What does your site do? What would you like it to do?

Hi gang,

Coming soon: I'm working on an instructional video series for this site that will help you with a bunch of day-to-day tasks which you might like a hand with (creating a web banner, webifying your text, making a short video, creating cool instructional videos like mine are hopefully going to be FOR FREE or damn close to it, etc.), which should offer some powerful training tools to add to your web editorial toolbelt.

Anyways...

Last night I had the pleasure of attending the Masthead final issue party, right around the corner from my place. It was a great evening, which gave me the chance to catch up with some old friends and meet some very interesting people in the publishing industry.

It got me thinking, though. There was talk about the future of publishing, complete with varying opinions about whether print will beat out online or vice versa, or if they will actually find a balance that allows for a successful ad model. All of this talk got me thinking about just how important it is to be thoughtful when you look at how you design, create, manage, and populate your website. I can't tell you how to design your site (well, I could, but it would have a giant picture of me on it, possibly flashing or dancing), or how to populate it properly, but if you decide you want some cool content, I can help you create it and deliver it. So...

Once you decide what your website is for, and what you would like it to do (do this planning carefully to avoid a digital Frankenstein), look at your content and how it's delivered. Look at the type of content and how it reflects on your brand.

What features would add to your message? Some common features that are relatively straightforward to add are rotating Flash banners (check out salon52.ca's awesome banner), some short video clips (a la menshealth.com), and feature story banner images.

Give things some thought, and drop me a line for help. Things are changing, so thinking about the web is a good thing. In the meantime, I'm going to finish up some instructional videos! Hope you like 'em.

Back in a couple of days...

- Russ