Completed Project: Audio Video Development

XIST recently completed the development of product videos for use on a commercial web site and as part of an internet marketing campaign. The videos were shot on location in the summer of 2007 with post production work completed in Ottawa. Work included storyboard design, video photography, audio/video editing, and internet marketing.

• video production and editing
• internet marketing
• web site development

Completed Project: Web Site Development

XIST recently redeveloped the web site for a Canadian builder of world-class rowing shells and single racing sculls. The project included a broad range of integrated services:

• online marketing strategy design
• application development and content management system design
• content development
• user interface design
• multimedia podcast development
• search engine optimization

The site's content was written specifically for the web to improve search engine optimization and integrate with the online marketing strategy. Development work also included redesigning the site's information architecture and creating an original, graphical user interface design with advanced CSS controlled HTML presentation. XIST developed a customized content management application to assure content consistency, simplify the administration of the site. This CMS also separated the creation and management of the content from it's presentation on the site, allowing the site to be maintained without the intervention of technically skilled administrators. Video and audio format podcasts were also created to provide richer product information.

The McGurk effect

This isn't so much about information management but really processing audible information. There is a compelling video on a web site that demonstrates the "McGurk Effect". Harry McGurk and John MacDonald first described this phenomenon in 1976 in which our visial response to a person's mouth movement has an impact on what we hear.

Play the clip several times, alternating between looking at the talking head while listening, and listening with your eyes shut. Very weird.

Podcasting

If you haven't heard the term already, get ready. "Podcasting" is an amalgam of the term broadcasting and iPod, Apple's extremely successful portable music player. Podcasting involves creating Internet broadcasts (small aural segments typically in MP3 format) that other users can download and play at their convenience. Akin to time-shift recording of a TV program with a PVR (Personal Video Recorder, the Canadian equivalent to TiVo) for playback later, podcasting is a delivery channel that puts control in the ears of listeners, allowing them to play back the broadcasts on their time, at their convenience, from any location they want to take their MP3 player.

Contrary to the name, you do not need an Applie iPod to play podcasts. Any MP3 player will work for podcast audio fies in MP3 format. However, expect that video formats will also be podcast in the not-to-distant future -- if it isn't happening already.

Perhaps given my 30-something age -- and my lifestyle which involves single parenting -- I am not as tied to my iPod as some of the younger single friends that I know. Nevertheless, having owned an iPod for some time now, I love the convenience of portable music and carrying the bulk of my music collection in one small lightweight appliance. Recognizing that I often miss parts of the morning radio show on my drive into work, the idea of being able to play back my local Ottawa morning program (or from New York, Paris, or Hong Kong) on my schedule, at my convenience, at any location I choose, certainly strikes an appealing chord.

Podcasts aren't just limited to personal music lists and radio programs. Podcasts of all topics and sorts are popping up. The CBC has a podcast pilot project happening including podcasts of its popular Quirks & Quarks. In theory -- and knowing the Internet, likely in reality too -- podcasts can exist on any subject matter of interest -- indiviudal users' music, an accountant's tax advice, a professor's lectures, a radio or TV station's programming, whatever. Given the nature of the Internet, expect to see a broad range of podcast content to meet your interests, no matter how common or unusual.

Whether it's meeting a market need or simply an extension of the self and our inclination towards self-promotion, podcasting is obviously an extension of the success of blogging and the "everyone's-a-publisher-on-the-Internet" phenomenon. By allowing ourselves the opportunity to create, compile, and share a piece of ourselves -- our thoughts, music, interests, and preferences -- perhaps we feel that we are informing, if not educating, the world about us. Of course, expect a rush of enterprising individuals to find ways to capitalize on the craze.

Podcast future watch: Watch for web sites and new podcasting technology based around vertical listening, allowing users to choose collections of podcasts on like topics, whether it be literature, music, pop culture, taxes, technology, or more nefarious subject matter.