But in spite of what’s going on with the producers of next year’s Academy Awards show - maybe a bold move will save it. Namely, the nomination of Heath Ledger for a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for his role as The Joker in The Dark Knight.

Jeremy Schooley is betting it will. Jeremy’s website, heathledgerdeservesanoscar.com is a grass roots attempt to have Ledger posthumously nominated.

“Weeks before The Dark Knight came out, there was buzz going around about Heath Ledger’s Oscar worthy performance as the Joker.  I must admit, I immediately disagreed with all of my friends and family saying that this was all hype for the movie.  It made perfect sense to me.  I’m a marketer by trade and the hype is great marketing.  Then I saw the movie opening weekend.

I started this website that night, when I got home.  The buzz from the media had set my expectations very high.  Heath Ledger’s brilliant interpretation of the Joker exceeded those expectations.  I couldn’t believe that was him under that makeup.  It was arguably one of the best performances of his career.

I was compelled to create this site after reading about members of the voting committee at the Acadamy, directors, and film critiques discrediting his performance and smearing any legitimate nomination by labeling it as a “sympathy nomination.”  I like to give credit where credit is due.

This is a debate worth having.  It is an important one because of the huge disconnect with the Academy and all the regular folks, like me, who watch these movies.  Are we not smart enough to determine an Oscar worthy performance when we see one?  Do we have any voice whatsoever in the matter?

Cast your vote. Yes or No. There isn’t a right answer.  Having this debate is the least we can do for this man.”

It’s not until I spend time with them to find out what message they’re trying to convey, and who they’re sending it to, that we find common ground. That, and a lot of hand-holding.

TurnHere is a San Francisco area company that specializes in web video. I have produced/shot/edited many small business videos for them over the past year. Here is their take on what makes good web video:

TurnHere has produced thousands of editorial and sponsored Web videos and experimented with the form in many different ways. Here is what we believe makes an engaging Web video:

1. Shorter is better, keeping our videos to 2 minutes is our goal. That is how long you can watch something on your office computer before your boss catches you.
2. Authentic local characters make a good Web video, whether it be the local merchant, the car owner, the homeowner or the local tour guide. Let a real person tell your story, not an actor from scripted lines.
3. Good sound quality and proper lighting are essential to a convincing video.
4. The Web does not require the video to be over-produced; glam and slick do not work on the Web.
5. The video should have a strong narrative, it must tell a story.

Here is a video of Luxury Home Broker Margie Kaplan I produced for homes.com. Margie is unscripted; simply responding to questions put to her by me (behind the camera) and edited together in post-production to create the narration. I used available lighting plus a small soft box fluorescent light off-camera. The result is a relaxed, personal presentation.

Another good example of this can be seen in the  video I produced for Mojo Risin Coffee House in Houston. The owners invited their regular customers to come out on a Saturday morning during business hours to participate. We used available lighting and didn’t try to make it a perfect “Hollywood” production.

The end result was an engaging video that allows visitor the CitySearch website to get a true sense of Mojo’s atmosphere and sense of community before they visit.

Image: Kriss Szkurlatowski/stock.xchng

This reminds me of the television commercial where a guy is sitting at the dinner table with a very sharp knife in one hand - cell phone in the other - and his surgeon is instructing him on where to make the incision. Oh, the horror!

Courtesy of www.webpagesthatsuck.com
If you are serious about your business, you should be serious enough to hire a Houston web designer/developer who also has a search marketing and usability mindset. Better still, hire a professional internet marketing firm to tailor a marketing/branding strategy that match your business objectives. But I digress…

After I composed myself and continued to read through Ms. Vara’s article I was happy to discover that she included a section on “getting known”:

We asked two experts, Bruce Clay of Bruce Clay Inc. and Alan Rabinowitz of SEO Image Inc., to reveal some tricks about search-engine optimization — moving your site to the top of search-engine results.

Start with your site itself. You should use language on the site that is associated with the business. Let’s say you’re a florist. Most likely, you’ll show up prominently in search results if people search for the exact name of your business. But the trick is to show up when people search for complicated terms related to your business, like “wedding flower arrangements.” That’s because you want to attract people who might not know about your business but are looking for something that you provide.

The piece also touched on Keyword Research and the benefits of tracking your site using Google Webmaster tools.

But the most surprising tidbit was this…

In a survey published last year, JupiterResearch LLC found that just 36% of online small businesses — that is, businesses with fewer than 100 employees, where managers access the Web at least once a month — have Web sites.

It’s hard for me to imagine any company not having a website. To effectively reach customers in the 21st Century you need an online presence. Or should I say, an effective online presence. Even if you do have a website, has it become obsolete? Is it full of animated flag gifs, and heavily coded with tables and javascript rollover navigation? Are you asking your user to download huge pdf and video files? Is your site full of link rot?

If you’re not sure if your website falls into any of these categories, check out the Web Pages That Suck top 10 lists. Or, go through the web design checklist to see if your site sucks.

According to the Houston Business Journal, you can add marketing punch to your site by simply re-tooling it through effective search engine marketing. Don’t settle for a $10 website.

At first, the thought of tweeting seemed like a total waste of time to me. That’s until the recent L-A earthquake helped me realize Twitter’s real-time news potential.

If you’re not a Twitterer or can’t see “the point” - consider 3dogmedia.com’s list of the”Top 10 Reasons Why You Must Tweet.” My list fav is #1 on that list. It’s the story of how Twitter ensured a happy ending for a long-distance relationship.

Photo courtesy of Wired Blog Network

In March of this year Stephanie Sullivan (who at first thought Twitter was ridiculous) is believed to have been the first woman to accept a Twitter marriage proposal.  Now she uses it all the time to stay in touch with her fiance, Greg Rewis. According to the Wired Blog Network:

Rewis proposed…shortly before midnight March 2: “@stefsull - ok. for the rest of the twitter-universe (and this is a first, folks) - WILL YOU MARRY ME?” Sullivan’s reply: “@garazi - OMG - Ummmmm… I guess in front of the whole twitter-verse I’ll say — I’d be happy to spend the rest of my geek life with you.”

And the rest is, quite possibly, Twitter history in the making.

Sullivan, 46, is the founder of  W3 Conversions in Wilmington, North Carolina. Rewis, 44, is group manager of “creative solutions evangelism” for Adobe Systems and lives in Phoenix. The net helps keep the couple stay connected when they’re apart.

“E-mail, Twitter, Flickr and Skype are the staples of a long-distance relationship — not to mention extraordinarily high cellphone bills!” Sullivan said.

But you can get also visual with Twitter - with the help of Twitter Vision. It’s sort of a Twitter global TV mashup. And it’s addictive and is best viewed in 3D.

But I digress…

The point is if you’re new to social networking Twitter is a fun, vicarious way to dip into the social web. Getting a Twitter account is simple, free and fun. Actively tweeting can even help with search rankings. So the next time someone asks “What are you doing?” tell them with a tweet.

But the fun doesn’t stop here. You can change font colors and backgrounds to create something thats, well - beautiful. You can print your masterpiece or email to friends. Here are some of my creations:

www.eggdigitalmedia.com

www.brendaross.org

www.jameskulis.com