Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Why I haven't blogged in a while


Naomi and Charlotte at THE U, UMSL radio station

Why I haven't blogged in a while
Sorry it's been so long since I last blogged. My excuse is that I have been working, working, working on CultureSurfer since the middle of December when I lost my video players. I don't mean "lost" as in "Where did I put my keys?" but rather lost as in my video players that were free were about to cost $500 per month. Yikes! So I spent about 3 weeks doing tons of research looking for a comparable video player. Then, I had to spend two more weeks re-building CultureSurfer. And I'm still not happy with the video players. It turns out you can't embed or link to one specific video. Not cool! So I am considering redesigning the site (but I need free help from a tech person if you know anyone) to re-create CultureSurfer.And I'd like to host my own videos, in order to be free and clear of any video hosting sites. Those people irk me. And of course, we've been filming. A lot. So we're slowing it down a bit so I can deal with umpteen tech issues that I would like to resolve and I am busy working on a business plan. Ok, end of whining.

UMSL radio interview
I finally got some local media coverage!!! Charlotte gave me a great interview at the University of Missouri's radio station, The U, last Monday. We spent an hour talking about CultureSurfer, player a few of the videos, and chatting about the incredible talent we have here in St. Louis. I'll try to make the sound file available on CultureSurfer when I get a copy of it.

So in short, I will try to blog more. I'll try to give you more regular updates on how the site is going & what cool stuff we'll be filming in the future.

Additions/changes to the site

I've added both articles and movie reviews? Why? The site just seemed too image-heavy and that's not cool where Google is concerned. Google likes text to crawl in order to increase a site's visibility for people searching. Also, I personally love to write movie reviews since I watch 1-2 movies per week (that's my escape from reality), and I thought it would be nice for people to contribute articles on all of the various topics I cover. You'll be seeing articles from contributers soon. You're may also be noticing more photo galleries on the site because I've asked St. Louis galleries to send me pics of their openings.

I moved the cycling videos to their own site, STLbikegeek.com.

What we'll be filming next
To start with, there are so many art openings that I can't even believe it. So I'm sure in the next few weeks, we'll be filming one or two. But the big deal for March is Saint Louis Fashion Week. Jeff and I will be there along with Dan, our photographer, and a contributor who will be writing about some of the fashion. I can't wait to see what creations the various designers have come up with recently.

1 comment:

I_ArtMan said...

naomi,
it's a kind of a crime the way these cunning companies get you used to their product; even hooked on them after awhile. than bam. $500. a month.

watch out next time. i don't know the solution... either you pay through the nose and make no money or you just have to embedd you-tubes and 'dailymotion'. there's on lasting solution though. become a server. but then you have to relearn everything. you also have to stay up perpetually.