Tag Archives: Vine

Doug’s Rant – To Vine Is Divine, Web Redditing and Digging – July 11, 2013

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Doug droid photoVine and Instagram continue to fascinate me and this is the third rant in a row that I’ve focused on it.  In the last couple of weeks I’ve actually become a pretty big fan of Vine and I’ve enjoyed discovering some really creative and funny Vines as well as making a few of our own.  Here are a few ways we’ve used Vine so far – a little humor, focusing on our community, and a fun hello to our second photographer Angela:

 

 

 

 

As for Instagram I must say I barely see any videos there… and I prefer Instagram without videos (apparently I’m not the only one).  Being a fan of Vine and not of videos on Instagram is an outcome I did not anticipate, but that’s where I’m at now.

Can you Reddit?  Can you Digg it?

I recently read an article on Smart Savvy Social that discussed 10 ways to promote your blog posts and the major takeaway for me was #8 about bookmarking your blog on various social bookmarking sites.  I had toyed with Stumble a while back but I had never really spent any time on Reddit, Digg, or Technorati, so I went ahead and registered this blog on Technorati, created a profile on Reddit and checked out the others.  I find Reddit to be the most interesting so far because of the community aspect and the points you accumulate for good “karma” in how positive your interactions are.  While I am not seeing a whole lot of discussion about the photography business there, I can at least report that so far Reddit is the one that has generated some traffic back to our blog.  Collectively they seem to be pretty good resources for web surfing and finding good content.

Quick Hits

  • Ally is working on a guest blog about using reflectors for lighting purposes on MCP Actions – be on the lookout for that for you aspiring photographers!  It may be a little while before it posts but we’ll announce it on facebook and twitter for sure…  I also have a couple of articles being published there soon as well.
  • Here’s a case of “don’t just take my word for it” as the ever reliable Rosh Sillars blogs about the 17 things photographers should not do.  I counted and I’ve specifically discussed 8 of them in blog posts and guest blog posts of my own.  Admission – we don’t bother with our tripod very often…  we probably should a little more.  😉
  • By the way I’m a big fan of Snapchat as well which you may have noticed is the app interface on my photo at the top of this rant.  This is another visual and social mobile app but one that I’m not sure lends itself to use as a brand profile so I use it to have fun with my family and friends just as me.  A social media platform I don’t create Frameable Faces content for.

Doug’s Rant – Instagram vs. Vine and Getting Hacked – June 20, 2013

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Yep – turns out I’ve got more to say….

Doug Cohen

Insta……death of Vine on Droid?

I became intrigued from the time Vine was launched as a potentially awesome platform for Frameable Faces.  We have used video quite a bit – mainly on YouTube.  It’s an effective platform for testimonials, slide shows from sessions, various interviews and behind the scenes features.  The idea of Vine is exciting because it provides what I have seen one guru refer to as “snack sized” social media bites to go with videos on our YouTube channel which are more like “main courses”.  Vine could be to video what Instagram has been to photos for us – just fun quickie behind the scenes shots – visits from friends, events, photo shoots, and even some silliness now and then.  Vine was released only for iOS (iPhone/iPod touch) on January 24th.  We are an Apple shop for everything but our smartphones – we have Droids because T-Mobile didn’t get the iPhone until April of this year.  As Droid owners (Samsung Galaxy Blaze 4G to be exact) we had to wait from January 24th to June 3rd before Vine was released for Droid.  That’s a pretty long wait, and when it was finally released it was a mess…….  and it’s still a mess.  There is no way to search for other users which totally takes the social aspect away from a social media app.  Totally useless.  Sure we can be patient and wait – it’s frustrating but what else can we do?  We’re not ready to buy iPhones just yet.

Well, yesterday I opened instagram like I do a few times every day and there was a notification there that Instagram has added video!  15 seconds vs. Vine’s 6, with the familiar feature of Instagram layers (specific video layers) and the option to pick a cover image for your video.  To me this means Vine’s window for Droid users could shut.  Why would I bother trying to build a following on Vine when I can share the same (if not better) content on a platform in the same fashion where I already have a following?  I also have to say that while the 6 second limit on Vine forces people to find creative ways to tell a story in 6 seconds, it is just so short.  Unless Vine proves to become so overwhelmingly popular with our high school seniors that we can’t ignore it, I think I won’t bother with it.  I’m not adding another platform if I don’t need it.  Sorry Vine, I could be wrong but I think you blew a huge opportunity by releasing such a buggy mess for Droid and not fixing it before Instagram had their own video option ready.  We’ll see how it plays out.  Meanwhile here is a blog post with a great breakdown comparison between the two.

UPDATE – I tried to use Instagram video since I finished writing the section above and since T-Mobile doesn’t want to release an update for the Samsung Blaze 4G from Android 4.0.4 to 4.1 or better I can’t make Instagram videos for the time being.  Instagram videos can only be made with the 4.1 version or newer.  Ugh.  The struggle continues…

UPDATE TWO (June 24th) – Vine added search!  Now I’m using it and enjoying it.  Seeing the updates being pushed to my phone is like watching two heavyweights battle it out – the other morning it was happening in real time!  Meanwhile there seems to be a bit of a backlash going on about videos intruding on Instagram feeds…  Anything else I have to say on the topic will go into the next rant…

Hacked….

Yes we were hacked.  What a nightmare – someone (apparently from Poland) got into our website and uploaded some malware.  Google flagged our website and blog with a warning basically preventing anyone from getting to either site with a computer for what ended up being a couple weeks.  It’s a good thing we don’t survive by an online ordering business or we could have been in huge trouble.  They didn’t change any content on either site or ruin either of them, it was just a pain in the butt having to identify what happened, have our host reset the passwords, check for any bad files, clean the bad files off, and then submit a request to Google to remove the warning.  The folks at EPK Design who originally designed this blog for us were hugely helpful in getting this sorted out.  That was a bummer and that was why you didn’t see any new posts here for the first half of June.

Other quick hits…

  • We are excited for our new class of 2014 senior mural in the window of our studio!  It’s up and it looks fantastic!
  • I find Steve McCurry’s photos to be fascinating.  If you haven’t checked out his blog before you should bookmark it and you can start with this photo essay on the monsoons on the other side of the world.
  • This was our first year at Relay For Life West Bloomfield as Team Frameable Faces!  It was a great day and there will be a blog post about it here soon…

Doug’s Photography and Social Media Rant – May 31, 2013

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Doug's RantIt’s been an interesting week or so in photography and social media – from a certain Internet-based company CEO’s assault on professional photographers, to facebook’s announcement (finally) of verified accounts.  A couple of interesting nuggets happened here at Frameable Faces as well, so while I’m not sure if this is something I’ll do weekly or monthly (or ever again haha), I thought a little column about various current events as they relate to our business, the photography industry, and social media might be a good idea.

Not feeling so “yahoo” about Yahoo.

We haven’t used Tumblr or Flickr before so while Yahoo acquiring Tumblr and making changes to Flickr didn’t affect us, the comments Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer made during the announcement that “there’s no such thing, really, as professional photographers…” caught our attention a little.  I watched the news conference and while I don’t like the stuffy overly “professional” suit and tie approach in corporate America, I also think your CEO should sound slightly more articulate than this person.  I was not impressed.  Scott Bourne has shredded her and she is treating him like some random troll to be ignored.  Scott Bourne is a very influential professional photographer (maybe that’s why she hasn’t heard of him) and I believe her comments and her subsequent non-apology will come back to bite her.

Facebookus Promotionus Interruptus

We pride ourselves on being pretty savvy when it comes to social media – we try to do it the right way and follow the written rules and (more importantly) the unwritten rules, but we still make mistakes and we are still learning.  Heck, there is something new to learn every day if not every hour.  For example we got tripped up last week in some changes to facebook terms that we were unaware of.

Email notification from facebook

I must say I find this “no more than 20% text” policy a little arbitrary and bizarre.  We spent 5 dollars to promote a fundraiser for Relay For Life West Bloomfield.  We created it as an “event” on facebook, and there is an option to add an event cover photo.  The dimensions for this cover photo are 714×264 while the standard timeline photo is 851×315.  Not sure why the slight difference here other than to encourage users to create unique content for your event different from your timeline photo?  Fine – makes sense I guess.  Logically I figured I’d keep it simple and include the three logos of the participating entities with a simple phrase “Let’s Help Defeat Cancer!”.  When we created the graphic we didn’t think it represented a call to action with phone numbers, websites etc. which we thought must have been the issue when we received the email.  However it turns out that facebook “quietly” updated their terms on March 6th to allow for calls to action so that wouldn’t have been a problem.  The problem is this new 20% text policy, which I’m fine with when it comes to a timeline cover for your brand, but isn’t an event by nature a call to action which requires a little bit of text to announce the event?  They let me keep the cover photo up, they just wouldn’t let me promote the event.  I didn’t think my promoted post was going to include the cover photo in it anyway so I’m still a little confused.  Weird…  No biggie – I suppose this year (our first year at the Relay For Life) we can take some photos and next year include those as a collage for the cover photo for any fundraiser events we are doing.  That will look better anyway than this quickie we put together this year…  While I’m at it, here is the link to our team page if you want to donate to help us fight cancer.

Relay For Life Fundraiser - Facebook photo

Our event cover photo which violated the new 20% text rule....

 

Yes This Is The Real Doug Cohen

I must admit that there have been times when I’ve had to do a double take on fake facebook profiles of famous people – wondering if it’s really them.  Some of the fakes are obvious and some can fool you even if it’s just for a second.  With twitter you always knew because of the little “verified” check next to the profile.  This is finally coming to facebook and facebook will determine who gets the verified label.  First will be celebrities and public figures but eventually it will come to highly followed people and pages.  I’m wondering since the limit for personal friends is 5000 for everybody what the threshold will be for personal verification.  Pick me!!! Pick me!!!  I wanna BE somebody!!!  😉

Other quick hits…

  • Really want Vine to be released for Droid!  Hurry up Vine developers!!!  Thinking this could be a cool platform for Frameable Faces and this seems to be taking forever…
  • I’m becoming more active on Yelp (yes this is a link directly to my profile) as a way to connect with people – spend some time there – you’ll see what I mean.
  • Had a really nice genuine interaction on twitter (I know right?) with a charming Australian tweeter I met named Susan Israel.  Reflecto was a little snarky to her of course (remember he tweets) but she took it in stride.  You should follow her at @bondi_izzy.