A recent article in Time Magazine, entitled “Postcard from Detroit”, looks at the emerging film business in Michigan.

Excerpt from the article:

With two of the Big Three automakers on the verge of collapse and Detroit’s unemployment rate a staggering 22%, the film industry is providing a rare economic boom. Community colleges now offer courses in set-building and stage-lighting for the out-of-work construction workers and electricians. Car-rental companies, caterers, hotels, carpenters, dry cleaners and other service providers are all getting …read more

We recently assisted one of our clients, Publicity Works, in taking their website, design, and blog into a full Content Management System via Wordpress. They are now regularly blogging about events around metro Detroit as well as social media tips, tricks, and insights. Keep an eye on their work as they have demonstrated a  keen sense to integrate new technologies and practices with their adept public relations and publicity experience.

From their website-

Publicity Works is certified by the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council. Housed in Royal Oak and with a client-base that extends across the state, Publicity Works has adopted the phrase “The relentless pursuit of results” as its motto, philosophy and motivation in …read more

Twitter poses many interesting situations in relation to communication because in a sense it is a new form of communication. A problem with Twitter in the communication process is noise. Initially there is silence, the lack of noise, and then after someone begins to use the product there is a flood of noise.

Noise refers to anything in the communication process that is distracting to the dialogue. It could be sounds, it could even be bad perfume like patchouli. These examples are external noise while there can also be internal noise like one’s wondering and distracted mind bringing “noise” to the conversation. An overly happy or sad mind can cloud one’s attention.

Twitter has undergone phenomenal success and growth so on one …read more

The fellas over at Icrontic (internationally renowned Detroit based tech blog/community) passed on some great news this week for web development standards, specifically about Internet Explorer. In the third week of April Automatic Update in Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Server 2008 will notify about the update of IE8.

This is big news for web designers around the world as it should finally begin the deprecation of IE6 and IE7 in earnest.

Was refreshing to run across some good news about a growing, profitable business segment – iPhone Developers. Especially interesting are the small and one-man companies making real profits from their endeavors.

MacRumors detailed some interesting snippets about some of the most successful applications:

“As part of Apple’s one billion app countdown for their iTunes App Store, they have also compiled a list of the all-time top 20 apps for both Paid and Free apps.

Perhaps most interesting is what the potential market for a very successful paid iPhone app might be. A few numbers have been released for some of the top iPhone apps that gives us an idea of the numbers involved. Here is …read more

An event we have become aware of through Matt Bower of Safford & Baker is TechNow 09 to be held April 23rd at the Royal Oak Music Theater. TechNow 09 appears to be a forum to help Michigan transfer into a “knowledge economy”. There will be five companies presenting (uwemp, Leftos, Bablur, ShopFiber, and hab.la. ) as well as Interactive Panel Discussions.

See you there.

So here it is. The first Transmission from Futuramic Media.

Once upon a time we developed websites and what was once known as “multi-media”. Today things are a little different with the repose of Web 2.0 and the emergence of the massive phenomena called Social Media. Now we find astute Web design means more than a pleasing and usable interface. It involves tracking use of your website and its interaction with the rest of the world in channels beyond the Internet. It is a complete marketing mix.

Ironically, many large advertising agencies and public relations firms are falling by the wayside in terms of knowledge and sustainability. The game has changed and continues to do so. With this observation Futuramic Media has …read more