It's getting close...

As we get closer to our alpha launch, we wanted to throw up a couple teaser screenshots of what some of our main page elements are going to look like. These are not the final versions, but we'll try to keep rotating through a few of them to share Cutcaster's look and feel and hopefully get a little feedback. Anyways, this is the homepage.

MicroStock Contracts, Agreements and Terms of Use comparison

At Cutcaster, we have been working on an improved Royalty Free Contract and have done some of our own research on what the different competitor sites' agreements look like. We always want to improve and will listen to anyones' suggestions. With the help of J. Gracey Stinson over on TalkMicro we researched and collected all the different terms and agreements on competing microstock and stock footage/photo content sites. Here is a list below with the links. When you get a second check out Gracey's website as well.

Cutcaster

Content License Agreement

Contributor Agreement

User Agreement


123RoyaltyFree
Terms of Use

Licensing


BigStock Photo
Photographer and Member Agreement


Photo Usage Agreement

Buyers Terms For Special Licensing


Canstock
Terms & Conditions of Use for Buyers

Crestock
Upload Agreement


Dreamstime
Links to all TOS and Usage Agreements on one page:


Feature Pics
Terms of Use

Image Licenses



Links to all TOS and Usage Agreements on one page:


Lucky Oliver
Membership Agreement

Supplier Agreement

User Agreement


Shutterstock
Submitter Terms and Conditions


Stockxpert
Terms of Use

Artist Agreement


Image License Agreement

Which one do you think has the fairest contracts? Which is better for buyers? For sellers? Where can changes be made?

Links for Designers Pay and Fees around the world

There is a great resource over at Design TalkBoard which enlightens us about what the market is paying and valuing designers work. Here is a link to their list and some of the links below that I found particularly helpful.

Graphic designers salaries – 2006 survey on designers wages.

UK design fees – report on the fees that British graphic designers are able to charge.

Design fees in the USA – positive trends for American designers.

If anyone can post other good resources on what freelancers pay should be or different resources on trends in salary, that would be great.

Freelance Graphic Designers Salaries and Factors for Charging

Freelancers must battle with this forever. Its a tricky and touchy subject to discuss money and charges with a new customer. No one wants to put a potential client off by over or under-quoting. What are the most important factors you should take into account when you are pricing up your working and deciding how much to charge? Here are some things you should consider when pricing up your services.

1. Type of Work- Most people will charge different rates for different type of projects. Conceptual work, in most cases but not always, gets charged at a higher rate than production work.

2. Type of Client- Who is the client? What industry are they in? How large are they? This is also very important in determining what you can charge. One shouldn't always value the work by how long it will take but should look at who it is for and how they will use it. Your work will bring different value to different clients. You should try to determine what your clients budget is and what their spending history has been like on similar projects. Obviously, larger organizations will pay more than an individual.

3. Your Experience Level- How much time have you spent in front of your digital darkroom? What are your skills? Give yourself an honest evaluation or ask someone else who is a mentor to you or more experienced in your industry. In most cases, work from an experienced creative director or well established design group will be more costly for a number of reasons when compared to an individual ie. office space, overhead expenses they incur, experience levels etc.

4. Web and Interactive design- When charging for web and interactive design it is generally more expensive than purely static HTML page construction.

5. Location- Your location can influence your pay as we all know. DesignTalkBoard id a designers salary survey, which highlights this reality. Use this to your advantage if you work remotely and are able to find clients in large metropolitan areas.

6. Loss leader, pro bono, free pitching- Do you pitch for free or is this a part of the process for you? Do you low ball your fees on the first project to lure a client in with the possibility of more work down the road?

7. Extras ie. Printing, travel- How much or do you add on for extra services you provide to you clients such as adding on the cost of printing. It's always tough to quote these extra costs in a sales pitch and is best spoken about beforehand or put into the fine print. If you do any research on the pictures do you charge extra? What about if you travel to a shoot?

There are a number of things to consider when pricing up your services and pitching your clients. Some are more helpful and useful than others. Some you just have to learn from experience. Its a safe assumption to go into the situation knowing that it will probably go over budget and time.

Banned BMW Commercial. Can you ban commercials on the Internet?

Disclaimer-This is safe for work. Seeing banned commercial like this BMW ad makes us at Cutcaster want to meet creators like this and turns our brain into overdrive about the possibilities of the Internet as a distribution mechanism for content like this, which may be too edgy for TV. Let me know what you think of the commercial and also if you know who created it. I found this ad over at Ads of the World. Check it out here.

Digg Adds Video

In a move that had to be expected but not yet ready on Digg, Joe Shockley over at Surflizard just told me that Digg now features videos on their new home page.

Yahoo Photos is no more...

The process of corporate cannibalization continues as it was officially announced that Yahoo will shutdown its image service September 20th and focus all its time/money/effort on Flickr. Similar to what happened to Google Videos and YouTube minus the mess Google made out of that with the "refunds issue," it seems that these huge companies with massive resources still haven't figured out how to be everything to everybody. They'll give it a shot in-house, and then go out and buy a company that does it better. Note to would-be start-ups: figure out what Google/Yahoo don't do well, do it better, and they will buy you!

Smart Scene Carving Resizes Images Without Distortion

If you haven't seen this yet, I think its going to be pretty cool for artist who can now modify images without distortion. Check out this smart image resizing algorithm first seen at the Special Interest Group: Graphics (SIGGRAPH) convention. This cool guy, Ariel Shamir of the Efi Arazi School of Computer Science in Herzliya, Israel (Shoutout to Herzliya. I've got a very good friend who lives in Herzliya name Mor Keret at SAP), wants to make just as dynamically resizable for images as it is for text on a web page by using a technique he calls "scene carving." I really thought the technique had a few interesting angles it could play.

1. It could make a convenient Photoshop-like application which is pretty cutting edge.

2. Its looks to be a smart way to stretch and re-size images. Could have limited commercial use.

3. One of the big players has to be interested in owning technology like this.

4. the ability to mask out a person or trademark might have a huge commercial impact on a photo. This could be a huge boon to consumer oriented services and software like Flickr, Photoshop Elements or content marketplace like Cutcaster.

5. This technology could be great for checking out webpages on small displays like PDAs or iPhones.

6. Could really benefit the advertising/web design world, which in some cases may view business over the art of the picture.

Keep an eye out for this technology and let me know if you hear any more good Photoshop applications that are popping up.

Media Usage in Britain...

These are always interesting stats to see when you're trying to build an online video marketplace. Steve Rubel over at Micro Persuasion posted this link to a Variety article about a survey done in Britain regarding new vs old media usage. I think the key points are the following:

"Among Brits aged 25-34, women account for 55% of the time this group spends using the web.

Among Brits aged 65 and older, 16% spend more than 42 hours per month online — making them the heaviest online users.

Survey confirmed that traditional advertiser funded webs are coming under increasing pressure as ad coin migrates online and to multi-channel services.

Online advertising in Blighty rose by nearly half in 2006 to £2 billion ($4 billion) as multi channel advertising attracted more than $2 billion.

The U.K.'s main [TV] networks have been losing audience share but have been able to offset this to some degree by the strong perfs of spin-off webs: Film4, More4, E4, ITV3 and ITV4 were among the top 10 gainers in share in the year to December 2006, said Ofcom."

In summary, women and seniors are the web's most active users. Network TV viewership is down, but online video content is helping offset some of that loss. And finally, that online advertising grew by nearly 50% last year. In summary, all the arrows seem to point up for online video and the advertising that supports it. NICE!

Gregorius: NMKY (Finnish YMCA cover). I couldn't stop cracking up

I was just sent this hilarious video of a YMCA spoof from 1979 and thought I would share. Looks like a Finnish Kevin Klein and I love those back-up dancers. Thank god its Friday!

Latest Adobe Flash Player 9 software ready

Adobe announced a few days ago their latest update for the Adobe Flash Player 9, code named Moviestar. This will now include H.264 standard video support - the same standard deployed in Blu-Ray® and HD-DVD® high definition video players - and High Efficiency AAC (HE-AAC) audio support, as well as hardware accelerated, multi-core enhanced full screen video playback.

The latest update for Flash Player 9 is available in beta right now here.

Creators of Content- Listen up for Copyright Clarification

PACA or to those that don't know the Picture Archive Council of America has produced a PowerPoint presentation which provides a ton of very valuable information regarding copyright law in the US and how it applies to the use of imagery in advertising, the news media and fine art. You can download the presentation here on it's website and is a must review for all creators and users of photography.

Topics that are covered range from what copyright protects and the length of the protection, as well as highlight such topics as fair use, what is an infringement and what is not, and explains how the Digital Millennium Copyright Act can be used to remove infringing works from the Internet. A Must Read.

You will find answers for:

* When do you acquire copyright protection?
* What is and isn't protected?
* What rights does the owner control?
* How long does copyright protection last?
* How to define Public Domain?
* Is copyright notice needed?
* Who owns copyright?
* Can copyright be transferred?
* Limitations on owner's rights
* Definition of Fair Use?
* Why should you worry about copyright?
* Who is responsible?


A lot of the terms that they are trying to clarify in the presentation have gray areas and multiple meanings depending on who you speak to. Nancy Wolff, PACA’s legal counsel and an expert on copyright law, was the creator of the PowerPoint presentation but she came up with all the language to help others understand the terms and usages for us non lawyer types. I'd be interested to hear what others say about how she defines terms and the case studies she picks. These are all very hard terms to define and pinpoint.

If you have a bit of free time and want to learn more about Copyright and topics related this is a good use of your time.

Will YouTube finally be a cash cow?

Silicon Alley Insider had a great article that ran some revenue projections on YouTube's new plan to sell video ads. This is a major (and much anticipated) step for the video juggernaut, and what's interesting is that in the author's conservative estimates, in 5 years they'd be pulling in about $200m in revs from ads alone....but in the "agressive" scenario where the CPM and percentage of videos with ads is scaled up, they make $13 billion. Pretty crazy. And remember when everyone thought the 1+billion dollar price tag seemed ridiculously high? Looks like a bargain now.

Choose your words wisely- Keywording Help

Why do we say that at Cutcaster ;-)

So, you’ve got that shot. Everything is perfect. You’ve nailed the exposure and focus. The composition couldn’t be better and you burned the midnight oil at your computer in your digital “darkroom,” preening and fluffing that shot or your clip to perfection. The only thing that is left before you send it out to the world of buyers and viewers is to make sure your keywording correctly describes your hard work so it doesn't fall into the content abyss.

Keywording your content is important for many reasons due to the technological impairments we encounter when identifying and trying to search for content online. No great solutions have popped up to help us with this and we must rely on human input of keywords/metadata to make it easier for us to search for what we are looking for. We have talked at lengths about this search and cataloguing problem.

All too often clips and photos which are poorly keyworded are lost into this content abyss and out of site for interested parties. It does you no good if you have that great shot and no one can find it. For selling content, keywording is one of the most important steps towards making sure you content is found.

Here are a few ethical tips to help you with keywording your valuable content either to sell it or make it easier to find on other sites. If you know any others please add them in the comments.

1. Know the point or concept behind the clip or photo you have shot. You should always be thinking about your target audience and what they would be interested in or how they would search for it.

2. All your keywords have to be relevant. We have had countless conversations or seen many community threads started by angry searchers who say they find many irrelevant keywords and content in their searches because uploaders spam the keyword section. This may help your contents chances of being seen but can irritate and completely turn off a buyer or viewer if it is totally off base.

3. You should not turn keywording into a word association game. Don't try to take your concept six steps down the road and turn it into something it isn't. I.E. mouse --> hole --> cheese --> cat --> pet. This doesn't help anyone.

4. Don't include keywords that are not in the shot. Some common repeat offenders are sex, sexy, woman, babe. We can only guess what they are looking for.

5. A thesaurus can be great if you run out of ideas or if English is your second language. You can find help online or in your Microsoft Word.

6. Using antonyms are useful but only when describing certain clips or images. A good example is "go" and then using the opposite "stop" for a traffic light. Or "hot" and "cold" when describing a thermometer.

7. When English is your first language, one must always be aware that their can be different meanings to the same words. There are some subtle differences between American English which you would learn in Japan, the Philippines and Russia and British English which is taught in India, Pakistan, Australia and much of Africa. Our advice is to cater to both forms of English when keywording as buyers and viewers are able to find it from all over the world.

These little tips should help you with your keywording. When all else fails it may be time to call your 7th grade English teacher for a little help.

There are keywording programs available. Here are a few below.

http://www.keywording.com
http://www.abouttheimage.com
http://www.a2zkeywording.com
http://www.jaincotech.com
http://www.keywordcompiler.com
http://www.keedup.com
http://www.africamediaonline.com
http://www.keywordingindia.com
http://www.onasiadigital.com
http://www.careydam.com
http://www.adnetinfosystems.com/
http://www.keywords-to-go.com/
http://www.keywordcompiler.com/

Updates for Cutcaster

Sorry for a bit of radio silence on the blog the last day or two. We like to add an entry or so a day but I was off-line so excuse.

We had a very busy last few days at Cutcaster and have been tying up the last of the loose ends. This weekend we finalized a lot of the uploading functionality and it is looking and working good so far. We are very excited about that but will need some more help testing it. We are completing the rest of the front end integration with the backend. It's tough work but nothing our tech studs can't handle. I'm hoping it will be complete in less than a week and then we can start testing the platform out.

If you are interested in being a beta tester, we are only going to be giving out a limited number of trial invites because we want this process to be orderly and also be able to collect as much valuable feedback as possible. Please get in touch with us at www.cutcaster.com to sign up for one or email us.

Thanks for all your emails and being patient. We are really excited and can't wait to share Cutcaster with you. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to email or call us.

The Cutcaster Team.

The popularity of online marketplaces...

This post on emilychang.com (a great resource, btw) highlights a new document-only content marketplace called Gazhoo. Being a content marketplace ourselves, we here at Cutcaster are paying particular attention to how well this new beta site does. Let me pose yet another question...does anybody know anything about Gazhoo, like who's behind it, etc?

The Content Revolution Continues

A content revolution is drastically changing the traditional media and distribution landscape. No one knows where this will lead us but we are all witnessing the seismic change and trying to determine the best course of action. The market for online content especially video and audio is growing at an extraordinary pace. Open standards for digital media, the deployment/falling costs of broadband access, the falling cost of production equipment/tools, the growth of broadband, mobile, set-top boxes and digital recording devices will make new television related services over the Internet and mobile phones cheaper, viable and more common. That is great news. Distribution and monetization are forever ingrained on our brains. In the past, aggregators and those who provided content worked only with traditional means of distributing content to its audience through television, theater releases, DVD/VHS purchases and rentals. The Internet has presented itself as a new medium to distribute and view content.


This content revolution will shift content distribution from mass to niche markets as media companies change their business models, new technologies shift viewing to a more on-demand, al a carte format, and new search engines are developed to track digital media in order to find it and better monetize it. There are now Internet TV service companies who specialize in this new distribution and work with advertisers to align their content to appropriate content. Brightcove, theplatform.com and Entriq’s MediaSphere, three such services, partner with video content owners-from major studios and broadcasters to cable networks to web publishers to small independent producers-to build Internet TV businesses by publishing and distributing video and rich media directly to consumers. For example, Brightcove syndicates content to Moqvo, an Internet RSS video aggregator who is looking to build a community around this syndicated content and make money off advertising dollars. Coincidentally, Moqvo is 1/3 owned by an advertising agency. Companies like Brightcove and theplatform will provide marketers an innovative way to communicate and engage with their potential consumers. Cutcaster will utilize their services to manage, distribute and ultimately build a global marketplace platform complete with all the services needed to conduct successful business for everyone.

Where do you see the largest changes in content and the way it is distributed?

StockPhoto 50 top Questions

For a great summary on questions you might have in the stock photo world, this is a great reference source over on StockPhoto.

It has a list of 50 of the most asked questions about stock photography and answers and will be helpful as well to people who care about stock footage. I believe the site is run by Joel Day who has some amazing photos himself over at his site.

Videojug...

A link on Solution Watch gave us a heads-up about the relaunch of the how-to video site, VideoJug. It's actually a pretty cool site, and if Wikihow ever went public, VideoJug would probably be at the top of their acquisition list as it purports to have over 18,000 FREE how-to videos. Is anybody familiar with this site and how they got up and running with this "expert" advice and professional video content?

Royalty Payments at Cutcaster

Royalty Payments have been dropping for some time now as larger agencies are squeezing the content creator’s profitability for their unique content. To begin at Cutcaster, we are proud of the fact that we return a minimum of 40% of the proceeds to the producer/artist and in most cases more. Cutcaster was concieved and created as the best way to bring content to market and still pay the artist the most for his work. This means taking care of business and distribution hassles so that you are free to concentrate on your creative work. In addition, Cutcaster absorbs all the costs associated with the distribution and sale of your products including software development, maintenance, hosting and promotion. There is no risk to you and you will never have to pay any money for upfront costs. We only get paid when someone buys your work, and we are in the process of creating strategic partnerships so that the audience becomes massive.

Cutcaster provides a 60/40 (in our favor) for non-exclusive rights or 60/40 (in your favor) revenue split for exclusive rights to sell third party content such as stock footage, animations, motion graphics, vfx and photos. Again, this does not cost you or your company money up front, and you get paid based on sales, while maintaining complete ownership of your footage. There are no limitations in the amount you can make in residuals as the popularity and quality of your content will drive the demand for it, which in turn will drive the price. Meanwhile, there are no obligations; at any point you can terminate the contract and ask us to stop selling the footage.

We are going to be offering better commission rates to our founding members so please sign up here to recieve them.

Choices for your CDN provider and their APIs

We decided to take a look at the different content delivery networks out there and provide some of the information to our readers.

Limelight

There’s nothing explicit on the site regarding API interfacing, but they clearly are a leader in the industry and offer fully customized solutions. They also have a very good sales and technical team. They must be contacted to discuss the API functionality, but they do offer the info below:

"Starting with an a-la-carte selection of the standard components that comprise the world-class Limelight Content Delivery Network (CDN), our service professionals can quickly shape and implement a custom CDN that's right for you. Limelight's distributed network architecture and versatile family of CDN products were designed from the ground up to offer flexibility in the delivery of rich media to enormous broadband and mobile audiences.

The custom CDN that Limelight customizes and creates for you can be run on your own servers or you can host it on Limelight servers. If,for technical, logistical or business model reasons, you need to have dedicated servers at your own sites, Limelight's technology makes it easy to CDN-enable them without the complicated re-engineering required by some distributed delivery systems.

Brightcove

Brightcove is on par with Limelight as an industry leader when it comes to offering the most advanced product list and support tools for maintaining and delivering digital media. They received a good amount of media attention when they raised over 50 million in financing from some heavy hitters. They provide Javascript and ActionScript API’s “that you can use to extend our players and create your own functionality on top of the Brightcove service.” This link is the starting point to their Developers Center and provides access to all API information:

Brightcove's “How To” section, found below, seems particularly helpful:

Follow these short step-by-step walk-through of development basics and common application functionality. Some How To's contain sample code that you can download and work with locally.

• Embedding the Brightcove Player in your flash app
• ActionScript Basics with the Brightcove player
• Swap players in-page
• Adding simple search functionality to your app
• Creating closed captions with cue points

Make note however, that: For the time being, the APIs are being provided but not actively supported by Brightcove. You're best bet is to find help in the Brightcove forums or other networks online.

This could clearly cause some development issues when integrating into a user's site.


ThePlatform

ThePlatform which is owned by Comcast out of Philly seeks to “make broadband video manageable.” It's really a CMS and a CDN in one which makes it different than a Brightcove which is more focused on delivery of content. Its broadband video ASP delivers proven media management and publishing technology that supports a companies business model with a versatile approach to the ideal technical solution for your needs.

Refer to this link for an overview of the services:

This is clearly an all-in-one solution, in addition to the fact they have digital media professionals that can guide a customer through the entire process:

In terms of API connectivity, they mention the following in relation to their mpsFramework (note that there must be extreme flexibility given the solutions they provide):

Comprehensive SDK


Akamai

Akamai is probably the premier global IT services provider, especially when it comes to the delivery of rich media content. They effectively offer everything a website could possibly need in terms of ground-up, all-encompassing customization:

Akamai Stream OS represents a very powerful Web-based suite of configurable services and tools that ease the publishing of rich media to the Web, map out detailed usage reports, automatically do ad insertion, digital rights management, and eCommerce. These services make it easy for content owners to manage and deliver all of their rich media—including WindowsMedia, RealMedia, QuickTime, Flash, MP3, software downloads, and electronic documents. Robust rich media management and near real-time reporting empower content owners to rapidly refine and optimize return on investment.

This entire online offering sits on the "tiny ;-)" backbone of 20,000 servers located around the world, which is something unique to Akamai. Regardless, they certainly offer API connectivity, but the product/services need to be researched by your CTO to get more clarity.


Lightningcast

Lightningcast has developed the market leading software platform for broadband marketing and advertising. They have enable the owners as well as the distributors of broadband audio and video to increase their revenue potential by providing seamless content and ad insertion; CMS and reporting; auditing and targeting; a variety of audience analytics; streaming operations and support; media player enhancements; varying management of your media; and other technologies to help you deliver your content.

The Lightningcast System is a hosted ad insertion, trafficking, scheduling, auditing, and reporting platform used by major media companies including AOL, Microsoft, Disney/ABC, Scripps Networks, MTV and others.

I hope this helps people in choosing an appropriate Content Delivery Network. Let us know your experience with any of these firms.

More digital video and photo content that Cutcaster wants

MORE CONTENT WE WANT…For Television and Print media

Think newsworthy and actuality. Are you the first to crime scenes? Got a great shot from your apartment building? Do you love being the first to report the news? Do you have the inside scoop on accidents, fires, local happenings, good Samaritans, or anything newsworthy.

Are you near the news worthy story. Think impact and quality. What about Huntington video footage of the earthquake. Do you have footage of the trapped miners in Utah? Is a national or international political convention or something that an editor at a news channel would want to put on the air happening around you. Get your camera out and get in contact with us. Put the fruits of your labor to work by submitting and uploading it to sell in Cutcaster’s marketplace for digital content.

Don’t let us forget about hurricane katrina environmental problems, Palestinian refugees, Iraqi and Afghanistan conflict zones, and global poverty. Upload and license your video series, photos and audio clips. Television and newspapers can use this in stories they are reporting on and provides them the most attractive content for their licensing needs.

Stepping on your own foot...

It's probably not news to most at this point as the press release came out on the 5th, but as of August 15th, Google's download-to-own/rent video service is coming to an abrupt halt. Apparently, it couldn't compete with YouTube's free downloading structure (imagine that), so they're closing down shop. The most interesting point is that while YouTube's presence probably didn't help, Google still couldn't figure out how to profitably sell videos online. Granted, this business model is something that could have been tweaked around but I'm sure corporate wanted to cut their losses and move on to bigger and better things. We here at Cutcaster are much more interested on peoples' thoughts as to why this experiment didn't pan out....so feel free to comment below.

OMMA Conference

Is anyone going to this conference? It's in NYC and we are all thinking of going. Let us know if you are and want to meet up. And I quote OMMA, "The attendees for this event are the leaders of the interactive marketing revolution. They are the advertisers, agency executives, brand managers, marketing managers, media planners, buyers, creative directors, sellers and suppliers who live and breathe online. They have had their fill of research about interactive in the media mix and now want actionable information on how to better spend the exploding budgets they control. Our audience is focused on delivering powerful campaigns, breakthrough ideas and unrivaled ROI by honing their interactive expertise." Sounds Juicy.


But not as meaty as this in our opinion. Cutcaster has hit our 100TH post. Happy 100th Post Day!!! Picture us taking a bow and bringing tears to glass eyes everywhere ;-)

Do you get paid to watch YouTube videos?

Cutcaster bets that you wish you did. That is what a few "lucky," if you can call them that, people do all day looking for copyrighted content on video sharing sites. Check out this Wall St. Journal article on companies who are employed to monitor these sites for copyrighted content that has been uploaded and shoot over take-down notices tot he offenders. We will see if Cutcaster will need these companies to help them.

For more information on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 DMCA check this out.

Microstock Group

If you don't know about this forum it is truly a great find on the Internet for people interested in Microstock and selling their photography online. Microstock is an emerging market, just ask Getty, for selling photos, vectors illustrations and video footage under a Royalty free agreement and at low prices. For a great overview of this market, check out Lee Torrens description from Microstock Diaries here.

The Microstock Group forum is a great place for people selling content online to express their views, get help from one another and spread details about other agencies out there that they are using.

Buy me a Coffee Plug-in.

Cutcaster's blogging friend Rose DesRochers sent me a funny link that can help you add a little spice, or should i say coffee or beer, to your blog as well as make a little cash doing it. Rose has a really interesting blog that covers a variety of topics including odd news, technology, Internet safety, child exploitation, blogging, and life in general. Here is an interesting post she has on Blogging Etiquette.

Check out the "buy me a beer" or "buy me a coffee" plug-in for Blogger here.

Want traffic to your website? Here's a little trick

I'm a big fan of Stumbleupon. My user name is johngrif. I found a great article on tricks you can use to get more traffic to your website by using SU.

A little background: Stumbleupon is dedicated to letting people share the sites they love with others, and letting people discover new websites with a “random” kind of feature. Basically, it lets you select categories you’re interested in, and it’ll display other sites people have recommended within that category.

Some of Michelle MacPhearsons' tips are here.

**** HOT TIPS ****

Forward this blog entry to your friends, fans, whomever! Tell them to install the StumbleUpon toolbar and give your site a big “Thumbs Up!” The more thumbs up you get, the more often your page will be seen by other StumbleUpon users interested in your category.

It’s a good idea to rate some other websites as well - maybe some you frequent, friend’s pages, or just hit the “Stumble” button on the toolbar and click “Thumbs Up” or “Thumbs Down” on what comes up.

Finally, don’t overlook the possibility of rating not just your homepage, but inside pages of your site as well. If they’ve got interesting content others would appreciate, Stumble them!

I hope this little traffic tip gives you a boost in your daily website visitors! Remember to categorize your site properly, it really helps in getting others to click the “Thumbs Up” button!

Let me know if it works for you.

25 years with the computer...

Steve Rubel has a pretty cool post on Micro Persuasion documenting his 25 years with the computer (pictures and all). He's clearly a Mac guy, and I was a PC guy, but I remember there was a time when a 2600 baud modem was the only way of dialing up a BBS too, and that was considered pretty advanced by itself. So Steve started with an Atari 800 and now can go on business trips with basically his iPhone. I think that is the future....business trips with only your iPhone. Griffin, can we expense one of those?

Create your own Simpson Avatar

Warning this will waste 15 minutes of your day but is hilarious. Check out what you look like in Springfield.

And I can't wait to see the movie. Once you create your Simpsons characther, go to www.cutcaster.com and sell your image to someone else.

I'm BLU- Street Art at its best

As some of you may have noticed I am a huge fan of street art and some of the great work that we see around us every day on our way to the subway, supermarket or friends house. Take some time to notice it the next time you are walking around. BLU is one of the artist that is on the cutting edge of what is Amazing. Here is a link to more of his work and how he painted this one.

Getty Images getting Clobbered

Getty Images, the world's biggiest supplier of pictures used in advertising and the guy who has been buying everyone up recently, reported second quarter profit and sales that rose less than analyst estimated.

They still made a hearty $218 million.

Getty announced that it was going to lay off as many as 100 employees. Cutcaster is sorry to hear that people are losing thir jobs but Cutcaster is ramping up and we welcome all resumes.

Getty's stock is currently down 15%. I guess the days of a $90 stock price are over for Getty no matter how hard they try to buy up the industry and control it.

UPDATE

Getty's stock is now down over 21%. Jonathon Klein put out a simple strategy for dealing with the disaster by saying, "My advice is simple - ignore it." I don't know if you can tell the people that lost their job or the investors who are losing money to just ignore it but the message he sent is definitely "simple." For a complete rundown of his letter which highlights the Getty business and where it currently stands, check out StockPhotoTalks write up.

List of Video Tools for Journalist

Angela Grant over at News Videographer posted a comprehensive list for Journalist to use for training, editing, sharing, distributing, hosting and search. I'm going to send her a few companies that we have worked with and liked very much, which she can add in the next time she does a review.

You can see her list of tools/sites here.

Congrats to MediaGen in Berlin

Our friends over in Berlin are well on their way to starting a successful production company, MediaGen. We recieved a great email from Martin, their fearless leader, today and while it is in German, the main gist of it is that they have created and will launch their business MediaGen today and are looking forward to a successful future. It's a big day.

I've included some of the email below for those that speak German,

"Liebe Freunde,

eigentlich schreibe ich ja keine Massenmails, aber heute ist ein besonderer Tag. Denn vor wenigen Stunden habe ich, mit drei meiner besten Freunde, die MEDIA GEN GmbH gegründet. Somit bin ich nun gemeinsam mit Elliot, Shao Lan und Christian Gesellschafter und Geschäftsführer einer Gesellschaft für Medienberatung und Digitalproduktionen.
Unser Ziele ist es mit Image- und Werbefilmen eine finanzielle Basis zu schaffen, um dann einen eigenen IP-TV Sender aufzubauen, sowie www.xenonline.de, den ich vor zwei Jahren mit zwei Professoren und zwei Freunden aufgebaut habe.
Ihr könnt unsere Seite demnächst unter www.mediagen.eu finden. Dies soll nicht bedeuten dass ihr nur von mir erzählen will, sondern ich würde mich freuen, wenn auch ihr dies Moment zum Anlass nehmen würdet, mir zu erzählen was euch gerade im Leben bewegt.

Liebste und zufriedene Grüße aus Berlin

Euer Martin

The New Pitch in Advertising

Over the last few years, there has been a steady shift away from the ad channels most of us were used to i.e. TV and radio, print, and billboards- and towards digital media. As we have all read about and seen, there has been an explosion of new advertising companies popping up, competing for the same accounts as the established big boys.

So how are these new firms or their established competitors dealing with the changing landscape. What tricks and gimmicks are they resorting to?

Some are getting creative with their pitch and approach as well as shelling out big bucks to win accounts loyalty and business. The LA Times reports on this growing trend and shift in the advertising world.

Here is one example. When RPA heard that La-Z-Boy was looking for a new ad agency, executives at the company bought one of the company's recliners, trained a Web camera on it and took turns sitting in it, declaring that they wouldn't leave it empty until they got a meeting. They spent Super Bowl weekend in the gold-colored chenille chair and won the $35-million La-Z-Boy account. Not a bad gimmick.

Is the risk vs. the reward of spending big money and time going after these big accounts? What has been your experience?