The collections included jackets, jeans and shirts for men that transition from work to play. We shot at North Hills in Raleigh as our location.

Credits:

• Photographer - Hal Goodtree
• Stylist - Leslie Huffman
• Models - Todd & Thomas

Special thanks to North Hills.

The commercial was shot entirely on mini DV and edited in Final Cut Express.

Credits:

Director & Editor: Hal Goodtree
Media: Leslie Huffman
Music: Fool With Time

Thanks to:

Julie Hendricks
Mary Beth
Ashley
Dana
Emily

The spot is now running on What Not to Wear and elsewhere on Time Warner Cable in the Raleigh area.

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

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.

It’s true: they watch it on their iPhones and on their PCs. They watch at the airport, at a soccer game and at work. Television has become portable, and people watch it when they have a free minute, wherever they might be.

But new channels of distribution aren’t the whole story. A new class of producers is filling the void as the networks stumble and broadcast audiences erode.

Consumer cameras shoot hi-def. Video editing software costs a couple of hundred bucks and runs on budget laptops. And the technology has been around long enough that some people are learning how to use it pretty darn effectively.

We decided to enter the fray with a new show of our own: StreetStyleTV. It’s a quick hit of fashion, fresh off the street, real people wearing real cloths.

We were inspired by streetstyle photoblogs like The Sartorialist and Garance Dore. This is a similar idea, but on video.

We’ve started a website too: StreetStyleTV.com

It’s a WordPress site with a special theme designed for video. The theme, TV.Elements by Press75, ingeniously breaks a post into media and text elements. Take a look at how we deployed it.

The new television is already changing the way we watch. Soon, it will be changing the way we think and feel and act.

Credits:

• Fiquet, Luxe Apothecary
• Kristin Murray
• Production by Goodtree & Co.

Thanks to:

• North Hills
• North Hills Buzz

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.

The Basics

1. A page for each merchant
2. A picture for each merchant
3. Descriptive text for each merchant (more than just a phone number and an outside link)

It is surprising how few big developments have reached this level of information. See our collection of links for malls and mixed-use developments on Delicious (and please feel free to add links to other sites in the category).

The Finer Points

1. Interactive Map
2. Continuing Content Stream
3. Ad Platform

(1) The interactive map is a challenging bit of engineering and UI. We’ll write more about it soon. (2) In most cases, developing a rich content stream requires cultural change for clients. Training and continued support are mandatory to advance evolutionary adoption of web 2.0 tools like blogs and twitter. (3) Big developments like North Hills have the potential to draw big traffic. Why settle for pennies on the dollar when you could have it all with your own ad platform? Tune in again for a discussion about implementing your own ad server.

Best Practices

To boost the performance of a site in this category as measured by key stats like Time On Site and Page Views, here are a few best practices we can recommend:

1. Minimize outside links
2. Run outside content in an iframe within your site
3. Drive traffic to niches with CPC advertising
4. Pay attention to what Analytics tells you about your audience

The Last, Most Important Point

Like all other advertising and marketing ventures, success is rooted in a good agency-client relationship. We are deeply grateful to Kane Realty Corporation for their vision and their patience throughout this project.

Special thanks to:

• Anna Smith
• Mike Smith
• Bonner Gaylord
• Jon Masterson
• Katherine Knott
• Angela Slater
• Paul Newcomer
• Walt Stewart
• North Hills Security

For Goodtree & Company:

• George Gumpert, master programmer
• David Holt, design
• John Dixon, flash
• Leslie Huffman, merchant database and blogging diva
• Hal Goodtree, precious little

Thanks also to Allen Weiss, Michael Kimsal, Lindsey Chester, Paul Harnett, Dorothea Bitler, Jill Harris, Fiquet, Kevin and Stacey Jennings, Wick Morgan and Jason Peck. And thanks to Jake St. Peter and Mike McTaggart for their generous time.

Please contact us for more information about mall, shopping center and mixed-use development websites.

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.

In the Window, originally uploaded by hal990.

We used a different shot for the website, but this is my favorite from the shoot at Uniquities Mix.

Two Ales, originally uploaded by hal990.

North Hills is a unique place. It has more local merchants than national chains. It has restaurants, not just fast food. It has underground parking.

It took vision to redevelop an old-skool mall into a modern urban village. In building a new web site for North Hills, we’ve tried to live up to that standard.

North Hills told us to focus on creating quality content. Each store, restaurant and spa has its own page, its own picture and descriptive text. After researching the category, it was surprising to find how few developments had this much information.

We’ve taken over 1500 pictures for the new site (our favorite is the flash panorama on the home page). Many thanks to the management and merchants at North Hills for all their help and patience. Special thanks also to North Hills Security.

Goodtree & Co. credits:

• Leslie Huffman - Project Manager
• George Gumpert - Design & Programming
• David Holt - Senior Designer
• Hal Goodtree - Creative Director

Also thanks to Allen Weiss, Michael Kimsal, Paul Harnett, Anna Smith, Dorothea Bitler and Mike Smith.

More about the things we’ve learned from this project later. Surf up the NorthHillsRaleigh right now and let us know what you think.

Photos by George Gumpert & Hal Goodtree. Design by Goodtree & Co.

Read the story behind this picture. Thanks to Wendy at the American Red Cross Flickr group.

Mission of the American Red Cross

Since its founding in 1881 by visionary leader Clara Barton, the American Red Cross has been the nation’s premier emergency response organization. As part of a worldwide movement that offers neutral humanitarian care to the victims of war, the American Red Cross distinguishes itself by also aiding victims of devastating natural disasters. Over the years, the organization has expanded its services, always with the aim of preventing and relieving suffering.

Donate to the American Red Cross.

Portrait of racing legend Mario Andretti by Allen Weiss.

North Hills is focused on the development and management of retail and mixed-use properties of the highest quality where people will naturally want to live, work, shop, dine, play, stay and renew. - Kane Realty Corporation

A new website and internet features are planned.

We write a lot about WordPress and blogging. One important trick of the trade is installing a custom theme to give your blog a unique look. Here’s how it works:

1. When you install the WP blog engine, it loads up the default theme, a plain white page with a solid blue header.
2. To give your blog its own flavor, WP provides an ample tool set for using a custom theme.
3. Hundreds (if not thousands) of custom themes exist. Most themes are free or just involve a modest cost. One of the best places to search for themes is the WP Theme Viewer. You can narrow your search by selecting a color, number of columns and lots of other criteria.
4. Select the themes you like best, download them to your computer, then upload them to your server inside the WordPress directory, wp-content/themes subdirectory.
5. Surf up your blog and log in to the admin panel. In WP 2.5 or greater, navigate to the Design tab (in earlier versions, navigate to “presentation”). You’ll see thumbnails of all the themes you have uploaded. Click on the theme you fancy. Presto! Your blog has a new look.

Some themes include a picture in the header. To really jazz up your presentation, you can replace the header picture with one of your own design.

Find the header picture you want to replace. It’s usually in folder labeled “images” inside the theme directory. Sometimes the appropriate file is labeled “header,” other times not. Just have a quick look at the files in the images directory and the header picture should be self-evident.

Load up the header picture in any imaging program such as Photoshop or Fireworks. Design a new header to your own liking, but don’t change the overall dimensions of the picture.

Upload the new header to the appropriate directory on your server replacing the old header (use the same file name). Shazamm! Your new header is now active.

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For our pro bono client SmartGrowthGirl, we used a photo of the author and combined it with an illustration we purchased from iStockphoto. The resulting picture adds personality and uniqueness to the blog, plus tells the story of what the blog is all about. See it here.

We also re-themed our own blog to better match our new website.

For advanced blogging geeks, you can even change the color, typography and layout of the theme by editing the css file. But that’s fort another day.

Our theme for SmartGrowthGirl is adapted from a theme by Nathan Rice called RockinBizRed, available as a free download from Rockin Themes. For our own blog, we adapted a theme called Mushblue by Mukka-Mu.

This is our second site for SVI. As our understanding of vascular medicine has progressed, we’ve been better able to explain complex medical stuff in simple, concise language. Or, anyway, that’s the theory.

ADWORDS AND WEBSITE DESIGN

The impetus to expand SVI’s website was motivated by our ongoing Google AdWords campaign.

AdWords can tell you a lot about what products and services interest the public. We structured the new website around keywords that generated the greatest traffic.

Experts call this “optimizing conversion.” The goal is to turn a greater percentage of viewers into customers by offering content tailored to their needs. So, because we were able to track high consumer interest in “Vascular Surgery,” we created a page specifically to answer that interest.

LOWERING FRICTION

Another key to a successful website is “lowering the friction.” Friction is any kind of a barrier between the viewer and taking action.

To make it easier for people to get in touch, we’ve included a mini-contact form on every service page. Our hope is that this will encourage more people to communicate with us, removing the barrier of navigating to a contact page.

IT’S A PROCESS, NOT AN EVENT

The doctors and administration at Southern Vascular Institute recognize that success on the web is an ongoing process, not a one-time event. We’ll continue to look for ways to build SVI’s brand, generate traffic and drive revenue.

Thanks to Drs. Arthur Freedman, Roger Moccia, Mark Jackson, Brian Baghdady, Kyran Dowling, Richard Harp and Michael Ludkowski. Thanks also to Nurse Practitioner Amanda Faile and special thanks to N.P. Kim Waldenmaier for medical guidance. We also wish to gratefully acknowledge the support of John Engle and his administrative staff at SVI.

Credits:

• Concept and Copywriting: Hal Goodtree
• Design & Programming: George Gumpert
• Photography: Kenneth Wilson

Here’s how a landing page works: let’s say you have a potentially lucrative niche product or service. You create a Google AdWords campaign to address your audience. Then you design a web page to turn your audience into buyers.

Southern Vascular Institute in Greenville, SC has a niche service they’d like to promote - they can treat uterine fibroids without traditional surgery.

Treatment of fibroids is a great example of a niche category. It’s easy to target with keywords and by geography.

We set up the AdWords campaign, driving traffic to the Institute’s general website. The traffic was significant enough that the practice decided it worth making a landing page specifically targeted to explain their minimally-invasive treatment of uterine fibroids.

We built a page and re-directed the traffic. Here’s one of our ads:

See the landing page for yourself at CarolinaFibroidDoctors.