There are few blogs (and link blogs) that I’ve been reading longer than Andy Baio’s. He’s superb at finding the web’s weird and wonderful stuff before anybody else does, and is a passionate documenter of the web history. He also, as it happens, created Upcoming.org.
Kickstarter aims to let creative people of all kinds — journalists, artists, musicians, game developers, entrepreneurs, bloggers — raise money for their projects by connecting directly with fans, who receive exclusive access and rewards in exchange for their patronage. Like Josh Freese and Jill Sobule, the site allows creators to have multiple tiers of rewards (e.g. $20 for the book, $50 for signed copy) with optional limits for each.
It’s a terrific example of spotting something that people are doing in an ad hoc basis, and creating a site to formally organize and enable that behaviour. It takes a ton of deep observation and insight, I think, to identify these opportunities. Here’s a list of early projects.
I’m not sure how I might use it in the future, but I’ve squatted my namespace, just to be on the safe side.
UPDATE: I misunderstood Andy’s role in the project. He’s an adviser to Kickstarter and sits on its board, but he didn’t create it.
In six months or so, remember to check Google Street View for the corner of Smithe and Homer in Vancouver. You were having lunch at Subeez, out on the patio, and the Google camera car drove past. You hastily snapped a poor photo as it waited up the block at a red light:
You were wearing a (very manly) pink shirt and having the chicken and brie sandwich. Maybe you’ll see yourself, with your face all blurred.
This week the Vancouver Sun (along with otherCanadiannewspapers) is running a series called ‘The Enduring Newspaper’. Today’s piece was entitled “Ad buyer remains bullish on newspapers”. It’s an encomium on the wisdom of advertising in newspapers. The article quotes the unlikely-named Sunni Boot, CEO of ZenithOptimedia Canada, whose company undoubtedly has spent plenty of money on Canwest ads:
“Newspapers work. It’s as simple as that. We know it works,” Boot said. “Newspapers draw attention. There’s an immediacy to it. There’s a credibility to it. It’s still a very, very good retail medium.”
The article also quotes a media buyer, president of an ad agency and the CEO of Canwest Publishing, Dennis Skulsky. Everybody, as you might imagine, has a dog in the newspaper advertising race. To no one’s surprise, they can’t say enough good things about running print ads. Here’s Mr. Skullsky:
“It’s not just about selling a full-page ad, it’s about an engagement that might have a tie to a digital program, to a website, a video, to a link to company website — it’s all integrated.”
That’s a great notion, if it were true. I browsed the paper, checking out all of the sizable ads. Few of them displayed URLs at all, and those that did weren’t prominently featuring the web address. It was an after thought. Here’s the best example I could find in today’s paper (apologies for the lousy photo):
All three of these ads included a URL, if in very small print. You’d have to be very generous to call these ‘ties’ to digital assets or any form of ‘engagement’. All the addresses point to non-custom URLs (admittedly one of them is DouglasCollege.jobs). If an ad buyer was designing an integrated campaign and wanted to measure the results, this isn’t how they’d go about it.
There are plenty of smart media people thinking about saving newspapers (my favourites are Mathew Ingram and the Sun’s own Kirk Lapointe), and a recent report suggests that Canada’s papers aren’t as bad off as those south of the border.
That said, publishing articles about the awesomeness of print advertising probably isn’t one of them.
UPDATE: Speaking of the Sun and old media, somebody pointed me to Stephen Hume’s recent column. He continues to wage war against the “semi-literate” new media barbarians at the gate, writing in praise of the editors that bloggers (et al) so sorely lack. There’s an exquisite irony in the article’s penultimate paragraph (the italics are mine):
I’m endless grateful to my unsung colleagues at The Vancouver Sun who so diligently keep the egg off my face.
I’m assured the typo was unintentional.
Hume’s correct in observing that everybody could use some editorial oversight. And yet, people keep reading the semi-literates without it.
Capulet needs a video camera, because we occasionally shoot video for client projects. It’s never anything fancy–typically just interview footage and the destination is always YouTube or a similar video sharing service. Here’s an example–a little video we shot for Nitobi. We don’t, as far as I can figure, need to shoot in HD. If need something more sophisticated, we’ll just hire some videographer-types who come with their own equipment.
I’ve never bought a video camera, as it happens, and know very little about what makes a good one. I’ve been told that the trickiest part of shooting video is actually capturing consistent audio, so I suppose that’s a consideration. Most of the video we shoot will be under controlled circumstances–in an office or boardroom.
So what do you suggest? I gather from reading Consumer Reports that I can get a MiniDV camcorder that uses tapes, or one that uses flash memory. The latter seems like a wiser choice. Would, for example, a Flip Video device be adequate for our needs? Or maybe it’s one of these ordinary-looking camcorders?
UPDATE: Thanks to everybody for the awesome suggestions. We ended up buying a Canon FS200, which is a SD (meaning non-HD) camera that has an audio-in jack and Flash-based memory. It cost $350, and is ridiculously small–about the size of a can of Red Bull. We also bought a lapel mic, which should be sufficient for our work.
In the past few days, I’ve gotten news from sundry friends and longtime readers about projects, causes and sundry stuff they’re working on. I thought I’d pass it on:
Phillip’s been working on this interesting project for the Cultural Olympiad of the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The display interface is very fancy.
PopVox is the people’s choice awards held during Vancouver Digital Week. The PopVox Awards recognizes all major sectors of the digital media industry and celebrates its creativity, talent, and achievements. Creators submit their projects and the people vote online for their favorites.
We’re submitting in the ‘Best Do-Gooder’ category, talking about our work to help save the Great Bear Rainforest. I recorded a quick YouTube video for our submission, in which I woefully mispronounce the word ‘tract’:
While you’re at it, you could also vote for PhoneGap (a client) and friends of Capulet, Giant Ant Media. If you’ve got other favourites, feel free to post them in the comments.
Lately I’ve been inundated with advocacy for the single transferable vote (STV) referendum that’s part of next month’s provincial election. Everybody wants me to vote in favour of it. And I will, because it seems like an excellent idea (as does Beth, as it happens). If you’re unclear on how the STV works, read the Wikipedia entry, check out STV.ca (why they didn’t go with “upgrade your vote” as a slogan, I’ll never know) or watch this rather dour animation.
As you know, there was a similar referendum in 2005, but it failed to achieve the 60% threshold necessary to pass. If I recall correctly, it was basically a PR problem–the issue didn’t receive sufficient attention.
Which brings me to my question: what are the arguments against the STV? The only one I could find was that it’s more complicated than first-past-the-post. That is, people can choose to rank multiple candidates instead of just picking one. I suppose this is marginally more challenging, but voters can still just opt to select their favourite candidate and leave it at that.
I’d also imagine that the established parties might feel threatened, in that a new system will unpredictably affect their futures. What other criticisms have you heard?
