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The Gazette slowly dies

A couple days ago, my tech-savvy grandparents e-mailed me a link to a story in the Gazette, my hometown’s newspaper and location of my summer 2003 internship.

While the Gazette has long been negligent in its online efforts, the reporting and photography at the paper has always been top-notch, garnering many awards for the 15,000-some circulation publication. Within the past two years, the Web site finally received a nice face lift, which was subsequently gutted for an awful replacement earlier this year. At least they enabled comments.

As circulations plummet, ad dollars evaporate and American newspapers head toward bankruptcy, what has the brilliant leadership (read: publisher George Hudnutt) decided to do for the Gazette? Start charging for content online.

George, where have you been for the past 18 years? Continue reading »

iPhone apps make money by being free

Apple added third-party software abilities to the newest iPhone operating system edition. Now users can download various applications without having to jail break their phones. The new App Store is raking in $1 million a day and CEO Steve Jobs would like to see it grow to a billion dollar a year business.

So, is Apple making money off of it? Continue reading »

Mygazines: Where 21st century piracy meets 19th century publishing medium

Lego pirate courtesy of Wikipedia

With a new Web site called Mygazines, you can scan in your favorite periodical and share it with the world. That’s a lot of work for something that is terrible to read on a computer screen.

Are publishers grateful for these extra eyes on their content and advertising? I guess not.

No, I don’t get the “convenience” of being able to read a print publication on my computer screen, especially when many Web technologies exist that allow you to do this more easily. MP3s, music, movies and software certainly lend themselves to piracy; I don’t think magazines do. I can’t think of a publication that I would like to spend time scanning. Plus, many of these magazines are already online for free! Continue reading »

Upper Midwest plastics road show

Name: Processor of the Year 2008, an annual award for the “best plastics company”
Type of work: I shot it, edited it and did the interviews. The awards coordinator took care of all the background information that made my interviewing go more smoothly. And yes, that’s me narrating.
Background: Every year Plastics News awards a U.S.-based plastics company an award called Processor of the Year. For 2008, I tagged along with a senior reporter to do video interviews and profiles of the finalist firms.

Each video runs around six minutes because they were shown at an awards reception. Normally I would not advise publications to run videos much longer than three.

This was my first set of feature-length video reports. I’ve never shot or edited anything this long. Among the many challenges:

Getting proper lighting in factories and offices
Capturing usable sound of machinery and executives
Making sure my subjects were comfortable in front of the camera
Making sure I could fake it and look comfortable myself
Narrating videos clearly and coherently
Braving below-zero conditions in Minnesota and keeping the equipment running

Although I could pick these videos apart in terms of production quality (from lighting to audio to framing), I won’t. I am proud of myself for completing them, and I learned a lot. I rarely get to leave the friendly confines of my desk in Akron, so this adventure presented an awesome opportunity to spread my wings.

It looks like I will be doing another set for 2009. I hope we pick finalists in warmer states.

iPhone woes :(

I am a bit of an Apple Fanboy, although never an early adopter, until the iPhone 3G. It has been a mixed experience so far, to say the least.

I spent a good 10 minutes in the parking lot after picking up my new treasure a couple weekends ago messing around with this new gizmo. I even downloaded the Pandora application so I could have awesome streaming radio the whole way back home. Everything was great, or so I thought. Continue reading »

A Web site with style

Name/URL: Sara Depaola: Hair stylist, makeup artist
Type of work: CSS, HTML, overall design
CMS: WordPress
Briefly: Sara is a hair stylist in Akron, Ohio, and she needed a Web site that would allow her to communicate with future and current clients. Most importantly she wanted it to feature real pictures of hair and makeup that she has done, unlike certain other sites, which use stock photography. Sara Styles business card

Sara is able to post brief blog items to update her clients. She can also easily post new photographs to her style gallery. Her clients can leave comments and even friend her on Myspace, another way to stay in-touch. Social networking is a valuable tool in retaining customers and catching new ones.

This is an update of an earlier design. I also created a companion business card — in eye-catching pink — for her site.

South Carolina coastal home

South Carolina rental home
Name/URL: Kiawah Ocean Walk
Type of work: CSS, HTML, minor PHP reworking, overall design, copy writing
CMS: WordPress
Briefly: My clients recently purchased a beautiful house near the beach and ocean along coastal South Carolina. They wanted a Web site that would convey basic information, including rates, attractions and amenities. Through text, links and pictures, the site shows what the house looks like and the many attractions surrounding the rental.

I bended WordPress to become a very basic CMS for the owners. With it, they can edit and add text, providing basic day-to-day maintenance for themselves.