Microsoft Tags…

Over the weekend I saw an interesting new service from Microsoft that I am going to give a try.  They are called Microsoft Tags and they work much like a barcode, linking smart phones directly to websites, blogs, etc.  The tags were Beta released at the beginning of January and an end date has not been set.  The good news is creating tags is free during the Beta period.  They say that once Beta is over all tags already created will remain free.

So creating a tag is a really easy, straightforward process.  Sign up, give it a name, and a link, then render you image.  It can be added to anything.  Print ads, videos, posters.  Smart phone users download the free app directly to their phone from http://gettag.mobi, take a picture of the tag and go directly to the site, the video, the blog, whatever it’s linked to.  I have created a couple and am going to try incorporating them into my business cards and brochures.  Be sure to check them out.

ATG Color Specialties…

My company, ATG Color Specialties is finally officially opening our screen print department.  Check us out.

Located in LeRoy, New York, approximately 30 minutes southwest of Rochester, ATG Color Specialties is your complete screen print and digital textile, graphics and print finishing solutions provider.

Our experienced staff at ATG Color is proud to offer full service graphic design for textiles,  corporate identity, logos and more.

Whatever your needs, ATG Color Specialties has the solution for you.  We offer a full line of screen printed garments from T-Shirts as low as $4.25 a shirt to sweatshirts, shorts, jerseys or any other product you need.  We also offer multi-color graphics screen printing to meet our customers sign, banner and decal needs.

Our digital, direct-to-garment and embroidery department allows us the ability to offer print-on-demand and variable data textiles as well as multi-color, high speed embroidery.  This means we can print you just one shirt with any full color, photographic quality image.  We can also customize garments with individual names, numbers, symbols, photographs, etc.  Any thing you can imagine, we can put on a shirt for you, with no color limitations.

In addition to our textile printing services we offer wide format ink-jet printing, dye or pigment based, up to 52 inches, for indoor and outdoor use.  We print banners, posters and fine art reproductions on a variety of materials that can be mounted to foam core, corrugated plastic or other rigid materials.  We also offer laminating, mounting and encapsulation up to 62 inches.

We offer multiple print finishing solutions to the traditional offset printer including perfect binding, cutting, stitching, packaging, folding and gluing and more.

Please contact us with you needs today…

We’re at:     8741 Lake Street Road
LeRoy, NY 14482
atgcolor@yahoo.com
(585) 813-4498
www.atgcolor.com
www.myspace.com/atgcolorspecialties

Now What?

So the quarter is finally over.  My grades are in and I passed.  That means after a review of my academic record and a couple of weeks wait I will officially be college educated.  Now what to do?

The job market is really tight, even in the print industry.  Another newspaper went under last week in Colorado.  That being said, the digital print market is continuing to grow, even as traditional print falls behind.  More and more digital presses are being place throughout the world and the number of of new offset presses being placed is only larger than that of digital in places other than North America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa.  So there is hope.

I have been working with my father on this little project getting a screen print and digital print company off the ground.  The only problem has been that he has been giving me one excuse after another as far as screen equipment goes.  We do have wide format ink-jet and Direct-to-Garment printers going.  It’s disheartening because this is something I wanted to do when I left the military.  The deal was that we would have a viable business going by the time I graduated.  It didn’t have to be making a lot of money, just making money.  And well, we’re not.

I am putting together a plan to assess the costs and the market.  Basically what equipment we need, and the level of production we need to reach to break even an to profit.  I’m also looking elsewhere because I can’t really live off what I am making now.  And I have student loans that need repaying starting in 6 months.  A significant amount of student loans.  Enough that I can’t live on what I am making now.  And besides, I’m an RIT grad.  That should have some value, right?  I know it does or else I wouldn’t have gone there.

Anyway, I have been giving this whole thing a lot of thought and am really not sure what I want to do.  I would really have loved to get this screen print business off the ground and making money but I just don’t know if it’s worth putting up with the “we’re going to do this” one day and then it’s the exact oposite the next.  At least I had a phone interview I fealt went well, and it was with a company I am really interested in.  And they are in Boston, my favorite city.  Hopefully that will work out.  But, like I said, now what?

New Media Perspectives is Over…

Well the quarter is finally over.  Well actually it has been since Friday.  That means I am 1 quarter from graduation and having to work a real job again.  Anyway, I am going to try to post stuff here every once in a while if I can think of any interesting topics to discuss.  So check back if any of this stuff interests anyone.

I should be publishing another book on Lulu.com shortly.  It’s another project I had for a different class.  We needed to create a 100 page book on any topic.  I made mine 100 pages of Pi.  I took pi to the 1,000,000 decimal and pasted it into an InDesign file and formatted the book with chapters, page numbers, title page, table of contents, etc. and made a book.  It only has about a third of the number.  It’s called A Whole Lot of Pi.  It would make a great gift for any mathematicians, physicists, engineers or nerds you know so look out for it.  I am going to post it for 1 penny more than the Lulu cost because how awesome would it be to make money of a book of Pi.  Anyway, I’ll post the URL when it’s up and anyone whop wants to can check it out.  Or not.

The Future – My Thoughts

Well the quarter is coming to an end.  It is the end of New Media Perspectives.  We have talked a lot about where the industry is going, did some research and a couple projects and now its time for some of my thoughts on the future of the industry.

Without a doubt, the internet is changing the print industry.  Whether for better or worse is a matter of opinion.  In mine it’s for the better.  I have the ability to publish my own book, when the Kindle gets cheaper I am going to get one.  I would love the convenience of an E-Book reader.  I can advertise my business without having to deal with ad companies or pay the high costs of print ads.  These are all things that make e-publishing attractive to me.  I don’t feel however that print is going anywhere.  I like having hard copy references of books I have read and I think many others do as well.

I feel very comfortable saying that print is not going anywhere because if you look around there is print everywhere.  From the political signs still in the yards of Obama supporters to the menu in the Dinosaur, the restaurant I ate at last night.  I am sitting here in a local coffee shop typing this and my coffee cup is printed.  There are stacks of magazines all around and there’s a D&C machine just outside the door.  Seeing this amount of print on a daily basis reinforces this belief in me.  Sure the internet will drive the publishing industry to change the way they do business but the publishing industry will survive and continue to print.  I wouldn’t be getting into this industry if I didn’t believe this was true.

Search Advertising is Good for You…

Search advertising is by far better than traditional forms of advertising.  Using search advertising such as Google Adwords a business can target specific audiences, only pay when someone visits the site advertised and get positive feedback on how well their ad campaign is working in the form of pay per clicks used.  Advertising no longer has to belong to the marketing department and small businesses can have full on ad campaigns of there own to drive business to there site for much cheaper than traditional advertising.  Anyone with a website can sign up for Adwords and set the amount they are charged each time someone clicks on thier ad, set what keywords are associated with the ad, this will determine how often and where on the list their as shows up.  With search advertising we are completely in control and have the convenience to change it at anytime.  This is not so with print ads that are set once you print and often have no real feedback associated with them.

Daily News

The newspaper is part of our society but like I’ve said, it’s disappearing.  The convenience of the internet is a strong driving factor in this.  Even though, the newspaper plays an important role in our society.  The newspaper doesn’t provide just news, the newspaper provides the consumer with information regarding products in the form of advertising and acts as a forum where opinions are expressed in the form of editorials and letters to the editor.  The daily newspaper targets multiple audiences in one single medium.

In loosing the daily paper we will loose this forum where multiple groups can be targeted in one medium.  Each separate portion of the paper will be spread out over different areas of the web and people will have to seek out the desired content.  This is not necessarily a negative.  Only getting what you want rather than having to sort through the paper to get that one story that interests you can be more convenient.

Revolutionizing the Publishing Industry!

Many things that I have discussed recently have had a direct impact on the publishing industry.  The Amazon Kindle is one such technology.  The Kindle is forcing publishers to compete with the convenience of the easily downloadable book.  There are thousands of books available for the Kindle and it is instant.  Purchase it, download it and read it.

Digital print on demand publishing brought publishing into e across the country.  Anyone can publish a book, about any topic, and have it printed one at a time.  When someone orders a book form a place like Lulu.com the book is printed and shipped as the order is received.  This allows the common, everyday person to publish their thoughts and ideas and distribute them to others.

These factors will force the traditional publishing markets to grow and evolve their business models to compete with these new technologies and ideas or they will be left behind.

Evolution From Print to the Web

It’s a fact.  Newspapers are disappearing.  The ease and availability of the internet makes it more and more common for people to get their news from internet sources rather than purchasing a newspaper.  People can seek out the news that is relevant to them, get multiple perspectives on the same topic and not have to sort through the paper.

This is not so good for the print aspects of the industry however it offers great potential for the move to the web.  For example the Rochester Democrat and Chonicle offers multiple different weekly news magazines, such as the Insider and ConXion, targeting specific audiences like those in there early 20’s and Hispanics.  Each of these papers has its own dedicated web site as well where people can access the information they want.

Publishing to the web rather than print has a huge impact on one specific aspect of the industry, mail costs.  A magazine published online can be delivered via e-mail rather than through the mail essentially doing away with the cost of mail.  It also saves on production costs and materials, saving paper. Online publishing offers great potential to both the reader and the publisher in terms of convinience and efficiency.

The Six Value Vectors of Media…

Professor Costs book The New Medium of Print introduces us to six value vectors of media.  These is a model used to evaluate the value of media in different directions and the value they add to those media sectors.

These vectors are as follows:

Informative:  Informative media tells the reader or observer specific information about a topic.  Newspapers are a good example of this.

Instructive:  Also know as Directive.  This type of media tells the reader or observer how to do something.  Cook books, instruction manuals and repair books are good examples of this type of media.

Persuasive:  This media is design to encourage or persuade someone to take a certain course of action.  This would be political campaign materials.

Evocative:  This type will invoke a desired emotion in the targeted audience such as poetry.

Decorative:  This is media designed to change the appearance of the environment.  Textile printing is a good example of this.

Operative:  These are designed to enable transactions or actions to occur.  Checks and credit cards are good examples of this.

We are considering whether these 6 are sufficient to cover all aspects of media or should there be more.  Right now I think this is enough.  I am going to think about it, take a look around for examples of media whose value can not be described by one or more of these vectors and see if I can convince myself otherwise.

Check back and if you have any thoughts let me know.  If you know of any media forms whose value can not be described by this model please let me know.