I was catching up on one of my favorite bloggers, David Pogue of the New York Times. On his blog, Pogue’s Posts, you’ll see a lot of reviews of gadgets and commentary on tech news. Yesterday, for the first time ever, I watched a video he had up on the site that reviewed free cell phone voice-activated services. The video is funny and useful, and observing his geeky enthusiasm serves to remind you that he’s just a regular guy — like you or me.

It reminded me how often I am surprised to see the real live personality behind a blogger, a radio personality, or anything else where you usually don’t get to see the human on the other end. It’s usually a pleasant surprise.

Web media like blogs, and especially video, give us that human connection we all crave. I think this can be a place where a lot of websites fail miserably. In an attempt to appear professional and creditable, they take the human element out. But sites that do have that human element — say, a how-to video, or a blog with an active comment section — tend to make more of a real and lasting connection with users.

Is your site guilty of being sterile and cold? Here are some signs:

• You have no photos with people in them.
• Your site colors are all cool in tone.
• Your site is static with no interactivity.
• Your content focuses on your business and organization rather than your visitors’ wants and needs.
• You have no audio or video media.

If you suspect your site may be too cold, try any of the following:

• Add a video message, demo, or interview.
• Start weekly or monthly podcasts and make them easy to download from your homepage.
• Find professional and appropriate graphics that prominently feature people.
• Add an interactive element, such as user ratings or testimonials.
• Integrate a blog into part of your marketing strategy and keep the posts personable and down-to-earth.
• Incorporate some warmer colors into your site design.

Making your site “human” is easier than ever to do now. Have at it!

A new trend sweeping COMP-SCI classes and server rooms everywhere is coloring your hair to match one’s desktop wallpaper. Web development companies are suddenly becoming a much more colorful place as the trend progresses.

Some believe the proliferation of colorful wallpaper art from sites like InterfaceLIFT has contributed significantly to the trend. However, in the case of nerds with plain black or brown wallpaper, the trend results in less exciting outcomes.

Video can’t do everything, but for specific things, it outshines any other medium on the web (text, pictures, audio, interactivity). Here are my top five:

1. Tutorials. There’s nothing better than an online how-to video. One of my favorite places to go for video tutorials is the DIY site Curbly.
2. Virtual Tours. We have a bunch of these over at Wonderfile that help a new user take a peek at what the product can do even before signing up. Within a minute, a visitor can usually tell how useful and easy to use a product is.
3. Interviews. Video the only way to capture the personalities of the interviewee and interviewer. Transcripts can’t capture pregnant silences or boisterous outbursts. Podcasts can’t capture gestures and facial expressions. Video wins for interviews, hands-down.
4. Product demonstrations. Think Guthy-Renker infomercials you see on early AM television. Apple does a great job of showing off products and what they can do in a short amount of time.
5. Viral Marketing. Nothing spreads faster than viral videos, particularly those that are funny. Check out the Will-It-Blend series and just try to NOT send it on to someone else.

By the turn of the twenty first century, it became essential that businesses have a website. Websites had faded from an optional marketing extra to an essential business tool, a company’s address in the virtual landscape.

Websites had faded from an optional marketing extra to an essential business tool

Now that websites are commonplace, a new, more specialized evolution of the website is becoming a business prerequisite: Blogs.

Once only pursued by prolific writers and angst-ridden teenagers, blogs have become a valuable marketing device, making them many companies front line weapon in the battle for customers.

Keep reading for my guide on how to turn your companies collective knowledge into a blog, and a blog into profits.

(more…)

Next time you make a run for the border don’t forget to bring along all the old decrepit cell phones from your junk drawer. As our rock-n-roll programmer Shawn demonstrates, recycling your old phones is easier than ordering two bean burritos.

Taco Bell’s new marketing slogan is “The only thing greener than our guacamole is our phone recycling bin.” Although catchy, I think “The only thing greener than our guacamole is any other restaurants guacamole” would be more accurate.

All joking aside, it’s nice to see big companies making an effort to help out the Earth, which has given so much to them.

Pardon the diversion, but I have to share.

Gas prices are steadily rising and the AC on my 1998 Honda Civic is teetering on the brink of a nervous breakdown. So as of June 1st, I decided to embark on a mission to get through the summer* on one tank of gas**. (Driving is for sissies!)

With approximately 11 gallons in a full tank, and let’s say conservatively I get 25 miles to the gallon around town, that leaves me about 275 miles of driving through the end of August. That’s approximately 20 miles per week.

In the 20 days since I’ve started my quest, I’ve already burned through maybe 1/5 of a tank. Fortunately, if you can call it that, divine intervention is preventing me from burning through any more gas at the moment. I very flat tire. I’ll probably just let my car chill till the weekend and get it fixed then. In the meantime, I am getting used to walking and biking just about everywhere — the grocery store, the gym, work.

Not only does the flat tire prevent me from immediately driving, it also forced me to clear out all the junk from my trunk in order to access the spare and jack. I bet I’m at least 40 pounds lighter back there. I knew I had junk in my trunk, but not that much junk.

I realize that this is nothing. Many people take the car and gas problem totally out of the equation all together. Still, I think for me, this is a reasonable and positive goal for my wallet and the planet.

Take that, oil cartels of the world!

And check out Nick’s post on Gas Saving Tips for some more ways you can save on gas.

*My “summer” will run from June 1st to August 31st.
**I’m also cheating — I can’t count the one trip to Duluth I have planned (which pretty much burns exactly one tank of gas.)

Today, Brian Clark from Copyblogger posted on a video where NPR’s Ira Glass talks about the building blocks of storytelling in broadcasting. (Video embedded below.) Like any Monday morning, I had plenty of email to slog through, but I had to watch this video. For those of you who are fans of Ira, you know what I mean -– that something in his voice and manner of speaking that compels you to stop everything you’re doing and listen.

In the video, Ira talks about how to take traditional story structure that we learned in school and turn it on its head. That is — forget the topic sentence followed by a set of supporting facts — it isn’t effective for TV and radio. Instead, Ira’s got two key building blocks of storytelling:

1. The Anecdote
2. The Moment of Reflection

Brian’s right, Ira’s approach isn’t just for TV and radio. (more…)

The traveling Star Wars exhibit “Star Wars — Where Science Meets Imagination” has finally come to Minnesota. I had the opportunity to check it out, and I can say it certainly lives up to the hype.

Patrons are invited to view original movie costumes and props, examine the incredible detail of model ships, watch exclusive behind the scenes clips, meet storm troopers, and even climb into the Millennium Falcon’s cockpit for the jump to light speed.

To get a small glimpse of what’s in store for you, see my photos above. I used Wonderfile’s tag sharing feature to create the interactive slide show. To start making and sharing your own slide shows for free, sign up for Wonderfile.

I had the opportunity to attend Flashbelt again this year. And it was awesome.

This year’s highlight was seeing Jared Tarbell speak again, who’s done amazing work in both Processing and Flash, and is a the co-founder of Etsy, an excellent marketplace for all things handmade! For those who have kids, or like wearing really small clothing, be sure to check out Orange Rhino for some sweet threads from our very own Jess Louwagie.

Jared’s session once again left me speechless. The work was refined and elegant, the music fitting, and the presentation seamless. What inspired me the most of about these speakers, however, was not just their work. It was how approachable they all were. And how apparent it was that their work was fueled by curiosity; a willingness to make mistakes and a stubbornness not to give up.

One of Jared’s pieces that caught my eye was a series renderings that used Perlin Noise to generate forms resembling an iris (of the eye, not the flower).

While analyzing some of his source code (special thanks to Jared for providing it), and listening to Eric Jordan’s mix, Indigo, it became apparent to me the potential of using BitmapData.perlinNoise() and BitmapData.getPixel() to achieve organic, pseudo-random results.

Read on to see my latest experiments – Click the images to see the full-version. They look better … (more…)

In the past, it was pretty clear who you went to for developing and implementing a cross-media marketing campaign — the ad agency. You went to an interactive firm when you only needed web work, or you had to integrate complex web applications that traditional agencies could not effectively manage.

Today, the web-based projects are a critical component for major marketing initiatives. The lines between ad agency, interactive agency, and web development firms overlap. So when it comes to online marketing efforts, who do you go to? Do you go directly to the ad agency? Or do you find a company specializes in custom web development, design, and consulting? Do you separate out the web portion of your project and hand-pick a specialized web company? Or do you let your agency find their own vendor?

Good questions. Here’s a few indicators you may want to consider working directly with a company that specializes in web development:

1. You need more than a public marketing site. If your project involves anything more than a public-facing website, there’s a good chance the traditional agency is going to be lost.
2. You want to streamline your business processes through web applications. Ad agencies won’t help you build web-based software to manage your members, for example. ArcStone, on the other hand, can build you a member management system with online dues payment, member communications, and more, all integrated into a public facing website. (That’s just one example – the possibilities are pretty much endless.)
3. You want to implement search engine marketing. Agencies don’t typically build SEO into their campaigns. SEO campaigns are their own special beast — they can be very time-consuming, the rules are constantly changing, and they require specialized skills that ad agencies typically don’t cover.
4. You need a full-service solution. Using five different agencies for your design, programming, SEO, email, and hosting can be a logistical nightmare. If you find an agency that accomplish all of your online objectives, you’re going to save yourself a heck of a lot of time, money, and headaches.
5. You need heavy interactivity and broad support. Agencies are great at designing the generalities of the user experience but struggle with the details. A development company is going to follow interface best practices and bring years of experience to the table. A typical web development shop has done hundreds of different user interfaces and has a good idea of what works and what doesn’t. Another example of a sticky interface issue is multi-browser compatibility. The intricacies of modern browsers makes it very difficult to make a consistent user experience across all the major browsers. Web developers have special expertise in scripting and style sheet languages that agencies don’t.

ArcStone is a great fit for clients who need custom web solutions or a full-service technology solution provider. We do web consulting, development, design, hosting, email, search engine marketing, file management, email marketing, and more. We’re interactive, we’re programming-heavy, and we excel at building custom web solutions to help streamline business processes.

Ad agencies recognize that most mid-sized to large organizations have some form of online most often need to sub-contract out web development work. It’s a good system, as long as the web portions of the project are pure marketing. Introduce anything else and the traditional agency is out of its element.

The web is a complicated enough beast these days; don’t trust your marketing guru with your web technology. It behooves businesses and organizations to recognize the strengths and weaknesses in both types of firms.