When A Web Business Becomes Transparent – Part 1

What happens when the key words or phrases that directly associate with your company or brand increase your visibility at the top in all search engines? Pretty soon you get email requests from strangers like this: “Hello I Have An Interesting Business Proposal… I found your site really enchanting… and would like to buy a number of text-links on your site.” Now It sounds both flattering and fishy at the same time… Right? My response to this recent request: Please tell me more?

But let me backtrack a bit to provide a frame of reference.

When I was in China I was incapable of tending to our Codedsignal.com website. China blocks all Godaddy servers and Wordpress blogs and this Wordpress blog happens to be hosted on our Godaddy server. Now this is a dilemma for any individual or group wanting to maintain their online presence. Yes there are proxy servers but I decided to wait till I got back to the states to make more sound decisions with my team.

Anyway, since I am the sole blogger for our site, I do have to consult with our internal team when we make decisions for the site. Due to our inactivity, our rankings in Google had significantly dropped in relevance. Since I have been back in the USA, we have strategically added new content to the site and enhanced our SEO (search engine optimization). So within one months time we have now pushed up our visibility on all search engines. Here’s several examples: in Google we rank in the top #5 among search results for “Digital Media Network” | “Media Tips” | “Digital Media“. That’s quite an accomplishment considering we did this all the old fashioned way, hard work and patience and we did it all free with no extra SEO costs.

Now that that’s out of the way. Let me bring you back to the theme of this post. To be continued…

When A Web Business Becomes Transparent – Part 2

Continued from previous post

What happens when you start to get emails from nameless strangers “Hello I Have An interesting Business proposal… and would like to buy a number of text-links on your site.” Well most of the time my team would generally say no thank you. But this one time I decided to play along and see what the offering was. A week later we get an email stating the following:


“I shall pay you a total of $75 for five of your blog pages where you can easily add a small paragraph with links below the post. These links will be on specific pages. Important: I would be paying only a $75 one time fee and the paragraph’s will stay permanent i-e as long as the page stays.”

- bendrix

Digital Media 101: Say Goodbye FTP – Part 2

continued from previous post

Yesterday we talked about the departure from FTP to the web browser. Today I want to discuss some free alternative dedicated media store and share websites that upload directly from the browser.

Rapidshare has a simple Google like interface, it an excellent upload feature, possibly the best that we tested thus far. Megaupload on the other hand is hella confusing. Once you catch your bearings you can navigate pretty easy. For the one time upload they are both solid services and neither require you to login, but you can set up a profile if you wish. On the receiving end; however, as the recipient attempts to download they are met with an obnoxious countdown and bombarding ads strategically posted on the download page. That alone is a HUGE turnoff and a terribly bad decision for their business.

Both FileFactory and Yousendit are also good services, they also offer a simple upload and share feature. The big let downs are that there is no resumed support if disconnected and there are both storage and bandwidth limitations. The biggest issue of all is expiration date of the media media. Yousendit only provides 7 days from the date of upload FileFactory has extended from 7 days to 90 days. Yousendit does have a ton of features for their subscription service along with the ability to create a custom branded download page.

To be fair, the above mentioned services work perfectly fine for most instances and they are free after all. But some clients and people not so tech savvy may find them each to be off putting.

The Codedsignal 1st Pick
There can only be ONE!!!! In the free web sharing market, Mediafire wins convincingly. It has no time limit for hosting uploaded medias. It provides unlimited storage capacity, unlimited simultaneous downloads (that resume if disconnected), unlimited bandwidth to serve any medias under 100MB, Public and private password protected medias, Public and private password protected folders. The interface is user friendly for both the sender and the recipient. Learn more.

The Codedsignal 2nd Pick
Our second choice is Box.net. First off it stands out because it works for mobile. Users can upload and view media medias directly from their mobile phone (if the media is supported). The second thing you notice is that its got one of the most simple utilitarian interfaces of all the hosts mentioned. The biggest obvious drawback is that there is a 10 MB upload capacity. This would be a service for people serving small media medias. It has some great offerings and it plays well with Web 2.0 services, we feel that this is the hosting service to watch out for.

Every media store and share need is different. People are at varied experience levels and each situation is not always met with the same solution. The point of this post is to inform people of the free alternatives to FTP. We suggest our recommendations above but please take the information found in this blog and form your own investigation. We always enjoy feedback and comparisons so feel free to join the discussion.

- bendrix

Codedsignal.com is a Digital Media Network featuring: Beneath the Beat: Hip Hop | Beneath the Beat: Electronica | Shanxi Nan Lu: Travel | Digital Media Tips: Web Culture – and hosts a variety of other related media properties.

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Digital Media 101: Say Goodbye FTP – Part 1

Yesterday it was about FTP (File Transfer Protocol) and web hosting. Today its all about the web browser. Until recently it was impossible to store and share digital media unless you used an FTP client. It is true that applications like Flickr, Youtube and Facebook are a form of media-sharing; but this is not the same as serving large media files (ex. TIF, MPG-2 and AIFF) with the intent to take that media offline and/or transfer that same or altered media back to the web hosting server.

Media sharing is not a new concept, for over a decade people have used P2P (Peer to Peer) programs to transfer media. But what happens when the media is too big for email and your recipient doesn’t use IM, a torrent or an FTP client? What happens if its a time sensitive deadline and the client needs the files immediately? And what happens if someone attempts to download this media in a foreign land that blocks server inquiries from the country hosting the media?

For example, I was in mainland China for 8 months and during my stay I could not access our Wordpress blog nor any of our media hosted on our Godaddy server. Its an obscure reality, considering all the access we have in the USA, but it is something I have been thinking a lot about since I’ve been back in the states.

Its fascinating how less than 7 years ago, serving and storing media online was considered a complicated mundane task done only by geeky web masters and programmers. Now everyone, their mother and their mother’s mother, literally, want to share media. Since the dawn of the internet, FTP has been the method used to remotely transfer data files from your computer (client) and serve it up to a dedicated networking computer (server). Though it is a straightforward simple process, It remains a complicated mundane task for the masses.

An unexpected thing happened in the late 1990’s. The internet adjusted to a new set of rules. P2P applications like AIM, Napster, and Hotline made media sharing fun and accessible. People began to spend enormous amounts of time using P2P tools rather than hanging out on the dysfunctional ad-banner driven internet. People were downloading music, games, photos applications, and chatting. During this time the advertisers, consumers and programmers of the static and temperamental (multimedia) web were at a critical cross road.

Then between 2002-2005, something really exciting happened. Developers and visionaries fused the simplicity and collaboration of P2P culture and created an overlay for the mundane task driven internet. I firmly believe that the combination of portals like online dating sites and niché media sharing sites have helped to save internet culture as we know it. And most certainly they have forever reinvented the way people communicate and express themselves. People no longer need to learn complex programming nor perform data transfer protocols to present their media to the world. Today Its all about filling out profiles and posting, text, photos, audio, and videos through the browser.

Tomorrow we will examine some useful free alternative media storage sites.


- bendrix

Bendrix is the founder and Digital Media Strategist for Codedsignal, Inc. Codedsignal.com is The Digital Media Network featuring the following media properties: Beneath the Beat: Hip Hop | Beneath the Beat: Electronica | Digital Media Tips | Shanxi Nan Lu.

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Web Culture: Video 2.0 Meetup – Web 2.0 StartUPs

HTTP Echoes is about insightful blog posts and web related ventures. We echo these insights and offer our thoughts on how it relates to web culture.

Two days ago I went to the Video 2.0 Meetup group hosted at For Your Imagination Studio on 27th and Broadway NYC. It was the first time we met in that space something like 200+ members attended, a great turn out. As far as I can tell its the largest tech related meetup group in NYC. The topic of discussion was on Web 2.0 start up companies. This is great because I’m always looking for new web technologies to make my world a lil easier and efficient. Plus I love spreading the word about whats up and coming.

The first presenter Ben Weinberger CEO of Digitalsmiths in Durham, N.C. You can call them an ad insertion company or “digital deal makers,” but the goal of Digitalsmiths is to be the Google AdSense for video. I watched the presentation and thought it reminded me of those MTV pop up trivia videos. In theory pop up ad insertion is an interesting idea and I can see how it could be very useful in some niche markets. For mass video consumption I think it would be intrusive and annoy the hell out of people. I have a bunch of ideas on how they could proceed with this, but this is not consultant corner … Those of you looking to bring in advertising dollars its worth a look

Next up was Rami Rinot visionary of Chic.tv. The company was created to address the needs of the “chic and savvy consumer who wishes to access lifestyle information in a new form of media, primarily, video on the internet, iPod and cellphone.” Basically its a 24-7 lifestyle video magazine focused on recipe’s, dining, art, books … in New York City. The presentation was quite incoherent and I was having a hard time following; however, I did learn a lot by going to the site. It appears to have a bunch of content that will be interesting to the chic and hip minded individuals.

Max Haot, Founder and CEO of Mogulus gave one of the most outstanding and efficient 10 minute tech presentations I’ve ever seen. Mogulus provides users with the “power to create live, original television programming, all done on their own broadcasting channel.” Its like a virtual TV station based on the .flv video spec. You can do real-time collaborative remote video publishing or mashups using hard media (like DVD’s or tape), Youtube, or other video sources. I really thought the remote collaborative was an excellent feature, I can see a lot of potential with this.

The last presentation was by Yuxt, a video bookmarking widget based application. Yuxt is an indexing service like delicious but exclusively for video. You can call up Youtube, Metacafe, Crackle (formally known as Grouper) … videos by typing in the search field for whatever you are seeking and it will pull up the video files. From there you can drag the video files into a custom folder that you create and drag it to the specified folder. Actually, sites like delicious could learn a thing or two from Yuxt with regards to organization and ease of use. This site is primarily for people seeking a user friendly solution for video bookmarking.

- Bendrix

Codedsignal.com is a Digital Media Network featuring: Beneath the Beat: Hip Hop | Beneath the Beat: Electronica | Shanxi Nan Lu: Travel | Digital Media Tips: Web Culture – and hosts a variety of other related media properties.

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Web Culture: Casey McKinnon of Galactcast

HTTP Echoes is about insightful blog posts and web related ventures. We echo these insights and offer our thoughts on how it relates to web culture.

Earlier today I read a message in my Pownce account from my buddy Casey McKinnon. The post read, “My first published article EVER!” I was excited to hear the news but even more impressed that she was getting featured in The Gaurdian Unlimited, a prestigious UK newspaper. Cassey and Rudy Jahchan produce the hugely popular online show(s) Galacticast and A Comicbook Orange. For those of you who don’t know, Galacticast is a weekly comedy that parody’s sci-fi, fantasy, horror, comics, and video-games. Let me just say that the shows are hilarious and they do a great job green screening and making entertaining fun episodes. The shows have the professionalism and entertainment value of a short form television skit on Comedy Central or the Sci-Fi Channel, but the reality is that Rudy and Cassey do it all from their humble apartment.

Back to the article… Cassey eloquently touches on the topic of the television networks and media industry buying into and not providing credit to the new content produced online. She highlights the decrease in big budgets and the audience moving away from mainstream TV and how independent producers are being edged out of their intellectual properties. “Like any company, we need a lawyer to look over our contracts to make sure that we retain our rights,” says Cassey. I am not doing her article justice by taking pieces from it, I feel its an important read. I strongly suggest checking out this “Give us credit” article and pass it along to your colleagues and friends. I just had to create a del.icio.us bookmark for it. Keep doing your think Casey, you and Rudy are a true leaders.

- Bendrix

Codedsignal.com is a Digital Media Network featuring: Beneath the Beat: Hip Hop | Beneath the Beat: Electronica | Shanxi Nan Lu: Travel | Digital Media Tips: Web Culture – and hosts a variety of other related media properties.

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Visionary: Google Acquires Grandcentral

Visionary is the celebration of extraordinary individuals, innovations, ideas and events that offer progressive or foretelling insights. Bendrix highlights his thoughts and other lunatic fringe thinking.

On Monday July 2nd, I received a phone message about a new Google offering. I ignored it… On Wednesday July 4th I got that same message but this time in the form of an email… Still ignored it. So earlier today I finally checked both of these messages and it appears that I am a little late with the news, but I certainly won’t be the last to blog about it.

You see I have this huge Google fetish and I love it whenever they come out with a new beta application or acquire a new company. Well there happens to be this company called Grandcentral and it was acquired by Google sometime within the past week or so. This is truly awesome news because I have been testing out Grandcentral since November 14, 2006. I absolutely love the service and brag about it to friends and colleagues all the time; but don’t take my word for it, because once Google gives the stamp of approval to something then you know its got to have some value.

Grandcentral is this online application that allows you to input phone contacts and keep that information hosted on their server. Why is this cool? Suppose you loose your phone or your computer dies or you loose your little black book? If you don’t have a backup plan, then you’re out of luck. Several months ago both my computer and my cell phone died around the same time and I lost all my contact info (well I still had the business cards).

Another good reason to join, free phone forwarding. When you first sign up for the service you must choose a city and a virtual phone number… This virtual number can be linked to your home, cell, work, or any other phone you choose (up to 7 numbers). If someone calls you, you can send them directly to your virtual voicemail. You can be listen to messages on your phone, through your Grandcentral web page, or via. email. Another reason why this feature is cool is because you are no longer tied to your home or business office. Lets say you have several employees who all have cell phones, all you have to do is input all their numbers at the Grandcentral site and elect to access that number. That number can represent your main office number and any one of your employees can either answer the call or let it go to voicemail. There can be many ways to implement the technology in the home, the office, or among groups, this is just one example.

Another awesome feature is that you can record your conversations. The average person may find this an unnecessary feature, but to a podcaster or a video blogger this could be the killer interview application they have been looking for. Its an all in one solution, no extra’s or burdensome instructions. You just inform the party on the other end that you are about to record them… when they consent… just press the number “3″ button on your phone… talk, talk, talk… and when you’re done, just hit the “3″ button again. Its that easy and the audio files reside on your Grandcentral profile page in the form of a downloadable MP3 or you can listen to the steam from the page itself.

Go see for yourself. My prediction: Grandcentral will be among ‘the’ hot new web technologies for 2007.

- Bendrix

Codedsignal.com is a Digital Media Network featuring: Beneath the Beat: Hip Hop | Beneath the Beat: Electronica | Shanxi Nan Lu: Travel | Digital Media Tips: Web Culture – and hosts a variety of other related media properties.

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Web Culture: iPhone Debut video featured on Epic-fu

Webbiz reviews and spotlights stuff related to online entertainment and web culture. This is part of the Beneath the Beat Webbiz Podcast.

On Monday July 1st, I was sending a clip to Zadi Diaz to show her the madness over at the 5th Avenue Mac Store in Manhattan, and she wrote back… “that’s insane! Hey — if you’d like, we can probably feature a part of it on Jetset this Monday.”

Actually its no longer called The Jetset Show, its now called Epic-Fu, but in the spirit of preserving an archived memory lets just refer to it as The Jetset Show. Jetset happens to be one of the few shows that I check out regularly. For those of you who do not know, Jetset is a show created by Zadi Diaz and Steve Woolf. They conduct interviews and showcase whats hip and cool on both online and offline. For me I watch to see coverage of the newest online applications and to see what is interesting on the web. They also touch on the music scene and there are some very funny skits throughout the 5 min episodes. Oh did I mention that Zadi is a real hottie, (oh and yeah Steve is a dashing young devil as well). But Jetset is so much more because they are an “Internet and pop culture show for young adults featuring cool, weird, fun, geeky, underground, true-to-life, curious, quirky things and people found online and off.” I also wanted to mention that Jetset has accumulated rave reviews from the online community by winning Vloggie and a Webby awards and they just have a growing number of fans world wide.

I highly recommend the Jetset Show and hope you will watch the clip below and go to the following links to support the Jetset movement: website, youtube, mix.jetset

- Bendrix

Visionary: RSS Pioneer Bill Bercik Passed Away

Visionary is the celebration of extraordinary individuals, innovations, ideas and events that offer progressive or foretelling insights. Bendrix highlights his thoughts and other lunatic fringe thinking.

I am in deep mourning because my RSS and Web Stats provider Bill Bercik died on May 2, 2007. I never met Bill face to face, I purchased his webpasties.com service back in September 2005. Bill and I have been working together since then to make his service a viable alternative for podcasters and video bloggers. Webpasties is the best RSS and statistic analysis application that I’ve located since I began podcasting.

I called Bill several times a month, soon our tech talk evolved into a friendship. I really enjoyed his gentle nature and I admired his innovative ideas. Bill was a MAJOR influence in my career, because it was his service that enabled me to podcast and he mentored me on several career altering pursuits. I am deeply saddened by his passing and offer his family and friends my condolences.

“Bill” was born on April 14, 1964 in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, and passed away on May 2, 2007 at the age of 43.

Bill graduated from Spartanburg S.C. High School. He received a B.S. degree from Clemson University and attended graduate school at California State University in Chico, Ca.

He was employed for 20 years as a computer programmer at the U.S. Navel Air Station in Patuxent, MD., the Navy Post Graduate School in Monterey, Borland, Corp in Scotts Valley and was presently working as a consultant Bercik Software. He published 2 books on computer languages and was a member of Theta Chi Fraternity.

Bill is survived by his parents Robert and Mildred Bercik of Stuart, Fl and Dulthe, Ga., a sister Mary Bercik and two brothers, John and Jim Bercik and his two beloved nieces, Bailey and Samantha Bercik.

Bill was an adventurer. He loved to travel and biked throughout Europe, North America and Central America. He loved sailing, wind surfing and hiking. He was happy in California and loved his friends, family and 2 birds “Gus and “Greta”, and his beloved companion April Hyder.

A Memorial Service will be held on May 8, 2007 beginning at 6:00 p.m. at Benito & Azzaro Pacific Gardens Chapel, 1050 Cayuga St Santa Cruz, Ca.

He was dearly loved and will be missed. In lieu of flowers, friends may donate in his memory to their favorite charity.

- Bendrix

Codedsignal.com is a Digital Media Network featuring: Beneath the Beat: Hip Hop | Beneath the Beat: Electronica | Shanxi Nan Lu: Travel | Digital Media Tips: Web Culture – and hosts a variety of other related media properties.

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