Dragon*Cant: Cover Art Panel – How to visually represent your audio project

Posted on September 7, 2012 by Nuchtchas

September 2nd, 2012 I held a panel (Google Hangout) in conjunction with Dragon*Cant, How to visually represent your audio project. Below is the full video with the tutorial and discussion, in addition to the dos and don’ts you will be able to see a demonstration of Photoshop and GIMP, two of the most popular image editing programs out there. One is free (GIMP) and anyone can use it, and one costs butt loads of money and needs a lot of skill to learn. In the video I also cover some other image editing choices.

For the TL;DR crowd:

Do’s:

Include your brand.
Show name, episode title, and episode number.
Make sure to post your album art in both the mp3 file AND in your blog post so facebook and google plus will generate an image preview to the episode link.
Make two sizes of your art, 1400×1400 for iTunes and smaller for your webpage.
Make your art square.
Have you art relevant to the topic of the episode.
Ask for help.
Use the same image style and brand on your website, your facebook page/group, your G+ profile, twitter account, and all other forms of social media.

Don’ts

use bizarre color combinations
get in over your head (if you have little knowledge with image editing, don’t buy photoshop, start simple)
ignore cover art
ignore social media sites, you need to get your podcast in people’s faces, that starts with the cover art that links to the website.

Do you have tips or suggestions to add to this? Please leave it in the comments, thank you.

Ranting on the internet works… really?

Posted on February 3, 2012 by Nuchtchas

“It comes in threes”

In an apathetic world like today it’s easy to feel defeated and without hope. I know I do, often, ever since NDAA passed I had lost my faith in the “people.” Then something great happened, first, GoDaddy backed the SOPA bill, then the internet found out and the boycott started. It didn’t take long and GoDaddy reversed their position, of course that doesn’t take back any testimony, but it was a big hit to the pro-SOPA community, they saw, with our dollars how not listening to their customers could hurt their business.

Next, there was the Internet Blackout Day, Wikipedia, many blogs and other sites on the internet went dark, even Google had a doodle showing their distaste for both SOPA and PIPA. Many Senator and Congressmen’s websites went down that day, not by choice but from the flood of traffic from people who followed links on blacked out websites looking to contact their local politicians to make sure they knew their voters were against this. The next day we found out that both SOPA and PIPA were shelved.

The other night I learned from Planned Parenthood that the Susan B. Komen Foundation had decided to cut their funding for breast cancer screening because PP overs abortions. This was an outrage and something close to my heart, along with other men and women on the internet I shared my links and voiced my complaints on twitter, facebook and google plus. This morning I woke up to find that SBK has reversed their decision.

That’s right people, the internet has been heard. Now while I often shy away from talking politics on social media (never talk politics or religion right?) I am starting to think that’s not a good idea. When it comes time to make a change, we need to be more vocal. Just think what would have happened if we has all gotten upset over NDAA? Would it have passed? I think not. I think seeing these three examples is enough to show people that apathy is not the way, that we can make a difference if we rant loud enough. We have the money, we have the voice, we have the power. Don’t think you can’t win, don’t think your one voice won’t change the world, thanks to social media, it can.

A couple of things:

Please Donate to Planned Parenthood over Susan B. Komen, then you know the dollars will always be spent on health care
Continue to support Cancer Research and help with your favorite charities
Make sure the charities you choose are using the funds how you think they are
Let’s work to repeaL NDAA, sign the petition

Facebook goes public and will sell your soul to the devil!

Posted on February 3, 2012 by Nuchtchas

borrowed this from CBS, watch their videos

I’ve seen a few people get upset over this “NEW” information on how facebook makes money and what going public will mean for you, the facebook user.

Of course there is a defaming article on Yahoo that I’m being pointed to here. I’ll let you read the article, then come back here and see my replies.

1. Facebook is going to “sell” users for $120 each
This isn’t any different than what’s happening now. They already sell your information for ads, google does the same. Are you using gmail to read this? look to the side and tell me what ads you see? Those are personalized ads, same things you see if you just do a google search (unless you have turned off private browsing) and while on facebook those ads are supposed to be tuned to your needs, this is why I see local ads. It’s not new, it’s just that FB will make more money from it. OK. I was fine with it before, why would I not be fine with it now that they might make more?

2. Facebook users are about to become billboards
So basically if you “like” something it is going to be advertised to your friends to get them to like it too. Again, that’s already happening, it’s nothing new. I see everything my friends like, I see ads to like things my friends have liked already, not new, not unscrupulous, this is what social media is. The idea behind FB is what your friends are doing is interesting to you, it’s a peep pressure kind of thing, my friend is playing farmville? well I better play it too, oh look now it’s Castlewars, ooo look my brother likes George Takai, I better like that too. This is how FB works, how it has become the site you check every day.

3. The IPO is as much a Public Relations coup as a Share offering
so FB is going public but Zuckerberg is keeping full control, he could bequeath it to his dog… he could do that now, again, nothing is changing.

I think the big thing here is that nothing is changing but prices will go up and FB will make more money, isn’t that the american dream, to make money off of nothing. I can’t wait to see what Mark does with his millions now. Please give more of my schools grants. (While I may think I wouldn’t like Mark as a person, I like when he donates his money, much like I love it when Bill Gates donates his money, and these are grants I see and work with all the time.

Now when I look up information on facebook going public there are other points of view, CBS seems to like this move. (videos) It is amusing, the ads for these videos are for Google, Facebook’s competition.

Promos played

Credits

Contact/Feedback

Do’s:

Don’ts