January 29, 2008

I'd like to introduce you to MOGO Media...

When I first started this blog, I envisioned it as a way to keep touch with my readers, as well as a way to share information about my favorite graphics application, Adobe Illustrator. My real business (since I left Adobe) has been customized corporate training and consulting through my company, Design Responsibly. I enjoy the challenge of finding ways to help people no matter what the application and no matter what the workflow. Traveling the world and meeting all kinds of people has also taught me valuable lessons in understanding just how different we all are and how we use the very same applications in a multitude of ways. This blog has also made it possible for people from all over the world to reach out to me -- either to express thanks, to ask for advice or a technique, or just to live with the knowledge that someone else in the world actually understands them.

Naturally, like just about all of us in life, I wanted more.

And with that in mind, I'd like to introduce you to what I view as the next step. A way for me to get more involved in building a true community around not just Illustrator, but the very things that we all care about. It's called MOGO Media. Some of you may already be familiar with Barry Anderson, who runs the truly fantastic InDesign Conference and Creative Suite Conference. I've partnered up with Barry and some other good friends (David Blatner of InDesign Secrets) in the hopes that I can share even more information with even more people around the world.



MOGO Media brings together a collection of some of the leading experts and authors in the world of design and publishing through conferences and seminars, blogs, podcasts, and user forums. Membership is free and I hope that you find the resources valuable.

Don't worry - the Real World Illustrator blog isn't going away - it is still a wonderful place where I can share valuable information on Illustrator. But in many ways, I can offer much more through MOGO Media. For example, I get many many questions emailed to me every day. So does my friend David Blatner over at InDesign Secrets. As do many other of my peers. Writing out detailed responses or posting some information on a blog can take quite a bit of time. In fact, sometimes I just wish I could just walk over to a reader's computer and SHOW them the answer to their question. So I've created something called AskMOGO -- it's a video podcast that allows me to answer questions in a more efficient -- and engaging -- way. You can already see a few of these podcasts over at MOGO Media and judging by how many questions I have, I can promise a lot more of those coming soon.

Most importantly, I value the opinions of all of my readers. Please share with me your thoughts either in the comments here or via email. If you have ideas or things you'd like to see, let me know, and I'll do my best to make it happen. If you like what you see, please spread the word!

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

That site makes a whole lot of noise, and the "sound off" setting is not persistent. This is guaranteed to make some people (like me) hit the back button as quickly as they can. The overabundance of Flash also makes it rather painful to view on older Macs, which a lot of folks in the industry are likely to have on their desks.

Gary Spedding, Ph.D. said...

I have to agree with the other comment. I joined and tried to watch your first video on masking and I cannot get it to play other than a few noisy seconds any one one of several computers I have access to. The other videos are very erratic also, though one did almost make it to the end. I am on Windows so do not have those MAC issues Khiltd has but unless I can see the videos I won't be checking in too often. Sorry. I'd rather you post 'em here as pen-podcasts quite frankly.

Also I think Flash movies are not all they are touted to be - they DO slow down web access.

Anonymous said...

Hi,

I hit the back button immediately to get away from the noise, and see I'm not the only one with that reaction. I hope you'll reconsider having the sound as you are otherwise pretty fabulous.

Unknown said...

Thanks for the great feedback so far!

The designer is updating the SWF so the sound is off by default (instead of the other way around). That should be fixed shortly.

BTW, the movies are QuickTime, not Flash. You just need to click the poster frame once to start the movie.

Thanks again for all of your comments.

Gary Spedding, Ph.D. said...

I have had to give up. No matter how long or when I cannot get these things to take.

MOGO is a definate NOGO for me. Hope everyone else has success and enjoys your postings.

Anonymous said...

It's also suffering from what I refer to as "jumping bean navigation": Hovering over a link causes it to redraw in bold (is enbolden a word?), and this very frequently causes the text to rewrap, often times leading to spontaneous element expansion and contraction as the mouse is moved around. Hitting a moving target is always tricky.

I have no idea if it's even possible to disable sub-pixel rendering in Flash, but it would be nice if the otherwise neutral splash page text wasn't surrounded by rainbow halos, too. I understand all the reasons why engineers argue that this "feature" results in clearer text on LCD displays, but it always makes me feel like my astigmatism is getting worse.

Daniel Schutzsmith said...

The site looks great! Congrats on getting everything off the ground!

As far as flash and quicktime, I'm not having any issues, but if you keep hearing that other people are, then you might want to make sure the designer is saving back to Flash 6 since more people can be able to see that plugin.

Ya might also want them to convert the quicktime's to .FLV's so it is easier for users to watch them - they would only need the flash plugin.

Best of luck! Hope to see ya on the road!

Gary Spedding, Ph.D. said...

OK,

I did not give up on ya just yet. The folks over at the host site are also aware of some issues and promised to work on it.

The only one I have difficulty with now is No 1. Check and see if that causes issues for others. I think it will and I beleive they are working on this (I got a technical difficulties notice on this one last night). As I see it if it is an issue -- the first one that is - others might give up too and miss the newer videos.

The other problem I had was not being able to post a comment - it just won't let me even though I joined. If you can't post replies then you won't hear of such problems or get the kudos for the usual excellent work you do.

One other point PixelPerfect went over to posting various versions of each episode (different file formats and high, low resolution versions etc). That way you reach a far wider audience or look at Daniel's comments.

However, the team seem dedicated to solving the problems and making you a really great site.

Cheers,

Gary.

Anonymous said...

Hello Mordy...
I love the Mogo-Media web site. Sound and animation does not bother me at all. It will be another place for a daily stop. One thing that is missing is RSS feeds for each sections. I'm living and breathing on RSS feeds... Please consider adding if not a separate feed for each section, at least one for the entire site.

Gary Spedding, Ph.D. said...

After much stuttering and many restarts I, finally, got MOGO 1 to take - it was upside down but I got it. I learned how to right side the Quicktime and was able to review it in this hemisphere (i.e. without standing on my head).Good start to the series. How often do you hope to put up new shows?

Also look forward to seeing you later today on PixelPerfect.

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Ammar Midani said...

Late but congratulations Mordy.

Mogo is so important one, I don't know if you guys heard about Mogo accquiring [URL=http://photoshoptechniques.com/forum/showthread.php?t=28476Photoshoptechniques.com[/URL]


Cheers.