When making the decision on why it is absolutely necessary for Hands on Dallas, the sports and entertainment site I started in September of 2010, to have an interactive media kit, I didn’t take in to account how many different formats, platforms, file extensions, viewing methods, etc. there are in the current realm of technology. Even though a media kit is way over due for an online website that started a year ago later this month, I never wanted to rush it and just go through the methods. I wanted to actually take the first year or so to discover exactly what was and wasn’t feasible when launching your very own multimedia portal. I had never done this before. We had launched a somewhat similar site back during my undergraduate years at SMU that I became heavily involved with and eventually lead, but I was only a staff photographer during the first semester of launch. I really didn’t have to deal with any of the problems of launching such a site from scratch. I’ll leave the positives and negatives for another day; however, I wanted to mention these so no one would think that I was being lazy or unprepared. I’ve found that it really takes awhile to learn what you want to do and what is truly feasible and of interest to others. Sure I could make a site with all of my interests but who else likes exactly the same things I do? I can’t think of one person who has identical interests – no one in the world is the same in that way.
I’m glad that I’m starting to go through this process because it is already forcing me to take a deep, hard look at Hands on Dallas. I have to decide how I want the site to be represented and that starts – in my opinion- in the overall layout. How will I present the site? What program will I use? I went down the list – interactive DVDs, a movie, a PowerPoint, a Keynote presentation, a flash project, an Acrobat Reader or Adobe InDesign project. I weighed all my options and came up with the two most viable options. I’ll be using a program called Adobe Captivate or potentially the new Flash Catalyst. I’ve never created a Flash project before so either way will be a huge learning curve but why not start now? With Captivate I can add videos encoded with Flash codecs, buttons, PowerPoint slides, text, etc. All of these features will allow me to embed a Flash video versus simply providing a link (which is old news). How many times have you wanted to click on a video to watch it but it redirected you to another site versus playing embedded in the site that you are currently on? Your answer should be too many. I think that if I simply provide a link the site will lose credibility as being a player in the multimedia revolution. These were the reasons I decided that I need to put together an interactive media kit. If I’m talking about a radio program I want to have a sample of the radio program right next to the description. The audio aids the visual you have in your head after reading the description – same with videos and so on.
When deciding to go with Flash at first it was a very tough decision to leave out the Apple iPad and iPhone. Yes, there is a huge Android market but the winner currently is Apple and the bottom line is they don’t allow Flash content on their devices. I came to the decision to create a Flash project versus an interactive DVD or an entire website dedicated to the media kit, etc because I realized, no one would be looking at this media kit on an iPhone or an iPad. If this were freely displayed on the web, people may try, but the goal of this media kit is not to be embedded within the actual site (although I may make a secondary version within the website for online viewing). The real reason for this kit is to present to companies, organizations and people I target that may be interested in learning more, advertising or underwriting the site in one way or another. Flash is a very compatible format for the overall population of computer users. Apple laptops and desktops read Flash easily along with PCs and Android based devices. All in all, creating a Flash project using one of these two programs seems to be the most universal way to create my interactive media kit. Which program do you think would be better for this project? Would you stay clear from Flash solely because it can’t be viewed on certain Apple devices? Leave your comments below please.
