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You’ve Got Mail

December 22, 2011 By 2 Comments

Email drives my day.

It’s the first thing I do in the morning…and I keep up with it all day. It’s my daytimer, my reminders, my to-do list, my address book, and my calendar.  I curry it, preen it, harvest it, and cull it’s ranks constantly.

Oh, I keep to-do lists, a calendar, and a long- and short-range goal notebook too, but email is at the heart of it. I use Comf5 mostly, Gmail, and Outlook occasionally.

I have my most of my social networks send me email notices and even smartphone notifications when anything happens on those platforms.  That way, if something gets deleted on those  media, I still have an email copy.

Like ISDN, many and vociferous are the voices claiming email will go away.  My college-age daughter says when she wants to get in touch with old people, she sends email.  Otherwise, it’s FaceBook for her.  As far as I’m concerned, she’s missing out.

My POINT is…don’t ignore your email.  Sure, there’s plenty of spam, and lots of fluff…but pay attention…there are valuable nuggets buried therein!

In the last week, I’ve gotten pertinent updates on changes to FaceBook, SlideShare, Source-Connect, CamTasia, and several other software and online products I use, and all those notices came through email.

I’ve also gotten — just this week — three unsolicited offers for work from people I’ve never heard of before, and who chose to make initial contact with me through email.

I handle official documents, contracts, invoices, W-9′s, Non-Disclosure Agreements, scripts, and endless negotiations through email.  For that reason, I keep handy .pdf/.doc conversion software, and bring a portable hand-scanner with me wherever I go.

I use my smartphone as a scanner as well, and tie all my connections into DropBox, SugarSync, Box.net,  SpringPad, or Evernote.  ALL of those accesible to send and receive through email addresses.  I can even post to my Voice-Over Friends FaceBook Group with email.  You can too…the address is listed at the top of the page. It’s: [email protected]

There’s more:  I can post to my Posterous, Tumblr, this Blog, and Twitter through email.

It goes on and on and on!

Are you doing all this?  Am I missing something that works for you?

CourVO

Filed Under: Business-end-of-things, Networking, Web Resources, Web/Tech Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Scoop.it

May 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment

This may be blog-suicide, but I’ve always set out to provide on my blog the best VO info I can find, and I consider this to be a hot development on the web.

At Scoop.it, you can great your own aggregator of niche news stories.  Topical aggregation sites are plentiful on the web, but nothing done before ever this easily, never this customizable, and never this fun to read.

ANYONE, and I mean ANYONE can create (or “curate” as Scoop.it claims) their own online “newspaper” according to keywords, and selective publishing.  When you first go to the site, you have to apply for an invitation.  Approval usually takes less than 24 hours.  The process of first-time configuration is brainless…incredibly intuitive, fun, and revealing.  The toughest part is choosing key-words.  The program does all the work of fanning out across the web and creating your publication…all that’s left for you to do is select which articles you want to include, and which to discard.  You can easily choose the order and placement of your articles, by dragging and dropping.

So why might this be blog suicide?  ‘Cause for every Voice Over Scoop.it page already designed by savvy internet voice actors out there, my original blog content tends to make it on the final cut.

Would I rather have you read my content on Scoop.it or on Courvo.biz?  Hmmm… tough question?  NOT!

Then there’s the argument about the VO Scoop.it pages drawing greater traffic to my blog…esp. if the complete article doesn’t appear on the various VO Scoop.it sites… and yes, there are several.  Here’s the list I have so far, and the name of it’s “Curator”.

Sirenetta Lioni: Inside Voiceover—Cutting-edge Insights + Enlightening, Entertaining News for Voiceover Professionals

George Washington III: Voiceover and voice acting

Billy James:  VO

FM Voiceovers (Fran McClellan) : Voiceover

Dave Houston: Voice Over

Ray Saltrelli: Voice Over in Video Games

I”m curating a site, too, but it has to do with the changing face of journalism:  Journalism in the Digital Age

Check it out, and even try it out.  It’s kinda fun playing Perry White of the Daily Planet.

Want more?  Check out PressJack.com.

CourVO

Filed Under: Web Resources, Web/Tech Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Wonder Wheel

April 19, 2011 By 2 Comments

Did you know that Google just recently took Gmail out of Beta?  After years of usage by millions of people…FINALLY, it’s an official Google application.

Google, and especially Gmail has been on my radar a lot lately.  Without going into the reasons, suffice it to say that the deeper I dive, the more impressed I am.  If you were to take just an hour to peruse the full panoply of offerings from Google these days, you’d be overwhelmed in the first five minutes.  And beyond that, the 3rd-party cottage industry providing add-ons to Google programs is equally impressive.

Some of it is pretty hard to digest…or at least requires laborious study.  So let me just throw out ONE easy tidbit you probably haven’t tried:  Wonder Wheel. It’s right there under your nose, and you probably didn’t even notice it.

Go to the Google home page, and type in any word…let’s say:  voiceover (!)  Click search, and on the revealing page, look in the left column for the word “wonder wheel”.  (you may have to click “more search tools” to get there).  Click on the link Wonder Wheel, and wait a second while Google generates a graphic that looks like a wheel with spokes. Click on any of the spokes, to launch into an endless sequence of related referral phrases.

This is an active graphic display that “adjusts” according to whatever term you choose. I clicked on “voiceover work”, and got the result:  voice over agencies, voice over agents, voice over training, voice over auditions, voice over work from home, voice over scripts, and voice overs.

When I further clicked on voice over auditions, I got the Wonder Wheel result:  voice over audition tips, voice over acting auditions, voice over work, and voice over casting calls…

….and on and on and on…

The Wonder Wheel was designed as an exercise in finding better key words…and we all know that any Google search or Google Adwords or Google Adsense campaign survives or dies based on keyword searches. To read a blog that explains the Wonder Wheel in even greater detail, try the FREE MARKETING TIPS BLOG. The official Google Gmail Blog also has some great tips everyday. This same graphical concept is also available in Thesaurus form at the site:  VisualThesaurus.com.  You can try that service for free, but then there’s a subscription fee.  I use it, and it’s helped me immeasurably many times in my writing.

Filed Under: Technology, Web Resources, Web/Tech Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

EWABS Launch Success

March 21, 2011 By 1 Comment

My congratulations to Dan Lenard and Georg Whittam for successfully launching their first EWABS live show.

EWABS stands for East West Audio Body Shop.  For more on the basics of this new show, valuable links, and something about the  founders, see my blog The Ewoks of EWABS.

The guys weathered several blank-outs of the signal, but if you can look beyond some inaugural glitches, the show, the concept, the experts, and the give ‘n’ take was all above expectations…and expectations were high, so that’s saying a lot.  George surmounted considerable technical challenges to get both guys on live on U-Stream at the same time…but that’s what George does.

In typical mobile style, I began watching the show on my iPhone4 UStream app while I was out for Sunday walk, and finished-up when I got home, watching on my desktop PC.

To see a replay of the show, go to EWABS on U-Stream.

Nice going George and Dan…everyone wants to see you succeed in the future with more shows of this quality.

CourVO

 

Filed Under: Technology, Web/Tech, Webinar Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Booshaka League

March 2, 2011 By 2 Comments

One to keep a watch on.

So far, Booshaka! has been a handy tool to search trending topics on FaceBook — according to Mashable:  “…with ranking based on popularity, number of comments, and recent activity….”

All fine and good…that hasn’t exactly been FaceBooks forte’, and Booshaka made a splash last Fall in most tech-circles.  But now, things are brooding over at the Booshaka! offices.  When  you visit the Booshaka.com website, you get a simple message asking you to log into FaceBook to be on an invite list for “something bigger and bettter coming soon”.

BTW, to use Booshaka’s traditional functionality (not too shabby in it’s own right), the trends/booshaka.com site is here.

What’s the probable new Booshaka!?

Likely it’ll be a service that harnesses brand advocates for word-of-mouth marketing.  By running an analysis on pages that use Booshaka, posts, comments, shares, and likes target preferred online supporters.

As a marketing tool, you could ostensibly use Booshaka, then, to enlist teams or fans to compete for points and prizes.

Or not.  No one really knows, and that’s why I say Booshaka is one to keep a watch on.

We’re in the middle of a boom.  A boom of information sharing, community-building, and online tools the extent of which can only be imagined.  A new frontier.  I’m loadin’ up the Conestoga Wagon!

CourVO

Filed Under: Technology, Trending, Web/Tech Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Nifty SEO/Website Grader

February 18, 2011 By 5 Comments

The guy I go to when I’m stumped on the web is Brett Bumeter.  He’s responsible for convincing me I needed to step-up my blog, and then he almost single-handedly made it happen.

Then he outdoes himself by turning me on to a wonderful, simple, and free website/SEO grader for virtually any website.

WebSiteGrader.com.

Did I mention how simple it was?

Seriously, log on, type in your URL and go.  You can type in a competing website if you want, or even your email address for a full report, and the wait is less than a minute for your complete analysis.

They’ll offer your grade out of a-hundred (this blog got – ahem – a 91), then proceed to tell you a wealth of other information, meta-tags, links, social-media connections, readability level, heading and image summaries, domain info, MOZ ranking, SEO anaylsis…and on and on and on.

This will seriously take a minute to generate, and five minutes to read.  SIX minutes to a better website.

‘Can’t do better than that!

Thanks, Brett!!

CourVO

Filed Under: Marketing, Web Resources, Web/Tech Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Important WordPress Update

December 29, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Matt Mullenweg of  WordPress on Dec 29th says: “…I would rate this release as “critical.” (for security reasons).

Update from your Dashboard, clicking “Updates”, or see the info on Upgrade 3.0.4 their WordPress Website.

CourVO

Filed Under: Web/Tech Tagged With: , , , ,

Gist for Gmail

December 17, 2010 By 1 Comment

There must’ve been a time when I used email without Gist…but now I can’t fathom it.

Even better, now Gist is available for Gmail…great combo!  (It also works stand-alone from the gist.com homepage, and with MS Outlook).

I’ve blogged about Gist before.

Gist works alongside your email and gives you instantaneous  news, social profiles and automatic updates for all of your contacts.

If you consider it an important plus to know all you can about a VO prospect, client, peer, new contact, or if you’re just nosy…Gist is a must.

Get the Gist extension for Google Chrome or Flock.

Get the Gist plug-in for FireFox.

Gist for Outlook.

Gist also works with iPhone.

You’ll come to think of it as essential equipment, believe me.

CourVO

Filed Under: Social/Professional Networking, Web/Tech Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Easiest File Sharing Evar

December 3, 2010 By 1 Comment

This is unbelievably simple simple simple.  ’Makes Google’s home page look cluttered.  Quick.  Reliable. Free.

GE.TT

Seriously. type:  GE.TT  in your browser’s URL, sign-up in seconds, and start sharing files instantaneously.

When you hit the “create share” button, it launches your Windows Explorer, you choose a file, it uploads and creates an abbreviated URL for you.  You then copy the URL and send it to anyone…they paste it into their browser, and find your file!  Like I said, simple, quick.

Put this in your online toolkit.  Definitely.

CourVO

Filed Under: Web/Tech

LinkedIn Signal

December 3, 2010 By Leave a Comment

After the Social Media presentation at VOICE2010 this last June, I was surprised to find out how many voice actors told me they subscribed to LinkedIn, but had no idea the power they held in their hands.

As an update, you may want to now consider one of LinkedIn’s newest experiments, called LinkedIn Signal.  LinkedIn rolled out the new functionality at the end of September, and the beginning of October with limited subscribers using a beta version.  Now, though, just about anyone can get on.

Dubbed “TwinkedIn” by some pundits, Signal is LinkedIn’s attempt to make sense of the considerable info stream generated by Twitter and FaceBook.  Signal does this in a very “LinkedIn” way.  For instance, playing on LinkedIn’s strong suit, you can configure a search for keywords, topics, or people across the stream.

Anyone with a LinkedIn account can get to Signal by using this URL:  http://www.linkedin.com/signal.  That’s the Private Beta page.  Click on the “sign in with LinkedIn” button at the top, enter your sign-on, and you’re there!

This is a fun interface to try new things…play with the search configurations…watch the stream.

Tools.

These are tools, people.  Use ‘em if they work for ya.  Forget ‘em if they turn into a non-productive time-suck.

All I know is, the proper use of LinkedIn’s search tools WILL lead to VO work.

CourVO

Filed Under: Web Resources, Web/Tech Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,
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