Now, the DSO is the first U.S. orchestra to stream a series of live concerts, and Media Genesis is a proud partner in bringing their performances to the web. We developed a unique online interface for Live from Orchestra Hall, and we’ve also created a behind-the-scenes tour, so you can see all of the work that goes into bringing the music of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra to the world.

You’ve heard of colleges and universities offering online courses to students. The online class has even made it into high schools around the country. But there’s a new wave of online education breaking its way into this tech-driven era: free online education. That’s right, I said it, free. Some of the institutes and sources of this free education include Stanford and MIT. Others include the monster that is Apple and its new iTunes U and the breakthrough, YouTube heavy Khan Academy. There are even tools for educators to gather free lesson plans, tips, labs, and exercises for their students through TeacherTube.

In the 2011 fall semester, Stanford University took a test run of their free online courses. The pilot included 350,000 students in 190 countries, 43,000 of which completed a course. Just this past month, the university introduced five free online courses that included Design and Analysis of Algorithms, Natural Language Processing, Cryptography, Game Theory, and Probabilistic Graphical Models. These interactive online classes are taught by members of the Stanford faculty. The classes include video lessons followed by live quizzes and instant feedback for self-evaluation and assessment. The courses will be powered by the start-up company Coursera, which was founded by two Stanford professors, Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller. Although you won’t get Stanford credit for completing a course, you will receive a statement of accomplishment for your hard work. Who knows, that could stand out on a job application!

MITx is “MIT’s new online learning initiative.” Through this initiative, MIT is operating through an open-source, scalable software infrastructure. Not only is this infrastructure set up for their free online courses, but they are also testing the waters to provide the software to other universities and K-12 school systems. MIT opened enrollment for their first free online course, Circuits and Electronics (6.002x), on March 5. This course is described on the MITx website as “an on-line adaption of 6.002, MIT’s first undergraduate analog design course.” The course offers online labs, student-to-student and professor-to-student communication, individual assessment, and course material. Like the Stanford courses, displaying mastery of the subject will get you a certificate awarded by MITx.

Apple’s iTunes U has been around for quite some time; however the iTunes U app was released earlier this year to allow anyone with an iTunes account and an Apple mobile device (iPod, iPad, or iPhone) to install the iTunes app and begin downloading courses and getting their learn on. Courses available for download come from a wide range of disciplines: mathematics, science, language, business, communications, and basically any subject you would like to learn more about. The courses come from a pretty impressive lineup of institutions: Duke, Harvard, and Stanford to name a few.

With all of this free education in the world, it seems like there would be some schools taking advantage of it. Professors (if they’re OK with the course curriculum) could teach a class directly from an iTunes U course. Of course, this is not likely to happen, but then again, who knows. It will be interesting to see what the next step to tech-based education is going to be. Live streamed classes for major universities? We certainly have the technology for it.

All in all, it’s free education for those who want it. My advice… Go get it!

Google Play is not an open source application—Google has included compatibility requirements limiting what Android systems can install it. Google has already reached agreements with six major movie studios, allowing for hundreds of titles to be rented through Play, and they’re working to get more to help them compete with iTunes and Netflix.

Competing with Apple’s iTunes seems to be the main factor for the switch in look and feel. Google already had music, books, and movies available in different locations, but the lack of consistent branding kept them from being identified as related entities. With the launch of Google Play, not only are they all tied thematically and deliver content that is accessible through one portal, but Google can promote one brand for increased recognition. One noteworthy change came soon after the launch when Google added “Play” to their navigation bar.

Google Play also uses cloud hosting, so a user will place all of his or her content on Google’s cloud servers, which makes it available to any browser or Android device. All purchased content is automatically saved to the cloud, so it requires no syncing. A challenge to Apple’s iCloud, Google is betting that people will prefer to use something browser based and more readily accessible than Apple’s answer, which requires installation of a desktop client.

Google Play is growing by leaps and bounds at this point. Only time will tell if it can compete with or overtake the popularity of iTunes and iCloud.

“Wanted: Young, skinny, wiry fellows not over eighteen. Must be expert riders, willing to risk death daily. Orphans preferred.” –April 1860 Ad for Riders

Be a part of our team that will go down in the record books! Send mail cross country in only 10 days!

Our first rider has delivered mail from St. Joseph, Missouri to Sacramento, California in a record 9 days and 23 hours! The route travels through Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and Nevada into the great state of California. That is about 1,900 miles of perilous territory, so how can one man and one horse cover that much ground in 10 days? Here is the answer, my friends: Relay stations are built and staffed 10-15 miles apart where riders change horses. Home stations are 90-120 miles apart where riders change and rest.

This is how we deliver the mail faster than anyone or anything has ever done before!

On April 25^th, Renaissance Executive Forums and Dynamic Advisory Solutions (DAS) are hosting the CEO Mastermind Event for business owners and top executives.

Keynote speaker Ren Carlton will present “Your CPA Is Not Your CFO! But Your Bookkeeper Is Closer Than You Think…” Carlton will discuss the importance of a qualified CFO to financial success.

This event, free to top executives, is an excellent opportunity for networking with other entrepreneurs. Attendees will receive a signed copy of Carlton’s book, Profitpreneurship: Creating a Business that Produces Outstanding Financial Results, and access to the Chief Executive Forum.

The CEO Mastermind Event will take place April 25^th, 2012, at Automation Alley, 2675 Bellingham, Troy, MI 48083. Registration and a continental breakfast will begin at 8:30 a.m. and the event will be from 9:00 a.m. – 10:30 a.m.

You can contact Media Genesis for complimentary tickets. Limited quantities and first come first serve!

Media Genesis is a proud sponsor of the CEO Mastermind Event.

Now, there’s Pinterest. It’s the hottest new social network, and it’s like nothing you’ve seen yet (unless you’re one of its 13 million users). Pinterest is a digital bulletin board that lets you organize and share all the things you stumble upon on the web in a uniquely visual way.

For example, if you come across a pair of great shoes or an unbelievable picture of a thunder storm, you don’t have to abstract it with a bookmark that you’ll never click. Instead, you pin it on Pinterest with the click of a button, and it’s saved for you there, nestled amongst all your other favorite things.

Not only can you ‘pin’ things from the web, but you can browse and ‘repin’ them from pinboards created by other people. People use pinboards to generate new ideas or share their love for web design, cooking, building, interior design, and more.

You can assemble a pinboard to plan an upcoming vacation, arrange your research statistics to get a new eye on the matter, create a vivid wish list, see if that sofa goes with that rug and the color of the walls, or create your altar to Hedy Lamarr.

With $37.5 M in funding raised since October 2011, Pinterest is growing fast. The number of daily users has increased by 145 percent in 2012. It’s one of the fastest growing social networks yet, and according to Lemon.ly, it’s “generating more referral traffic to websites than YouTube, Google+, and LinkedIn combined.”

So, who uses Pinterest? In the US, 83 percent of users are women, but in the UK, only 44 percent of users are women. Most users are between the ages of 25 and 45. The diversity of these numbers tells us one fact: Pinterest has broad appeal.

It’s time to forget the saying, “A picture is worth a 1,000 words.” It’s more like, a picture is worth 1,000 ideas! I just learned how to make hot dog spaghetti spiders (use your imagination) from a picture on Pinterest! What will you be inspired to do?

Have I pinned your interest? Check out our pinboard at Pinterest.com/MediaG/Geekery

It turns out, at least for now, that Twitter does not connect the people of the world regardless of geography. According to “Geography of Twitter Networks,” a study by Wellman, Gruzd, and Takhteyev, 39 percent of our Twitter ties are within 100 km (about 62 miles). And the best predictor of non-local connections between tweeters is the number of airline connections between their locations.

Apparently, the movement of human ideas follows the same pattern as the movement of human bodies. Speculation abounds about why Twitter doesn’t break down traditional boundaries to human connections. One reason may be that Twitter has only been around for six years and other social networks, like Facebook, are not much older. The generation of Twitter-using adults is still rooted in the old ways, not having grown up in this brave new world.

These geographic boundaries are not necessarily bad. Twitter users have not, for the most part, completely abandoned the real world. We still like to go out on the town, so we might follow users who can tell us where to find the good shows or the best happy hour or how to avoid the traffic jam on I-75.

As far as air travel is concerned, there are reasons that some cities are deeply connected. They share residents, industries, and interests, so it naturally follows that they’ll follow each other. Wellman, Gruzd, and Takhteyev consider that “flight connections themselves reflect the structure of the world city system, and that Twitter ties are influenced by this structure.”

In addition to physical distance and ease of travel, there are other factors that affect the connections we make, including a user’s language. Sharing a language does make it a little easier to share a thought.

The majority of connections seem to be rooted in the most ancient of human social networks, face-to-face communication. I predict that this will change and our connectivity will diversify as we gain generational distance from the world before instantaneous, multidirectional, worldwide communication.

In the U.S., 22 billion streaming videos are watched online each month. Netflix has almost 22 million subscribers to their streaming content and Hulu has more than 40 million. We love our online entertainment, but streaming is still only reaching one-third of TV’s audience.

There are a few reasons that online TV has not taken more of an audience segment. Not everyone is tech savvy, smart TVs have cumbersome interfaces (53 percent of smart TVs are never connected to the internet), and online viewing is a targeted search experience rather than one that lets the user browse and discover. Finally, there’s the unfulfilled demand for live TV.

TV isn’t just about entertainment; it’s about community. We want to watch the game or news or whatever when it’s happening. Most people still turn away from the internet and back to traditional television services when they want to watch something live because there is a limited amount of live content currently available. This will change, and early adopting content providers (who can deliver in a user friendly way) will be the winners.

Companies like NeuLion are tapping into this market by offering live and on-demand content that can be accessed on any internet-enabled device. They’re making deals with universities to deliver games over the internet for nearly 175 college athletic programs. They only have niche content, but they’re getting the right idea.

Unfortunately, live content is still rare enough that it makes news. Content providers will advertise that this game or that political event is going to be streamed live on the internet. And we still don’t have proper broadcast TV on the internet in the U.S. because of legal snares.

Our desire for live content will be the driving force for someone to deliver it over the internet in a user friendly way rather than the app piecemeal we have today. That future could be through a broadcast system or it could be a third party content aggregator, but it’s coming. Stay tuned.

• Is this a company or personal website?
• Do you need intranet or file management?
• Does your website need ecommerce (shopping cart) features?

Next, what is your budget?

With both open source and proprietary options available, knowing your budget limitations may help shave off some of the competition immediately. Keep in mind that if you have low to no budget this does not mean you have to settle; open source solutions can be just as reliable as closed source.

If you are unsure what open source vs. closed source means, here is a quick reference:

Open source CMS means you are supported by a community of developers and individuals who have a stake is seeing a product succeed. Drupal is one of the most widely recognizable open source CMS solutions. Open source solutions are typically free. Companies that make these solutions available then charge for technical assistance and support.

Open Source CMS examples include Magento, Drupal, WordPress, ZenCart, Joomla, and DotNetNuke.

Closed source CMS means the development is proprietary. You are bound by the limitations of the product when you create your website; however, the tradeoff can often be that the security of and support for a closed source CMS can be provided at a higher customer service level. Closed source CMS tools come at a base cost and often require additional purchases for plugins.

Closed source CMS examples include Sitefinity, Telerik, Sharepoint, and CushyCMS.

Now who will be creating and managing your CMS?

• You?
• Your neighbor?
• An in-house developer?
• Your marketing department?
• A professional web development company?

Knowing who will be in charge of creating and managing your CMS may be a defining moment. If you have the design and HTML or programming chops to maneuver your way around a custom build, your options expand. If you don’t, that is still OK. Many of the CMS options give you templates that can guide you along.

Do you know your CMS ‘must haves’?

What can you not live without in your CMS? Is it mobile support or a shopping cart? Knowing your ‘must haves’ allows you to throw together that all-knowing evaluation spreadsheet and check off which tools have which features. There are several features you should consider:

• Easy to manage with templates already in place (read as, “I do not know HTML and need to get my website up quickly”)
• Security (communication with internal applications)
• Ability to create a custom build (HTML, CSS, and custom integration)
• Company support
• Community-based support
• Mobile support

I’ll give you one last piece of advice: do your research.

Once you have your list narrowed down, do a little more research. Find out what others are saying about the CMS you are evaluating. All CMS solutions are not created equal. Each content management system has a best feature, and your goal is to decide what the most important features for your situation are. While we shared a few open and closed source CMS tools, there are a multitude of CMS options.

According to many experts, HTML5 is the most promising web technology for this purpose. It has significant advantages over its major competitors, such as Adobe’s Flash and Microsoft’s Silverlight.

HTML5 is actively supported by many progressive companies such as Apple, which encourages web developers to start implementing this promising technology in their products. There are also plenty of other groups who have strong support for HTML 5.  Both WebOS and Windows 8 Metro apps are built in HTML5, Javascript, and CSS.  Frameworks such as PhoneGap, EnyoJS, and jQuery Mobile allow for HTML5 and Javascript to be the core of cross-platform Mobile App Development.

It allows you to create sites for mobile devices from Apple and others. Since soon, mobile devices will not support Flash, the introduction of HTML5 makes it possible to use video playback – especially on Apple hardware, which has never supported Flash. HTML5 allows insertion of video directly into a page with no need to use third-party technologies.

For sites where media is important, HTML5 might lead to a lot of good. HTML is the primary markup language for webpages, and because it works in absolutely all browsers, there is no need to install plugins. It was developed to ensure interoperability of pages in different browsers. In other words, to use this language, you need only a browser.

Also, it is easier to work with images. To create beautiful web galleries, we can use HTML5 and not Flash. On websites created in HTML5, you can use a variety of transition effects and changing images. The most amazing things that can be created in HTML5 are three-dimensional images, which can then be shown as a horizontal or vertical carousel. A combination of HTML5, Javascript, and CSS3 can perform functionality that was originally achieved with 3^rd party plugins.

All I can say is that HTML5 brings web development to the next level.

And to meet development needs, Media Genesis has experts in HTML5. Our team has helped different organizations to achieve their goals.

For more information about the future of HTML5, see the article here.