Tacoma Musical Playhouse Looking Good Backstage as Well

The reviews are in for this Summers show at the TMP and they are awash with praise over Beauty and the Beast. The actors, costumes, sets and direction are all heaped with praise. But adjacent to the small, crowded lobby of the theater, where patrons have squeezed through to watch humans become animated inanimate objects, something else is transforming as well.


In just a short while, hopefully by the Fall show, that cramped lobby and small concession area will grow to several times its size. The lines will shorten during intermission as the restrooms will contain four times over the number of stalls. And for someone like myself, who occasionally has the honor of walking out onto the stage, there will be larger dressing rooms and a green room for the cast and musicians.


Congratulations to Artistic Director John Douglas-Rake and Musical Director Jeffrey Stvrtecky for not just the great Summer show in Beauty, but for the magical transformation that has been going on for 13 seasons at the Narrows Theater and will continue the years.


Reviews of Beauty and the Beast:
Tacoma News Tribune TMP presents its ‘Beast’ with beauty
Tacoma Weekly Fairy tale enchants audience
Weekly Volcano ‘Beast’ is a feast

It's Not How Much You Read, It Is How Long You Look

So we have a new method for determining how we compare web sites to each other from one of the most influential measurers of web traffic. Nielsen NetRatings said Tuesday that it has added both "total minutes" and "total sessions" metrics to its NetView syndicated Internet audience measurement service.

Their rationale is that a Web page visitor who spends 20 minutes watching a YouTube video isn't the equivalent of a Web page visitor who spends 10 seconds glancing at a news article, at least as far as advertisers and publishers are concerned.

But they are entering interesting territory as there are beginning to measure apples against oranges. There is a reason that the Audit Bureau of Circulations owns the newspaper metric market and that Arbitron owns radio. They are inherently different in how people consume the news and entertainment and therefore the advertising systems and relationships are different.

But my favorite quote comes from the director of product marketing.

'Total Minutes' is the best engagement metric in this initial stage of Web 2.0 development, not only because it ensures fair measurement of Web sites using RIA [rich Internet applications] and streaming media, but also of Web environments that have never been well-served by the page view, such as online gaming and Internet applications," said Scott Ross, director of product marketing for Nielsen NetView, in a statement. 'Total minutes is the most accurate gauge to compare between two sites. If [Web] 1.0 is full page refreshes for content, Web 2.0 is, "How do I minimize page views and deliver content more seamlessly?'

It amuses me because of the Web 2.0 reference. That moniker continues to mean different things to different people, depending on how they want to use it. I guess here we have to score one for marketing over technology definitions.

In a nutshell, tracking the time spent by users on a Web site may be an alternate way to measure engagement than tracking page views but that doesn’t mean it is better. It is simply different. The value of that difference will be interesting to watch emerge.
Ross goes on to say,

"This is likely to affect Google's ranking because while users visit the site often, they don't usually spend much time there. 'It is not that page views are irrelevant now, but they are a less accurate gauge of total site traffic and engagement.'”

Except that Google owns YouTube. In June, Nielson Netratings ranked ZoomInfo as the number one growth site on the Internet with YouTube coming in second. I would imagine that their new ranking system, with time spent on site being the number one metric, would change the rankings there in Google’s favor.

I am unsure of how many South Puget Sound sites get advertising dollar at a level that would be effected by this, but here are three examples of how local sites keep the viewer engaged without a page reload.

Kevin Freitas is helping us keep cool with Click and a chilly little slideshow (with frosty music).

Exit133 continues to serve up interesting slices of Tacoma people and culture with a video from the Tacoma Museum of Art.

www.erikemery.com is featuring a video from YouTube (scroll down to it) with his entry on a David Pogue Music Video. Even though the video is streamed from another source, the viewer stays engaged on the local page.

I don’t believe anyone in the South Puget Sound gets advertising dollar in the fashion the Nielson NetRatings has reconfigured, but at least according to their thinking, we have our share of web 2.0 people.

I'm Picking Up Some Netvibrations

I was looking at some of the recent traffic on my site when I noticed that someone entered through a Netvibes feed. I checked it out and once again found something that had been around for a few years, had millions in funding, millions of users and yet I had not heard of it previously.

Man, it is hard to keep up.

Netvibes is currently touting its 500 universes and its winning a 2007 Webware award.

It is an AJAX driven personal homepage feed aggregator and I have to admit that it is pretty cool. A bit busy, but for the web addicted, it could be an extremely valuable tool.

From their own definition (or the closest thing to it):

“Welcome to Netvibes!

This is your personalized page, you can now modify everything: move modules, add new RSS/ATOM feeds, change the parameters for each module, etc. Your modifications are saved in real-time and you'll find your page when you get back on Netvibes.com. If you want to be able to access your page from any computer, you can sign in (at the top right) with your email and a password.”

But what I found most fascinating is that the site carries very little information about itself other than how to use it. I did some looking around and they made it very difficult to simply get a “who, what, when, where and why” about themselves.

A couple of things of note:

It appears to be European in origin with a great number of French users. This makes more sense when you find out that the CEO is Tariq Krim, an engineer who founded the first Web radio in Paris, came to the US, back to France as a journalist, back to the US where the digital music industry is growing then back to France to launch an MP3 site.

In Sept of 2005 he launched Netvibes.

In June of 2006 Pierre Chappaz, who landed a chunk of change from a sale of his company, Kelkoo.com, to Yahoo and who was at one time the President of Yahoo, became the Co-CEO. Pierre has quite the list of accomplishments in the tech world.

So just last month Pierre announces on his blog that he is quitting all his functions at Netvibes over differences in what the business model might be. (according to netviber.blogspot.com)

I am definitely going to keep an eye on this one.

Powering Live Earth Concert's Internet Access with the Sun

They are the hosting company that is powering the web sites for this weekend’s Live Earth concerts. They have over 15,000 customers, guarantee ninety nine point nine percent uptime and are celebrating their tenth anniversary. Not only that, but since 2001 they have been powering their data centers one hundred percent with the Sun’s energy through 120 solar panels.

They are AISO, (Affordable Internet Services Online). With their green philosophy, there commitment to energy efficiency in design as demonstrated through their solar tube lighting and green roof, AISO seems to be the perfect choice to support the Live Earth concerts. The concerts themselves have been organized to evangelize for carbon neutrality.

I even love their somewhat twisted slogan, “Web Hosting as Nature Intended”.

Recognized as one of the top 50 Green Companies by Inc. Magazine in their November 1st 2006 edition, Phil Nail, the owner of the business notes how often people question how he can run his an his wife’s company on solar power alone and without taking carbon credits. In answer to that, he installed a live webcam on the roof of the facilities so that the company could proudly display the solar array responsible for providing the energy.

Here is how they describe their data center:

“Our data center is environmentally friendly design. It is completely steel framed with no wood at all except for the door frames on the interior of the building. Our walls are over 12 inches thick and filled with insulation that has recycled content. We built our data center, network and servers from the start to use the lowest amount of energy possible using the latest green design techniques, no other hosting company can do what we do without starting from scratch. We use solar tubes to bring in natural sunlight which eliminates the use for conventional lighting during the day. Our cooling systems are water cooled which reduces the amount of electricity because of the unique setup.”

It is a great example to think about while enjoying the concerts. I wonder if Solar Richard will be watching from his solar powered home.

This picture is from a Seattle PI photo gallery.

First the Visual then the Sound

You can see the lightning strike, count in seconds, and then hear the thunder.

You see the jets streak across the sky over Tacoma's Freedom Fair, then the rumble hits you moments later.

Given we were duel babysitting last night, a delightful one year old named Carter, and two very small dogs from relatives out of town, the intent was to reverse the phenomenon last night. In other words, I would listen to the fireworks boom, screech and rattle the windows last night while trying to get to sleep, and then take a look at them this morning.

I was surprised at how few photos were available of the fireworks over Commencement Bay. I found a few from last year and the year before, with this being a beautiful montage from 2005.

But it was Kevin Freitas who came through for me this 2007 with this great collection of photos, as he did in 2006 as well.

By the way, this is not a new jellyfish from an exhibit at the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium, just one of his many photos.

Now I just need to play back the audio of dogs yelping and the neighbors disregarding any bans that may be in place and I'm there.

Blog Basics and South Sound Arts Bloggers

Quite a few of the folks who stumble across these pages already know a bit about blogging. But for those who are not as familiar and especially those who would like to give blogging a go, here is some basic information and some sample links to Tacoma artists who blog.

The current state of the blog evolved from online diaries, where people would keep a personal journal in public view. The word blog comes from the contraction of “web log”. Though initially small in number, this online form of expression has now become mainstream to a point where schools of journalism have taken note, political campaigns are active in their usage and individuals are paid to write blog entries on a contractual basis. I will save a post on the role of blogging in traditional journalism for another time.

Here is an easy to digest definition from the site I am using as my blogging engine, www.blogger.com:

A blog is a personal diary. A daily pulpit. A collaborative space. A political soapbox. A breaking-news outlet. A collection of links. Your own private thoughts. Memos to the world. Your blog is whatever you want it to be. There are millions of them, in all shapes and sizes, and there are no real rules. In simple terms, a blog is a web site, where you write stuff on an ongoing basis. New stuff shows up at the top, so your visitors can read what's new. Then they comment on it or link to it or email you. Or not.

Blogger is a free tool and it's owners extol, in a relaxed fashion, that you should publish your thoughts and engage your friends. If you want to get started it is a fine place to begin.

Elements of a blog sometimes go well beyond the entries themselves, but in general a blog will have Titles, or headlines for the postings, followed by the body of the posts, post dates for tracking when the entries were made, comments capability if the owner of the blog so chooses to include them and permalinks for the post so that they can be directly accessed. Many blogs have photos, graphics and video embedded in entries and have the capability of categorizing the posts into general areas of interest. There are many widgets, or elements which allow for specific tasks and features, which can be added to a basic blog.

In any public forum, there is the potential for misbehavior, and in answer to this Tim O’Reilly published a proposal for a Blogger’s Code of Conduct to support the idea that bloggers should enforce civility on their sites.

I wanted to include information on artists and art venues who blog to support their work. Sadly, many times I found sites where the author has a fallen into a blogcoma, (a lack of postings that stretch back months and sometimes years). Many of the South Sound blogs discuss the arts within their topics, but the following are examples where art takes the center stage.

The docents at the Museum of Glass:

This blog is a companion to our Bits of Frit Newsletter, and it’s a great way for docents to discuss interesting topics and keep in touch with what’s going on at the Museum.

The Weekly Volcano’s SPEW

Attitude with substance. That's the Weekly Volcano. We offer up a hip take on culture and music flavored by a lifelong love of the South Sound we cover. With a combination of spunky columnists, vivid profiles and sassy commentary on the culture scene that keeps the South Sound percolating, the Weekly Volcano lives as a kind of collective urban diary.

The Feed Tacoma’s Feed Tacomic by RR Anderson

This website combines the thoughtful commentary and insight of a handful of Tacomans who want to spread the good word about this great town.

South Sound Arts by Alec Clayton

Art and theater reviews covering Seattle to Olympia, Washington, with other art, literature and personal commentary.

The Tacoma News Tribunes Bring the Noise

Bring the Noise is where you'll find breaking music news, photo galleries and set lists from some of the month's hottest shows and audio clips from interviews with hot rockers, rappers and pop stars

Feel free to post others.

Version 1.0 of a Web 2.0 Discussion

I am at a small loss.

I wanted to talk about Web 2.0. I still do. My hope was to give a simple explanation of what it means, so that the people I want to converse with and share information with would have a basic starting point for those discussions. The intent of this blog, most of my writing and the courses that I teach is to provide the average individual a general understanding of the technology that is changing the way we live, work and play.

I wish it was that simple. The first mentions of Web 2.0 are from three years ago, and that was in preparation for a conference. You would think that by now it would have firmed up into a more manageable definition. Unfortunately it has not. Since then it appears to have formed into two philosophical camps between technology authorities of unquestionable standards and experience, and also become an almost impenetrable marketing buzz for most new technology companies with any sort of web presence.

If you would like to dig into the detail a bit more, here are the best links to get started.

First up is O’Reilly, one of technologies definitive authorities, who have claim on coining the term itself. Here is their document from late 2005 which tells us “What is Web 2.0”. To lend my shorthand to it, and for what it is worth, Web 2.0 exists when the web is used as a platform on which groups harness their wisdom through collective intelligence and data storage.

Up next is the man himself, the father of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, who to take a chunk out of an interview last year says this…

LANINGHAM: You know, with Web 2.0, a common explanation out there is Web 1.0 was about connecting computers and making information available; and Web 2 is about connecting people and facilitating new kinds of collaboration. Is that how you see Web 2.0?

BERNERS-LEE: Totally not. Web 1.0 was all about connecting people. It was an interactive space, and I think Web 2.0 is of course a piece of jargon, nobody even knows what it means. If Web 2.0 for you is blogs and wikis, then that is people to people. But that was what the Web was supposed to be all along.

His current passion is the semantic web which he talks more of in the interview.

Internet authority and author Paul Graham gives it a go in one of his essays.

As for the marketing buzz, I can only say get used to it. That is the nature of getting peoples attention and selling product. I remember when our product version jumped from Word for Windows 2.1 to Word for Windows 6.0 and it wasn’t because it was 3.9 better. More to do with the fact that WordPerfect for Windows was in its 6.0 version.

In closing for today. Here is where I want to get started. The collaborative, social networking revolution that we are in the middle of today is the heart of the web’s next iteration. To understand more, learn of blogs, wikis and RSS to begin.