Happy Holidays !!! to Everyone and a Prosperous New Year 2014 !!!
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Wednesday, December 25, 2013
Saturday, June 8, 2013
Tell Me About Film Making Equipment Rental
Private rented options? (Photo credit: Scuola di Atene)
When thinking about the film making equipment you will need for your project, you will need to make a list as soon as your budget and schedule have been worked out. This is when you will need to contact film making equipment rental houses to see which ones have the best price on what you need. Some of this equipment is used often and you may need to reserve it much earlier than you will actually need it.
You will need to get a list of vendors that offer the film making equipment rentals that you need. Some rental houses can put together a complete package for you, and others may be a bit more constrained. As long as you have a complete list of equipment needed you will be able to find the right rental house to serve you.
When you contact the vendor, ask if they will have the equipment you are going to need by the time you will need it. Tell them what your project will require in the line of film making equipment. Most of the rental houses are current on the latest equipment, and could help you with information you weren’t aware of.
It is imperative that you reserve the equipment for the dates of your shoot. This should be done in advance, and is called a hold. This does not mean you will need to pay for the equipment before you pick it up. If the film making equipment has already been put on hold for someone else, you may need to accept a hold for a later date. If you know that the date you have given is the date you will be getting the equipment, ask the vendor if you can firm your order. The rental house will contact the people with the hold prior to you and ask them to firm the order or give up the hold. When you firm an order, you will be obligated to pay for the equipment from the day you have the hold, even if you don’t use it then. If your plans change, you will need to contact the vendor as soon as possible so they can make other arrangements with other customers.
Since you are renting equipment that has had several users, it is a good idea to test it out before you are actually ready to shoot the film. The vendor is not liable for anything if you use faulty equipment and waste time and money. Most rental houses will ask you to show proof on insurance, if anything should happen to equipment while you are using it, you are responsible for replacement. If you do not have insurance, the rental company will put you in touch with an insurance company that will cover the production.
Make sure you get a signed agreement on the terms of the film making equipment rental, cost, time of pick up and return, and a list of liability and responsibility terms. Check the equipment when you pick it up to make sure it is all there. It is much better to find a missing element while at the rental house than when you are ready to shoot. Check everything with your list to make sure nothing has been left out, you will avoid wasting time on trips back to the rental house to retrieve missing equipment. Check everything over thoroughly and don’t miss anything, no matter how small. You may want to pick up the equipment a day or two before the day you will be shooting. This will give you plenty of time to test the equipment so there will be no surprises.
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Tell Me About Film Making Equipment Rental
Friday, March 29, 2013
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
Music Videos - The Extension To Musical Expression
Music has always been something that speaks to the soul. People listen to music to relax, to create an atmosphere, to set a mood. Music consists of two main parts namely the melody and lyrics. By combining these two aspects simultaneously you create a harmony that goes beyond explanation. The melody creates the correct atmosphere to bring you the true message of the lyrics. For ages people has been satisfied with an audio experience only, but as the music industry developed, people developed a need for an audio-visual musical experience. Music videos was the answer to that need. There were, and still are, many music lovers that have a negative view about music videos. They believe that music videos only have a marketing purpose and nothing else. There is some truth in this, but is a music video totally useless when it comes to the message a song wants to deliver?
You have to experience the song without a picture to really understand it. To really appreciate the work of a musical artist you have to experience a song through every mechanism available, through the artist's voice, through the specific music instruments, through the carefully selected melodies, through the wonderfully written lyrics. Your first experience of a song and its interpretation should be by audio only. You have to be able to capture its meaning before it is corrupted by a visual expression. A song has to be free to speak a personal message and if a song is able to do that it is only because of artistic perfection. A music video takes away an artist's majestic power of illustration.
Music videos are not all that bad. The nice thing about music videos is that they give you a new approach to the song, another perspective that may not have been experienced during your first interpretations of the song. It opens your mind for new possibilities with a song. A music video is also a good medium that helps you to understand a song if you are not good at interpreting them. Not everyone is a good interpreter of musical literature. Music videos are also a great way of bridging the language gap for fans who enjoy the music of a foreign artist, but don't understand a word he or she is singing. After exploring a song trough audio only, it is always pleasurable for fans to see all the mechanisms of music combined in a music video, where you can experience the music with your eyes, ears and soul, all at the same time.
A music video should not be your first experience of a song, because that is when the theme of the song is killed. You have to focus on the music and lyrics to really appreciate the abilities of the artist. Not everyone looks good in a music video, but there are many, "not-so-good-looking" artists that produces great music. A music video is only a different medium through which one can experience a song, the music video itself cannot speak to you in a personal way, only the song can. The music video only brings you the central theme of the song, the abstract, theoretical meaning. Therefore it is true that a music video on its own, gives you a very limited perspective and can, at most, be an extension to musical expression, but can't be the expression itself.
Coenraad de Beer was born on 27 February 1982 in small town called Lichtenburg in the North West (Formerly known as Transvaal) province of South Africa. He graduated High school in 2000 and started doing computer programming on his own for 2 years using the C++ programming language. In 2003 he started a career in Accounting and he is currently studying BCompt at the University of South Africa.
Coenraad is a very dedicated person in whatever he takes on in life and believes that success only comes from hard work and believing in your own abilities, the abilities God gave to you.
Coenraad is also the Webmaster of LIAFIN - Your one stop Online Shop
You can also visit his homepage at [http://www.cplusplusgenius.wagoo2.com]
Some History Facts on Music Videos
Music videos represent a crucial part of the music industry. Artists owe their careers to music videos as they are being given the chance of impressing the public not just with their vocal talent, but also with their looks or moves.
Thirty years ago, music video used to be less important then it is nowadays. MTV (Music Television) was the phenomenon that gave so much power and importance to the music video. MTV started broadcasting in 1981 in the USA and it marked the beginning of the music video's ruling over the music industry. The first video ever played on MTV was 'Video Killed the Radio Star' by The Buggles. As MTV was broadcasting 24-hour-a-day music, music videos were needed to be produced. Consequently, music video began to play an important role in artists' careers. It is considered that even Madonna's career has been greatly influenced by her videos that presented a sexy, appealing look of the artist. Some experts say that Madonna has been inspired by the image that the actress Greta Garbo has used in her silent movies. MTV has been highly controversial: some saw as the beginning of an amazing, new, fresh era in music, others considered it to mark the end of true musical talent, as artists have been become more appreciated for their looks instead of their vocal abilities.
Nowadays, the music video is as important as the song itself, sometimes even deciding the success of a song or artist. Collections of music videos are being sold on tapes or DVDs. Music video's greatest fans are apparently watching them muted just to enjoy their artistic value, as they consider it to be a new form of art. They consider that a music video should be assessed based on its visual qualities and not on the song quality. It seems that the music 'gurus', corporate managers, have realised the potential of using female sex-appeal in music videos, therefore this feature is being used excessively as it is more popular for the public.
The birth of the music video has created a new type of directors: video directors. MTV started even listing directors with video credits and this profession has become more and more popular. But it seems that most video directors don't specialise in this particular art form, they see it as being just a step on the way to directing a movie. Many start directing videos or commercials, hoping to get the recognition to build a name and to direct a movie. It seems that even video directors admit the fact that a music video is secondary to the song itself.
In conclusion, although music video's fans have tried to elevate this form of entertainment to the title of an art form, the music video is eventually just a work of commerce, destined to sell a product: the song.
For a great data base of music video codes just visit us at [http://www.videocode.org]
How to Promote Your Music Video
Are you one of those lucky ones who have their own music bands, like to play music and have your music videos but looking for ways to get your bands name out there? Or are you one among those millions of music artists who are looking for ways to establish your identity or promote your name and music video in the global music world? In case, your answer is yes then you are not alone. Today if we talk in terms of the current scenario then it is a tough task to mark your presence in the competitive world of music.
Although there are numerous talent hunt shows and private music companies that are working constantly to promote young music talents but there is no substitute for an online promotion. The world has become a global wireless township and today through an online promotion you can actually seize the concentration of millions of viewers from every corner of the world at most competitive price.
These days, you have the ample of options such as videos submission sites, video promotional sites and video sharing sites, which are frequently becoming major elements and ways to promote music videos and in turn getting huge web traffic.
Video Submission Websites
Promoting your music video through video submission sites is one of the easiest methods of promotion. Today many people flock to these websites everyday to see and learn more about music. And, thus you may never know that your band might get noticed by the big recording companies as well. Everyday, these websites are get visited by thousands of visitors and submitting your music to video submission sites can certainly help massive attention.
Video Informer Websites
The other way can be the video informer site can be yet another option to promote your video. These websites helps you in easily upload the music videos you like. Adding to this, the value of music video content is generally determined by their algorithm, which further help in positioning to the most popular and highest quality video content submitted. Consequently, this actually gives you a chance to be on top page, which in turn play a vital role in making your video more popular. The key feature that makes these websites the more preferred option is it is one of the best cost competitive tools that can easily drive traffic by using your embedded video. Your music videos get highly promoted through such sites since when any user perform search operation on this online platform after they find a description of your video in different categories that actually pull their attention and drag them directly to your website. It is one of the cheapest and simplest means to reach a huge online audience.
Video Sharing Websites
On other hand, you also have option of different video sharing sites like YouTube, Metacafe, Twitter and MySpace. Looking at the present scenario, these days video sharing sites are most popular among all. Music lovers from every age group spend their time browsing different music videos on these sites. In fact, it has emerged as a major hotspot for different music listeners who like to listen different sort of song composition. Today adding music videos to these sites is very easy. All you need is to create your profile and add music videos to your profile. The process is very simple and do not consume much time.
You need to understand and realize that today there are millions of music bands and videos over the Internet. Many of these either get lost under the burdens of search engines or never get noticed, but what makes them the best from the rest is the way of promoting these videos online effectively through means as mentioned above.
Music Videos - Search & Watch most popular music videos, movie videos, sports videos and more other entertaining video clips on Clipta.com. Clipta.com is world most popular video search engine that improves the quality of searching videos on web.
What is the History Behind Music Videos?
Many musical artists made their careers a success by using music videos. As an important part of the music industry, music videos not only showcase an artist's singing talent, but also how they perform. The history of music videos shows how the use of the videos transformed the music industry.
Premiering in 1974, the Australian TV show 'Countdown' played an important role in the development of the music video industry. Music video clips were used as a method of promoting acts that were to appear on the show. As the popularity of the video clips grew, the music industry began to realize the marketing potential of these music clips. One of the most notable video clips features was the AC/DC hit, "It's A Long Way to the Top." During the 1980s, 'Countdown' aired in 22 countries.
In 1980, the New Zealand group Split Enz became one of the first bands to create an entire set of music promo clips and market them on video cassette for each song on their album, 'True Colors.'
Predating MTV by almost three years, 'Video Concert Hall,' was the first nationwide video music program on American television. Premiering in June 1981, one of the first US programs to play music videos was the USA Cable Network program 'Night Flight.' Night Flight predated MTV's launch by just a few months.
In 1981, the U.S. video channel MTV was launched and it began the age of 24-hour music television. They launched the channel with the video, "Video Killed the Radio Star." Throughout the 1980s, MTV expanded to become an important tool used in music marketing. Singers like Madonna not only used music videos to promote their albums, but to create their images. In 1983, the almost 14-minute-long video for Michael Jackson's song "Thriller," was released. It became the world's most successful and influential video in music video history.
In 1985, MTV launched the channel VH1 which featured softer music for an older audience than the typical young MTV audience. In 1987, MTV Europe was launched and in 1991, MTV Asia was introduced.
In 1988, the MTV show, Yo! MTV Raps was launched. The show helped to bring hip hop music to a nation wide audience. Two of the videos that are most famous for being two of the three most expensive music videos of all time are Michael and Janet Jackson's "Scream," which cost $7 million to produce, and Madonna's "Bedtime Story," which cost $5 million. "Scream" is still the most expensively video ever made.
During the 1990s, MTV launched channels around the world that included: MTV Latin America in 1993, MTV India in 1996, and MTV Mandarin in 1997. In 1996, MTV2, originally called "M2" was launched as an alternative and older music video channel.
By the mid-2000s, MTV and many of its other channels had stopped showing a large number of music videos and began showing reality television shows.
Music Videos have played an important role in the success of many artists and the music industry.
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Subscribe To Online Music Video Websites
Online music video websites are more advanced than music TV channels; here music enthusiasts can choose the music videos they want to watch. With music TV channels, music lovers have to put up with annoying TV presenters and wait for their favorite music videos to finally appear on screen. Also with regular music TV channels, the music is generally on a rotate system, this means there are many repeats, and usually the repeats are not what you want to see. Now with online music video websites, music lovers can perform a series of useful function such as stop, fast forward, rewind, skip and replay. This is truly a remarkable and enjoyable music video experience.
Now you can enjoy online music videos by subscribing to an online music video company. Go on the internet to find the best online music video website that suits your style, taste and genre of music, and enjoy the benefits of being in control when watching your favorite music videos. The benefits of online music video subscriptions are great. Not only can you choose the music videos you want to see, but also you can control when and how you watch them.
An option for online music video fans is to subscribe to an online music video website, here music fans can watch unlimited music videos and have the benefit of controlling the play lists. Online subscription music video websites are becoming more popular around the world. These are a legal outlet for music videos, and artists and music companies, along with music video fans, are becoming more aware of this convenient method to enjoy music videos. Music artists and music companies are now seeing online music video websites as a legal and profitable method for video and music exposure.
Therefore, if you enjoy watching music videos and keeping up-to-date with new music, try the new and convenient online music video option and see if it works for you. Do not hassle with regular TV music channels and watch music videos that do not interest you, take the affordable step of subscribing to an online music video company, and enjoy music videos that suit your style, taste and preferred genre of music.
Take advantage of the internet and get more entertainment for an affordable cost. Search the internet and view the wide world of online music video subscription sites, join up and enjoy your viewing.
Dylan wrote this article as a reviewer for popular UK Music Video portal, VidZone a site that offers you a chance to listen and watch the latest music videos for free.
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Why Our Internet Delivery Service is Broken - A Tale of Woes With Charter Communications
How many cable guys does it take to provide me with Internet service? It sounds like the beginning of a "lightbulb" joke, but this question is pretty real for me. Turns out to be somewhere north of a dozen. I moved into my new office two weeks ago, but it took until yesterday to get the Internet turned on there. Turns out a combination of factors, aided by some bizarre complications from Charter, my cable supplier, caused the delay.
At the center of my difficulties was my office was using a new street address that wasn't in anyone's database - including the Post Office. It took numerous phone calls to find the right person in the City of St. Louis - not exactly your best example of efficient government under most circumstances - before that was fixed. I think. The PO updated their database, but it took a couple of weeks before I could go in to usps.com and see it for myself. Why? Because speedy delivery of Web data isn't in the PO's motto.
It is amazing to me that we have such poor Internet delivery in 2010. Back when broadband meant getting 56k ISDN, the phone companies ruled the roost. You could get T1s for thousands of dollars, but you could get them just about anywhere you could string a twisted pair of copper wires. Now the USA is well down on the list of countries that have lots of broadband available to their citizens - indeed, China has more Internet users than we have total population now. And Singapore is putting megabit connectivity everywhere. What happened?
Part of the problem is that we have the absolutely worst communications customer service entities to deal with. They answer the call with "we want to provide you with superior service today" and apologize when they don't deliver, but they never take ownership of the customer. They can't marshal the field resources to find and fix problems in their wiring plant. And for communications companies, I was amazed at how often my call was dropped after being on hold for many minutes. Come on, people, this isn't rocket science. (And given the state of NASA, I am not sure that is a good comparison either.)
Having cable and phone companies compete for Internet access hasn't helped the customer either. I tried to order just a regular land line from AT&T (who is my local phone supplier here) but was told repeatedly that my address wasn't in their database. Back to the PO problem. When the AT&T technician coincidentally showed up at my office yesterday, he claimed he couldn't give me service because I ordered my phone using a nearby address. Yet after spending an hour on the phone with his supervisors, he managed to deliver dial tone to my office. Thanks, Roger, I appreciate that tenacity. But why tell me you can't do it and then you can?
Meanwhile, Charter took several visits with an ever-changing cast of characters. One time I got the guy that actually laid the cable along the street and in my condo development - he brought a map showing where the lines went. While that was encouraging, trouble was, one of them wasn't connected properly. That brought out another guy who hooked up one of my missing links. Then another woman came (who was the most entertaining tech among my crew) and told me that I was missing a "tap". That took someone else to install the tap. Why couldn't she install it herself? What, they have a tap specialist? Someone else needed to find the right person with a key to open the box that the tap went in. I am not making this stuff up. Then I finally had two guys yesterday that actually had to locate my line and hook things up. At least they came with the key.
All throughout this process, I Tweeted and called various Charter people, trying to plead my case. At one point, I actually tried the live chat feature on their Web site, but that was agonizingly slow and like talking to a six-year old child. There was one woman in their call center in South Carolina, she did take some ownership of my problem but didn't seem completely in touch with the crew on the grounds around my office. It shouldn't be this hard. If we are going to become a first-world Internet country, we need better broadband suppliers who can take customer service to new highs, not new lows.
David Strom is a noted speaker, author, podcaster and consultant who has written two books and thousands of magazine articles for dozens of IT publications such as Computerworld, eWeek, Baseline Magazine, Information Week and Information Security magazine. His blog can be found at http://strominator.com, and he can be reached at david@strom.com.
Charter Communications Company
Charter Communications Incorporated is the third largest publicly traded cable operator in the United States and services over five million customers in 29 states. Charter is recognized as a Fortune 500 company, headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, and is on the NASDAQ stock exchange. The ticker symbol is CHTR. The chairman and largest shareholder of Charter is Microsoft's co-founder Paul Allen.
Charter offers a wide range of products that include video, high-speed internet, and telephone services. They are able to provide their customers entertainment, information, and electronic connections to the rest of the world.
Charter cable television offers customers high-definition channels along with the basic cable television offerings. Also provided are digital video recorders and an impressive collection of on-demand titles.
Charter's high-speed internet is available in two speeds, five and 10 megabits per second. These speeds allow customers to download at lightning fast speeds and be able to play online games and stream video with ease.
Charter's telephone service is and has always been a high quality service that provides residents with unlimited local and long distance calling to all of the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. Charter offers call waiting, caller ID, call forwarding, voicemail, and enhanced 911 services at no additional charge.
Charter also offers business solutions to tailor the needs of businesses with communication needs. Business products include Internet access, data networking, video and music entertainment, and business telephone service.
Charter has come a long way from where they started and they are continually looking to improve and grow the company.
Find the best Charter deals, Charter.com specials, and Charter Communications offers at Squidoo.com/charterdeals.
The Six Sigma Project Charter - Communication
The project charter is designed in the Define phase of DMAIC. It lists out details from the project title to the role of the various Belt levels, project start and end dates, importance of the process being improved, problem areas and various measurements.
It is highly important to communicate the project charter to all those concerned with the project and the process.
Communication Considerations
The Six Sigma project charter is the blueprint of the project.
The various considerations of the communication plan are defining who is responsible at various levels for proper communication, how it will be communicated, and so on. Communication starts from defining who will be communicating the project charter at various levels like the Master Black Belts, Black Belts and so on.
A well-designed project may also fail if there is no communication strategy designed for communicating the Six Sigma project charter. A Black Belt should at least have a design in mind about how the communication will be undertaken and to whom that sort of communication will be directed.
Even a simple table designed to list down what will be communicated to whom, the communication medium, the information to be stored and so on is a good base for the Black Belts to communicate to the appropriate people.
Consideration has to be given as to what type of communication strategies will be used - by way of regular team meetings, project status reports, project reviews, project tollgates, storyboards and so on.
Communication planning also needs to consider the plan to be followed in certain situations. The rationale behind the project charter communication plan has to be established and enforced. At the same time, it should also be communicated where such communication will be placed, via emails, notice boards and so on.
It is important to decide the frequency of such communication - if it will be weekly, monthly, daily or according to the requirements.
The Communication Plan
A communication plan is not just communicating about what the project is all about and what stage it has reached. A communication plan will have details ranging from when the project team meetings need to take place, who the participants will be, how will the meeting plans be communicated and even where they will be conducted.
A project charter communication plan even considers reporting on the status of the project, who the status reports need to be given to and when such reports are to be sent. It involves reviewing of the project with the Master Black Belts and top management.
After such reviews are done, any modifications, improvements and changes will be communicated to the champions and sponsors. The project budget and reviews also need to be planned and communicated to the finance department or the finance analyst.
Everything about the project deployment and its preparation should be communicated to the project deployment leader.
The project charter communication plan involves all those who are expert members on the matter and provides valuable guidance for the project. Project members have to be kept well informed, so that they can contribute well in the success of the initiative.
Tony Jacowski is a quality analyst for The MBA Journal. Aveta Solutions - Six Sigma Online ( http://www.sixsigmaonline.org ) offers online six sigma training and certification classes for lean six sigma, black belts, green belts, and yellow belts.
Sunday, May 13, 2012
The Jury Is In - And It's A Split Decision On The Google Book Search Program
The jury is in... and it's a split decision. Split on the Google Book Search Program that is. Some people love it. Others think it's the apocalypse. I really don't want to get into the legal ramifications, copyright law and every other argument out there. The bottom line: From a book marketing standpoint, it's a good thing. Why? It's simple. People can't buy what they don't know about. Google Book Search lets people find a book with the topic they're searching for and allows them to peek inside. If they like it, and want more they can buy it.
Most authors should open up their books to Google and submit them. I say "most." There are some that should think twice. Academic books that have a low print run and have tiny markets, where there may only be hundreds or dozens of potential buyers may be better off avoiding Google Book Search. For the remaining 378,000 books published in the U.S. and U.K. in 2005, I say go for it!
And that's the point. The world is awash in books. Bowker says 172,000 books were published in the United States, plus 206,000 published in the UK last year! How can Borders, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, your local library or anyone else effectively sell or showcase that number let alone the millions of previously printed titles? Google has created a way for author's and publisher's current and back-listed books to be found, read and purchased. Book marketers, authors and publishers should embrace this enthusiastically.
Are there some issues in the program? Yes, and Google in my opinion is trying to deal with them by keeping the rules and policies flexible and by reacting to the feedback and legal decisions. But they are truly trying to move the world forward and improve distribution of knowledge while still protecting copyrights and ownership of that information. Google is being bold in their efforts and should be applauded by the publishing industry and authors alike.
Obviously Google is not doing this for its health. Their motive is clearly for profit by making money offering sponsored ads the same way they make it on their regular search service. Although Google management thinks they are a bit more altruistic. "The main motive is to make search more comprehensive," said Jen Grant of Google. "Many of the books that we include in the program do not include sponsored ads. By including the books of the world in its search engine, Google is increasing the relevancy and usefulness of search for users and connecting them to more information from more of the world's authors and publishers."
Authors and publishers profit since the book is linked to their respective websites. Google does not profit directly from book sales as of now. How long that will last is up for debate as they are clearly leaving money on the table. With a market cap north of $100,000,000,000 Google (GOOG) is by no means as selfless as the transcribing monks of yesteryear. But, hey, profit is a good thing.
As a book publicist the one thing that's very clear to me is that any serious promotional campaign must make use of Google Book Search since search engines are the first step taken by people seeking information. And Google remains the leading search engine by about a 2 to 1 margin over Yahoo! (YHOO)
Here's how it works. Go to https://books.google.com/partner/, sign up for the program. If Google determines you are eligible they will e-mail you information about your account, including instructions for shipping your book materials to Google. Eligibility requirements are that the book must have an ISBN number and must not contain illegal content. Besides English, books are accepted in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian and most European languages. Once Google receives a physical copy of your book the key portions will be scanned and indexed.
As a result, when a user conducts a search with key words related to your book, a link appears in the Google search results. Each Google Book Search result listing shows the books' title and author, a short excerpt containing the highlighted search terms and the excerpt's page number. This information then leads users to a Google-hosted web page on which the search terms appear along with a scanned image of your book and publisher information and links to the online booksellers handling your book.
The Google-hosted web page is generated from information that is scanned from your book. Links on this page include "About This Book," "Copyright", "Index," and "Buy This Book." An image of the book cover appears along with the portion of your book related to the user's search terms.
Google protects the content of a book by preventing anyone from copying or printing selected portions or from downloading the entire book. Pages displaying the content have all print, cut, copy and save functions disabled. Google only shows full pages of the book if the publisher agrees. The Snippet View offers the potential buyer the opportunity to view a few sentences from the book and some information about the book. The Sample Pages View offers the potential buyer limited number of pages of the book to read. The Full Book View allows the entire book can be viewed. The author or publisher still retains all content rights. Google Book Search is a book-marketing program, not an online library, and so the entire book will not be made available online unless the author chooses to do so.
Arcadia Publishing in Mt. Pleasant, SC, is one of the book publishing firms that has learned it can reach new buyers for several thousand titles with Google Book Search. When the Arcadia team heard about Google Book Search in the fall of 2004 through colleagues in the publishing industry, they decided to explore adding the program to their marketing efforts. Everingham notes that initially, "Within the company, we had some questions about how this would work with our current contracts, and our general consensus was that our standard contract allows us to use a certain percentage of the content to promote the title," says Kate Everingham, Director of Sales. "And Google Book Search clearly has copyright protected every page, so we were very satisfied." Arcadia submitted all of its front-list titles, and then submitted every single available title in its catalog.
The appeal of Google Book Search for Arcadia is that it provides a tool to increase visibility and public awareness of what Arcadia does and that ends up influencing sales. Google Book Search provides a means for Arcadia to market its books outside of the predictable, and limited, local areas they reach. Currently, Arcadia has more than 1,000 titles in Google Book Search, another 1,000 in process.
Another book publisher that experienced significant success using Google Book Search Partner Program is Crossway Books of Wheaton, Illinois. Crossway is the book division of Good News Publishers, a not-for-profit Christian ministry. Crossway's catalog contains some 400 active titles in fiction, nonfiction, gift and children's books. Crossway produces about 60 new books a year.
Crossway's online marketing consisted of keyword advertising through Google AdWords. This drove qualified traffic to their website, but when Google Book Search launched in October 2004, Crossway's director of operations realized the value in enabling customers to search the full content of Crossway titles. Google Book Search offered another way to raise visibility for its titles as well as drive additional traffic to the website.
"Our objective was to instantly connect readers and potential readers with the content of our books, right down to the word level," says Crossway Vice President of Marketing Randy Jahns. "We strongly believe that letting people browse our books improves sales through all channels. Google Book Search makes them available to people who might not otherwise encounter them - in homes, libraries, and businesses around the world." At present, more than 350 of Crossway's 400-plus title catalog are live on Google Book Search. On the Crossway site, each title features a link to that specific book on Google Book Search.
Once signed up, you have your own account that will provide detailed book level reporting on page impressions (a viewing of one of your excerpt pages), ad clicks, "Buy This Book" clicks, and ad revenue generated on your account. Your reports are updated throughout the day as activity occurs, allowing you to track performance.
One more thing. Microsoft must like the idea as they too are planning to enter the market with a competing service some time in late 2006.
Scott Lorenz is President of Westwind Communications, a public relations and marketing firm that specializes in book marketing and author publicity. His clients have been featured by Good Morning America, FOX & Friends, CNN, ABC Nightly News, ESPN, The New York Times, Nightline, TIME, PBS, NPR, USA Today, Woman's World, & Howard Stern to name a few. To discuss how Westwind Communications helps its clients get all the publicity they deserve and more visit: www.westwindcos.com/book or call 734-667-2090 or email scottlorenz@westwindcos.com
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Charter Communications Company
Charter Communications Incorporated is the third largest publicly traded cable operator in the United States and services over five million customers in 29 states. Charter is recognized as a Fortune 500 company, headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, and is on the NASDAQ stock exchange. The ticker symbol is CHTR. The chairman and largest shareholder of Charter is Microsoft's co-founder Paul Allen.
Charter offers a wide range of products that include video, high-speed internet, and telephone services. They are able to provide their customers entertainment, information, and electronic connections to the rest of the world.
Charter cable television offers customers high-definition channels along with the basic cable television offerings. Also provided are digital video recorders and an impressive collection of on-demand titles.
Charter's high-speed internet is available in two speeds, five and 10 megabits per second. These speeds allow customers to download at lightning fast speeds and be able to play online games and stream video with ease.
Charter's telephone service is and has always been a high quality service that provides residents with unlimited local and long distance calling to all of the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. Charter offers call waiting, caller ID, call forwarding, voicemail, and enhanced 911 services at no additional charge.
Charter also offers business solutions to tailor the needs of businesses with communication needs. Business products include Internet access, data networking, video and music entertainment, and business telephone service.
Charter has come a long way from where they started and they are continually looking to improve and grow the company.
Find the best Charter deals, Charter.com specials, and Charter Communications offers at Squidoo.com/charterdeals.
The Six Sigma Project Charter - Communication
The project charter is designed in the Define phase of DMAIC. It lists out details from the project title to the role of the various Belt levels, project start and end dates, importance of the process being improved, problem areas and various measurements.
It is highly important to communicate the project charter to all those concerned with the project and the process.
Communication Considerations
The Six Sigma project charter is the blueprint of the project.
The various considerations of the communication plan are defining who is responsible at various levels for proper communication, how it will be communicated, and so on. Communication starts from defining who will be communicating the project charter at various levels like the Master Black Belts, Black Belts and so on.
A well-designed project may also fail if there is no communication strategy designed for communicating the Six Sigma project charter. A Black Belt should at least have a design in mind about how the communication will be undertaken and to whom that sort of communication will be directed.
Even a simple table designed to list down what will be communicated to whom, the communication medium, the information to be stored and so on is a good base for the Black Belts to communicate to the appropriate people.
Consideration has to be given as to what type of communication strategies will be used - by way of regular team meetings, project status reports, project reviews, project tollgates, storyboards and so on.
Communication planning also needs to consider the plan to be followed in certain situations. The rationale behind the project charter communication plan has to be established and enforced. At the same time, it should also be communicated where such communication will be placed, via emails, notice boards and so on.
It is important to decide the frequency of such communication - if it will be weekly, monthly, daily or according to the requirements.
The Communication Plan
A communication plan is not just communicating about what the project is all about and what stage it has reached. A communication plan will have details ranging from when the project team meetings need to take place, who the participants will be, how will the meeting plans be communicated and even where they will be conducted.
A project charter communication plan even considers reporting on the status of the project, who the status reports need to be given to and when such reports are to be sent. It involves reviewing of the project with the Master Black Belts and top management.
After such reviews are done, any modifications, improvements and changes will be communicated to the champions and sponsors. The project budget and reviews also need to be planned and communicated to the finance department or the finance analyst.
Everything about the project deployment and its preparation should be communicated to the project deployment leader.
The project charter communication plan involves all those who are expert members on the matter and provides valuable guidance for the project. Project members have to be kept well informed, so that they can contribute well in the success of the initiative.
Tony Jacowski is a quality analyst for The MBA Journal. Aveta Solutions - Six Sigma Online ( http://www.sixsigmaonline.org ) offers online six sigma training and certification classes for lean six sigma, black belts, green belts, and yellow belts.
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