A Real Dog and Pony Show

Business to consumer web sites have various jobs to do and these may differ among sites but among the constants is the requirement to capture attention and stimulate interest. I am not aware of a more effective approach than video overlay, or what we call the "SiteGreeter". If you are searching for a vet in your new town or neighbourhood and you find a site with a big, friendly dog pacing over the page I'm pretty sure you are going to spend some time there. If a girl on a bicycle pedals from edge to edge on a bike retailer's site, all without affecting the elements beneath her, you are going to take notice. I don't have my dog clips yet but I do have another example of the impact of the "SiteGreeter" approach on a site I built years ago for digital video enthusiasts. Click on over to The Content Shop so that I can greet you properly!

Lessons from Professor Ozzy

In my eBook on new digital business models I mention the work of Thomas L. Friedman, specifically his book called "The World is Flat". I didn't expect to get a lesson in the subject from Ozzy Osbourne, but there are many surprises in the flat world. Ozzy and Sony have created an area on Ozzy's site to run a contest. The object is to create a music video from clips available for download. The clips cover one song from multiple camera angles, including the drummer and guitarist. Each clip is close to a gigabyte in size and all are shot on green backgrounds. Anyone with the tools and skills may take a crack at becoming a big time music video producer. It's a bit late for me to start that particular new career, but I collected the clips and have begun playing with them. So, I assume, have an untold number of others around the world. There's no backyard anymore. We're all connected, empowered and challenged to compete against every other human node on the network. And we can look to Ozzy for a great example of the creative options provided by the flat world and the Google era.