Monday, November 21, 2005

Domain name is the game.

Here is a hypothetical situation:

My name is Leslie Green. I am a designer, fashion expert and professional photographer. Now fully immersed into a world of technological markets, I need a website to stay in the game. I hire a web designer to capture my visions of a website to online reality. One that is fully interactive, user-friendly, matching my style and of course, one that works. The designer finds me a list of possible URLs.

  1. www.hostmysite.com/~lesliegreenphotography
  2. www.lesliegreen.com
  3. www.flying-green-monkeys.com
So what one should I choose? If the answer is not obvious then maybe you need more lessons on Internet usage and productivity in a professional sense.

I'll first outline the negatives for the two I will not pick.

www.hostmysite.com/~lesliegreenphotography is just too ugly. It is clearly a web site domain obtained for a very low paying price if the host name (hostmysite) appears before the desired domain (lesliegreenphotography). However, if as Leslie Green I weren’t able to afford a domain name such as the second one, I would opt for this one over the third.

www.flying-green-monkeys.com just doesn't fit. Unless my photography subjects are flying green monkeys, then there is no reason to use this URL. It may be funny and attract people to your site based on the name alone but won't attract you desired audience. And really a website name is normally picked based on easier navigation and marketing value toward a specific audience.

That leaves us with www.lesliegreen.com. This is the best URL for my photography portfolio website. Not only is it my name, it is easy to type and easy to remember. If I meet people during the course of my career I can tell them to visit my website.

"Thank you for coming to my photo exhibit tonight, visit my website at myname.com, that’s right, lesliegreen.com."

That would be something I would say, something that will be easy to remember for the people who become interested in my photos and would like to see more of my work. Of course, if I had more artwork to post later on, it would be beneficial to use the same site with the same name and just add more links. This way I would be truly represented via the Internet.

So clearly the hands down choice would be www.lesliegreen.com. Visit me here now and check out my photos!

Mike Ciuffini

posted by Ciuffini @ 11:05 AM 0 comments

Sunday, November 13, 2005

Text, Sound and Images that Move = politcal warfare

History sucks. The past is over and I am here in the present looking to see what my next move will be, so why waste time looking back at something that's over and done with? Either way, to some it's important to look at the events of the past in order to improve in the future. That's evolution baby.

So what about Media? This gigantic wheel seems to turn and turn without ever looking back. But what many people don't know is that there are people inside the mill continuously working on the wheel, maintaining it and even upgrading certain parts to make it spin with more efficiency. Over, the years the Media has gone from print to radio then to TV, what makes the World Wide Web so special? It's a wheel that runs off all three of the content of the past in a unique and interactive way. The Internet combines print, sound, and moving images to provide what has become an almost essential service to the entire world. Business, government and civilization run off the newest form of Media and would crash and burn without it. We have built a civilization with a dependency on a network linking cities, nations and continents together.

But which of these three different content found within the Web will make a significant impact on the future? What will generations after us look to, to find news, information or even entertainment? My answer to these questions is the unique combination of all three. People right now are being given a choice. Web pages use print to describe details and outline information that video and sound cannot. But for those multitaskers out there, sound broadcasting, such as radio or podcasting tend to be the best way to get information as they work on a plethora of other things. Video combines images with sound to bring a more dramatic take on different issues. The video involves more work. In order to match visuals and sound together in a way that makes total sense many people need to have their input before something is published. The World Wide Web can combine these three using the principle of choice.

People want choice. As civilization continues to evolve, choice will be the biggest issue of all. People will be more plugged-in and involved with government and democracy. More public scrutiny will alter people's perceptions and create more means for protest and demonstration. In order to compensate this demand for information, people will want to be able to choose exactly what they want to read, hear and see. I foresee extensive website projects that incorporate all various media outlets around the world, tied together in a collaborative manner. The general public will have a much louder voice than ever before. Governments will find it harder and harder to contain the people behind the sites because people from different nations will manage the sites all across the globe. Therefore the sites will be very hard to regulate.

As old generations with little knowledge of advancing technologies die out, the generations following will be more in-tune with the newest means of getting what they want when they want. Governments will turn a blind eye to this evolution as more amounts of money is fed in from the new businesses and trade agreements become more and more lenient. Political warfare will be the mark of the new media. While television, radio, and print struggle to keep their role in daily events, the Internet will emerge as a global weapon of political protest. By using print, sound and video websites will influence a generation to become more demanding, more demanding of choice.

Mike Ciuffini

posted by Ciuffini @ 9:43 AM 0 comments