Hands Upon Black Earth

My friend Bobby who lives deep in the magical Northern California has released his 3rd album. It came out last month... but I have just discovered it. Bobby and I worked together once upon a time shooting an N-Sync project (yeah... with Justin Timberlake) and I've been a huge fan of his music every since meeting him (Bobby, not Timberlake). I loved learning that Bobby used to be a death metal drummer once upon a time in S.F. and has graduated to such grandiose music. He moved north to this little town called Pottersville, where he works as a music producer and audio engineer and creates these incredibly rich, haunting and beautiful records. He plays all the instruments too for the most part, just has guest vocalists here and there.

Check it - and if you like this one, dig backwards into his other two albums. Such fantastic music:




The True Harvest by hands upon black earth

Logorama!

This short animated film called LOGORAMA kicked my ass. Concept, writing, animation, music and execution are all top notch. It's no surprise it's winning awards. How can you go wrong making Ronald McDonald the evil kidnapper with a speech impediment? Awesome.

Logorama from Marc Altshuler - Human Music on Vimeo.

Video = Fastest growing website feature for Small Business

Small Businesses need all the help they can get. A short video to tell your story not only educates your potential customers but helps personalize their shopping experience and will more likely bring them in your door. Here is a great article from Reelseo.com on why you should incorporate video into your website.

Video content on the Web? You'd better you bet.

A recent Kelsey Group study estimates that 74% of the online population is watching video content. Video has become part of the core behavior of all online demographics. Online video even challenges television. The projected growth is enormous; in 2009 there were 187 billion streams which is projected to double to 310 billion by 2013. That is an exponential number! The possibilities are endless for people, businesses and non-profits, large or small, who are thinking up new ways tell their story, advertise and increase their online presence and/or profits. Leveraging video-sharing sites like Youtube, Vimeo and Revver is also a fantastic way to boost search engine returns for your company because of the "add keyword tags" option on each of these sites. I witnessed firsthand the power of this tool in a previous role as Marketing Manager for Test Drive Videos. We were able to deliver top ten search engine results for a Portland Metro area Toyota dealer by strategic keyword placements within all their video content at the top five video-sharing sites. In today's marketplace it is no longer enough to just have a web presence. Having dynamic content, like video, is a crucial piece of the puzzle in the chaotic landscape of today's marketing strategies.