It can be very difficult to keep up with all of these new programs and stay on top of the game. Flash Catalyst helps you develop the best designs and smooth flowing content without trying to learn programming code. Who had time for that anyway, right?

What are others saying? Check out Flash Catalyst Facebook page.

Good interaction consist of the value that it gives your users, the ease of use and the over feeling that it gives them (smashing magazine). It is also important for marketing reasons. If someone can interact with your product before they buy or download a trial software program for 30 days or check out the information on a website, they better the outcome will be for the business. With increasing businesses creating similar products and services, it is important for people to see how the product or service is going to work before they make any kind of purchase.

Bill Verplank describes the definition of interaction design in 3 questions. One, How do you do? How do you affect the world? Or in other words, how will your design effect the users and from there, will they share it with others? He explains the interaction design world in buttons and handles. Buttons, for example within websites, have discreet control. This meaning that you can only control them to a certain extent. Handles, speaking of tangible products, have continuous control. The second question is, how do you feel? How do you get feedback from the world? In order for people to continue to use your interactive design, you want to have communication with them in one way or another and you also want them to communicate with others and share your design. And lastly, how do you know? How do you know what the user will need in order to be able to use your design effectively the way you envision or want them to? Research is the key to this question. If you are a web designer it would be important to search out other websites that have aspects in common with your own. Also, market research is needed whether you conduct the research on your own or you find it on the web.

Interaction design on the web:

I’ve been asking this quite a bit lately. Personally, I do not care where my friends are “checking-in” – however, looking at this from business (more closely, advertising) point of view…it has AMAZING  potential.

This is not your old-school childhood foursquare game. This is a location-based application that you can use on your smartphones (aka: iPhone, android, blackberry, etc).

This is defiantly going to be a wave of the future with social media. If you want to sound sophisticated about this use the term “Lo-So” – aka LOcation based SOcial Media.

With the foursquare application you can “check-in” to locations around most cities. It is a way for friends to keep up with each other…for now. You can become the Mayor at any location if you check-in more often than any other users and you can win badges depending on how you use the app.

So what can foursquare do for your business? Great question. The opportunities could make a great impact for your company. Think of it as if you were on the other end of those check-in’s, you could see where your consumers were and invite them to come visit your business. For example – a restaurant could present its potential customer with a coupon for a free dessert with purchase of an entrée. Or an electronics store could present their potential customer with 10% off purchase’s made at that location in the next 20 minutes.

Just sit back now and image how well this could work out for your business. Pretty amazing, huh? GET INVOLVED NOW!

What do you know about “lo-so” apps? Send me links! Connect with me! Comment. Thanks!

My goal today was to send out quite a few emails directly to some advertising agencies in a few locations around the world (US, Australia, and the UK). I also posted a couple of discussion questions on linkedin. Within minutes of sending these emails and posting on linkedin I was receiving all kinds of helpful messages! As a student this has been very beneficial in my understanding of what companies expect in the real world.

It also shows how powerful of a tool the world wide web can be for students and anyone for that matter these days. Not only that but the devices we use to generate these communication tactics is very exciting (right now I’m on my iPhone), not only as a user but for the advertising field as a whole.

Next week I will be posting a paper on my blogsite of the information I have collected from the questions I have asked.

A BIG thanks to all that helped inform me!!!! It means so much.

Here are the questions I asked…

It is honestly a hard question to answer. Blogging although not brand-new is still working its way into the journalism industry. I think that because of Marks background he should be classified as a journalist and a journalist-blogger. If Mark has written for PBS, even if it was just blogs, the company saw a reason as to why his work should be published. I feel like that is a journalist-blogger (in my own opinion). He also mentions that he has been published in many other formats and I perceive that as being a journalist.

It depends on what you are trying to accomplish. For example, my blog (as of right now) is for school assignments, but if I were trying to write well enough and do enough in-depth research about a topic I might consider myself as a journalist-blogger even if I have not been published. But my goal right now is to blog, not to be published doing it.

If I were Mark trying to get a press pass, I would be insulted if I could not be apart of that if I were going to publish the work for PBS and I think that PBS should back him on this. Obviously they do not just give our passes or anyone could go, but it shows credibility because the blog was for PBS. That is one reason I would be upset if someone viewed a blogger as a non-journalist (who works for PBS) would not accept my professional opinion blog as journalistic work.

I think a lot of first reactions to this is jaw-dropping because it is something the world has never seen before, but because the world is as fast paced as it has become they have to move along quickly to keep up-to-date. I believe that news will stay a part of televisionfor years to come. But, I also believe that in the years to come that the Internet and television technologies will merge together and your T.V. shows will come from the computer to your screen.

In 10 to 15 years there might not be newspapers, magazines, books, etc. Instead there will be devices that are all-in-one machines such as iPhones that will have all your technologies together. I bet that in 10 to 15 years that all students will be turning their homework in through email, taking their tests online, and maybe even most of their lecture classes will be interactive only via the World Wide Web. Who knows what is going to happen in the next 10 to 15 years? Think back ten years from today (it was 1999) – compared to what the Internet is today; it was slow, dial-up, harder to get information, there was no facebook, myspce or Twitter. As for devices, there was no iPhone or even iPod for that matter, no Internet on your phone. Most phones (maybe none) where not color screen. Technologies that have developed over the past ten years could be talked about for weeks.

As for news in technology, that may be the only place for it in the near future.

In recent months I have come to understand the importance of creating this personal brand. I have started putting a few things together and I am quite intrigued with my own ideas, now it is time to execute. I am going to be working on my brand for the next several weeks and maybe then you will understand what I am trying to create. In the mean time, if you have questions or comments, feel free to express yourself.

“My (R)ed” is part of my personal brand. In WKU’s advertising world students like me are being encouraged to “brand” themselves. Personal branding (from wku fusion) includes 6 steps which are shown in the video below.

I feel proud to say that my school, Western KY University, has provided us the history and know-how in print, but strives to keep the classes up-to-date so that we have an accurate perception of what the workforce will entail. We have some great professors that are just as interested in the new trends in digital media as we are. We are going to school to learn things we will be using in our future careers. I think it is kind of sad that such a well known school such as NYU has not provided such up-to-date course selection as mine has.