Newspapers’ Web Revenue is Stalling. That’s because no one likes advertising or how much newspaper (and media sites in general) cram down your throat. When advertising takes up more area on a webpage than content, there is a serious problem.
Author: Chris Harrison
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WJS08: Managing Your (Personal) Brand
These are notes I took during Brian Oberkirch‘s session on “Managing Your (Personal) Brand” at the 2008 Webmaster Jam Session on 3 Oct 2008. (more…)
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Putting big trust on someone else, you’re solving three problems: you’re increasing the chance you’ll get your project done, you’re building a strong team, and, oh yeah, you get to sit there and watch and learn as someone deftly works in a place where you’re horrible. Rands in Respose: Horrible
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Webmaster Jam Session 08 Wrapup
I’ll be posting notes from Friday and Saturday within the next day or so. Wi-fi was spotty at times due to the number of devices trying to connect to the Loudermilk network, so I stayed unplugged for a majority of the conference. (It wasn’t critical for me to be on.)
I’m really glad my coworkers were able to come. Josh and Phil walked away feeling more empowered and inspired to do better work. Jeff walked away with a greater understanding of what it is we designers do. Next year, I hope PowerServe can become more involved in the conference. We had fun with all of the folks who came out to hang with us at Fandangles on Friday night.
I had a GREAT time and met lots of great folks, and made a lot of new friends. When the Webmaster Jam comes rolling around in 2009, I will definitely be there in some capacity.
I’m not sure what the next conference I’ll be going to will be. I’m looking at the Future of Web Apps (FOWA) in Miami FL in February and South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) in March.
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WJS08: Going Social with Chris Perry
I’ll make more sense of these notes later:
- People are trying to slap social stickers onto everything.
- We need to blog. We need video. We need social networks.
- If you’re not thinking about the whole picture, you’re just slapping stickers on your package.
- Social media:wikipedia
- Social Media is about people connecting.
- Social Media represents huge collision of MSM change and social uprising enabled through new technologies
- Pre-Filter > Post-Filter. Let the market decide what is important. Press becomes multi-media. And social media. Ex: BusinessWeek Outside the media establishment comes an explosion of sources. The formats have changed. Now blogs, video sites. Appealing content is brought to the forefront. Explosion of social networking. Word of mouth. Go from one source of content > through media ==> social platforms. Better news, advice from us versus brands.
- Net effect: Open season on brand reputation.
- Independent sites CAN rise to the forefront and conflict with brand objectives of companies.
- Create a new architecturethat’s in sync with customer realties: a social architecture.
- Readdress fundamental questions:
- Business is socialising with purpose.
- Don’t focus on stickers. Focus on IDEAS that stick and can be spread.
- Politics and cause-related marketing offer a look into how this works today.
- Example: Stand Up to Cancer.
- Collab between top three networks, A-list celebs and much much more.
- Conversation peaked at announcement. Tailed off afterwards.
- Virtual standup: get ppl involved online. Create personalized call.
- Find right points of entry to social network.
- Based on ideas not platforms.
- Make ppl part of the content.
- Get ppl to participate. If they are part of the content, they will talk about the cause.
- Triggered widespread conversation.
- Personal relationships.
- Twitter was a HUGE factor in spreading info on the cause.
- Efforts trigger massive amount of momentum.
- Need to have a design program.
- Social OUTRANKS CELEBRITY.
- Social media played key role in raising $100m for the goal.
- Politics and online advocacy – Example: Barack Obama Campaign
- Represents the tv station of tomorrow.
- Moving from sound bites to sound blasts.
- “YouBama: The Citizen Generated Campaign”
- 24×7 social media that competes with and serves the press.
- Channels fueled by new ideas and new contributors (Fact check video responses)
- Twitter text updates. Media stunt. 62K followers. VP Announcement.
- End game: mobilizing supporters, donations and votes. Obama “rocked the vote”
- Rethink how you package your goods.
- Social movement represents core v. fringe business.
- Not just about the platforms. It’s about a new way of working.
- Let people do the talking for you.
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Updated Feeds
Feedburner’s been pretty spotty for me as of late so I’ll no longer be serving my RSS feeds through them. Please update your feedreaders accordingly. Sorry for the incovenience.
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Is CS4 worth the upgrade?
Is Adobe Creative Suite 4 worth the upgrade? Having been involved in the Adobe Creative Suite 4 Web Premium beta test for the better part of this year, I’ve had a good bit of experience using the new versions of Dreamweaver, Photoshop and Illustrator.Here are just a few of the things that have stood out so far:
- Better UI. I hated it when I first saw it, and I know that others are going to have that same reaction. But the new unified interface is consistent from app to app and is more customizable than ever before. You can quickly toggle between several default workspaces without having to restart the applications. (This was one of my peeves with Dreamweaver CS3. It supported “workspaces” to an extent, but changing it required restarting the program.)
- Tabbed windows. I tend to work with multiple documents open at a time. The new tabbed windows allow you to see all the documents you’ve got open, easily switch from window to window, and easily sort them. Want to see all of documents you’ve got open and match their zoom level in Photoshop? It’s super easy now.
- Speed. I tested CS4 out on two machines: a Dell Inspiron 1720 laptop running Windows Vista Ultimate with a 1.6Ghz Core 2 Duo and 3Gb RAM, and a Dell Dimension E510 running Windows XP Professional SP2 with a 3Ghz Pentium 4 HT and 3Gb RAM. I was able to keep several apps open at once on both machines and they were all quick and responsive.
- Stability. Even in the prerelease versions I tested, CS4 was very stable.
- Installation. One of my biggest problems with CS3 was the installation process. CS4 installer has been GREATLY improved. What was once a 2-3 hour ordeal*, only took 35-40 minutes on the two machines I tested on.
This just scratches the surface. CS4 is a major upgrade, and it’s well worth the money in my opinion. In my next post, I’ll discuss some of the new tools and features available in CS4.
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Theme Updates
The WordPress community gives much of itself to users who don’t always give back. I created Effercio Blue and Nanideska last year, but as of today both they are being released under GPL. If you downloaded them prior to today, the old Creative Commons license still applies.
- Effercio Blue – A two-column theme for WordPress. Support WordPress tags, dynamic sidebar and widgets, and includes custom link and archive page styles. Future plans for this theme include adding additional color variations. This theme and its accompanying elements are released under GPL. Download Theme | View Demo)
- Nanideska – A simple two-column theme based on an earlier iteration of cdharrison.com. This theme and its accompanying elements are released under GPL. Download Nanideska | View Demo
