WebSmart TV: How to Market on the Web

Posted on April 1, 2010 by rbirkey

WebSmart TV video: How to Market on the Web

The web guru’s at Headstand Media have released their latest video in the WebSmart TV blog series where each video explains the basics of the web in about a minute. The latest video is titled: “How to Market on the Web.” You won’t want to miss this one because this video contains the most valuable and critical information shared by the web marketing experts at Headstand Media to date!

The video covers 5 simple principles to marketing on the web:

Ideate
Define Back-End Paradigms
Cultivate Cross-Media Benchmarks
Curb Your Infomediaries
Execute Leading-Edge Initiatives

Headstand Media makes a strong case for why these principles and steps are so mission-critical and important in today’s web 2.0 world!

Go watch it, and then share it with your friends in the business world who really need to know this information!

WebSmart TV

Posted on January 27, 2010 by rbirkey

WebSmart TV - the basics of the web in about a minute.

Are you a regular person who is trying to make sense of all the new terms you hear being tossed around in conversations and in written messages such as: tweets, RSS, web 2.0, friend (used as a noun), blog, and many others? Does it make your brain hurt to think of figuring it all out? Well, Headstand Media has a new tool made to serve you! It’s called WebSmart TV and you can visit it online at http://websmart.tv

What is WebSmart TV?

Headstand Media (the Chicago web design company I founded in 2007) noticed a need in the marketplace for a resource that normal people (like you) could access to educate themselves about the web 2.0 world we now live in. Rather than provide a lot of long-winded, high fog-level technical articles (which you can certainly get elsewhere), we decided to create a video blog (vlog) of short one-minute videos that each explain one aspect of the web 2.0 world, in plain everyday language. Simply put, WebSmart TV offers the basics of the web in about a minute.

Who is WebSmart TV?

The Headstand Media team writes, acts and produces these videos ourselves using our own time, talents and “prosumer” level equipment. Taylor Birkey writes our scripts. Benjamin Nelson is our on-camera talent. Matt Ritsman does all the audio and video recording and production. Kyle Williams helps us get the site optimized for search engines and social media. We all contributed to the design of the site, but it was mostly Benjamin’s idea. We believe that if we can do this, then anyone can do it… including our clients!

So, I encourage you to check out the new site. We have launched it with 5 videos covering:

There is also a video explaining “What is WebSmart TV?” We plan to add a new video every week!

We’ve provided many ways for you to stay connected with WebSmart TV through: Twitter, Facebook, RSS feeds and our YouTube channel. If you like what you see, you can easily share the links with your friends and associates, and spread the word about this educational resource.

Sunshine Gospel’s Virtual Fund Rasier Event

Posted on September 14, 2009 by rbirkey

Sunshine Gospel Ministries serves the inner city Woodlawn neighborhood in Chicago, Illinois. Like many Christian non-profit ministries, they rely heavily on funds donated by supporters. Usually, this means putting on a big fund-raising event like a banquet in the fall of the year, in order to raise the funds they need for the coming year.

This year, Sunshine has done something unique and different. They decided TO NOT HAVE A BANQUET! They came up with the idea of a virtual fund-raiser that would take place online, saving thousands of dollars, loads of time and energy, and make it more convenient to reach more people by extending the event over a three-day period.

Headstand Media created the virtual benefit website at www.dreambenefit.org using Flash technology and other state-of-the-art web 2.0 techniques. The site features great music performances, rich graphics, videos and social networking tools that enable anyone to share and follow the news about the event and the organization in Facebook, Twitter and Flickr.

I personally vouch for the trustworthiness of this organization. I encourage you to check out the site, explore this urban ministry and consider making a donation. The money you give may change the life of a young person.

At the very least, share the site with your friends within your social networks. Let’s encourage more organizations to use the money given to them in these kinds of more creative, informative, efficient and effective ways.

About McDonald’s

Posted on March 23, 2009 by rbirkey

After over a year of planning, discussion, negotiating, creating and producing, a new web 2.0 website for McDonald’s Corporation was launched LIVE today at http://www.aboutmcdonalds.com. Check it out!

About McDonald's - New Corporate Website Home Page

This project was a very “web 2.0-like” collaborative effort involving many wonderful and talented people. It was a joy to work with each one of them.

I want to shout out and thank some key people (you know who you are): Steve, Safura and team – you were a great client to work for! David, Don, Tracy, Marcie, Benjamin, Kyle, Matt and Taylor – I couldn’t have done it without you and our partnership in this together! Deb, Grace, Dwight and Betty – your prayers and support were a much appreciated foundation. Zack, Francis and Judge – you guys rocked that Flash!

I’m lovin it!

Microsoft SharePoint

Posted on September 27, 2007 by rbirkey

Microsoft Sharepoint Today I set up a SharePoint site offered free to me for three months by an Internet Service Provider. This is a newer Microsoft technology offering for businesses designed for use for internal file sharing, event scheduling, communication, collaboration and discussion, and many other features typically found in a company Intranet site.

Microsoft talks about it this way on their website: Microsoft SharePoint “provides a single, integrated location where employees can efficiently collaborate with team members, find organizational resources, search for experts and corporate information, manage content and workflow, and leverage business insight to make better-informed decisions.”

After using it for a day, my initial reaction is that it is not very intuitive to use and administer. This is typical of Microsoft products coming from a Mac user experience. It also seemed to run sluggishly. I am not sure if that was a function of the shared server environment, bandwidth issues or an innate problem of the software.

Another issue I experienced was that I could not figure out how to customize the interface to look more like how I would want it to look – personalization. I’d like to change colors, add a logo, etc. Even the “help” files did not adequately address this. It looks like I will need to download a manual and start reading that.

I noticed Microsoft is using “AJAX” style editing features, and “web parts” for customizing the layout, what features and parts to display, etc.

Overall, I can see Microsoft is trying to stay on the cutting edge, and adapting some “Web 2.0″ features that the “Open Source” world are using quite heavily.

More later.

Digital Punch TV

Posted on November 15, 2006 by rbirkey

Digital Punch is a video log (VLOG) that a couple friends of mine have put together for their company, ShopLocal.com. Benjamin Nelson is playing the newscaster role, and Patrick Flanagan is the producer. Both guys are regular attenders of the Upper Room service at Calvary Memorial Church in Oak Park.