mediahanger

Photo of the Week #3

admin — Sun, 02 May 2010 19:32:29 +0000

This photo is taken in Blackpool on a beautiful summer day, its a bit of a surreal place, but definitely worth checking out on a sunny summer day!

Three very interesting web concepts from Manchester

admin — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 16:02:28 +0000

I attended an evening at the Cube Gallery that was hosted by Vision Media and The White Room last week, it was a evening about how to make money online. Three very interesting companies from Manchester that are starting to make an impact on the web talked about their experience so far.
I have talked about Myebook in a previous post, and it was very interesting to hear how it has been founded and their commercial plans for the company.  They have 1 million page views a month now, and the site is still to have a heavy promotional push, so it will be interesting to see where it can lead to.
The second company was YuuGuu, which is a screen sharing/conference service for the corporate and smaller organisations.  The core benefits with the site is that its fully browser based, and it wont inflict with any firewall systems in that larger organisations usually have. The other benefits is that is very cost efficient, users can share screens and it’s a reliable service that doesn’t breakdown.  The user can choose from a premium and free user account.

The last was MoFilm which I am still to explore more in depth, but the concept looks and is incredible. They have creating an open platform for creative’s to submit their short films to be used as adverts, and have a range of global brands like Coca Cola and McDonal ds that the creative’s can pitch their films to. Big name Hollywood Celebrities are backing the concept and it will be very interesting to see where this can lead.
In summery the Manchester digital industry is showing a side that I wasn’t aware of, in an astonishing way. The concept that these three companies is in possession of could lead to some serious growth in the region, and be an inspiration to new start-ups.

Photo of the Week #2

admin — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 19:12:52 +0000

Photo by Magnus Blikeng
The photo is taken in East Berlin and in my opinion represent the area very well, because of the fusion and splash of colors.
If you are visiting Berlin this spring the RAW area is highly recommended, especially if you are interested in street-art. The picture was taken in that area, and is just one of many extraordinary creations.

Work experience, sandwich year or subsidies for Graduates?

admin — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 09:35:50 +0000

Digital Marketing is changing the playing field for marketers, and academia is struggling to keep up with the pace of the industry. Should the sandwich year be compulsorily or should the student loan be given for twelve months a year, so that the student could afford to work for free in the summer? A solution could be to subsidies the salary for graduates, and give them a bit more of a breathing space when they are entering the job market. I think the two last options would be a much better then the sandwich year, because it makes the student become more independent and establish in an earlier age.

This suggestion is less likely to be to any relevance if the Conservatives win the election, but it should be a reminder to the politician that the creative industry should be given more support and towns like Manchester need to show that local production is the essences for commercial and cultural growth. The city certainly has thestudents and the talents, but improvement needs to be done to keep the best students from moving down to London, or overseas.

For me it seems that the university experience is only 50% of your education, because it seems that networking and work experience is on the same level as the degree. This should be promoted stronger by the universities, and the fact that certain universities finish in early May, should give the students plenty of time to get some work experience.

Some big steps in the right direction are: Creative Manchester and Vision Media

I m only a undergraduate student and the suggestions and opinions above are only based on my personal observations, so if you have more knowledge about the subject or have other opinions please contribute with your comments.

Google Analytics (GA) for beginners

admin — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 14:34:25 +0000

The first thing you notice when you start using GA,is the amount of options that you can choose from, and that its difficult to figure out which tools that are useful for your website.
There are several sites that is created with the intention of getting noobs to understand GA and I would highly recommend having a look at the links below in the order they are placed. I know they are all Google sites, but they will give you some really good hands-on learning, especially the Google Conversion University which have video tutorials for the majority of the options in GA.

Google Analytics training guide
A very step-by-step guide for beginners (PDF download).

Google Conversion University
A great video guide for beginners, especially if you are interested in learning more about Adwords as well.

Google Analytics help site
A bit more specific site, with a more precise information on certain subjects.

If your reason for learning GA is for commercial aspects, the combination with Google Adwords is highly recommended, because the two systems are designed to work together and if you are looking to start a cost-per-click (cpc) campaign; analytics will be necessary to see who is visiting the website, bounce rate, completed goals and if the money spent on cpc becomes profitable or if the keywords you are using isn’t applicable for the product/service your are trying to sell.

I’m a student of Marketing and the main benefit from my perspective is how cheap, efficient and powerful GA is when it comes to customer research, and how it can be used to see trends in consumer patterns that a survey, focus group or interviews wouldn’t be able to determined, for a fragment of the costs.
It’s simply astonishing, so if you want to get a fundamental understanding of digital marketing, a firm knowledge of Google Analytics is highly recommended.

Would you pay for reading the news online?

admin — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 08:44:33 +0000

The decline of the printed newspaper” industry in the UK has been prolific throughout the century so far, and it’s seems that the industry is starting to take measures to sustain further decline.
It’s only been a couple of days since the News corp. announced that the UK Times and Sunday Times would only be available if the reader pays for the content. Its still questionable if this is the right way reduce the decline in revenue and start making profit, so its quite interesting to see that “The Reporter” in Scotland with 15,000 sales a week have announced that they are also starting the to follow this model.
I have made a video presentation about the subject of decline in revenue of the newspapers in UK, so after you see this you might agree with the Editor of the Financial Times , John Ridding that the future isn’t free, and that Chris Anderson is wrong in his predictions of forthcoming media model.

Would you pay to get access to the news online? and would the online version need to be improved in order for you to pay? Please give your comments on the subject

Original article by: Eric Pfanner, NY Times.

Photo of the week #1

admin — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 20:06:07 +0000

Pic#1:Lady in control

A new feature of the blog is Photo of the Week, these shots will be taken from the photos I take on a weekly basis. Please comment on these shots; if you like them, think they’re below the quality of a exquisite image or if you want to have your photo in this section!

Lightroom 3 beta Tutorials

admin — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 12:31:43 +0000

Lightroom 2 is one of the best photo editing programs on the market,and have an incredible way of speeding up the work-flow. The pre-sets and the organized layout is one of the main assets of making it an essential tool for photographers. I’ve have been using Apple’s Aperture program in the past, and it’s a good software, but it’s clear that Adobe have much more experience when it comes to developing photo editing software.

I have used Lightroom Beta 3 for a couple of months now, and the biggest difference Im appreciating is how smooth everything runs,because in Lightroom 2 importing photos, and looking through a huge library can be quite time consuming if you have an average computer.
There are of course a range of new features and I decided to post the tutorial videos from Lynda.com to show you the main differences. Be aware that this is still the Beat version, and further changes will be edited on the final edition.

Photoshop Lightroom 3 Beta Preview: Comparing Lightroom 2 and 3

Photoshop Lightroom 3 Beta Preview: Introducing the import dialog

Photoshop Lightroom 3 Beta Preview: Sharpening in Lightroom 2 vs. Lightroom 3

I hope you enjoyed this tutorials, and all credit to Lynda.com

Can Online Streaming Services become profitable?

admin — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 10:11:34 +0000

The online video streaming market is well cluttered, but is it there a monetary value in the market?
The amount of consumers that use the different streaming services as their main media channel to is booming, so the market is there. The biggest players in this field are YouTube, Hulu, 4 on demand and iPlayer.

Seesaw is the latest start-up that are targeting this market, the new service is backed by Media Initiatives Group and are aiming to have a content with high profile programs, and generate income through on screen advertisement. There is a dispute regarding the free-view business model, and if its can become profitable. Latest blow for this model came on the 3rd of March, when Comedy central decided to take The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report” of Hulu, because of a dispute in ad revenue.
The advertisement industry is keen on the medium, because is a chance to broadcast adverts without the chance for people to use the fast-forward button. The problem is that the industry isn’t willing to pay premium for these slots, and the streaming services are depending on revenue from Adland, so this media might fail if Adland aren’t willing to splash the cash .

From a commercial perspective the problem is, as in many broadcasting mediums in the UK that the BBC has the best and most popular player on the market. The iPlayer received 120 million requests in January 2010.
The BBC also have a Featured New Media department that works directly with developing new ways of distributing media, this is of course positive from a consumer perspective, but from commercial assess it just builds on the norm that the BBC is too big.
Google have been losing money on Youtube since they acquired the streaming service, and it was first estimated that they would make a loss of $470 million, but this has been written down to $174 million. So in Google terms its not that much, and it will be interesting to see when they start to stream the Indian Premier League later this year, and if it will be the boost the need to make it profitable

One of the things I was told at the App School was that the key point is creating a unique content that is to design for online activity and is interactive. This is a good point, and could be one of the key elements for the live streaming services, and a factor that might determine which services that will survive, if they are able to keep the free-view model and if the commercial services are able to beat the BBC.

Myebooks.com, a new innovative way of publishing

admin — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 08:34:26 +0000

CEO Simon Whitehall with substantial financial backing launched myebooks.com on the 30th of January last year. The site has a great potential for freelance artists in many directions of art. The interface of the site is well designed, and the product that you can create is a blend of a regular flash document and a video multimedia portal.
The service is free and can be a great way of promoting your work, and could also be used as a promotional tool from a marketing perspective, one of the most profound examples of this is the Biffy Clyro ebook, which has 12,000 views. Their ebook is built as a cataloged of their social media accounts, music videos, a short bio and a range of pictures of the band, so its basically a complex myspace with a slick layout.

Eddie Halliwellstated that the site would be as prominent as myspace when it penetrated the mainstream market, this is still to happened, but the site are gathering momentum, and could become more prominent by the end of 2010. Who knows maybe they make the ebooks compatible with the iPad format , it would certainly be a modification that would reach a new audience, and become a force in Web 3.0.