July 26th, 2010 by Nancy Kerner
Imagine you have just spent a day shopping at the mall. You come home with your haul of goodies, start up your web-cam and begin a show-and-tell of every item you have purchased. You describe in detail each feature of your new ever so totally cute purchases! You have just made a haul video! Yes, this actually exists and it is a growing Internet phenomenon. There are over 150,000 “haul” videos posted on YouTube and counting! Haul videos blend shopping and technology, two of teenagers favorite things! They consist mainly of giddy teenage girls showing off their purchases, usually telling where the purchase was made, how much it cost and giving a sort of mini-product review. Their hauls don’t just include clothing, there is everything from accessories, make-up, shoes, and even bargain bin finds found at local drugstores.
Many of the videos have had hundreds of thousands of hits, and some of these “vloggers” or video bloggers, have become big time Internet stars! The vloggers can really cash in too. Some receive compensation and merchandise from retailers. Many of them are in the YouTube Partner Program, this allows them to get paid for making videos, and to get a portion of the ad revenue. Two of the most popular haul vloggers are sisters, Blair Fowler, 16, and Elle Fowler, 21, from Tennessee. Collectively, the Blair sister’s videos have been viewed over 75 million times! Blair and Elle’s 7-year-old sister is also posting her own videos. Her very first video post was seen over one million times! These videos can also be very good for retail sales, in one Fowler sister’s video posting when the sisters gushed over a watch purchase, that watch sold out within 24 hours on the company’s web-site, and the company’s web-site crashed from the heavy volume of traffic!
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Tags: haul videos, YouTube
Posted in Internet Marketing, Online Creative |
July 12th, 2010 by Leann Freeman
The rising cost of college education forces too many students to take on high loan debt burdens and many have to work long hours that interfere with their academic study. In this difficult economy, when competition for jobs has increased and at the same time student’s ability to pay for college has decreased, it is important for the federal government to make smart investments in our students. It is believed that these investments will make our young society and our economy more competitive in the global marketplace.
This summer, the Education and Labor Committee and Congress have done a lot of work over the last few years in making higher education more affordable and accessible to students than ever before. For example, starting on July 1st, 2010, students will see lower interest rates on their student loans, down to 4.5% from 5.6%. The maximum annual Pell Grant scholarship has been raised to $5,550 and will continue to increase over the years. In 2008, about 6 million students received the Pell Grant scholarship. During this summer, all new federal student lending will be converted to a Direct Loan program; meaning that instead of providing banks with taxpayer subsidies, students will receive loans directly from the government, saving taxpayers $61 billion. There will be an estimated 30 million new student loan borrowers between 2014 and 2020. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: higher education, student loans
Posted in Announcements, News |
June 30th, 2010 by Caroline Tall
Originally begun in 2003 as an open source blogging tool, WordPress is quickly gaining notoriety not only as a top blogging system– but as a powerful and versatile content management system (CMS) that runs entire websites as well. Here are two big reasons why WordPress as a CMS makes so much sense:
1. User-friendly/WYSIWYG Editor
With WordPress, what you see really is what you get. The WYSIWYG editor for WordPress is clean, easy-to-navigate and intuitive to use. Webpages can be added with the simple click of a button, while all pages can be edited using familiar formatting toolbars similar to Microsoft Office. Adding images, featuring videos, inserting links and uploading documents are all basic processes that can be performed in under five steps. Make a mistake? All WordPress pages come with a restore feature in which all revisions made to each page are logged and saved so that webpages can be restored to a previous version if need be. And with the “Preview” option, users can view their entered changes exactly as they will appear without having to publish a page live first.
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Tags: Blog, CMS, WordPress
Posted in Technology, Website Development |
June 16th, 2010 by Kirsten Winter
As a company, we believe strongly in giving back to the community and assisting those that are in greater need than ourselves. In the past we have participated in 5k and 10k walks fighting hunger, improving the health of newborn babies, granting “wishes” and fighting breast cancer. Recently a few of us spent an entire Saturday taking part in building a home through Habitat for Humanity. During the holidays, it is our agency tradition to sponsor families in need by providing warm meals, holiday presents and decorations to help spread the cheer. As an agency, we have also donated our services to help numerous local, non-profit organizations with their print design, collateral assistance, website and landing page development and event promotion.
A few of us have taken volunteering to another level and have participated in the 3-day breast cancer walk in multiple cities. In September, in Seattle, we’ll walk 60 miles over the course of 3 days with thousands of other men and women. The net proceeds will support breast cancer research, education, screening and treatment through Susan G. Komen for the Cure and the National Philanthropic Trust Breast Cancer Fund.
Posted in Events, News |
June 16th, 2010 by Brad Dierking
It’s no secret that Microsoft dominates the productivity suite market. Free alternatives exist that many people are still unaware of. In these recessionary times, the appeal of “free” software is stronger than ever. Today I am going to focus on my two favorites – OpenOffice.org and Google Docs. Both products can read and write the native Microsoft Office formats, making migration easier than ever.
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Posted in Technology |
