Category Archives: Articles

Blogazine?

Posted on by Sarah Cooley
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This morning I came across an amazing post by Smashing Magazine entitled “The Death of the Boring Blog Post”. It’s a great post that I wish I could re-blog here, but I honestly can’t because of the way the post is designed. (go look at it!)

It talks about the trend of Blogazines (blog that is designed like a magazine) not a magazine wordpress theme but rather designing a creative layout for each new blog post, based on the content itself. This requires skill, patience, dedication to the content and, most of all, effort on the part of the designer!

Reading these blogs is amazing. The content speaks to you visually and really pulls you in with the design. One such blog is Dustin Curtis. Here is what he said about creating this type of blog.

dustin_brainWhat prompted you to create a “blogazine” instead of a traditional blog?

I’m never satisfied with my work. Invariably, two weeks after finishing a design, I feel like I can do better. When I originally tried to design my blog, I kept finishing a design, hating it and starting over. This happened ten or twelve times until I finally gave up. Eventually, I realized that each post could stand on its own and be its own design that fit the content. Despite the holdbacks of HTML and CSS, it has worked much better than I had even anticipated.

Advantages?

The main advantage is one I didn’t anticipate. Doing a blogazine article requires a lot more work than a traditional blog post, and that has kept me on my toes; because such a large investment is required, I publish only what I feel are my best articles.

This seems to keep the quality fairly high. I start four or five articles for every one I publish. If I had a normal blog, that wouldn’t be the case — the other four articles would be published too, even though they wouldn’t be as good as the ones I do end up publishing.

Disadvantages?

The biggest disadvantage is that CSS and HTML are terrible technologies that weren’t designed for page layout. They were designed for structured content presentation, like for a newspaper, where all the elements throughout the website are the same and are re-used. But I’m trying to make a magazine, where the content and presentation are inextricably mixed and unique. The way presentation CSS is supposed to be decoupled from the content HTML is totally counter to the mission I am trying to accomplish, and it makes coding the articles frustrating, messy and time-consuming.

My solution to this problem has basically been to ignore convention and use inline styling for most of the presentation code and extract the website-wide presentation layer into a separate CSS document. This takes forever and is not ideal. To put it lightly, I’ve developed a love-hate relationship with CSS.

I have often wished that I could create blog posts in InDesign. I come from a layout design background and I always had so much fun with InDesign and Photoshop creating interesting, yet still readable design. Unfortunately it would be very difficult for me to create this type of blog. While I do posses the design skill, I do not have any real HTML or CSS knowledge to bring the post to life online.

I hope to see more blogs like this one in the future. I think they are a great way to highlight online content.

What we leave behind

Posted on by Sarah Cooley
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This morning while I was going through my feed reader and scanning things on tumblr I came across a post from Justin Day’s Tumblr that led me to this post. It is worth the read believe me.

Yesterday I came across a slightly mysterious website — a collection of Polaroids, one per day, from March 31, 1979 through October 25, 1997. There’s no author listed, no contact info, and no other indication as to where these came from. So, naturally, I started looking through the photos. I was stunned by what I found.

I read through this story about a man who took a photo every day until the day he died. This one is from April 23, 1979.

Who was this man? And who decides to take a photo everyday for 18 years?

As a senior at Bard College in 1979, Jamie Livingston acquired a Polaroid camera. After a few weeks, he noticed that he was taking about one picture a day, and shortly thereafter he decided to continue doing so.

The project, which quickly evolved into something of an obsession, began with a snapshot of Mindy Goldstein, Mr. Livingston’s girlfriend at the time, along with another friend, both of them smiling at something outside the frame. It ended 18 years and more than 6,000 photos later with a self-portrait of the photographer on his deathbed on his 41st birthday.

The narrative that unfolds between those two images tells the story not only of the friendships Mr. Livingston forged over the years but also the evolution of a city. It charts New York’s progression from an era of urban decay and fiscal crisis to a place characterized by the economic recovery that had arrived by the time of Mr. Livingston’s death, of melanoma, in 1997. This was especially true downtown, where he lived for much of the period covered in the photographs.

Before Mr. Livingston died, his friends Hugh Crawford and Betsy Reid promised they would not let the project die with him. To commemorate the 10th anniversary of their friend’s death, they digitally photographed the Polaroids and reproduced them for an exhibition at Bard, in Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y.

Mr. Crawford also loaded the images onto a Web site (photooftheday.hughcrawford.com) so they could be experienced in their entirety.

As the cityscape has changed, many of the pictures have accrued meaning. “They often don’t mean anything by themselves,” Mr. Crawford said. “But when you put them all together, they take on a life of their own.”

Ms. Reid, who met Mr. Livingston in 1985, cited other benefits of the collection. “When I look at a picture that I was involved in or know about,” she said, “you’re just sent right back in time and you just remember everything about that day.”

It is a truly touching story. It got me thinking about what stories like this mean for my generation. The digital age. I myself have quite the collection of Polaroids. I collect vintage Polaroid cameras, something I started back in high school. I even decided that I wanted to remember my 21st birthday only in Polaroids. However I also have a few good digital cameras. I was a photography major and photography is certainly my first love.

There have been many daily photo projects across the web. Photojojo has one called Project 365 and many people have started to take a photo a day and put it on the web. There are flickr groups and other sites just dedicated to this.

But what if you decide to do this, take a photo a day, or any amount of photos for that matter, and put them on the web. What happens if flickr gets taken down, or changed their terms of service, where do the photos go?

I attended a panel discussion this past March at SXSW about where our content goes when we die. It was not a very good panel, mainly because they were really just trying to pitch a service they were creating, but it got me thinking. What will this generation leave behind?

Many of us know that we should always back up our content. Photos, videos, etc. But these days many people are creating content that goes straight to the web. It didn’t originate on your computer. Sites let you take a picture with your webcam straight to the site. I record videos straight onto viddler sometimes. Now of course many of these services will let you download the source files, but who really takes the time to do all of that?

It will be very interesting to see the types of digital artifacts that this group of web savvy people leave behind.

10 Entrepreneurial Concepts to Live By

Posted on by Sarah Cooley
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Found this on tumblr, I wanted to re-blog this, but I thought randomsarah would be a better place for it than my tumblr. These are concepts I think we should all live by!

Originally posted by Andrew Michael Baron (Founder of Rocketboom)

This is a post I created awhile back which outlines ten major concepts I live and work by. This may seem pedestrian to some though I think it’s a good foundation for conducting entrepreneurial business activity on the internet:

1. Always work with people who are better than you. You can only do a few things really well. One of them should be understanding your weaknesses and looking for the best possible help to fill the gaps. Seek help to manage MOST of everything else it takes to run a successful business. Hire people who will do a better job than you.

2. Treat everyone with the highest regards and pay the people who work for you greater than their value. While most people do not want to be leaders, most people want to feel good about themselves and be fulfilled. If people are paid better than normal, have good benefits and get a lot of appraisal and bonuses, they will be happier in life and in return will likely be more productive too. The smallest gestures, even for a poor company such as adding a bit more onto a pay check (giving surprise bonuses), paying for a cab – paying for lunch, all go a really long way. The greatest implementation of value for people is to have positions that allow for infinite growth. Nobody that works for you should ever have a fixed ceiling of opportunity. Consider cutting back on material expenses and pay more for people. Aspire for everyone to have a greater life-style. No matter how important your business is, this is life we are talking about and it’s short. While being caught up with speed towards the future, remember others who live for the day.

3. Do everything right and fair. Make sure that you are always honorable, especially with yourself. Live up to your oral agreements. When it comes to operating your business, make sure and set it up correctly – pay every cent of tax that you legally owe. As long as you take the extra effort to do things right, you will eliminate a huge amount of stress. Even knowing yourself that you are keeping everything in order will make you feel better about yourself on a day-to-day basis. The people that work for you will also take you more seriously and also feel better themselves.

4. Learn to love consequence and happenstance. Things will happen all the time that will throw off your plans. Turn the stress around and into a challenge. Use the opportunity to think of new opportunities. Perhaps there are many new paths to take that you would like even more. Consequence is the stuff that artists dream of; It’s what creates new technologies and drives innovation.

5. Be transparent. This is almost cliche now, though this is why it is important and should not be missed: Without disregard for being humble, the more you reveal, the more people will understand where you are coming from. It’s not about blurting out some statement suddenly. It takes time to show yourself, who you really are. This motto applies to most aspects of life and business. The idea behind transparency is much more of a human personality trait. It’s for you yourself and the people that you care about; It’s for the audience that want to know when they ask; It gets to be that you no longer even think of this idea, it just becomes a part of your lifestyle. When you are fair, transparency will occur naturally because you will be proud and secure to reveal your true thinking.

6. Create a comfortable environment. A girl friend once told me about a miserable phase she went though when she and one of her girl friends were living in a basement with no windows, lots of dogs, mildew, low ceilings, old carpet, low lighting, etc. It sounded dreary to say the least. She wasn’t aware of the concept of space enough to understand that it was drastically effecting her mood. When she moved into a more comfortable apartment that was full of light and had higher ceilings, she regained her spirit. Having a great work environment is just the same. And websites are like spaces too. When you create your physical space or your space online, consider making it comfortable as possible.

7. Listen to your audience, friends and advisors. The more you can get feedback and audience participation, the more you will understand the positive and negative effects of your efforts. The more you understand the effects you are having, the more you can understand what to do in the future. If you trust yourself to filter the ideas and information that others give you, be quiet and listen more often. Allow the audience/journalists/experts in your field to describe your activity for you.

8. Have spirit!

9. Time is of the essence. It starts with the age-old model of speed that can be applied to everything in life. In a war, for instance, the side that obtains the information first about where the other side is will have the advantage; The investor who knows the news first will have the stock advantage. The technologist who creates the first this-or-that will have that advantage to begin with. Speed=Potential. If you have something new, take action before it becomes old.

10. Stay in control by giving control away. The more you give up control to others, the happier everyone will be. Not only will the people who work for you be happier, it will allow you more time to focus on the things you do best.

What makes it 2.0?

Posted on by Sarah Cooley
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This is a re-blog of a post I wrote for New York Tech Scene which just officially launched today. It’s a community blogging project that I have been trying to get off the ground for a while. Check it out!

I became compelled to write this post after seeing a twitter update from @naterkane.

I started to ask myself the same question. It seems like everything that I do, create, or attend seems to have 2.0 slapped on the end of it. Why is this? Why do we seem to have this fascination with this term? I decided to check the @replies to see what other people’s thoughts on the subject were. I found one from Jonathan Vanasco that was very interesting.

While I think it was a little harsh, he had a point. Adding 2.0 is you trying to say something about your event, product, etc; that you can’t seem to put into other terms. I myself have fallen victim to this trap. When it came time to title my video show I titled it “What’s it all about: Web 2.0″. While I don’t think that my offense is that bad because I am using the full term “Web 2.0″ I tend to have a problem with people slapping 2.0 on everything, especially in places where it makes no sense.

2.0 alone seems to refer to some kind of upgrade. There was version 1 and now there is version 2. It made sense and it was a system that worked until the O’Reilly Media Web 2.0 conference in 2004 where the term web 2.0 is credited for being coined. But now the term 2.0 seems to describe a group of people that are in the Web 2.0 community, and anything that they do, even when not tech related at all must have 2.0 on it.

At some point I guess we all excepted it as the norm, until someone comes along and questions it. But to end this on a light note, in my search I noticed a comment on Gary Vaynerchuk’s HUGE announcement today.

36 Predictions for 2009 in Media / Tech / Pop

Posted on by Sarah Cooley
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this is a reblog via fimoculous:

So here we are again — playing Nostradamus in media, technology, and pop culture — with 36 predictions for 2009:

1. Hatahs: 4chan digitally antagonizes an entire race of people into self-inflicted genocide.

2. Facebook: By the middle of summer, you realize that you’re logging into most websites via Facebook Connect. You get a creepy feeling in your gut about this, but it’s so damn convenient.

3. Politics: After a freak caribou attack injures Elisabeth Hasselbeck, Sarah Palin joins The View.

4. Newspapers: At least three major daily newspapers cease to exist. The most likely members of the carnage: the Denver Rocky Mountain News, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

5. Yahoo: Fuck it, Lycos buys it.

6. Twitter I: Facebook finally buys Twitter, but only after a price war with Google ramps it up to a ridiculous nine-figure valuation. Unsurprisingly, this is Twitter’s big plan “to make money.”

7. Twitter II: But seriously, just like those stories in 2001 about people who [shock!] make a living off of blogs, the “Twitter professional” will somehow become a reality.

8. Twitter III: A major news event happens that no one live twitters. NYT writes three stories (Styles, Tech, and Media) about this phenomena, quickly dubbed “Twitter Shock.”

9. Starbucks: After trying everything else imaginable, they introduce a new “buffet” option, which is a surprise hit.

10. Daughter Moguls: In the most convoluted assassination plot ever devised, Christie Hefner, Shari Redstone, and Elisabeth Murdoch join forces to commit triple patricide. Vanity Fair dedicates three eInk covers to the incident, with heads that morph from father to daughter.

11. Magazines I: Some rich kid on the west coast launches a magazine called Charticles, which consists only of… yeah. Choire Sicha commits suicide in his St. Mark’s apartment by paper cutting himself to death with the debut issue.

12. Magazines II: Monocle raises its newsstand price to $1295.00.

13. Magazines III: Doy, of course Portfolio goes under. The final cover story is mysteriously about cotton gin inventor Eli Whitney.

14. Gossip Girl: In the Christmas ’09 episode, Chuck and Blair finally fuck again. The recession ends.

15. Subscriptions: Against all seeming rationality, several new online subscription publications show up on the scene.

16. Where The Wild Things Are: You know what? The movie actually does suck. Gen X icons Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers are pilloried by a millennials who claim old people just don’t get it. They’re kinda right.

17. New York Times: After Brian Stelter notices that David Carr has refriended Jayson Blair on Facebook, the New York Times asks Carr to take a drug test. Upon failing, he returns to Minneapolis to run City Pages, which ends up being the last remaining alt-weekly at Village Voice Media.

18. Online Video: Something’s gotta give. Two of the “big” three — Revision3, ON Networks, Next New Networks — cease to exist by the end of the year. And when 23/6 and Funny Or Die expire on the same day, Alley Insider’s headline is “Funny Or Dead In 24/7.” Normal people have no idea what any of these things are.

19. Terrestrial Video: Something’s gotta give. One of the “big” five is morphed into a cable outlet.

20. Daily Beast: Tina Brown uses her consulting role at HBO to pitch a reality series about her own website. No one thinks it will go into development, but then Aaron Sorkin and Mark Burnett sign on. Julia Allison and Arianna Huffington are super pissed.

21. Tina Fey: First woman knighted. Now Oprah’s pissed too.

22. Google: They do a lot of stuff that no one expects, but the surprise application of the year is some sort of mashup between three core Google products: Reader, Chrome, and Docs. Oh, and maybe Android, just to make this pshit sci-fi.

23. FriendFeed: Not only does your mom still has no fucking idea what it is, but your friends don’t either.

24. Publishing: 49 books are published that chronicle the end of publishing.

25. Music: Proving that fake stuff always wins, Lonely Island’s album debuts platinum — the only album to do so this year.

26. Lara Logan: Dueling February covers of Parenting and Playboy.

27. Gawker Media: Nick Denton predicts armageddon, using copious Excel graphs to elucidate his point.

28. Mad Men: After negotiations break down with AMC, a rumor floats that a movie is in the works. It is eventually released in 2012 on the same day as the Arrested Development movie.

29. Diablo Cody: Released in September, Jennifer’s Body becomes the first young adult movie since Heathers and Clueless that resonates with grown-ups. While you try very hard to think of a new reason to hate her, Diablo casts Sasha Grey in her next film. Backlash-to-the-backlash-to-the-backlash-to-the-backlash ensues.

30. Words: Webster’s Dictionary names undershare word of the year.

31. Online Media: Trying to take advantage of cheap labor, hundreds of “me too” small startup publications launch. They will call themselves “online magazines,” but they will be blogs.

32. Microsoft: They! Will! Suprise! You! (Actually, no they won’t. You hear this every year. Their online version of Office will be begrudgingly cool, but it will have one severe flaw that renders it unusable.)

33. Apple: After Biz Week’s “Is The Innovation Over?” story appears, Steve Jobs retires at the end of the year, surprisingly citing health reasons.

34. Education: 37 percent of the people you know go back to grad school.

35. Digg: It does not get bought and Kevin Rose does not go on a date with Jennifer Aniston. Every boy in the Valley weeps at a shared realization: their sense of worth is over-valued.

36. Rupert Murdoch: He dies in a freak yacht accident. Sumner Redstone, Padma Lakshmi, Barry Diller, David Geffen, Rachel Sklar, Hoobastank, and Shaquille O’Neill are also on board, but all survive. Foul play is suspected, and an investigation reminiscent of the board game Clue ensues. A rumor spreads that Murdoch’s cryogenically frozen brain is in an Anaheim basement next to Walt Disney’s frontal lobe and the Arc of the Covenant. Michael Wolff sells his next book, The Brain Eaters, for $10 million. 17 people buy it; 4 read it.