Categories
Archives
Which Video Player? It Depends…
So you’ve been playing around with that shiny new digital video camera and you’re dying to get some of the video up on the Web so you can share it with friends, add it to your blog, or even feature it on your website. And since you want to keep the process of uploading and presenting them pretty simple, you’ve decided you’d like to use one of the free video uploading/sharing sites that are so popular in our digital society. There are a ton of great options, but for simplicity’s sake, let’s say you’ve narrowed it down to the two most popular, Vimeo and YouTube.
But how do you decide which one to use? They’re both free. They both allow you to sign up and begin uploading and sharing immediately, and they both allow you to build a social network with which to share your videos with relative ease. Indeed, they both have their advantages and disadvantages, so the answer to that question really depends on your objective. Allow me to explain.
Let’s say you’ve invested in a high definition video camera and have just caught some spectacular footage of London at night. Since the content of your video is exceptionally beautiful, you’ll not only want the quality of the playback to be great, but you’ll also want to display it with the best looking video player. This will be especially important when embedding it into your website or blog. If this is the case, Vimeo is for you. Not only is the video playback quality better, but the navigation for the interface disappears after you click play and only reappears when you roll over the video again with the mouse, leaving nothing but the content of the video for you to see in its full splendor. The playback experience on Vimeo is by far and away better than over on YouTube. Here’s one of my favorites:
On the other hand, let’s assume you were out with your pocket-sized Flip video camera and happened to catch Sasquatch sauntering across the road in your hometown. You snatch the camera out of your pocket and catch 25 seconds of proof that he exists. With this video, you might not be as concerned with quality, but you certainly want to make sure that folks all over the world see the video. In this case, choose YouTube. It’s the third most visited Internet site of all time, so with a massive amount of traffic comes a massive opportunity for your video to go viral.
To recap – If you’re looking for high-quality video and a seamless video viewing experience, Vimeo is the solution. But if you’re looking to go viral, you should probably go with YouTube, as it will help ensure your video spreads like wildfire. Now get to uploading!
by
Logo Design In 2009
As a general rule, when we’re creating logos and brand identities, we strive to create something that has a long shelf life and doesn’t quickly date itself - to do this it’s important for us to have a healthy knowledge of the latest logo design trends. Our goal is to always stay ahead of the curve to maximize innovation and longevity.
I ran across a great article recently that compiled a list of some emerging trends in logo design in 2009 and I thought I’d pass it along for inspiration. Some of the trends listed included: Psychadelic pop backgrounds, origami, tactile logos, arabesque, classic modernism, pictograms, 80’s geometry lesson, typographic logos, street art and puzzle patterns.
Here are some examples that I thought were on the cutting edge and that really resonated with me:
If you think it might be time to take a fresh look at your logo design or entire brand identity, please give us a call, email, comment, Tweet, Facebook message or even drop on in! We’d love to help give new life to your visual brand.
by
Cartype
We just wanted to take a moment pass along another cool site aimed at folks that love automobiles and have an interest in brands and design. If that describes you, you’ll love Cartype. Cartype bills itself as a “museum of car typography” but it’s really more of a museum of all automotive design.
Curious to know about the history of the Ronn Motor Company? They’ve got you covered. Want to see what the hood ornament looked like on an old-school Maybach? No sweat, seek and ye shall find. They’ve even compiled an archive of car cut-away images and gauge clusters…you know, just in case you ever wondered what the gauge cluster looked like in the Land Rover LRX concept vehicle:
They also keep up a pretty good automotive blog that’s worth a visit or an addition to your RSS aggregator.
by
#endautoDM
One of the most important things to remember when orchestrating a social media program is to keep it personal. The same way consumers largely reject traditional advertising, they are also turned off by being blindly marketed to on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook.
I had a conversation a few weeks ago with my good friend @rdeal1 about how important this is and it led to us lamenting about how sick we were of following someone on Twitter and immediately being bombarded with an automatic direct message encouraging us to check out their website or blog. It’s a huge pet peeve of mine, and I know I’m not alone.
The end result of the conversation was a new crusade to end this practice, centered around the #endautoDM hashtag. We decided that we would start to propagate this idea through word-of-mouth on Twitter, and politely encourage people that auto direct message to abandon this practice.
So how is it working? The word has spread like wildfire—blogs have been written, reputable industry players have started talking about it, and many, many influential people on Twitter have begun to spread the #endautoDM love, including a high-profile member of the Dell social media team. You can see some of the chatter on Twitter search, HERE.
If you’re a Twitter participant, please help us to spread the word. If you’re considering adopting Twitter as a part of your communications strategy, by all means do (or better yet, call on us to help), but go out of your way to be yourself, be personable and avoid the robotic auto DM at all costs. (And don’t forget to follow me...and TSG)
by
Grab What’s Yours…
Ok, so you’re not participating in social media. Despite all the articles written about why you should join the conversation, you’ve decided it’s not for you – at least for now. We get that, and promise not to judge.
But if we can offer you one piece of advice, it’s that you go grab your name (or your company’s name) on all of the social media sites, just in case you decide you want to participate in the future. Doing this will ensure that nobody with the same name is able to grab it before you—or even worse—before your competitors grab your name and start to use it to promote their own business…that’s exactly what happened to our friends over at Elevation Burger, a fantastic organic burger concept based right here in the Washington, DC area. They’re in the process of talking with lawyers and representatives from Twitter to get it resolved, but it sure ain’t pretty!
by
