Uncle Sam wants YOU to listen to his podcasts! Government web sites are increasingly using the tools everyone else is using (podcasts, videos, blogs) to communicate with the public. A recent Wall Street Journal article highlighted some of the many government podcasts that are out there. For example, NOAA (the agency I work for) created a podcast on a research mission to Greenland.
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Photo Shoot with Caveat Improv Group
I had the opportunity to take some pics of Caveat, an improv troup that is part of the Washington Improv Theater. It was a lot of fun – they’re a very creative group and they came prepared with ideas of what they wanted to do, which really helped. We shot in Meridian Hill Park, a city park designed by Frederick Law Olmstead. Once known as the “most violent national park in the region,” it is now safe and scenic, the way it should be.
An impromptu slide down the stairs race.
The Caveat improv group. -
Interview with a Zombie
The blogger “Zombie” of the blog Zombietime has been covering anti-war, anti-Bush and antinomian protests in San Francisco, the city that never met a liberal cause it didn’t like. While we may mock these silly displays of moral rectitude, Zombie has revealed, through pictures, the really dark and violent fantasies that these marchers would impose upon the rest of us. Their world is one in which sadistic murders would go free, suicide bombers are heroes and Israel would be wiped off the map.
PolicyByBlog has a really interesting interview with Zombie on how and why Z decided to document these rallies. An avowed liberal, Z thinks these protesters are, “actually, literally insane.” Are these people the mainstream or are they just freaks? They are apparently in the mainstream of the SF left.
Even if you hate politics, Zombie is a great example of the power of a citizen journalist. Guided by a zeal to show the full story of events, Z shows us the anti-war left in SF in all its unhinged madness. It’s not pretty, but it’s true.
Zombie’s been an inspiration for me, too, as you can see of the photo above of a cheekily subversive protester which I snapped at anti-war rally in DC.
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Yahoo in the Brand Universe
Yahoo is a tale of missed opportunity, a new media giant that acts like a dinosaur as their nimbler rival, Google, runs circles around them. Yahoo could be so cool – they have Flickr, which is the very model of web 2.0 sites. The difference, however, is that Google is about empowering users. Yahoo is about big media telling consumers what they should watch. We’re just a bunch of eyeballs to them. Their latest attempt to get back in the game is documented in an article in Variety:
… it’s focused now on a new strategy it calls “brand universe.” Rather than just searching for exclusive content, Yahoo has identified over 100 brands that are most relevant to its users. It plans to launch new sites that bring together all of the content relevant to each brand from across the Yahoo network, as well as whatever the netco can get from the big media firm behind it.
Apple is a brand that is very relevant to me. I’ve been going a trusted set of Apple sites for years to feed my fanboy addiction. What, exactly, is Yahoo going to bring to the table? Sites like MacCentral, MacRumors, MacUser, etc…. have the space pretty much tied up. What could I get from Yahoo that I couldn’t get from them?
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Stock Photos: Seeing Double
You’re not crazy. You are seeing the same people over and over again in advertisements, according to this article in The Wall Street Journal. Why? Because it’s a lot easier to use stock photos of people than to go out and take pictures.
When I worked for AARP, we only had a couple of CDs worth of stock photos of active seniors. We used those people again and again on the web site. No women in walkers for us, no, these were tan couples striding to the tennis court, rackets in hand. Or lithe men hanging off steep cliff faces. Or independent grandmothers on the vacation of a lifetime. We used them so much that I felt like I knew them.
Imagine my surprise when I began recognizing them in other places, like ads for health insurance and annuities. And why not? We didn’t own them, after all. They were just stock.
not stock…. a real active senior, my Dad -
The Trustworthy Web Site
You visit a new web site, whether it’s to find information, do some shopping or make a transaction. How do you know to trust it? According to a recent article by Human Factors International, web surfers evaluate sites primarily on two criteria:
- Professional-looking appearance
- Ease of use.
What that means is that the design and the photos look to be the product of a professional effort – it’s not some MySpace site. And that the site has been designed to make it easy to use – again, it’s not some MySpace site. Web credibility is also a function of relevant content. Basically, this means a web site designed toward user needs.
What’s interesting is that this web site evaluation process is done in seconds. Visitors get to your page, glance it, and then decide whether it’s a trustworthy web site.
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Get Real: Have an Enemy
I’ve been enjoying Getting Real, the book by 37signals (creator of the very cool Basecamp). The book, which is available online, is ostensibly about best practices in software development. However, I think its lessons can be applied to other situations, like… life. For example, they suggest having an enemy. When building Basecamp, 37signals decided that their app would be the anti-Microsoft Project. MS Project was the enemy. MS Project would be the opposite of the beast that is Project.
Who’s your enemy? How does having an enemy motivate you? When starting a project, do you think to yourself, “I’ll show them!”
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Flickr Camera Finder: Canon Rules
EOS Digital Rebel XT Usage This Year
courtesy: Flickr
Flickr’s Camera Finder is fascinating on several levels. For one thing, it’s shocking the level of dominance Canon has among Flickr members. The Canon Digital Rebel XT (the camera I have) is by far the most popular camera among Flickrites, with the Nikon D70 a very, very distant second. Among point and shoots, the top 5 are all Canons, with the Canon Powershot SD400 the most popular model. But what’s also interesting is that you can click on the names of the camera models and see pictures from Flickr users. Useful to see what kind of pictures a camera can take, if you’re in the market to buy one. -
Blogs in Government
The blogging revolution has reached government agencies. I think this about makes it mainstream. Pretty soon, even your grandmother will have a blog. Government webmasters (full disclosure: I’m one of them) have put together a really helpful page on the benefits and challenges of government blogging and what to consider before you pick up the keyboard. Bonus: some example government blogs and the Weather Service’s blogging policy. Policy? This is the government after all ;)