Timelapse video is just plain fun to watch.  It can make anything automatically more interesting.  Setting up a large convention, building stuff, or even the time-consuming process of photoshopping.  It provides us with the 2-min Cliff’s Notes version of something that may have taken weeks, months, or years to put together.  It’s video for Attention Deficit Disorder. It’s instant gratification.  We’ll let the psychologists talk about why we like to watch it.  At Promedia, we just like to make it.

There are many types of industries where timelapse video makes perfect sense.  Think about how you can incorporate it into your productions. It may not dominate the entire message, but it makes a cool addition.

Building Up

Construction, tradeshows & exhibits, interior design, and manufacturing.  If you make something there that wasn’t there before, timelapse video is a given.

Tearing Down

Demolition, destruction, and decay.  You just can’t stop watching.

Nature

The ever-changing earth. Great for researchers and the education field, but maybe also for garden centers and landscapers.

Advertising

Timelapse is so fun that people want to share it without your help.  Done and done.

Dove’s famous timelapse video:

Art

Allow others to share in your creative process.  Even if it is painting a giant Voltron.

www.prorealtour.com

Prorealtour is a unique web application that Promedia developed for realtors, which allows them to showcase their listings with an easy, plug and play video tour.  In addition to designing the website, Promedia wrote the software program that runs the product.  The system is easy to use and includes slick and automated functionality for even the most inexperienced web users.  It allows for text message distribution, social media functionality, and automated push to the top real estate listing sites.

www.calistagrand.com

Calista Grand is one of the largest and most successful salons in the Philadelphia area. After the experience that the owners of the Calista Tools haircare line experienced with Promedia, the decision to choose Promedia to design their salon site was an easy one.

Its clean, yet dramatic design was both conceptualized and built from the ground up by Promedia.

I heart google analytics.  I could spend hours looking at the data and devising ways to change that data for the better.

Advertising-types love it too.  The web is the most measurable form of advertising out there.  While smart web marketers know that sheer numbers aren’t the whole story on the success of your web presence, they certainly are important in knowing what’s working and what’s not.

As you present your analytics reports, don’t forget to add your social media statistics to the report on a consistent basis.  Establish a base.  Measure them, and measure them often.

Tweets, Diggs, Stumbles, Reddits, and Pings.

Activity on your Facebook fan page.

Video plays, comments, and channel requests.

Blog comments.

Message boards posts/topics.

And don’t forget to measure YOUR activity, not just your customers.  Where and how often have you engaged others?

I’m not going to go into all the tools that are available where others have done a much better job than me.  The folks at Mashable, of course.

Oh, and I just HAD to redistribute this blog about a cool hack to add google analytics to your facebook page.

Promedia recently completed the WebCEO SEO/SEM Certified Training Course. We can now proudly display that we are a certified Competent Internet Marketer.

SEO has always been as much of an art as it is a science, and Promedia now has the best paintbrushes there are.  Be confident that no matter what your needs are for search engine marketing, Promedia can help.

Those of us old enough to remember fiddling with the TV antenna to get that distant station in with the late night movie will take note of recent developments at the FCC.  In December of 09, the FCC began an initiative to look into possible uses of the current TV spectrum for wireless internet providers. 

With more programming being viewed over the web, and most TV now watched through a cable box, the FCC is wondering whether we need all that spectrum space devoted to television broadcasts.  Specifically, what would be the impact of no over-the-air television, vs. less spectrum space for wireless internet providers to reach more of the country?  The FCC also wants to look at the manufacture of devices that will receive wireless internet and IP-delivered TV, something that could help soften the blow to terrestrial TV stations.  With that device still on the drawing board however, your rabbit ears still have a little life left.

(polls)

How about a little brain stimulation?

The folks over at VYRE recently released The Brand Quiz,  a fun and sometimes difficult brand identity quiz. You’re asked to identify the brand based on two color hints, an ambiguous visual hint, and a word-based “cryptic clue.” This quiz demonstrates how excellent branding can make a company stand out from the rest. You’ll be surprised by what you know, and by how one single image can make you reflect on past ad campaigns you thought you’d forgotten. What do you think of when you see polar bears with the color red?

Can you beat my score of 19/21? Give it a try and post your results! The game doesn’t reveal the answers, so you may be stuck wondering.

Another fun (though much more difficult) quiz to take is ILoveTypography.com‘s The (rather difficult) Font Game. This quiz shows you a word or phrase in a certain font, and asks you to name the typeface while presenting you with 4 possible answers. The quiz is different every time you take it, so try it a few times and record your highest score. I (am somewhat ashamed to) admit my highest score was 25/34. Is that a passing grade? Barely. Will you be impressed by it after you play the game? Maybe.

So post your scores, keep challenging yourself, and be on the lookout for more of my design-related blog posts. Good luck!

-Ryan Grebinski, Graphic designer at Promedia Creative

We came across an interesting interview in the latest edition of Post Magazine with editor James Herbert, director Guy Ritchie’s editor on the film “Sherlock Holmes.”  The editing system Herbert used was an Avid Media Composer V2.8 with Mojo, not Adrenaline.

Sherlock Holmes Movie Trailer on Youtube

He has actually used the same system for the past three films he has edited with Ritchie.  He preferred to use an older, less powerful system, because it fit his needs so well.  He needed an established, stable system that he could depend when going back and forth from England to America.  He didn’t need the Adrenaline break-out box, because there were no tapes to digitize.  Everything came in electronically.

A familiar and trustworthy workflow with an editing system is in many respects more important than all the latest gadgets and effects.

Save the bells and whistles for a separate effects computer.  As long as your editing system is stable and properly backed up, you have all you need.

Recently I attended a great presentation given by a large telecommunications company about the new marketing initiatives they’re employing at their company.  They posed a very provocative question to attendees: “If you have $1 to spend on the web, where do you spend it?”

A few hands came up.

“SEO!” one person said.

“Social Media!” another said.

“Design!” another  blurted out.

While I may have not known the answer at that second, it now seems painfully obvious: USER EXPERIENCE. It’s the ability for the user to find the information they came to find, quickly and easily, that makes the most impact.  If they want to make a purchase, for goodness sake make it easy for them to make a purchase.

With all the bells and whistles you might be tempted to add to your site, remember that bells and whistles are meant to add to user experience, not take away from it.

5 ways to update your site’s USER EXPERIENCE:

1. Much of your site traffic is from existing customers that are already familiar with your company. They just forgot your phone number. Put it on the homepage and every page.

2. Add e-commerce if at all possible. Even if you have a highly-customizable product, there must be SOMETHING you can sell (take deposits or allow online invoice payment).

3. Cut the fat. Bulletpoints are your friend.

4. Add FAQs. Anticipate their needs and demonstrate your expertise.

5. Multiple means to the same end. Not everyone navigates websites the same, so give them multiple options to do things (ESPECIALLY make a purchase and contact you).

3D TV is coming.  Both ESPN and Discovery have announced the start of 3D channels.  And unlike the standards war over high definition and the initial battle between Blu-ray and HD-DVD, 3D standards are agreed upon and set.  Experiments with 3D broadcasts, including the BCS National Title game, soccer in England and parts of the Grammy’s have already occurred, with generally positive results. And movie-goers are willing to pay more and wear glasses to achieve the “ultimate” viewing experience.  (see Avatar) But for broadcast, the real question is whether viewers will be willing to pay for new TV’s after already having purchased their HDTV.  (Not to mention spending between $50 and $250 for the glasses)  And do they have to?  Pretty nice stuff has already been done on existing high definition TVs.

Can 3D TV be something more than a novelty?  Broadcasters and content producers hope so.  But convincing a public already watching less TV programming will be a challenge.  And getting them to wear glasses.