VerveCast

Mobile photography has skyrocketed in popularity since the introduction of Instagram. With the quality of smartphone cameras getting better and better, it will only continue to grow. So I decided to ask a few z2 employees what their favorite mobile photo apps might be…..and this is what they said.

Autostitch: I’m a big fan of panoramas, and AutoStitch does an amazing job of creating them. There are options for resolution and quality (both of which will affect how fast your panorama gets stitched) – Pete


Plastic Bullet: Plastic Bullet goes for the simple approach: no filters to choose from, and no sliders. It just loads an image and then shows you four different versions with light-leaks and varying colors. If you don’t like them, reload and it’ll show you four new ones. It’s dead simple, which is why I like it. – Pete


GoPro App: This app lets me control my GoPro Hero 3 via the WiFi built into the camera. You actually connect your phone to the GoPro so you can start and stop recording, change all the settings, and even get a live view (with a few seconds delay) of what the GoPro is seeing. – Pete


VSCO Cam: HUGE fan of this app. The design is impeccable and beautiful. This app helps create beautiful pictures by replicating stock film like Fuji, Polaroid and the like. Deep in features, but not overpowering nor cluttered in approach, this is always my go-to. The community around this app is amazing and is featured in a section of the app. Love it. – Jason


Afterlight: Great for adding unique boarders and adding subtle grain or texture to my images. Giving me sliders to increase and decrease any tools is great. Often textures and tools can be too harsh. In the world of Instagram, I like more subtle adjustments most times, this app gives me that control. – Jason


Snapseed: THE BEST APP BY FAR. Easy to use with great sharing options. Excellent effects options such as Grunge, which has up to 1500 settings to choose from, and even the tilt-shift effect. Possibly your best one-stop-shop photo app. – Cory


PicFx: Nice original effects and easy to use. Loads of great filters to choose from, plus you can easily apply how much of each filter you want. – Cory


Infinicam: Awesome old school lens and camera effects. One cool feature is the option to get random effects added to your pictures and if you don’t like those, try again. It also offers some nice border options as well as sharing to social networks. – Cory


Pixlr Express: One of my favorite apps ever. It offers over 600 effects, including tilt-shift and AutoFix. This is one of the most versatile apps because it has some of the best effects from all other apps, but all here in one spot making it extremely useful. The effects seem endless and with the use of the Fade slider, you have control over the power of each effect. – Cedar


Camera ZOOM FX: My favorite photo app. One of the best parts is the option for timers and voice-activated photos so you don’t need to be holding the phone to snap a picture. This is a very simple app, but with all the best qualities you want from Stable Shot, Burst Mode and even Time Lapse. Catching up to 10 shots per second on Burst Mode is pretty cool. – Cedar

Which mobile photo apps do you love to use most?

Stay tuned for more Top Ten Friday posts coming soon!

Joe’s post titled Keep the wrong out of the write brought up the issue of errors in online media. Typos and grammatical errors are commonplace now, but I don’t think it’s because we’re becoming dumber, I think it’s due to the accelerated world we all live in.

Facebook posts and other social media sites are particularly rife with spelling and grammar errors. Not just the posts from your friends, either. Yes, even businesses are getting it wrong.

I come from the world of publishing, and my experience started there before the “World Wide Web” was something we used every single day, so I’m used to an environment of writers and editors and double (or triple) checking things before they are published. In the olden days “published” meant putting ink on paper with a very large (and very expensive) printing press. Mistakes on printed pieces cost a lot, and we would do anything to avoid them. And when I say “cost a lot” I’m talking about real dollars. Most of the mistakes in online publishing just tarnish your reputation, but don’t hit your wallet quite as hard.

In the agency world, it’s the same thing. Any printed piece goes through multiple rounds of proofing to make sure everything is correct before a press run. The same may not be said of a quick post to Facebook, even from some well-known brands.

As someone who has managed a few accounts for a few organizations, I can’t begin to tell you how upsetting it is to post something on a platform that does not allow for editing (I’m looking at you Twitter and Facebook) and notice an error seconds or minutes or hours later. I like to think it’s a rare occasion when it happens to me, but everyone makes mistakes. Do what you can to mitigate them and move on.

Part of the problem with all these errors may be the fast-paced world of online publishing, where you don’t need to go through multiple steps (and multiple gatekeepers) to publish something. Still, if you have time, ask someone to check your work. Don’t have anyone around? Read it to yourself a few times. Look at every word. Posts on Twitter and Facebook tend to be short, so even a single mistake can stand out. Take your time and proof it, and then proof it again. Typically the difference between publishing something at 8:02 and 8:07 will make no difference, so put some effort towards getting it right.

Obviously our goal is to never make a mistake, so how do we do that? Through teamwork. If I make a mistake, someone else at Z2 should catch it, just like I’ve caught mistakes others have made. We all make mistakes, the trick is to catch them and correct them before they get out into the world.

Recently, someone asked me what I do. After I told her, she exclaimed: “Oh, well I’ll bet you’ve noticed how bad the spelling and sentence construction is on so many things online!”

As a matter of fact, I have.

Actually, it’s pretty hard to miss. News stories on Yahoo! routinely have at least a couple of misspelled words, bad punctuation, or complicated sentences that don’t quite make sense. Sometimes they hit a trifecta with all of the above. Facebook posts and other social media sites are particularly rife with spelling and grammar errors. Not just the posts from your friends, either. Yes, even businesses are getting it wrong.

The horror!

So what gives? Are we getting dumber? Is the glowing computer screen numbing our higher thought processes? Whatever the reason, it’s causing an instant loss of credibility, according to Adrian Snood, a Social Media Manager & Community Relationship Specialist. As Snood notes: “A website or blog is often the first place that you go to learn a little bit more about the individual or company. So if your online content has many spelling errors or grammatical mistakes, then why should your visitors take you seriously?”

Snood speculates that part of the problem lies in the fact that even if spellcheck is used, it can’t identify usage errors such as the incorrect use of “there” for “their”, or “your” for “you’re.” He recommends reading each post ALOUD before publishing it, so you are forced to not rush through the process and so you can hear if there is anything awkward or unclear in your writing.

Of course, not everyone is generating social media or website content. But there are other written communications, such as intra agency briefs, emails and, of course, letters and emails to clients, that can always benefit from a closer look.

Whatever the context of our written communication, we would all be well served by this modern day reworking of an old adage:  “Read twice, post once.”

Years ago, I attended a lecture by Joey Reiman, then a Copywriter/Creative Director at an agency in Atlanta. One of the things that stood out most from his talk was the quote above, allegedly John Lennon’s rephrasing of T.S. Elliot’s ”Amateur poets borrow; mature poets steal” or possibly Malcolm Mclaren’s reworking of Picasso’s  “Bad artists copy, great artists steal. ” No one seems to know for sure. But that’s beside the point.

As Joey explained it, “Amateurs borrow, professionals steal” is not about plagiarizing other ads. That would be bad. Rather, it’s about taking elements from the language and ideas floating around in daily life and popular culture and using them in your work. Last week, I came across a great example of “Amateurs borrow, professionals steal.” At least as it applies to advertising.

The board here for the Chicken Scratch restaurant in Dallas is a great example of legitimate “stealing”: turning an offhand comment you heard someone say into a headline. In this case, it was something the client said. As Copywriter Dan Bull explained, the owner of the place “was talking about the challenge the restaurant faces and explained: “I mean, we’re between a trailer park and a condemned motel!” And I thought, “That would make a pretty great ad, actually.”

Indeed. That and the cool Robert Crumb style illustration.

Last week, our client Miller Time Pub & Grill celebrated its grand reopening with a block party, live music, food and beer. To help introduce the new brand to the media and get the word out about the event, we worked with the team at Miller Time Pub & Grill to create a unique, branded press kit.

To set us apart from the hundreds of emails media receive daily, we decided to hand-deliver each press kit to a variety of outlets–from TV and radio to magazines and newspaper. For an important announcement like the introduction of a new brand, an email just isn’t enough to break through the clutter.

The press kit contained an invite to the grand reopening event, cover letter, news release, and the restaurant’s new menu, all tucked inside a Miller Time Pub & Grill branded beer glass. We placed the glass in a clear box and filled it in with some barley (not only because it looks cool, but also because we needed something to hold the glass place). We also included a USB drive with all written contents, along with photos of the renovated space.

We think the press kit turned out pretty darn great! And the media liked them, too. We placed numerous articles as a result of them—and even secured an appearance for our client on Fox 6 WakeUp.