Funny how one thought can spawn another. Latham’s post on Locale Best Practices of The Marriage of Online Video and Real Estate got me thinking about something relatively random I read earlier this week. In his Salon Machinist blog earlier this month, blogger Farhad Manjoo details a comment made by Apple’s guru-in-chief Steve Jobs about the new iMovie program that comes on the new machines.
An Apple employee whom Jobs identified as “one of our most brilliant video engineers” took a vacation recently to the Caribbean and, when he came back, tried to make a movie of his trip in a half-hour. “He couldn’t do it,” Jobs said. The old iMovie—not to mention Final Cut Pro, the company’s professional video-editing program—just didn’t have the tools to do a good movie so fast. So the fellow created his own program. “We were so blown away that we decided to use it,” Jobs said.
With this new software and its productivity-enhancing features, one might suppose they will have the ability to create simple videos even faster and easier than they can right now (that is, if they’re doing so on a Mac). Hard to say exactly how that might manifest, but one can guess that entrepreneuring folks like Andre Kendall (who, according to this referenced Wired blog post, himself admitted that editing his MiniDV movies in iMovie “was too lengthy of a process”) might take advantage. The first wave of the short-form, online (call it what you will) video revolution has barely begun to crest.
—Chris
I was attending a function at the Goolge Plex last night and was amazed at just how far Google looks to push their brand experience. I would have to say that it was a first to see outhouses all alight with Google’s colors.
If the outhouses were following the brand palette, so was everything else: the bar and colors of cups they serve; the building decor; the snowcone colors; the lighting upon the wall. Google has shown great execution with their brand and obviously that attention to detail pours over into all facets of their business.
As for July 2007, Google is commanding a 64.4% market share of search (reported by Hitwise.) Not a bad run since September 1998 to have built up almost a 160B market cap.
While on Google, George Anders also has an interesting piece in the Wall Street Journal on Google’s ability to execute going forward. Just a snippit for your delight.
“History suggests that it is perilous to seek long-lasting inspiration from young companies when they are riding high. In the early 1980s, experts lauded People Express for developing an upbeat, winning approach to employee relations. Unfortunately, that couldn’t protect the airline from financial troubles and an eventual sale of the company on distressed terms.”
—Latham
As a New Yorker and someone who was in the Lincoln Tunnel when the first plane hit, a volunteer on Ground Zero two days after 9/11, I was sent this on a daily email and though it should be shared. The anniversary is coming up in less than a month and I will never forget what I saw. It changed my life and is part of the reason I ended up out here in Jackson. Launched today was the new logo and website for the 9/11 memorial. I found this online at mediabistro.com.
“The new name, logo and identity for the National September 11 Memorial & Museum have just been unveiled, along with plans for a traveling exhibition where the public will be invited to sign steel beams to be used in the construction of the new Memorial & Museum. The new website also launched today.
“We are building a national symbol that, like the Statue of Liberty, tells us something about who we are as Americans. The re-naming of this project to the National September 11 Memorial at the World Trade Center reflects this national scope,” Memorial & Museum President and CEO Joe Daniels said. “Every day, we continue to build momentum for this campaign, helping to ensure that the events of September 11th are told to future generations. We look forward to bringing this exhibition to cities around the country.”
As had been mentioned in a previous blog, branding is everywhere, it shapes us. Here is the new logo that shapes a world tragedy memorial. Its hard to believe it has an official look. But we need consistency, something that won’t piss people off and the squares represent the two towers disappearing. Its polite, it makes sense and is tasteful.
Take a look at the new site as well www.buildthememorial.org.
Its full of info, photos and an understanding.
—Julie
Extension of the familiar is intricate to the process of defining new things in life. With the invention of something new, we tend to equate it with something we are familiar with. That is until we become familiar with the thing itself. For example, our grandparents and others once referred to the automobile as the “horseless carriage.” Of course we no longer do so.
My question is why do people tend to call Web video or video posted online “TV” Obviously Web video is nowhere near the traditional TV experience, i.e., sitting on your couch with a high-calorie drink and high-calorie chips, committing yourself to X amount of time in order to enjoy a show with a time-spot predetermined by network executives and the businesses whose ads litter the experience.
Who wants to do that? Personalization of your media experiences is now mainstream and we want to choose what we watch, when we watch it, and where and how we watch it.
So why are we going down this road of the extension of the familiar? Are we really not yet used to determining our media experiences? It’s not WebTV. We need a new term for this.
—Latham
I strolled down to the beach last night hoping for a chance to see the Perseid meteor shower. It was not to be. Partly cloudy skies and the hazy, humid sub-tropical midsummer air obscured the view. No worries, though. I see plenty of meteors—shooting stars—throughout the year, especially in autumn and winter when the air doesn’t lie as heavily and the night sky over the ocean affords a more vivid artwork. So, walking northward along the shore, I otherwise entertained myself by occasionally dragging a toe across the ground to create a luminous line in the sand or, closer to the waterline, gently uncovering sanddollars and starfish all aglow in electric blue, both caused by the phenomenon of bioluminescent algae inhabiting our waters and washing ashore peculiar to this time of year.
In no time at all I had forgotten all about lights streaking across the sky. As it always happens during my frequent roams along this beach, I became engrossed in thought. This time, my thoughts were of my good fortune to be in such a place as Hilton Head Island. Unlike my high altitude colleagues out there in Jackson Hole, WY, I live barely above sea level in South Carolina’s Lowcountry region, a few steps from the gently rolling surf of the South Atlantic Bight. Like my colleagues, though, I am surrounded by astounding natural beauty and simple pleasures enjoyed rarely by most, but every day by me.
I thought of the visitors who comb the beach for seashells and other treasures so they can take a piece of “my” island back home with them, and those who thrill at the fleeting glimpse of a dolphin’s dorsal fin—just one of my neighbors—and I was thankful for the series of events that led me here on a whim seven years ago.
To the outside world, the Hilton Head experience is about golf (that’s me hitting out of trouble at Haig Point a few years ago) and vacation resorts, but those who live here see it in a very different light—and it is so much more than that.
—Frank
Circumerro Video’s first real estate Web video listing successfully sells a $4+ million dollar home in Teton Village.
Circumerro Video’s first project—a Web video for Teton Village Realty highlighting a custom home at 3600 McCollister Drive in Teton Village, Wyoming—has proved highly successful, resulting in the recent sale of this $4+ million home. Web Video is the next frontier on the Internet, and real estate is well served by the deliverability of this medium and the connectivity it affords. Gone are the days of spatially disorienting 360-degree virtual tours—video is the next best thing to being on the property.
“Our client saw the video on our website and played it multiple times to see the home and get a feel for it,” says Teton Village Realty’s Jeff Ward. “It allows the buyer to become one with the house, and me the selling agent, to create a rapport with the client before we’ve even met,” adds Ward. “In today’s world you don’t just try and sell people on your listing, you need to let them experience it,” says Circumerro President Latham Jenkins. “Video offers a depth of experience you cannot achieve with regular listing photos—it is engaging.
Not only is video a great tool for showing the listing, it allows the personality of the realtor to come forth, creating a connection with the audience. Whether the viewer buys the listed property or not, a relationship with a new, potential client has begun.” Circumerro Video welcomes the opportunity to help you with your video needs. Listings and agent profiles are two examples of how Web video can help you stand apart from the crowd and showcase your properties and expertise.
This summer, two of us were lucky enough to attend one of the largest Graphic Design conferences in the country—the HOW Design Conference, sponsored by HOW Magazine. With over 3000 designers, it was a great way to get “Refreshed,” (the theme of show). From workshops, to select speakers, to networking, to booths… all was inspiring. Being here in Wyoming, our educational options to design are limited, and the only way to “keep up”, is to “get out!”
We got to see some great design, even in Atlanta. Coke opened a brand new museum, yes an entire museum dedicated to one brand. Pretty amazing if you ask us. With 3-D movies, art collections, a mini bottling plant, exhibits, history and of course, the tasting room. (Which had some of the WORST soda flavors from around the world!)
HOW made us remember things like: handmade is good, learning about logos, dealing with clients as a creative, psychology of a consumer, the growing possibilities of a PDF, and so much more. We live in a world of branding and design. Recognize the importance of this and take a real good look around you—even in the supermarket or a busy shopping area. A good design to your eye leads you to decisions you make on a daily basis. A good brand can last a lifetime if the time is spent to make it happen right.
refreshed… Julie & Chelsea
Last night around 9pm I had a sweet little moment after putting the kids to bed where I sat on the porch and appreciated the incredible view and solitude this place has to offer. The view, always inspiring, was made particularly appreciable by the color and shape of the clouds.
Just as I was deep in appreciation, I noticed a couple of cars drive by the house that were obviously not from around here (the California plates generally give them away). Now, the road I live on accesses an area in the Hole that has become very desirable, and there are quite a few “second homes” in the area. (It’s always funny to hear the second homeowners or the newly transplanted talk about how long they’ve been coming here, but that’s a whole other topic, and frankly, it doesn’t matter.)
I’ve seen a lot of sunsets—and sunrises for that matter—from this porch and have developed an intimacy with evening in that spot throughout the seasons. But it got me thinking about the familiarity one gets with a place after many years of watching the seasons go by, and I wondered about those second homeowners and their memories of passing seasons in the Hole. Do they only remember the prime summer or winter experiences, or do they develop an appreciation for the cold, wet and snowy times as well? Or do they simply head back to California, Texas or wherever when the Hole is not as nice a place to be? Of course, some do. And do they have a similar appreciation for the view from their porch in the place they call home? One can only hope they do, for without the appreciation of a place you call home—and that is special—what’s the point?
—Chris