Kodak Gallery just lost my business

A few years ago, I joined Ofoto to host my photos and sell them to my friends and family. Then Ofoto was bought by Kodak and renamed Kodak Gallery. No big deal, they offered the same service. I loaded hundred of photos each year and my friends would order multiple copies. I gave Kodak a ton of purchases.

Then I received an email notification that Kodak Gallery will now be charging a yearly fee to host my images. This is similar to the servide offerd byt Flickr and SmugMug. Yet, Kodak Gallery doesn’t caompare to either of those. The kicker is that if I do give them money, my photos will be deleted in less than 2 months. WOW, surprised, it doesn’t make me want to give them $20.

It’s the not the money, this is an example of a REALLY BAD MOVE by a strong brand. First of all I will remove my photos and move them to SMUGMUG (where I pay a fee per year), but I get a large commission of each of my photos sold. I even pay Flickr too. I shoot a lot. But a better suggestion for KODAK Gallery would be to grandfather in the previous members, since we joined when there was a yearly fee - the exact reason I used them. If I received a more positive email, I would to be happy a Kodak customer, but I am not.

This will also me me think twice about their brand. I buy a lot of photography equipment, but I may not buy Kodak again. Or next time a friend asks me what camera to buy I probably wont suggest Kodak. Did you know Kodak did this? Even in these down economic times, Kodak could have done a better job here…

First Attempt at Studio Photography

In the last few months, I started doing photography again. I never really stopped taking pictures but with work taking over my life the last few years, I wasn’t doing anything “creative” that I was proud of. So my main goal for 2009 is to get back to drawing, painting and creative photography… things I enjoy, away from the computer.

So I decided to learn more about all aspects of photography. Like manually controlling how I want my pictures to look in the camera, versus manipulating them in Photoshop. Also seeing how to lighting better and capture interesting subjects. Here is a display of some studio photography that I recently did. I didn’t set up the lighting, but I did learn a lot about shooting in a studio. I used a Canon 50d. Please let me know what you think and if you are on Flickr, please add me as a contact: http://www.flickr.com/people/alexharris/

Barack Obama Wins President Elect

I had my doubts that he could pull it off, but I very happy for the new President Elect Barack Obama. This truly historical event makes me proud to be an American. During the news media coverage of the election, I experienced many different types of content and technologies that I wanted to document. What did you experience?

CNN Now Has Holograms

So… I assume the host is just talking to the air and pretending the other person is there? Photo from Alex Hillman

Endless news coverage Here is a collection of news websites that covered the election of Barack Obama. This collection from Jeff Junatas can be seen at this website.

Twitter Election Success Of course there is Twitter, which not only provided the quickest updates about the election but the SMS updates from the news sites had latest breaking commentary long before TV, web or radio. Plus Twitter did not fail and go down.

Updated: 11/5

Election maps from Jason Kottke - kottke.org

Jason Kottke summarizes here: “Most media outlets covering the 2008 US Presidential Election used the familiar red/blue map to track the progress of the race as results from the polls rolled in Tuesday evening. Here are several of those maps, in some ways as similar to each other as they are varied.” View them all

What else am I missing?

I will add more as I collect them. What cool technologies or content did you experience during the 2008 Presidential Election?

Good times at Web 2.0 Expo NY with videos

It was awesome to get back to New York City for a long week. I was in town attending the Web 2.0 Expo NY at the Javits Center. Janetti Chon and the TechWeb / O’Reilly Media teams put on a great event. I was very impressed by the speakers and overall size of the conference.

My favorite part was the Web2Open unconference which was set up in the middle of the expo floor. Some of the highlights include “Starting Up In Silicon Alley” hosted by Nate Westheimer and the one-on-one Q&A with David Heinemeier Hansson from 37 Signals. Plus, it is always great to meet new internet friends, like Andrew Hyde, Sam Lessin and Robert Sandie.

View some Web 2.0 Expo NY Videos

Wine 2.0 with Gary Vaynerchuk	Jim Louderback, Revision3 CEO
Gary Vaynerchuk Live WinelibraryTV	Ricky Van Veen, CollegeHumor
Building Community Panel	John Resig, JQuery
Web 2 Open NY	Michael Lazerow, Buddy Media
Kevin Ryan, AlleyCorp	Tech Karaoke NY New York
David Rose, New York Angels	Techset NY Party New York

Were you at the conference?

Say what’s up, post a comment below:

Social Media Camp - Miami w/ Erica Ogrady

On August 2, Social Media Camp came to Miami, Florida. This event was hosted by Erica Ogrady at the Wolfsonian - Florida International University on Miami Beach.

What is Social Media Camp?
Social Media Camp brings together the brightest minds in Social Media with people interested in learning more about the power of Community Based Marketing. The event follows the BarCamp / unconference format.

Did you attend the event? What did you think?

Post a comment. Initially I didn’t have huge expectations for the event, since it was on Saturday and the beach is preferred in Miami over tech events. I enjoyed myself, met a lot of new people but some of the presentations were a lame and a little too self promotion. Here is a video clip of one of great presentations from the day. The host Erica giving an overview about Social Media. Overall, she put together a great event…

Awesome story of my lost artwork

This is an awesome story of how my artwork was found on the side of the road during college around 1997, then sent to me 11 years later. With the power of the internet here is a note I received on my Flickr account:

You do not know me but I think you must have spent some time in Tallahassee. I went to FSU. To make a long story short, one night I was driving home and almost ran something over. I stopped the car, got out and found a large book. On the top of the book it said Alex Harris. When I opened the book it said Alex Harris ORIGINALS. There were about 30 pieces of bad ass talented art work in that book. Some of the pieces of art work are currently on the web. I just decided to google your name after unpacking a bunch of old boxes in my attic. There was no contact phone number to call so I decided to keep it. Contact me at XXX@XXX.com

How cool is that!

He eventually went through my site and landed on my Flickr profile. Confirmed the artwork was mine and sent me the note. Turns out the artwork are prints of my original pieces. The book was used as a catalog when I sold artwork at the student union on FSU campus. Has anything like this happened to you? Take a look at some of the artwork that was found…

Creative Day - Fun times, inspiration and more motivation!

This past weekend was Creative Day at my house. Really, it was my birthday party, but it was also a way to get together with my friends and have an art party. This is something we did a lot in college (10 years ago - wow) and now my excuse is - I really don’t have a lot of time to work on traditional art projects.

Overall we had a really great day. I attempted to set up a live web stream but it didn’t work out because my wireless wouldn’t reach far enough - sorry to those who were expecting to watch us. Yet, many came out to paint, draw, take pictures, shoot videos or just hang out.

Aside from the party, part of setting this up was important to me for many reasons. 1) It forced me to organize my art supplies so I can set up my art studio 2) Provided instant inspiration to get more involved mixing art with new media 3) I was able to document my talented friends and we encouraged each other to be doing this a lot more.

Have you ever been to an art party?

Let me know, I would hear ideas from other events in your city. There were a lot of photography going on as well. Here are some videos I shot during the day. For the HD versions visit my vimeo page.

Ryan Droze - @droze

Jimmy Allen - @stinkyfatpig

Is Google Friend Connect a Game Changer?

How will Google Friend Connect change blogs, social networks and relationships across the web?
Take a look at the video and post a comment on what you think.

Have you seen a site in action?

Let me know, I would love to see this live on a site and view how it works.

Video has changed everything: design + marketing + future

There were two challenges for me to start doing my own video. One, I have no time. So it is really tough to fit anything into my schedule, especially editing and learning new programs/formats. The second reason is I know I am terrible in front of the camera and a really bad presenter.

Now after 2 months of experimentation, video has really changed everything for me. For example, almost twice a week someone NEW mentions seeing one of my videos. These online relationships are now more valuable because we have a more personal connection.

Also, I am seeing design, movies and marketing concepts a lot differently. It’s a new perspective on how to make things more beautiful and precise. In ecommerce, it is providing more credibility for websites with low brand awareness and will directly improve conversion rates. Or at least shrinks the buying sales process for new customers. Video reviews are great use for this space. Plus, creating video assets are more valuable than photos, graphs or articles. Videos have more viral opportunity so the long tail is even longer.

With each new video I complete, I take a step towards pushing my creativity and improving my career. The quality of the videos will get better along with my verbal skills. In the meantime, below is my first HD movie I put online (personal test). You can preview it below, or visit Vimeo for the full HD version.

Are you doing video?

Let me know - I would love to share thoughts on editing, concepts or collaborations.

Owen In Florida from alex harris on Vimeo.

If you were 14 years old, what would inspire you?

My girlfriend’s nephew, Mike, is 14 years old and really passionate. Last week I saw his fashion designs (below) and told him he should start a blog, then ask people to review them. 2 days later, he put a site online all by himself. I motivated him and now I am asking you to inspire him. If you were 14 years old again (not even in high school yet), what advice would you want to hear?
Please comment on Mike’s web site “My Designs“. Thanks in advance!