There are a ton of great designers out there. Some design with precise functionality in mind, some design for pure asthetics-great ones design with both.The list below are people I have admired for their simple, yet eye-catching creations.

4. James Dempsey-TheGraphicMac.com

I stumbled across James’ Design Portfolio and loved both his material for Print as well as his clean look and style for web. Nice touch!

3. Anthony Piraino-OneButtonMouse.com

I met Anthony in Greensboro, about a year ago for the ConvergeSouth conference. His designs are a good balance between sketch and polished art. I have been really impressed with alot of the work he has done at iconfactory.

2. Jon Hicks- HicksDesign.co.uk

I have always been impressed by the work of both Jon and Leigh Hicks. I noticed Jon’s sharp, crisp and clean design from his great branding of the Firefox browser.

1. Adam Betts- ArtofAdamBetts.com

I first discovered Adam Betts designs back while studying in college. I love the great stuff he has done on Mac Icons as well as the MacHeist.com

Since I am on the convergence of all thing Social Media, Marketing and PR- I figured I would do a quick review on the new aggregated feed app, M.insight, brought to you by MWW. Overall, I think it is a good little app to hold feeds from some of the outstanding content contributors online. Have you downloaded it yet? What are your thoughts?

Wakey wakey… It is time to arise from the hibernation, the sheets pulled over your eyes, and anything else that is shielding you from the truth about business models.  In the past five years,  it seems like some entrepreneurs have this notion that giving away their products or services will attract a large user base, thus creating great opportunities to some how bring in the cash through advertising and the upselling. A venture capitalist and advocate of this model, Fred Wilson coined this concept:

“Give your service away for free, possibly ad supported but maybe not, acquire a lot of customers very efficiently through word of mouth, referral networks, organic search marketing, etc., then offer premium priced value added services or an enhanced version of your service to your customer base.” (source)

Has this worked in the past? No doubt. I use the popular photo hosting site, Flickr, to host all my photos online. It is great and I definitely was a sucker for the upcharge. Flickr, which is now owned by Yahoo, had a great entrance to the market; creating a simple and effective way to manage your photos online…which very few competitors could match.

But is the freemium model for everyone? I don’t think so and here is why:

• More users= more features= more labor. Most start-ups that use the freemium model just do not have the proper cash flow to support consumer wants or needs, and never have the human capital to scale to a point of expected return.

• Cost of non-paying customers vs. Premium customers. It is very hard to anticipate your customer base and how healthy your customer acquisition costs will be, when you open your doors. So many freemium models fail because they have a bunch of folks sit down for the 90-minute time share presentation, but few folks actually go for the buy in.

• The gold is not in advertising! While advertising can be extremely lucrative for some businesses, for freemium’s it is not. Those who have disposable income and would want your service, are not going to click on your advertisements to go find it. Those that want your free services, will… thus making the point that your audience is too cheap to actually buy your services through advertising.

• Freemium works for the short-term, not the long-term. While some companies like Linkedin, have managed to get by with a long standing freemium model, for the rest of us- it is not very likely.  It works great for turning heads, but not so much for paying back the bank or creating a long-standing, sustainable business.

I welcome your comments and opinions below. Thanks for reading!

Hello Loyal friends!

Just wanted to make a quick post on a news segment that both David Parsons and I took part in this past week for Fox8 News- Greensboro, Winston Salem, High Point. Big props to Chris Weaver for coming all the way out to Durham to spotlight us and get some sexy shots with the car. Here is the video!

Last week I enjoyed an awesome show by Jukebox the Ghost; A piano rock trio based half out of Philly and half out of DC (who knows) at Cat’s Cradle in Carrboro, NC.  I took some video of some of my favorite songs and try to capture how awesome they are live. If you are ever near one of their shows, I would suggest getting out and enjoying the tunes!

(Sorry for the weak audio quality. I was in front of their main power monitor. Oh well…Rock it!)

Jukebox the Ghost- Live @ Cat’s Cradle, Chapel Hill, NC from Taylor Barr on Vimeo.

The “SayWhat?!” App is $1.99 and is a great app to get a laugh out of co-workers and friends. Let me know what you guys think about blog topics- perhaps it is something you have wanted to know about Technology, Social Media, PR but don’t know where to go to find resources. I am willing to research and present!

Also, good debatable posts are great- like the last one on multi- public and private Twitter accounts!

In the past few weeks I have had several friends that have social networking profiles ( Twitter, Facebook, etc.) privatize their accounts. In specific, friends on Twitter.  Once more, people are opening additional private accounts which I call the ” Jekyll and Hyde” move of personal branding.

On Twitter, every Twitter update that you supply is ultimately public unless you choose to make it private (direct message) or make your whole profile private. The Jekyll and Hyde move is when someone starts a public account on Twitter. After a few months they decide to open a SEPARATE account and make it private ( Thus keeping personal information away from their professional contacts they might have on their public network).

My one question is: Why?!?? If you are not comfortable to post to the public domain and meet new people, why are you on Twitter? Also, creating a private account after opening a public account (and having multiple accounts) is creating separate groups and tribes that goes against, what I believe, Twitter is all about.

Lastly,  I believe people who have two accounts, one private and public, are hiding something and it is affecting their brand identity online.  I completely understand the need for privacy, but let’s do a little thinking before you press the enter button on your updates and it will eliminate the need for multiple accounts!

What do you think? Why do you think people have multiple Twitter accounts? Please leave some stellar comments good or bad, I want to know what you think!

Here ye, Here ye… I have not posted on my personal blog forever! Alas, I catch my readers up with what has been going on in the past few weeks…

In case you have been living under a rock or don’t talk to me on a regular basis (whether online or off), Both David Parsons and I (@Dparsons22 on twitter) have been pushing really hard to win a 2010 Ford Fiesta for 6 months as Ford’s new campaign to bring the car to the U.S. After tons of video tapping and “PR-ing” the thing to death, we won! Here is our entry video:

So here is the skinny: We get the car for 6 months to blog about, video tape, take pictures with and plan some pretty sweet road trips. All we have to do for Ford is provide them with some video footage for marketing and PR collateral for the coming year. Pretty sweet huh? Also, we can say whatever we want about it- good and bad!

If you would like to keep up with your crazy antics– check out all the channels that we are posting to over the period of time we have the vehicle-Here . Hey Mom, Look I am on the Ford site!

So one day I got this crazy idea to go to Canada… and I would have to say it was definitely worth it.  I decided to  venture to Podcamp Toronto to meet a few friends that I only knew from online conversations ( weird, huh?) and also dive into this new type of “unconference.”

More then anything, this was a conference that I could relax and enjoy- unlike other ones where I am constantly live blogging, writing up news releases, or shooting mad video. I took the liberty of not presenting and just sat back in the crowd to hear what others had to say.

the highlight of the trip was hanging out with my lovely Seesmic folks- @ilovecpstyle @tapps @wankergirl @kkryski and @gisuck . It was rad to meet all of you! We came up with #napcamp which was a term we used for immediate crashing after the conference: Here is a random video montage from the trip about it:

Podcamp Toronto! from Taylor Barr on Vimeo.

I look forward to meeting other online connections and enjoying the travel and expereriencing new places! Thanks for all your support and friendship.

Cheers,

Taylor

Hey People! So recently, David Parsons and I found out about a new brewery. It’s called, The LoneRider Brewery and is located only 3 miles from our house! I had a brief chat with Sumit Vohra, the CEO of this fine establishment, and he explained how they have only been up and running for about 2 months and have already received great compliments from the community.

Overall- the beer was excellent. they have two styles: “Shotgun Betty” a smooth Hefeweizen as well as “Deadeye Jack” a Chocolate-y but not over powering Porter. I think this AWESOME video (shot by me and masterfully edited by the one and only, David. This was done all on my Flipcam HD. )  shows its glory:

LoneRider Brewery Tour- Raleigh, NC from Taylor Barr on Vimeo.

Check out more information at LoneRider Brewery: Ales for Outlaws