s clearly a lot of value in having a big story first, and the AP still breaks its fair share of big stories. But it seems like a logistical nightmare, as news would need to be created, sold, and published, all before it breaks elsewhere – not an easy task in today’s ultra competitive media landscape.

There’s also the issue of how the AP would implement something like this in a way that doesn’t cannibalize the hundreds of publishers that rely on it for news, but could in turn get outbid on the big stories that drive most of their traffic.

In any event, we’ll have to wait and see if this evolves beyond the concept stage. The AP is also reportedly working on a plan to dominate Google rankings by developing pages around hot search terms that are linked from its publishers’ websites. In a nutshell, the company’s strategy seems to be to continue to find new ways to make more money from the same content.

Tags: ap, Associated Press, online news

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These covers can serve as object lessons for what to do and what not to do both with design and editorial.

While some controversial covers have worked and sold more magazines, or won awards for the editors who made the decision to go to press with them, others were embarrassments that the publication had to either apologize for, or fire an editor over.

Here are some of the most controversial magazine covers of all time. Feel free to suggest other covers that you think should be part of this collection.

Time Magazine, January 2, 1939: Hitler as Man of the Year

This cover featured an elaborate illustration of Hitler playing “his hymn of hate in a desecrated cathedral while victims dangle on a St. Catherine’s wheel while the Nazi hierarchy looks on.” Baron Rudolph Charles von Ripper was a Catholic that fled Hitler’s Germany, and the artist of this disturbing piece. By 1938, Hitler had firmly seized power in Germany, taken over Austria and Czechoslovakia, and had been given a free hand in Eastern Europe by the English prime minister of the time, Neville Chamberlain. Time has had to defend this choice throughout history, and at the time defended it by stating that the “Man of the Year” was a title bestowed on the person who had most influenced events of the previous year.

Time Magazine, April 8, 1966: Is God Dead?

This cover has been called the most controversial of all time. The related article concerned the “death of god movement” that had sprung up in the 1960’s. The cover and article enraged readers.

Life, November 26, 1965: War In Vietnam

Paul Schutzers captured this arresting image of a VietCong prisoner being taken prisoner by American forces during the Vietnam War. Photography and news coverage like this helped to turn the American public against the Vietnam war. While Schutzers was one of LIFE’s best photographers, he was killed on assignment during the Six-Day War of 1967 between Israel and its neighbouring states of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria.

Esquire, April 1968: The Passion of Ali

This smart rendition of Muhammad Ali was created to illustrate his martyrdom to his cause after he refused to join the US military due to his religious beliefs and was subsequently stripped of his heavyweight boxing title. The piece was done after the same manner as “The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian”, a popular theme through medieval art but most recognizable in the painting by Andrea Mantegna.

Esquire, May 1969: The Drowning of Andy Warhol

Another triumph of Esquire’s former visionary Art Director, George Lois, this picture combined two separate shots of a soup can and Warhol. In the first ten years of his employment at Esquire, circulation was boosted from 500,000 to 2 million, a figure for which his covers were partially responsible. This shot references Warhol’s famous “soup can” exhibits that symbolized the American avant-garde art movement.

Playboy, October 1971: First Playboy African-American Woman

This cover was the first Playboy cover to feature an African-American woman. The model is Darine Stern and the photographer was Richard Fegley.

National Lampoon, January 1973: If You Don’t Buy This Magazine…

While this cover didn’t do much more than make people laugh when it came out despite its violent overtones, Ronald G. Harris’ famous cover shot definitely raised a few eyebrows in pre-Photoshop days.

The New Yorker, March 29, 1976: Steinberg Map of New York

This portrayal of a New Yorker’s idea of what the rest of the United States looks like was drawn by Saul Steinberg. The artist sued Columbia Pictures over their movie poster for “Moscow on the Hudson”, which does seem to be derived from Steinberg’s cover down to the placement of the title. Steinberg won the case.

Rolling Stone, January 22, 1981: John Lennon and Yoko Ono

Annie Leibovitz took this shot just hours before John Lennon was shot outside of his apartment building, the Dakota, in New York City on December 8, 1980. Leibovitz originally wanted to take the shot of Lennon alone but he insisted that his wife be in the pictures. This cover was named the most popular magazine cover of the past 40 years by the American Society of Magazine Publishers.

Vanity Fair, August 1991: Demi Moore, Pregnant and Nude

This cover was shot by celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz and was decried as shameful and disgusting when it was released. Some stores sent back the issue, or only sold it with a brown paper covering the “offensive” image. It has spawned countless celebrity nude pregnancy shots done in the same fashion, and helped to launch Demi Moore’s career into the stratosphere.

Vanity Fair, August 1993: K.D. Lang and Cindy Crawford

The cover was meant to be as controversial as the country star’s career. According to the cover story, Lang got more grief from the country music industry over her decision to join PETA than her decision to come out as a lesbian.

Time Magazine, June 27, 1994: OJ Mug Shot Controversy

In 1994, OJ Simpson was accused of murdering his wife, Nicole. In 1995, he was acquitted after a long and highly publicized trial. The photo used on the cover of Time Magazine was manipulated to make OJ look darker in skin tone and more menacing. For comparison, see the Newsweek cover which uses the original shot without any alteration.

The Economist, September 10, 1994: The Camel-Humping Issue

Obvious Black Eyed Peas references aside, this cover drew some fire for the UK-based magazine. The cover was printed for the North American market only.

Time, April 14 1997: Ellen’s Coming-Out Issue

Time’s cover and exclusive story left no doubt in the minds of all Americans that Ellen was, in fact, gay. Even in 1997, coming out could be perilous for a star’s career. While it may now seem like a mere bump in the road due to Ellen’s stunning success, at the time TV outlets in rural America pulled her show.

Wired, June 1997: 101 Ways to Save Apple

When this magazine went to press, Steve Jobs had just rejoined Apple through Apple’s acquisition of his NeXT Software Inc. While the cover was a bit more pessimistic than the story it was meant to illustrate, it remains one of the top magazine covers of all time. We don’t think anyone would try to give Jobs advice today, but back then Mac fans would have done anything they could to help the ailing corporation.

Time, Dec 21, 1998: Devil Horns on Clinton

This was one of several magazine covers that featured Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. In 1995, Lewinsky was an intern at the White House during Clinton’s presidency, and they had an intimate affair. The scandal broke when Lewinsky confided in a colleague in January of 1998. The scandal eventually resulted in Clinton’s impeachment. The top of the letter “M” in the Time masthead appear to be resting on the top of Clinton’s head as horns. The devil horns were written off by Time as an accident of masthead placement rather than a deliberate act.

Esquire Magazine, December 2000: The Crotch Shot

This shot of Clinton was said to be inspired by the Lincoln Memorial, but was interpreted as an obvious reference to the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Like the Obama couple satire in the New Yorker seen further down, this cover drew fire from both sides of the political fence.

The New Yorker, Sept. 24, 2001: Twin Towers in Silhouette

This cover was a graphical as well as an editorial success. The magazine succeeded in creating a fitting and classic memorial to the victims of the tragedy and the buildings themselves in true upscale New Yorker fashion. Covers editor Franoise Mouly created a testament to the Twin Towers that drew on the inspiration of Ad Reinhardt’s black-on-black paintings.

Entertainment Weekly, May 2 2003: Dixie Chicks

The Dixie Chicks set off a firestorm when they criticized then-president George W. Bush for invading Iraq on the grounds that Iraq was manufacturing weapons of mass destruction. The Dixie Chicks used their weapons of mass distraction on this provocative cover.

Seventeen, May 2003: Sarah Michelle Gellar’s Zombie Arm

This horrendously manipulated stock photo of Sarah Michelle Gellar made the mag send an expensive purse by way of apology. Gellar returned the purse since she didn’t wear leather. While the practice of using stock photos for covers is common, flagrant abuse of Photoshop is something that the art department and editor usually catch before print time.

Rolling Stone, January 2006: The Passion of Kanye West

Rolling Stone tipped a thorny hat to Esquire’s portrayal of Ali with this 2006 cover. It isn’t known if the cover was meant to be a joke about the singer’s ego, but most people found it very funny. Religious fans of the magazine didn’t find it as hilarious, and the odd cover story that went with it in which the singer admits to a porn addiction just made the whole thing awkward. The tone of the cover feels current in light of the singer’s recent mike-grabbing moment at the 2009 VMA’s.

Baby Talk, August 2006

While this image seems benign to most people who have been involved with a baby in one fashion or another, the cover was decried as obscene. Even though moms made up the target demographic, a survey of 4000 of them turned up the fact that 25% had a negative response. One mother actually shredded the magazine so that her 13-year old son couldn’t see it. Not that he likely noticed; he was probably on the computer downloading porn watching tips from Kanye.

Texas Monthly, January 2007: Dick Cheney Cover Issue

Building on the famous 1973 Lampoon cover, Texas Monthly took a jab at the Vice-President’s hunting accident where he shot a colleague in the face. This cover won the 2007 Best Cover Line of the Year Award from the Magazine Publishers of America.

Time, August 29, 2007: Devil Horns on Billy Graham

The blogosphere was rife with rumours about this cover. This was probably not intentional. Time Magazine has claimed that all of its “Devil Horn” covers through the ages are mere coincidences. For a defense of the Time Magazine position, this blog post has a list of Time Magazine covers that have devil horns but no potential hidden meaning. Accident of their masthead design, or subtle editorial statement? You decide…

Golfweek, January 19, 2008: The Noose that Hung an Editor

This cover was born out of the comments of a golf anchorman, Kelly Tlighman, that fellow players should “lynch (Tiger Woods) in a back alley” and the subsequent feature story that was published in that edition of Golfweek. PGA Tour director Tim Finchem had this to say about it: “Clearly, what Kelly said was inappropriate and unfortunate, and she obviously regrets her choice of words, but we consider Golfweek’s imagery of a swinging noose on its cover to be outrageous and irresponsible”. A day after the cover was published, the editor was let go.

People Magazine, March 2008: Brangelina Twins

This cover and photo shoot sacrificed People’s editorial soul for a first shot at the Brangelina twins. Instead of their usual journalistic even-handed approach, they seemingly acquiesced to the couple’s need for nothing but positive coverage in order to get a scoop on the rest of the world with the first baby pictures. While People magazine denied these charges as “categorically false”, the coverage was nevertheless very rosy-cheeked in tone.

Vogue, April 2008: King Kong Cover

This cover of model Gisele Bundchen and sports star Lebron James was considered to be a racist portrayal of “King Kong”. Images that portray black males as threatening “reinforce the criminalization of black men,” said Damion Thomas, assistant professor in the Department of Kinesiology at University of Maryland. The cover was supposed to showcase two stars with excellent bodies, in keeping with the “Shape” theme of the issue.

The New Yorker, July 21, 2008: The Obama Couple Satire

This cover by famous New Yorker cartoonist Barry Blitt was heavily criticized by both the McCain and Obama camps during the 2008 US election. While the piece was meant to be a satire of allegations lobbed at the couple by their detractors, its inopportune appearance during a campaign didn’t have Obama’s supporters laughing as hard as the magazine intended.

OK Magazine, June 2009: Michael Jackson Death Photo

Fans were upset over the magazine’s decision to publish this photo. Sarah Ivens, editorial director, said that the cover decision was made since they wanted to stand out from all of the tribute covers that were dominating the stands that week. Jackson died on June 25, 2009 after being given a cocktail of drugs by his physician.

Compiled and written exclusively for WDD by Angela West.

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