Google Video, iFilm, MySpace, Current TV, YouTube and all the hundreds of similar video sites all have one thing in common - making it difficult for you to archive the movies they host on your local machine for later playback. In some cases this is by design, but mostly it’s the nature of using Flash for video playback. There have always been ways to download these movies and store them for personal use later, but…

YouTube video Flash Google Video iFilm

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Co-host Brad Forsythe interviews Darrel Rhea, Principal/CEO of Cheskin.  Darrel Rhea is a Principal and CEO of Cheskin and a passionate spokesperson for the design research industry. He has been a pioneer in incorporating market research into the brand design and product development process. Rhea is considered one of America’s leading strategic design consultants, having extensive experience managing industrial design, product development and innovation, graphic design, and brand identity creation. His qualifications for this commitment include a degree in design and psychology, many successful years in graphic design and entrepreneurial endeavors, and over 20 years with Cheskin. Rhea is a producer and leader of professional development seminars for senior executives in marketing management, market research, and corporate design management at leading corporations including Pepsi, Kraft USA, General Foods, General Mills, Clorox, 3M, Andersen Windows, Procter & Gamble, Pillsbury, Frito-Lay, AT&T, Motorola, HP and many others. He lectures regularly with industry organizations such as the American Marketing Association, the Design Management Institute, the Industrial Design Society of America, the American Institute of Architects and the Art Center College of Design.

For entertaining advice join hosts, Ray Schilens and Brad Forsythe, for a lively and informative discussion.

I made some comments today during Steve Rubel's Gnomedex session. Steve asked, what are PR and marketing professionals doing right and wrong? What do people who blog want/need from such departments?

After much arm waving I got Steve to notice me, and I answered with three P's.

1. Permalinks: folks, this is such a simple one. Don't make your press release page be "press.php" and old news be "archive.php". Have a single, unique link for each press release, news story, product, or (*gasp*) blog post you make. This means not trying to make me figure out a crazy javascript or Flash navigation system, but simply having a clear, single link I can use to directly get to information. URL schemes like /news/2006/07/01/bigstory or /products/coolproduct/model-vw83 are some good examples.
2. Product Info: I like product info. I like permalinks to direct product info. I like tech specs, and I like easily grab-able (and even better, friendly licensed) product photos. Heck, encourage me to hotlink images from your corporate server. Include copy/paste code that includes the permalink and a caption that I can drop into any system that groks HTML. For bonus points, make a little Flash/Javascript/rotating GIF widget that I can put into a post.
3. Personality: yes, I want personality. This one is last, because a lot of corporates just can't get past legal, or want the community to bring in the personality. If you're not going to blog, perhaps upgrade your press release writer to someone with a little more human in their blood, or give me a contact that I can talk to/interview to get more of a human face to the information you're presenting.

It seems so simple. But I know how difficult this can be. Many marketing and PR departments rely on a chain of consultants, contractors, or other folks to manage their web presence somewhere down the line. PR types need to become actively vocal about the needs they have. The three P's might be a good place to start.

Recently I have been thinking a lot about how software and content developers target different software platforms.  Two very compelling recent developments are the adoption of Flash video and AJAX. 

Both Flash and DHTML have been around for a long time.  It seems that over the past year these two technologies are really taking a big jump. 

One is standards based. One is proprietary.  One has weak developer tools. One has strong content tools.  Both have relative ubiquity. 

A key question for me is what factors govern the decision framework for making a bet on these technologies.  How do developers and content creators “do the math” to decide that the power and customer value of the experiences they can create are worth the cost of development, page load time, test hit, etc. to make a bet on these?

For the .NET Framework, the story has several dimensions.  For server side programming, and websites in particular, there seems to be about an even trade off between PHP or JSP and ASP.NET.  This is pretty clear with the rate of new site development on ASP.NET and the options you get today from hosting companies. 

Client side targeting is another part of the story.  Right now web sites with hosted Windows Form controls are rare and corporate IT team do actively write .NET Framework applications.  Consumer penetration is actually quite good with estimates of 55-60% of all desktops today have the .NET Framework 1.1.  There are a lot of shareware/freeware apps now starting to take a bet on the .NET Framework. I personally suspect this is because of the great tools and the speed of development.

So, how does your team approach this area? When do you decide to take a technology dependency? What a key factors for you?

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