Girl Power

So what do you think about Laura Croft?  She’s a world class adventurer and heroine in the game Tomb Raider.  Lara’s strength and grace are admired by girls all over the country.  I think of her as having the ultimate girl power!  One who is a survivor and protects herself with automatic weapons while uncovering the secrets of the underworld. 

Games like these are played by thousands of teens everyday.  Girls and boys spend hours gaming on the Internet and on television with Playstation, Xbox, and Wii.  When they are not playing games they are socializing, sharing information and connecting on the Internet.  Fueled by new technology, websites, and social networking sites teenagers between the ages of 12-17 are engaged online. 

A new 2006 report from Pew Internet & American Life Project, showed that large numbers of teens share and create materials online.  Artwork, photos, videos, and stories are some of artistic creations shared.  The findings reveal that girls dominate most elements of content creation.  “Some 35% of all teen girls blog, compared with 20% of online boys, and 54% of wired girls post photos online compared with 40% of online boys.” 

The survey results also suggest that some of these teens are what we would call “super communicators.”  They use multiple channels of technology to communicate with friends: land line phones, cell phones, texting, social network sites, instant messaging and email.  Guess what?   They represent about 28% of the entire teen population and they are more likely to be older girls. Now that is what I consider to be girl power.  Go girls!

Escaping Reality

Unleash your imagination and experience a virtual world where you, the kids and your friends can be whatever you want to be and do whatever you want to do.  It’s the newest media and fascination amongst children and adults alike.  Create your very own virtual pet….adopt them and then take care of them.  You can enjoy having a pet without all the real life problems of actually owning one. 

Better yet, why not adopt a baby?  It’s true, there is a virtual game where you can play mommy and dress them, change diapers, and feed them.  Oh, and you choose what you want them to look like.  Maybe this can give you a taste of the real life of parenthood before you ever experience it.  Just imagine, listening to it cry but never loosing sleep, changing a diaper without ever really smelling it, feeding it without the mess!  Life is good!

Unlike the virtual world itself, these games are becoming an increasingly popular reality with children.  A tech research firm analyst, Barry Gilbert, recently reported in BusinessWeek that “90 percent-plus of the activity is going on with kids.”  Some say that these type of games are not healthy because children sit in front of the computer when they could be outside playing.  Because of this, toy makers like Irwin Toys, created a new virtual gaming device called Me2  which actually is a pedometer that kids wear during the day and plug into a virtual game at night.  Integrating the real world of walking into virtual world “energy” to play the game. 

Companies are quickly starting to realize that children and adults are spending more time in virtual worlds today than playing games.  They are becoming extensions of brands and gaming will just be one of many different activities.  Coca Cola, Second Life, and IBM are just a few of the companies that are promoting their brands in the virtual environment.  According to a media consultancy Screen Digest, subscription sales from online virtual worlds rose to $526 million in North America in 2006.  I think this is the next big media thing for the future.  What do you think?

The Ten Commandments of Web Design

Creating a corporate website can be a tedious task but a very important one for marketing a business.  For those of us that are new at the task I found an article in BusinessWeek to help guide us along.  It is the Ten Commandments of web design and it was created from survey results taken from Web design gurus:

1. Thou salt not abuse flash – Excessive animations confuse usability and bog down uesers’ Web browsers.

2. Thou shalt not hide content – researchers say pop ups and full page ads that obscure content hurt functionality and test a reader’s willingness to revisit.

3. Thou shalt not clutter -Sites that lack a coherent structure make it impossible to wade through information.

4. thou shalt not overuse glassy reflections – Creating glassy reflections under photos of products had become a cliche.

5. Thou shalt not name your Web 2.0 company with an unnecessary surplus or dearth of vowels – Names like Flickr, Smibs, and Meebo are destined to sound dated.

6. Thou shalt worship at the altar of typography – Plain text has become cutting edge Web design.

7. Thou shalt create immersive experiences – Creating Web sites that can capture and hold users’ attention is what matters most

8. Thou shalt be social – Designers are now filtering those same elements into diverse sites, from smart advertising to online office productivity.

9. thou shalt embrace proven technologies – Sites that can incorporate these elements into their design will connect with users in a meaningful way by providing functionality and an interface with withich they’re already familiar.

10. Thou shalt make content king – Beautiful can’t make up for empty.

These are the must follow rules top online designers live by in 2008. For a full list of the contributors you can visit the BusinessWeek site.

Mobile Information

There are so many opportunities today to obtain information that is readily available on a variety of platforms.  People can download and surf on the Internet, listen to the radio, watch television, or send a text.  Another convenient, easy and inexpensive way is through podcasting.  You can download podcasts about everything from news to food, politics to education, personal logs to sports, music to technology, and more.  

Imagine listening to your favorite television episode, church sermon, or learning Spanish whenever and wherever you wanted too.  You can listen to Podcasts on a several different devices such as computers, MP3 players, Palms, and even cell phones.  You can download some from iTunes store which has over 100,000 audio and video podcasts to choose from. 

Better yet, create and submit your own podcasting for others to enjoy.  There is a site called Podcasting tools  that provides resources and “everything you need to know about podcasting”.  It also accepts your suggestions for any additional podcasting resources or categories by contacting them.

Video podcasting is personal and on demand.  Here is an easy way to understand it in plain english.

 It’s free and you can subscribe to a RSS feed and have them automatically downloaded to your computers.  It works kind of like TiVo where you set which programs you’d like to record then it automatically records them later.  So, now there’s no excuse for missing that lecture.

Drama Sells

“Behind every great love is a great story”.  That is the tagline to the movie The Notebook and my favorite movie of all time.  The story follows two young lovers named Ali and Noah who were separated by Ali’s parents because they thought Noah wasn’t wealthy enough for their daughter.  The entire time they are separated they never forget each other to the point where Noah buys and restores an old house exactly how Ali would’ve wanted it.   Years later, the two reunite, marry and grow old together in that house.  It’s truly a heart wrenching, great love story.    

These dramatic films are remembered because they are emotional, capture attention, resonate with the audience and have record sales at the box office.  So wouldn’t it be awesome to market a product by using a much shorter version of film but with the same results?   

Commercial short films can be very effective in marketing and brands like BMW have chosen to break the rules in advertising by creating a series of Internet based short films called The Hire that were directed and produced and were one of the most successful marketing campaigns of all times. 

There are six basic elements that can always be found in short films: hero, wants, action, conflict, climax and resolution.  During research for a recent class discussion, I found a short film that contained all of those elements and more.  Southern Comfort created eight 3-5 minute films and launched the SoCo Music Fund to help raise awareness and funds for the musicians and music culture of New Orleans to help rebuild the music scene after hurricane Katrina.  There are eight artists and bands featured in “Start the Music Up” and each uses voice and music to explain some aspect of the New Orleans music and how it has affected there lives.

Blogging — Good for your health?

When I was young I used to keep a diary.  It was kept under lock and key and it stored my most intimate secrets, my thoughts and feelings, and memorable personal experiences.  Writing has often been a form of therapy for people.  So, I guess I can see where blogging could be very therapeutic and beneficial for your health, but when they start talking about  “placebo theory of suffering” then it gets a little whacky. 

Evidently, scientists have reason to believe that blogging about stressful experiences causes a placebo reaction which makes the individual feel better.  For example, someone that is angry or complaining about something may feel better once it is off their chest.

The blogoshere has grown rapidly and indivduals blog on social websites, corporate websites and individual websites for the chance to exchange information and communicate on a series of topics.  In fact, blogs are considered mainstream today and just about 70 million blogs are in existence.  People share their thoughts about anything and everything and the whole world can read them.  I learned in a recent school discussion that people create unofficial company blogs.  These bloggers cheer on their favorite businesses and provide information and updates.  First I’ve heard of that one!

A Microsoft shareholder created Microsoftblog.com and blogs about the company and its products and services.  The posts on Microsoftblog.com are mainly news stories, software updates, patent information and comments from satisfied Microsoft customers.     You will notice that it’s a unofficial “pro” microsoft blog.  All comments that are posted are positive and bloggers are screened prior to being able to post comments on the site.

Then there is the Netflixfan unofficial blog that appears to have a Netflixaddict named Becky that shares all of her experiences with the movie rental company, Netflix.  She seems to go a bit overboard discussing the features and benefits of joining the company.  I just wonder where she gets all the time to watch all of the movies.  Anyone interested in a free month trial?   

Here Today. Gone Tomorrow

I guess we could relate this phrase to alot of things in our life, but for the purpose of this discussion I will talk about the evolving world of technology.  Over the years, the Internet and the World Wide Web has made it easier and faster to connect and communicate with the world.  This has made older, traditional forms of communication pretty much obsolete.  Has anybody written a handwritten letter lately?  Probably not.  Nobody has time these days to spend writing a letter when they can simply type an email or send an e-card.  Oh wait, email is considered old school now too. 

Text messaging, Instant messaging and chat rooms are certainly more efficient and have faster response.  Even these newer forms of technology are slowly fading as more innovative tools become available for use.  Today, I can go to more exciting and personalized places such as MySpace or Facebook to socialize. 

New digital media has made it possible for me to access information and to communicate in whatever way I choose.  Blogs, podcasting, online games, and videos are becoming the mainstream today.  Tomorrow, maybe not.  Our lives continuously change and technology must also to accomodate our needs.  Today we are talking to the digital consumer, tomorrow should we say digital native?