INTO

we are into words

When

June 13th, 2009 · Alert, Cognitive, Commentary, Hmm, Psyc, Unwarranted

Can someone please tell me when we all decided to say “Hey internet, what can I do for you?”

The web used to be a read-only, receive-only world. Now with social networks, social components to blogs and news, and ever-evolving crowd sourcing techniques, we are tumbling upwards to the next www plateau. I agree when you dissent and say that the internet no longer has time to platou anywhere, but the point still stands for argument’s sake.

We’re almost to the point of seeking recognition, and visibility to such a degree that it has become an additional full-time job, and will continue to be passively leveraged into profit columns by others. Our web surfing alone contributes to ad revenue, and any simple interaction often results in further boosts of revenue streams and demographic data for most sites.

I’m not saying any of this is wrong or bad, don’t get me wrong. Just be sure to take note that the seemingly infinite naive perception of the web should be taken with a sizable grain of salt. It isn’t just there for your benefit, it all comes with a cost. We’re still going through a transition, which will in all reality be unending, that will in time provide more insight as to these “cost” line items.

Information addiction? Yup. Take stock what you lay to the way side for your hunger.

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ColumbiaChristianBrick.com

June 13th, 2009 · Website portfolio

Released ColumbiaChristianBrick.com

Quick microsite for donation drive, INTO also developed a donation card and portable standup exhibit for this quick action project.

When you buy bricks, you help leave a legacy of Christian education for future generations.

Columbia Christian Schools has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to purchase the campus and buildings of the former Cascade College. Buying bricks in the “Walk of Faith” will help raise the funds necessary to make this dream a reality, keeping Christian education alive for future generations of Portland-area children. Your investment is completely secure. If enough money is raised, the campus will be purchased. However, if we are unable to complete the transaction, your donation—which will have been invested in a secure account—will be fully returned. Take this opportunity to leave a legacy for you or your family.

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Braider.com

June 10th, 2009 · On our CMS, Website portfolio

braider

Released Braider.com

Braid is quickly becoming the reinforcement of choice in the engineering world. Because all the fibers within a braided structure are continuous and mechanically locked, braid has a natural mechanism that evenly distributes load throughout the structure. This means that braid is the stronger, tougher, more flexible alternative to woven composites. For more than two decades, A&P Technology, maker of Sharx™ brand braided reinforcement, has been a world leader in braiding technology and we continue to push the boundaries of possibility every day. If you’re looking for an efficient and economical way to optimize your design, braid could be the key to maximizing your product performance.

From Braider.com

  • INTO is proud to be the production and CMS engine driving this innovative companies’ website.
  • Braid is basically a new kind of carbon fiber, and their product result studies are incredible. The value-added solution of wrapping just about anything in braid and their innovative manufacturing process makes them a company to keep a close eye on.

braider2

  • Using Helvetica-Neue as a great inline text alternative to static graphics, we were able to make their SEO all the more valuable by utilizing CSS and browser detection to harness the pre-existing visual perks of the web, while not attempting to fool Google, but playing by their rules.
  • We were excited to expand some of our CMS capabilities to include AJAX autocomplete searching and dynamic Flash navigation. We provide a greater product by putting our clients in complete and direct control of their new web solution.
  • Contracted through our great friends, saltStudio

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Derivatives

April 17th, 2009 · Alert, Commentary, Method, Psyc

There are truly only two ways of doing things.

When developing anything in planning and production you have one of two options, and if you fall in the bell curve, then you’re watered down and without identity, you want to be in the outliers of either method you choose. Not to say that there can’t be a blend, but be committed.

You can make something that is clean and meets everyone where they’re at, and have a point-for-point transparency of features, quality, and methods. The other way to approach things is with an identity, whether grunge, space, electro, or retro you approach the concept and know that you will be creating brand soldiers and brand enemies.

I subscribe to both methods and they both have their place. Sometimes identity needs to set you apart and be an anchor point for consumer commitment. On the other hand, sometimes a soft, supportive approach to consumers is a strong pipeline as you set out to have dependability and quality win out in the end. This is often considered the more professional approach.

There are lots of people out there, so all of these groups are fully present. The safe approach will ensure that you win over people easily and always get surefire results. Its clear that everything that lasts is of this method, and its also clear that 20 or 50 years from now, everything except media will be refined to its core implementation.

The thematic approach is often geared towards a shorter lifespan. It will always have the most polarizing flare, and it will also retain properties and attributes that you will find repetitive in a progressive scenario. When committing to the thematic approach, one should also commit to active evolving change or active community support. The nature of the unique will always be the triumph of the dull, hence graffiti.

As an investment model, the clean approach will appeal to the safe investor, and it seems to me that common sense would have a clean approach bear the under-workings of any project. The thematic tweaks and cuts should only have a superficial impact in this setting. The thematic approach to development can be short-lived and unproductive, but should never be dismissed, as it runs on hype, and its one of the most contagious and effective gearing mechanisms for consumer involvement.

Concluding; run with what feels right, this is case-by-case, unless you adopt a static mindset.

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Clumped

April 11th, 2009 · Alert, Cognitive, Hmm

Twitter is all the rage, and its super fun that it is. I’m enjoying more and more aspects of twitter every day. The chat-like platform is a gateway technology that gives us a common groundfloor to congregate, meet each other at square one and broadcast.

It is by definition built for confidence. You don’t tell hundreds of people what you’re doing unless you’re confident in doing it. I have seen blog posts out there that actually list the people you should follow for different business and social columns. Its almost eerie that you can get into a person’s world, priorities, and schedule by their own submission of tweets.

Its a new world, and the less transparent you are the better, nothing’s hidden anymore, we’re all just runnin’ around in circles and tellin’ each other where we’re at.

I started following Google the other day, then also picked up a few of the people that Google follows. I figure, follow people that they follow and it might get you some info that you should care about in the internet/info world. Its been a unique experience. The part I like the best is seeing how small our world is. Just when I start to think that X isn’t human, then boom, the just tweeted about how they stubbed their toe too.

Exhaust communication! We need a new level.

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Growth

April 11th, 2009 · Alert, Hmm

Business is such an active term. Everyday it evolves and encompasses an unforeseen amount of new technology, original methods, and exponential data. We as a people are working to catalog all we know, all we feel, and all we do. It’s a super interesting phenomenon, because it is a passion and an active pursuit. Even as I ask the question, I tweet,  and then spread the blog post.

I can’t tell if its the gain of influence or the enjoyment of broadcasting your opinion. It sure feels a whole lot like we’re all making our contributions to the sum total of human life. A bit philosophical and far out, but as daily smaller cogs in our world we take steps and interest to stake our claim of existence.

We are all contributing to what one day will be fully cataloged, grouped, and functional. When we figure out everything, and every opinion has been expressed, then we will return to what we knew before all of this. The race will be over. We will probably set out to rediscover what we already know, because knowledge will be a seemingly neutral nuisance.

One of two things will happen to everyone. Said person will either be able to lose themselves into a fantasy, or will make a return to a more raw world. We have so many inputs, extensions, and feelers out in the world, that we sit as managers of our own lives. Our daily life consists of making thousands of insignifigant choiuces. There is a certian form of confidence that drives us with the flow of information, and our common platform to reflect on the feed of knowledge.

We are quickly learning as an internet society that knowledge and information cannot be owned. Everything that get promoted or passes by simply becomes like a fluid concept. We all put our filters in the sky and try to express what passed thru.

Knowledge is a class-driven concept. Everytime you take information and work with it, it becomes your own. Every action on something becomes an instance of the manipulated subject. We are filling in all of the cracks of knowledge and information. General is a thing of the past, specific is the only treasure we still have. Today you can hardly make a statement without localization of some kind.

Moving forward we have to play roles as cogs, but will you be unique or blended. How do you really make an impact, and even when you get the chance to make an impact, is it still yours to make? or do you owe it to the cogs you speak on behalf of to homoginize their voice and backburn your own.

Sub sets of sections in divisions of areas. You are one person, make the impact of two people, then try for more. Make a mark. Go already!

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Device

April 11th, 2009 · Commentary, Innovative

Wondering about the iPhone switch to $99 developer fees.

It used to be free. There were some good apps in the package too, like an iPhone Simulator, which is quite nice for web dev too. While I get to make SDK comments, I’d like to say for the record, that their globe icon lives in left field. Where did it come from? We’re in a realistic 2D ad campaign, so lets throw in a beef font and 3D globe.

From an outside perspective, it seems that the new Apple dev fees are due to one of the following:

  • A way to filter out casually interested parties who aren’t serious developers
  • The new apps and the surrounding inferstructure has been an expensive leap, lets recoop some costs
  • At 4 gigs and growing, the badwidth fees for a casual download provided at EDGE speeds are premium pay options, and since we have a boolean operating procedure, its best or nothing.

Thoughts? Ideas?

And now to the vision..

The most exciting point revolving around all of this is the merging that we’re seeing between what Skype has done for telephony and what iPhones have done for computers. We’re filling in the gap and making the connections.

Tell me I was right a few years from now, when your iPhone is actually your entire OS. I ran an expirament and took my solid-state nano and installed Mac OS Leopard on it. It worked. I didn’t put it through much usability testing suffice to say that it revealed a new business model.

Take your OS, Apps, and preferences with you, but leave all of the company files on the computer. I have my Photoshop palates, you have yours. If I sat down and chalked up 500mb of PSDs in my environment then left, you could restart in your OS and see those same files on the internal hard drive of the computer (which is acting as an external drive) into your customized environment.

Its an excellent solution for contractors too. We want you on-site, on our gear, our files, your apps and your preferences.. Done! The developer gets his prefs all the same and settles into a comfortable frame, while the company keeps the active dev files on the computer.

The interesting part is that the computer acts much faster! I could open large files in less than 1/2 the time, because it was basically a super-charged hard drive. In conclusion, we’re coming upon a new horizon where companies keep the engines and we run around with little pref-cases.

C’mon future, we’re ready!

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MissoulaInMotion.com

April 1st, 2009 · On our CMS, Website portfolio

mim

Released MissoulaInMotion.com

Looking for ways to cut back on gas, avoid traffic and reduce harmful emissions, while preserving Missoula’s top rated quality of life? It starts with taking advantage of Missoula’s sustainable transportation options, 
and Missoula In Motion can help.

We’re an organization designed to help local businesses, institutions and individuals reduce traffic and improve air quality in Missoula while saving everyone time and money.

from MissoulaInMotion.com

  • INTO is helping make green. We’re excited to issue this new watershed for long-time environmentally conscience Missoulians.
  • Another site running off of our proprietary (from scratch) CMS, introducing some great traffic to our analytics and some quick load times, while being an easily update-propagating server-side solution. We’re pleased to see its exceptional performance on the front lines, prepping assets with caching headers, and delivering assets directly out of Amazon’s reliable S3 web services. 
  • Contracted through our great friends, saltStudio

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Better

March 27th, 2009 · Uncategorized

ABC’s media player is far better than Hulu or any other site I have come across. While I’d appreciate a larger and friendlier UI (and no commercials) their video quality, HD shifter and fullscreen player is second to none.

hulu

It harnesses system resources to achieve more than all of the browser and flash player settings you could combine. I can stream high-def ABC shows on my 30″ cinema display running off of an Apple laptop. Hulu and others get a digital frame delay at that immense size, and while it’s “watchable,” I’d rather do a screen-zoom (control+[scrollforward]) and get the jimmy-rigged smooth image.

The final word? The issue remains unresolved, and I really have to hand it to ABC.com for pulling through on the core programming side. That clear uncompromising commitment to high-quality functional video above all else has really won me over. It’s the best “to web” conversion of television from a high-def standpoint. (also, their ad service is a bit spotty, so sometimes you get it free)

I approached the issue with Hulu, here’s how it went.

First, your site is amazing, and I really enjoy it.
–
I have a 30″ Apple display, and regardless of the browser, I  get slow fullscreen video. When I use ABC’s player in full screen for their Highdef shows like LOST, it plays in higher resolution, and is perfectly smooth.
Just wanted to send along the request to get smooth fullscreen high-def from your wonderful site.

Thanks,
Kirk

 

Hi Kirk,
ABC uses a totally different video player than we (and most video sites) do.

Right.

As Rob mentioned below, we really push the Flash runtime in order to deliver high quality video, especially HD.

Good.

We use Flash to make it as easy as possible for users to start watching, since most already have Flash installed.

Right. I am a Flash developer too.

One thing to do is to make sure you have the Flash Player’s hardware acceleration feature enabled:

  1. Go to Hulu.com and watch a video.
  2. Right-click on the player and select “Settings”.
  3. Click to the first tab in the settings window and uncheck the ”Enable hardware acceleration” box.
  4. Click “Close” and try watching any Hulu video in full screen mode again.

Hardware acceleration was already enabled by default before sending this advisement

Another point: make sure you are watching in full screen by clicking the full screen button from the Hulu.com player, rather than just stretching a browser window to full screen. This will ensure hardware acceleration is being attempted.

I have done that. That is when I encountered the problem.

I only mentioned the OS screen zoom, because it is my only workaround for smooth fullscreen HULU

Let us know if either of these help. We definitely want to accomodate ppl with nice pretty cinema displays :)

Neither of these help. Thanks for trying though.

I understand how helpful it is on the developer end to get this kind of info from another professional so its more usable.

Thanks,

Thanks.

Daniel
Hulu

 

Hi Kirk,

We have received reports of poor fullscreen video playback performance from folks with small amount of memory on their video card (<= 128MB) so I am wondering if that may be the problem here. Another thing you may want to try is to lower the desktop resolution before entering fullscreen for hulu and see if that helps (we would love to know what the outcome of that is.)

Thanks,

Raymond
Hulu

 

Okay, I ran your test.

My graphics report is attached, as well as other specs. When I lowered the resolution of both monitors, the performance was much better, but still had a built up lag of some kind, not quite a flicker or jerk, just some 3 second buildup then slight slowing.

You can see screenshots below.

Thanks,
Kirk

Hi Kirk,

I apologize for the delay in getting back to you. If you are on a wireless network, you may want to switch to a wired network connection and see if that resolves the remaining lag issue.

Thanks,

Raymond
Hulu

 

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Advertise

March 25th, 2009 · Commentary

Why Advertising Is Failing On The Internet

Quoted from the article TechCrunch.com

  • People don’t trust ads.  There is a vast literature to support this. Is it all wrong?
  • People don’t want ads.  Again, there is a vast literature to support this.  Think about your own behavior, you own channel surfing and fast forwarding and the timing of when you leave the TV to get a snack. Is it during the content or the commercials?
  • People don’t need ads.  There is a vast amount of trusted content on the net.  Again, there is literature on this.  But think about how you form your opinion of a product, from online ads or online reviews?
  • There is no shortage of places to put ads.  Competition among them will be brutal.  Prices will be driven lower and lower, for everyone but Google.

INTO responds

One advertising business model that I didn’t see addressed and haven’t seen fulfilled in any effective manner is a model in which the content is subject to review. If there was an ad service(s) that gained my credibility by its choices, recommendations, and filtering, then it’s monetary influences would pose a significantly lower detriment. 

From a distance it seems that ads “via the deck” http://decknetwork.net/ are approaching a bit of this arena with their specific approach to clientele.

I fully endorse your points, but see that it might actually spur on an advertising reflection with increased magnitude. Our inherent distrust and distaste for advertising (especially online) coupled with the impending failure of the “traditional” online advertising model will necessitate the  force-finding of a true and sustainable solution.

The solution, to speculate, will be a trusted guide with filtered content. There may be several demographic networks based on age, or it may simply maintain its search attribute-oriented roots. 

The challenges facing advertisers in the next wave of online promotion will be the actual convincing of the advertising entities themselves. Sources will need to be making true quality web destinations, with real value-added benefits or services, which will effectively have their phase one marketing be advertising to the advertiser. 

This filter gateway will remove all junk websites, literally. Premier networks will be the golden goose, and winning them over will be a professional task, rightly so as users are seeking professional results.

This push and pull pre-distribution gateway may even lead to face-to-face meetings and real world, old school advertising, and even some “schmoozing.” The fallacy that may be assumed or implied here is that we want to break away from old advertising, but Its not true.

The wonder of the web and its aspects have always been a means of efficiency. Referencing Second Life; when I saw a demo at a large agency I was in disbelief to see that, while characters could be anything they could imagine, they chose to be human, and often maintain similar real-world traits. 

Bottom line, the future of online advertising will be a remixed return to old school principals and internet-style efficiency. We will use our newly-found trusted advertising advocates to bring us reasonable commercialization and treat us with a general respect for our attention. It will be interesting to see how the formation of the new unwritten social contract of delivery and consumption works with this new wave of personable advertising.

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