A new WordPress install, a Twitter account, a Facebook page and some new content brought the site tearing into 2011 !

www.farneislanddivers.co.uk

WATBus has a legacy, hand-coded website that never got updated.

A new WordPress installation was the solution they needed to be able to post updates and news to the site.

www.watbus.org.uk

Aidan Talbot needed a website re-vamp in a hurry. The budget was very limited, but we worked with the client and gave them a functional, SEO ready, CMS driven WordPress website that is easy to update and add content to.

http://www.aidantalbot.com

With me blogging on 3 other sites now, this site is going to take a back-seat.

Updates will occur when new work or items justify the posting.

Until then, check the other sites..

http://benpattersonphotography.com/

http://www.beadnellbay.info/

http://boardsandbikes.co.uk/

Since then a couple of things have popped onto the radar to further reinforce the fact that social media is a game changer.

In no particular order;

Brands in Public appeared late last week -  launched by Seth Godin,  a joint-founder of squidoo.com – and is well respected in the social media world. The site lets you take a look at how the online social media world views your brand via Tweets, blogs Youtube video and more. This is a more focused version of what Squidoo offers as a ‘lens’, but for brands.

Brands – big ones – are starting to care about how people talk about them online, and solutions and tools for addressing this are sprouting-up.

However, Lisa Barone, herself a well respected social media professional, doesn’t think its such a great idea as her blog-post – Seth Godin tries out brandjackin – sets-out.

Whichever side your on here, the fact is – there is a dialogue going on about how brands are managed in the social sphere.

Then, on friday, I was lucky to catch Owen Stevens, (via Altitude Recruitment – @lauramaddison), for a short talk about branding. Everything was going as it should untill he referenced the Erik Qualman Youtube video about social media (yes the one on the front of this site) in his presentation. It was great to hear someone standing in front of you say that ‘yes, you were doing the right thing’, and that it is worth persevering with trying to get clients and brands to adopt the platform/technology.

And then this morning, Dan Thornton of 140Char posted about Pistachio Consulting, and the Twitter ‘app’ guide they have produced. The thing here is that Pistachio consulting specialise in social media and micro-blogging platforms – good enough for me, that’s a bona-fide business…  and just to make sure, it has its own conferences – Social Media in Business Conference, London and Media140 – reaching right around the world.

So, just to clarify, brands are all over the social media web world, they have tools, are manged, businesses are run solely for this purpose, they have conferences – all around the world – and its gaining more and more momentum and exposure.

*nudge*

Time to talk to someone who knows about this sort of stuff ?

Another social media explanation video via Youtube.

Everyone will have their own take on this, but I see, Tv, internet and mobile as the three core platforms.
And in the last few years, we’ve seen the rise social media.

Social Media

I guess you could say that gaming presents a significant platform (XBox, Playstation Wii), but I wont, not today.

Its been happening for a while, Sky Tv will provide your internet, Orange will also give you a web connection, at home and mobile. Things have been converging for a while. Now it’s happening in the experience too – TV, web and mobile all share the same content, you decide what to consume and how.

Now, one of my current projects actively address’s the old ‘core’ three, mobile, tv and web, but im having issues convincing them that we need to place as much, if not more, focus on social media.

I wasnt sure myself, but ive found a couple of resources that have helped build a picture for me;

Socialnomics. This book was sent to me by one of my followers on twitter, there is a story and an idea, but thats another post. The book lays-bare the facts that we need to know to understand the power of social media. After-all if they can make someone President of the United States, it might have some power.

Next, I found this site. The slide and video below are from that site. They allude to this – we can measure the impact of social media, and therefore it is valid as a channel/platform.
(The slides are in-depth and not necessarily good for everyone, but they are correct. )

Social Media ROI by @brandbuilder from Kipp Bodnar on Vimeo.

Whats happening is new. Brands are communicating with customers in an entirely new way. And that’s all that matters.

The communication drives the change or solution that you need, be it greater revenues, smaller costs, better CRM or launching a new business.

The way you interact with customers through social media provides them with a personal service unlike anything they have had before.

And, importantly, the best thing about social media is – it finds the user/customer.

That’s why its as much of a channel as the long established TV, or the emerging mobile world. And to those who say social media and the internet are the same, let me make that assumption. They will be left behind.

Social media find its own users, by referral, by commenting, by subscribing, by becoming a fan, and much more. But you still have to get into the game, its not the same as having a website, or even a blog.

Video via the Socialnomics website.

Understand the power of social media before you write it off. It’s responsible the for USA having the first non-caucasian president. ever.

Like a good tech-geek, you struggle-on and make the most from what you have, and dutifully, I’ve found some good advantages to having a camera in my pocket that’s connected to the web.

Recently, with a little inspiration, ive been taking more photos that i like with the camera and getting to know it better.

Work area - Swinhoe Industries - Taken with the iPhone

As you will read if you visit his site, Chase Jarvis is a photog. of the most epic proportions, shooting for the biggest names in the sports, leisure and tech world. He is especially well known for his use of his iPhone to post daily pictures that come under the category “Chase Jarvis takes better shots with an iPhone than I do with a Hasselblad“.

And as he says, “the best camera is the one that’s with you”.

But there are a few other tips, supplied by Chase, to make the photos coming off your iPhone that bit better, and I too have enjoyed the benefits of them.

Camerabag is a truly great app, having received huge accolade from a number of places, and ive used it on the shots in this post.

The doggie being shy.. (there is extra 'grey' on the base of this from the filter)

Hanging about - taken with iPhone - tweaked with Camerabag

I like them. The filters come out well generally and make the photos taken much more usable and distributable.

Chase Jarvis is a savvy guy, follow his blog if you take photos regularly, but he’s not only about photos. He has mastered the world of  Social Media, using it to connect with his audience and web users in a full-frontal attack.

He’s on twitter, he blogs – regularly, he posts RAW video posts to Youtube, he’s on Facebook, he podcasts (iTunes link)…

The guy has been posting from New Zealand for the last week whilst he’s been shooting a job. Its great to follow him and the crew and get the insights to how things happen.

Im still in the iPhone, alot, and with a selection of decent shots coming from the camera, im not hating using it anymore.

Go shoot something…

I picked-up the camera and walked out to take a few shots.

My setup was the Nikon D70 (yes, in know,its VERY old now) and a lovely 12-24 Tokina Wide-angle that ive had for a year or two, along with the obligatory tripod.

Im not going to go into the How’s, What’s and Why’s of HDR as Stammy does a way better job.

I took shots at different locations, but im going to focus on one composition to illustrate the process as an example of what HDR looks like for me

Here’s the three brackets shots and the final HDR version.

Under

On exposure

Over

The HDR

Now in reality, these shots dont do a very good job exploiting what HDR has to offer, they lack foreground detail and the natural landscape looks more hyper-real than a cityscape or urban setting.

But you ge the idea.

Once you have the thee exposures, you can sit and tweak away for hours and create a widely varied set of results.

What I’ve come to realise is – I’m not that big a fan of HDR. The over produced look of it is useful for a few occasions, but its not my cup of tea for most jobs. For example the subtle tonal variations of the sunset on the ‘On exposure’ shot are lost when the balance of the light in the rest fo the frame is changed – I know you could tweak away with this for hours, but I like the dark, moody feeling it brings to the table.

You need to figure these things out for yourself… go take it for a spin.

I was reading a blog post last night, about why your blog doesn’t get read, most of which i agreed with. Therefore with a spurt of energy, im going to throw myself at writing more frequently and openly. Apparently its the best way.

Whats been taking-up all my time ? well, Agent Lynch has a shiny new website, powered by WordPress, Flickr, Youtube, Facebook and Twitter. We had fun making that happen. It was the first Facebook Connect integration I’ve done and was nice to see it implemented and working. Ms Lynch is a good friend of a couple of friends – if that’s even a sentence – one of whom is Roxy Velvet. It was great to get her a sit up and running that she not only liked visually, but could attack from a content point of view and really enjoy working with.

AgentLynch.com

The Facebook Connect integration was done with relative ease, using a WordPress plugin that needed only a small amount of kicking and hacking to get working as I needed. I did in-fact use two plugins, one for the on-page login, and one for the admin/user prompt login. All the other Twitter/Flickr/Youtube bits and pieces are the standard ones ive used elsewhere.

If 6 Was 9 – its back ! – Randall has got new designs and a new movie. After filming on his trip to the Mentawai’s, he posted the video on the We are If 6 Was 9 blog. The flash site was produced by him, i just helped get the pre-loader, hosting and analytics sorted.

Slatehall Riding Centre

I did a superb little shoot last week to get some shots for a local tourism brochure and book. Slatehall Riding Centre met me on the beach along with Claire from Imapct PR and we had some fun in the shallows. Nice looking shots we all thought. The full Flickr set is here.

Bamburgh Castle

Holy Island Castle

Beach gallop

Farne Island Divers

Finally, over the bank holiday I spent the weekend with the Farne Island Divers crew diving with the seals around the Longstone. A great few days that I recorded with my little Canon compact, and the result was this small but fun video chopped together fro the video clips..

Farne Islands Divers – Diving with Seals – August 2009 from swinhoe on Vimeo.

More once Ive got something to say…

A mere two years later, and I can barely go online without video being an intrinsic part of the daily web experience.

Despite the web being flooded with video content these days, its still easy carve it all up into different kinds. I’ll give that a go below.

First of all, there’s the copyrighted stuff that has been ported to the web -Hulu (which we cant get in the UK, but is like the iPlayer for the US networks), BBC iPlayer and 4OD.

Then you can get live TV and freeview channels on Zattoo.

After the copyrighted stuff we move into a whole new realm, and this is where it gets fun. These are all the sites that allow the syndication and placing of content, a selection of example can be seen below. They come in different shapes and sizes, and mean different things to different people.

Joost

Joost pushes all sorts of content through its site – mostly i dont get a lot out of the selection, but there is some licensed stuff.

Current

Current is a real digital TV channel, and its web content is blended between the TV stuff and the web-only bits. Its mostly news, movies, music and culture, but there is a good selection, including the Viewer Created stuff.

Youtube

What can we say – the original ‘broadcast yourself channel’ the good the bad and the ugly.

Vimeo

Vimeo is the Youtube for designers and creatives… slightly less popular, but nicely done and with good content generally.

Retrocycling Robot from Challenge Your World on Vimeo.

TED

The variety of informative content here is unsurpassed. All videos are talks given to live audiences and relayed to the web. Science, technology, art, culture and more. Superb stuff.

The Onion

Nobody beats The Onion. I think they invented satire. Even before the web-video period these guys rocked. Now its all in moving images.

Advocacy Group Decries PETA’s Inhumane Treatment Of Women

http://www.purepwnage.com

Projects like Pure Pwnage are sprouting up everywhere. The web-based sit-com/reality/weirdness is now being pushed to network TV. Can you say chicken and egg ?

Google video

The home of serious chunks of info. A huge selection and typical Google freedom. I love it solely as it hosts Zeitgeist.

Now, along with all these sites are the application based platforms. Enter Boxee, AppleTv etc… These apps do a selection of extra functions that appeal to users – connect to Online sites such as Youtube, Flickr NetFlix, Pandora, even the Apple movie trailer collection. They also allow you to browse your local machine and load content that you have lying around, and you can do all of this from your armchair, using a remote control.

These are just a selection of the video/content sites that offer a landscape of content, if you look hard there are hundreds more in the vein of comedy, movies, gaming, technology etc…  and we didnt even talk about Vodcasting…  and did i mention live event streams like the ASP World tour events ?.

In a nutshell, along with torrent’s, this is why I dont watch TV anymore. You can pick and choose whatever you want to view, and for the most part totally avoid advertising.