Oftentimes, personal Web sites and portfolio sites are shallow. A cartoon image of someone’s face and a photo or screenshot of their work. By viewing the videos and engaging with the content you get a sense of me – as a REAL person. It’s very hard to do on the Web and I think I’ve got it nailed down.

The site is fully powered by HTML 5 and javascript. There is no Flash present. I hope to add personalized audio clips and quotes to further enhance the personal connection made over the Web. Please visit KenMorico.com and let me know your thoughts. Long live HTML 5, experimentation, and the future.

K.Mo's Podcast Studio

So you want to reach an unlimited audience, have complete control of a broadcast, and get free promotion? Time to Podcast! Podcasts are a natural extension of blogs. They are just another medium to spout your commentary, music, and interviews. If you’re interested in podcasting, I’ll explain why now is the best time to get started.

Hardware has never been cheaper and software has never been more intuitive. Studio-quality microphones are now just about $100. Apple has refined audio making software to the point where mere novices can produce professional-quality results via their GarageBand software. It’s even designed to create podcasts.

Here’s how I created my podcast studio:

• Samson G Track USB Microphone and Audio Interface
• 1/8 inch lineout connector
• Griffin SmartTalk Headphone Adapter with Control and Mic for iPhone

Other items I already had included Sony Studio Headphones
and a Mac with Garageband. The Samson G Track microphone gives me the studio-quality recording sound, and the Griffin SmartTalk extension enables me to use my podcast studio to make interviews possible in really high-quality. That’s because cellphones now are digital, and routing the audio through the built-in mixer of the G Track allows very little noise to enter the audio via its USB interface. Tom Keene uses this method a lot for interviewing faraway economists on his Bloomberg Radio shows. I remember being awestruck when I interviewed Bill Rock in his studio space in his home. Bill Rock is an announcer and video producer. He announced for NBC and now for Sirius XM. His studio is crammed with mixers and video/audio equipment. I just have a desk.

There are a lot of resources on the Web to help get you started with podcasting. Apple shows you how to make a podcast here. O’Reilly has an article about proper microphone usage and other tips. Of course, with all the help and easy-to-install hardware, there’s gotta be a rub. Here it is: posting a podcast is not easy. You need your own Web host, you need to edit XML files, which will be unfamiliar to many, and there is a lot of work that goes into producing a podcast. You need intro music, outro music, topics to talk about, guests (or music), editing time, and you need to promote it. Apple does help you out here though. If your podcast is interesting and good enough, they will feature your podcast on iTunes – for FREE. This is how I found a lot of great podcasts including the DJ Cruze Podcast and Adam Carolla Podcast.

In all, it’s a lot of work, but it’s an exciting hobby. With some time and creativity you can produce the type of show you always wanted to hear – your own.

Audio Commentary

Click the play button below to listen…

Have you ever been to a news site and wondered what’s  the top story? You never had to guess in print editions. They always had large, bold type and a large photo. I’m glad to see this change. News must be prioritized. For years, newspaper Web sites tried to look like Web sites instead of online newspapers. For hundreds of years, printers and publishers fine-tuned fonts and colors and typfaces for maximum readibility. It seemed that when newspapers first went online all of that knowledge escaped into the digital ether.

There are many stand-out features of the new site. The large, classic typeface of the masthead in black gives the site a sense of authority. It’s fairly unobstructed and the technology of the Web doesn’t seem to impede the news. The date is large and easy-to-read. Something new to me – the time stamp. On the Web, time matters because news changes constantly. Photos are especially crisp and detailed. Ads are well-placed. Navigation and section headers are black and white. The footer contains quick links that are nicely organized.  I like the font buttons that allow you increase or decrease the font. That’s not a  new feature on the Web, but a lot of news sites don’t include it or they don’t place the buttons well. This LA Times blog post by editors further describes the major changes.

The new latimes.com site also features the Web 2.0 tools necessary for promotion – social boomarking / linking, send to a friend, article comments, etc. Via comments, letters to the editor are now instant. Others can comment on your comments in real time. URLs contain story titles and keywords to make them easy to index by search engines. And while these are not “new” features, it’s usually the implementation of technology that separates good products from stellar products.

At first glance of other news sites like nytimes.com and chron.com, you seem lost. Where is the information hierarchy? In fact, the Houston Chronicle doesn’t even go by the name Houston Chronicle on their own Web site. It’s called chron.com. The masthead and fonts are different. The colors lack authority. It seems like there’s no brand. What the Houston Chronicle does get right, however, is recognizing their audience.

Looking at the Los Angeles Times Web site, would you think LA County contains a 47% Hispanic population? The Houston Chronicle has articles in Spanish and English. Even a Hispanic blogger. To be fair, I haven’t read all Los Angeles Times’ online articles over the years, but looking around the site it didn’t seem apparent there are any or a portion of the articles about Hispanic culture that reflect the demographics. As a white person who works in Hispanic marketing, I can tell you companies are eager to market to Hispanics and recognize their buying power and influence on American culture. Companies know they are behind in marketing to Hispanics, and it seems time newspapers do the same. Of course, given the that Tribune Company is on its financial knees, I understand the business decisions for this choice.

With so many competitors in the online news space, I can’t see one that competes with latimes.com. The designers and editors seem to have implemented everything that makes the Web powerful as a medium while harnessing the visual and hierarchical qualities that make print editions appealing. Which leads me to write something I never thought I would: long live print.