This blog post is a shout-out to any designers out there, artistic or not.  One of the biggest issues for anyone working with anything that needs to be visually appealing (painting a home, making a flyer, designing a logo, editing a magazine, etc.) is finding the right color palette.  For some people, thinking of   a palette is a challenge akin to wrestling a crocodile.  But whether you’re trying to find a third or fourth color to fit the mix, or searching for that initial inspiration, Design Seeds provides hundreds of  drool-worthy, beautiful palette suggestions.

Pair Design Seeds with Color Picker, an app for  Google Chrome (or Mozilla, or any other internet browser) and you have a match made in heaven.  Color Picker allows you to point out any color on a web page and reference it in the color spectrum computers have in common.  So pick a palette you like, and easily re-create it in whatever program you are using.

Hapy Designing!

Video advertising can be a key factor in adding worldwide acceptance or awareness of a brand. A prime example of this can be seen in a recent, particularly-successful ad featuring two of the world’s biggest sports stars.

We have all probably seen it by now: the Turkish Airlines commercial featuring Lakers guard Kobe Bryant and Barca midfielder Lionel Messi. In the commercial, the two athletes fiercely compete for a young fan’s attention and adoration while on a Turkish Airlines flight. The athletes’ tricks include juggling, spinning basketballs, and even balloon-animal-making. The funny commercial has garnered incredible amounts of popularity and success, bringing in huge amounts of brand awareness for Turkish Airlines.

The commercial has 100 million hits on YouTube and reached 20 million views faster than Gangnam Style. Its remarkable success demonstrates the importance of video advertising on the internet and its huge potential for sudden and explosive popularity.

Now obviously, not all e-commerce sites can afford to put two of the world’s most famous people in their video ads. But on a smaller scale, the same concept applies. Making a creative, recognizable, and fun video ad can exponentially increase the awareness for a business, no matter its size or marketing budget.

More information on the famous commercial can be find in this Mashable article.

Facebook Home: the idea is to bring content right to the user, without he or she having to check apps on the device.  Facebook itself described Home as software, not a new device, that places realistic communication at the center of the phone to focus on the person, and not the communications channel.  It does this by making your Facebook cover feed your phone background, and allowing chatting “on top of” other apps.

I read about Facebook Home before its release, and must admit my first thought was, “I’ll never get that.”  I believe in the lofty ideal of integrating personal communications with the services offered online, and through apps on smart devices, but I doubted Facebook could effectively meet that need.  Seeing the above commercial promoting Facebook Home did not change my mind, but it could partly be that I have a love affair with my iPhone and the word HTC makes my ears fold up.

Forbes points out that I may be underestimating Facebook Home.  Austin Carr of Fast Company said, “Facebook has woven traditionally disparate content and services together into a single, unified experience.”  Second, and most importantly, Home may be disruptive to the mobile communications industry by making free VoIP calls (Voice Over Internet Protocol; calls over the internet) as easily available to users as Facebook’s other offerings.

Not to sound like a broken record (if you read my other posts), but the cost of free communication is abandoning privacy.  Facebook could further map one’s social activities, in addition to tracking web browsing, app use, and physical location.  This would allow Facebook to build a customer profile that any marketing agency would kill to have.

So what is the conclusion on Facebook Home?  It could become wildly successful, as it seduces users into putting Facebook before any other app.  It could be a wolf wearing sheep’s skin, but no matter what, Facebook Home is leading mobile users like you everywhere into a new era, where competitors will all fight to be the app at the center of your phone.

As one could easily imagine, there has been a dramatic shift in TV-watching over the last several years; namely, many people have stopped watching TV on the actual TV. People are now frequenting sites like Hulu to keep up with their favorite shows, rather than plopping down on the couch and clicking the remote. But here’s the big question: what does this mean for advertising? Historically, the most expensive, competitive, and effective ads were on TV during primetime hours. Is this “primetime phenomenon” done, now that people can watch their shows whenever they please? The answer to this question is a decided NO.

Even with the shift into online viewership, primetime is still primetime. It is still the most effective time to advertise, even if the advertising has shifted to websites, as opposed to commercial breaks on TV stations. In an article by Ryan Lawler, this continuance of primetime importance is explored in depth.

According to this article, people are more likely to watch their shows online during primetime, click on ads during primetime, or even be positively affected by ads during primetime, as compared to almost any other time of day.

Basically, the shift to online viewership has not killed the primetime commercial; rather, it has just changed where it is being aired. This is just one example among many typifying the near-universal shift to e-commerce.

Very recently, Twitter released a new app called Vine. Basically, Vine is the “Instagram” of gifs. It has been rapidly increasing in popularity ever since its introduction to the social media world. Vine offers users a new way to express humor and creativity. And as Cynthia Boris says in her article, businesses are starting to join in the Vine frenzy.

Several companies like Red Vines have already used the app in Twitter-related marketing. Vine could be a useful marketing tool due to the fact that videos are so memorable for potential customers. The app can also be used for mini-demos for products.

A lot of marketers might not be totally convinced of Vine’s validity as a marketing tool due to the shortness of its videos (max time of six seconds). However, a huge amount can be done in six seconds as long as the right amount of creative talent is involved. After all, the “shortness as a limitation” argument can be made against Twitter (Vine’s creator) as well, but everyone recognizes the marketing importance of this social media site.

Vine is proving to be a new venue for marketer’s creativity in publicizing their products. It will be a valuable addition to any company’s Twitter presence.

Meet Joe Poulin.  An entrepreneur from the age 11 when he began wiping free cds and floppy disks to resell them, he has no formal education in business or web design.  Instead, he started playing around with rebuilding computers at age 13 and taught himself how to build websites two years later.

His aptitude to learn and see business opportunities was evident, but it wasn’t until he received the opportunity to travel Barbados to do some photography and saw a critical gap in the market.  Many owners of vacation homes were willing to rent their homes and would like the extra money, but had no way to do so.  Armed with his self-taught knowledge of websites and entrepreneurship, Joe Poulin started Luxury Retreats at age 17, a websites that helps owners market their vacation homes to rent.

With Luxury Retreats, vacation homes like this are available for rent and owners get extra income. Win-win.

His persistence and entrepreneurial skill is inspirational but it wasn’t all smooth sailing.  Throughout the process, he learned two valuable lessons, especially for growing start-ups.

1. Customers are always first priority.

As the company grew, Poudin  ”found himself relaxing his grip on customer service,” one of the main value propositions that the company was built on.  He had to actually scale back in order to maintain the level of quality that he wanted to provide.

2. Choose your team carefully.

Micromanaging a company that makes $100 billion is impossible.  So, having a good management team is not only important, its essential.  Poudin realized this but didn’t hire according to his vision for the company.  Be sure to choose team members that will constructively word towards the goals you have.