How stunning is this?

Custom Camera Rig Allows For a Stunning Vertical Panorama of a Giant Redwood [Nature]

Wildlife photographer Michael Nichols wanted to photograph a 300-foot-tall redwood in a dense forest with no clear lines of sight. So he built a custom camera rig to take tons of close-ups to stitch together.

The result is a stunning composite of 83 different shots of this incredible tree. Look for a huge foldout of the image in the October issue of National Geographic, and here’s a video of Nichols talking about the process of capturing the image.

[YouTube Video] [NPR via Hack-a-Day via Make]

 

 

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9 Successful Techniques for Making Money from Podcasting

David Spark (@dspark) is the founder of Spark Media Solutions, specialists in building industry voice through storytelling and social media. He blogs at Spark Minute and is a regular on Cranky Geeks and ABC Radio.

 

For many, creating a podcast is something that’s done solely out of passion. But even among those who do it strictly for the love of podcasting, after awhile, once you’ve built up an audience, there comes a time when you think to yourself, “I can’t keep doing this for free.”

Such was the case with many of the people I interviewed in my 15-part series, “Making Money from Podcasting.” From a $50 donation to cover an afternoon of babysitting to a six figure sponsorship, the people I spoke to have been making anywhere from pocket change to lucrative careers from podcasting.

What follows is a compendium of nine proven money-making techniques for podcasters. All are successful to varying degrees and some podcasters use a combination of methods. This summary provides an explanation of all the techniques, and tips from the podcasters who have pulled them off. For more tips, advice, and to hear the full money making podcast story, make sure to read and listen to each the interviews linked throughout this article.

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1. Got audience? We’ll get you sponsors

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Podcast networks such as Mevio, Podtrac, and Wizzard Media welcome any podcaster that has an audience, because that means they can sell advertising against it. The networks collect shows, categorize them, and sell advertising on a CPM (cost per thousand) or CPA (cost per action) basis. Adam Curry, former MTV VJ, podcasting pioneer, and President of Mevio (interview), is looking for podcast producers that know their audience and can motivate them. Using either their show programming or social media, podcast producers promote show-specific coupon codes for their sponsors. E…

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This Insane Photo Destroyed a Camera Lens [Space]

Photographer Ben Cooper took this photo of a Delta 4-Heavy rocket launching at Cape Canaveral using a sound-activated camera. And when your camera is that close to a launch, your lens probably won’t survive.

The particular setup for this was sound activated. The lens was destroyed (worth it of course) but the camera survived this one despite being severed from its ratchet straps and thrown to the ground, and the sound device used for this one disconnected from the camera and thrown about 200 feet backwards into the pad perimeter fence (still worked!). All settings are preset manually. No one is allowed closer than several miles from a launch.

Well, that’s awesome. [Airliners.net, Thanks, Jason!]

 

 

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On Speed #30dc

Don’t Worry, I’m talking speed of business, not the drug.

As I was stirring the porridge this morning and using google reader on my iPhone (don’t try that at home kids, I’m a professional!) I read an item from John Gruber about a magazine created full of photo’s about last weeks crazy dust storms here in Australia.

It went from concept to sale in two days.

Uploaded with plasq’s Skitch!

 

Here is the story on how it was done

 

Wow.

Many of you know I have a horrible view of magazine publishing ( I love magazines but a couple of decades ago I was almost made bankrupt in a good intentioned but horribly naive attempt at creating a magazine – turns out I was just 20 years to early!)

How do you create a SMALL fortune?
Start with A LARGE fortune and start a magazine. It will become a small fortune in short order!
BOOM BOOM (Basil Brush reference for the Commonwealth readers!)

Here’s the problem.

I LOVE MAGAZINES!

Seriously, If magazines didn’t exist I’d probably be working at EB games selling the latest Mario Ware on the Wii.

I grew up in Beechworth, Victoria. It’s a small town (population sub 3000). I had the extraordinary luck to live in a town that had an incredible newsagent (think Magazine stand for my American friends) – when I look back it was an incredible fluke – the shop was my lifeline to the world. The Internet was still and academic oddity and would be for another 12 years at that point.

I was able to read about a world of the Sinclair zx80, Tandy TRS 80’s, The Unobtainable and only for super rich kids Atari 400 and be still my beating heart – the Commodore Vic 20.

Now I’m reading this I realised another extraordinary fluke. I had the one part time job in town – delivering medicine after school, which gave me the cash for the magazines (I was living in a trailer park), the other piece of luck was,
Gwyn Morris – the local chemist and my boss – inexpl…

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Sell like you buy

Here are the two most common pleas I hear from marketers,

“Our product is as remarkable as we can make it, and we’re trying really hard and it’s very important to us that people buy it, but despite our hard work, it’s not selling!” (Hint: calling it a purple cow doesn’t make it one).

and

“Our business is built around the status quo, and it’s not fair that the market wants something else now.”

In both cases, the marketing pitch is focused around the seller, not the buyer. You wouldn’t (and don’t) buy from someone who says you ought to choose them even though there’s a cooler, more remarkable, cheaper, better product. You don’t seek out or talk about status quo brands merely because the marketer is trying really hard.

If it’s not good enough for you as a consumer, why should it be good enough for you as a marketer?

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