Blog: July 2005

Beverly Connection Site Launches

July 29, 2005

Do you ever have a project that you feel like is ready to happen, and then it gets delayed for a little while, and then another little while, and then another little while and then finally you realize it’s been eons and feel like you’ve already finished but it hasn’t even launched?

Well, I’m really pleased to say that this project HAS launched, and though it’s been a long time coming, we’re quite happy with it.

Take a look at The Beverly Connection Web site. The BC is a shopping mall in Beverly Hills—incidently, one where I used to grocery shop and go see movies when I was in college—that is undergoing a redevelopment. It’s going be a mixed use facility, with residential, shopping, a senior living center, parking, etc.

The site is currently an advocacy and information site for the redevelopment, and will evolve over time to answer the questions of those interested and affected by the development.

There’s no particularly bad reason this site took so long to come to the launch—while some projects go awry, other projects just take time to gestate and find their focus. In this case, I think the site looks great and fit the current needs of the client extremely well, so I’m glad things happened the way they did.

And, I’m also glad we’re finally done the beginning! On to the next phase!

Posted by Travis Smith at 12:04 AM | Comments (1)

Forman Jerome Consulting Launches

July 28, 2005

One of our good clients has been MWW public relations, for whom we’ve provided all manner of Web work. Our favorite (and one of their best) employees recently left to start her own PR consulting partnership. And, we’re pleased to say she turned to us for her new Web site.

Today, we launched Forman Jerome Consulting. It’s a simple site, and will be growing quickly as they add clients and develop additional features like a news feed, newsletter and client pages. Congratulations, Evelyn and Adine. We’re happy to be able to help you along the path to future successes.

We also worked to create their logo, for use in print and online, but I forgot to announce that. Oops!

Posted by Travis Smith at 11:55 PM | Comments (0)

New Music at Unsoundtracks

July 24, 2005

One of our ongoing clients is a music licensing project, UnSound Tracks. It’s run by a talented musician, Stefan Girardet.

What’s new lately? He’s had us add a few new tracks to the Eclectica and the Electronica sections. If you like ambient music, I highly recommend his new musical samples.

And, if you happen to be producing commercials, trailers of TV shows, well, what are you waiting for—give Stefan or his agent a call pronto!

Posted by Travis Smith at 2:14 AM | Comments (0)

“Bittorrent for Dummies” Completed

July 16, 2005

As you know, Susie’s been working on another book: “Bittorrent for Dummies.” Well, it’s finished. We’re thrilled, and can’t wait for it to appear in stores, most likely in October.

I think there’s going to be a whole lot of interest around this—it’s the very first book on bittorrent to be produced, and there’s some legal controversy over what effect the Grokster court decision might have on other software, like bittorrent. In fact, there’s a bit of a debate I’ve been having about what the decision means for books about file sharing—the decision could have unintended consequences that affect media other than software distribution. We’ll see.

To be totally accurate, the book it’s totally finished. It’s just her part of it that’s finished. Wiley (the publisher of Dummies, who don’t yet have the book on their site) still needs to print it. And produce it. And, well, her writing part is done, but there’s still the editing. And promotion.

Come to think of it, there’s a lot of editing.

OK, never mind. I’ll let you know when we’re TOTALLY done it.

Special thanks to co-author Kris Krug and intellectual property lawyer Michael Overing, by the way.

Posted by Travis Smith at 2:34 AM | Comments (0)

Susie’s Speaking to Singapore in September

July 16, 2005

Susie has been asked to be the lead speaker at the first corporate blogging conference ever in Asia. It’s called “Corporate Blog Marketing Conference”—yeah, the name could use some work—and it’s taking place September 21st and 22nd.

The conference, put on by Maitre Allianz, is going to be at the Le Meridien hotel, and I’m going with her. It’ll be both our first times in Asia, and we hope to spend a few days in Singapore, the city / island / country, and then possible zip over to Brunei. We’re still working out the details of that.

Who should attend? I’m told that “CEOs, GMs and Directors, HODs, Senior Managers & Managers, Marketing, PR & IT professionals, Business Development heads & managers.” Or anyone with a spare grand.

I tell you, this being a business blogging expert—it’s turning out quite well for Susie (and her hubby!)

Posted by Travis Smith at 1:50 AM | Comments (0)

FilmRadar’s Looking Great(er) These Days

July 13, 2005

I can’t believe I haven’t talked about Film Radar, http://www.filmradar.com/, with you yet. Film Radar is this fantastic labor of cinema love that brings the best of independent, classic and alternative cinema to folks in Los Angeles every week. We’re responsible for the site’s current administrative tools, and to a certain extent, its public look and feel.

I was reminded of FilmRadar because there are a number of bug fixes and useability tweaks we’ve made on the site over the past month, and the site is working better than ever. The site’s owner, Karie Bible, is always coming up with new ideas for us to add to the site.

The site was built originally in HTML files using Blogger in ways it was, frankly, never meant to be used. We got her up and running on Expression Engine, and custom-built a film calendar module as well using PHP.

As a client, Karie has that rare ability to catch every site glitch imaginable. I kid you not, it’s a real skill, and I’m more appreciative than dismayed, because it’s wonderful to have a client who is able to assist with QA and actually ensure the site in working the way she visualizes it to be working. On a site as big as Film Radar—the site has a huge calendar application, a member database, a mailing list, forums, email reminders, venue lists, a blog and more—it’s not hard to imagine that there’d be little tweaks to be making, and lots of parts to get running smoothly.

So I’m not going to tell you what we fixed, I’m just going to tell you that it’s all in good shape now.

In any case, if you live in Los Angeles, you ought to bookmark this site, and if you live outside of L.A., take a peek just to see what you’re missing. We hope someday she’ll expand to cover your city, too.

Posted by Travis Smith at 2:31 AM | Comments (0)

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