culture

This is a pet peeve and I just had to sound off about it. When writing an About Page, it’s important (crucial) to say something about yourself.

This seems basic, but time and again I see About Pages that are vague and make no mention of the people behind the enterprise. As a reader, I inevitably find this unsatisfying. Read the rest of this entry »

Since January, I’ve had the pleasure of serving on the N&O Community Panel. It’s been enlightening, exciting and occasionally maddening.

The panel meets once a month Read the rest of this entry »

We just wrapped a new episode of StreetStyleTV. It’s a follow-up to our earlier show about “The World’s Coolest Sunglasses.”

The gang at Vision Park in Raleigh invited us to an eye wear trunk show. We saw the latest trends from OGI and JeeVice. We even had cupcakes with lemonade icing.

Special thanks to Elizabeth from Vision Park and Michele from the blog One Chic Mama.

Getting Hal in a skirt was easier than you might think.  Skirt Magazine is a local tabloid for women and features interesting local women in business, community, and the arts.  Once a month they do a story featuring an interesting chap and put him in a skirt.

Read the rest of this entry »

Cell phone cameras are pretty limited. But, sometimes, they are the only tool at hand. That’s why I thought it was worthwhile to figure out how to take good pictures with the camera on my iPhone. Read the rest of this entry »

StreetStyleTV is our new web channel about fashion. The week, we learned all about sunglasses from eyewear designer and entrepreneur Wick Morgan of the Spectacle.

Thanks to:

Wick Morgan
The Spectacle
Raleigh, NC

Read the rest of this entry »

Sold, originally uploaded by hal990.

Abandoned developments are starting to blight the landscape near my house. From a project this week for SmartGrowthGirl.

One of the buzz topics last week was Security & Safety. The issue is URL shortening services. Read the rest of this entry »

Jump in, the water is hot.  We don’t just surf the internet anymore, we dive deep, immersing ourselves in information, interaction and community. Here are some staggering statistics that show how many people spend a majority of their time on the internet.

• there are 2 billion Google searches a day (source)
• there are 78 million YouTube videos online (source)
• over 100 million YouTube videos are viewed per day
• 346 million people globally read Blogs daily (source)
• 77% of active internet users read Blogs
• Facebook has 175 million users from 170 countries (source)
• Facebook users have an average of 120 friends
• the fastest growing demographic of Facebook users are 35 years old & older

The old economy may be drying up, but the new economy is awash in opportunities. Need a lifeboat? Give us call.

Samantha Smith, fashion maven for the News & Observer, covered one of our pieces in her blog:

The Fashion Plate

Thanks Samantha!

The new television isn’t made in Hollywood. The new television doesn’t need Time Warner or NBC.

From a viral Trader Joe’s ad that’s had 340,000 views on YouTube to TateShots from the venerable British museum, people are watching TV in a new way. Read the rest of this entry »

What do David Hockney, the Tate and me have in common? You guessed it: Twitter. Read the rest of this entry »

For a couple of years, we’ve been struggling to transfer our experience making broadcast television into a lower-cost web video model. TV commercials can cost $10,000 per second to produce. But shouldn’t real filmmakers be able to make quality content with just a camera and a laptop?

In our new video for Luxe Apothecary, a lot of techniques we’d explored came together in one perfect No-Budget Video (NBV) project. Our experience may be a model for others and has already inspired interesting discussions and new assignments.

The development of an effective No-Budget technique can bring television-quality web video to businesses and content producers of all sizes. Here’s what we learned. Read the rest of this entry »

Not too long ago, we railed against the limited functionality of Facebook Pages for business. But all that is in the past. Facebook Pages now look and behave like Profile Pages, enabling true two-way interaction with your customers and fans. Read the rest of this entry »

The Beatles on RockBand in Sept: http://tinyurl.com/daqadq

Can iTunes be far behind?

@TomMartin lists 10 must-have iPhone Apps for Ad folk http://tinyurl.com/bomm6d.

My list:

• Twitterific - seems like a pretty good Twitter client for iPhones. Free.
• Tap Tap - Guitar hero for mobile. Start straining your thumbs. Free.
• Flashlight - Surprising how useful this is. Free.
• Shazzam - must have. Identify music on the fly. Free.
• Facebook - Great little app. Free.
• AIM - commune with your legacy friends. Free.
• MySpace - For all you folks with bands. Free.
• AllRecipes - Make the family happy. Free.
• DrinksFree - Make your spouse happy. Free.

The easiest way to get apps and ensure they work right is to surf them up from iTunes and “buy” them in the iTunes Store (all the above apps are free). The apps will appear on your phone the next time you sync.

What are your favorite iPhone Apps?

Malls, mixed-use developments, shopping centers - call them what you will, they dot the landscape of America.

Many of the larger developments have websites. For the most part, they’re pretty awful. So, when we were asked to produce a new website for North Hills, a mixed-use development in Raleigh, NC, our goal was to help bring the category into a Web 2.0 world.

Two months after the launch, we have every reason to feel we’ve achieved. Stats are great, everything works, and best of all, a continuing content stream is beginning to bloom. It’s interesting stuff, too - stories, bios, pictures and video.

So here’s a checklist of things we think a contemporary mall or mixed-use website needs. Read the rest of this entry »

Thanks to North Hills Buzz for featuring our video with Fiquet of Luxe on the latest edition of their home page. Where do they get this stuff? I guess that’s why it’s called Buzz.

Thanks also to our friends at North Hills and, of course, to Fiquet of Luxe Apothecary.

We’ll post our own story about the video shortly: How to make quality TV with a home video camcorder and a mic from yoor band.

Just a few stills from a new video for make-up maven Fiquet of Luxe Apothecary. This girl is gonna be a star, people!

Some fresh and exciting ideas in newspaper design:

Full story here:

http://tinyurl.com/cu3rt7