The Biz

Voices.com CEO Speaks at OIART's Entrepreneur Week

2008-06-11T13:20:32Z

As many of you know, I'm an honors graduate of OIART, the Ontario Institute of Audio Recording Technology - one of the top audio production schools in the industry.

One of the many reasons I chose to attend OIART was the high job placement rate of their graduates which results in excellent connections within the industry. Graduates are invited back to OIART as guest lecturers, and this year I was happy to speak and share my experiences as an entrepreneur.

Industry Revolution

For those unfamiliar with Voices.com, I open all lectures with the story of how Stephanie and I founded what was then Interactive Voices.

The idea was simple: What if we could build an online community that brought together freelance voice talent from around the world and provided them with job opportunities?

The challenge was significantly more difficult in that we needed to revolutionize an industry and inspire people to change their hiring habits - from the old way to the new online approach for finding voice over talent.

Building an Online Business, One Page at a Time

In those early days, we wrote all the HTML for each web page on Interactive Voices. Profiles were created, edited and updated by Stephanie or myself and voiceover demos were sent via email, then uploaded to our web server.

Even MP3 files for voice over auditions were sent by email, then we'd upload them to our server for the clients to receive. We even built a simple user-interface for the clients to listen and evaluate the voice talent that had replied to their job posting.

In short, it was far from elegant and we quickly realized that our process wouldn't scale to thousands of job opportunities as we had envisioned.

Building a Team

The first people we hired to help manage the growth was an outstanding Web Developer and System Administrator, Wesley, and a compassionate Customer Care Manager, Carol. Since then, we've rounded out our team.

Re-Branding & Making the Transition

One of most-significant changes over the past few years was the acquisition of the domain name, Voices.com and the re-branding of our company. Seeing as our customers were already familiar with us as "interactivevoices.com", moving to "voices.com" was easy for people to make the leap. Simple names work online.

The Growth of Voices.com

Since completing the move to Voices.com, the website and the community has flourished. At the same time, the industry has exploded, too. The voice-over industry is now a $10 Billion industry and with more uses of voice in audio, video and multimedia, I'm confident this growth will continue.

OIART Student's Predict a Mobile Technology Revolution

Near the end of the presentation, we discussed how social media, blogs and podcasts are changing the media landscape. I also posed the question, what's next? To my surprise that prompted a 10-15 minute discussion on how technology is becoming increasingly personalized and mobile.

I found this particularly interesting as this was the same day that Steve Jobs was giving his keynote presentation introducing the iPhone 3G.

Business Resources

To wrap up the session, we blasted through an outline of a business plan (PDF) as well as a number of websites and software tools for operating a business.

Are You an OIART Graduate?

Drop a line and let us know what you've been up to lately by leaving a comment below.

Image © OIART.org

Technorati Tags: OIART, Audio Recording School, Audio Recording Technology, David Ciccarelli, Lecture, and Voices.com.

Blogging 101 - Tips for Effective Business Blogging

2008-05-31T11:52:05Z

There has most definitely been a shift in the media landscape, from traditional media including newspaper, radio and television to online media. The most prevalent of the online media sources are blogs.

What Is a Blog?

Weblogs, web logs or simply blogs, as they are known, are easy-to-use websites (no HTML knowledge required), where you can quickly post thoughts, publish articles and interact with people. Blogs are typically accessible to any Internet user.

Blogs are Exploding

Technorati is now tracking over 50 million weblogs and about 120,000 new weblogs are being created worldwide each day. That's about 1.4 blogs created every second.

Businesses can take advantage of this powerful communications medium, starting with a few simple steps to get involved today.

How To Get Involved

Before jumping in and creating your own blog, it's strongly advised that you should explore who else is blogging in your industry.

To find a blog, visit either Google Blog Search or Technorati.

1. Discover a blog
2. Subscribe to that blog
3. Comment on articles
4. Link to your website

How To Add Comments

Once you've found a blog that covers a topic that you're interested in, it's time to participate. Comments add value to the conversation that’s already going on. They should:

๏ Be Insightful
๏ Be Validating
๏ Carry Momentum

What Can You Do With Blogs?

With some background knowledge of who is blogging and the style of writing your fellow bloggers are pursuing, let's explore how you can use blogs in your business.

With a business blog, you can:

๏ Write about new products or explain your products' features
๏ Highlight the benefits of doing business with you
๏ Send company updates
๏ Minimize customer service or technical issues by answering questions on your blog
๏ Write how-to articles
๏ Inform your customers of changes in your business

Creating Your Own Blog

By this point, you likely have plenty of ideas for using a blog in your business and are ready to start blogging today. The good news is that you can get started in as little as five minutes.

There is however, one final decision to be made. You'll need to pick between a "Hosted Blog" or "Installed Blog".

Hosted Blog

A hosted blog is offered by a third-party service that is accessible on the Internet. Online services such as Blogger, WordPress and TypePad allow you to create an account, login and start a blog. At that time, you can personalize your blog by choosing a theme. It's really that simple.

If you don't have your own website, or are looking for an easy-to-use tool, consider one of these blogging options.

๏ Blogger http://www.blogger.com
๏ WordPress http://www.wordpress.com
๏ TypePad http://www.typepad.com

Installed Blog

Installed blogs are blogging software packages that you first download to your personal computer, then install on your web server. For those who are familiar with HTML and logging into their server via FTP, an installed blog is by far the better option for a variety of reasons.

With installed blogs, you have significantly more control of the look and feel of your blog, your visitors remain on your website, and any links to your articles are links to your domain name which is a primary factor in obtaining good search engine results, also known as search engine optimization.

If you have your own domain name and a webmaster who can help install a piece of software on your server the installed blog option is your best choice.

๏ WordPress http://www.wordpress.org
๏ MovableType http://www.movabletype.org

Start Blogging

Regardless of which option you choose, you'll notice that writing a blog post is strikingly similar to writing in Microsoft Word or any other text editor. Each blog post includes:

๏ Post Title
๏ Body text
๏ Time and date stamp
๏ Tags or labels used to organize similar posts

Claim Your Blog at Technorati

After you've published your first blog post, you can claim your blog at Technorati. When you first sign-up at Technorati check the "I have a blog and would like to claim it now." check box.

The process is really quite simple and it's worth taking a few moments to get this set-up.

๏ Claim Your Blog on Technorati

Blog Consistently by Sticking to a Schedule

One of the questions that comes up at speaking engagements is "how often should I blog?" which varies and depends on how much you have to say.

To not overwhelm yourself, aim for publishing one post each week. If you get ideas in between posts, perhaps start a new draft. Before you know it, you'll have a number of draft posts lined up which are excellent reserves for those dry periods when you're stuck for something to publish.

In short, write only when you have something of value to share. You'll also find that the more you write, even if you're not necessarily publishing each article (there's no shame in holding onto some drafts), the easier and more momentous your blogging becomes.

Do You Have a Blog? Add Your Tips to the List

If you've been blogging for a while you surely have some excellent advice to share.

Add your tips by leaving a comment below.

Why People Do Not Reach Their Potential

2008-04-26T02:34:15Z

In personal and professional development it's my belief that everyone has a seed of success within them. It's also true that few ever realize their success potential.

Why is that?

Here are four reasons why people who are poised for success may not reach their potential, and how you can apply some simple truths to experience your own break through.

1. CHOICES

Many people make choices that limit them. As the saying goes "There is a choice you have to make, in everything you do. So keep in mind, that in the end, the choice you make, makes you."

But aren't there talented people? Yes, and it's their talent and right choices make a talented person.

As Socrates said "To move the world, we must first move ourselves."

2. TIME

Many people have no idea the process of reaching their potential would take so long. All things are difficult before they become easy.

It's it true that projects usually:

- Are more difficult than we anticipate
- Take longer than we anticipate
- Cost more than we anticipate

As you've probably discovered, shortcuts don't pay off in the long run, so prudent planning and a realistic estimate of time required to complete a project, develop a new skill or reach a goal is an excellent step in the right direction.

3. PRICE

Many people fail to pay the price that their potential demands.

Often times, our challenges in life are not in understanding how to reach our potential, but rather they are in doing what it takes to get there.

Charles Schwab said, "When a man has put a limit on what he will do, he has put a limit on what he can do."

4. PROBLEMS

Many people fail to think creatively when problems arise.

There's a difference between problem spotting and problem solving. Anyone can spot a problem, be it an issue in a relationship, a technical issue or a health issue. The counsel of experts is relied upon as they know how to provide a solution to a difficult problem.

The next time you mention a problem, why not follow that up by suggesting 3 possible solutions, with one of them including you?

WRAP-UP

Break through and reach new heights in your personal and professional development by making good choices, realistically assessing the time needed to reach your goals, paying the price when it's asked of you and meeting problems with solutions.

If you found this article helpful or it added some insight in your busy day, add your comment below.

David

The Best Leaders are Listeners

2008-04-19T17:07:51Z

Friday, I attended the Maximum Impact Advance Simulcast that provides the business professional with a wealth of information designed to help people grow their influence. I joined 50,000 leaders, across North America, renowned authors, businessmen and leadership experts for an event that won’t be forgotten.

The founder, John C. Maxwell is an internationally recognized leadership expert, speaker and author who has sold over 13 million books. His organizations have trained more than 2 milion leaders worldwide. Every year, he speaks with Fortune 500 Companies, international government leaders and organizations as diverse as the United States Military Academy at West Point and the National Football League.

In his session, "Leadership Gold", Dr. Maxwell explained a simple truth: The best leaders are listeners.

3 Delusions

We all suffer from three delusions:

1. We are a good driver
2. We have a sense of humor
3. We're good listeners

The Truth

Dr. Maxwell explains a simple truth: The best leaders are listeners.

Apply This Truth in Business

In business, listening is the single greatest way to keep problems from escalating into major issues.

As a leader, it's imperative to listen to all your stakeholders. Listen to your employees, customers, vendors, partners and investors.

Formula for Success

Dr. Maxwell's formula for success is stated plainly as: Listen, Learn and then Lead.

Is the Mobile Web Dead? Not for Hybrid Web Apps

2008-04-15T19:10:36Z

Most sites that are built exclusively around or are developed solely for mobile applications are probably dead. This may because the cost of mobile usage has been far too high in North America such that most mobile users are limiting severely how and when they access the net to avoid outrageous bills. Only now are annual flat rate fee structures coming into effect in North America.

True Web Apps for Mobility

As long as a site has a normal web presence and is fully accessible that way, and has also taken pains to be sure that mobile users have a friendly and convenient/functional interface, they will do well as costs to access by mobile will drop in the future and more mobile device people will reach them (and vice versa).

This is why I was so excited about Voices.com on mobile – you are taken immediately to the search tool and have immediate access to talent. It works.

Do you access Business Apps from your Mobile Phone?

Salesforce and Google Link CRM Apps to Office Tools

2008-04-14T18:08:56Z

This morning, the Official Salesforce Blog announced that they have expanded their partnership with Google and together have delivered an industry-changing new product called Salesforce for Google Apps.

Techmeme and the New York Times has some great coverage on this developing story.

As heavy Salesforce and Google Apps users, we're pleased with this development and can see how we'll be using this dynamic duo for greater productivity and ultimately our ability to deliver a better service.

Salesforce for Google Apps

It's easy to see how we could run our business in some exciting new ways:

1. Salesforce and Gmail

Salesforce and Gmail - Send Gmail to contacts from inside Salesforce or log emails in Salesforce from Gmail.

Now that's something that Salesforce really needed; the ability to both send an receive messages. Transitioning from Outlook and Apple Mail to Gmail makes sense, considering a lot of us work remotely, in the evenings and on weekends. I've been waiting for a big enough reason to switch to Gmail and it looks like my reason has arrived.

2. Salesforce and Google Talk

Salesforce and Google Talk - Chat with colleagues right from within Salesforce.

Currently we use Skype as our internal instant messaging tool, however tight integration with Salesforce means one less application we need running on our machines.

3. Salesforce and Google Docs

Salesforce and Google Docs - Create and attach Google Docs to records inside Salesforce for real time collaboration.

From business plans, proposals and product development outlines, Google Docs has all but replaced Microsoft Word in our office. And, if we can use Google Docs for the storage, we'll likely see some cost savings by avoiding purchasing more Salesforce storage.

4. Salesforce and Google Calendar

Salesforce and Google Calendar - Synchronize your Salesforce meetings, campaigns, and events with Google Calendar.

Not that we do a terrible amount of scheduling, I can foresee this being a helpful tool. When, we do have events to attend, the entire week is usually pretty busy, so a single integrated view will ensure we're all in the right place and the right time.

5. Salesforce and Google Start Page

Salesforce and Google Start Page - Access your most important business information, including Salesforce dashboards, and search the Web from a single page.

This is smart. As the CEO, having a single view that shows key performance indicators as well as a snapshot of your inbox allows me prioritize my day or drill down on reports should anything jump out at me. Better information means better decisions.

Do You Run Salesforce?

If you're in a business that's running Salesforce, how do you see using these new tools to help you grow you company?

Add your comments below...

Search Engine Marketing in the Google Era

2008-04-02T18:46:45Z

This afternoon, I had the opportunity to share with a group of about 80 regional technology companies on how to better position their websites in Google.

The business seminar was hosted by the TechAlliance, a membership-based organization that exists to represent, support, and accelerate the growth of technology companies to the benefit of the entire regional economy.

During this session, participants discovered what search engines value in a webpage, how to construct a webpage and website in the optimum manner, and how to optimize the content for top ranking in search engine results.

Participants were also shown how to effectively identify and research appropriate keywords and keyword phrases by using online tools.

This session was sponsored by Rodney Lover and the entire Lover's atWork Office Furniture team. Thanks!

Download Search Engine Marketing in the Google Era

Download the PDF Version: Search Marketing In The Google Era PDF

Download the PowerPoint Version: Search Marketing In The Google Era PPT

Add Your Comments

If you were in attendance, add your comments and share what you learned during the session.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

David

Leo Laporte Should Record an Audiobook

2008-03-26T10:09:37Z

Monday evenings, I typically grab an hour to listen to my favorite podcast, This Week in Tech (TWiT) hosted by Leo Laporte, with frequent guests John C. Dvorak, Patrick Norton and others who analyze the weekly news in from the world of technology.

Seeing as Audible is their major sponsor, I knew the time would come when they discussed recording audiobooks, the time required and how much narrators get paid.

Well, I've got some answers for you.

Audiobook Market

Pat Fraley reports on Vox Daily that:

According to my friend and president of Blackstone Audio, Craig Black, this figure will balloon to 24,000 over the next four years. Why? Because of the success of downloadable audiobooks on the Internet.

Industry news source Voice Over Times reports:

Earlier this year, Amazon announced that it has reached an agreement to acquire Audible, the audiobook website for a transaction value of approximately $300 million.

In short, the audiobook industry is red hot!

Audiobook Narrators

Audiobook publishers need all sorts of talents and sounds. If you have struggled because you sound like you’re 16, or 60, guess what? There are audiobook projects out there that need your sound. It is just a matter of finding the door where the welcome mat is ready and waiting.

Do You Need an Agent?

In the Billion $ Read, Pat Fraley explains that there is no need to go through an agent. Audiobook publishers deal directly with the voice talent. That's you Leo.

Time Required

As an estimate, it requires 4-5 times as long to produce a finished minute of a recorded voice over as it does to simply read the script.

Here's an example:

- 1 hour to read a short story.
- 2 hours for editing (removing breaths, pops, clicks,
- 1 hour for mixing (equalization, compression, limiting)
- 1 hour for mastering (saving the file to disk, converting to other formats, burning a hard copy for archive)
Total = 5 hours

Freelance Voice Over Rates

While the narration of audiobooks are often priced on a per word basis, somewhere between $0.10 and $0.25, rates for other types of voice over recordings can be found by viewing this voice over rate sheet [PDF].

Don't Let Just Anyone do the Movie Trailer

Should the book you record ever get made into a movie, don't let just anybody, including Calacanis, voice the movie trailer.

The "In a World..." imitation that Jason Calacanis tried to do is of Don LaFontaine. Don invented the movie trailer voice and even wrote the copy. There are many people who strive to be the "Voice of God", the select who nail it, but oftentimes many fall short.

TWiT Fans, Would You Buy an Audiobook by Leo Laporte?

Leave your comments below.

Web Applications Improve with Greater Bandwidth and Better Security

2008-03-23T16:17:17Z

There's been some discussion regarding software developers exploring new ways to bridge the gap between desktop and web applications.

Development tools such as Adobe AIR and Mozilla Prism are the two most notable players. To get a feel for what can been done, Adobe had published a nice gallery of applications.

Let's face it, the only reason desktop applications are still relevant is because of bandwidth and security.

Bandwidth

It was less than 5 years ago that the majority of Internet users were still on either dial-up connection or a by today's standards, a "low-speed" version of the Web as we've come to know it.

New technologies such as Verizon's FIOS, a 100% digital, fiber-optic cable connected straight to your home and speeds as high as 20 Mbps, practically eliminate the need for greater speed.

I believe that if we had the choice, we'd be running our entire businesses online, and even doing processor-intensive tasks such as editing audio and video if it was equal to the desktop experience.

Once we're over the bandwidth issue the Internet economy will only be dealing with security issues.

Security

When companies like Salesforce.com and even Intuit with their online version of Quickbooks, end corporate users are showing little resistance in trusting their most private data ( customer data and financial data ) to web services.

Wrap Up

In 5 years time, will we really be still relying on desktop applications or will the vast majority of our business applications be readily available from any computer, accessible with our username and password?

How To Create a Sitemap (For People and Search Engines)

2008-03-22T12:59:00Z

Sitemaps have been around since the advent of the Web and used primarily as a way to list all the pages on a particular website.

Nowadays, sitemaps have other purposes such as organizing web content by topic, showing the search engines which pages you have created and developing a linking structure that emphasizes specific areas of your website over others.

But just how do you make a sitemap? And, how do you get that sitemap into Google, Yahoo! and MSN? That's today's topic and for the webmasters and entrepreneurs out there, I think this article will be quite refreshing.

TWO FLAVORS OF SITEMAPS

Just as we build web pages with both people and search engines in mind, we should have a similar mind set when building our sitemaps. In short, it's a best practice to create one for people, and another for the search engines.

HTML SITEMAP

First, let's focus on your visitors who will be existing customers, prospective customers, vendors, partners and employees.

Your sitemap provides links to all the most important pages on your website and is organized in a logical manner that makes viewing the sitemap a pleasurable experience.

As a best practice, consider the following when creating your HTML sitemap:

- The file name should be sitemap.html
- Organize your pages by topic or category
- Group all your Registration items together such as links to Sign Up pages, Upgrade pages, Feature & Benefit Comparison charts, Order Forms (PDF) and Purchase pages.
- Group all your Help pages together including your FAQs, Create a Support Ticket, Report a Bug and Feature Requests forms
- Group all your Company pages together such as your About Us page, Contact Us page, Legal and Privacy statements
- Limit the number of categories to 10
- Limit the total number of links of your sitemap to 100
- Include an area for blogs, podcasts and videos
- Link to RSS and XML feeds
- Link to your XML sitemap too

XML SITEMAP

Sitemaps are an easy way for webmasters to inform search engines about pages on their sites that are available for crawling.

In its simplest form, a Sitemap is an XML file that lists URLs for a site along with additional metadata about each URL (when it was last updated, how often it usually changes, and how important it is, relative to other URLs in the site) so that search engines can crawl the site more intelligently.

Sitemaps.org has established the protocol for how to create an XML sitemap that is compliant with Google, Yahoo! and MSN.

Here are some short cuts for creating your own XML sitemap.

Google's Sitemap Generator Program

The Google Sitemap Generator is a Python script that creates a Sitemap for your site using the Sitemap Protocol. This script can create Sitemaps from URL lists, web server directories, or from access logs.

ONLINE SITEMAP GENERATORS

These online sitemap generators create your sitemap free and and produce both plain text and xml versions of your site.

Sitemapspal
PortalApp Generator
Peterz.de (German)
Autositemap
Tarrant.it Sitemap Generator
XML-Sitemaps Generator
Hockeygods Online Sitemap Generator
Nuah Online Generator
Pingoat Sitemap Creator
Node Map Sitemap XML Creation Service
Neuroticweb.com Sitemap Generator
AudiMyPc.com Sitemap Generator
Web-design-pros.ca Sitemap.xml.gz Generator (Java Webstart Application)
Free Sitemap Generator
phpSitemapsNG
ScriptSocket Sitemap Generator
Google Sitemaps XML Validator
Google Sitemaps Information Center
AutoMapIt
Safe Area

SUBMITTING YOUR SITEMAP TO SEARCH ENGINES

Once you've created your sitemap, submit it to Google Webmaster Central, Yahoo Site Explorer and MSN's Live Search Webmaster Center.

HIGHLIGHTS

Remember to create two sitemaps; one for your visitors and the other for the search engines. Keep the HTML version simple and organize the information as succinctly as possible. For the XML version use a sitemap generator to streamline the work then submit it to Google, Yahoo! and MSN so they get updates as soon as you refresh your website with new content.

MORE TIPS?

If you have a tip of your own, add it below by leaving a comment.

Voice Commands To Improve Data Input on Small Devices

2008-03-09T13:18:07Z

An article in the New York Times explains how the barrier between man and machine is fading away.

For decades, we've been stuck with the mouse, icons and drop-down menus, originally invented at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center in the 1970s and made popular by Apple and Microsoft in the next decade.

How far have we come?

Personal digital assistants (PDAs) introduced a new, more familiar form of data input - the pen. These devices were popular with busy corporate types and health care professional but never caught on in the mainstream as a simple way of creating, editing and managing information on small devices.

Only in the last two years have two gadgets truly introduced something revolutionary in terms of data input.

The first is the Nintendo Wii, a gaming console the differs from its competitors by allowing for hand movements to control actions on the screen. Punching into the air will perform give upper-jab to your opponent on screen.

Named the product of the year in 2007, Apple's iPhone delivers a touch-screen interface, something never before experienced on a mobile phone.

And now, Multi-touch technology is being added to Apple laptops giving users the ability to scroll through documents, rotate pictures and open files by moving your fingers on the laptops trackpad.

Aside from gadgets, there are trends taking hold that will further simplify how we work and play in a world of computers.

The most obvious being the same way in which we communicate with each other; our voice.

John Markoff of the New York Times suggests that:

Voice, too, is finally beginning to play a significant role as an interface tool in a new generation of consumer-oriented wireless handsets. Many technologists now believe that hunting and pecking on the tiny keyboards of cellphones and P.D.A.’s will quickly give way to voice commands that will return map, text and other data displayed visually on small screens.

“We’re on the verge of creating something as compelling as touch, except with voice,” said Mike McCue, general manager of the Tellme subsidiary of Microsoft.

With more hardware and software utilizing speech technologies, the need for pre-programmed voice prompts will continue to create demand for professional voice talent who give the human touch.

And if history is any indication, the winning technologies are those that make the technical details invisible to the user and reassure that we, as humans, are still in control.

Vision for the Voice Over Industry

2008-03-01T16:53:28Z

If there's one thing I've learned in business it's that the world doesn't wait for anyone.

In this business, while some are slow to change and adopt new technologies and services, others have fully embraced new paradigms such as software as a service, a category that Voices.com would fall into.

The promise of software as a service (SaaS) companies is that they'll be available anytime, anywhere, something that I believe we've delivered on.

In the future, the voice over industry will continue to benefit from embracing this new paradigm with the integration of new services, technologies and web applications designed to improve business performance.

SERVICES

Software as a service will be embraced by not only the community of voice over talents at Voices.com, but also extend to voice coaches, talent agents and radio and television stations, streamlining their business operations making sourcing voice talent, script writers and audio producers easier than ever.

New services will be introduced to enable easier communication, project management, file delivery and payments.

Third-party applications and other partners looking to tap into this thriving area of the Internet will develop new products that tie-in directly to the activities at Voices.com.

MARKETING

As the industry continues to transition from the traditional model, to the online model, creating a strong, positive brand is of utmost importance. "Branding" includes the entire customer experience from how a first-time visitors first impressions through to the perceived value and an organizations ability to deliver on a promise.

Measuring performance will come to the forefront of all parties that participate in the voice over industry. Knowing what to measure and how to measure it are the responsibilities of each business person.

Key performance indicators such number of visitors to a website, or number of new business contacts are vital to evaluating marketing initiatives.

A cost/benefit analysis, in the form of listing the pros and cons often reveal the effectiveness of pursuing particular internet marketing activities, and an exercise that should be repeated when a new opportunity presents itself.

HELP & TRAINING

Graduates from broadcasting schools and new media programs offered by local colleges will be looking for ways to transfer their newly found skills and passion into a career.

To help support this emerging group of individuals, podcasts such as Voice Over Experts will be the first stop for those looking to get educated about voice-overs. Blogs offer fresh ideas and build community as well as point to other online training and offline workshops.

TECHNOLOGY

Advancements in software and online applications has allowed for small and mid-sized business to compete with their larger counterparts. In today's environment, freelance voice talent offer the same quality of product as those recordings produced in multi-million dollar facilities.

Applications such as SourceConnect will become the preferred means of connecting ProTools studios, ultimately replacing ISDN.

MP3, WAV and AIF will prevail as the three standard file formats and more project will require full-quality, uncompressed 24-bit WAV or AIF files for high-definition audio/video projects.

MOBILE

As mobile phones reach true 3G status in North America, online services will introduce mobile alerts, complimenting email alerts for everything from job postings, payments and feedback on completed project.

MAPS

While relationships start online, some people will perform work on-site in the clients recording studio, or connect with clients for in-person meetings.

Location-based tools will help make connections between clients and talent looking to form new business relationships over a cup of coffee.

PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

Over the past four years, we've listened to your feedback and applied hundreds of suggestions, recommendations and new ideas. Part of our commitment to continuous improvement, will be a new area of Voices.com dedicated to the development and conversation surrounding new ideas.

To help shape the future of Voices.com, share your opinion today.

How to get involved

Take a moment to complete the Website Usability Survey.

Technorati Tags: Software, blog, technology, business, internet, Voice Acting, Voice Cast, Videogames, Voice Actors, and Voices.com.

Improve Voices.com by Taking the Website Usability Survey

2008-02-29T18:47:21Z

The word "usability" refers to methods for improving ease-of-use during the design process. That's precisely what we aim to do with each quarterly service update.

As we push forward to our most recent set of feature updates, aptly called Spring '08, we're once again reaching out to you for your feedback, recommendations and feature requests.

This time, we've put together a brief survey to help us improve Voices.com and there's no opinion more valuable than yours!

Jakob Nielsen defines usability as "a quality attribute that assesses how easy user interfaces are to use".

Usability is defined by five quality components:

Learnability: How easy is it for users to accomplish basic tasks the first time they encounter the design?
Efficiency: Once users have learned the design, how quickly can they perform tasks?
Memorability: When users return to the design after a period of not using it, how easily can they reestablish proficiency?
Errors: How many errors do users make, how severe are these errors, and how easily can they recover from the errors?
Satisfaction: How pleasant is it to use the design?

Why Usability is Important

On the Web, usability is a necessary condition for survival. If a website is difficult to use, people leave. If the homepage fails to clearly state what a company offers and what users can do on the site, people leave. If users get lost on a website, they leave. If a website's information is hard to read or doesn't answer users' key questions, they leave.

There are plenty of other websites available, we understand this. Having you leave is the first line of defense should you encounter a difficulty.

Identifying Usability Issues Early

To identify a design's most important usability problems, putting together a small group of users has worked well for us in the past. Beta testing is a good way to identify usability issues early.

As you know, we're well past beta in terms of software development. Voices.com has been online for several years and generally received positive feedback on the design. However, it's a good practice to revisit the basics of usability.

Now, it's time to reach out to the entire community to ensure that you aren't running into issues. If you are, let us know.

How Changes Are Made at Voices.com

You may have noticed that from time to time, a link changes here, or a graphic there. This approach is known as "iterative design", and generally accepted as the best way to increase the quality of user experience.

Understand that we value your feedback, so please take a moment to complete the survey. Our team will work hard to apply your suggestions.

Thanks in advance!

Why Online Resources Add Value and Create a Competitive Advantage

2008-02-19T02:22:41Z

"The customer is king" is one of the older cliches of modern business. While its never exactly false, the phrase usually pays lip service to the idea of customer experience rather than listening to feedback that results in change.

How does an online business make the most of customer feedback? One avenue to explore is the development of downloadable content, specifically audio, video and text resources that truly add value and give customers the experience they've asked for.

In today's business landscape, a customers are smart and have high expectations.

In the most basic form of customer experience, people have come to expect a seamless experience, regardless of which channel (live chat, telephone, email, online help) they choose to communicate with your organization. One-to-one communications with real, passionate people that work at a given company are the norm.

Blogs, podcasts and searchable FAQs are mandatory when providing knowledge about how to place an order or resolve a technical issue.

True that not everyone will be interested in subscribing to a daily blog post offering inspiring commentary, or education on-demand by means of free podcast, but there are those that will. And, it's those that do engage in the high-touch experience will be thankful that the resources were available.

For a small business, having the creative and technical know-how to create multimedia collateral is the first step. That's called production.

Next, a means of distributing the audio, video, text documents will be required in order to fulfill.

In practice, we've organized our resources in three categories which provide our customers with the opportunity to give us feedback.

AUDIO

All the podcasts are listed on a single page, with the most recent episode displayed with the podcast artwork, title and brief description of the show. By drilling deeper and clicking through to the individual episode, a customer can opt to subscribe to the podcast with iTunes.

Each episode includes show notes detailing what is being discusses during the podcast, as well as tags for quick reference and most importantly, a comment box giving the listener the chance to add their comments by typing in a few words.

VIDEO

The video area serves up tutorials and commercials. The tutorials walk you through how to use Voices.com, and on a more basic level, how to get started within the industry.

While the videos aren't much more than a narrated PowerPoint presentation, these embedded YouTube videos have been watched more than 50,000 in the past year alone.

TEXT

Aside from education and entertainment, most customers are looking for information in hopes of solving a specific problem. Enter the frequently asked questions. For this section of our "Help" page, we didn't just list the top 25 frequently asked questions, but rather developed an exhaustive knowledge base that we use both internally, and publish solutions, definitions, step-by-step guides on more than 500 topics within the field of voice-overs.

Customers can search by keyword and immediately see a list of matching solutions as well as a relevancy-match rating which suggests if the article has historically been helpful.

We commonly attach PDF documents such a voice-over rate sheets [pdf], user guides and other tip sheets to let users continue their experience offline.

As part of the feedback loop, customers can read if they found a specific solution helpful (a simple "Yes" or "No" works well) giving us some insight into what works, and which solutions need to be further researched or outright deleted.

WRAP-UP

Every business can add more value and meaning to their relationship with their customers. Creating, hosting and distributing online resources is a good place to start.

Remember to build-in a way to ask for and capture comments and other feedback from your customers. This information is extremely valuable as it will help you refine your materials and continue to be seen as one of the few online businesses that listens to their customers.

Amazon S3 Outage

2008-02-15T14:46:33Z

News: There was a relatively short outage on Amazon’s S3 storage service a short while ago. Voices.com uses Amazon to host audio demos, but not auditions or files uploaded for SurePay escrow transactions.

Amazon continues to have issues, for more information see the Amazon forum.

In short, there’s little we can do about this outage, however we are monitoring forums, discussion groups and news outlets to inform you once all our servers get back online.

As one person put it, "this is the equivalent of an unexpected snowstorm, it’s completely outside our control."

Some recommended actions for those suffering problems seeing cards or widgets:

a) trying control-shift-reload on the broken page
b) right-clicking on a broken widget, going to “This frame..” and clicking “reload this frame” (firefox only)
c) clearing your cache.

Any or all of these actions may help, but if Amazon’s service is still down at the time of reload, it will remain broken.

We'll keep you updated as the day progresses.

UPDATE

Good news! The Amazon S3 Outage was short lived. From all accounts, this issue has been resolved, and I'm pleased to report that all Voices.com audio files are back online.

Thanks for your understanding.

The Biz

Voices.com CEO Speaks at OIART's Entrepreneur Week

Industry Revolution

Building an Online Business, One Page at a Time

Building a Team

Re-Branding & Making the Transition

The Growth of Voices.com

OIART Student's Predict a Mobile Technology Revolution

Business Resources

Are You an OIART Graduate?

Blogging 101 - Tips for Effective Business Blogging

What Is a Blog?

Blogs are Exploding

How To Get Involved

How To Add Comments

What Can You Do With Blogs?

Creating Your Own Blog

Start Blogging

Claim Your Blog at Technorati

Blog Consistently by Sticking to a Schedule

Do You Have a Blog? Add Your Tips to the List

Why People Do Not Reach Their Potential

1. CHOICES

2. TIME

3. PRICE

4. PROBLEMS

WRAP-UP

The Best Leaders are Listeners

3 Delusions

The Truth

Apply This Truth in Business

Formula for Success

Recommended Reading

Is the Mobile Web Dead? Not for Hybrid Web Apps

True Web Apps for Mobility

Do you access Business Apps from your Mobile Phone?

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1. Salesforce and Gmail

2. Salesforce and Google Talk

3. Salesforce and Google Docs

4. Salesforce and Google Calendar

5. Salesforce and Google Start Page

Do You Run Salesforce?

Search Engine Marketing in the Google Era

Download Search Engine Marketing in the Google Era

Add Your Comments

Leo Laporte Should Record an Audiobook

Audiobook Market

Audiobook Narrators

Do You Need an Agent?

Time Required

Freelance Voice Over Rates

Don't Let Just Anyone do the Movie Trailer

TWiT Fans, Would You Buy an Audiobook by Leo Laporte?

Web Applications Improve with Greater Bandwidth and Better Security

Bandwidth

Security

Wrap Up

How To Create a Sitemap (For People and Search Engines)

TWO FLAVORS OF SITEMAPS

HTML SITEMAP

XML SITEMAP

ONLINE SITEMAP GENERATORS

SUBMITTING YOUR SITEMAP TO SEARCH ENGINES

HIGHLIGHTS

MORE TIPS?

Voice Commands To Improve Data Input on Small Devices

Vision for the Voice Over Industry

SERVICES

MARKETING

HELP & TRAINING

TECHNOLOGY

MOBILE

MAPS

PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

Improve Voices.com by Taking the Website Usability Survey

Usability is defined by five quality components:

Why Usability is Important

Identifying Usability Issues Early